Essay 3-4 pages Essay Question #2

Window on Humanity A Concise Introduction to Anthropology

Eighth Edition

Conrad Phillip Kottak University of Michigan

To my wife, Isabel Wagley Kottak

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Brief Contents Anthropology Today Boxes xiii Preface xiv Acknowledgments xxv About the Author xxvii 1 What Is Anthropology? 1 2 Culture 19 3 Doing Anthropology 41 4 Evolution, Genetics,

and Human Variation 67 5 The Primates 96 6 Early Hominins 121 7 The Genus Homo 143 8 The First Farmers 173 9 The First Cities and States 197 10 Language and

Communication 222 11 Making a Living 248

12 Political Systems 275 13 Families, Kinship,

and Marriage 301 14 Gender 328 15 Religion 352 16 Ethnicity and Race 379 17 Applying Anthropology 406 18 The World System,

Colonialism, and Inequality 430

19 Anthropology’s Role in a Globalizing World 456

GLOSSARY G1 BIBLIOGRAPHY B1 INDEX I1

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Contents Anthropology Today Boxes xiii Preface xiv Acknowledgments xxv About the Author xxvii

Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology? 1 The Cross-Cultural Perspective 1 Human Adaptability 2

Adaptation, Variation, and Change 3 Cultural Forces Shape Human Biology 4

General Anthropology 6 The Subdisciplines of Anthropology 7

Cultural Anthropology 7 Anthropological Archaeology 8 Biological Anthropology 10 Linguistic Anthropology 11

Applied Anthropology 11 Anthropology and Other Academic

Fields 13 A Humanistic Science 13 Cultural Anthropology

and Sociology 14 Anthropology Today: School of Hope 15 Summary 17

Chapter 2 Culture 19 What Is Culture? 19

Culture Is Learned 20 Culture Is Symbolic 20 Culture Is Shared 21 Culture and Nature 22 Culture Is All-Encompassing

and Integrated 22 Culture Is Instrumental, Adaptive,

and Maladaptive 23

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis 25 What We Share with Other Primates 25 How We Differ from Other Primates 27

Universality, Generality, and Particularity 28 Universals and Generalities 28 Particularity: Patterns of Culture 29

Culture and the Individual 30 Levels of Culture 31 Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and

Human Rights 32 Mechanisms of Cultural Change 34 Globalization 35 Anthropology Today: Preserving Cultural

Heritage 36 Summary 38

Chapter 3 Doing Anthropology 41 What Do Anthropologists Do? 41 Research Methods in Archaeology

and Biological Anthropology 42 Multidisciplinary Approaches 43 Studying the Past 44 Survey and Excavation 44

Kinds of Archaeology 45 Dating the Past 46

Relative Dating 46 Absolute Dating 47 Molecular Anthropology 48

Kinds of Biological Anthropology 49 Bone Biology 49 Anthropometry 49 Primatology 50

Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology 50

Ethnography: Anthropology’s Distinctive Strategy 50 Observation and Participant

Observation 51

Contents vii

Conversation, Interviewing, and Interview Schedules 52

The Genealogical Method 54 Key Cultural Consultants 54 Life Histories 54 Local Beliefs and Perceptions,

and the Ethnographer’s 55 Problem-Oriented Ethnography 56 Longitudinal Studies, Team Research,

and Multisited Ethnography 56 Survey Research 58 Doing Anthropology Right and Wrong:

Ethical Issues 59 Ownership Issues 60 The Code of Ethics 61 Anthropologists and the Military 62

Anthropology Today: Biology, Culture, and Grandparents 63

Summary 64

Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation 67 Evolution 67

Natural History before Darwin 68 Evolution: Theory and Fact 69

Genetics 71 Mendel’s Experiments 72 Independent Assortment 74

Population Genetics and Mechanisms of Genetic Evolution 74 Natural Selection 75 Mutation 77 Random Genetic Drift 78 Gene Flow 79

Race: A Discredited Concept in Biology 80 Races Are Not Biologically Distinct 82 Genetic Markers Don’t Correlate

with Phenotype 83 Human Biological Adaptation 84

Explaining Skin Color 84 Genes and Disease 88 Lactose Tolerance 91

Anthropology Today: Disease Evolution: A Case Study 92

Summary 93

Chapter 5 The Primates 96 Our Place among Primates 96 Homologies and Analogies 99 Primate Adaptations 100 The Primate Suborders 102 Monkeys 102

New World Monkeys 103 Old World Monkeys 104

Apes 105 Gibbons 105 Orangutans 106 Gorillas 107 Chimpanzees 109 Bonobos 110

Endangered Primates 111 Primate Evolution 111 Chronology 112 Early Primates 113

Early Cenozoic Primates 114 Oligocene Proto-Monkeys 114

Miocene Hominoids 115 Anthropology Today: Should Apes Have

Human Rights? 117 Pierolapithecus catalaunicus 118

Summary 119

Chapter 6 Early Hominins 121 What Makes Us Human? 121

Bipedalism 121 Brains, Skulls, and Childhood

Dependency 122 Tools 123 Teeth 123

Chronology of Hominin Evolution 123 Who Were the Earliest Hominins? 124

Sahelanthropus tchadensis 124 Orrorin tugenensis 126 Ardipithecus 127

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The Varied Australopiths 129 Australopithecus anamensis 129 Australopithecus afarensis 131 Gracile and Robust Australopiths 135

Early Stone Tools 137 Surprisingly Early Stone Tools 137 Oldowan Hominins at the

Kanjera Site 139 Anthropology Today: Au. sediba: Ancestor

or Fascinating Sideline? 140 Summary 141

Chapter 7 The Genus Homo 143 Early Homo 143

2015 Discoveries 143 H. rudolfensis 144 H. habilis and H. erectus 146

Out of Africa I: H. erectus 149 Acheulean Tools 149 Adaptive Strategies of H. erectus 150 The Evolution and Expansion of

H.  erectus 150 Middle Pleistocene Hominins 153

Ice Ages of the Pleistocene 153 H. heidelbergensis 153

The Neandertals 155 Cold-Adapted Neandertals 156 The Neandertals and Modern People 156

The Denisovans 158 Homo floresiensis 159 Modern Humans 160

Out of Africa: AMH Edition 160 “Mitochrondrial Eve” and the Spread

of AMHs 161 AMHs on the Move 162

The Advent of Behavioral Modernity 163

Advances in Technology 166 Glacial Retreat 167 Settling the Americas 167 Anthropology Today: The Rising Stars

of a South African Cave 169 Summary 171

Chapter 8 The First Farmers 173 Broad-Spectrum Economies 173

The Mesolithic in Europe 173 Developments in Asia, Including

Early Pottery 174 The Neolithic 175 The First Farmers and Herders in the

Middle East 176 The Environmental Setting: A Vertical

Economy 177 Where and Why Did Food Production

Begin? 178 Genetic Changes and Domestication 179 The Coevolution of Farming and Property

Rights 180 Food Production and the State 181

Other Old World Farmers 182 The Neolithic in Africa 182 The Neolithic in Europe 183 The Neolithic in Asia 185

The First American Farmers 187 Key Aspects of Food Production

in the Americas 187 The Tropical Origins of New World

Domestication 188 Explaining the Neolithic 189 Costs and Benefits 191 Anthropology Today: Global Climate Change

and Other Threats to Archaeology 192 Summary 194

Chapter 9 The First Cities and States 197 State Formation 197

Regulation of Hydraulic Economies 198 Regional Trade 198 Population, War, and Circumscription 199

Attributes of States 200 State Formation in the Middle East 201

Urban Life 201 An Early Ritual Center 203 The Halafian and Ubaid Periods 204

Contents ix

Social Ranking and Chiefdoms 205 The Rise of the State 207

Other Early States 210 State Formation in Mesoamerica 212

Early Chiefdoms and Elites 213 Warfare and State Formation:

The Zapotec Case 214 States in the Valley of Mexico 215

Why States Collapse 217 The Decline of the Maya 217

Anthropology Today: The Fantastic Claims of Pseudo-Archaeology 218

Summary 220

Chapter 10 Language and Communication 222 Language 222 Nonhuman Primate

Communication 223 Call Systems 223 Sign Language 223 The Origin of Language 226

Nonverbal Communication 226 Kinesics 226 Personal Space and Displays

of Affection 227 The Structure of Language 228 Language, Thought, and Culture 230

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis 231 Focal Vocabulary 231

Sociolinguistics 233 Social and Linguistic Variation 233 The Language of Food 234 Linguistic Diversity within

Nations 235 Linguistic Diversity in California 237 Gender Speech Contrasts 237 Stratification and Symbolic

Domination 238 African American Vernacular English

(AAVE) 239 Historical Linguistics 240

Language, Culture, and History 243 Language Loss 243

Anthropology Today: Words of the Year 244 Summary 245

Chapter 11 Making a Living 248 Adaptive Strategies 248 Foraging 249

Geographic Distribution of Foragers 250 Correlates of Foraging 252

Adaptive Strategies Based on Food Production 253 Horticulture 253 Agriculture 254 The Cultivation Continuum 256 Agricultural Intensification: People

and the Environment 256 Pastoralism 257

Economic Systems 259 Organization of Production in

Nonindustrial Societies 260 Means of Production 260 Alienation in Industrial Economies 261

Economizing and Maximization 263 Alternative Ends 264

Distribution, Exchange 265 The Market Principle 265 Redistribution 265 Reciprocity 266 Coexistence of Exchange Principles 267 Potlatching 268

Anthropology Today: Scarcity and the Betsileo 270

Summary 273

Chapter 12 Political Systems 275 What Is “The Political”? 275 Types and Trends 276 Bands and Tribes 277

Foraging Bands 278 Tribal Cultivators 280 The Village Head 280 The “Big Man” 282 Pantribal Sodalities 283 Nomadic Politics 285

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Chiefdoms 286 Political and Economic Systems 286 Status Systems 287 The Emergence of Stratification 288

State Systems 289 Population Control 290 Judiciary 290 Enforcement 290 Fiscal Support 291

Social Control 292 Hegemony and Resistance 292 Weapons of the Weak 293 Shame and Gossip 294 The Igbo Women’s War 295

Anthropology Today: The Illegality Industry: A Failed System of Border Control 296

Summary 298

Chapter 13 Families, Kinship, and Marriage 301 How Anthropologists View Families

and Kinship 301 Families 302

Nuclear and Extended Families 302 Industrialism and Family

Organization 304 Changes in North American Kinship 305 The Family among Foragers 307

Descent 307 Attributes of Descent Groups 308 Lineages, Clans, and Residence Rules 310

Defining Marriage 310 Exogamy and Incest 312 Incest and Its Avoidance 313 Endogamy 314 Same-Sex Marriage 315 Marriage: A Group Affair 316

Gifts at Marriage 317 Durable Alliances 318

Divorce 319 Plural Marriages 320

Polygyny 320 Polyandry 322

The Online Marriage Market 322 Anthropology Today: What Anthropologists

Could Teach the Supreme Court about the Definition of Marriage 324

Summary 325

Chapter 14 Gender 328 Sex and Gender 328 Recurrent Gender Patterns 330 Gender Roles and Gender

Stratification 333 Reduced Gender Stratification:

Matrilineal–Matrilocal Societies 333 Matriarchy 334 Increased Gender Stratification:

Patrilineal–Patrilocal Societies 335 Patriarchy and Violence 336

Gender in Industrial Societies 337 Changes in Gendered Work 338 Work and Family: Reality and

Stereotypes 340 The Feminization of Poverty 341 Work and Happiness 342

Beyond Male and Female 343 Sexual Orientation 346 Anthropology Today: Gender, Ethnicity,

and a Gold Medal for Fiji 348 Summary 350

Chapter 15 Religion 352 What Is Religion? 352 Expressions of Religion 354

Spiritual Beings 354 Powers and Forces 355 Magic and Religion 356 Uncertainty, Anxiety, Solace 356 Rituals 356 Rites of Passage 357 Totemism 360

Social Control 360 Kinds of Religion 362

Contents xi

Protestant Values and Capitalism 363 World Religions 363 Religion and Change 365

Revitalization Movements and Cargo Cults 365

New and Alternative Religious Movements 366

Religion and Cultural Globalization 367 Evangelical Protestantism and

Pentecostalism 367 Homogenization, Indigenization,

or Hybridization? 369 The Spread of Islam 370 Antimodernism and Fundamentalism 371 Religious Radicalization Today 372

Secular Rituals 373 Anthropology Today: Newtime Religion 374 Summary 376

Chapter 16 Ethnicity and Race 379 Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity 379

Status and Identity 380 Minority Groups and Stratification 382

Race and Ethnicity 382 The Social Construction of Race 383

Hypodescent: Race in the United States 383

Race in the Census 384 Not Us: Race in Japan 386 Phenotype and Fluidity: Race in Brazil 388

Ethnic Groups, Nations, and Nationalities 391 Ethnic Diversity by Region 391 Nationalities without Nations 392

Ethnic Tolerance and Accommodation 392 Assimilation 393 The Plural Society 393 Multiculturalism 393

Changing Demographics in the United States 394 The Gray and the Brown 395 The Backlash to Multiculturalism 396

Ethnic Conflict 397 Sectarian Violence 398 Prejudice and Discrimination 399 Black Lives Matter 400 Anti-Ethnic Discrimination 401

Anthropology Today: Why Are the Greens So White? Race and Ethnicity in Golf 402

Summary 404

Chapter 17 Applying Anthropology 406 What is Applied Anthropology? 406 The Role of the Applied

Anthropologist 407 Early Applications 407 Academic and Applied Anthropology 408 Applied Anthropology Today 409

Development Anthropology 410 Equity 410 Negative Equity Impact 410

Strategies for Innovation 412 Overinnovation 412 Indigenous Models 413

Anthropology and Education 414 Urban Anthropology 415 Medical Anthropology 417

Disease Theory Systems 418 Scientific Medicine versus Western

Medicine 419 Industrialization, Globalization,

and Health 420 Anthropology and Business 422 Public and Applied Anthropology 424 Careers and Anthropology 425 Anthropology Today: Culturally Appropriate

Marketing 426 Summary 428

Chapter 18 The World System, Colonialism, and Inequality 430 The World System 430

World-System Theory 431 The Emergence of the World System 432

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Industrialization 433 Causes of the Industrial Revolution 434 Socioeconomic Changes Associated with

the Industrial Revolution 435 Industrial Stratification 435

The Persistence of Inequality 436 Wealth Distribution in the

United States 436 Environmental Risks on the American

Periphery 438 Colonialism and Imperialism 440

The First Phase of European Colonialism: Spain and Portugal 440

Commercial Expansion and European Imperialism 441

The British Colonial Empire 441 French Colonialism 442 Colonialism and Identity 444 Postcolonial Studies 444

Development 445 Neoliberalism 445 Neoliberalism and NAFTA’s Economic

Refugees 446 Communism, Socialism, and

Postsocialism 449 Communism 449 Postsocialist Transitions 449

The World System Today 450 Anthropology Today: Mining Giant Compatible

with Sustainability Institute? 452 Summary 454

Chapter 19 Anthropology’s Role in a Globalizing World 456 Globalization: Its Meaning and

Its Nature 456 Our Global Economy 457 Energy Consumption and Industrial

Degradation 458 Global Climate Change 459 Environmental Anthropology 462

Global Assaults on Local Autonomy 462 Deforestation 463 Emerging Diseases 465

Interethnic Contact 466 Cultural Imperialism and

Indigenization 467 A Global System of Images 469 A Global Culture of Consumption 469

People in Motion 470 Indigenous Peoples 472 Anthropology’s Lessons 473 Anthropology Today: Diversity under Siege:

Global Forces and Indigenous Peoples 474 Summary 476

Glossary G1 Bibliography B1 Index I1

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Anthropology Today Boxes

School of Hope 15 Preserving Cultural Heritage 36 Biology, Culture, and Grandparents 63 Disease Evolution: A Case Study 92 Should Apes Have Human Rights? 117 Au. sediba: Ancestor or Fascinating

Sideline? 140 The Rising Stars of a South

African Cave 169 Global Climate Change and Other

Threats to Archaeology 192 The Fantastic Claims of Pseudo-

Archaeology 218 Words of the Year 244 Scarcity and the Betsileo 270

The Illegality Industry: A Failed System of Border Control 296

What Anthropologists Could Teach the Supreme Court about the Definition of Marriage 324

Gender, Ethnicity, and a Gold Medal for Fiji 348

Newtime Religion 374 Why Are the Greens So White? Race

and Ethnicity in Golf 402 Culturally Appropriate Marketing 426 Mining Giant Compatible with

Sustainability Institute? 452 Diversity under Siege: Global Forces and

Indigenous Peoples 474

Window on Humanity is intended to provide a concise, readable, introduction to general (four-field) anthropology. The shorter length increases the instructor’s options for as- signing additional reading—case studies, readers, and other supplements—in a semes- ter course. Window also can work well in a quarter system, for which traditional texts may be too long. Just as anthropology is a dynamic discipline that encourages new discoveries and explores the profound changes now affecting people and societies, this edition of Window on Humanity makes a concerted effort to keep pace with changes in the way students read and learn core content today. Our digital program, Connect Anthro- pology, includes assignable and assessable quizzes, exercises, and interactive activi- ties, organized around course-specific learning objectives. Furthermore, Connect includes an adaptive testing program in LearnSmart, as well as SmartBook, the first and only truly adaptive reading experience. The tools and resources provided in Connect Anthropology are designed to engage students and enable them to improve their performance in the course. This 8th edition has benefited from feedback from over 2,000 students who worked with these tools and programs while using the 7th edition of Window or one of my other recent texts. We were able to respond to specific areas of difficulty that students encountered, chapter by chapter. I used this extensive feedback to revise, rethink, and clarify my writing in almost every chapter. In preparing this edition, I benefited tremendously from both students’ and profes- sors’ reactions to my book. As I work on each new edition, it becomes ever more apparent to me that while any competent and useful text must present anthropology’s core, that text also must demon- strate anthropology’s relevance to the 21st-century world we inhabit. Accordingly, each new edition contains substantial content changes as well as specific features relevant to our changing world. One of my primary goals is to help students make connections between what they read and their own lives. Accordingly, the “Anthropology Today” boxes placed near the end of each chapter examine recent developments in anthropol- ogy as well as contemporary topics and issues that are clearly related to anthropology’s subject matter. I have written ten new “Anthropology Today” boxes highlighting impor- tant recent fossil finds as well as recent world events and issues in the news. Each chap- ter also contains a new feature that I call “Think Like an Anthropologist,” which attempts to get students to do just that—to apply their critical thinking skills as an an- thropologist might. I realize that most students who read this book will not go on to become anthropologists, or even anthropology majors. For those who do, this book should provide a solid foundation to build on. For those who don’t—that is, for most of my readers—my goal is to instill a sense of understanding and appreciation of human diversity and of anthropology as a field. May this course and this text help students think differently about, and achieve greater understanding of, their own culture and its place within our globalizing world.

Preface

Preface xv

Updates and Revisions—Informed by Student Data

Revisions to this 8th edition of Window on Humanity were extensively informed by student data, collected anonymously by McGraw-Hill’s LearnSmart adaptive learning system. Using this data, we were able to identify content areas with which students struggle. I relied on this data, which provided feedback at the paragraph and even sen- tence level (see the screen capture below), in making decisions about material to revise, update, and improve.

McGraw-Hill Connect Anthropology

Connect Anthropology is a premier digital teaching and learning tool that allows instructors to assign and assess course material. Connect Anthropology includes assignable and assessable quizzes, exercises, and interactive activities, organized around course-specific learning objectives. New to this edition, NewsFlash activities bring in articles on current events relevant to anthropology with accompanying assessment. In addition, Connect Anthropology includes LearnSmart, an adaptive testing program, and SmartBook, the first and only adaptive reading experience. The system is praised by users—faculty and students alike—for helping to make both teaching and learning more efficient, saving time and keeping class time and inde- pendent study time focused on what is most important and only those things that still need reinforcing, and shifting the teaching/learning process away from memorization and cramming. The result is better grades, better concept retention, more students staying in class and passing, and less time spent preparing classes or studying for tests.

SmartBook: SmartBook makes study time as productive and efficient as possible. It identifies and closes knowledge gaps through a continually adapting reading experience that provides personalized learning resources at the precise moment of need. This ensures that every minute spent with SmartBook is returned to the student as the most value-added minute possible. The result? More confidence, better grades, and greater success.

xvi Preface

Connect Insight: Connect Insight is Connect’s one-of-a-kind visual analytics dashboard—available for both instructors and

students—that provides at-a-glance information regarding student performance, which is immediately actionable. By presenting assignment, assessment, and topical perfor- mance results together with a time metric that is easily visible for aggregate or individ- ual results, Connect Insight gives the user the ability to take a just-in-time approach to teaching and learning.

Chapter-by-Chapter Changes

Updates were also informed by the many excellent reviews provided by faculty at 2- and 4-year schools across the country. In addition to the new “Think Like an Anthropologist” feature, as well as revisions and updates in nearly every section of the book, the follow- ing are this edition’s major changes: Chapter 1: What Is Anthropology? ∙ “The Subdivisions of Anthropology” features a thoroughly revised sub-section on

“Biological Anthropology.”

Preface xvii

∙ The “Anthropology and Other Academic Fields” section has been fully revised and includes a new sub-section on “Cultural Anthropology and Sociology.”

∙ A new “Anthropology Today” box, “School of Hope,” has been added.

Chapter 2: Culture ∙ The opening section, “What Is Culture?,” has been fully revised, with a new intro-

duction differentiating more clearly between society and culture, as well as new definitions of enculturation and popular culture.

∙ The “Mechanisms of Cultural Change” section includes a new discussion of pidgin languages.

∙ A new “Anthropology Today” box, “Preserving Cultural Heritage,” has been added.

Chapter 3: Doing Anthropology ∙ The “Dating the Past” section includes a fully revised section on “Molecular

Anthropology.” ∙ The “Ethnography: Anthropology’s Distinctive Strategy” section (formerly

“ Ethnographic Techniques”) features a new introduction with a clarified definition of ethnography, as well as a fully revised and expanded sub-section on “Problem- Oriented Ethnography.”

∙ The “Doing Anthropology Right and Wrong: Ethical Issues” section includes a revised discussion of “Ownership Issues,” with updated discussion of the “ Kennewick Man” bones and their return to the Colville reservation in 2016.

Chapter 4: Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation ∙ The “Evolution” section (previously “The Origin of Species”) features a new

introduction and an expanded and reworked sub-section, “Evolution: Theory and Fact.” ∙ The “Population Genetics and Mechanisms of Genetic Evolution” section (formerly

“Mechanisms of Genetic Evolution”) features a new introduction and expanded and revised sub-sections, “Mutation” and “Random Genetic Drift.”

∙ The “Race: A Discredited Concept” section features clarified discussions on “Races Are Not Biologically Distinct” and “Genetic Markers Don’t Correlate with Phenotype.”

∙ The “Human Biological Adaptation” section includes a new introduction, a new sub-section “Explaining Skin Color,” and a rewritten sub-section, “Genes and Disease.”

∙ A new “Anthropology Today” box, “Disease Evolution: A Case Study,” has been added.

Chapter 5: The Primates ∙ The “Our Place Among the Primates” section features a new introduction and

includes updated taxonomic categories. ∙ The “Primate Adaptations” section (formerly “Primate Tendencies”) has been

reworked and expanded to include discussion of sensory shifts. ∙ “The Primate Suborders” section (formerly “Prosimians”) has been rewritten and

expanded to incorporate discussion of the split between haplorrhines and strepsirrhines.

∙ The “Monkeys” section and “Orangutans” sub-sections have been reworked.

xviii Preface

∙ The “Early Primates” section has been extensively revised and expanded to include discussion of the spread of angiosperms (flowering plants) during the Cenozoic era, and evolutionary splits in the early primate groups.

∙ The “Miocene Hominoids” section has been revised.

Chapter 6: Early Hominins ∙ The discussion throughout the chapter has been revised to reflect contemporary

consensus on terminology (Paranthropus rather than Australopithecus robustus and Au. boisei; “australopith” rather than “australopithecine”).

∙ The “Who Were the Earliest Hominins?” section has been extensively revised to include the most recent findings.

∙ “The Varied Australopiths” section has been thoroughly revised to include new data and measurements, and expanded discussion of anatomical features.

∙ The “Early Stone Tools” section (previously “Oldowan Tools”) has been extensively revised and expanded to incorporate recent archaeological discoveries.

Chapter 7: The Genus Homo ∙ The “Early Homo” section features a new introduction, a brand new sub-section,

“2015 Discoveries,”and extensively revised sub-sections on “H. rudolfensis” and “H. habilis and H. erectus.”

∙ The “Middle Pleistocene Hominins” section (formerly “Archaic H. Sapiens”) has been revised to incorporate clearer terminology and a much expanded discussion of “H. heidelbergensis.”

∙ “The Neandertals” section has been revised and expanded to incorporate more coverage of Neandertal DNA.

∙ A new “Anthropology Today” box, “The Rising Stars of a South African Cave,” highlights the recent Homo naledi discoveries.

Chapter 8: The First Farmers ∙ A new major subhead, “Broad-Spectrum Economies,” features a new introduction

and reworked sub-sections, “The Mesolithic in Europe” and “Developments in Asia, Including Early Pottery.”

∙ “The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle East” section includes a new sub- section, “The Coevolution of Farming and Property Rights,” as well as an expanded sub-section on “Where and Why Did Food Production Begin?,” with new discussion about the productivity of early farmers.

∙ The “Other Old World Farmers” section includes heavily revised sub-sections on “The Neolithic in Africa” (with expanded discussion of Nabta Playa), “The Neolithic in Europe” (with new discussion of DNA changes), and “The Neolithic in Asia” (with new material on Southern Chinese farming).

∙ “The First American Farmers” section has been revised and expanded to include Piperno’s experiments growing teosinte under prehistoric conditions.

∙ The “Costs and Benefits” section includes new coverage of the public health, income inequality, and environmental costs of food production.

Preface xix

Chapter 9: The First Cities and States ∙ The “State Formation” section (previously “The Origin of the State”) has been

extensively revised and includes a new introduction clarifying the difference between chiefdoms and states.

∙ The “State Formation in the Middle East” section has been fully revised and includes a new sub-section “An Early Ritual Center” (which discusses the important early site of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey) and a rewritten and clarified sub-section “Social Ranking and Chiefdom.”

∙ The “State Formation in Mesoamerica” section has been heavily revised and in- cludes new material on trade between the Olmec and Oaxaca regions and warfare in the Zapotec state.

Chapter 10: Language and Communication ∙ The “Nonverbal Communication” section includes a new sub-section, “Personal

Space and Displays of Affection” (adapted from the previous edition’s Chapter 2 “Anthropology Today” box).

∙ The “Sociolinguistics” section contains a new sub-section, “Linguistic Diversity in California” (adapted from the previous edition’s Chapter 10 “Anthropology Today” box), as well as expanded discussion of regional speech patterns and examples of linguistic diversity within India.

∙ A new “Anthropology Today” box, “Words of the Year,” has been added.

Chapter 11: Making a Living ∙ A new introduction to the “Adaptive Strategies” section better distinguishes the

concept of food production. ∙ The “Foraging” section includes a clarified definition of foraging, as well as expanded

discussion of the distribution of modern foragers, the Basarwa San, and social distinctions in egalitarian foraging societies.

∙ The “Adaptive Strategies Based on Food Production” section has been revised to clarify the discussions of horticulture, shifting cultivation, and slash-and-burn horticulture.

∙ The “Distribution, Exchange” section features revised discussions of redistribution, reciprocity, and potlatching.

Chapter 12: Political Systems ∙ The “What Is ‘The Political’?” section features a revised introduction clarifying the

difference between power and authority. ∙ The “Social Control” section has been thoroughly revised to clarify the concepts of

public resistance, hidden transcripts, and shame and gossip. ∙ The “State Systems” section includes expanded discussion of the relative value of

state systems. ∙ A new “Anthropology Today” box, “The Illegality Industry: A Failed System of

Border Control,” has been added.

xx Preface

Chapter 13: Families, Kinship, and Marriage ∙ The “Families” section has been extensively revised to include expanded discussion

of the zadruga family system, industrialism and family organization, and changes in North American kinship, as well as new material on expanded family households and matrifocal households.

∙ The “Descent” section has been revised to foreground the concept of descent groups and clarify the discussion of demonstrated and stipulated descent.

∙ The “Same-Sex Marriage” has been thoroughly revised to include revised statistics regarding same-sex marriage worldwide and new material on the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in the United States.

∙ The “Divorce” section provides new discussion of divorce among foragers. ∙ The “Plural Marriages” section features a new introduction clarifying the difference

between polygamy, polygyny, and polyandry, as well as expanded discussion of polygyny.

∙ A new “Anthropology Today” box, “What Anthropologists Could Teach the Supreme Court about the Definition of Marriage,” has been added.

Chapter 14: Gender ∙ The “Sex and Gender” section features a new introduction foregrounding the

concepts of nature and nurture. ∙ The “Recurrent Gender Patterns” has been simplified for greater clarity. ∙ The “Gender Roles and Gender Stratification” section provides expanded discussion

of patriarchy and violence (with new examples, including the Boko Haram kidnappings) as well as resistance to it (with the case of Pakistani Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai’s work).

∙ The “Gender in Industrialized Societies” section has been heavily revised, with a new introduction. Its sub-section “Changes in Gendered Work” contains new statistics and new material on the effects of automation and education on women’s professional employment. A new sub-section “Work and Family: Reality and Stereotypes” examines the changing roles of women and men regarding work and family responsibilities, as well as persisting stereotypes. The sub-sections on “The Feminization of Poverty” and “Work and Happiness” have been thoroughly reworked.

∙ The “Beyond Male and Female” section has been revised to clarify the difference between intersex and transgender, and expanded to discuss the increased visibility of, and legal challenges faced by, transgender individuals in the United States.

∙ A new “Anthropology Today” box, “Gender, Ethnicity, and a Gold Medal for Fiji,” has been added.

Chapter 15: Religion ∙ The “Social Control” section features a new discussion of accusations of witchcraft

as a means of religiously-based social control. ∙ The “World Religions” section has been fully revised to incorporate the latest statistics.

Preface xxi

∙ The “Religion and Cultural Globalization” section has been extensively revised and includes expanded discussion of the relationship between antimodernism and reli- gious fundamentalism in Christianity and Islam, as well as a new sub-section “Reli- gious Radicalism Today” focusing on Scott Atran’s research into militant groups like al Qaeda and ISIS.

∙ A new “Anthropology Today” box, “Newtime Religion,” has been added.

Chapter 16: Ethnicity and Race ∙ The “Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity” section has been substantially revised, including

a new introduction and statistics, as well as an expanded “Status and Identity” sec- tion (previously “Shifting Status”) clarifying the definition of status as well as the difference between ascribed and achieved status.

∙ The “Race and Ethnicity” section provides clarification about the difficulty in defining both terms.

∙ “The Social Construction of Race” section includes clarified discussion of racial attitudes in Japan.

∙ The “Ethnic Groups, Nations, and Nationalities” section provides a revised discussion of nationalism.

∙ The “Ethnic Tolerance and Accommodation” section includes updated discussions of assimilation and multiculturalism.

∙ The “Changing Demographics” section provides updated demographic statistics as well as a new sub-section “The Backlash to Multiculturalism,” which explores the growth of the Tea Party movement during the Obama presidency and ethno- nationalism during and since the Trump presidential campaign and presidency.

∙ The “Ethnic Conflict” section (previously “Roots of Ethnic Conflict”) has new coverage of sectarian violence in Iraq and Syria and of the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as updated discussions of anti-ethnic discrimination and violence in Darfur, Syria, and Ukraine, and new material on the backlash against undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Chapter 17: Applying Anthropology ∙ “The Role of the Applied Anthropologist” section has been heavily revised, with an

expanded sub-section on “Early Applications” and an updated section on “Applied Anthropology Today.”

∙ The “Development Anthropology” section has been thoroughly revised, particularly the “Equity” and “Negative Equity Impact” sub-sections.

∙ The “Strategies for Innovation” section includes an expanded and revised discussion of overinnovation.

∙ The “Urban Anthropology” section has updated statistics. ∙ The “Medical Anthropology” section has been rewritten and reorganized and features

three new sub-head sections to clarify the discussion: “Disease Theory Systems,” “Scientific Medicine versus Western Medicine,” and “Industrialization, Globalization, and Health.”

xxii Preface

∙ The “Anthropology and Business” section now includes expanded discussion and numerous examples of how anthropologists can contribute to market research and applied ethnography in business settings,

Chapter 18: The World System, Colonialism, and Inequality ∙ “The World System” section features a new introduction foregrounding the concept

of the modern world system, as well as revised sub-sections on “World System Theory” and “The Emergence of the World System.”

∙ “The Persistence of Inequality” section (previously “Socioeconomic Effects of Inequality”) has been thoroughly revised to incorporate new statistics and extensive new discussion of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

∙ The “Colonialism and Imperialism” section (previously “Colonialism”) has been heavily revised and includes clarified discussion of the difference between colonialism and imperialism, as well as a new sub-section “The First Phase of European Colonialism: Spain and Portugal.”

∙ The “Communism, Socialism, and Postsocialism” section (previously “The Second World”) provides expanded discussion of postsocial transitions.

Chapter 19: Anthropology’s Role in a Globalizing World ∙ The “Globalization: Its Meanings and Its Nature” section has been clarified and

simplified. ∙ The “Energy Consumption and Industrial Degradation” section has been heavily

updated to incorporate new statistics and coverage of recent global developments, such as the Ebola and Zika virus crises, cyber attacks, and climate change.

∙ The “Global Climate Change” section has been fully revised to incorporate the latest statistics and an expanded discussion of the greenhouse effect.

∙ The “Environmental Anthropology” section includes an updated sub-section on “Emerging Diseases,” especially zoonotic diseases.

∙ The “Interethnic Contact” section features a new introduction focused on shifting cultural patterns and a revised sub-section “A Global Culture of Consumption.”

∙ The “Indigenous Peoples” section features updated statistics and new coverage of the United Nations’ commitment to the rights of indigenous peoples.

∙ A new “Anthropology Today” box, “Diversity under Siege: Global Forces and Indigenous Peoples,” has been added.

Content and Organization

No single or monolithic theoretical perspective orients this book. My e-mail, along with reviewers’ comments, confirms that instructors with a very wide range of views and approaches have been pleased with Window as a teaching tool. ∙ In Chapter 1, anthropology is introduced as an integrated four-field discipline, with

academic and applied dimensions, that examines human biological and cultural di- versity in time and space. Anthropology is discussed as a comparative and holistic

Preface xxiii

science, featuring biological, social, cultural, linguistic, humanistic, and historical approaches. Chapter 2 examines the central anthropological concept of culture, in- cluding its symbolic and adaptive features. Chapter 3 is about doing anthropology— the methods and ethics of research in anthropology’s subfields.

∙ The chapters focusing on biological anthropology and archaeology (4–9) offer up-to- date answers to several key questions: When did humans originate, and how did we become what we are? What role do genes, the environment, society, and culture play in human variation and diversity? What can we tell about our origins and nature from the study of our nearest relatives—nonhuman primates? When and how did the pri- mates originate? What key features of their early adaptations are still basic to our abilities, behavior, and perceptions? How did hominids develop from our primate ancestors? When, where, and how did the first hominins emerge and expand? What about the earliest real humans? How do we explain biological diversity in our own species, Homo sapiens? What major transitions have taken place since the emer- gence of Homo sapiens?

∙ Chapters 8 and 9 discuss the Neolithic, especially the domestication of plants and animals, as a major adaptive change, with profound implications for human lifeways. The spread and intensification of farming and herding are tied to the appearance of the first towns, cities, and states, as well as the emergence of social stratification and major social inequalities.

∙ The chapters on linguistic and sociocultural anthropology (10–19) are organized to place related content close together—although they are sufficiently independent to be assigned in any order the instructor might select. Thus, “Political Systems” (Chap- ter 12) logically follows “Making a Living” (Chapter 11). Chapters 13 and 14 (“Fam- ilies, Kinship, and Marriage” and “Gender,” respectively) also form a coherent unit. The chapter on religion (15) covers not just traditional religious practices but also contemporary world religions and religious movements. It is followed by four chap- ters (16–19) that form a natural unit exploring sociocultural transformations and ex- pressions in today’s world.

∙ Those last four chapters address several important questions: How are race and eth- nicity socially constructed and handled in different societies, and how do they gener- ate prejudice, discrimination, and conflict? How and why did the modern world system emerge and expand? How has world capitalism affected patterns of stratifica- tion and inequality within and among nations? What were colonialism, imperialism, and Communism, and what are their legacies? How do people today actively inter- pret and confront the world system and the products of globalization? What factors threaten continued human diversity? How can anthropologists work to ensure the preservation of that diversity?

∙ Let me also single out two chapters present in Window on Humanity but not found consistently in other anthropology texts: “Ethnicity and Race” (Chapter 16) and “Gender” (Chapter 14). I believe that systematic consideration of race, ethnicity, and gender is vital in an introductory anthropology text. Anthropology’s distinctive four- field approach can shed special light on these topics. We see this not only in Chapter 16 (“Ethnicity and Race”) but also in Chapter 4 (“Evolution, Genetics, and Human

xxiv Preface

Variation”), in which race is discussed as a problematic concept in biology. Race and gender studies are fields in which anthropology always has taken the lead. I’m con- vinced that anthropology’s special contributions to understanding the biological, social, cultural, and linguistic dimensions of race, ethnicity, and gender should be highlighted in any introductory text.

Teaching Resources

The following instructor resources can be accessed through the Library tab in Connect Anthropology:

∙ Instructor’s manual ∙ PowerPoint lecture slides ∙ Computerized Test Bank ∙ Word version of the test bank

Create

Design your ideal course materials with McGraw-Hill Education’s Create: http://www.create.mheducation.com

Rearrange or omit chapters, combine materials from other sources, and/or upload any other content you have written to make the perfect resource for your students. You can even personalize your book’s appearance by selecting the cover and adding your name, school, and course information. When you order a Create book, you receive a  complimentary review copy. Get a printed copy in three to five business days or an  electronic copy (eComp) via e-mail in about an hour. Register today at http:// www.create.mheducation.com and craft your course resources to match the way you teach.

xxv

I’m grateful to many colleagues at McGraw-Hill. I offer particular thanks to Product Developer Emily Pecora, who synthesized and summarized the prepublication re- views, helped me plan and implement this revision, and worked with me to complete and submit the manuscript ahead of schedule. I have always appreciated Emily’s keen editorial eye for style, language, and presentation, as well as content. She has helped guide me through several revisions. I also thank Bruce Cantley for his work as product developer as Window on Humanity moved toward publication. Thanks also to Gina Boedeker, McGraw-Hill’s former Managing Director for anthropology, and to Rhona Robbin, former Lead Product Developer, for their help and support over many years and editions, including the start of this revision. I am privileged to be working now with Claire Brantley, Executive Portfolio Manager, and Dawn Groundwater, Lead Product Developer. Thanks as well to McGraw-Hill’s entire team of sales reps and regional managers for the work they do in helping professors and students gain access to my books. I also acknowledge Michael Ryan, Vice President for Portfolio and Learning Content. As usual, Rick Hecker has done a great job as Content Project Manager, guiding the manuscript through production and keeping everything moving on schedule. Laura Fuller, Buyer, worked with the printer to make sure everything came out right. Thanks, too, to Charlotte Goldman, freelance photo researcher, and to Scott Lukas, Lake Tahoe Community College, who created the content for the Connect products for this book. I also thank Amy Marks for copyediting, Marlena Pechan for proofreading, and Egzon Shaqiri for executing the design. Lori Slattery also deserves thanks as Content Licensing Specialist. The names and schools of the reviewers contracted by McGraw-Hill to review the 7th edition of Window on Humanity, in preparation for the 8th edition, or the 10th edi- tion of Mirror for Humanity, in preparation for the 11th edition, are as follows:

Acknowledgments

Jenna Andrews-Swann Georgia Gwinnett College Margaret Bruchez Blinn College Jessica H. Craig Central New Mexico Community College Anna R. Dixon University of South Florida, St. Petersburg Shasta Gaughen California State University, San Marcos Fred Heifner Cumberland University Joshua A. Irizarry Bridgewater State University

Lily Malekfar Triton College Scotty Moore Houston Community College Elizabeth Scharf University of North Dakota Marjorie M. Snipes University of West Georgia Julie Vazquez College of the Canyons Jessica Worden-Jones Schoolcraft College Catherine Wright Jacksonville State Community College

xxvi Acknowledgments

I’m grateful to all these reviewers and professors for their enthusiasm and their sugges- tions for changes, additions, and deletions (sometimes in very different directions!). Very, very special thanks as well to the more than 2,000 students whose responses in LearnSmart helped me pinpoint content and writing that needed clarification. Never have so many voices contributed to a revision as to this one. My readers also share their insights about Window via e-mail. Anyone—student or instructor—can reach me at the following e-mail address: [email protected]. As usual, my family provides me with understanding, support, and inspiration in my writing projects. Dr. Nicholas Kottak and Dr. Juliet Kottak Mavromatis regularly share their insights with me, as does Isabel Wagley Kottak, my long-term companion in the field and in life, to whom this book is dedicated. During my long academic career, I’ve benefited from the knowledge, help, and ad- vice of so many friends, colleagues, teaching assistants (graduate student instructors— GSIs), and students that I can no longer fit their names into a short preface. I hope they know who they are and accept my thanks. I do especially thank my co-authors of other books: Lara Descartes (Media and Middle Class Moms), Lisa Gezon (Culture), and Kathryn Kozaitis (On Being Different). Kathryn (with whom I have worked on four edi- tions), Lisa (two editions), and Lara are prized former students of mine. Today they all are accomplished anthropologists in their own right, and they continue to share their wisdom with me. I’m very grateful to my Michigan colleagues who’ve offered insights and suggested ways of making my books better. Thanks especially to a 101 team that has included Tom Fricke, Stuart Kirsch, Holly Peters-Golden, and Andrew Shryock. Special thanks as well to Joyce Marcus and Kent Flannery for continuing to nurture the archaeologist in me. Feedback from students and from my fellow anthropologists keeps me up-to-date on the interests, needs, and views of the people for whom Window is written, as does my ongoing participation in workshops on the teaching of anthropology. I continue to be- lieve that effective textbooks are based in the enjoyment of teaching and respect for students. I hope this product of my experience will continue to be helpful to others.

Conrad Phillip Kottak

Seabrook Island, South Carolina

[email protected]

xxvii

About the Author Conrad Phillip Kottak, who received his AB and PhD degrees from Columbia Univer- sity, is the Julian H. Steward Collegiate Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, where he served as anthropology department chair from 1996 to 2006. He has been honored for his teaching by the university and the state of Michigan and by the American Anthropological Association. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, where he chaired Section 51, Anthropology from 2010 to 2013. Professor Kottak has done ethnographic fieldwork in Brazil, Madagascar, and the United States. His general interests are in the processes by which local cultures are incorporated—and resist incorporation—into larger systems. This interest links his earlier work on ecology and state formation in Africa and Mad- agascar to his more recent research on globalization, national and international culture, and media, including new media and social media. Kottak’s popular case study Assault on Paradise: The Globalization of a Little Community in Brazil (2006) describes his long-term and continuing fieldwork in Arembepe, Bahia, Brazil. His book Prime-Time Society: An Anthropological Analysis of Television and Culture (2009) is a comparative study of the nature and impact of television in Brazil and the United States. Kottak’s other books include The Past in the Present: History, Ecology and Cultural Variation in Highland Mada- gascar (1980), Researching American Culture: A Guide for Student Anthropologists (1982), Madagascar: Society and History (1986), and Media and Middle Class Moms: Images and Realities of Work and Family (with Lara Descartes, 2009). The most recent editions (17th) of his texts Anthropology: Appreciating Human Diversity and Cultural Anthropology: Appreciating Cultural Diversity were published by McGraw- Hill in 2017. He also is the author of Mirror for Humanity: A  Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (11th ed., McGraw-Hill, 2018) and of this book—Window on Humanity: A Concise Introduction to Anthropology (8th ed., McGraw-Hill, 2018). Conrad Kottak’s articles have appeared in academic journals, including American Anthropologist, Journal of

© Juliet Kottak Mavromatis

xxviii About the Author

Anthropological Research, American Ethnologist, Ethnology, Human Organization, and Luso-Brazilian Review. He also has written for more popular journals, including Transaction/ SOCIETY, Natural History, Psychology Today, and General Anthropology. In other research projects, Professor Kottak and his colleagues have investigated ecological awareness in Brazil, biodiversity conservation in Madagascar, and media use by modern American families. Professor Kottak currently is collaborating with Professor Richard Pace and several graduate students on research investigating “The Evolution of Media Impact: A Longitudinal and Multi-Site Study of Television and New Electronic/Digital Media in Brazil,” a project supported by the National Science Foundation. Conrad Kottak appreciates comments about his books from professors and students. He can be reached at the following e-mail address: [email protected].

1

Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology?

The Cross-Cultural Perspective

Human Adaptability Adaptation, Variation, and Change Cultural Forces Shape Human Biology

General Anthropology

The Subdisciplines of Anthropology Cultural Anthropology Anthropological Archaeology Biological Anthropology Linguistic Anthropology

Applied Anthropology

Anthropology and Other Academic Fields A Humanistic Science Cultural Anthropology and Sociology

Anthropology Today: School of Hope

The Cross-Cultural Perspective

“That’s just human nature.” “People are pretty much the same all over the world.” Such opinions, which we hear in conversations, in the mass media, and in a dozen scenes in daily life, promote the erroneous idea that people in other countries have the same desires, feelings, values, and aspirations that we do. Such statements proclaim that be- cause people are essentially the same, they are eager to receive the ideas, beliefs, values, institutions, practices, and products of an expansive North American culture. Often this assumption turns out to be wrong.

Anthropology offers a broader view—a distinctive comparative, cross-cultural per- spective. Most people think that anthropologists study nonindustrial societies, and they do. My research has taken me to remote villages in Brazil and Madagascar, a large island off the southeast coast of Africa. In Brazil I sailed with fishers in simple sailboats on Atlantic waters. Among Madagascar’s Betsileo people, I worked in rice fields and took part in ceremonies in which I entered tombs to rewrap the corpses of decaying ancestors.

However, anthropology is much more than the study of nonindustrial peoples. It is a comparative science that examines all societies, ancient and modern, simple and complex. Most of the other social sciences tend to focus on a single society, usually an

2 Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology?

industrial nation such as the United States or Canada. Anthropology offers a unique cross-cultural perspective, constantly comparing the customs of one society with those of others.

Among scholarly disciplines, anthropology stands out as the field that provides the cross-cultural test. How much would we know about human behavior, thought, and feel- ing if we studied only our own kind? What if our entire understanding of human behav- ior were based on analysis of questionnaires filled out by college students in Oregon? That is a radical question, but one that should make you think about the basis for state- ments about what humans are like, individually or as a group. A primary reason anthro- pology can uncover so much about what it means to be human is that the discipline is based on the cross-cultural perspective. A single culture simply cannot tell us everything we need to know about what it means to be human. We need to compare and contrast. 

To become a cultural anthropologist, one typically does ethnography (the firsthand, personal study of local settings). Ethnographic fieldwork usually entails spending a year or more in another society, living with the local people and learning about their way of life. No matter how much the ethnographer discovers about that society, he or she remains an alien there. That experience of alienation has a profound impact. Having learned to respect other customs and beliefs, anthropologists can never forget that there is a wider world. There are normal ways of thinking and acting other than our own.

Human Adaptability

Anthropologists study human beings wherever and whenever they find them—in a Turkish café, a Mesopotamian tomb, or a North American shopping mall. Anthropology is the exploration of human diversity in time and space. Anthropology studies the whole of the human condition: past, present, and future; biology, society, language, and culture. Of particular interest is the diversity that comes through human adaptability.

Humans are among the world’s most adaptable animals. In the Andes of South America, people wake up in villages 16,000 feet above sea level and then trek 1,500 feet higher to work in tin mines. Tribes in the Australian desert worship animals and discuss philosophy. People survive malaria in the tropics. Men have walked on the moon. The model of the Star Trek starship Enterprise in Washington’s Smithsonian Institution is a symbol of the Star Trek mission “to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.” Wishes to know the unknown, control the uncontrolla- ble, and create order out of chaos find expression among all peoples. Creativity, adapt- ability, and flexibility are basic human attributes, and human diversity is the subject matter of anthropology.

Students often are surprised by the breadth of anthropology, which is the study of humans around the world and through time. Anthropology is a uniquely comparative and holistic science. Holism refers to the study of the whole of the human condition: past, present, and future; biology, society, language, and culture.

People share society—organized life in groups—with other animals, including ba- boons, wolves, mole rats, and even ants. Culture, however, is more distinctly human. Cultures are traditions and customs, transmitted through learning, that form and guide

Human Adaptability 3

the beliefs and behavior of the people exposed to them. Children learn such a tradition by growing up in a particular society, through a process called enculturation. Cultural traditions include customs and opinions, developed over the generations, about proper and improper behavior. These traditions answer such questions as: How should we do things? How do we make sense of the world? How do we tell right from wrong? A cul- ture produces a degree of consistency in behavior and thought among the people who live in a particular society.

The most critical element of cultural traditions is their transmission through learning rather than through biological inheritance. Culture is not itself biological, but it rests on certain features of human biology. For more than a million years, humans have had at least some of the biological capacities on which culture depends. These abilities are to learn, to think symbolically, to use language, and to employ tools and other products in organizing their lives and adapting to their environments.

Anthropology confronts and ponders major questions of human existence as it ex- plores human biological and cultural diversity in time and space. By examining ancient bones and tools, we unravel the mysteries of human origins. When did our ancestors separate from those remote great-aunts and great-uncles whose descendants are the apes? Where and when did Homo sapiens originate? How has our species changed? What are we now, and where are we going? How have changes in culture and society influenced biological change? Our genus, Homo, has been changing for more than 2 million years. Humans continue to adapt and change both biologically and culturally.

Adaptation, Variation, and Change Adaptation refers to the processes by which organisms cope with environmental forces and stresses, such as those posed by climate and topography or terrains, also called landforms. How do organisms change to fit their environments, such as dry climates or high mountain altitudes? Like other animals, humans use biological means of adapta- tion. But humans are unique in also having cultural means of adaptation. Table 1.1 sum- marizes the cultural and biological means that humans use to adapt to high altitudes.

TABLE 1.1 Forms of Cultural and Biological Adaptation (to High Altitude)

Form of Adaptation Type of Adaptation Example

Technology Cultural Pressurized airplane cabin with oxygen masks

Genetic adaptation (occurs over generations)

Biological Larger “barrel chests” of native highlanders

Long-term physiological adaptation (occurs during growth and development of the individual organism)

Biological More efficient respiratory system, to extract oxygen from “thin air”

Short-term physiological adaptation (occurs spontaneously when the individual organism enters a new environment)

Biological Increased heart rate, hyperventilation

4 Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology?

Mountainous terrains pose particular challenges, those associated with high altitude and oxygen deprivation. Consider four ways (one cultural and three biological) in which humans may cope with low oxygen pressure at high altitudes. Illustrating cultural (tech- nological) adaptation would be a pressurized airplane cabin equipped with oxygen masks. There are three ways of adapting biologically to high altitudes: genetic adaptation, long- term physiological adaptation, and short-term physiological adaptation. First, native populations of high-altitude areas, such as the Andes of Peru and the Himalayas of Tibet and Nepal, seem to have acquired certain genetic advantages for life at very high alti- tudes. The Andean tendency to develop a voluminous chest and lungs probably has a genetic basis. Second, regardless of their genes, people who grow up at a high altitude become physiologically more efficient there than genetically similar people who have grown up at sea level would be. This illustrates long-term physiological adaptation dur- ing the body’s growth and development. Third, humans also have the capacity for short- term or immediate physiological adaptation. Thus, when lowlanders arrive in the highlands, they immediately increase their breathing and heart rates. Hyperventilation increases the oxygen in their lungs and arteries. As the pulse also increases, blood reaches their tissues more rapidly. All these varied adaptive responses—cultural and biological— achieve a single goal: maintaining an adequate supply of oxygen to the body.

As human history has unfolded, the social and cultural means of adaptation have become increasingly important. In this process, humans have devised diverse ways of coping with a wide range of environments. The rate of cultural adaptation and change has accelerated, particularly during the past 10,000 years. For millions of years, hunting and gathering of nature’s bounty—foraging—was the sole basis of human subsistence. However, it took only a few thousand years for food production (the cultivation of plants and domestication of animals), which originated some 12,000–10,000 years ago, to replace foraging in most areas. Between 6000 and 5000 B.P. (before the present), the first civilizations arose. These were large, powerful, and complex societies, such as ancient Egypt, that conquered and governed large geographic areas.

Much more recently, the spread of industrial production and the forces of globaliza- tion have profoundly affected human life. Throughout human history, major innovations have spread at the expense of earlier ones. Each economic revolution has had social and cultural repercussions. Today’s global economy and communications link all contempo- rary people, directly or indirectly, in the modern world system. People must cope with forces generated by progressively larger systems—region, nation, and world. The study of such contemporary adaptations generates new challenges for anthropology: “The cultures of world peoples need to be constantly rediscovered as these people reinvent them in changing historical circumstances” (Marcus and Fischer 1986, p. 24).

Cultural Forces Shape Human Biology Anthropology’s comparative, biocultural perspective recognizes that cultural forces constantly mold human biology. (Biocultural refers to using and combining both bio- logical and cultural perspectives and approaches to analyze and understand a particular issue or problem.) Culture is a key environmental force in determining how human bod- ies grow and develop. Cultural traditions promote certain activities and abilities, dis- courage others, and set standards of physical well-being and attractiveness. Consider

Human Adaptability 5

how this works in sports. North American girls are encouraged to pursue, and therefore do well in, competition involving figure skating, gymnastics, track and field, swimming, diving, and many other sports. Brazilian girls, although excelling in the team sports of basketball and volleyball, haven’t fared nearly as well in individual sports as have their American and Canadian counterparts. 

Cultural standards of attractiveness and propriety influence participation and achieve- ment in sports. Americans run or swim not just to compete but also to keep trim and fit. Brazil’s beauty standards traditionally have accepted more fat, especially in female but- tocks and hips. Brazilian men have had significant international success in swimming and running, but Brazil rarely sends female swimmers or runners to the Olympics. One reason why Brazilian women avoid competitive swimming in particular may be that sport’s effects on the body. Years of swimming sculpt a distinctive physique: an enlarged upper torso, a massive neck, and powerful shoulders and back. Successful female swim- mers tend to be big, strong, and bulky. The countries that have produced them most consistently are the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, the Scandinavian nations, the Netherlands, and the former Soviet Union, where this body type isn’t as stigmatized as it is in Latin countries. For women, Brazilian culture prefers ample hips and buttocks to a muscled upper body. Many young female swimmers in Brazil choose to abandon the sport rather than their culture’s “feminine” body ideal.

When you grew up, which sport did you appreciate the most—soccer, swimming, football, baseball, tennis, golf, or some other sport (or perhaps none at all)? Is this be- cause of “who you are” or because of the opportunities you had as a child to practice and

Athletes primed for the start of the 10 kilometer women’s marathon swim at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Years of swimming sculpt a distinctive physique—an enlarged upper torso and neck, and powerful shoulders and back. ©Tim de Waele/Corbis via Getty Images

6 Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology?

participate in this particular activity? When you were young, your parents might have told you that drinking milk and eating vegetables would help you grow up “big and strong.” They probably didn’t as readily recognize the role that culture plays in shaping bodies, personalities, and personal health. If nutrition matters in growth, so, too, do cultural guidelines. What is proper behavior for boys and girls? What kinds of work should men and women do? Where should people live? What are proper uses of their leisure time? What role should religion play? How should people relate to their family, friends, and neighbors? Although our genetic attributes provide a foundation for growth and development, human biology is fairly plastic—that is, it is malleable. Culture is an environmental force that affects our development as much as do nutrition, heat, cold, and altitude. Culture also guides our emotional and cognitive growth and helps deter- mine the kinds of personalities we have as adults.

General Anthropology

The academic discipline of anthropology, also known as general anthropology or “four-field” anthropology, includes four main subdisciplines, or subfields. They are so- ciocultural anthropology, anthropological  archaeology, biological anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. (From here on, the shorter term cultural anthropology will be

used as a synonym for sociocultural anthropology.) Of the subfields, cultural anthropology has the largest membership. Most departments of anthropology teach courses in all four subfields.

There are historical reasons for the inclusion of four subfields in a single discipline. The origin of anthropology as a scientific field, and of American anthropology in particular, can be traced to the 19th century. Early American anthropologists were con- cerned especially with the history and cultures of the native peoples of North America. Interest in the ori- gins and diversity of Native Americans brought to- gether studies of customs, social life, language, and physical traits. Anthropologists still are pondering such questions as these: Where did Native Americans come from? How many waves of migration brought them to the New World? What are the linguistic, cul- tural, and biological links among Native Americans and between them and Asia? (Note that a unified four-field anthropology did not develop in Europe, where the subfields tend to exist separately.)

There also are logical reasons for the unity of American anthropology. Each subfield considers variation in time and space (that is, in different geographic areas). Cultural anthropologists and

Early American anthropology was especially concerned with the history and cultures of Native North Americans. Ely S. Parker, or Ha-sa-no-an-da, was a Seneca Indian who made important contributions to early anthropology. Parker also served as commissioner of Indian affairs for the United States. Source: National Archives and Records Administration

The Subdisciplines of Anthropology 7

anthropological archaeologists study changes in social life and customs (among many other topics). Archaeologists use studies of living societies to imagine what life might have been like in the past. Biological anthropologists examine evolutionary changes in human biology. Linguistic anthropologists may reconstruct the basics of ancient languages by studying modern ones.

The subfields influence each other as anthropologists talk to each other, read books and journals, and meet in professional organizations. General anthropology explores the basics of human biology, society, and culture and considers their interrelations. Anthro- pologists share certain key assumptions. Perhaps the most fundamental is the idea that sound conclusions about “human nature” cannot be derived from studying a single population, nation, society, or cultural tradition. A comparative, cross-cultural approach is essential.

The Subdisciplines of Anthropology

Cultural Anthropology Cultural anthropology is the study of human society and culture. This subfield de- scribes, analyzes, interprets, and explains social and cultural similarities and differ- ences. To study and interpret cultural diversity, cultural anthropologists engage in two kinds of activity: ethnography (based on fieldwork) and ethnology (based on cross- cultural comparison). Ethnography provides an account of a particular culture, society, or community. During ethnographic fieldwork, the ethnographer gathers data that he or she organizes, analyzes, and interprets to develop that account, which may be in the form of a book, an article, or a film. Traditionally, ethnographers have lived in small communities and studied local behavior, beliefs, customs, social life, economic activities, politics, and religion (see Okely 2012; Wolcott 2008).

An anthropological perspective derived from ethnographic fieldwork often differs radically from that of economics or political science. Those fields focus on national and official organizations and policies and often on elites. However, the groups that anthro- pologists traditionally have studied usually have been relatively poor and powerless. Ethnographers often observe discriminatory practices directed toward such people, who experience food shortages, dietary deficiencies, and other aspects of poverty. Political scientists tend to study programs that national planners develop, whereas anthropologists discover how these programs work on the local level.

Communities and cultures are less isolated today than ever before. As noted by Franz Boas (1940/1966) many years ago, contact between neighboring tribes always has ex- isted and has extended over enormous areas. “Human populations construct their cul- tures in interaction with one another, and not in isolation” (Wolf 1982, p. ix). Villagers increasingly participate in regional, national, and world events. Exposure to external forces comes through education, the mass media, migration, and modern transportation. (The “Anthropology Today” box at the end of this chapter examines the role of a resi- dential school in eastern India in bridging barriers between cultures.) City and nation increasingly invade local communities with the arrival of teachers, tourists, develop- ment agents, government and religious officials, and political candidates. Such linkages

8 Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology?

are prominent components of regional, national, and international systems of politics, economics, and information. These larger systems increasingly affect the people and places anthropology traditionally has studied. The study of such linkages and systems is part of the subject matter of modern anthropology.

Ethnology examines, compares, analyzes, and interprets the results of ethnography— the data gathered in different societies. Ethnologists use such data to compare, contrast, and generalize about society and culture. Looking beyond the particular to the more general, they attempt to identify and explain cultural differences and similarities, to test hypotheses, and to build theory to enhance our understanding of how social and cultural systems work. Ethnology gets its data for comparison not only from ethnography but also from the other subfields, particularly from anthropological archaeology, which re- constructs social systems of the past. (Table 1.2 summarizes the main contrasts between ethnography and ethnology.)

Anthropological Archaeology Anthropological archaeology  (more simply, “archaeology”) reconstructs, describes, and interprets human behavior and cultural patterns through material remains. At sites where people live or have lived, archaeologists find artifacts—material items that humans have made, used, or modified—such as tools, weapons, campsites, buildings, and garbage. Plant and animal remains and ancient garbage tell stories about consumption and activities. Wild and domesticated grains have different characteristics, which allow archaeologists to distinguish between gathering and cultivation. Examination of animal bones reveals the ages of slaughtered animals and provides other information useful in determining whether species were wild or domesticated.

Analyzing such data, archaeologists answer several questions about ancient econo- mies: Did the group get its meat from hunting, or did it domesticate and breed animals, killing only those of a certain age and sex? Did plant food come from wild plants or from sowing, tending, and harvesting crops? Did the residents make, trade for, or buy particular items? Were raw materials available locally? If not, where did they come from? From such information, archaeologists reconstruct patterns of production, trade, and consumption.

Archaeologists have spent considerable time studying potsherds, fragments of earth- enware. Potsherds are more durable than many other artifacts, such as textiles and wood. The quantity of pottery fragments allows estimates of population size and density. The discovery that potters used materials that were not available locally suggests systems of trade. Similarities in manufacture and decoration at different sites may be proof of cultural connections. Groups with similar pots may share a common history. They might

TABLE 1.2 Ethnography and Ethnology—Two Dimensions of Cultural Anthropology

Ethnography Ethnology

Requires fieldwork to collect data Uses data collected by a series of researchers Is often descriptive Is usually synthetic Is specific to a group or community Is comparative and cross-cultural

The Subdisciplines of Anthropology 9

have common cultural ancestors. Perhaps they traded with each other or belonged to the same political system.

Many archaeologists examine paleoecology. Ecology is the study of interrelations among living things in an environment. The organisms and environment together con- stitute an ecosystem, a patterned arrangement of energy flows and exchanges. Human ecology studies ecosystems that include people, focusing on the ways in which human use “of nature influences and is influenced by social organization and cultural values” (Bennett 1969, pp. 10–11). Paleoecology looks at the ecosystems of the past.

In addition to reconstructing ecological patterns, archaeologists may infer cultural transformations, for example, by observing changes in the size and type of sites and the distance between them. A city develops in a region where only towns, villages, and hamlets existed a few centuries earlier. The number of settlement levels (city, town, village, hamlet) in a society is a measure of social complexity. Buildings offer clues about political and religious features. Temples and pyramids suggest that an ancient society had an authority structure capable of marshaling the labor needed to build such monu- ments. The presence or absence of certain structures, like the pyramids of ancient Egypt and Mexico, reveals differences in function between settlements. For example, some towns were places where people went to attend ceremonies. Others were burial sites; still others were farming communities.

Archaeologists also reconstruct behavior patterns and lifestyles of the past by exca- vating. This involves digging through a succession of levels at a particular site. In a

Anthropological archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania work to stabilize the original plaster at an Anasazi (Native American) site in Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park. ©George H.H. Huey/Alamy Stock Photo

10 Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology?

given area, through time, settlements may change in form and purpose, as may the con- nections between settlements. Excavation can document changes in economic, social, and political activities.

Although archaeologists are best known for studying prehistory, that is, the period before the invention of writing, they also study the cultures of historical and even living peoples (see Sabloff 2008). Studying sunken ships off the Florida coast, underwater archaeologists have been able to verify the living conditions on the vessels that brought ancestral African Americans to the New World as enslaved people. In a well-known research project in Tucson, Arizona, archaeologist William Rathje learned a great deal about contemporary life by studying modern garbage (Zimring 2012). The value of “garbology,” as Rathje called it, is that it provides “evidence of what people did, not what they think they did, what they think they should have done, or what the interviewer thinks they should have done” (Harrison, Rathje, and Hughes 1994, p. 108). What people report may contrast strongly with their real behavior as revealed by garbology. For example, the three Tucson neighborhoods that reported the lowest beer consump- tion actually had the highest number of discarded beer cans per household (Rathje and Murphy 2001; Zimring 2012)!

Biological Anthropology Biological anthropology is the study of human biological diversity through time and as it exists in the world today. There are five specialties within biological anthropology:

1. Human biological evolution as revealed by the fossil record (paleoanthropology). 2. Human genetics. 3. Human growth and development. 4. Human biological plasticity (the living body’s ability to change as it copes with

environmental conditions, such as heat, cold, and altitude). 5. Primatology (the study of monkeys, apes, and other nonhuman primates).

A common thread that runs across all five specialties is an interest in biological variation among humans, including their ancestors and their closest animal relatives (monkeys and apes).

These varied interests link biological anthropology to other fields: biology, zoology, geology, anatomy, physiology, medicine, and public health. Knowledge of osteology— the study of bones—is essential for anthropologists who examine and interpret skulls, teeth, and bones, whether of living humans or of our fossilized ancestors. Paleontologists are scientists who study fossils. Paleoanthropologists study the fossil record of human evolution. Paleoanthropologists often collaborate with archaeologists, who study arti- facts, in reconstructing biological and cultural aspects of human evolution. Fossils and tools often are found together. Different types of tools provide information about the habits, customs, and lifestyles of the ancestral humans who used them.

More than a century ago, Charles Darwin noticed that the variety that exists within any population permits some individuals (those with the favored characteristics) to do better than others at surviving and reproducing. Genetics, which developed after Darwin, enlightens us about the causes and transmission of the variety on which evolution

Applied Anthropology 11

depends. However, it isn’t just genes that cause variety. During any individual’s lifetime, the environment works along with heredity to determine biological features. For exam- ple, people with a genetic tendency to be tall will be shorter if they have poor nutrition during childhood. Thus, biological anthropology also investigates the influence of envi- ronment on the body as it grows and matures. Among the environmental factors that influence the body as it develops are nutrition, altitude, temperature, and disease, as well as cultural factors, such as the standards of attractiveness that were discussed previously.

Biological anthropology (along with zoology) also includes primatology. The primates include our closest relatives—apes and monkeys. Primatologists study their biology, evolution, behavior, and social life, often in their natural environments. Prima- tology assists paleoanthropology, because primate behavior and social organization may shed light on early human behavior and human nature.

Linguistic Anthropology We don’t know (and probably never will) when our ancestors acquired the ability to speak, although biological anthropologists have looked to the anatomy of the face and the skull to speculate about the origin of language. Primatologists have described the communication systems of monkeys and apes. We do know that grammatically complex languages have existed for thousands of years. Linguistic anthropology offers further illustration of anthropology’s interest in comparison, variation, and change. Linguistic anthropology studies language in its social and cultural context, throughout the world and over time. Some linguistic anthropologists make inferences about universal features of language, linked perhaps to uniformities in the human brain. Others reconstruct ancient languages by comparing their contemporary descendants. Still others study lin- guistic differences to discover varied perceptions and patterns of thought in different cultures (see Bonvillain 2012, 2016).

Historical linguistics considers variation in time, such as the changes in sounds, grammar, and vocabulary between Middle English (spoken from approximately C.E. [formerly A.D.] 1050 to 1550) and modern English. Sociolinguistics investigates relationships between social and linguistic variation. How do different speakers use a given language? How do linguistic features correlate with social factors, including class and gender differences (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2013)? One reason for variation is geography, as in regional dialects and accents. Linguistic variation also is expressed in the bilingualism of ethnic groups. Linguistic and cultural anthropologists collaborate in studying links between language and many other aspects of culture, such as how people reckon kinship and how they perceive and classify colors.

Applied Anthropology

What sort of man or woman do you envision when you hear the word anthropologist? Although anthropologists have been portrayed as quirky and eccentric, bearded and bespectacled, anthropology is not a science of the exotic carried on by quaint scholars in ivory towers. Rather, anthropology has a lot to tell the public. Anthropology’s foremost professional organization, the American Anthropological Association (AAA), has

12 Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology?

formally acknowledged a public service role by recognizing that anthropology has two dimensions: (1) academic anthropology and (2) practicing, or applied, anthropology. The latter refers to the application of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems. As American an- thropologist Erve Chambers (1987) has stated, applied anthropology is “concerned with the relationships between anthropological knowledge and the uses of that knowledge in the world beyond anthropology” (p. 309). More and more anthropologists from the four subfields now work in “applied” areas such as public health, family planning, business, market research, economic development, and cultural resource management.

Because of anthropology’s breadth, applied anthropology has many applications. For example, applied medical anthropologists consider both the sociocultural and the bio- logical contexts and implications of disease and illness. Perceptions of good and bad health, along with actual health threats and problems, differ among societies. Various ethnic groups recognize different illnesses, symptoms, and causes and have developed different health care systems and treatment strategies.

Applied archaeology, usually called public archaeology, includes such activities as cultural resource management, public educational programs, and historic preserva- tion. Legislation requiring evaluation of sites threatened by dams, highways, and other construction activities has created an important role for public archaeology. To decide what needs saving, and to preserve significant information about the past when sites

Applied anthropology in action. Professor Robin Nagle of New York University is also an anthropologist-in-residence at New York City’s Department of Sanitation. Nagle studies curbside garbage as a mirror into the lives of New Yorkers. Here she accompanies sanitation worker Joe Damiano during his morning rounds in August 2015. ©Richard Drew/AP Images

Anthropology and Other Academic Fields 13

cannot be saved, is the work of cultural resource management (CRM). CRM in- volves not only preserving sites but also allowing their destruction if they are not significant. The management part of the term refers to the evaluation and decision- making process. Cultural resource managers work for federal, state, and county agen- cies and other clients. Applied cultural anthropologists sometimes work with public archaeologists, assessing the human problems generated by the proposed change and determining how they can be reduced. Table 1.3 relates anthropology’s four subfields to its two dimensions.

Anthropology and Other Academic Fields

As mentioned previously, one of the main differences between anthropology and the other fields that study people is holism, anthropology’s unique blend of biological, social, cultural, linguistic, historical, and contemporary perspectives. Paradoxically, while distinguishing anthropology, this breadth is what also links it to many other dis- ciplines. Techniques used to date fossils and artifacts have come to anthropology from physics, chemistry, and geology. Because plant and animal remains often are found with human bones and artifacts, anthropologists collaborate with botanists, zoologists, and paleontologists.

A Humanistic Science As a discipline that is both scientific and humanistic, anthropology has links with many other academic fields. Anthropology is a science—a “systematic field of study or body of knowledge that aims, through experiment, observation, and deduction, to produce reliable explanations of phenomena, with references to the material and physical world” (Webster’s New World Encyclopedia 1993. College Edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. p.937. Copyright © 1993). The chapters that follow present anthropology as a humanistic science devoted to discovering, describing, understanding, and explain- ing similarities and differences in time and space among humans and our ancestors. Clyde Kluckhohn (1944) described anthropology as “the science of human similarities and differences” (p. 9). His statement of the need for such a field still stands: “ Anthropology provides a scientific basis for dealing with the crucial dilemma of the world today: how can peoples of different appearance, mutually unintelligible languages, and dissimilar ways of life get along peaceably together?” (p. 9). Anthropology has compiled an impressive body of knowledge, which this textbook attempts to encapsulate.

TABLE 1.3 The Four Subfields and Two Dimensions of Anthropology

Anthropology’s Subfields Examples of Application (General Anthropology) (Applied Anthropology)

Cultural anthropology Development anthropology Anthropological archaeology Cultural resource management (CRM) Biological anthropology Forensic anthropology Linguistic anthropology Study of linguistic diversity in classrooms

14 Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology?

Besides its links to the natural sciences (e.g., geology, zoology) and social sciences (e.g., sociology, psychology), anthropology also has strong links to the humanities. The humanities include English, comparative literature, classics, folklore, philosophy, and the arts. These fields study languages, texts, philosophies, arts, music, performances, and other forms of creative expression. Ethnomusicology, which studies forms of musi- cal expression on a worldwide basis, is especially closely related to anthropology. Also linked is folklore, the systematic study of tales, myths, and legends from a variety of cultures. One might well argue that anthropology is among the most humanistic of all academic fields because of its fundamental respect for human diversity. Anthropologists listen to, record, and represent voices from a multitude of nations and cultures. Anthropology values local knowledge, diverse worldviews, and alternative philosophies. Cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology in particular bring a comparative and nonelitist perspective to forms of creative expression, including language, art, narratives, music, and dance, viewed in their social and cultural context.

Cultural Anthropology and Sociology Students often ask about how anthropology differs from sociology, which is probably the discipline that is closest to anthropology, specifically to sociocultural anthropology. Like anthropologists, particularly cultural anthropologists, sociologists study society— consisting of human social behavior, social relations, and social organization. Key dif- ferences between sociology and anthropology reflect the kinds of societies traditionally studied by each discipline. Sociologists typically have studied contemporary Western, industrial societies. Anthropologists, by contrast, have focused on nonindustrial and non-Western societies. Sociologists and anthropologists developed different methods to study these different kinds of society. To study contemporary Western societies, which tend to be large-scale, complex nations, sociologists have relied on surveys and other means of gathering quantifiable data. Sociologists must use sampling and statistical techniques to collect and analyze such data, and statistical training has been fundamen- tal in sociology. Working in much smaller societies, such as a village, anthropologists can get to know almost everyone and have less need for sampling and statistics. How- ever, because anthropologists today are working increasingly in modern nations, use of sampling and statistics is becoming more common.

Traditionally, ethnographers studied small and nonliterate (without writing) popula- tions and developed methods appropriate to that context. An ethnographer participates directly in the daily life of another culture and must be an attentive, detailed observer of what people do and say. The focus is on a real, living population, not just a sample of a population. During ethnographic fieldwork, the anthropologist takes part in the events she or he is observing, describing, and analyzing. Anthropology, we might say, is more personal and less formal than sociology.

In today’s interconnected world, however, the interests and methods of anthropology and sociology are converging—coming together—because they are studying some of the same topics and areas. For example, many sociologists now work in non-Western countries, smaller communities, and other settings that used to be mainly within the anthropological orbit. As industrialization and urbanization have spread across the globe, anthropologists now work increasingly in industrial nations and cities, rather than

Anthropology and Other Academic Fields 15

Anthropology Today School of Hope

A school is one kind of community in which culture is transmitted—a process known as enculturation. A boarding school where students reside for several years is fully comparable as a enculturative setting to a village or other local community. You’ve all heard of Hogwarts. Although fic- tional, is it not a setting in which encultura- tion takes place? Often, schools serve as intermediaries between one cultural tradition and an- other. As students are exposed to outsid- ers, they inevitably change. In today’s world, opportunities to become bilingual and bicultural—that is, to learn more than one language and to participate in more than one cultural tradition—are greater than ever before. The Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) is a boarding school in Bhubaneswar, India, whose mission is to instill in indige- nous students a “capacity to aspire” to a better life (Finnan 2016). KISS is the world’s

largest residential school for tribal chil- dren. Located in Odisha, one of India’s poorest states, KISS supports 25,000 stu- dents from first grade through graduate training. Its students represent 62 of In- dia’s tribal groups. Children as young as age 6 travel to KISS by bus or train, some- times from hundreds of miles away. They leave their families for up to 10 months at a time, returning to their villages only during the summer. During six months of research at KISS in 2014–2015, anthropologist Christine Finnan gathered stories and personal ac- counts about the school and its effects. Working with three Indian research part- ners, she interviewed 160 people: stu- dents, former students, parents, staff, teachers, administrators, and visitors. Her team observed classes, meals, celebra- tions, and athletic competitions. They also visited several tribal villages to find out why parents send their children so far

KISS students at an assembly for visiting foreign dignitaries. KISS officials use such events not only to showcase the school to visitors, but also to help build solidarity among students. Courtesy of Christine Finnan

continued

16 Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology?

Anthropology Today continued

inevitable. Students will adopt new beliefs, values, and behaviors, and they will learn Odia, the state language used at KISS. They will become bilingual and bicultural. When Finnan began her research, she was aware of the now-notorious boarding schools for indigenous students that were established during the 19th and 20th cen- turies in the United States and Australia. Native American and Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families, required to speak English and accept Christianity, and taught that their native cultures were inferior. The educational style was authoritarian, and its goal was forced assimilation. Finnan found KISS’s positive educational philosophy and respect for indigenous cultures to be very different from those archaic institutions. To fully evaluate KISS’s success in meeting its goals, we would need reliable data—currently unavailable—on job place- ments, academic achievement levels, and dropout rates. Finnan (2016) does note that pass rates for KISS students on state- mandated tests are higher than the state average and considerably higher than averages for tribal children. KISS also can point to a series of successful scholars, ambassadors, and athletes among its graduates. Each year, 5 percent of its graduating class is admitted tuition-free to KIIT. At that highly selective university, students can study engineering, medicine, and law, among other subjects. This chapter examined the difference between applied and academic anthropol- ogy. Think about whether Finnan’s research was academic or applied, and whether there is a sharp distinction be- tween these two dimensions of anthropol- ogy. Even if Finnan did not intend her work to be applied anthropology, her findings certainly suggest educational lessons that can be applied beyond this case. What are some of those lessons?

away to school. Finnan wanted to deter- mine what children gained and lost from growing up at KISS. (For a fuller account of the research described here, see Finnan 2016 at www.sapiens.org).  Acceptance to KISS is based on need, so that the poorest of the poor are chosen to attend. The school offers cost-free room and board, classes, medical care, and vocational and athletic training to all its students. The value system at KISS en- courages responsibility, orderliness, and respect. Children learn those behaviors not only from KISS employees, but also from each other—especially from older students. Students are repeatedly re- minded that they are special, that they can rise out of poverty and become change agents for their communities. Many stu- dents hope to return to their villages as teachers, doctors, or nurses. KISS receives no government support. Most of its funding comes from its profit- able sister institution, the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), a respected private university. By targeting indigenous children, KISS meets an educational need that is unmet by the government. In India’s tribal villages, the presence of teachers is unreliable, even when there are village schools. At KISS, in sharp contrast, teach- ers don’t just instruct; they also serve in loco parentis, living in the dormitories or in nearby housing, and viewing many of their students as family members. During her fieldwork, Finnan found atti- tudes about KISS among all parties to be overwhelmingly positive. Students con- trasted their KISS education with the poor quality of their village schools. Teachers mentioned their shared commitment to pov- erty reduction. Parents were eager for their children to be admitted. Although KISS en- courages students to take pride in their native language and culture, both students and parents understand that change is

Summary 17

villages. Among the many topics studied by contemporary cultural anthropologists are rural-urban and transnational (from one country to another) migration, urban adapta- tion, inner-city life, ethnic diversity and conflict, crime, and warfare. Anthropologists today may be as likely as sociologists are to study issues of globalization and inequality.

Summary 1. Anthropology is the holistic, biocultural, and comparative study of humanity. It is

the systematic exploration of human biological and cultural diversity across time and space. Examining the origins of, and changes in, human biology and culture, anthropology provides explanations for similarities and differences among humans and their societies.

2. The four subfields of general anthropology are (socio)cultural anthropology, anthropological archaeology, biological anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. All consider variation in time and space. Each also examines adaptation—the pro- cess by which organisms cope with environmental stresses. Anthropology’s biocul- tural perspective is a particularly effective way of approaching interrelations between biology and culture. Cultural forces mold human biology, including our body types and images.

3. Cultural anthropology explores the cultural diversity of the present and the recent past. Archaeology reconstructs cultural patterns, often of prehistoric populations. Biological anthropology documents diversity involving fossils, genetics, growth and development, bodily responses, and nonhuman primates. Linguistic anthropol- ogy considers diversity among languages. It also studies how speech changes in social situations and over time. Anthropology has two dimensions: academic and applied. Applied anthropology is the use of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems.

4. Concerns with biology, society, culture, and language link anthropology to many other fields—sciences and humanities. Sociologists traditionally study Western, industrial societies, whereas anthropologists have focused on rural, nonindustrial peoples.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. If, as Franz Boas illustrated early on in American anthropology, cultures are not

isolated, how can ethnography provide an account of a particular community, soci- ety, or culture? Note: There is no easy answer to this question! Anthropologists continue to deal with it as they define their research questions and projects.

2. The American Anthropological Association has formally acknowledged a public ser- vice role by recognizing that anthropology has two dimensions: (1) academic anthro- pology and (2) practicing, or applied, anthropology. What is applied anthropology? Based on your reading of this chapter, identify examples from current events where an anthropologist could help identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems.

18 Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology?

Key Terms adaptation, 3 anthropological

archaeology, 8 anthropology, 2 applied

anthropology, 12 biocultural, 4 biological

anthropology, 10

general anthropology, 6

holistic, 2 linguistic

anthropology, 11 science, 13 society, 2 sociolinguistics, 11

cultural anthropology, 7

cultural resource management (CRM), 13

culture, 2 ethnography, 7 ethnology, 8 food production, 4

19

Chapter 2 Culture

What Is Culture? Culture Is Learned Culture Is Symbolic Culture Is Shared Culture and Nature Culture Is All-Encompassing and Integrated Culture Is Instrumental, Adaptive, and Maladaptive

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis What We Share with Other Primates How We Differ from Other Primates

Universality, Generality, and Particularity Universals and Generalities Particularity: Patterns of Culture

Culture and the Individual

Levels of Culture

Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and Human Rights

Mechanisms of Cultural Change

Globalization

Anthropology Today: Preserving Cultural Heritage

What Is Culture?

In Chapter 1 we saw that humans share society, organized life in groups, with social animals, such as apes, monkeys, wolves, and ants. Although other animals, especially apes, have rudimentary cultural abilities, only humans have fully elaborated cultures— distinctive traditions and customs transmitted over the generations through learning and through language.

The concept of culture has long been basic to anthropology. Well over a century ago, in his book Primitive Culture, the British anthropologist Edward Tylor proposed that cultures, systems of human behavior and thought, obey natural laws and therefore can be studied scientifically. Tylor’s definition of culture still offers an overview of the sub- ject matter of anthropology, and it is widely quoted.

“Culture . . . is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor 1871/1958, p. 1). The crucial phrase here is “acquired . . . as a member

20 Chapter 2 Culture

of society.” Tylor’s definition focuses on attributes that people acquire not through biological inheritance but by growing up in a particular society in which they are ex- posed to a specific cultural tradition. Enculturation is the process by which a child learns his or her culture.

Culture Is Learned The ease with which children absorb any cultural tradition rests on the uniquely elabo- rated human capacity to learn. Other animals may learn from experience, so that, for example, they avoid fire after discovering that it hurts. Social animals also learn from other members of their group. Wolves, for example, learn hunting strategies from other pack members. Such social learning is particularly important among monkeys and apes, our closest biological relatives. But our own cultural learning depends on the uniquely developed human capacity to use symbols, signs that have no necessary or natural con- nection to the things they stand for, or signify.

Through cultural learning, people create, remember, and deal with ideas. They un- derstand and apply specific systems of symbolic meaning. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973) described cultures as sets of “control mechanisms—plans, recipes, rules, instructions” and likens them to computer programs that govern human behavior (p. 44). During enculturation, people gradually absorb and internalize their particular culture— a previously established system of meanings and symbols that helps guide their behav- ior and perceptions throughout their lives. 

Every person begins immediately, through a process of conscious and unconscious learning and interaction with others, to internalize, or incorporate, a cultural tradition through the process of enculturation. Sometimes culture is taught directly, as when par- ents tell their children to say “thank you” when someone gives them something or does them a favor.

We also acquire culture through observation. Children pay attention to the things that go on around them. They modify their behavior not just because other people tell them to do so, but also because of their own observations and growing aware- ness of what their culture considers right and wrong. Many aspects of culture are absorbed unconsciously. North Americans acquire their culture’s notions about how far apart people should stand when they talk, not by being told directly to maintain a certain distance but through a gradual process of observation, experience, and conscious and unconscious behavior modification. No one tells Brazilians or Italians to stand closer together than North Americans do; they learn to do so as part of their cultural tradition.

Culture Is Symbolic Symbolic thought is unique and crucial to humans and to cultural learning. A symbol is something verbal or nonverbal, within a particular language or culture, that comes to stand for something else. There need be no obvious, natural, or necessary connection between a symbol and the thing that it symbolizes. The familiar pet that barks is no more naturally a dog than it is a chien, Hund, or mbwa, the words for “dog” in French,

What Is Culture? 21

German, and Swahili, respectively. Language is one of the distinctive possessions of Homo sapiens. No other animal has developed anything approaching the complexity of language, with its multitude of symbols.

There also is a rich array of nonverbal symbols. Flags, for example, stand for various countries, as arches do for a hamburger chain. Holy water is a potent symbol in Roman Catholicism. As is true of all symbols, the association between water and what it stands for (holiness) is arbitrary and conventional. Water probably is not intrinsically holier than milk, blood, or other natural liquids. Nor is holy water chemically different from ordinary water. Holy water is a symbol within Roman Catholicism, which is part of an international cultural system. A natural thing has been associated arbitrarily with a par- ticular meaning for Catholics, who share beliefs and experiences that are based on learn- ing and transmitted across the generations.  Our cultures immerse us in a world of symbols that are both linguistic and nonverbal. Particular items and brands of clothing, such as jeans, shirts, or shoes, can acquire symbolic meanings, as can our gestures, pos- ture, and body decoration and ornamentation.

All humans possess the abilities on which culture rests—the abilities to learn, to think symbolically, to manipulate language, and to use tools and other cultural prod- ucts in organizing their lives and coping with their environments. Every contempo- rary human population has the ability to use symbols and thus to create and maintain culture. Our nearest relatives—chimpanzees and gorillas—have rudimentary cultural abilities. However, no other animal has elaborated cultural abilities to the extent that Homo has.

Culture Is Shared Culture is an attribute not of individuals per se but of individuals as members of groups. Culture is transmitted in society. We learn our culture by observing, listening, talking, and interacting with many other people. Shared beliefs, values, memories, and expecta- tions link people who grow up in the same culture. Enculturation unifies people by providing us with common experiences. Today’s parents were yesterday’s children. If they grew up in North America, they absorbed certain values and beliefs transmitted over the generations. People become agents in the enculturation of their children, just as their parents were for them. Although a culture constantly changes, certain fundamental beliefs, values, worldviews, and child-rearing practices endure. One example of endur- ing shared enculturation is the American emphasis on self-reliance and independent achievement.

Despite characteristic American notions that people should “make up their own minds” and “have a right to their opinion,” little of what we think is original or unique. We share our opinions and beliefs with many other people—nowadays not just in person but also via new media. Think about how often (and with whom) you share information or an opinion via texting, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Illustrating the power of shared cultural background, we are most likely to agree with and feel comfortable with people who are socially, economically, and culturally similar to ourselves. This is one reason Americans abroad tend to socialize with each other, just as French and British colonials did in their overseas empires. Birds of a feather flock together, but for people, the familiar plumage is culture.

22 Chapter 2 Culture

Culture and Nature Culture takes the natural biological urges we share with other animals and teaches us how to express them in particular ways. People have to eat, but culture teaches us what, when, and how. In many cultures, people have their main meal at noon, but most North Americans prefer a large dinner. English people eat fish (e.g., kippers—kippered herring) for break- fast, but North Americans prefer hot cakes and cold cereals. Brazilians put hot milk into strong coffee, whereas many North Americans pour cold milk into a weaker brew. Midwesterners dine at 5 or 6, Spaniards at 10.

Cultural habits, perceptions, and inventions mold “human nature” into many forms. People have to eliminate wastes from their bodies. But some cultures teach people to defecate standing, while others tell them to do it sitting down. Peasant women in the Andean highlands squat in the streets and urinate, getting all the privacy they need from their massive skirts. All these habits are parts of cultural traditions that have converted natural acts into cultural customs.

Culture influences how we perceive nature, human nature, and “the natural,” and cultural advances have overcome many “natural” limitations. We can prevent and cure diseases, such as polio and smallpox, that felled our ancestors. We can use pills to en- hance or restore sexual potency. Through cloning, scientists have challenged the way we think about biological identity and the meaning of life itself. Culture, of course, does not always protect us. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and other natural forces regularly thwart our efforts to modify the environment through building, development, and expansion.

Culture Is All-Encompassing and Integrated For anthropologists, culture includes much more than refinement, good taste, sophisti- cation, education, and appreciation of the fine arts. Not only college graduates but all people are “cultured.” The most interesting and significant cultural forces are those that affect people every day of their lives, particularly those that influence children during enculturation.

Culture, as defined anthropologically, encompasses features that sometimes are con- sidered trivial or unworthy of serious study, such as those of “popular” culture. To un- derstand contemporary North American culture, we must consider holidays, mass media, the Internet, fast-food restaurants, sports, and games. As a cultural manifestation, a rock star may be as interesting as a symphony conductor (or vice versa); a comic book may be as significant as a book-award winner.

The term popular culture encompasses aspects of culture that have meaning for many or most people within the same national culture. American examples include July 4th, Halloween, Thanksgiving, football, homecoming dances, dinner-and-a- movie dates, and retirement parties. Although popular culture is available to us all, we use it selectively, and its meaning varies from one person to the next. For example, the World Cup, the Super Bowl, Taylor Swift, Star Wars, and The Simpsons mean some- thing different to each of their fans. All of us creatively consume and interpret print media, music, television, films, theme parks, celebrities, politicians, and other popular culture products.

What Is Culture? 23

Cultures are not haphazard collections of customs and beliefs. Cultures are inte- grated, patterned systems. If one part of the system (e.g., the economy) changes, other parts also change. For example, during the 1950s, most American women planned domestic careers as homemakers and mothers. Since then, an increasing number of American women, including wives and mothers, have entered the workforce. Only 32 percent of married American women worked outside the home in 1960, compared to about 60 percent today.

What are some of the social repercussions of this particular economic change? Atti- tudes and behavior regarding marriage, family, and children have changed. Late mar- riage, “living together,” and divorce have become more common. Work competes with marriage and family responsibilities and reduces the time available to invest in child care.

Cultures are integrated not simply by their dominant economic activities and related social patterns but also by sets of values, ideas, symbols, and judgments. Cultures train their individual members to share certain personality traits. A set of characteristic core values (key, basic, central values) integrates each culture and helps distinguish it from others. For instance, the work ethic and individualism are core values that have inte- grated American culture for generations. Different sets of dominant values influence the patterns of other cultures.

Culture Is Instrumental, Adaptive, and Maladaptive Culture is the main reason for human adaptability and success. Other animals rely on biological means of adaptation (such as fur or blubber, which are adaptations to cold). Humans also adapt biologically—for example, by shivering when we get cold or sweating when we get hot. But in addition to biological responses, people also have cultural ways of adapting. To cope with environmental stresses, we habitually use technology, or tools. We hunt cold-adapted animals and use their fur coats as our own. We turn the thermostat up in the winter and down in the summer. In summer, we have a cold drink, jump in a pool, or travel to someplace cooler. In winter we have hot chocolate, seek out a sauna, or vacation in warmer climates. People use culture instru- mentally, that is, to fulfill their basic biological needs for food, drink, shelter, comfort, and reproduction.

People also use culture to fulfill psychological and emotional needs, such as friendship, companionship, approval, and sexual desirability. People seek informal support—help from people who care about them—as well as formal support from associations and institutions. To these ends, individuals cultivate ties with others on the basis of common experiences, political interests, aesthetic sensibilities, or per- sonal attraction.

On one level, cultural traits (e.g., air conditioning) may be called adaptive if they help individuals cope with environmental stresses. But on a different level, such traits can also be maladaptive. That is, they may threaten a group’s continued existence. Thus, chlorofluorocarbons (e.g., as found in old air conditioners) have been banned in the United States because they deplete the ozone layer and, by doing so, can harm humans and other life. Many modern cultural patterns may be maladaptive in the long run. Some examples of maladaptive aspects of culture are policies that encourage overpopulation, poor food-distribution systems, overconsumption, and environmental degradation.

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Cultures are integrated systems. When one behavior pattern changes, others also change. During the 1950s, most American women expected to have careers as wives, mothers, and domestic managers. As more and more women have entered the workforce, attitudes toward work and family have changed. In the earlier photo, a 1950s mom and kids do the dishes. In the recent photo, a doctor and two nurses examine a patient’s record. Will their work day end when they get home? (top): ©William Gottlieb/Corbis; (bottom): ©Tom Tracy Photography/Alamy Stock Photo

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis 25

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis

The human capacity for culture has an evolutionary basis that extends back perhaps 3 million years, the date of the earliest evidence of tool manufacture in the archaeologi- cal record. Tool making by our distant ancestors may extend even farther back, based on observations of tool manufacture by chimpanzees in their natural habitats (Mercader, Panger, and Boesch 2002).

Similarities between humans and apes, our closest relatives, are evident in anat- omy, brain structure, genetics, and biochemistry. Most closely related to us are the African great apes: chimpanzees and gorillas. Hominidae is the zoological family that includes fossil and living humans, as well as chimps and gorillas. We refer to mem- bers of this family as hominids. The term hominins is used for the group that leads to humans but not to chimps and gorillas and that encompasses all the human species that ever have existed.

Many human traits are part of an ancestral arboreal heritage that we share with mon- keys and apes. These traits developed as our ancestors adapted to life in the trees mil- lions of years ago. They include (1) grasping ability and manual dexterity (especially opposable thumbs), (2) depth and color vision, (3) learning ability based on a large, vi- sually oriented, brain, and (4) substantial parental  investment in a limited number of offspring (see the section “Primate Adaptations” in Chapter 5). All these traits continue to be key features of human adaptation. Manual dexterity, for example, is essential to a major human adaptive capacity: tool making. 

What We Share with Other Primates There is a substantial gap between primate society (organized life in groups) and fully developed human culture, which is based on symbolic thought. Nevertheless, studies of nonhuman primates reveal many similarities with humans, such as the ability to learn from experience and change behavior as a result. Monkeys, and especially apes, learn throughout their lives (see Choi 2011). In one group of Japanese macaques (land-dwelling monkeys), for example, a 3-year-old female started washing sweet potatoes before she ate them. First her mother, then her age peers, and finally the en- tire troop began washing sweet potatoes as well. The ability to benefit from experi- ence confers a tremendous adaptive advantage, permitting the avoidance of fatal mistakes. Faced with environmental change, humans and other primates don’t have to wait for a genetic or physiological response. They can modify learned behavior and social patterns instead.

Although humans employ tools much more than any other animal does, tool use also turns up among several nonhuman species, including birds, beavers, sea otters, and es- pecially apes (see Campbell 2011). Humans are not the only animals that make tools with a specific purpose in mind. Chimpanzees living in the Taï forest of Ivory Coast make and use stone tools to break open hard, golf-ball-sized nuts (Mercader et al. 2002; Wilford 2007b). Nut cracking is a learned skill, with mothers showing their young how to do it. In 1960, Jane Goodall began observing wild chimps—including their tool use and hunting behavior—at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, East Africa (see

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Goodall 2010). The most studied form of ape tool making involves “termiting,” in which chimps make tools to probe termite hills. They choose twigs, which they modify by re- moving leaves and peeling off bark to expose the sticky surface beneath. They carry the twigs to termite hills, dig holes with their fingers, and insert the twigs. Finally, they pull out the twigs and dine on termites that were attracted to the sticky surface. Given what is known about ape tool use and manufacture, it is almost certain that early hominins shared this ability, although the first evidence for hominin stone tool making dates back only 2.6 million years. In addition, bipedalism (moving around upright on two legs) would have permitted the carrying and use of tools and weapons against predators and competitors in an open grassland habitat.

The apes have other abilities essential to culture. Wild chimpanzees and orang- utans aim and throw objects. Gorillas build nests, and they throw branches, grass, vines, and other objects. Hominins have elaborated the capacity to aim and throw, without which we never would have developed projectile technology and weaponry— or baseball.

As with tool making, anthropologists used to regard hunting as a distinctive human activity not shared with the apes. Again, however, primate research shows that other primates, especially chimpanzees, are habitual hunters. For example, in Uganda’s Kibale National Park, chimps form large hunting parties, including an average of 26 individuals

Different forms of tool use by chimps. Top photo shows a Liberian chimp using a hammer stone to crack palm nuts. The bottom photo shows chimps using prepared twigs to “fish” for termites from an ant hill. (top): ©Clive Bromhall/Oxford Scientific/Getty Images; (bottom): ©Stan Osolinski/Oxford Scientific/ Getty Images

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis 27

(almost always adult and adolescent males). Most hunts (78 percent) result in at least one prey item being caught—a much higher success rate than that among lions (26 percent), hyenas (34 percent), or cheetahs (30 percent). Chimps’ favored prey there is the red colo- bus monkey (Mitani and Watts 1999).

It is likely that human ancestors were doing some hunting by at least 3 million years ago, based on the existence of early stone tools designed to cut meat. Given our current understanding of chimp tool making and hunting, we can infer that hominids may have been hunting much earlier than the first archaeological evidence attests. Because chimps typically devour the monkeys they kill, leaving few remains, we may never find archaeological evidence for the first hominin hunt, especially if it proceeded without stone tools.

How We Differ from Other Primates Although chimps often share meat from a hunt, apes and monkeys (except for nurs- ing infants) tend to feed themselves individually. Cooperation and sharing are much more characteristic of humans. Until fairly recently (12,000 to 10,000 years ago), all humans were hunter-gatherers who lived in small social groups called bands. In some world areas, the hunter-gatherer way of life persisted into recent times, per- mitting study by ethnographers. In such societies, men and women take resources back to the camp and share them. Everyone shares the meat from a large animal. Nourished and protected by younger band members, elders live past reproductive age and are respected for their knowledge and experience. Humans are among the most cooperative of the primates—in the food quest and other social activities. As well, the amount of information stored in a human band is far greater than that in any other primate group.

Another difference between humans and other primates involves mating. Among baboons and chimps, most mating occurs when females enter estrus, during which they ovulate. In estrus, the vaginal area swells and reddens, and receptive females form tem- porary bonds with, and mate with, males. Human females, by contrast, lack a visible estrus cycle, and their ovulation is concealed. Not knowing when ovulation is occurring, humans maximize their reproductive success by mating throughout the year. Human pair bonds for mating are more exclusive and more durable than are those of chimps. Related to our more constant sexuality, all human societies have some form of marriage. Marriage gives mating a reliable basis and grants to each spouse special, though not always exclusive, sexual rights in the other.

Marriage creates another major contrast between humans and other primates: exog- amy and kinship systems. Most cultures have rules of exogamy requiring marriage out- side one’s kin or local group. Exogamy confers adaptive advantages because it creates ties between the spouses’ different kin groups. Their children have relatives, and there- fore allies, in two kin groups rather than just one. Such ties of affection and mutual sup- port between members of different local groups tend to be absent among primates other than Homo. Other primates tend to disperse at adolescence. Among chimps and gorillas, females tend to migrate, seeking mates in other groups. Humans also choose mates from outside the natal group, and usually at least one spouse moves. However, humans main- tain lifelong ties with sons and daughters. The systems of kinship and marriage that

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preserve these links provide a major contrast between humans and other primates (see Chapais 2008; Hill et al. 2011). Table 2.1 lists differences in the cultural abilities of humans and chimpanzees, our nearest relatives.

Universality, Generality, and Particularity

Anthropologists agree that cultural learning is uniquely elaborated among humans and that all humans have culture. Anthropologists also agree that although individuals differ in their emotional and intellectual tendencies and capacities, all human populations have equivalent capacities for culture. Regardless of their genes or their physical appear- ance, people can learn any cultural tradition. To understand this point, consider that contemporary North Americans are the genetically mixed descendants of people from all over the world. Our ancestors were biologically varied, lived in different countries and continents, and participated in hundreds of cultural traditions. However, successive waves of immigrants and their descendants now share a national culture.

In studying human diversity in time and space, anthropologists distinguish among the universal, the generalized, and the particular. Certain biological, psychological, social, and cultural features are universal, found in every culture. Others are merely generalities, common to several but not all human groups. Still other traits are particularities, unique to certain cultural traditions.

Universals and Generalities Biologically based universals include a long period of infant dependency; year-round (rather than seasonal) sexuality; and a complex brain that enables us to use symbols, languages, and tools. Among the social universals is life in groups and in some kind of family. Generalities occur in certain times and places but not in all cultures. They may

TABLE 2.1 Cultural Features of Chimpanzees (Rudimentary) and Humans (Fully Developed)

Chimpanzees Humans

Cultural learning Rudimentary Fully developed Tool use Occasional Habitual Tool manufacture Occasional: hammer Habitual and sophisticated stones, termiting Aimed throwing Occasional objects, Projectile technology not tools Hunting Significant, but no tools Basic hominin subsistence strategy, with tools Food sharing Meat sharing after hunt Basic to human life Cooperation Occasional in hunting Basic to human life Mating and marriage Female estrus cycle, Year-round mating, limited pair bonds marriage, and exogamy Kin ties Limited by dispersal Maintained through at adolescence sons and daughters

Universality, Generality, and Particularity 29

be widespread, but they are not universal. One cultural generality that is present in many but not all societies is the nuclear family, a kinship group consisting of parents and chil- dren. Many middle-class Americans still view the “traditional” nuclear family, consist- ing of a married man and woman and their children, as a proper and “natural” group. This view persists despite the fact that nuclear families now comprise only 20 percent of contemporary American households. Cross-culturally, too, this kind of “traditional” family is far from universal. Consider the Nayars, who live on the Malabar Coast of India. Traditionally, the Nayars lived in female-headed households, and husbands and wives did not live together. In many other societies, the nuclear family is submerged in larger kin groups, such as extended families, lineages, and clans (see Chapter 13).

Societies can share beliefs and customs because of borrowing or (cultural) inheri- tance from a common cultural ancestor. Speaking English is a generality shared by North Americans and Australians because both countries had English settlers. Another reason for generalities is domination, as in colonial rule, when a more powerful nation imposes its customs and procedures on another group. In many countries, use of the English language reflects colonial history. More recently, English has spread through diffusion (cultural borrowing, either directly or through intermediaries) to many other countries, as it has become the world’s foremost language for business and travel.

Particularity: Patterns of Culture A cultural particularity is a trait or feature of culture that is not generalized or wide- spread; rather, it is confined to a single place, culture, or society. Yet because of cultural borrowing, which has accelerated through modern transportation and communication systems, traits that once were limited in their distribution have become more wide- spread. Traits that are useful, that have the capacity to please large audiences, and that don’t clash with the cultural values of potential adopters are more likely to be borrowed than are others. Nevertheless, certain cultural particularities persist—for example, foods such as the pork barbecue with a mustard-based sauce available only in South Carolina and the “pasty,” beef stew baked in pie dough, characteristic of Michigan’s Upper Pen- insula. Besides diffusion (which, for example, has spread McDonald’s food outlets, once confined to San Bernadino, California, across the globe), there are other reasons that cultural particularities are increasingly rare. Many cultural traits are shared as cul- tural universals and as a result of independent invention. Facing similar problems, peo- ple in different places have come up with similar solutions. Again and again, similar cultural causes have produced similar cultural results.

At the level of the individual cultural trait or element (e.g., bow and arrow, hot dog, Netflix), particularities may be getting rarer. But at a higher level, particularity is more obvious. Different cultures emphasize different things. Cultures are integrated and patterned differently and display tremendous variation and diversity. When cultural traits are borrowed, they are modified to fit the culture that adopts them. They are reintegrated—patterned anew—to fit their new setting. Patterned beliefs, customs, and practices lend distinctiveness to particular cultural traditions.

Consider the universal life-cycle events, such as birth, puberty, marriage, parent- hood, and death, that many cultures observe and celebrate. The occasions (e.g., mar- riage, death) may be the same and universal, but the patterns of ceremonial observance

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may be dramatically different. Cultures vary in just which events merit special celebra- tion. Americans, for example, regard expensive weddings as more socially appropriate than lavish funerals. The Betsileo of Madagascar take the opposite view. The marriage ceremony is a minor event that brings together just the couple and a few close relatives. However, a funeral is a measure of the deceased person’s social position and lifetime achievement, and it may attract a thousand people. Why use money on a house, the Betsileo say, when one can use it on the tomb where one will spend eternity in the company of dead relatives? Cremation, an increasingly common option in the United States, would horrify the Betsileo, for whom ancestral bones and relics are important ritual objects (see Sack 2011).

Cultures vary tremendously in their beliefs, practices, integration, and patterning. By focusing on and trying to explain alternative customs, anthropology forces us to reap- praise our familiar ways of thinking. In a world full of cultural diversity, contemporary American culture is just one cultural variant, more powerful perhaps but no more natu- ral than the others.

Culture and the Individual

Generations of anthropologists have theorized about the relationship between the “sys- tem” on one hand and the “person” or “individual” on the other. System can refer to various concepts, including culture, society, social relations, or social structure. Indi- vidual human beings always make up, or constitute, the system. Within that system, however, humans also are constrained (to some extent, at least) by its rules and by the actions of other individuals. Cultural rules provide guidance about what to do and how to do it, but people don’t always do what the rules say should be done. People use their culture actively and creatively, rather than blindly following its dictates (see Handwerker 2009). Cultures are dynamic and constantly changing. People learn, inter- pret, and manipulate the same rule in different ways—or they emphasize different rules that better suit their interests. Culture is contested: Different groups in society struggle with one another over whose ideas, values, goals, and beliefs will prevail. Even common symbols may have radically different meanings to different individuals and groups in the same culture. Golden arches may cause one person to salivate, while someone else plots a vegetarian protest. Different people may wave the same flag to support or oppose a particular war or political candidate.

Even when they agree about what should be done, people don’t always do as their culture directs or as other people expect. Many rules are violated, some very often (e.g., automobile speed limits). Some anthropologists find it useful to distinguish between ideal and real culture. The ideal culture consists of what people say they should do and what they say they do. Real culture refers to their actual behavior as observed by the anthropologist.

Culture is both public and individual, both in the world and in people’s heads. Anthropologists are interested not only in public and collective behavior but also in how individuals think, feel, and act. The individual and culture are linked because human social life is a process in which individuals internalize the meanings of public

Levels of Culture 31

(i.e., cultural) messages. Then, alone and in groups, people influence culture by con- verting their private (and often divergent) understandings into public expressions (D’Andrade 1984).

Conventionally, culture has been seen as social glue transmitted across the genera- tions, binding people through their common past, rather than as something being con- tinually created and reworked in the present. The tendency to view culture as an entity rather than as a process is changing. Contemporary anthropologists now emphasize how day-to-day action, practice, or resistance can make and remake culture (Gupta and Ferguson 1997b). Agency refers to the actions that individuals take, both alone and in groups, in forming and transforming cultural identities.

The approach to culture known as practice theory (Ortner 1984) recognizes that in- dividuals within a society or culture have diverse motives and intentions and different degrees of power and influence. Such contrasts may be associated with gender, age, ethnicity, class, and other social variables. Practice theory focuses on how such varied individuals—through their ordinary and extraordinary actions and practices—manage to influence, create, and transform the world they live in. Practice theory appropriately recognizes a reciprocal relation between culture (the system) and the individual. The system shapes how individuals experience and respond to external events, but individu- als also play an active role in how society functions and changes. Practice theory recog- nizes both constraints on individuals and the flexibility and changeability of cultures and social systems.

Levels of Culture

Anthropologists also recognize cultural systems—levels of culture—that are larger and smaller than nation-states. National culture encompasses those beliefs, learned behav- ior patterns, values, and institutions that are shared by citizens of the same nation. International culture extends beyond and across national boundaries. Because culture is transmitted through learning rather than genetics, cultural traits can spread through borrowing, or diffusion, from one group to another.

Because of diffusion, migration, colonialism, and globalization, many cultural traits and patterns have acquired international scope. The contemporary United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia share cultural traits they have inherited from their common linguistic and cultural ancestors in Great Britain. Roman Catholics in many countries share beliefs, symbols, experiences, and values transmitted by their church. The World Cup has become an international cultural event, as people in many countries know the rules of, play, and follow soccer.

Cultures also can be smaller than nations. Although people who live in the same country share a national cultural tradition, all cultures also contain diversity. Individu- als, families, communities, regions, classes, and other groups within a culture have dif- ferent learning experiences, as well as shared ones. Subcultures are different symbol-based patterns and traditions associated with particular groups in the same complex society. In large or diverse nations such as the United States or Canada, a variety of subcultures originate in region, ethnicity, language, class, and religion. The religious

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backgrounds of Jews, Baptists, and Roman Catholics create subcultural differences among them. While sharing a national culture, U.S. northerners and southerners also differ in their beliefs, values, and customary behavior as a result of national and regional history. Italian Americans have ethnic traditions different from those of Irish, Polish, Hispanic, or African Americans.

Nowadays, many anthropologists are reluctant to use the term subculture. They feel that the prefix sub- is offensive because it means “below.” Subcultures thus may be perceived as “less than” or somehow inferior to a dominant, elite, or national culture. In this discussion of levels of culture, I intend no such implication. My point is simply that nations may con- tain many different culturally defined groups. As mentioned earlier, culture is contested. Various groups may strive to promote the correctness and value of their own practices, values, and beliefs in comparison with those of other groups or the nation as a whole.

Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and Human Rights

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view one’s own culture as superior and to apply one’s own cultural values in judging the behavior and beliefs of people raised in other cul- tures. We hear ethnocentric statements all the time. Ethnocentrism contributes to social solidarity, a sense of value and community, among people who share a cultural tradition. People everywhere think that the familiar explanations, opinions, and customs are true, right, proper, and moral. They regard different behavior as strange, immoral, or savage. Often other societies are not considered fully human. Their members may be castigated as cannibals, thieves, or people who do not bury their dead.

Opposing ethnocentrism is cultural relativism, the viewpoint that behavior in one culture should not be judged by the standards of another culture. This position also can present problems. At its most extreme, cultural relativism argues that there is no supe- rior, international, or universal morality, that the moral and ethical rules of all cultures deserve equal respect. In the extreme relativist view, Nazi Germany would be evaluated as nonjudgmentally as Athenian Greece.

In today’s world, human rights advocates challenge many of the tenets of cultural relativism. For example, several societies in Africa and the Middle East have traditions of female genital modification (FGM). Clitoridectomy is the removal of a girl’s clitoris. Infibulation involves sewing the lips (labia) of the vagina, to constrict the vaginal open- ing. Both procedures reduce female sexual pleasure and, it is believed in some cultures, the likelihood of adultery. Such practices have been opposed by human rights advocates, especially women’s rights groups. The idea is that the tradition infringes on a basic hu- man right—disposition over one’s body and one’s sexuality. Some African countries have banned or otherwise discouraged the procedures, as have Western nations that re- ceive immigration from such cultures. Similar issues arise with circumcision and other male genital operations. Is it proper to require adolescent boys to undergo collective circumcision to fulfill cultural tradition, as has been done in parts of Africa and Australia? Is it right to circumcise a baby boy without his permission, as has been done routinely in the United States and as is customary among Jews and Muslims?

Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and Human Rights 33

Some would argue that the problems with relativism can be solved by distinguishing between methodological and moral relativism (see Kellenberger 2008). In anthropology, cultural relativism is not a moral position but a methodological one. It states: To under- stand another culture fully, you must try to determine how the people in that culture see things. What motivates them—what are they thinking—when they do the things they do? Such an approach does not preclude making moral judgments or taking action. When faced with Nazi atrocities, a methodological relativist would have a moral obligation to stop doing anthropology and take action to intervene. In the FGM example, we can best understand the motivations for the practice by considering the perspective of those who engage in it. Having done this, one then faces the moral question of whether to intervene to stop it. We should recognize as well that different people and groups living in the same society—for example, women and men, old and young, the more and less powerful—can have widely different views about what is proper, necessary, and moral (see Hunt 2007).

The idea of human rights invokes a realm of justice and morality beyond and supe- rior to the laws and customs of particular countries, cultures, and religions (see Donnelly 2013). Human rights include the rights to speak freely; to hold religious beliefs without persecution; and not to be murdered, injured, or enslaved or imprisoned without charge.

Top: A Maori haka. Maori men dressed as warriors perform their traditional haka during a festival celebrating Maori heritage in January, 2016 in Auckland, New Zealand. Bottom: Illustrating cultural appropriation, members of New Zealand’s Kiwis rugby team enact their version of the haka prior to an October 2016 match against England. The notion of indigenous property rights states that any society has a fundamental right to preserve and manage its cultural base. Does the rugby team have the right to perform the haka? (top): ©Hannah Peters/Getty Images News/Getty Images; (bottom): ©Jan Kruger/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

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Such rights are seen as inalienable (nations cannot abridge or terminate them) and inter- national (larger than and superior to individual nations and cultures). Four United Na- tions documents describe nearly all the human rights that have been recognized internationally. Those documents are the U.N. Charter; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Alongside the human rights movement has arisen an awareness of the need to pre- serve cultural rights. Unlike human rights, cultural rights are vested not in individuals but in groups, such as religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous societies. Cultural rights include a group’s ability to preserve its culture, to raise its children in the ways of its forebears, to continue its language, and not to be deprived of its economic base by the nation in which it is located. The related notion of indigenous intellectual property rights (IPR) has arisen in an attempt to conserve each society’s cultural base—its core beliefs, knowledge, and practices. Much traditional cultural knowledge has commercial value. Examples include ethnomedicine (traditional medical knowledge and techniques), cosmetics, cultivated plants, foods, folklore, arts, crafts, songs, dances, costumes, and rituals. According to the IPR concept, a particular group may determine how indigenous knowledge and its products may be used and distributed and the level of compensation required. (This chapter’s “Anthropology Today” discusses the related concept of “cul- tural heritage.”)

The notion of cultural rights is related to the idea of cultural relativism, and the prob- lem discussed previously arises again. What does one do about cultural rights that inter- fere with human rights? I believe that anthropology’s main job is to present accurate accounts and explanations of cultural phenomena. The anthropologist doesn’t have to approve infanticide, cannibalism, or torture to record their existence and determine their causes and the motivations behind them. However, each anthropologist has a choice about where he or she will do fieldwork. Some anthropologists choose not to study a particular culture because they discover in advance or early in fieldwork that behavior they consider morally repugnant is practiced there. Anthropologists respect human di- versity. Most ethnographers try to be objective, accurate, and sensitive in their accounts of other cultures. However, objectivity, sensitivity, and a cross-cultural perspective don’t mean that anthropologists have to ignore international standards of justice and morality. What do you think?

Mechanisms of Cultural Change

Why and how do cultures change? One way is through diffusion, or borrowing, of traits between cultures. Such exchange of information and products has gone on throughout human history because cultures never have been truly isolated. Contact between neigh- boring groups has always existed and has extended over vast areas (Boas 1940/1966). Diffusion is direct when two cultures trade with, intermarry among, or wage war on one another. Diffusion is forced when one culture subjugates another and imposes its cus- toms on the dominated group. Diffusion is indirect when items or traits move from group A to group C via group B without any firsthand contact between A and C. In this

Globalization 35

case, group B might consist of traders or merchants who take products from a variety of places to new markets. Or group B might be geographically situated between A and C, so that what it gets from A eventually winds up in C, and vice versa. In today’s world, much international diffusion is indirect—culture spread by the mass media and ad- vanced information technology.

Acculturation, a second mechanism of cultural change, is the ongoing exchange of cultural features that results when groups have continuous firsthand contact. This con- tact may change the cultures of either or both groups, but each group remains distinct. In situations of acculturation, cultures have exchanged and blended foods, recipes, mu- sic, dances, clothing, tools, languages, and technologies.

One example of acculturation is a pidgin, a mixed language that develops to ease communication between members of different societies in contact. This usually happens in situations of trade or colonialism. Pidgin English, for example, is a simplified form of English that blends English grammar with the grammar of a native language. Pidgin English first developed to facilitate commerce in Chinese ports. Similar pidgins devel- oped later in Papua New Guinea and West Africa.

Independent invention—the process by which humans innovate, creatively finding solutions to problems—is a third mechanism of cultural change. Faced with comparable problems and challenges, people in different societies have innovated and changed in similar ways, which is one reason cultural generalities exist. One example is the inde- pendent invention of agriculture in the Middle East and Mexico. Often a major inven- tion, such as agriculture, triggers a series of subsequent, interrelated changes. Thus, in both Mexico and the Middle East, agriculture led to many social, political, and legal changes, including notions of property and distinctions in wealth, class, and power.

Globalization

The term globalization encompasses a series of processes that work transnationally to promote change in a world in which nations and people are increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent. The forces of globalization include international commerce and finance, travel and tourism, transnational migration, and the media—including the In- ternet and other high-tech information flows (see Friedman and Friedman 2008; Haugerud, Stone, and Little 2011; Kjaerulff 2010). New economic unions (which have met considerable resistance in their member nations) have been created through the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Union (EU).

The media, including the Internet, play a key role in globalization. Long-distance communication is faster and easier than ever and now covers most of the globe. I can now e-mail, call, Skype, or Facetime families in Arembepe, Brazil, which lacked phones and even postal service when I first began to study the community. Informa- tion about Arembepe is now available to anyone, including potential tourists, on hun- dreds of websites. Anything can be Googled. The media help propel a transnational culture of consumption, as they spread information about products, services, rights, institutions, lifestyles, and the perceived costs and benefits of globalization. Emigrants

36 Chapter 2 Culture

Anthropology Today Preserving Cultural Heritage

Heritage refers to something that has been passed on from previous generations. Cultural heritage—the culture, values, and traditions of a particular group—includes not only such material things as artifacts, artwork, and buildings but also intangibles such as language, music, dances, and stories. Every human group has a shared heritage. Members of that group are its proper guardians. Heritage becomes a matter of international concern when one group seizes it from another, or destroys it for political or religious purposes.  As the world system has expanded, heritage items often have been collected, purchased, and stolen from indigenous people for museums and private collec- tions. Many times they were sold by people (e.g., explorers or colonial officials) who had no right to sell them. Among the world’s most famous items of cultural heritage are the Parthenon Sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles, on display at—and one of the most prized possessions of—London’s famed British Museum. Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman empire, ac- quired these sculptures in the early 19th century in Athens, Greece. Their ownership remains a point of contention between Greece and the United Kingdom.  Some items are recognized as impor- tant to the shared heritage of humanity as a whole. This is what UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) has in mind when it desig- nates sites as having “World Heritage” value. Their significance extends beyond their particular geographic location. The disappearance or destruction of such sites would deprive future generations of key aspects of our shared history. Surveying the globe, UNESCO has designated (as of this writing) 1,052 World Heritage sites (see http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/). Of those, 203 were chosen because of their natural resources, such as waterfalls, glaciers, riv-

ers, flora, and fauna. However, the over- whelming majority (814 sites) are cultural heritage sites, so chosen because of their archaeological or historical value. The final 35 sites are mixed cultural and natural, such as the Tikal National Park in Guatemala, which is an archaeological site in a rainfor- est. Fifty-five of the World Heritage sites are currently considered endangered. Many of those are in areas of war and in- stability, including six sites in Syria, five in Libya, and three each in Iraq and Mali (see http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/?&danger=1). In 2012, Islamic extremists occupied and wreaked havoc on Timbuktu, Mali, one of those endangered sites, where they de- stroyed mausoleums and other heritage items, which they considered to be objects of idolatry. One of the perpetrators, Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, was successfully prose- cuted in 2016 by the International Criminal Court, where he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison. In 2015, members of the Islamic State (known variously as ISIS, IS, ISIL, and Daesh) destroyed architectural ruins—and mur- dered a prominent Syrian archaeologist— at Palmyra, Syria, a major cultural center of the ancient world and another endan- gered UNESCO World Heritage site. The structures destroyed included Palmyra’s almost 2,000-year-old Arch of Triumph and Temple of Baalshamin. In both these cases, items of cultural heritage were intentionally destroyed, in violation of The Hague’s 1954 Convention for the Protec- tion of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. Responding to ongoing threats to cul- tural preservation, local activists, cultural historians, anthropologists, and others have taken various steps to ensure that in- digenous groups maintain or recover items of cultural heritage. The United Nations has enacted a number of measures, includ- ing those mentioned previously, as well as

Globalization 37

Native American tribes in Oregon, by contrast, value Kennewick Man as “the An- cient One,” an ancestor whose remains needed to be buried in a culturally appropri- ate manner. For Lord Elgin, the Parthenon friezes were a valuable commodity that he could (and did) sell to the British govern- ment. For the British Museum, the Elgin Marbles are prized works of art proudly displayed in a chamber far from their point of origin. Athenians value the Marbles as a creation of their classic civilization that should be returned to Greece, where de- scendants of their makers can determine their use. Khaled al-Asaad, an 81-year-old Syrian archaeologist known for his work in preservation, died in Palmyra at the hands of ISIS, who view ancient buildings as ob- jects of idolatry, but who also view ancient artifacts as commodities that can be traded for money. Cultural heritage items, then, can be viewed in multiple ways—as a source of identity, as a commodity, or as a threat to be destroyed.

the 1972 Convention Concerning the Pro- tection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage and its 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Both affirm that indigenous peoples have the right to keep, control, protect, and develop their particular cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and cultural expressions. An American example is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which affirms that Native Ameri- can remains belong to Native Americans. NAGPRA requires American muse ums to return remains and artifacts to any tribe that requests them and can prove a “cul- tural affili ation” between itself and the re- mains or artifact. We see that different groups may value cultural heritage sites, artifacts, and re- mains for different reasons. Anthropologists value the skeleton known as “Kennewick Man” for its scientific importance—what this early fossil from Oregon can tell us about the peopling of North America.

On March 31, 2016, in Palmyra, Syria, a photographer holds up his photo of the Temple of Bel taken two years earlier. Members of ISIS destroyed this historic temple in September 2015. ©Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images

38 Chapter 2 Culture

transmit information and resources transnationally, as they maintain their ties with home (phoning, Skyping, Facetiming, texting, e-mailing, visiting, sending money). In a sense, such people live multilocally—in different places and cultures at once. They learn to play various social roles and to change behavior and identity depending on the situation.

Local people must cope increasingly with forces generated by progressively larger systems—region, nation, and world. An army of outsiders and potential change agents now intrudes on people everywhere. Tourism has become the world’s number one in- dustry. Economic development agents and the media promote the idea that work should be for cash rather than mainly for subsistence. The effects of globalization aren’t always welcome. Indigenous peoples and traditional societies have devised various strategies to deal with threats to their autonomy, identity, and livelihood (Maybury-Lewis, Macdonald, and Maybury-Lewis 2009). New forms of cultural expression and political mobiliza- tion, including the rights movements discussed previously, are emerging from the interplay of local, regional, national, and international cultural forces (see Ong and Collier 2005).

Illustrating political mobilization against globalization are regular protests at meetings of the principal agencies concerned with international trade. Protesters continue to show their disapproval of policies of the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. Anti-globalization activists fault those organizations for policies that, they say, promote corporate wealth at the expense of farmers, workers, and others at or near the bottom of the economy. Protesters also include environmentalists seeking tougher environmental regulations and trade unionists advocating global labor stan- dards. Related to these protests was the 2011 Occupy movement, which spread quickly from Wall Street to other American (and Canadian) cities. That movement protested growing North American inequality—between the top 1 percent and everyone else. Similar sentiments motivated Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Summary 1. Culture, which is distinctive to humanity, refers to customary behavior and beliefs

that are passed on through enculturation. Culture rests on the human capacity for cultural learning. Culture encompasses rules for conduct internalized in human be- ings, which lead them to think and act in characteristic ways.

2. Although other animals learn, only humans have cultural learning, dependent on symbols. Humans think symbolically—arbitrarily bestowing meaning on things and events. By convention, a symbol stands for something with which it has no necessary or natural relation. Symbols have special meaning for people who share memories, values, and beliefs because of common enculturation.

3. Cultural traditions mold biologically based desires and needs in particular directions. Everyone is cultured, not just people with elite educations. Cultures may be inte- grated and patterned through economic and social forces, key symbols, and core values. Cultural rules don’t rigidly dictate our behavior. There is room for creativity,

Think Like an Anthropologist 39

flexibility, diversity, and disagreement within societies. Cultural means of adaptation have been crucial in human evolution. Aspects of culture also can be maladaptive.

4. The human capacity for culture has an evolutionary basis that extends back at least 2.6 million years—to early toolmakers whose products survive in the archaeologi- cal record (and most probably even further back—based on observation of tool use and manufacture by apes). Humans share with monkeys and apes such traits as manual dexterity (especially opposable thumbs), depth and color vision, learning ability based on a large brain, substantial parental investment in a limited number of offspring, and tendencies toward sociality and cooperation.

5. Many hominin traits are foreshadowed in other primates, particularly in the African apes, which, like us, belong to the hominid family. The ability to learn, basic to culture, is an adaptive advantage available to monkeys and apes. Chimpanzees make tools for several purposes. They also hunt and share meat. Sharing and coop- eration are more developed among humans than among the apes, and only humans have systems of kinship and marriage that permit us to maintain lifelong ties with relatives in different local groups.

6. Using a comparative perspective, anthropology examines biological, psychologi- cal, social, and cultural universals and generalities. There also are unique and dis- tinctive aspects of the human condition (cultural particularities). North American cultural traditions are no more natural than any others. Levels of culture can be larger or smaller than a nation. Cultural traits may be shared across national bound- aries. Nations also include cultural differences associated with ethnicity, region, and social class.

7. Ethnocentrism describes judging other cultures by using one’s own cultural stan- dards. Cultural relativism, which anthropologists may use as a methodological po- sition rather than a moral stance, is the idea of avoiding the use of outside standards to judge behavior in a given society. Human rights are those based on justice and morality beyond and superior to particular countries, cultures, and religions. Cul- tural rights are vested in religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous societies, and intellectual property rights, or IPR, apply to an indigenous group’s collective knowledge and its applications.

8. Diffusion, migration, and colonialism have carried cultural traits and patterns to different world areas. Mechanisms of cultural change include diffusion, accultura- tion, and independent invention. Globalization comprises a series of processes that promote change in a world in which nations and people are interlinked and mutu- ally dependent.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. Our culture—and cultural changes—affect how we perceive nature, human nature,

and “the natural.” This theme continues to fascinate science fiction writers. Recall a recent science fiction book, movie, or TV program that creatively explores the boundaries between nature and culture. How does the story develop the tension between nature and culture to craft a plot?

40 Chapter 2 Culture

2. What are some issues about which you find it hard to be culturally relativistic? If you were an anthropologist with the task of investigating these issues in real life, can you think of a series of steps that you would take to design a project that would, to the best of your ability, practice methodological cultural relativism?

Key Terms acculturation, 35 core values, 23 cultural

relativism, 32 cultural rights, 34 diffusion, 29 enculturation, 20 estrus, 27 ethnocentrism, 32 generality, 28

national culture, 31

particularity, 28 popular

culture, 22 subcultures, 31 symbol, 20 universal, 28

globalization, 35 hominids, 25 hominins, 25 human rights, 33 independent

invention, 35 intellectual property

rights (IPR), 34 international

culture, 31

41

Chapter 3 Doing Anthropology

What Do Anthropologists Do?

Research Methods in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology

Multidisciplinary Approaches Studying the Past Survey and Excavation

Kinds of Archaeology

Dating the Past Relative Dating Absolute Dating Molecular Anthropology

Kinds of Biological Anthropology Bone Biology Anthropometry Primatology

Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology

Ethnography: Anthropology’s Distinctive Strategy

Observation and Participant Observation

Conversation, Interviewing, and Interview Schedules The Genealogical Method Key Cultural Consultants Life Histories Local Beliefs and Perceptions, and the Ethnographer’s Problem-Oriented Ethnography Longitudinal Studies, Team Research, and Multisited Ethnography

Survey Research

Doing Anthropology Right and Wrong: Ethical Issues

Ownership Issues The Code of Ethics Anthropologists and the Military

Anthropology Today: Biology, Culture, and Grandparents

What Do Anthropologists Do?

“Been on any digs lately?” Ask your professor how many times she or he has been asked this question. Then ask how often he or she actually has been on a dig. Remember that anthropology has four subfields, only two of which (archaeology and biological anthro- pology) require much digging—in the ground, at least. Even among biological anthro- pologists, it’s mainly paleoanthropologists (those concerned with the hominin fossil record) who must dig. Students of primate behavior in the wild, such as Jane Goodall,

42 Chapter 3 Doing Anthropology

don’t do it. Nor, most of the time, is it done by forensic anthropologists, such as the title character in the TV series Bones. 

To be sure, cultural anthropologists “dig out” information about lifestyles, as linguistic anthropologists do about the features of language. Traditionally, cultural anthropologists have done a variant on the Star Trek theme of seeking out, if not new, at least different “life” and “civilizations,” sometimes boldly going where no scientist has gone before. 

Despite globalization, the cultural diversity under anthropological scrutiny right now may be as great as ever before, because the anthropological universe has expanded to modern nations. Today’s cultural anthropologists are as likely to study artists in Miami or bankers in Beirut as Polynesians in outrigger canoes. Still, we can’t forget that anthro- pology did originate in non-Western, nonindustrial societies. Its research techniques, especially those subsumed under the label “ethnography,” were developed to deal with small populations. Even when working in modern nations, anthropologists still consider ethnography with small groups to be an excellent way of learning about how people live their lives and make decisions. 

Before this course, did you know the names of any anthropologists? If so, which ones—real or fictional? For the general public, biological anthropologists and archaeolo- gists tend to be better known than cultural anthropologists because of what they study and discover—making them attractive subjects for the Discovery Channel. You’re more likely to have seen film of Jane Goodall with chimps or a paleoanthropologist holding a skull than a linguistic or cultural anthropologist at work. Archaeologists occasionally ap- pear in the media to describe a new discovery or to debunk pseudo-archaeological argu- ments about, say, how visitors from space have left traces on Earth. One cultural anthropologist was an important public and media figure for much of the 20th century. Margaret Mead, famed for her work on teen sexuality in Samoa and gender roles in New Guinea, may well be the most famous anthropologist who ever lived. Mead, one of my own professors at Columbia University, appeared regularly on NBC’s Tonight Show. In all her venues, including teaching, museum work, television, anthropological films, pop- ular books, and magazines, Mead helped Americans appreciate the relevance of anthro- pology to understanding their daily lives. That’s a worthy goal that more contemporary anthropologists should emulate.

This chapter is about what anthropologists do. It focuses on archaeology, biological anthropology, and cultural anthropology. Linguistic methods are discussed in Chapter 10; applied anthropology in Chapter 17. (Given space limitations in a brief introductory textbook such as this, only some of the many methods and techniques employed by anthropologists can be covered here.)

Research Methods in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology

Recall from Chapter 1 that archaeology and biological anthropology are two of anthro- pology’s four subfields. Anthropological archaeology reconstructs human behavior through the analysis of material remains (and other sources, including written records, if available). Biological anthropologists study biological attributes of living humans

Research Methods in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology 43

(e.g., their genetics, growth, development, and physiological adaptation) and other pri- mates, as well as ancient ones. Within biological anthropology, paleoanthropology is the study of human evolution through skeletal material and other material remains. In studying the past, biological anthropologists share many research interests and tech- niques with archaeologists. Members of both subfields must collaborate with many other kinds of scientists to do their work effectively.

Multidisciplinary Approaches Scientists from diverse fields—e.g., soil science and paleontology (the study of ancient life through the fossil record)—collaborate with anthropologists in the study of sites where artifacts or fossils have been found. Palynology, the study of ancient plants through pollen samples, can be used to determine a site’s former environment. Physi- cists and chemists help archaeologists and biological anthropologists with dating tech- niques. By examining human skeletons, bioarchaeologists can reconstruct their physical traits, health status, and diet (Larsen 2015; Martin, Harrod, and Perez 2013; Perry 2012). Evidence for social status may endure in hard materials—bones, jewels, buildings—through the ages. The chemical composition of bones at a site may reflect dietary contrasts between elites and less privileged commoners.

To reconstruct ancient human biological and cultural features, anthropologists and their collaborators analyze the remains of humans, plants, and animals, as well as such artifacts (manufactured items) as ceramics, casts, and metals. Visible remains found at archaeological sites include bones, charcoal from ancient fires, burials, and storage pits. Archaeologists also can draw on microscopic evidence, including fossil pollen, phyto- liths (plant crystals), and starch grains. A phytolith is a microscopic crystal found in wheat, rice, maize, manioc (cassava), and other early domesticates. Because phytoliths are inorganic and don’t decay, they can reveal which plants were present even when no other plant remains survive. Phytoliths can be recovered from teeth, tools, containers, ritual objects, and garden plots.

Starch grain analysis recovers microfossils of food plants from the stone tools used to process them. Starch grains preserve well in areas, such as the humid tropics, where other organic remains typically decay. These grains have been recovered from stone tools, pottery fragments, and basketry, as well as human coprolites (ancient feces) ( Bryant 2003, 2007a, 2007b). Vaughn Bryant (2007b, 2013) presents a strong case for the importance of such microscopic evidence in studying the past. As one example, he cites Bonnie Williamson’s analysis of Middle to Late Stone Age tools from a cave site in South Africa. Examining hundreds of stone tools, Williamson found that many still had residues stuck to their cutting edges. Previously, it had been assumed that these tools were used by men to hunt and butcher animals, but Williamson found that over 50 percent of all the residues were from plants. Williamson’s analysis suggested an important role for women (in gathering and processing plant foods) in these early cultures.

Anthropologists also work with geologists, geographers, and other scientists in using satellite images to find ancient footpaths, roads, canals, and irrigation systems, which can then be investigated on the ground. Aerial photos (taken from airplanes) and satellite images are forms of remote sensing used in site location. Anthropologists have used sat- ellite imagery to identify, and then investigate on the ground, regions where deforestation

44 Chapter 3 Doing Anthropology

is especially severe and where people and biodiversity, including nonhuman primates, may be at risk (Green and Sussman 1990; Kottak 1999).

Studying the Past Archaeologists and biological anthropologists share techniques that enable them to re- construct the human past. The field of paleoanthropology focuses on the fossil record of human evolution. Fossils are remains (e.g., bones), traces, or impressions (e.g., foot- prints) of ancient life forms. Typically, a team composed of scientists, students, and local workers participates in a paleoanthropological or archaeological study. Such teams may also include paleontologists, geologists, palynologists, paleoecologists, physicists, and chemists. Paleontologists help locate fossil beds containing remains of animals that can be dated and that are known to have coexisted with hominins at particular times. Good preservation of faunal (animal) remains may suggest that hominin fossils have survived as well. Sometimes it’s impossible to date the hominin fossils and artifacts found at a given site by using the most accurate and direct (radiometric) methods. In this case, comparison of the faunal remains at that site with similar, but more securely dated, fauna at another site may suggest a date for those animal fossils and the hominins and artifacts associated with them.

Survey and Excavation Once potential sites have been identified, more intensive surveying begins in the search for hominin traces—bones or tools. Some early hominin sites are strewn with thousands of tools. Typically, archaeologists, paleoanthropologists, and paleontologists combine both local (excavation) and regional (systematic survey) perspectives. They recognize that sites may not be discrete and isolated, but parts of larger systems.

Systematic Survey Systematic survey provides a regional perspective by gathering information on settle- ment patterns over a large area. Settlement patterns refers to the distribution of sites within a region. Regional surveys reconstruct settlement patterns by addressing several questions: Where were sites located? How big were they? What kinds of buildings did they have? How old are the sites? Ideally, a systematic survey involves walking over the entire survey area and recording the location and size of all sites. From artifacts found on the surface, the surveyor estimates when each site was occupied.

Excavation During an excavation, scientists dig through the layers of deposits that make up a site. These layers, or strata, are used to establish the time order of materials. This relative chronology is based on the principle of superposition: In an undisturbed sequence of strata, the oldest layer is on the bottom. Each successive layer above is younger than the one below. This relative time ordering of material lies at the heart of archaeological, paleoanthropological, and paleontological research.

The archaeological and fossil records are so rich, and excavation is so labor inten- sive and expensive, that nobody digs a site without a good reason. Sites are excavated because they are endangered, or because they answer specific research questions (see

Kinds of Archaeology 45

Sabloff 2008). Cultural resource management (CRM) focuses on managing the preser- vation of archaeological sites that are threatened by modern development. Many coun- tries require archaeological impact studies before construction can take place. If a site is at risk and the development cannot be stopped, CRM archaeologists are called in to salvage what information they can from the site (see King 2011).

Kinds of Archaeology

Archaeologists pursue diverse research topics, using a wide variety of methods (see Renfrew and Bahn 2012). Experimental archaeologists try to replicate ancient tech- niques and processes (e.g., toolmaking) under controlled conditions. Historical archae- ologists use written records as guides and supplements to archaeological research. They

An archaeologist appraises an artifact during an excavation at the Gran Dolina site, Atapuerca, Spain. Fossils and stone tools of the earliest known hominins in Europe have been discovered at Atapuerca, which UNESCO has placed on its list of World Heritage Sites. ©Cesar Manso/AFP/Getty Images

46 Chapter 3 Doing Anthropology

work with remains more recent—often much more recent—than the advent of writing. Colonial archaeologists are historical archaeologists who use written records as guides to locate and excavate postcontact sites in North and South America, and to verify or question the written accounts. Classical archaeologists usually are affiliated with uni- versity departments of classics or the history of art, rather than with anthropology de- partments. These classical scholars tend to focus on the literate civilizations of the Old World, such as Greece, Rome, and Egypt. Classical archaeologists often are more inter- ested in styles of architecture and sculpture than in the social, economic, and political features that typically interest anthropological archaeologists. Underwater archaeology is a growing field that investigates submerged sites, most often shipwrecks. Special techniques, including remotely operated vehicles, are used, but divers also do underwater survey and excavation.

Dating the Past

The archaeological record hasn’t revealed every ancient society that has existed on Earth; nor is the fossil record a representative sample of all the plants and animals that ever have lived. Some species and body parts are better represented than others are, for many reasons. Bones and teeth preserve better than do soft parts, such as flesh and skin. The chances of fossilization increase when remains are buried in silt, gravel, or sand. Good places for bone preservation include swamps, floodplains, river deltas, lakes, and caves. Species living in such areas have a better chance to be preserved than do animals in other habitats. Fossilization also is favored in areas with volcanic ash. Once remains do get buried, chemical conditions must be right for fossilization to occur. If the sedi- ment is too acidic, even bones and teeth will dissolve. The study of the processes that affect the remains of dead animals is called taphonomy, from the Greek taphos, which means “tomb.” Those processes include scattering by carnivores and scavengers, distortion by various forces, and the possible fossilization of the remains.

The conditions under which fossils are found also influence the fossil record. For example, fossils are more likely to be uncovered through erosion in arid areas than in wet areas. Sparse vegetation allows wind to scour the landscape and uncover fossils. The fossil record has been accumulating longer in Europe than in Africa because civil engi- neering projects and fossil hunting have been going on longer in the former than in the latter. A world map showing where fossils have been found does not indicate the true range of ancient life. Such a map tells us more about ancient geological activity, modern erosion, or recent human activity—such as paleontological research or road building. In considering the fossil record in later chapters, we’ll see that certain areas provide more abundant fossil evidence for particular time periods. This doesn’t necessarily mean that primates or hominins were living only in that area at that time. Nor does failure to find a fossil species in a particular place always mean the species didn’t live there. 

Relative Dating Scientists use a variety of techniques to date fossils. These methods offer different de- grees of precision and are applicable to different periods of the past. Dating may be

Dating the Past 47

relative or absolute. Relative dating provides a time frame in relation to other strata or materials rather than absolute dates in numbers. Many dating methods are based on the geological study of stratigraphy, the science that examines the ways in which earth sediments accumulate in strata (singular, stratum). Soil that erodes from a hillside into a valley covers, and is younger than, the soil already deposited there. Stratigraphy per- mits relative dating. That is, the fossils in a given stratum are younger than those below them and older than those above them. We may not know the exact or absolute dates of the fossils, but we can place them in time relative to remains in other layers. Remains of animals and plants that lived at the same time are found in the same stratum. When fos- sils are found in a particular stratum, the associated geological features (such as frost patterning) and remains of particular plants and animals offer clues about the climate at the time of deposition.

Absolute Dating Fossils can be dated more precisely, with dates in numbers (absolute dating), by using several methods. For example, the 14C, or carbon-14, technique is used to date organic remains. This is a radiometric technique (so called because it measures radioactive decay). 14C is an unstable radioactive isotope of normal carbon, 12C. Cosmic radiation entering the Earth’s atmosphere produces 14C, and plants take in 14C as they absorb carbon dioxide. 14C moves up the food chain as animals eat plants and as predators eat other animals.

With death, the absorption of 14C stops. This unstable isotope starts to break down into nitrogen (14N). It takes 5,730 years for half the 14C to change to nitrogen; this is the half-life of 14C. After another 5,730 years, one-quarter of the original 14C will remain. After yet another 5,730 years, one-eighth will be left. By measuring the proportion of 14C in organic material, scientists can determine a fossil’s date of death, or the date of an ancient campfire. However, because the half-life of 14C is short, this dating technique is less dependable for specimens older than 40,000 years than it is for more recent remains.

Fortunately, other radiometric dating techniques are available for earlier periods. One of the most widely used is the potassium-argon (K/A) technique. 40K is a radioactive isotope of potassium that breaks down into argon-40, a gas. The half-life of 40K is far longer than that of 14C—1.3 billion years. With this method, the older the specimen, the more reliable the dating. Furthermore, whereas 14C dating can be done only on organic remains, K/A dating can be used only for inorganic substances: rocks and minerals. 40K in rocks gradually breaks down into argon-40. That gas is trapped in the rock until the rock is heated intensely (as with volcanic activity), at which point it may escape. When the rock cools, the breakdown of potassium into argon resumes. Dating is done by reheating the rock and measuring the escaping gas.

In Africa’s Great Rift Valley, which runs down eastern Africa and in which early hominin fossils abound, past volcanic activity permits K/A dating. In studies of strata containing fossils, scientists find out how much argon has accumulated in rocks since they were last heated. They then determine, using the standard 40K deterioration rate (half-life), the date of that heating. Considering volcanic rocks at the top of a stratum with fossil remains, scientists establish that the fossils are older than, say, 1.8 million years. By dating the volcanic rocks below the fossil remains, they determine that the fossils are younger than, say, 2 million years. Thus, the age of the fossils is set at

48 Chapter 3 Doing Anthropology

between 2.0 million and 1.8 million years. Note that absolute dating is “absolute” in name only; it may give ranges of numbers rather than exact dates.

Many fossils were discovered before the advent of modern stratigraphy. Often we can no longer determine their original stratigraphic placement. Furthermore, fossils aren’t always discovered in volcanic layers. Like 14C dating, the K/A technique applies to a limited period of the fossil record. Because the half-life of 40K is so long, the technique cannot be used with materials less than 500,000 years old.

Other radiometric dating techniques can be used to cross-check K/A dates, again by using minerals surrounding the fossils. One such method, uranium series dating, mea- sures fission tracks produced during the decay of radioactive uranium (238U) into lead. Two other radiometric techniques are especially useful for fossils that can’t be dated by 14C (up to 40,000 B.P.—before the present) or 40K (more than 500,000 B.P.). These methods are thermoluminescence (TL) and electron spin resonance (ESR). Both TL and ESR measure the electrons that are constantly being trapped in rocks and minerals. Once a date is obtained for a rock found associated with a fossil, that date also can be applied to that fossil. Table 3.1 summarizes the time spans for which the various abso- lute dating techniques are applicable.

Molecular Anthropology Molecular anthropology analyzes genomes (a genome is the total genetic makeup of an organism, including all its DNA) to establish when ancient species lived, and when they diverged from other species. What is the basis for such a genetic clock? Differences in DNA arise from mutations—changes in genetic structure that are passed on through heredity. Through time, more and more mutations occur, so the DNA of descendants differs increasingly from the DNA of their ancestors. Molecular anthropologists assume that mutations occur at a predictable rate. They can multiply that rate by the number of DNA differences to estimate the number of years that have passed between the ancestor and the descendant. Similarly, molecular anthropologists can multiply the mutation rate by the number of differences in DNA among species to estimate how many years they have been diverging from a common ancestor. Such DNA analysis and comparison en- ables molecular anthropologists to determine and date evolutionary relationships be- tween ancient human ancestors and other primate ancestors. For example, molecular

TABLE 3.1 Absolute Dating Techniques

Technique Abbreviation Materials Dated

Effective Time Range

Carbon-14 14C Organic materials Up to 40,000 years Potassium-argon K/A and 40K Volcanic rock Older than 500,000

years Uranium series 238U Minerals Between 1,000 and

1,000,000 years Thermoluminescence TL Rocks and

minerals Between 5,000 and 1,000,000 years

Electron spin resonance

ESR Rocks and minerals

Between 1,000 and 1,000,000 years

Kinds of Biological Anthropology 49

anthropology suggests that the common ancestors of humans and chimps probably lived around 6 million years ago (m.y.a.), whereas the common ancestor of humans, chimps, and gorillas lived about 7 m.y.a.

Kinds of Biological Anthropology

The interests of biological anthropologists are varied and encompass recent and living as well as ancient and deceased humans and other primates. This chapter describes many, but far from all, of the topics and methods within contemporary biological anthropology.

Bone Biology Central to biological anthropology is bone biology (skeletal biology)—the study of bone as a biological tissue, including its genetics; cell structure; growth, development, and decay; and patterns of movement (biomechanics) (White, Black, and Folkens 2012). Bone biologists study skeletal characteristics of living and deceased humans and homi- nins. Paleopathology is the study of disease and injury in skeletons from archaeological sites (see Buikstra and Roberts 2012; Cohen and Armelagos 2013). Some forms of cancer leave evidence in the bone. Breast cancer, for example, may spread (metastasize) skeletally, leaving lesions in the bones and skull. Certain infectious diseases (e.g., syph- ilis and tuberculosis) also mark bone, as do injuries and nutritional deficiencies (e.g., rickets, a vitamin D deficiency that deforms the bones). In forensic anthropology, bio- logical anthropologists work in a legal context, assisting coroners, medical examiners, and law enforcement agencies in recovering, analyzing, and identifying human remains and determining causes of death (Tersigni-Tarrant and Shirley 2012; Ubelaker 2012).

Anthropometry Biological anthropologists use various techniques to study nutrition, growth, and devel- opment. Anthropometry is the measurement of human body parts and dimensions, including skeletal parts (osteometry). Anthropometry is done on living people as well as

Bone affected by osteoporosis (brittle bone disease). ©Steve Gschmeissner/Science Source RF

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on skeletal remains from sites. Body mass and composition provide measures of nutri- tional status in living people. Body mass index (kg/m2) is the ratio of weight in kilo- grams to height in meters squared. An adult body mass above 30 is considered at risk of overweight, while one below 18 is at risk of underweight or malnutrition.

Primatology Primatology is another subfield of biological anthropology. Primate behavior has been observed in zoos and through experiments, but the most significant studies have been done in natural settings, among free-ranging apes, monkeys, and lemurs. Since the 1950s, when primatologists began their shift from zoos to natural settings, numerous studies have been done of apes (chimps, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons), monkeys (e.g., baboons, macaques), and lemurs. Studies of primate social systems and behavior, including their mating patterns, infant care, and patterns of contact and dispersal, suggest hypotheses about behavior that humans do or do not share with our nearest relatives—as well as with our hominid ancestors.

Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology

Early students of society, such as the French scholar Émile Durkheim, were among the founders of both sociology and anthropology. Durkheim studied the religions of Native Australians (Durkheim 1912/2001), as well as mass phenomena, such as suicide rates, in countries like France (Durkheim 1897/1951). Key differences between anthropology and sociology would eventually emerge based on the kinds of societies each studied. Sociologists focused on the industrial West; anthropologists, on nonindustrial societies. Different methods of data collection and analysis were developed to deal with those dif- ferent kinds of societies. To study large-scale, complex nations, sociologists came to rely on questionnaires and other means of gathering masses of quantifiable data. For many years, sampling and statistical techniques have been basic to sociology, whereas statistical training has been less common in anthropology (although this is changing somewhat as anthropologists increasingly work in modern nations).

Traditional ethnographers studied small, nonliterate (without writing) populations and relied on ethnographic methods appropriate to that context. According to Marcus and Fischer (1986), “[e]thnography is a research process in which the anthropologist closely observes, records, and engages in the daily life of another culture—an experience labeled as the fieldwork method—and then writes accounts of this culture, emphasizing descriptive detail” (p. 18). 

Ethnography: Anthropology’s Distinctive Strategy

Traditionally, the process of becoming a cultural anthropologist has required a field experience in another society. Early ethnographers studied small-scale, relatively isolated societies with simple technologies and economies and little social differentiation (see Konopinski 2014; Moore 2012). Traditionally, ethnographers have tried to understand

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the whole of a particular culture (or, more realistically, as much as they can, given limitations of time and perception). To pursue this goal, ethnographers adopt a free- ranging research strategy, moving from setting to setting, person to person, and place to place to discover the totality and interconnectedness of social life. By expanding our knowledge of the range of human diversity, ethnography provides a foundation for generalizations about human behavior and social life. Ethnographers draw on var- ied techniques to piece together a picture of otherwise alien lifestyles (see Bernard 2011; Bernard and Gravlee 2014; Wolcott 2010). We turn now to a consideration of those techniques. 

Observation and Participant Observation Ethnographers must pay attention to hundreds of details of daily life, seasonal events, and unusual happenings. They should record what they see as they see it. Things never will seem quite as strange as they do during the first few weeks in the field. The ethnog- rapher eventually gets used to, and accepts as normal, cultural patterns that initially were alien. Staying a bit more than a year in the field allows the ethnographer to repeat the season of his or her arrival, when certain events and processes may have been missed because of initial unfamiliarity and culture shock.

Many ethnographers record their impressions in a personal diary, or notebook, which is kept separate from more formal field notes. Later, this record of early impressions will help point out some of the most basic aspects of cultural diversity. Such aspects include distinctive smells, noises people make, how they cover their mouths when they eat, and how they gaze at others. These patterns, which are so basic as to seem almost trivial, are part of what Bronislaw Malinowski (1922/1961) called “the imponderabilia of native life and of typical behavior” (p. 20). These features of culture are so fundamental that natives take them for granted. They are too basic even to talk about, but the unaccus- tomed eye of the fledgling ethnographer picks them up. Thereafter, becoming familiar, they fade to the edge of consciousness. Initial impressions are valuable and should be recorded. First and foremost, ethnographers should try to be accurate observers, record- ers, and reporters of what they see in the field.

Ethnographers strive to establish rapport, a good, friendly working relationship based on personal contact, with their hosts. Fundamental to ethnography is participant observation—taking part in community life, participating in the events one is observ- ing, describing, and analyzing. As human beings living among others, ethnographers cannot be totally impartial and detached observers. By participating, ethnographers may learn why people find various events meaningful, as they see how those events are orga- nized and conducted.

In Arembepe, Brazil, I learned about fishing by sailing on the Atlantic with local fishers. I gave Jeep rides to malnourished babies and their parents, to pregnant moth- ers, and once to a teenage girl possessed by a spirit. All those people needed to consult specialists outside the village. I danced on Arembepe’s festive occasions, drank liba- tions commemorating new births, and became a godfather to a village girl. Most anthropologists have similar field experiences. The common humanity of the student and the studied, the ethnographer and the research community, makes participant observation inevitable.

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Conversation, Interviewing, and Interview Schedules Participating in local life means that ethnographers continually talk to people and ask questions. As their knowledge of the local language and culture increases, they under- stand more. There are several stages in learning a field language. First is the naming phase—asking name after name of the objects around them. Later they are able to pose more complex questions and understand the replies. They begin to understand simple conversations between two villagers. With improving language expertise, they eventu- ally become able to comprehend rapid-fire public discussions and group conversations.

One data-gathering technique I have used in both Arembepe and Madagascar in- volves an ethnographic survey that includes an interview schedule. Soon after I began research in Arembepe, my fellow field workers and I attempted to complete an interview schedule in each of Arembepe’s then 160 households. We entered almost every house- hold (fewer than 5 percent refused to participate) to ask a set of questions on a printed form. Our results provided us with a census and basic information about the village. We wrote down the name, age, and gender of each household member. We gathered data on family type, religion, present and previous jobs, income, expenditures, diet, possessions, and many other items on our eight-page form.

Although we were doing a survey, our approach differed from the survey research design routinely used by sociologists and other social scientists working in large, indus- trial nations. That survey research, discussed later in the chapter, involves sampling (choosing a sample—a small, manageable study group from a larger population). We did not select a partial sample from the total population. Instead, we tried to interview

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942), who was born in Poland but spent most of his professional life in England, did fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands from 1914 to 1918. Malinowski is generally considered to be the father of ethnography. Does this photo suggest anything about his relationship with Trobriand villagers? ©Mary Evans Picture Library/The Image Works

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in all households in the community (that is, to have a total sample). We used an inter- view schedule rather than a questionnaire. With the interview schedule, the ethnogra- pher talks face to face with people, asks the questions, and writes down the answers. Questionnaire procedures tend to be more impersonal; often the respondent fills in the form. Think of how many times in the past month you have been asked to fill out some kind of the survey, usually online, frequently using a service known as Survey Monkey. Calls to customer service frequently lead to a request that a survey be completed at the end of the call. The ostensible purpose of such surveys is to improve customer service. During the survey process, however, no one ever sees another human being.

Our goal of getting a total sample allowed us to meet almost everyone in the village and helped us establish rapport. Decades later, Arembepeiros still talk warmly about how we were interested enough in them to visit their homes and ask them questions. We stood in sharp contrast to the other outsiders the villagers had known, who considered them too poor and backward to be taken seriously.

Like other survey research, however, our interview schedule did gather comparable quantifiable information. It gave us a basis for assessing patterns and exceptions in vil- lage life. Our schedules included a core set of questions that were posed to everyone. However, some interesting side issues often came up during the interview, which we pursued then or later.

A month after the devastating Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of December 2004, Thai anthropologist Narumon Hinshiranan (left) helped guide the relief effort among the Moken, a maritime people who live on the Surin Islands along Thailand’s Andaman coast. Dr. Hinshiranan had done prior fieldwork among the Moken people and speaks their language. ©Aroon Thaewchatturat/Alamy Stock Photo

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We followed such leads into many dimensions of village life. One woman, for in- stance, a midwife, became the key cultural consultant we sought out later when we wanted detailed information about local childbirth. Another woman had done an intern- ship in an Afro-Brazilian cult (candomblé) in the city. She still went there regularly to study, dance, and get possessed. She became our candomblé expert.

Thus, our interview schedule provided a structure that directed but did not confine us as researchers. It enabled our ethnography to be both quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative part consisted of the basic information we gathered and later analyzed sta- tistically. The qualitative dimension came from our follow-up questions, open-ended discussions, pauses for gossip, and work with key consultants.

The Genealogical Method Many of us learn about our own ancestry and relatives by tracing our genealogies. Web- sites like ancestry.com allow us to trace our “family trees” and degrees of relationship. The genealogical method is a well-established ethnographic technique. Early ethnogra- phers developed notation and symbols to deal with kinship, descent, and marriage. Genealogy is a prominent building block in the social organization of nonindustrial so- cieties, where people live and work each day with their close kin. Anthropologists need to collect genealogical data to understand current social relations and to reconstruct history. Indeed, another term for such cultures is kin-based societies, because everyone is related and spends most of his or her time with relatives. (This chapter’s “ Anthropology Today” describes the importance of a three-generation kinship structure in human evolution.) Rules of behavior attached to particular kin relations are basic to everyday life. Marriage also is crucial in organizing nonindustrial societies, because strategic marriages between villages, tribes, and clans create political alliances.

Key Cultural Consultants Every community has people who by accident, experience, talent, or training can pro- vide the most complete or useful information about particular aspects of life. These people are key cultural consultants, also called key informants. In Ivato, the Betsileo village in Madagascar where I spent most of my time, a man named Rakoto was par- ticularly knowledgeable about village history. However, when I asked him to work with me on a genealogy of the 50 to 60 people buried in the village tomb, he called in his cousin Tuesdaysfather, who knew more about that subject. Tuesdaysfather had survived an epidemic of influenza that ravaged Madagascar, along with much of the world, around 1919. Immune to the disease himself, Tuesdaysfather had the grim job of bury- ing his kin as they died. He kept track of everyone buried in the tomb. Tuesdaysfather helped me with the tomb genealogy. Rakoto joined him in telling me personal details about the deceased villagers.

Life Histories In nonindustrial societies—as in our own—individual personalities, interests, and abili- ties differ. Some villagers prove to be more interested in the ethnographer’s work and are more helpful, interesting, and pleasant than others are. Anthropologists develop likes

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and dislikes in the field, as they do at home. Often when they find someone unusually interesting, they collect his or her life history. This recollection of a lifetime of experi- ences provides a more intimate and personal cultural portrait than would be possible otherwise. Life histories, which may be audio- or video-recorded for later review and analysis, reveal how specific people perceive, react to, and contribute to changes that affect their lives. Many ethnographers include the collection of life histories as an im- portant part of their research strategy.

Local Beliefs and Perceptions, and the Ethnographer’s One goal of ethnography is to discover local (native) views, beliefs, and perceptions, which may be compared with the ethnographer’s own observations and conclusions. In the field, ethnographers typically combine two research strategies, the emic (local-oriented) and the etic (scientist-oriented). These terms, derived from linguis- tics, have been applied to ethnography by various anthropologists. Marvin Harris (1968/2001) popularized the following meanings of the terms: An emic approach investigates how local people think. How do they perceive and categorize the world? What are their rules for behavior? What has meaning for them? How do they imagine and explain things? Operating emically, the ethnographer relies on local people to explain things and to say whether something is significant or not. The term cultural consultant, or informant, refers to individuals the ethnographer gets to know in the field, the people who teach him or her about their culture, who provide the emic perspective.

The etic (scientist-oriented) approach shifts the focus from local observations, categories, explanations, and interpretations to those of the anthropologist. The etic approach realizes that members of a culture often are too involved in what they are doing to interpret their cultures impartially. Operating etically, the ethnographer em- phasizes what he or she (the observer) notices and considers important. As a trained scientist, the ethnographer should try to bring an objective and comprehensive view- point to the study of other cultures. Of course, the ethnographer, like any other sci- entist, is also a human being with cultural blinders that prevent complete objectivity. As in other sciences, proper training can reduce, but not totally eliminate, the observer’s bias. But anthropologists do have special training to compare behavior between different societies.

What are some examples of emic versus etic perspectives? Consider our holidays. For North Americans, Thanksgiving Day has special significance. In our view (emi- cally), it is a unique cultural celebration that commemorates particular historical themes. But a wider, etic, perspective sees Thanksgiving as just one more example of the post- harvest festivals held in many societies. Another example: Local people give folk expla- nations for illnesses caused by germs and other pathogens. Emic agents that cause illness include angry or envious spirits, ancestors, witches, and sorcerers. Illness refers to a culture’s (emic) perception and explanation of bad health, whereas disease refers to the scientific (etic) explanation of poor health, involving known pathogens.

Ethnographers typically combine emic and etic strategies in their fieldwork. The statements, perceptions, categories, and opinions of local people help ethnographers understand how cultures work. Local beliefs are also interesting and valuable in

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themselves. However, people often fail to admit, or even recognize, certain causes and consequences of their behavior. This is as true of North Americans as it is of people in other societies.

Problem-Oriented Ethnography Although anthropologists remain interested in the totality of people’s lives in a particu- lar community or society, it is impossible to study everything. As a result, contemporary ethnographic fieldwork generally is aimed at investigating one or more specific topics or problems (see Murchison 2010; Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater 2012). Topics that an ethnographer might choose to investigate include marriage practices, gender roles, reli- gion, and economic change. Examples of problem-oriented research include various impact studies done by anthropologists, such as the impact on a particular community or society of television, the Internet, education, drought, a hurricane, or a change in government.

In researching a specific problem, today’s anthropologists often need to look beyond local people for relevant data. Government agencies or international organizations may have gathered information on such matters as climate and weather conditions, population density, and settlement patterns. Often, however, depending on the prob- lem they are investigating, anthropologists have to do their own measurements of such variables as field size, yields, dietary quantities, or time allocation. Information of interest to ethnographers extends well beyond what local people can and do tell us. In an increasingly interconnected and complicated world, local people lack knowledge about many factors that may affect their lives—for example, international terrorism, warfare, or the exercise of power from regional, national, and international centers (see Sanjek 2014).

Longitudinal Studies, Team Research, and Multisited Ethnography Geography limits anthropologists much less now than in the past, when it could take months to reach a field site and return visits were rare. Modern transportation systems allow anthropologists to return to the field repeatedly. Ethnographic reports now rou- tinely include data from two or more field stays. We can even follow the people we study as they move from village to city, cross the border, or travel internationally. Longitudinal research is the long-term study of an area or a population, usually based on repeated visits.

One example is the study of Gwembe District, Zambia. This study, planned in 1956 as a longitudinal project by Elizabeth Colson and Thayer Scudder, has continued with Colson, Scudder, and their associates and successors of various nationalities. As is often the case with longitudinal research, the Gwembe study also illustrates team research—coordinated research by multiple ethnographers (Scudder and Colson 1980). Researchers have studied four villages in different areas for 60 years. Periodic censuses provide basic data on population, economy, kinship, and religious behavior. Censused people who have moved are traced and interviewed to see how their lives compare with those of people who have stayed behind. The initial focus of study was the impact of a

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large hydroelectric dam, which subjected the Gwembe people to forced resettlement. Thereafter, Scudder and Colson (1980) examined how education provided access to new opportunities, even as it also widened a social gap between people with different educational levels. The anthropologists next focused on a change in brewing and drink- ing patterns, including a rise in alcoholism (Colson and Scudder 1988). When Colson, who died in 2016 at the age of 99, retired from the University of California at Berkeley, she moved to Gwembe district, and is buried where she spent her last days.  

As mentioned, longitudinal research often is team research. My own field site of Arembepe, Brazil, first entered the world of anthropology as a field-team village in the 1960s. It was one of four sites for the now-defunct Columbia-Cornell-Harvard- Illinois Summer Field Studies Program in Anthropology. For at least three years, that program sent a total of about 20 undergraduates annually, the author included, to do summer research abroad. The teams were stationed in rural communities in four coun- tries: Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. Since my wife, Isabel Wagley Kottak, and I began studying it in 1962, Arembepe has become a longitudinal field site. Genera- tions of researchers have monitored various aspects of change and development. The community has changed from a village into a town and illustrates the process of glo- balization at the local level. Its economy, religion, and social life have been trans- formed (see Kottak 2006).

Brazilian and American researchers worked with us on team research projects during the 1980s (on the impact of television) and the 1990s (on ecological awareness and en- vironmental risk perception). Students from various universities have drawn on our baseline information from the 1960s in their recent studies in Arembepe. Their topics have included standards of physical attractiveness, family planning, conversion to Prot- estantism, changing food habits, and the influence of the Internet and social media. Arembepe is thus a site where various field workers have worked as members of a lon- gitudinal, multigenerational team. The more recent researchers have built on prior con- tacts and findings to increase knowledge about how local people meet and manage new circumstances. As of this writing (2016), researchers have recently completed fieldwork in Arembepe and other Brazilian communities, updating our study of media impact, which began during the 1980s.

Traditional ethnographic research focused on a single community or “culture,” treated as more or less isolated and unique in time and space. In recent years, ethnog- raphy has shifted toward studies of change and of contemporary flows of people, technology, images, and information. Reflecting today’s world, fieldwork must be more flexible and on a larger scale. Ethnography increasingly is multitimed and multisited. That is, it studies people through time and in multiple places. Malinowski could focus on Trobriand culture and spend most of his field time in a particular com- munity. Nowadays we cannot afford to ignore, as Malinowski did, the outside forces that increasingly impinge on the places we study. Integral to our analyses now are the external entities (e.g., governments, corporations, nongovernmental organizations, new social movements) laying claim to land, people, and resources throughout the world. Also important in contemporary ethnography is increased recognition of power differentials and how they affect cultures, and of the importance of diversity within cultures and societies.

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Anthropologists increasingly study people in motion. Examples include people liv- ing on or near national borders, nomads, seasonal migrants, homeless and displaced people, immigrants, and refugees (see Andersson 2014; Lugo 1997). As fieldwork changes, with less and less of a spatially set field, what can we take from traditional ethnography? Gupta and Ferguson (1997a) correctly cite the “characteristically anthro- pological emphasis on daily routine and lived experience” (p. 5). The treatment of com- munities as discrete entities may be a thing of the past. However, “anthropology’s traditional attention to the close observation of particular lives in particular places” has an enduring importance (Gupta and Ferguson 1997b, p. 25). The method of close obser- vation helps distinguish cultural anthropology from sociology and survey research, to which we now turn.

Survey Research

Working increasingly in large-scale societies, anthropologists have developed innova- tive ways of blending ethnography and survey research (Fricke 1994). Before examin- ing such mixed field methods, let’s consider the main differences between survey research and ethnography. Sociologists have developed and refined the survey research design, which involves sampling, impersonal data collection, and statistical analysis. Survey research draws a sample (a manageable study group) from a much larger popu- lation. A properly selected and representative sample permits accurate inferences about the larger population.

In small communities, ethnographers can get to know almost everyone. Given the greater size and complexity of nations, survey research can’t help being more imper- sonal. Survey researchers call the people they study respondents—those who respond to questions during a survey. Sometimes survey researchers interview their sample of

Janet Dunn, one of many anthropologists who have worked in Arembepe. Where is Arembepe, and what kinds of research have been done there? ©Christopher M. O’Leary

Doing Anthropology Right and Wrong: Ethical Issues 59

respondents personally or by phone. Sometimes they ask them to fill out a question- naire, often online.

Probably the most familiar example of survey research and sampling is the polling that is done to predict political races. An ever-increasing number of organizations now gather information designed to estimate outcomes and to determine what kinds of peo- ple voted for which candidates. During sampling, researchers gather information about age, gender, religion, occupation, income, and political party preference. These charac- teristics (variables—attributes that vary among members of a sample or population) are known to influence political decisions. Polling then leads to pronouncements about the voting tendencies and behavior of such categories as “soccer moms,” college-educated white women, and working-class men.

Many more variables affect social identities, experiences, and activities in a modern nation than in the small communities where ethnography grew up. In contemporary North America, hundreds of factors influence our behavior and attitudes. These social predictors include age; religion; level of education; the region of the country we grew up in; whether we come from a town, suburb, or city; and our parents’ professions, eth- nic origins, and income levels. In any large nation, many predictor variables (social in- dicators) influence behavior and opinions. Because we must be able to detect, measure, and compare the influence of social indicators, many contemporary anthropological studies have a statistical foundation. Even in rural fieldwork, more anthropologists now draw samples, gather quantitative data, and use statistics to interpret them (see Bernard 2011, 2013; Bernard and Gravlee 2014). Quantifiable information may permit a more precise assessment of similarities and differences among communities. Statistical analy- sis can support and round out an ethnographic account of local social life.

In the best studies, however, the hallmark of ethnography remains: Anthropologists enter the community and get to know the people. They participate in local activities, networks, and associations. They observe and experience social conditions and prob- lems. They watch the effects of national policies and globalization on local life. The ethnographic method and the emphasis on personal relationships in social research are valuable gifts that cultural anthropology brings to the study of any society.

Doing Anthropology Right and Wrong: Ethical Issues

Science exists in society and in the context of law and ethics. Anthropologists can’t study things simply because they happen to be interesting or of value to science. We must consider ethics as well. Anthropologists typically have worked abroad, outside their own society. In the context of international contacts and cultural diversity, different ethical codes and value systems will meet, and often compete.

Archaeologists and biological anthropologists, in particular, often work as members of international teams. These teams typically include researchers from several countries, including the host country—the place (e.g., Ethiopia) where the research takes place. Anthropologists must inform officials and colleagues in the host country about the pur- pose, funding, and likely results, products, and impacts of their research. They need to

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negotiate the matter of where the materials produced by the research will be analyzed and stored—in the host country or in the anthropologists’ country—and for how long. To whom do research materials such as bones, artifacts, and blood samples belong? What kinds of restrictions will apply to their use?

Contemporary anthropologists recognize that informed consent (agreement to take part in the research—after having been informed about its nature, procedures, and possible impacts) should be obtained from anyone who provides information or who might be af- fected by the research. Although nonhuman primates can’t give informed consent, prima- tologists still must take steps to ensure that their research doesn’t endanger the animals they study. Either government agencies or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) may be in charge of protecting primates. If so, the anthropologist will need to obtain informed consent from a representative of the responsible agency or NGO to conduct research.

With living humans, informed consent is a necessity, not only in gathering informa- tion but especially in obtaining biological samples, such as blood or urine. The research subjects must be told how the samples will be collected, used, and identified and about the potential costs and benefits to them. Informed consent is needed from anyone pro- viding data or information, owning materials being studied, or otherwise having an in- terest that might be affected by the research.

It is appropriate for North American anthropologists working in another country to (1) include host country colleagues in their research planning and requests for funding; (2) establish truly collaborative relationships with those colleagues and their institutions before, during, and after fieldwork; (3) include host country colleagues in dissemina- tion, including publication, of the research results; and (4) ensure that something is “given back” to host country colleagues. For example, research equipment and technol- ogy can remain in the host country. Additionally, funding can be provided for host country colleagues to conduct research, attend international meetings, or visit foreign institutions—especially those where their international collaborators work.

Ownership Issues Even with efforts to respect different value systems and acknowledge the contributions of the host country and its colleagues, ethical issues continue to arise. Recently, several disputes have arisen over the ownership of human remains, artifacts, and heritage items. Lawsuits against museums by groups seeking the repatriation of remains and artifacts have become common (see Rothstein 2006). Peru, for instance, sued Yale University to recover objects removed during the exploration of Machu Picchu (an important Peruvian archaeological and tourist site) by Yale explorer Hiram Bingham in 1912. Native Aus- tralians have argued that images of native Australian fauna, such as the emu and kanga- roo, belong exclusively to the Aboriginal people (Brown 2003). Michael F. Brown (2003) describes efforts by Hopi Indians to control and restrict historic photos of secret religious ceremonies.

Many anthropologists have worked to represent or assist indigenous groups, for example, when disasters strike or when disputes arise with external agents. Sometimes, however, issues involving access to, or ownership of, physical and archaeological re- mains place anthropologists and indigenous people in opposing camps. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) gives ownership of

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Native American remains to Native Americans. Hundreds of thousands of Native American remains are said to be in American museums. NAGPRA requires museums to return remains and artifacts to any tribe (nation) that requests them and can prove a “cultural affiliation’’ between itself and the remains or artifact.

The 1996 discovery in Washington state (on federal land) of a skeleton dubbed “Ken- newick Man” led to a legal case between anthropologists and five Native American tribes (nations) with homelands in the area where Kennewick Man was discovered. The anthropologists wanted to conduct a thorough scientific study of the skeleton, which is one of the oldest (between 9,500 and 8,500 years old) and best preserved human remains ever discovered in North America. What might its anatomy and DNA reveal about the early settlement of the Americas? The Umatilla Indians and their allies in four other Native American nations believe they have always occupied the region where the skel- eton was found. In their view, Kennewick Man, whom they call “the Ancient One,” was their ancestor, whom they sought to rebury with dignity and without contamination from scientific testing.

In 2002, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Jelderks ruled that the Kennewick remains could be studied scientifically, finding little initial evidence linking the find to any identifiable con- temporary group or culture. His ruling, later backed by a federal appeals court, cleared the way for scientists to begin their study (see Burke et al. 2008; Walker and Owsley 2012). One result of that study was the discovery that an identifiable genetic connection did exist between “the Ancient One” and one of the tribes that claimed him as their ancestor.

Analysis by Danish scientists of DNA extracted from a finger fragment revealed the closest known genetic relatives of the Ancient One to be members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, one of the claimant tribes, located just 200 miles from the burial site. Admirably, the geneticists who analyzed the Ancient One’s DNA worked with those tribes, seeking their consent and collaboration. Colville tribal mem- bers donated their own DNA, which helped establish their connection to the Ancient One. On December 19, 2016, President Obama signed an act directing the return of the Ancient One to the five Native American nations living in the area where the skeleton was found 20 years earlier (Colwell 2017). 

The Code of Ethics To guide its members in making decisions involving ethics and values, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) offers a Code of Ethics (http://www.americananthro. org/ParticipateAndAdvocate/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=1656). The most recent code, approved in 2012, points out that anthropologists have obligations to their scholarly field, to the wider society and culture, and to the human species, other species, and the environ- ment. Like physicians who take the Hippocratic oath, the anthropologist’s first concern should be to do no harm to the people, animals, or artifacts being studied. The stated aims of the AAA code are to offer guidelines and to promote discussion and education, rather than to investigate possible misconduct. The code addresses several contexts in which anthropologists work. Some of its main points are highlighted in the next paragraph.

Anthropologists should be open and honest about their research projects with all par- ties affected by the research. Those parties should be informed about the nature, proce- dures, purpose(s), potential impacts, and source(s) of support for the research.

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Researchers should pay attention to proper relations between themselves as guests and the host nations and communities where they work. The AAA does not advise anthro- pologists to avoid taking stands on issues. Indeed, seeking to shape actions and policies may be as ethically justifiable as inaction. 

Anthropologists and the Military The AAA has deemed it of “paramount importance” that anthropologists study the causes of terrorism and violence. How should such studies be conducted? What ethical issues might arise?

Consider a Pentagon program, Project Minerva, initiated late in the George W. Bush administration, designed to draw on social science expertise to combat national security threats. Project Minerva sought scholars to translate documents captured in Iraq, study China’s shifting political scene, and explain ongoing violence in Afghanistan (Cohen 2008). Project Minerva and related programs raised concerns that governments might use anthropological research in ethically problematic ways. Government policies and military operations have the potential to harm the people anthropologists study.

More recently, anthropologists have been especially critical of the Pentagon’s Human Terrain System (HTS) program. Launched in February 2007, HTS has embedded an- thropologists and other social scientists in military teams in Iraq and Afghanistan. On October 31, 2007, the AAA Executive Board issued a statement of disapproval of HTS—outlining how HTS violates the AAA Code of Ethics (see http://www.aaanet.org/ about/Policies/statements/Human-Terrain-System-Statement.cfm). The board noted that HTS places anthropologists, as contractors with the U.S. military, in war zones, where they are charged with collecting cultural and social data for use by the military. The ethical concerns raised by these activities include the following:

1. It may be impossible for anthropologists in war zones to identify themselves as anthropologists, as distinct from military personnel. This constrains their ethical responsibility as anthropologists to disclose who they are and what they are doing.

2. HTS anthropologists are asked to negotiate relations among several groups, includ- ing local populations and the military units in which they are embedded. Their re- sponsibilities to their units may conflict with their obligations to the local people they study or consult. This may interfere with the obligation, stipulated in the AAA Code of Ethics, to do no harm.

3. In an active war zone, it is difficult for local people to give “informed consent” without feeling coerced to provide information. As a result, “voluntary informed consent” (as stipulated by the AAA Code of Ethics) is compromised.

4. Information supplied by HTS anthropologists to military field commanders could help target specific groups for military action. Such use of fieldwork-derived information would violate the AAA Code of Ethics stipulation that those studied not be harmed.

5. The identification of anthropology and anthropologists with the U.S. military may indi- rectly (through suspicion of “guilt by association”) endanger the research, and even the personal safety, of other anthropologists and their consultants throughout the world.

How do you think anthropologists should study warfare, conflict, and terrorism?

Doing Anthropology Right and Wrong: Ethical Issues 63

Anthropology Today Biology, Culture, and Grandparents

The research described here provides an excellent example of anthropology’s bio- cultural approach. We see how a funda- mental change in human biology—the lengthening of the lifespan—led to the cul- tural advances that marked the Upper Pa- leolithic period (45,000–13,000 years ago). During this period, members of our own species—Homo sapiens—first be- came as fully modern in their behavior as they were in their anatomy. Language has long permitted us to share experiences with others and to pre- serve information across the generations. For the past 6,000 years, writing has been a key supplement to the oral trans- mission of information. In our 21st cen- tury, the cloud of cyberspace and a growing arsenal of audiovisual and digital media further facilitate information stor- age and transfer. The extent of information transfer be- tween generations has increased during human evolution. The increase was par- ticularly noteworthy during the Upper Pa- leolithic period, when there was a significant increase in the human lifespan— probably reflecting a more productive economy based on big-game hunting. Evidence for changes in the lifespan comes from the extent of wear on fossil- ized teeth: The longer the life, the more worn the teeth. Anthropologists Rachel Caspari and Sang-Hee Lee examined the teeth of 768 hominins representing fossil groups that lived at different times: from australopithecines (living some 2 million years ago), to Neandertals (130,000– 28,000 years ago), to the anatomically modern humans of the Upper Paleolithic (45,000–13,000). Caspari and Lee classified their speci- mens as older or younger adults based on molar eruption and degree of dental wear.

Individuals with wisdom teeth (third mo- lars) were classified as adults and capable of reproducing. The anthropologists calcu- lated that wisdom teeth appeared at age 15, and that it would be at this age that females could become mothers. (Giving birth at age 15 is not unusual among con- temporary hunter-gatherers.) A woman can become a grandmother by age 30 if she and her daughter both have their first child at 15. Using their sample of 768 specimens, Caspari and Lee calculated a ratio of older (age 30 and older) to younger (age 15–29) adults in the different groups of hominins. That ratio has increased steadily during human evolution, with the most significant leap occurring around 30,000 years ago. With that jump, for the first time in human history, significantly more adults were dying af- ter age 30 than before it. Among Nean- dertals, just 4 individuals survived past age 30 for every 10 who died before reaching that age. By contrast, the ana- tomically modern people of the Upper Paleolithic could benefit from a much larger group of elders: By 30,000 years ago, twice as many people were dying after age 30 as before that age. People who lived longer had more time to share their memories orally, with more people, including their grandchildren. A cultural great leap forward occurred when humans started benefiting from the con- sistent association of three generations. Social groups with three generations could store, process, and transmit more information and experience than had been possible previously. The increase in the number of older people facilitated the transmission of specialized knowledge, il- lustrated by the sophisticated tools and art of the Upper Paleolithic, compared with

continued

64 Chapter 3 Doing Anthropology

Anthropology Today continued

three- generation groups, a human popula- tion burst occurred during the Upper Paleolithic. This population increase likely spurred the many cultural advances known through archaeology to have occurred during the Upper Paleolithic. Among those advances were increased mobility, long- distance trade, artistic expression, and new forms of cooperation (and competi- tion) between groups. Because of all these advantages, the extended human lifespan may well be the most important biological factor that led  to the flowering of human behavioral modernity. 

Source: Altmann et al. (1988), Caspari (2011), Caspari and Lee (2004), Diaz (2013), and McKie (2011).

what came before, when elders were much scarcer. Adults could interact with their parents longer, and children could thrive in a larger kinship network that in- cluded grandparents. Experience counts in child-rearing. Among nonhuman primates, infant sur- vival rates are significantly higher when the mother is experienced. One study of baboons found that infants of experi- enced mothers had a 63 percent survival rate, versus only 29 percent for infants of first-time mothers. There is even more ex- perience to draw on when children have both their parents and their grandparents around. Because of the reproductive advan- tage associated with living longer and in

Kinship spanning three generations was a major advance in human evolution. Shown here, three generations of women at a St. Patrick’s Day parade in St. Paul, Minnesota. ©Steve Skjold/Alamy Stock Photo

Three-generation families are common cross-culturally. Shown here, a Ladakhi grandmother, mother, and child at a market in an area of India known as Little Tibet, because of its predominantly Tibetan Buddhist population. ©J Marshall-Tribaleye Images/Alamy Stock Photo

Summary 1. As they study the past, archaeologists and biological anthropologists may share re-

search topics and methods and work together in multidisciplinary teams. Remote sensing may be used to locate ancient footpaths, roads, canals, and irrigation sys- tems, which can then be investigated on the ground. Archaeologists combine both local (excavation) and regional (systematic survey) perspectives. Sites are excavated

Summary 65

because they are in danger of being destroyed or because they address specific re- search interests. There are many kinds of archaeology, such as historical, classical, and underwater archaeology.

2. The fossil record is not a representative sample of all the plants and animals that have ever lived. Hard parts, such as bones and teeth, preserve better than soft parts, such as flesh and skin. Stratigraphy and radiometric techniques are used to date fossils. Carbon-14 (14C) dating is most effective with fossils less than 40,000 years old. Potassium-argon (K/A) dating can be used for fossils older than 500,000 years. Molecular anthropology uses genetic analysis (of DNA sequences) to assess and date evolutionary relationships.

3. Within biological anthropology, bone biology is the study of bone genetics; cell structure; growth, development, and decay; and patterns of movement. Paleopa- thology is the study of disease and injury in skeletons from archaeological sites. Anthropometry, the measurement of human body parts and dimensions, is done on living people and on skeletal remains from sites. Studies of primates suggest hy- potheses about behavior and adaptations that humans do or do not share with our nearest relatives—as well as with our hominid ancestors.

4. Ethnographic methods include firsthand and participant observation, rapport build- ing, interviews, genealogies, work with key consultants or informants, the collec- tion of life histories, the discovery of local beliefs and perceptions, problem-oriented and longitudinal research, and team research. Ethnographers work in communities and form personal relationships with local people as they study their lives.

5. An interview schedule is a form an ethnographer completes as he or she visits a series of households. Key consultants, or informants, teach us about particular ar- eas of local life. Life histories document personal experiences with culture and culture change. Genealogical information is particularly useful in societies in which principles of kinship and marriage organize social and political life. Emic ap- proaches focus on native perceptions and explanations. Etic approaches give prior- ity to the ethnographer’s own observations and conclusions. Longitudinal research is the systematic study of an area or a population over time. Longitudinal, team, and multisited ethnographic research are increasingly common.

6. Traditionally, anthropologists worked in small-scale societies; sociologists, in modern nations. Different techniques developed to study these different kinds of societies. Anthropologists do their fieldwork in communities and study the totality of social life. Sociologists use surveys and study samples to make inferences about a larger population. Anthropologists may employ ethnographic procedures to study cities, towns, or rural areas.

7. Because science exists in society, and in the context of law and ethics, anthropolo- gists can’t study things simply because they happen to be interesting or of scientific value. Anthropologists have obligations to their scholarly field, to the wider society and culture (including that of the host country), and to the human species, other species, and the environment. The AAA Code of Ethics offers ethical guidelines for anthropologists. Ethical problems often arise when anthropologists work for gov- ernments, especially the military.

66 Chapter 3 Doing Anthropology

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. Imagine yourself as a biological anthropologist working as part of a team at an

African site. What other academic disciplines might be represented on your team? What kinds of jobs would there be for team members, and where would the mem- bers be recruited? What might happen to the fossils and other materials that were recovered? Who would be the authors of the scientific papers describing any dis- covery made by the team?

2. What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of ethnography compared with survey research? Which provides more accurate data? Might one be better for find- ing questions, while the other is better for finding answers? Or does it depend on the context of research?

3. Many of the ethical issues that affect the work of anthropologists have some legal dimension, whether in their own country, in another country, or even among several nations. Have you thought about law as a possible future career? (If not, think of a friend who has.) Write a convincing argument about why anthropology could be a valuable tool for a lawyer.

Key Terms absolute dating, 47 anthropometry, 49 bone biology, 49 cultural

consultant, 55 emic, 55 etic, 55 excavation, 44 fossils, 44 genealogical

method, 54 informed

consent, 60

participant observation, 51

relative dating, 47 sample, 52 stratigraphy, 47 survey

research, 58 systematic

survey, 44 taphonomy, 46 variables, 59

interview schedule, 53

key cultural consultants, 54

life history, 55 longitudinal

research, 56 molecular

anthropology, 48 paleoanthropology,

44 paleontology, 43 paleopathology, 49

67

Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

Evolution Natural History before Darwin Evolution: Theory and Fact

Genetics Mendel’s Experiments Independent Assortment

Population Genetics and Mechanisms of Genetic Evolution

Natural Selection Mutation Random Genetic Drift Gene Flow

Race: A Discredited Concept in Biology Races Are Not Biologically Distinct Genetic Markers Don’t Correlate with Phenotype

Human Biological Adaptation Explaining Skin Color Genes and Disease Lactose Tolerance

Anthropology Today: Disease Evolution: A Case Study

Evolution

Compared with other animals, humans have uniquely varied ways—cultural and biological—of adapting. Exemplifying cultural adaptation, we manipulate our artifacts and behavior in response to environmental conditions. We turn up thermostats or travel to Florida in the winter. We use air conditioning or visit the mountains to escape the summer’s heat. Although such reliance on culture has increased during human evolution, people haven’t stopped adapting biologically. As in other species, human populations adapt genetically in response to environmental forces, and individuals react physiologi- cally to stresses. Thus, when we work in the sun, sweating occurs spontaneously, cool- ing the skin and reducing the temperature of subsurface blood vessels. We are ready now for a more detailed look at the principles that determine human biological adapta- tion, variation, and change.

68 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

Natural History before Darwin During the 18th century, many scholars became interested in biological diversity, human origins, and our place among life forms. At that time, the commonly ac- cepted explanation for the origin of species came from Genesis, the first book of the Bible: God created all life during six days of Creation. According to creationism, biological similarities and differences originated at the Creation. Characteristics of life forms were seen as immutable; they could not change. Through calculations based on genealogies in the Bible, the biblical scholars James Ussher and John Lightfoot even purported to trace the Creation to a very specific time: October 23, 4004 B.C., at 9 A.M.

The 18th-century Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus developed the first compre- hensive (and still influential) classification, or taxonomy, of plants and animals, based on similarities and differences in their physical characteristics. He used traits such as the backbone to distinguish vertebrates from invertebrates and mammary glands to distin- guish mammals from birds. Linnaeus viewed the differences between life forms as part of the Creator’s orderly plan. He thought that biological similarities and differences had been set at the time of Creation and had not changed.

According to creationism, all life originated during the six days of Creation described in the Bible. Catastrophism proposed that fires and floods, including the biblical deluge involving Noah’s ark (depicted in this painting by the American artist Edward Hicks), destroyed certain species. ©Philadelphia Museum of Art/Corbis

Evolution 69

Fossil discoveries during the 18th and 19th centuries raised doubts about creation- ism. Fossils showed that different kinds of life once had existed. If all life had originated at the same time, why weren’t ancient species still around? Why weren’t contemporary plants and animals found in the fossil record? A modified explanation combining creationism with catastrophism arose to replace the original doctrine. In this view, fires, floods, and other catastrophes, including the biblical flood involving Noah’s ark, had destroyed ancient species. After each destructive event, God had created again, leading to contemporary species. To explain certain clear similarities between fossils and modern animals, the catastrophists argued that some ancient species had managed to survive in isolated areas. For example, after the biblical flood, the progeny of the animals saved on Noah’s ark spread throughout the world.

The alternative to creationism and catastrophism was transformism, better known as evolution. Evolutionists believe that new species arise from old ones through a long and gradual process of transformation, or descent with modification over the generations. Charles Darwin became the best known of the evolutionists. However, he benefited from the work of earlier scholars, including his own grandfather. In a book called Zoonomia, published in 1794, Erasmus Darwin had proclaimed the common ancestry of all animal species.

Another major influence on Charles Darwin was Sir Charles Lyell, the father of geology (see Eldredge and Pearson 2010). During Darwin’s famous voyage to South America aboard the Beagle, he read Lyell’s influential book Principles of Geology (1837/1969), which exposed him to Lyell’s principle of uniformitarianism. Uniformi- tarianism states that the present is the key to the past. Thus, in the present we observe natural forces at work all around us. Given enough time, those same forces can produce major changes. Such natural forces as rainfall, mudslides, earthquakes, and volcanic ac- tion have gradually built and modified geological features such as mountain ranges. The Earth’s structure has been transformed gradually through natural forces operating for millions of years.

Uniformitarianism was a necessary building block for evolutionary theory. It cast serious doubt on the belief that the world was only 6,000 years old. It would take much longer for such ordinary forces as rain and wind to produce major geological changes. The longer time span also allowed enough time for the biological changes that fossil discoveries were revealing. Darwin applied the ideas of uniformitarianism and long- term transformation to living things. He argued that all life forms are ultimately related and that the number of species has increased over time.

Evolution: Theory and Fact Darwin proposed a theory of evolution in the strict sense. A theory is a set of logically connected ideas formulated to explain something. A theory suggests patterns, connec- tions, and relationships that future research may confirm.

Evolution as a scientific theory is a central organizing principle of modern biology and anthropology. Evolution, however, is both a theory and a fact. Factually, there is absolutely no doubt that biological evolution has occurred and is still occurring. To be sure, scientists do debate details about evolutionary processes and events. Nevertheless, they accept certain facts, as the following examples illustrate. Fact: Our Earth with

70 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

l iquid water is more than 3.6 billion years old. Fact: Cellular life has been around for at least half that time. Fact: Multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. Fact: There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. Fact: The dinosaurs that once roamed the Earth are no longer with us. Facts: All life forms arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds, and humans arose from nonhumans (see Moran 1993). Fact: Viruses and other microorganisms mutate all the time, posing a problem for public health officials seeking to control disease transmission (see this chapter’s Anthropology Today),

Natural selection is the process by which the life forms that are best suited to survive and reproduce in a particular environment do so in greater numbers than other members of the same population. Natural selection is most obvious when there is competition among members of a population for strategic resources. Such resources include those that are necessary for the survival of the individual, such as food and space, along with those that are necessary for the survival of the species—that is, mates. Members of a population compete not only for food but also for mates—for the right to reproduce. More than survival of the fittest, natural selection is differential reproductive success. You can win the competition for food and space, but without a mate, you have no impact on the future of the species.

For natural selection to work on any population, there must be variety within that population, as there always is. The giraffe’s neck can illustrate how natural selection works on variety within a population. In any group of giraffes, there always is variation in neck length. When food is adequate, the animals have no problem feeding themselves. But when dietary foliage is not as abundant, giraffes with longer necks have an advan- tage. They can feed off the higher branches. If this ability permits longer-necked giraffes to survive and reproduce even slightly more effectively than shorter-necked ones, giraffes with longer necks will transmit more of their genetic material to future generations.

An incorrect alternative to this (Darwinian) explanation would be the inheritance of acquired characteristics. That is the idea that in each generation, individual giraffes strain their necks to reach just a bit higher. This straining somehow modifies their ge- netic material. Over generations of strain, the average neck gradually gets longer through the accumulation of small increments of neck length acquired during the lifetime of each generation of giraffes. This is not how evolution works. If it did work in this way, weight lifters could expect to produce especially muscular babies. Evolution works as the process of natural selection takes advantage of the variety that already is present in a population.

Evolution through natural selection continues today. One classic recent example of natural selection is the change in the coloring of the peppered moth that occurred in England following industrialization. The peppered moth naturally occurs in both light or dark variations (in either case with black speckles, thus the name “peppered”). Before the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, the light-colored variety, which camouflaged effectively against the light color of most tree bark, was prevalent. During the 1800s, as industrial pollution increased, soot coated buildings and trees, which turned darker as a result. The lighter moths now stood out against these darker backgrounds and were eas- ily visible to their predators, creating a major selective disadvantage. The dark moths,

Genetics 71

by contrast, blended in with the soot. As a result, the darker moths survived and repro- duced in greater numbers than lighter moths, and became the dominant moth for the industrial age. In the 20th century, the air quality in Great Britain improved, the soot disappeared from trees and buildings, and the lighter moths once again became the pre- dominant species. We see here how natural selection favors darker moths in polluted environments and lighter-colored moths in nonindustrial or less polluted environments.

The purpose of evolutionary theory is to provide explanations. Explanations rely on associations and theories. An association is an observed relationship between two or more variables, such as the length of a giraffe’s neck and the number of its offspring, or an increase in the frequency of dark moths as industrial pollution spreads. A theory is more general; it suggests associations and attempts to explain them. Something, such as the giraffe’s long neck, is explained if it illustrates a general principle or an association, such as the concept of adaptive advantage. The truth of a scientific statement (e.g., evo- lution occurs because of differential reproductive success due to variation within the population) is confirmed by repeated observations.

Genetics

Charles Darwin recognized that for natural selection to operate, there must be variety in the population undergoing selection. Documenting and explaining variety among humans— human biological diversity—is one of anthropology’s major concerns. Genetics, a sci- ence that emerged after Darwin, helps us understand the causes of biological variation. We now know that DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) molecules make up genes and chro- mosomes, which are the basic hereditary units. Biochemical changes (mutations) in DNA provide much of the variety on which natural selection operates. Through sexual reproduction, recombination of the genetic traits of mother and father in each generation

A speckled (peppered) moth and a black one. Which environment would favor each of these variants? ©The Natural History Museum/The Image Works

72 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

leads to new arrangements of the hereditary units received from each parent. Such ge- netic recombination also adds variety on which natural selection may operate.

Mendel’s Experiments In 1856, in a monastery garden, the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel began a series of experiments that were to reveal the basic principles of genetics. Mendel studied the inheritance of seven traits in pea plants. For each trait there were only two forms. For example, plants were either tall (6–7 feet) or short (9–18 inches), with no intermediate forms. The ripe seeds could be either smooth and round, or wrinkled. The peas could be either yellow or green, with no intermediate colors.

When Mendel began his experiments, one of the prevailing beliefs about heredity was what has been called the “paint-pot” theory. According to this theory, the traits of the two parents blended in their children, much as two pigments are blended in a can of paint. Children therefore were a unique mixture of their parents, and when those chil- dren reproduced, their traits would blend inextricably with those of their mates. How- ever, prevailing notions about heredity also recognized that occasionally the traits of one parent might swamp those of the other. If children looked far more like their mother than their father, people might say that her “blood” was stronger than his. Occasionally, too, there would be a “throwback,” a child who was the image of his or her grandparent or who possessed a distinctive chin or nose characteristic of a whole line of descent.

Through his experiments with pea plants, Mendel discovered that heredity is deter- mined by discrete particles or units. Although traits could disappear in one generation, they reemerged in their original form in later generations. For example, Mendel cross- bred pure strains of tall and short plants. Their offspring were all tall. This was the first descending, or first filial, generation, designated F1. Mendel then interbred the plants of the F1 generation to produce a generation of grandchildren, the F2 generation. In this generation, short plants reappeared. Among thousands of plants in the F2 generation, there was approximately one short plant for every three tall ones.

From similar results with the other six traits, Mendel concluded that although a dominant form could mask the other form—the recessive—in hybrid, or mixed, indi- viduals, the recessive trait was not destroyed; it wasn’t even changed. Recessive traits would appear in unaltered form in later generations because genetic traits were inherited as discrete units.

These basic genetic units that Mendel described were factors (now called genes or alleles) located on chromosomes. Chromosomes are arranged in matching (homolo- gous) pairs. Humans have 46 chromosomes, arranged in 23 pairs, one chromosome in each pair from the father and the other from the mother.

For simplicity, a chromosome may be pictured as a surface with several positions (see Figure 4.1), to each of which we assign a lowercase letter. Each position is a gene. Each gene determines, wholly or partially, a particular biological trait, such as whether one’s blood is type A, B, or O. Alleles (e.g., b1 and b2 in Figure 4.1) are biochemically different forms of a given gene. In humans, A, B, AB, and O blood types reflect differ- ent combinations of alleles of a particular gene.

In Mendel’s experiments, the seven contrasting traits were determined by genes located on seven different pairs of chromosomes. The gene for height occurred in one of

Genetics 73

the seven pairs. When Mendel crossbred pure tall and pure short plants to produce his F1 generation, each of the offspring re- ceived an allele for tallness (T) from one parent and one for shortness (t) from the other. These offspring were mixed, or heterozygous, with respect to height; each had two dissimilar alleles of that gene. Their parents, in contrast, had been homozygous, possessing two identical alleles of that gene (see Hartl 2014).

In the next generation (F2), after the mixed plants were inter- bred, short plants reappeared in the ratio of one short to three talls. Knowing that shorts produced only shorts, Mendel could assume that they were genetically pure. Another fourth of the F2 plants produced only talls. The remaining half, like the F1 gen- eration, were heterozygous; when interbred, they produced three talls for each short (see Figure 4.2).

Dominance produces a distinction between genotype, or he- reditary makeup, and phenotype, or expressed physical charac- teristics. Genotype is what is written in your genes; phenotype is how you appear. Mendel’s peas had three genotypes—TT, Tt, and tt—but only two phenotypes—tall and short. Because of dominance, the heterozygous plants were just as tall as the genetically pure tall ones. 

Although some human genetic traits follow Mendelian laws, with only two forms— dominant and recessive—other traits are determined differently. For instance, three al- leles determine whether our blood type is A, B, AB, or O. People with two alleles for type O have that blood type. However, if they received an allele for either A or B from one parent and one for O from the other, they will have blood type A or B. In other words, A and B are both dominant over O. A and B are said to be codominant. If people inherit an allele for A from one parent and one for B from the other, they will have type AB blood, which is chemically different from the other varieties, A, B, and O. These three alleles produce four phenotypes—A, B, AB, and O—and six different genotypes—OO, AO, BO, AA, BB, and AB (see Figure 4.3). There are fewer phenotypes than genotypes because O is recessive to both A and B.

b2

a1

b1

c1

d1

e1

f1

g2

h2

i2

a1

c1

d2

e1

f1

g1

h2

i1

FIGURE 4.1 Simplified Representation of a Normal Chromosome Pair Letters indicate genes; superscripts indicate alleles.

FIGURE 4.2 Punnett Squares of a Homozygous Cross and a Heterozygous Cross These squares show how genotypic and phenotypic ratios of the F1 and F2 generation are generated.

F1

Tt

t t

T

T Tt

Tt

Tt

F2

TT

T t

T

t tT

Tt

tt

Genotypic ratio 0:4:0 1:2:1

Phenotypic ratio 4:0 3:1

74 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

Independent Assortment Through additional experiments, Mendel also formulated his law of independent assortment. He discovered that traits are inherited independently of one another. For example, he bred pure round, yellow peas with pure wrinkled, green ones. All the F1 generation peas were round and yellow, the dominant forms. But when Mendel inter- bred the F1 generation to produce the F2, four phenotypes turned up. Round greens and wrinkled yellows had been added to the original round yellows and wrinkled greens. The independent assortment and

recombination of genetic traits provide one of the main ways by which variety is pro- duced in any population.

An organism develops from a fertilized egg, or zygote, created by the union of two sex cells, one from each parent. The zygote grows rapidly through mitosis, or ordinary cell division, which continues as the organism grows. The process by which sex cells are produced is called meiosis. Unlike ordinary cell division, in which two cells emerge from one, in meiosis four cells are produced from one. Each has half the genetic material of the original cell. In human meiosis, four cells, each with 23 individual chromosomes, are produced from an original cell with 23 pairs.

With fertilization of egg by sperm, the father’s 23 chromosomes combine with the mother’s 23 to recreate the pairs in every generation. However, the chromosomes sort independently, so that a child’s genotype is a random combination of the DNA of its four grandparents. It is conceivable that one grandparent will contribute very little to his or her grandchild’s heredity. Independent assortment of chromosomes is a major source of variety because the parents’ genotypes can be assorted in 223, or more than 8 million, different ways.

Population Genetics and Mechanisms of Genetic Evolution

Population genetics studies the genetic characteristics of populations in which breeding normally takes place (see Hamilton 2009; Hartl 2014; Nielsen and Slatkin 2013). The term gene pool refers to all the alleles, genes, chromosomes, and genotypes within a breeding population—the “pool” of genetic material available. When population ge- neticists use the term evolution, they have a more specific definition in mind than the one given earlier (“descent with modification over the generations”). Geneticists define genetic evolution as the change in gene frequencies (i.e., in the frequency of alleles in a breeding population) over time, across the generations. The four principal forces or mechanisms that cause genetic evolution are natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, and gene flow (see Relethford 2012).

AA(A)

AB(AB)

AO(A)

AB(AB)

BB(B)

BO(B)

AO(A)

BO(B)

OO(O)

A B

Parent I

O

A

B

O

Pa re

nt II

FIGURE 4.3 Determinants of Phenotypes (Blood Groups) in the ABO System The four phenotypes—A, B, AB, and O— are indicated in parentheses and by color.

Population Genetics and Mechanisms of Genetic Evolution 75

Natural Selection Natural selection remains the first and best explanation for (genetic) evolution. Essential to understanding evolution through natural selection is the distinction between genotype and phenotype. Genotype refers just to hereditary factors—genes and chromosomes. Phenotype—an organism’s evident or manifest biological characteristics—develops over the years as environmental forces influence that organism. (See the photo of the identical twins, below. Identical twins have exactly the same genotype, but their actual biology, their phenotypes, will differ if they grow up in different environments.) Fur- thermore, because of dominance, individuals with different genotypes may have identi- cal phenotypes (like Mendel’s tall pea plants). Natural selection can operate only on phenotype—on what is exposed, not on what is hidden. For example, a harmful reces- sive gene cannot be eliminated from the gene pool if it is masked by a favored dominant.

Phenotype includes not only outward physical appearance but also internal organs, tissues, and cells and physiological processes and systems. Many biological reactions to foods, disease, heat, cold, sunlight, and other environmental factors are not automatic, genetically programmed responses but the product of years of exposure to particular environmental stresses. Human biology is not set at birth but has considerable plasticity. That is, it is changeable, being affected by the environmental forces, such as diet and altitude, that we experience as we grow up (see Cameron and Bogin 2012).

Identical twins Paula Bernstein and Elyse Schein were separated at birth. Reunited after 35 years, they co-wrote the book Identical Strangers. What factors other than genes influence phenotype? ©Brian Zak/SIPA/Newscom

76 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

The environment works on the genotype to build the phenotype, and certain pheno- types do better in some environments than other phenotypes do. However, remember that favored phenotypes can be produced by different genotypes. Because natural selec- tion works only on genes that are expressed, maladaptive recessives can be eliminated only when they occur in homozygous form. When a heterozygote carries a maladaptive recessive, its effects are masked by the favored dominant. The process of perfecting the fit between organisms and their environment is gradual.

Directional Selection After several generations of selection, gene frequencies will change. Adaptation through natural selection will have occurred. Once that happens, those traits that have proved to be the most adaptive (favored by natural selection) in that environment will be selected again and again from generation to generation. Given such directional selection, or long-term selection of the same trait(s), maladaptive recessive alleles will be eliminated from the gene pool.

Directional selection will continue as long as environmental forces stay the same. However, if the environment changes, new selective forces start working, favoring dif- ferent phenotypes. This also happens when part of the population colonizes a new envi- ronment. Selection in the changed, or new, environment continues until a new equilibrium is reached. Then there is directional selection until another environmental change or migration takes place. Over millions of years, such a process of successive adaptation to a series of environments has led to biological modification and branching. The process of natural selection has led to the tremendous array of plant and animal forms found in the world today.

Selection also operates through competition for mates. Males may openly compete for females, or females may choose to mate with particular males because they have desirable traits. Obviously, such traits vary from species to species. Familiar examples include color in birds; male birds, such as cardinals, tend to be more brightly colored than females are. Colorful males have a selective advantage because females like them better. Over the generations, as females have opted for colorful mates, the alleles respon- sible for color have built up in the species. Sexual selection, based on differential suc- cess in mating, is the term for this process in which certain traits of one sex are selected because of advantages they confer in winning mates.

Selection operates only on traits that are present in a population. A favorable muta- tion may occur, but a population doesn’t normally come up with a new genotype or phenotype just because one is needed or desirable. Many species have become extinct because they weren’t sufficiently varied to adapt to environmental shifts.

Stabilizing Selection We’ve seen that natural selection reduces variety in a population through directional selection—by favoring one trait or allele over another. Selective forces also can work to maintain variety through stabilizing selection, by favoring a balanced polymorphism, in which the frequencies of two or more alleles of a gene remain constant from genera- tion to generation. This may be because the phenotypes they produce are neutral, or equally favored, or equally opposed, by selective forces. Sometimes a particular force

Population Genetics and Mechanisms of Genetic Evolution 77

favors (or opposes) one allele, while a different but equally effective force favors (or opposes) the other allele.

One well-studied example involves two alleles, HbA and HbS, that affect the produc- tion of the beta strain (Hb) of human hemoglobin. Hemoglobin, which is located in our red blood cells, carries oxygen from our lungs to the rest of the body via the circulatory system. The allele that produces normal hemoglobin is HbA. Another allele, HbS, pro- duces a different hemoglobin. Individuals who are homozygous for HbS suffer from sickle-cell anemia. Such anemia, in which the red blood cells are shaped like crescents, or sickles, is associated with a disease that usually is fatal. This condition interferes with the blood’s ability to store oxygen. It increases the heart’s burden by clogging the small blood vessels.

Given the fatal disease associated with HbS, geneticists were surprised to discover that certain populations in Africa, India, and the Mediterranean had very high frequen- cies of HbS. In some West African populations, that frequency is around 20 percent. Researchers eventually discovered that both HbA and HbS are maintained because selec- tive forces in certain environments favor the heterozygote over either homozygote.

Initially, scientists wondered why, if most HbS homozygotes died before they reached reproductive age, the harmful allele hadn’t been eliminated. Why was its frequency so high? The answer turned out to lie in the heterozygote’s greater fitness. Only people who were homozygous for HbS died from sickle-cell anemia. Heterozygotes suffered very mild anemia, if any. On the other hand, although people homozygous for HbA did not suffer from anemia, they were much more susceptible to malaria—a killer disease that continues to plague Homo sapiens in the tropics.

The heterozygote, with one sickle-cell allele and one normal one, was the fittest phe- notype for a malarial environment. Heterozygotes have enough abnormal hemoglobin, in which malaria parasites cannot thrive, to protect against malaria. They also have enough normal hemoglobin to fend off sickle-cell anemia. The HbS allele has been maintained in these populations because heterozygotes survived and reproduced in greater numbers than did either homozygote.

This example demonstrates the relativity of evolution through natural selection: Ad- aptation and fitness are in relation to specific environments. Traits are not adaptive or maladaptive for all times and places. Even harmful alleles can be selected if heterozy- gotes have an advantage. Moreover, as the environment changes, favored phenotypes and gene frequencies can change. In malaria-free environments, normal-hemoglobin homozygotes reproduce more effectively than heterozygotes do. With no malaria, the frequency of HbS declines, because HbS homozygotes can’t compete in survival and reproduction with the other types. This has happened in areas of West Africa where malaria has been reduced through drainage programs and insecticides. Selection against HbS also has occurred in the United States among Americans descended from West Africans.

Mutation The second force or mechanism of genetic evolution is mutation—a change in the DNA molecules of which genes and chromosomes are made. Mutations are the most impor- tant source of variety on which natural selection operates. If a mutation occurs in a sex

78 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

cell that joins with another in a fertilized egg, the new organism will carry that mutation in every cell. Because DNA directs protein building, a protein (such as a hemoglobin) that differs from that of the parent may be produced in the child. The form of hemoglo- bin associated with sickle-cell anemia is caused by a genetically minor (but phenotypi- cally major) difference between normal individuals and those with the disease.

Another form of mutation is chromosomal rearrangement. Pieces of a chromosome can break off, turn around and reattach, or migrate somewhere else on that chromosome. A mismatch of chromosomes resulting from rearrangement can lead to speciation (the formation of new species). Chromosomes also may fuse. When the ancestors of humans split off from those of chimpanzees around 6 million years ago, two ancestral chromo- somes fused together in the human line. Humans have 23 chromosome pairs, versus 24 for chimps.

Evolution depends on mutations as a major source of genetically transmitted variety, raw material on which natural selection can work. Alterations in genes and chromo- somes may result in entirely new types of organisms, which may demonstrate some new selective advantage. Variants produced through mutation can be especially significant if there is a change in the environment. They may prove to have an advantage they lacked in the old environment, as is illustrated by the spread of the HbS allele in malarial envi- ronments (see this chapter’s “Anthropology Today” for an example of how a disease microorganism mutates and spreads).

Random Genetic Drift A third mechanism of genetic evolution is random genetic drift. This term refers to random changes in gene frequencies, most typically seen in small populations. The changes happen by chance rather than because of natural selection. To illustrate how genetic drift works, let’s compare the sorting of genes to a game involving a bag of only 12 marbles, 6 red and 6 blue. In step 1, you randomly draw 6 marbles from the bag. Statistically, your chances of drawing 3 reds and 3 blues are less than those of getting 4 of one color and 2 of the other. Step 2 is to fill a new bag with 12 marbles based on the ratio of marbles drawn in step 1. Let’s say that in step 1 you drew 4 reds and 2 blues: The step 2 bag will have 8 red marbles and 4 blue ones. Step 3 is to randomly draw 6 marbles from the new bag. Your chances of drawing blues in step 3 are lower than they were in step 1, and the probability of drawing all reds increases. If you do draw all reds, the next bag (step 4) will have only red marbles.

This game is analogous to random genetic drift operating over a few generations. The blue marbles were lost purely by chance. Alleles of a gene also can be lost by chance rather than because of any disadvantage they confer.

Contrast this example with the discussion of how, because of natural selection, dark- colored moths replaced light-colored ones in industrial England. Dark replaced light because of a selective advantage. With this simulation of drift, however, red marbles replaced blue ones by chance, not because either color conferred any selective advan- tage or disadvantage. Fixation refers to the total replacement of blue by red. Imagine a human example in which everyone with brown eyes happens to die in an accident, and all the survivors have blue eyes. Blue has replaced brown merely by chance, not because of natural selection. The history of the human line features a series of small populations,

Population Genetics and Mechanisms of Genetic Evolution 79

migrations, and fixation due to genetic drift. One cannot understand human origins, hu- man genetic variation, and a host of other important anthropological topics without recognizing the importance of genetic drift.

Gene Flow A fourth mechanism of genetic evolution is gene flow, the exchange of genetic material between populations of the same species. Gene flow, like mutation, works in conjunc- tion with natural selection by providing variety on which selection can work. Gene flow may consist of direct interbreeding between formerly separated populations of the same species (e.g., Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans in the United States), or it may be indirect.

Consider the following hypothetical case (see Figure 4.4). In a certain part of the world live six local populations of a certain species. P1 is the westernmost of these populations. P2, which interbreeds with P1, is located 50 miles to the east. P2 also inter- breeds with P3, located 50 miles east of P2. Assume that each population interbreeds with, and only with, the adjacent populations. P6 is located 250 miles from P1 and does not directly interbreed with P1, but it is tied to P1 through the chain of interbreeding that ultimately links all six populations.

Assume further that some allele exists in P1 that isn’t particularly advantageous in its environment. Because of gene flow, this allele may be passed on to P2, by it to P3, and so on until it eventually reaches P6. In P6 or along the way, the allele may encounter an environment in which it does have a selective advantage. If this happens, it may serve, like a new mutation, as raw material on which natural selection can operate.

In the long run, natural selection works on the variety within a population, whatever its source—mutation or gene flow. Selection and gene flow have worked together to spread the HbS allele in Central Africa. Frequencies of HbS in Africa reflect not only the intensity of malaria but also the length of time gene flow has been going on.

= = =P1 = P2 = P3 P4 P5 P6

50 mi.

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FIGURE 4.4 Gene Flow between Local Populations P1–P6 are six local populations of the same species. Each interbreeds (=) only with its neighbor(s). Although members of P6 never interbreed with P1, P6 and P1 are linked through gene flow. Genetic material that originates in P1 eventually will reach P6, and vice versa, as it is passed from one neighboring population to the next. Because they share genetic material in this way, P1–P6 remain members of the same species. In many species, local populations distributed throughout a larger territory than the 250 miles depicted here are linked through gene flow.

80 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

Gene flow is important in the study of the origin of species. A species is a group of related organisms whose members can interbreed to produce offspring that can live and reproduce. A species has to be able to reproduce itself through time. We know that horses and donkeys belong to different species because their offspring cannot meet the test of long-term survival. A horse and a donkey may breed to produce a mule, but mules are sterile. So are the offspring of lions with tigers. Gene flow tends to prevent speciation—the formation of new species—unless subgroups of the same species are separated for a sufficient length of time.

When gene flow is interrupted, and isolated subgroups are maintained, new species may arise. Imagine that an environmental barrier arises between P3 and P4, so they no longer interbreed. If over time, as a result of isolation, P1, P2, and P3 become incapable of interbreeding with the other three populations, speciation will have occurred.

Race: A Discredited Concept in Biology

Historically, scientists have approached the study of human biological diversity in two main ways: (1) racial classification (now largely abandoned) versus (2) the current ex- planatory approach, which focuses on understanding specific differences.  Biological differences are real, important, and apparent to us all. Modern scientists find it most productive to seek explanations for this diversity, rather than trying to pigeonhole peo- ple into categories called races. First we’ll consider problems with racial classification (the attempt to assign humans to discrete categories—races—based on common ances- try). Then we’ll offer some explanations for specific aspects of human biological diversity. 

What is race anyway? In theory, a biological race is a geographically isolated subdi- vision of a species. Such a subspecies would be capable of interbreeding with other subspecies of the same species, but it would not actually do so because of its geographic isolation. Some biologists also use “race” to refer to “breeds,” as of dogs or roses. Thus, a pit bull and a Chihuahua would be different races of dogs. Such domesticated “races” have been bred by humans for generations. Humanity (Homo sapiens) lacks such races because human populations have not been isolated enough from one another to develop into such discrete groups. Nor have humans experienced controlled breeding like that which has created the various kinds of dogs and roses.

A race is supposed to reflect shared genetic material (inherited from a common an- cestor), but early scholars instead used phenotypical traits (usually skin color) for racial classification. Recall that an organism’s phenotype is its “manifest biology”—anatomy and physiology. Humans display hundreds of evident (detectable) physical traits. They range from skin color, hair form, eye color, and facial features (which are visible) to blood groups, color blindness, and enzyme production (which become evident through testing) (see Anemone 2011).

Racial classifications based on phenotype raise the problem of deciding which trait(s) should be primary. Should races be defined by height, weight, body shape, facial fea- tures, teeth, skull form, or skin color? Like their fellow citizens, early European and American scientists gave priority to skin color. Many schoolbooks and encyclopedias

Race: A Discredited Concept in Biology 81

The photos in this chapter illustrate only a small part of the range of human biological diversity. Shown here is a Bai minority woman from Shapin, in China’s Yunnan province. ©Paul Grebliunas/The Image Bank/Getty Images

A Quechua woman in Macha, Bolivia. ©Leonid Plotkin/Alamy Stock Photo

A boy at the Pushkar livestock fair, Rajasthan, India. ©Conrad P. Kottak

A Polynesian boy from Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia. ©Tom Cockrem/ Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images

A Native Australian man from Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia. ©Holger Leue/ Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images

82 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

still proclaim the existence of three great races: the white, the black, and the yellow. This overly simplistic classification was compatible with the political use of race during the colonial period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Such a tripartite scheme kept white Europeans neatly separate from their African, Asian, and Native American sub- jects. Colonial empires began to break up, and scientists began to question established racial categories, after World War II (see Tattersall and DeSalle 2011).

Races Are Not Biologically Distinct History and politics aside, one obvious problem with classifying people by skin color is that the terms “white,” “black,” and “yellow” do not accurately describe human skin colors. So-called “white” people are more pink, beige, or tan than white. “Black” people are various shades of brown, and “yellow” people are tan or beige. It does not make the tripartite division of human races any more accurate when we use the more scientific- sounding synonyms—Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid—rather than white, black, and yellow.

Another problem with classifying people by skin color is that many populations don’t fit neatly into any one of the three “great races.” For example, where would one put the Polynesians? Polynesia is a triangle of South Pacific islands formed by Hawaii to the north, Easter Island to the east, and New Zealand to the southwest. Does the “bronze” skin color of Polynesians connect them to the Caucasoids or to the Mongoloids? Some scientists, recognizing this problem, enlarged the original tripartite scheme to include the Polynesian “race.” Native Americans presented a similar problem. Were they red or yellow? Some scientists added a fifth race—the “red,” or Amerindian—to the major racial groups.

Many people in southern India have dark skin, but scientists have been reluctant to classify them with “black” Africans because of their Caucasoid facial features and hair form. Some, therefore, have created a separate race for these people. What about the Australian Aborigines, hunters and gatherers native to what has been, throughout hu- man history, the most isolated continent? By skin color, one might place some Native Australians in the same race as tropical Africans. However, similarities to Europeans in hair color (light or reddish) and facial features have led some scientists to classify them as Caucasoids. But there is no evidence that Australians are closer genetically or his- torically to either of these groups than they are to Asians. Recognizing this problem, scientists often regard Native Australians as a separate race.

Finally, consider the San (“Bushmen”) of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. Scientists have perceived their skin color as varying from brown to yellow. Some who regard San skin as “yellow” have placed them in the same category as Asians. In theory, people of the same race share more recent common ancestry with each other than they do with any others. But there is no evidence for recent common ancestry between San and Asians. Somewhat more reasonably, some scholars assign the San to the Capoid race (from the Cape of Good Hope), which is seen as being different from other groups inhabiting tropical Africa.

Similar problems arise when any single trait is used as a basis for racial classifica- tion. An attempt to use facial features, height, weight, or any other phenotypical trait is fraught with difficulties. For example, consider the Nilotes, natives of the upper Nile

Race: A Discredited Concept in Biology 83

region of Uganda and South Sudan. Nilotes tend to be tall and to have long, narrow noses. Certain Scandinavians are also tall, with similar noses. Given the distance be- tween their homelands, to classify them as members of the same race makes little sense. There is no reason to assume that Nilotes and Scandinavians are more closely related to each other than either is to shorter and nearer populations with different kinds of noses.

Would racial classifications be better if we based them on a combination of physical traits rather than a single trait such as skin color, height, or nose form? To do so would avoid some of the problems raised using a single trait, but other problems would arise. The main problem is that physical features do not go together in a coherent and consis- tent bundle. Some tall people have dark skin; others are lighter. Some short people have curly hair; others have straight hair. Imagine the various possible combinations of skin color, stature, and skull form. Add to that facial features such as nose form, eye shape, and lip thickness. People with dark skin may be tall or short and have hair ranging from straight to very curly. Dark-haired populations may have light or dark skin, along with various skull forms, facial features, and body sizes and shapes. The number of combina- tions is very large, and the amount that heredity (versus environment) contributes to such phenotypical traits is often unclear (see also Anemone 2011; Beall 2014). Using a combination of physical characteristics would not solve the problem of constructing an accurate racial classification scheme.

Genetic Markers Don’t Correlate with Phenotype The analysis of human DNA indicates that fully 94 percent of human genetic variation occurs within so-called races. Considering conventional geographic “racial” groupings such as Africans, Asians, and Europeans, there is only about 6 percent variation in genes from one group to the other. In other words, there is much greater variation within each of the traditional “races” than between them. Humans are much more alike genetically than are any of the living apes. This suggests a recently shared common ancestor (per- haps as recent as 70,000 to 50,000 years) for all members of modern Homo sapiens. Sampling the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of various populations, Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking, and Allan C. Wilson (1987) concluded that humans are genetically uniform overall, suggesting recent common ancestry. The fact that African populations are the most diverse genetically provides evidence that Africa was where the human diaspora originated (see also Fairbanks 2015).

Contemporary work in genomics has allowed scientists to construct regional and global phylogenetic trees based on shared genetic markers. Such trees can be based on mtDNA (which pertains to females) and the Y chromosome (which pertains to males). As the human genome becomes better known, molecular anthropologists refine their models of genetic relationships among human groups (see Stoneking 2015). A haplogroup is a lineage, or branch, of such a genetic tree marked by one or more spe- cific genetic mutations. For example, the global mtDNA tree includes branches known as M and N. The Y chromosome tree includes branches known as C and F. Those four branches (either M or N for mtDNA and either C or F for the Y chromosome) are known to be associated with the spread of modern humans out of Africa between 70,000 and 50,000 B.P. Because Native Australians share those four branches, they are known to be part of that diaspora.

84 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

Although long-term genetic markers do exist, they do not correlate neatly with phe- notypical similarities and differences. Because of changes in the environment that affect individuals during growth and development, the range of phenotypes characteristic of a population may change without any genetic change whatsoever. There are several ex- amples. In the early 20th century, the anthropologist Franz Boas (1940/1966) described changes in skull form (e.g., toward rounder heads) among the children of Europeans who had migrated to North America. The reason for this was not a change in genes, for the European immigrants tended to marry among themselves. Also, some of their chil- dren had been born in Europe and merely raised in the United States. Something in the environment, probably in the diet, was producing this change. Changes in average height and weight produced by dietary differences in a few generations are common and may have nothing to do with race or genetics.

Human Biological Adaptation

Traditional racial classification assumed that biological characteristics such as skin color were determined by heredity and that they were stable (immutable) over many genera- tions. We now know that a biological similarity does not necessarily indicate recent com- mon ancestry. Tropical Africans and southern Indians, for example, can share dark skin color for reasons other than common ancestry. Scientists have made considerable prog- ress in explaining variation in human skin color, along with many other features of hu- man biological diversity (see Relethford 2009). We shift now from racial classification to those scientific explanations, in which natural selection plays a key role.

Explaining Skin Color The role that natural selection plays in producing variation in skin color will illustrate the explanatory approach to human biological diversity. Comparable explanations have been provided for many other aspects of human biological variation. Skin color is a complex biological trait—influenced by several genes. Just how many genes is not known. Melanin, the primary determinant of human skin color, is a chemical substance manufactured in the epidermis, or outer skin layer. The melanin cells of darker-skinned people produce more and larger granules of melanin than do those of lighter-skinned people. By screening out ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun, melanin offers protec- tion against a variety of maladies, including sunburn and skin cancer.

Before the 16th century, most of the world’s very dark-skinned peoples lived in the tropics, a belt extending about 23 degrees north and south of the equator, between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. The association between dark skin color and a tropical habitat existed throughout the Old World, where humans and their ances- tors have lived for hundreds of thousands of years. The darkest populations of Africa evolved in sunny, open grassland, or savanna, country.

Outside the tropics, skin color tends to be lighter. Moving north in Africa, for ex- ample, there is a gradual transition from dark brown to medium brown. Average skin color continues to lighten as one moves through the Middle East, into southern Europe, through central Europe, and to the north. South of the tropics skin color also is lighter.

Human Biological Adaptation 85

In the Americas, by contrast, tropical populations don’t have very dark skin. This is the case because the settlement of the New World by light-skinned Asian ancestors of Na- tive Americans was relatively recent, probably dating back no more than 20,000 years.

How, aside from migrations, can we explain the geographic distribution of human skin color? Natural selection provides an answer. In the tropics, intense UV radiation poses a series of threats, including severe sunburn, that make light skin color an adap- tive disadvantage (Table 4.1 summarizes those threats). By damaging sweat glands, sunburn reduces the body’s ability to perspire and thus to regulate its own temperature (thermoregulation). Sunburn also can increase susceptibility to disease. Melanin, na- ture’s own sunscreen, confers a selective advantage (i.e., a better chance to survive and reproduce) on darker-skinned people living in the tropics. Yet another disadvan- tage of having light skin color in the tropics is that exposure to UV radiation can cause skin cancer.

When and why might light skin color be advantageous? Years ago, W. F. Loomis (1967) focused on the role of UV radiation in stimulating the synthesis of vitamin D by the human body. The unclothed human body can produce its own vitamin D when ex- posed to sufficient sunlight. However, in a cloudy environment that also is so cold that people have to wear clothing much of the year (such as northern Europe, where very

Before the 16th century, almost all the very dark-skinned populations of the world lived in the tropics, as does this Samburu woman from Kenya. ©Jan Spieczny/Photolibrary/ Getty Images

Princess Madeleine of Sweden attends the wedding of Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling at the Stockholm Cathedral. Very light skin color, illustrated in this photo, maximizes absorption of ultraviolet radiation by those few parts of the body exposed to direct sunlight during northern winters. ©Antony Jones/Julian Parker/Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty Images

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Human Biological Adaptation 87

light skin color evolved), clouds and clothing impede the body’s manufacture of vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency diminishes the absorption of calcium in the intestines. A nutri- tional disease known as rickets, which softens and deforms the bones, may develop. In women, deformation of the pelvic bones from rickets can interfere with childbirth. In cold northern areas, light skin color maximizes the absorption of UV radiation and the synthesis of vitamin D by the few parts of the body that are exposed to direct sunlight. There has been selection against dark skin color in northern areas because melanin screens out UV radiation.

This natural selection continues today: East Asians living in northern areas of the United Kingdom have a higher incidence of rickets and osteoporosis (also related to vitamin D and calcium deficiency) than the general British population. A related illus- tration involves Eskimos (Inuit) and other indigenous inhabitants of northern Alaska and northern Canada. According to Nina Jablonski (quoted in Iqbal 2002), “Looking at Alaska, one would think that the native people should be pale as ghosts.” One reason they are not pale is that they haven’t lived in this region very long in terms of geological time. Even more important, their traditional diet, which is rich in seafood, including fish oils, supplies sufficient vitamin D so as to make a reduction in pigmentation unneces- sary. However, again illustrating natural selection at work today, when these people abandon their traditional diets based on fish and sea mammals, they suffer from high rates of childhood rickets and adult osteoporosis. Far from being immutable, skin color can become an evolutionary liability very quickly.

Another key factor explaining the geographic distribution of skin color involves the effects of UV on folate, an essential nutrient that the human body manufactures from folic acid (Jablonski 2012). Pregnant women require large amounts of folate to support rapid cell division in the embryo, and there is a direct connection between folate and individual reproductive success. Folate deficiency causes neural tube defects (NTDs) in human embryos. NTDs are marked by the incomplete closure of the neural tube, so the spine and spinal cord fail to develop completely. One NTD, anencephaly (with the brain an exposed mass), results in stillbirth or death soon after delivery. With spina bifida, another NTD, survival rates are higher, but babies have severe disabilities, including paralysis. NTDs are the second most common human birth defect after cardiac abnor- malities. Today, women of reproductive age are advised to take folate supplements to prevent serious birth defects such as spina bifida.

Natural sunlight and UV radiation destroy folate in the human body. Because mela- nin, as we have seen, protects against UV hazards, such as sunburn and its conse- quences, dark skin coloration is adaptive in the tropics. Now we see that melanin also is adaptive because it conserves folate in the human body and thus protects against NTDs, which are much more common in light-skinned than darker-skinned populations (Jablonski 2006, 2012; Jablonski and Chaplin 2000). Africans and African Americans rarely dem- onstrate severe folate deficiency, even among individuals with marginal nutritional status. Folate also plays a role in another key reproductive process, spermatogenesis— the production of sperm. In mice and rats, folate deficiency can cause male sterility; it may well play a similar role in humans.

Today, of course, cultural alternatives to biological adaptation permit light-skinned people to survive in the tropics and darker-skinned people to live in the far north. People

88 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

can clothe themselves and seek shelter from the sun; they can use artificial sunscreens if they lack the natural protection that melanin provides. Dark-skinned people living in the north can, indeed must, get vitamin D from their diet or take supplements. Today, pregnant women are routinely advised to take folic acid or folate supplements as a hedge against NTDs. Even so, light skin color still is correlated with a higher incidence of spina bifida.

Jablonski and Chaplin (2000) explain variation in human skin color as resulting from a balancing act between the evolutionary needs to (1) protect against all UV hazards (thus favoring dark skin in the tropics) and (2) have an adequate supply of vitamin D (thus favoring lighter skin outside the tropics). We see that common ancestry, the pre- sumed basis of race, is not the only reason for biological similarities. Natural selection, still at work today, makes a major contribution to variations in human skin color, as well as to many other human biological differences and similarities.

Genes and Disease There is abundant evidence for human genetic adaptation and thus for evolution (change in gene frequency). Remember that adaptation and evolution go on in specific environ- ments. There is no generally or ideally adaptive allele and no perfect phenotype. Fur- thermore, we have seen that even an apparently maladaptive allele like HbS—which produces a lethal anemia—has a selective advantage in the heterozygous form in ma- larial environments. Also, alleles that once were maladaptive can lose their disadvan- tage if the environment shifts. For example, medical advances now allow many people with genetic disorders to live normal lives.

Let’s consider now some examples of how microbes have been selective agents for humans, particularly before the advent of modern medicine. As food production (farm- ing and herding) began to spread about 10,000 years ago, infectious diseases posed a mounting risk. Food production supports larger, denser populations and a more seden- tary lifestyle than does hunting and gathering. People live closer to each other and to their own wastes, making it easier for microbes to survive and to find hosts. Domesti- cated animals also transmit diseases to people.

Smallpox, which mutated from cowpox, has been a particularly important selective agent. Until 1979, when the last case was reported, smallpox had been a major threat to humans (Diamond 1990, 1997). Smallpox epidemics have played important roles in world history, often killing one-fourth to one-half of the affected populations.

Having a particular ABO blood type appears to protect against certain microbes, in- cluding smallpox. In the ABO system, blood is typed according to the protein and sugar compounds on the surface of the red blood cells. Different compounds distinguish be- tween type A and type B blood. The compounds on type A cells trigger the production of antibodies in type B blood, so that A cells clot in B blood (and vice versa). The dif- ferent compounds work like chemical passwords; they help us distinguish our own cells from invading cells, including microbes we ought to destroy. The surfaces of some mi- crobes have compounds similar to ABO blood group compounds. We don’t produce antibodies to compounds similar to those on our own blood cells.

It turns out that people with A or AB blood are more susceptible to smallpox than are people with type B or type O. Presumably this is because a compound on the smallpox

Human Biological Adaptation 89

In New York City in 1947, the appearance of nine cases of smallpox, including two deaths, spurred a very successful mass vaccination program. Shown above, lines of people wait to be vaccinated at the New York Health Department on April 14, 1947. The smallpox threat made the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine (below). ©Tony Camerano/AP Images

Source: NIH History of Medicine Divison, U.S. National Library of Medicine

90 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

virus is similar to the type A compound, permitting the virus to slip by the defenses of a type A individual. By contrast, type B and type O individuals produce antibodies against smallpox because they recognize it as a foreign compound.

The relation between type A blood and susceptibility to smallpox was first suggested by the low frequencies of the A allele in areas of India and Africa where smallpox had been endemic. A comparative study done in rural India during a virulent smallpox epi- demic helped confirm this relationship. Scientists analyzed blood samples from small- pox victims and their uninfected siblings (Diamond 1990). The researchers focused on 415 infected children, none ever vaccinated against smallpox. All but eight of these children had an uninfected (also unvaccinated) sibling.

The results of the study were clear: Susceptibility to smallpox varied with ABO type. Of the 415 infected children, 261 had the A allele; 154 lacked it. Among their 407 unin- fected siblings, the ratio was reversed. Only 80 had the A allele; 327 lacked it. The re- searchers calculated that a type A or type AB person had a seven times greater chance of getting smallpox than did a type O or type B person.

Worldwide, the O allele is more common than A and B combined. Type A is most common in Europe; type B frequencies are highest in Asia. Because smallpox was once widespread in the Old World, we might wonder why natural selection did not eliminate the A allele entirely. The answer appears to be this: Other diseases spared type A people, while infecting people with other blood groups. Type O people, for example, seem to be especially susceptible to bubonic plague and cholera. (The latter has killed as many people in India as smallpox has.) On the other hand, the O allele may protect against syphilis, which originated in the New World. Frequencies of type O blood are very high among the native populations of Central and South America. The distribution of human blood groups appears to represent a compromise among the selective effects of many diseases.

In the case of diseases for which there still are no known cures, genetic resistance maintains its significance (see Hartigan 2013). There is genetic variation in susceptibil- ity to the HIV virus, for example. Longitudinal studies have shown that people exposed to HIV vary in their risk of developing AIDS and in the rate at which the disease pro- gresses.

As an interesting case of what we might call fortuitous preadaptation or preselection, consider the CCR5 gene. This gene codes for a chemical receptor protein on the surface of white blood cells and is involved in the human immune system. The viral infection HIV uses the CCR5 receptor to invade and infect cells. But individuals who are homo- zygous for an allele known as CCR5-Δ32 (delta 32) are resistant to this invasion. This HIV immunity illustrates preadaptation or preselection, because the original selection for the allele had nothing to do with HIV. The allele was adaptive and spread because of  the resistance it offered against deadly epidemics that occurred much earlier in European history.

The CCR5-Δ32 allele is found in between 3 and 14 percent of Europeans, but it is absent in Africans, East Asians, and Native Americans. Among Europeans, the allele is most common in Scandinavia and Russia and least common near the Mediterranean. Susan Scott and Christopher Duncan (2004) argue that most of the lethal epidemics that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1660 were not bubonic plague (a bacterial infection),

Human Biological Adaptation 91

as is commonly thought. Rather, they involved a lethal, viral, hemorrhagic fever that used the CCR5 receptor gene to invade (and usually kill) its human hosts. Hemorrhagic fever disappeared from England after London’s Great Plague of 1665–1666, but it con- tinued through 1800 in Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Poland, and Hungary. Given the persistent hemorrhagic plague threat, selection for CCR5-Δ32 continued in those coun- tries, where it has its highest frequencies (see Relethford 2012, p. 368). Others have suggested a link between the spread of CCR5-Δ32 and resistance to smallpox. Whatever the disease may have been that favored this allele to begin with, it is clear that it is merely by lucky chance that CCR5-Δ32 also confers resistance to HIV and AIDS. Similarly, genetic variation is likely to influence susceptibility and resistance to microbes that may emerge or mutate in the future. (See the section on “Emerging Diseases” in Chapter 19).

Lactose Tolerance Many biological traits that illustrate human adaptation are not under simple genetic control. Genetic determination of such traits may be only partial, or several genes may work or interact to influence the trait in question. Sometimes there is a known genetic component but the trait also responds to stresses encountered during growth. We speak of phenotypical adaptation when adaptive changes occur during an individual’s life- time. Phenotypical adaptation is made possible by biological plasticity—our ability to change in response to the environments we encounter as we grow (see Cameron and Bogin 2012).

One genetically determined biochemical difference among human groups involves the ability to digest large amounts of milk—an adaptive advantage when other foods are scarce and milk is available. Milk contains a complex sugar called lactose, and the di- gestion of milk depends on an enzyme called lactase, which works in the small intestine. Among all mammals except humans and some of their pets, lactase production ceases after weaning, so that these animals can no longer digest milk.

Lactase production and the ability to tolerate milk vary among human populations. About 90 percent of northern Europeans and their descendants are lactose tolerant; they can digest several glasses of milk with no difficulty. Similarly, about 80 percent of two African populations, the Tutsi of Rwanda and Burundi in East Africa and the Fulani of Nigeria in West Africa, produce lactase and digest milk easily. Both of these groups traditionally have been herders. However, such nonherders as the Yoruba and the Igbo in Nigeria, the Baganda in Uganda, the Japanese and other Asians, Inuit, South American Indians, and many Israelis cannot digest lactose (Kretchmer 1972/1975).

Recent genetic studies have helped clarify when and how humans developed lactose tolerance (see Mielke, Konigsberg, and Relethford 2011). An allele known to favor adult lactose tolerance existed, but still was uncommon, in central and eastern Europe as re- cently as 3,800 years ago (Burger et al. 2007). Sarah Tishkoff and her associates found that the alleles behind lactose tolerance in East Africans differ from those of lactose- tolerant Europeans. Her genetic studies of 43 East African groups suggested that three different mutations favoring lactose tolerance arose in Africa between 6,800 and 2,700 years ago (Tishkoff et al. 2007). Again we see that the same phenotype—in this case, lactose tolerance—can be produced by different genotypes. It also should be noted that

92 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

Anthropology Today Disease Evolution: A Case Study

The same processes (e.g., mutation and en- vironmental adaptation) that operate in the evolution of life in general also apply to the evolution of disease microorganisms. Con- sider syphilis, a sexually transmitted infec- tion (STI) that appears to have originated as a childhood infection transmitted through skin contact. The syphilis bacterium (T. pal- lidum), which most probably originated in the Americas, mutated and spread rapidly when it reached Europe via the return voy- age of Christopher Columbus and his crew in 1493. In just a few years, the mutated bacterium—as the STI syphilis—spawned an epidemic and became a major killer dur- ing the European Renaissance. Although the New World origin of syphilis is widely accepted, some observers believe that syphilis already existed in Europe before Columbus but did not become a major threat until the Renaissance, when it erupted in epidemic form, perhaps in re- sponse to environmental and social changes, including the growth of cities. What kinds of evidence can help us solve the puzzle of the origin and evolu- tion of syphilis? Anthropologists Kristin Harper, Molly Zuckerman, and George Armelagos (2014) consider bone biology, genetics, and nonhuman primates in their studies of syphilis and its close cousins, yaws and bejel (known together as trepo- nemal diseases). Like syphilis, yaws and bejel are chronic, debilitating diseases, but neither spreads sexually. Yaws, found in tropical regions, spreads via skin-to-skin contact. Bejel, found in arid areas like the Middle East, spreads via contaminated utensils. All three diseases often leave skeletal evidence, including crater-like markings on the skull, and shinbones that are swollen and pitted. From bone biology, there is indisputable evidence for T. pallidum infection through- out the Americas prior to Columbus. Many

of the affected skeletons are of juvenile in- dividuals, suggesting nonsexual transmis- sion. By contrast, the skeletal evidence for pre-Columbian treponemal infection in the Old World is spotty and ambiguous. Based on an extensive review, Harper, Zuckerman, and Armelagos (2014) could find no European skeleton with both a confirmed diagnosis of Treponema and a reliable pre-Columbian date. For this rea- son, those researchers were unconvinced that the pathogen really did exist in Europe before Columbus. They do recognize, how- ever, that Treponema may have existed in Africa, where monkeys and apes continue to experience treponemal infections.

The scourge of syphilis: This historic (1497) woodcut depicts a bedridden woman and a young man seated on a stool—both covered with the lesions or skin pustules that are characteristic of the disease. The first European syphilis epidemics occurred in 1494. What is significant about that date? ©INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo

Summary 93

Genetics is another important tool for studying the origin and evolution of syphi- lis. When researchers compared T. palli- dum strains from around the world, the closest genetic match to syphilis was a yaws-causing strain of T. pallidum found in South America. This strain infects children in remote indigenous communities in Guyana; the children develop sores on their shins that resemble both yaws and syphilis. In terms of its genetics and clinical symptoms, this South American strain oc- cupied a space midway between yaws and syphilis. The close genetic and clinical similarity of syphilis to this South American strain strongly suggests that syphilis de- scends from a non-sexually-transmitted yaws-like pathogen in the Americas. How- ever, genetic comparison also suggests that some forms of treponemal disease were present in the pre-Columbian Old World as well, most probably in Africa. Researchers working in national parks in Tanzania in the 1980s and 1990s

reported a gruesome treponemal disease that attacked the genitals of baboons. One strain from these baboons was indis- tinguishable from a group of human yaws strains, suggesting the possibility of cross-species transmission. Researchers are examining the risk of the bacterium jumping from animals to humans. The hu- man diseases that are easiest to eradicate are those that cannot jump back and forth between animals and humans (e.g., polio and smallpox). We can seem to eradicate a disease such as yaws among humans, only to have it jump back later from its animal hosts. We see in this account how biological anthropologists can combine the study of genetics, skeletons, clinical manifesta- tions, and nonhuman primates to under- stand the origin, evolution, and spread of syphilis and its cousins. Anthropologists use a similar multipronged approach to study the evolution of other life forms, es- pecially humans.

the variable human ability to digest milk seems to be a difference of degree. Some populations can tolerate very little or no milk, but others are able to metabolize much greater quantities. People who move from no-milk or low-milk diets to high-milk diets can increase their lactose tolerance; this suggests some phenotypical adaptation.

Human biology changes constantly, even without genetic change. In this chapter, we’ve considered several ways in which humans adapt biologically to their environ- ments, and the effects of such adaptation on human biological diversity. Modern bio- logical anthropology seeks to explain specific aspects of human biological variation. The explanatory framework encompasses the same mechanisms—selection, mutation, drift, gene flow, and plasticity—that govern adaptation, variation, and evolution among other life forms.

Summary 1. In the 18th century, Carolus Linnaeus developed biological taxonomy. He viewed

differences and similarities among organisms as part of God’s orderly plan rather than as evidence for evolution. In the mid-19th century, Charles Darwin proposed

94 Chapter 4 Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation

that natural selection could explain the origin of species, biological diversity, and similarities among related life forms. Natural selection requires variety in the popu- lation undergoing selection.

2. Through breeding experiments with peas in 1856, Gregor Mendel discovered that genetic traits pass on as units. These are now known to be chromosomes, which occur in homologous pairs. Alleles—some dominant, some recessive—are the chemically different forms that occur at a given genetic locus. Mendel also formu- lated the law of independent assortment. Each of the seven traits he studied in peas was inherited independently of all the others. Independent assortment of chromo- somes and their recombination provide some of the variety needed for natural se- lection. But the major source of such variety is mutation, a chemical change in the DNA molecules of which genes are made.

3. Population genetics studies gene frequencies in stable and changing populations. Natural selection is the most important mechanism of evolutionary change. Others are mutation, random genetic drift, and gene flow. Given environmental change, nature selects among traits already present in the population. New types don’t ap- pear just because they are needed.

4. One well-documented case of natural selection in contemporary human popula- tions is that of the sickle-cell allele. In homozygous form, the sickle-cell allele, HbS, produces an abnormal hemoglobin. This clogs the small blood vessels, im- pairing the blood’s capacity to store oxygen. The result is sickle-cell anemia, which is usually fatal. Homozygotes for normal hemoglobin are susceptible to malaria and die in great numbers. Heterozygotes get only mild anemia and are resistant to malaria. In a malarial environment, the heterozygote has the advantage.

5. Other mechanisms of genetic evolution complement natural selection. Random genetic drift operates most obviously in small populations, where pure chance can easily change allele frequencies. Gene flow and interbreeding keep subgroups of the same species genetically connected and thus impede speciation.

6. Because of a range of problems involved in classifying humans into racial catego- ries, contemporary biologists focus on specific differences and try to explain them. Because of extensive gene flow and interbreeding, Homo sapiens has not evolved subspecies or distinct races. Biological similarities between groups may reflect— rather than common ancestry—similar but independent adaptations to similar natu- ral selective forces, such as degrees of ultraviolet radiation from the sun in the case of skin color.

7. Differential resistance to infectious diseases such as smallpox has influenced the distribution of human blood groups. There are genetic antimalarials, such as the sickle-cell allele. Phenotypical adaptation refers to adaptive changes that occur in an individual’s lifetime in response to the environment the organism encounters as it grows. Lactose tolerance is due partly to phenotypical adaptation. Biological similarities between geographically distant populations may be due to similar but independent genetic changes rather than to common ancestry. Or they may reflect similar physiological responses to common stresses during growth.

Key Terms 95

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. How does the scientific meaning of “theory” differ from the common one? Can

evolution be both a theory and a fact? 2. Consider the “American Anthropological Association Statement on Race”. What is

its main argument? If race is a problematic concept when applied to humans, what has replaced, or should replace, it? 

3. Choose three to five people in your classroom who contrast phenotypically. Which of their features vary most evidently? How might you explain this variation with reference to one of the evolutionary mechanisms discussed in this chapter? To what extent does the variation you observe in your classmates reflect culture rather than biology?

Key Terms adaptive, 76 alleles, 72 balanced

polymorphism, 76

catastrophism, 69 chromosomes, 72 creationism, 68 dominant, 72 evolution, 69 gene, 72 gene flow, 79 gene pool, 74 genetic

evolution, 74

population genetics, 74

racial classification, 80

random genetic drift, 78

recessive, 72 sexual selection, 76 speciation, 80 species, 80 theory, 69 uniformitarianism,

69

genotype, 73 haplogroup, 83 heterozygous, 73 homozygous, 73 independent

assortment, 74 meiosis, 74 melanin, 84 mitosis, 74 mutation, 77 natural

selection, 70 phenotype, 73 phenotypical

adaptation, 91

96

Chapter 5 The Primates

Our Place among Primates

Homologies and Analogies

Primate Adaptations

The Primate Suborders

Monkeys New World Monkeys Old World Monkeys

Apes Gibbons Orangutans Gorillas Chimpanzees Bonobos

Endangered Primates

Primate Evolution

Chronology

Early Primates Early Cenozoic Primates Oligocene Proto-Monkeys

Miocene Hominoids

Pierolapithecus catalaunicus

Anthropology Today: Should Apes Have Human Rights?

Our Place among Primates

Primatology is the study of nonhuman primates—fossil and living apes, monkeys, tarsiers, lemurs, and lorises—including their behavior and social life (see Campbell 2011; Strier 2014). Primatology is fascinating in itself, but it also helps anthropologists make inferences about the early social organization and adaptive strategies of hominids (members of the zoological family that includes fossil and living humans). Of particular relevance to humans are two kinds of primates:

1. Those whose ecological adaptations are similar to our own: terrestrial monkeys and apes—that is, primates that live on the ground rather than in the trees.

2. Those that are most closely related to us: the great apes, specifically the chimpanzees and gorillas (see Schaik 2015).

Similarities between humans and apes are evident in anatomy, brain structure, genetics, and biochemistry. The physical similarities between humans and apes are recognized in

Our Place among Primates 97

zoological taxonomy—the assignment of organisms to categories (taxa; singular, taxon) according to their relatedness and resemblance. Taxonomy is an important way of conceptualizing evolutionary, or phylogenetic, relationships. Many similari- ties between organisms reflect their common phylogeny—their genetic relatedness based on common ancestry. In other words, organisms share features they have in- herited from the same ancestor. Humans and apes belong to the same taxonomic superfamily Hominoidea (hominoids). Monkeys are placed in two others (Ceboidea and Cercopithecoidea). Humans are placed in the same taxon as apes because hu- mans and apes share a more recent common ancestry with each other than either does with monkeys.

Figure 5.1 summarizes the various levels of classification used in zoological taxon- omy. Each lower-level unit belongs to the one above it. Thus, toward the bottom of the figure, similar species belong to the same genus (plural, genera). Similar genera make up the same family, and so on through the top of the figure, where similar phyla (plural of phylum) are included in the same kingdom. The highest (most inclusive) taxonomic level is the kingdom. At that level, animals are distinguished from plants.

At the lowest level of taxonomy, a species may have subspecies. These are its more or less—but not yet totally—isolated subgroups. Subspecies can coexist in time and space. For example, the Neandertals, who lived between 130,000 and as late as 28,000 years ago, sometimes are assigned not to a separate species but merely to a different subspe- cies of Homo sapiens. Just one subspecies of Homo sapiens survives today.

The similarities used to assign organisms to the same taxon are called homologies, similarities they have inherited jointly from a common ancestor. Table 5.1 summarizes the place of humans in zoological taxonomy. We see in the table that we are mammals, members of the class Mammalia. This is a major subdivision of the kingdom Animalia. Mammals share certain traits, including mammary glands, that set them apart from other taxa, such as birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects. Mammalian homologies

Kingdom Phylum

Subphylum Class

Infraclass Order

Suborder Infraorder Parvorder

Superfamily Family Tribe

Genus Species

Subspecies

FIGURE 5.1 The Principal Classificatory Units of Zoological Taxonomy Moving down the figure, the classificatory units become more exclusive, so that “Kingdom” at the top is the most inclusive unit and “Subspecies” at the bottom is the most exclusive.

98 Chapter 5 The Primates

TABLE 5.1 The Place of Humans (Homo sapiens) in Zoological Taxonomy Homo sapiens can be classified using these common names: animal, chordate, vertebrate, mammal, eutherian, primate, haplorrhine, simian, catarrhine, hominoid, hominid, and hominin. (Figure 5.2 summarizes the taxonomic placement of the other primates.)

Taxon Scientific (Latin) Name Common (English) Name

Kingdom Animalia Animals Phylum Chordata Chordates Subphylum Vertebrata Vertebrates Class Mammalia Mammals Infraclass Eutheria Eutherians Order Primates Primates Suborder Haplorrhini Haplorrhines Infraorder Simiiformes Simians (“Anthropoids”) Parvorder Catarrhini Catarrhines Superfamily Hominoidea Hominoids Family Hominidae Hominids Tribe Hominini Hominins Genus Homo Humans Species Homo sapiens Recent humans Subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens Anatomically modern humans

PrimatesOrder

Suborder

Infraorder

Parvorder

Superfamily

Strepsirrhini (strepsirrhines)

Haplorrhini (haplorrhines)

Lemuriformes (lemurs)

Lorisiformes (lorises)

Tarsiiformes (tarsiers)

Simiiformes (anthropoid primates:

monkeys, apes, humans)

Platyrrhini (New World anthropoids)

Catarrhini (Old World

anthropoids)

Cercopithecoidea (Old World monkeys)

Ceboidea (New World monkeys)

Hominoidea (apes and humans)

FIGURE 5.2 Classification of Primates  Names within parentheses are common names.

Homologies and Analogies 99

indicate that all mammals share more recent common ancestry with each other than they do with any bird, reptile, or insect.

Humans are mammals that, at a lower taxonomic level, belong to the order Primates, which also includes monkeys and apes. Another mammalian order is Carnivora—the carnivores (dogs, cats, foxes, wolves, badgers, weasels). Rodentia (rats, mice, beavers, squirrels) form yet another mammalian order. The primates share structural and biochem- ical homologies that distinguish them from other mammals. These resemblances were inherited from their common ancestors after those early primates became reproductively isolated from the ancestors of the other mammals.

Homologies and Analogies

Organisms are assigned to the same taxon on the basis of homologies. The extensive biochemical homologies between apes and humans confirm our common ancestry and support our traditional joint classification as hominoids (see Figure  5.3). For example, humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas have more than 98 percent of their DNA in common.

However, common ancestry isn’t the only reason for similarities between species. Similar traits also can arise if species experience similar selective forces and adapt to them in similar ways. We call such similarities analogies. The process by which analo- gies are produced is called convergent evolution. For example, fish and porpoises (dolphins) share many analogies resulting from convergent evolution to life in the water. Like fish, porpoises, which are mammals, have fins. They are also hairless and stream- lined for efficient locomotion. Analogies between birds and bats (wings, small size, light bones) illustrate convergent evolution to flying.

In theory, only homologies should be used in taxonomy. In the past, a reluctance to lump apes and humans too closely together resulted in placing chimps, gorillas, and orangutans all together in the family Pongidae (the pongids). This placement, however, violates the rule that taxonomy should be based on recent common ancestry. There is absolutely no doubt that humans, gorillas, and chimpanzees are more closely related to each other than any of the three is to orangutans, which are Asiatic apes. As discussed, Hominidae is the name of the zoological family that includes hominids—fossil and liv- ing humans. Because chimps and gorillas share a more recent common ancestor with humans than they do with orangutans, most scientists now also place gorillas and chimps in the hominid family. Hominid would then refer to the zoological family that includes fossil and living humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and their common ancestors. This leaves the orangutan (genus Pongo) as the only member of the pongid family (Pongi- dae). If chimps and gorillas are classified as hominids, what do we call the group that leads to humans but not to chimps and gorillas? For that group, scientists insert a taxo- nomic level called tribe between family and genus. The tribe hominini describes all the human species that ever have existed (including the extinct ones) and excludes chimps and gorillas. Figure 5.2 summarizes primate taxonomy, and Figure 5.3 illustrates our degree of relatedness to the living great apes.

100 Chapter 5 The Primates

Primate Adaptations

Primates have adapted to diverse ecological niches (see Fleagle 2013). Some primates are active during the day; others, at night. Some eat insects; others, fruits; others, shoots, leaves, and bulk vegetation; and still others, seeds or roots. Terrestrial primates live on

FIGURE 5.3 Humans and the Apes The top drawing shows the evolutionary (phylogenetic) relationships among the living great apes and humans. Note that humans and the African apes are more closely related to each other (as hominids) than either is to the orangutan (a pongid). The bottom drawing shows the same phylogeny, along with estimated dates of divergence and last common ancestor (represented by dots). It is based on the extent of shared DNA among these groups. Source: Relethford, John, The Human Species: An Introduction to Biological Anthropology, 9th ed., (top) p. 134 and (bottom) p. 232. Copyright © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Orangutan Gorilla Chimpanzee Bonobo Human

2.5 million years ago

(2–3)

6 million years ago

(5–7) 7 million

years ago (6–8)

13 million years ago

Orangutan Gorilla Chimpanzee Bonobo Human

African Apes

Primate Adaptations 101

the ground; arboreal primates live in trees, and there are intermediate adaptations. Many trends in primate evolution are best exemplified by monkeys, apes, and humans, and those trends can be summarized briefly. Together they constitute a heritage that humans share with monkeys and apes.

1. Grasping. Primates have five-digited feet and hands that are suited for grasping (e.g., of tree branches) and manipulating objects (e.g., food items). Facilitating manual dexterity is the fact that humans and many other primates have opposable thumbs: The thumb can touch the other fingers. Some primates also have grasping feet. Grasping ability was an adaptive advantage in the arboreal niches in which many primates live. However, in adapting to bipedal (two-footed) locomotion, humans eliminated most of the foot’s grasping ability.

2. Smell to sight. Several anatomical changes reflect the shift from smell to sight as the primates’ most important means of obtaining information. Primates have excel- lent stereoscopic (able to see in depth) and color vision. The portion of the brain devoted to vision expanded, while the area concerned with smell shrank.

3. Nose to hand. The sense of touch, conveyed by tactile organs, also provides informa- tion. Some nonprimates, including cats and dogs, have sensitive tactile skin on their noses. Cats’ facial whiskers also serve a tactile function. In primates, however, the main touch organ is the hand, specifically the sensitive pads of the “fingerprint” region.

4. Brain complexity. The proportion of brain tissue concerned with memory, thought, and association has increased in primates. The primate ratio of brain size to body size exceeds that of most mammals.

5. Parental investment. Most primates give birth to a single offspring rather than a litter. Because of this, growing primates receive more attention and have more learning opportunities than do other mammals. Learned behavior is an important part of primate adaptation.

6. Sociality. Primates tend to be social animals that live with others of their species. The need for longer and more attentive care of offspring places a selective value on support by a social group.

Think about how our primate heritage is reflected in how we use our senses—vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Which are you using right now? Which do you most depend on to navigate the world? 

Like almost all other anthropoids (humanlike primates)—a group that includes monkeys, humans, and apes—humans are diurnal, or active during the day. If we were night animals, we’d sense things differently. Our eyes might be bigger, like those of an owl or a tarsier. Maybe we’d have biological radar systems, as bats do. Perhaps we’d develop a more acute sense of hearing or smell to penetrate the dark. Many animals rely on scents and odors to help them interpret the world. Humans, by contrast, use an array of products to cover up or eliminate even the faint odors our limited olfactory apparatus permits us to smell. Consider as well the structure of your hand—especially your oppos- able thumb and sensitive finger pads. Imagine a cat or dog trying to light a match or send a text message. The sensory shifts that occurred in primate evolution explain something fundamental about ourselves.

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The Primate Suborders

In primate evolution there was an early separation of two groups: (1) the ancestors of lemurs and lorises and (2) the ancestors of tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans. The lemur-loris group and their ancestors compose the suborder Strepsirrhini or strepsir- rhine primates. The suborder Haplorrhini, the haplorrhine primates, includes tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans (see Masters et al. 2013). Strepsirrhine nostrils, like those of a dog, are surrounded by moist, naked skin, unlike the dry, hairy skin that surrounds haplorrhine nostrils. Another distinguishing strepsirrhine feature is a layer of the eye that reflects light and provides better night vision.

Based on certain analogies in the appearance and adaptation of these primates, sci- entists used to lump together tarsiers, lemurs, and lorises as prosimians, meaning “pre- monkeys,” in contrast to anthropoids, meaning “humanlike” (and also encompassing monkeys and apes). Some researchers still use the term prosimian colloquially to refer to these primates, but it does not reflect phylogeny. Based on their evolutionary history, tarsiers belong with monkeys, apes, and humans rather than with the lemurs.

The split between haplorrhines and strepsirrhines took place over 60 million years ago. The early history of the primates is limited to lemurlike and tarsierlike animals known through the fossil record. By 50 million years ago, several genera of tarsierlike primates were living in Asia, North America, and Europe, which were much warmer than they are now. Tarsiers survive today only in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Active at night (nocturnal), tarsiers do not compete directly with monkeys, apes, and humans, which are diurnal. Lorises also survive as nocturnal primates in parts of Asia.

The lemurs of Madagascar are the best known nonhuman primates other than mon- keys and apes. Ancestral lemurs were able to survive, multiply, and diversify on the isolated island of Madagascar, where they had no primate competitors until humans arrived on that island around 2,000 years ago. In their behavior and biology, Madagas- car’s lemurs, which include some 50 species, show adaptations to an array of environ- ments. Their diets and times of activity differ. Lemurs eat fruits, other plant foods, eggs, and insects. Some are nocturnal; others are active during the day. Some are totally arbo- real; others spend some time in the trees and some on the ground. Like all nonhuman primates, they are endangered today, primarily as a result of human activity.

Monkeys

The haplorrhine suborder has two infraorders, one consisting of living and fossil tarsi- ers; the other includes all the anthropoid, or humanlike, primates. The term anthropoid refers to monkeys, apes, and humans, as distinct from tarsiers and all other primates.

There are two groups of monkeys—New World monkeys (platyrrhines) and Old World monkeys (catarrhines). The catarrhines also include apes and humans, all of which originated in the Old World. Catarrhine means sharp-nosed, and platyrrhine means flat-nosed. These names come from Latin terms that describe the placement of the nostrils.

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Catarrhines (Latin, Catarrhini) is the taxonomic name for the group that includes all Old World monkeys, apes, and humans. Because taxonomy reflects phylogeny, this placement together means that Old World monkeys, apes, and humans are more closely related to each other than they are to New World monkeys. In other words, one kind of monkey (Old World) is more like a human than it is like another kind of monkey (New World). The New World monkeys were reproductively isolated from the catarrhines before the latter diverged into the Old World monkeys, apes, and humans. This is why New World monkeys belong to a different taxon.

All New World monkeys and many Old World monkeys are arboreal. Whether in the trees or on the ground, however, monkeys move differently than apes and humans. Their arms and legs move parallel to one another, as dogs’ legs do. This contrasts with the tendency toward orthograde posture, the straight and upright stance of apes and hu- mans. Unlike apes, which have longer arms than legs, and humans, who have longer legs than arms, monkeys have arms and legs of about the same length. Most monkeys also have tails, which help them maintain balance in the trees. Apes and humans lack tails.

New World Monkeys New World monkeys live in the forests of Central and South America. Unlike Old World monkeys, many New World monkeys have prehensile, or grasping, tails. Some- times the prehensile tail has tactile skin, which permits it to work like a hand, for in- stance, in conveying food to the mouth. Old World monkeys, however, have developed their own characteristic anatomical specializations. They have rough patches of skin on

Shown here in Brazil’s Atlantic rain forest is a muriqui (or woolly spider monkey)—the largest New World monkey. Note the prehensile tail. ©BrazilPhotos.com/Alamy StockPhoto

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the buttocks, adapted to sitting on hard, rocky ground and rough branches. If the pri- mate you see in the zoo has such patches, it’s from the Old World. If it has a prehensile tail, it’s a New World monkey. There’s only one nocturnal monkey, a New World mon- key appropriately called the night monkey or owl monkey. All other monkeys and apes, and humans, too, of course, are diurnal—active during the day.

Old World Monkeys The Old World monkeys include both terrestrial and arboreal species. They range over areas of Africa and Asia, and even extend into Europe’s Rock of Gibraltar, where they are known by the misnomer “Barbary apes.” Baboons and macaques are terrestrial mon- keys. Arboreal primates tend to be smaller, enabling them to reach a wider range of foods at the ends of branches. Arboreal monkeys are lithe and agile. They escape from the few predators in their environment—snakes and monkey-eating eagles—through alertness and speed. Large size, by contrast, is advantageous for terrestrial primates in dealing with their predators, which are more numerous on the ground.

Another contrast between arboreal and terrestrial primates is in sexual dimorphism— marked differences in male and female anatomy and temperament. Sexual dimorphism tends to be more marked in terrestrial than in arboreal species. Baboon and macaque males are larger and fiercer than are females of the same species. However, it’s hard to tell, without close inspection, the sex of an arboreal monkey.

Terrestrial monkeys have specializations in anatomy, psychology, and social behav- ior that enable them to cope with terrestrial life. Adult male baboons, for example, are

A nature male mandrill (Papio sphinx) ambles through gallery forest in Lope National Park, Gabon, Africa. These (mainly) terrestrial Old World monkeys are related to baboons. ©Anup Shah/Corbis

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fierce-looking animals that can weigh 100 pounds (45 kilograms). They display their long, projecting canines to intimidate predators and when confronting other baboons. A male baboon also can puff up his ample mane of shoulder hair, so that a would-be ag- gressor perceives him as larger than he actually is.

When they reach the age of puberty, baboon and macaque males typically leave their home troop for another. Because males move in and out, females form the stable core of the terrestrial monkey troop (Cheney and Seyfarth 1990). By contrast, among chimpan- zees and gorillas, females are more likely to emigrate and seek mates outside their natal social groups (Chapais 2008; Wilson and Wrangham 2003). Among terrestrial mon- keys, then, the core group consists of females; among apes, it is composed of males. 

Apes

The Old World monkeys have their own superfamily (Cercopithecoidea), whereas hu- mans and the apes together compose the hominoid superfamily (Hominoidea). Among the hominoids, the so-called great apes are orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees. The lesser (smaller) apes are the gibbons and siamangs of Southeast Asia and Indonesia.

Several traits are shared by apes (and humans) as distinct from monkeys and other primates. Body size tends to be larger. The lifespan is longer. There is a longer interval between births of infants, which depend longer on their parent(s). There is a tendency toward upright posture, although habitual upright bipedalism is characteristic only of hominins. The brain is larger; the muzzle, or face, is shorter and less projecting; and no hominoid has a tail.

Apes live in forests and woodlands. The light and agile gibbons, which are skilled brachiators, are completely arboreal. Brachiation is hand-over-hand movement through the trees. The heavier gorillas, chimpanzees, and adult male orangutans spend consider- able time on the ground. Nevertheless, ape behavior and anatomy reveal past and pres- ent adaptation to arboreal life. For example, apes still build nests to sleep in trees. Apes have longer arms than legs, which is adaptive for brachiation (see Figure 5.4). The structure of the shoulder and clavicle (collarbone) of the apes and humans suggests that we had a brachiating ancestor. In fact, young apes still brachiate. Adult apes tend to be too heavy to brachiate safely. Their weight is more than many branches can withstand. Gorillas and chimps now use the long arms they have inherited from their more arboreal ancestors for life on the ground. The terrestrial locomotion of chimps and gorillas is called knuckle-walking. In it, long arms and callused knuckles support the trunk as the apes amble around, leaning forward.

Gibbons Gibbons are widespread in the forests of Southeast Asia, especially in Malaysia. Smallest of the apes, male and female gibbons have about the same average height (3 feet, or 1 meter) and weight (12 to 25 pounds, or 5 to 10 kilograms). Gibbons spend most of their time just below the forest canopy (treetops). For efficient brachiation, gibbons have long arms and fingers, with short thumbs. Slenderly built, gibbons are the most agile apes. They use their long arms for balance when they occasionally walk erect on the ground or

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along a branch. Gibbons are the preeminent arboreal specialists among the apes. They subsist on a diet mainly of fruits, with occasional insects and small animals. Gibbons and siamangs, their slightly larger relatives, tend to live in primary groups, which are com- posed of a permanently bonded male and female and their preadolescent offspring.

Orangutans There are two surviving species of orangutan, Asiatic apes that belong to the genus Pongo. Orangutans once were found throughout Southeast Asia, but today they are con- fined to two Indonesian islands—Borneo and Sumatra. Bornean orangutan populations have declined by more than 50 percent over the past 60 years, and their habitat has been reduced by at least 55 percent over the past 20 years. Borneo now has fewer than 40,000 orangutans, while no more than 7,000 survive on Sumatra (Isaacson 2012). His- torically, orangutans existed throughout Sumatra, but today they are restricted to the north of the island. Only seven existing populations of Sumatran orangs have prospects of long-term viability. Only three populations contain more than 1,000 orangutans.

The degree of sexual dimorphism in orangs is striking. Adult males weigh more than twice as much as females. The orangutan male, like his human counterpart, is interme- diate in size between chimps and gorillas. Orang males can weigh up to 300 pounds (135 kilograms), but usually they weigh around 200 pounds (90 kilograms). Less bulky than gorillas, male orangs can be more arboreal than male gorillas, although they typi- cally climb, rather than swing through, the trees. The smaller size of females and young permits them to make fuller use of the trees. Orangutans have a varied diet of fruits, bark, leaves, and insects. Because orangutans live in jungles and feed in trees, they are especially difficult to study. However, field reports about orangutans in their natural setting (van Schaik 2004) have clarified their behavior and social organization. Orangs are the least sociable of the great apes (see Isaacson 2012; van Schaik 2004). Often they are solitary, with their tightest social units formed by females and preadolescent young, and males foraging alone.

FIGURE 5.4 The Limb Ratio of the Arboreal Gibbon and Terrestrial Homo How does this anatomical difference fit the modes of locomotion used by gibbons and humans?

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Since 1971 Biruté Mary Galdikas has studied wild orangutans in central Borneo. She is one of three prominent primatologists—all women—encouraged by famed paleoan- thropologist Louis B. Leakey to study and protect the great apes. Leakey sent those three researchers to study apes specifically because he felt such studies would offer some in- sight into ourselves and our extinct ancestors (as indeed they have). The others are Jane Goodall (working with chimpanzees) and the late Dian Fossey (who worked with moun- tain gorillas). As Galdikas (2007) reports, economic globalization has fueled worldwide demand for pulp, paper, palm oil, and precious metals, leading to the destruction of Indonesia’s tropical forests and endangering the orang. By now, over 80 percent of the orang habitat has been either depopulated or totally destroyed (Galdikas 2007). Galdikas has urged Indonesia to impose a tax on multinational companies that profit from rain forest destruction and to use the revenues for forest and orangutan conservation. Indonesia, however, is a large, populous country with millions of poor people. The temptation to exploit natural resources to feed people, and to expand the economy, is great. Is there a realistic chance that the orangutan will survive in the wild?

Gorillas Within just one species, Gorilla gorilla, there are three subspecies of gorilla. The western lowland gorilla is the one usually seen in zoos. This, the smallest subspecies, lives mainly in forests in the Central African Republic, Congo, Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial

The orangutan is the most endangered ape. In this 2008 photo, primatologist Biruté Mary Galdikas carries an orangutan named Isabel, soon to be released into the wild at Tanjung Puting National Park on Borneo island, Indonesia. ©Irwin Fedriansyah/AP Images

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Guinea, and Nigeria. The eastern lowland gorilla, of which there are only four in captiv- ity, is slightly larger and lives in eastern Congo. There are no mountain gorillas, the third subspecies, in captivity. It’s estimated that no more than 900 of these animals survive in the wild. These are the largest gorillas with the longest hair (to keep them warm in their mountainous habitat). They are also the rarest gorillas, which Dian Fossey (1983) and other scientists have studied in Rwanda, Uganda, and eastern Congo.

Full-grown male gorillas may weigh 400 pounds (180 kilograms) and stand 6 feet tall (183 centimeters). Like most terrestrial primates, gorillas show marked sexual dimor- phism. The average adult female weighs half as much as the male. Gorillas spend little time in the trees, where it’s hard for an adult male to move his bulk. When gorillas sleep in trees, they build nests, which usually are no more than 10 feet (3 meters) off the ground. By contrast, the nests of chimps and female orangs may be 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground.

Gorillas spend most of their time moving through the jungle, eating ground plants, leaves, bark, fruits, and other vegetation (see Rothman, Raubenheimer, and Chapman 2011). Like most primates, gorillas live in social groups. The troop is a common unit of primate social organization, consisting of multiple males and females and their offspring. Although troops with up to 30 gorillas have been observed, most gorillas live in smaller groups, with 10 to 20 members. Gorilla troops tend to have fairly stable memberships, with little shifting between troops (Fossey 1983). Each troop has a silverback male, named for the strip of white hair extending down his back. This is the physical sign of full

Mountain gorillas are the rarest and most endangered kind of gorilla. Dian Fossey (shown here) and other scientists have studied them in Rwanda, Uganda, and eastern Congo. Here, Fossey (now deceased) observes a young gorilla in Rwanda’s Virunga Mountains. ©Liam White/Alamy Stock Photo

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maturity among the male gorillas. The silverback is usually the only breeding male in the troop, which is why gorilla troops are sometimes called “one-male groups.” However, a few younger, subordinate males may also adhere to such a one-male group.

Chimpanzees Chimpanzees belong to the genus Pan, which has two species: Pan troglodytes (the common chimpanzee) and Pan paniscus (the bonobo or “pygmy” chimpanzee) (De Waal 2013). Like humans, chimps are closely related to gorillas, although there are some obvious differences. Like gorillas, chimps live in tropical Africa, but they span a larger area and more varied environments than gorillas do. The common chimp, Pan troglodytes, lives in western central Africa (Gabon, Cameroon), as well as in western Africa (Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gambia) and eastern Africa (Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania). Bonobos live in remote and densely forested areas of just one country— the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Common chimps live mainly in tropical rain forests but also in woodlands and mixed forest-woodland-grassland areas, such as the Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, where Jane Goodall and other researchers began to study them in 1960 (see Goodall 2009, 2010).

Chimps prefer fruits, but are actually omnivorous, adding animal protein to their diet by hunting small mammals (especially monkeys), birds’ eggs, and insects. Chimps are lighter and more arboreal than gorillas are. The adult male’s weight—between 100 and 200 pounds (45 to 90 kilograms)—is about half that of the male gorilla. There is much less sexual

Chimpanzees live mainly in tropical rain forests but also in woodlands and mixed forest– woodland–grassland areas, such as the Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, where Jane Goodall began to study them in 1960. Shown here 30 years after her first visit to Gombe, Goodall continues her lifelong commitment to these endangered animals. ©Michael Nichols/ National Geographic/Getty Images

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dimorphism among chimps than among gorillas. Females approximate 88 percent of the average male height. This is similar to the ratio of sexual dimorphism in Homo sapiens.

Several scientists have studied wild chimps, and we know more about the full range of their behavior and social organization than we do about the other apes (see Goodall 2009; Matsuzawa 2011; Nishida 2012). The long-term research of Jane Goodall (2010) and others at Gombe provides especially useful information. Approximately 150 chim- panzees range over Gombe’s 30 square miles (80 square kilometers). Goodall has de- scribed communities of about 50 chimps, all of which know one another and interact from time to time. Communities regularly split up into smaller groups: a mother and her offspring; males, females, and young; a few males; and occasionally solitary animals. Females are more likely to migrate and mate outside their natal group than males are.

When chimps, which are very vocal, meet, they greet one another with gestures, facial expressions, and calls. They hoot to maintain contact during their daily rounds. Males habitually cooperate in hunting parties (see Hart and Sussman 2009; Mitani et al. 2012; Nishida 2012). Like baboons and macaques, chimps exhibit dominance relation- ships through attacks and displacement. 

As with all the apes, chimp survival is threatened today, mainly by human activities. In one study, Carroll (2008) found that Ivory Coast’s chimpanzee populations had fallen by 90 percent over an 18-year period. That country had been considered home to about half of all West African chimps. Scientists found just 800 to 1,200 chimps there in 2008, compared with 8,000 to 12,000 in 1990. The 1990 survey itself had confirmed a signifi- cant decline from the 1960s, when Ivory Coast was home to an estimated 100,000 chimps. Between 1990 and 2008, Ivory Coast’s human population increased by 50 percent, result- ing in more hunting and deforestation. These threats to wildlife remain, augmented by civil unrest and political instability. 

Bonobos Ancestral chimps, and especially humans, eventually spread out of the forests and into woodlands and more open habitats (see Choi 2011). Bonobos, which belong to the spe- cies Pan paniscus, apparently never left the protection of the trees. Up to 10,000 bono- bos survive in the humid forests south of the Zaire River, in the DRC. Despite their common name—the pygmy chimpanzee—bonobos can’t be distinguished from chim- panzees by size. Adult males of the smallest subspecies of chimpanzee average 95 pounds (43 kilograms), and females average 73 pounds (33 kilograms). These figures are about the same for bonobos (De Waal 2013).

Although much smaller than the males, female bonobos seem to rule. De Waal charac- terizes bonobo communities as female-centered, peace-loving, and egalitarian. The stron- gest social bonds are among females, although females also bond with males. The male bonobo’s status reflects that of his mother, to whom he remains closely bonded for life.

The frequency with which bonobos have sex—and use it to avoid conflict—makes them exceptional among the primates. Despite frequent sex, the bonobo reproductive rate doesn’t exceed that of the chimpanzee. A female bonobo gives birth every five or six years. Then, like chimps, female bonobos nurse and carry around their young for up to five years. Bonobos reach adolescence at around 7 years of age. Females, which first give birth at age 13 or 14, are full grown by 15 years.

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Endangered Primates

Deforestation poses a special risk for the primates, because 90 percent of surviving nonhuman primate species live in tropical forests—in Africa, Asia, South America, and Central America. As the Earth’s human population swells, all nonhuman pri- mates have become endangered, with apes in the “most endangered” category. Moun- tain gorillas, which once ranged widely in the forested mountains of East Africa, are limited today to a small area near the borders of Rwanda, the DRC, and Uganda. The Primates in Peril website lists and discusses the 25 most endangered primates, as of 2014–2016. 

Although deforestation is the main reason primates are disappearing, it isn’t the only threat. Another is human hunting for bush meat. Primates are a major food source in Amazonia and West and Central Africa, where people kill thousands of monkeys annu- ally. Hunting poses less of a threat in Asia. In India, Hindus avoid monkey meat because the monkey is sacred, whereas Muslims avoid it because monkeys are considered unclean and unfit for human consumption.

People also hunt primates for their skins and pelts; poachers sell their body parts as trophies and ornaments. Africans use the skins of black-and-white colobus monkeys for cloaks and headdresses, and tourists buy coats and rugs made from colobus pelts. In Amazonia, ocelot and jaguar hunters shoot monkeys to bait the traps they set for the cats. Primates also are killed when they are agricultural pests. In some areas of Africa and Asia, mandrills and baboons (Africa) and macaques (Asia) raid crops, resulting in drives to kill the monkeys that interfere with human subsistence.

A final threat to primates is their capture for use in labs or as pets. Although this threat is minor compared with deforestation and hunting, it does pose a serious risk to certain endangered species in heavy demand. One of the species most hurt by this trade has been the chimpanzee, which has been widely used in biomedical research. Fortu- nately, the use of chimpanzees in such research has been curbed significantly in recent years (see this chapter’s “Anthropology Today”).

Primate Evolution

The fossil record gives us only a glimpse of the diverse bioforms—living beings—that have existed on Earth, including only a small fraction of all the extinct types of pri- mates. With reference to the primate fossil record, we’ll see that different geographic areas provide more abundant fossil evidence for different time periods. This doesn’t necessarily mean that primates were not living elsewhere at the same time. Discussions of primate and human evolution must be tentative, because the fossil record is limited and spotty (see Ciochon and Fleagle 2012). Much is subject to change as knowledge increases. A key feature of science is to recognize the tentativeness and uncertainty of knowledge. Scientists, including fossil hunters, continually seek out new evidence and devise new methods, such as DNA comparison, to improve their understanding, in this case of primate and human evolution.

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Chronology

We learned in Chapter 3 that the remains of animals and plants that lived at the same time are found in the same stratum. Based on fossils found in stratigraphic sequences, the his- tory of vertebrate life has been divided into three main eras. The Paleozoic (544–245 m.y.a.—million years ago) was the era of ancient life—fishes, amphibians, and primitive reptiles. The Mesozoic (245–65 m.y.a.) was the era of middle life—reptiles, including the dinosaurs. The Cenozoic (65 m.y.a.–present) is the era of recent life—birds and mammals. Each era is divided into periods, and the periods are divided into epochs.

Anthropologists are concerned with the Cenozoic era (Figure 5.5), which includes two periods: Tertiary and Quaternary. Each of these periods is subdivided into epochs. The Tertiary had five epochs: Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, and Pliocene. The Quaternary includes just two epochs: Pleistocene and Holocene, or Recent. Figure 5.5 gives the approximate dates of these epochs. 

Sediments from the Paleocene epoch (65–54 m.y.a.) have yielded fossil remains of diverse small mammals, including, by the late Paleocene, the earliest known primate.

Era Period Epoch Climate and Life Forms

Cenozoic

Quaternary

Holocene 11,700 B.P.

Transition to agriculture; emergence of states

Pleistocene 2.6 m.y.a.

Climatic fluctuations, glaciation; spread of Homo, extinction of (hyper) robust australopiths

Tertiary

Pliocene 5 m.y.a.

Au. africanus, Au. afarensis, Au. anamen- sis, Ardipithecus

Miocene

23 m.y.a.

Cooler and drier grasslands spread in middle latitudes; Africa collides with Eurasia (16 m.y.a.); proto-apes (ape precursors) diverse and abundant

Oligocene

34 m.y.a.

Cooler and drier in the north; proto-monkeys (monkey precursors) in Africa (Fayum); separation of catarrhines and platyrrhines; separation of hylobatids (gibbons) from pongids and hominids

Eocene

54 m.y.a

Warm tropical climates become widespread; modern orders of mammals appear; strepsir- rhine and tarsierlike primates are abundant; simians appear later

Paleocene 65 m.y.a

First major mammal radiation; first primates; separation of strepsirrhines and haplorrhines

FIGURE 5.5 Periods and Epochs of the Cenozoic Era The geological time scale is based on stratigraphy. Eras are subdivided into periods, and periods into epochs. In what era, period, and epoch did Homo originate?

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Lemurlike and tarsierlike fossils abound in strata dating from the Eocene (54–34 m.y.a.). Haplorrhine fossils also date to the Eocene, becoming more abundant (as proto- monkeys–monkey precursors) during the ensuing Oligocene (34–23 m.y.a.). Hominoids (proto-apes) became widespread during the Miocene (23–5 m.y.a.). Hominins first appeared in the late Miocene, just before the Pliocene (5–2.6 m.y.a.).

Early Primates

When the Mesozoic era ended, and the Cenozoic era began, around 65 m.y.a., North America was connected to Europe but not to South America. (The Americas joined around 3 m.y.a.) Over millions of years, the continents have “drifted” to their present locations, carried along by the gradually shifting plates of the Earth’s surface (see Figure 5.6).

The Mesozoic era had ended with a massive worldwide extinction of plants and ani- mals, including the dinosaurs. Thereafter, mammals eventually replaced reptiles as the dominant large land animals. A rich new ecological niche that early primates could ex- ploit was created by the spread of angiosperms (flowering plants) during the Cenozoic era (see Sussman, Rasmussen, and Raven 2013). Primates evolved—spreading and diversifying—along with the expansion of flowering plants during a long period of global warming that began around 56 m.y.a. With the rising temperatures, tropical for- ests spread throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. (Africa and South America were island continents at that time.) Primates adapted to this expanding niche—wide-

North America

Eurasia

India

Africa

South America

Antarctica

Australia

FIGURE 5.6 Placement of Continents at the End of the Mesozoic When the Mesozoic era ended, and the Cenozoic began, some 65 m.y.a., North America was connected to Europe, but not to South America.

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spread tropical forests and the flowering trees within them. Manual dexterity, including a good grasping ability, would have helped early primates reach, and feed near, the ends of delicate tree branches. This is where the most abundant fruits, flowers, gums, and nectars were located, along with the insects that pollinate flowering plants.

Early Cenozoic Primates A tiny, complete skeleton from China, first described in 2013, is the earliest definite primate so far discovered. Named Archicebus achilles because of its prominent ankle and heel, this early primate has been tentatively assigned to the tarsier lineage. Archice- bus achilles weighed no more than 1 ounce, and it had a 5-inch tail that was longer than its 4-inch body. Unlike today’s tarsiers, Archicebus achilles was not nocturnal. Being so small and metabolically active, it probably spent its days frantically leaping around in the humid tropical forest it inhabited (Ni et al. 2013; Wilford 2013). It lived 55 m.y.a., when Earth was a natural greenhouse, with rain forests everywhere and palm trees growing in what is now Alaska. 

Archicebus achilles lived during the late Paleocene (65–54 m.y.a.), the first epoch of the Cenozoic era. A variety of primate species inhabited Europe and North America during the Cenozoic’s second epoch, the Eocene (54–34 m.y.a.). The primates of the Eocene were early strepsirrhines and tarsierlike haplorrhines, with at least 60 genera living in Asia, North America, and Europe, and reaching Africa by the late Eocene. By the end of the Eocene, ancestral lemurs had reached Madagascar. They must have trav- eled from East Africa across the Mozambique Channel—narrower then than now—on thick mats of vegetation. Such naturally formed “rafts” have been observed forming in East African rivers, then floating out to sea.

It was also during the Eocene that ancestral simians (proto-monkeys) branched off from the tarsier line. These proto-monkeys were diurnal (see Schultz, Opie, and Atkin- son 2011). In this diurnal niche, vision was favored over smell. The eyes and brain got bigger, and the snout was reduced. By the end of the Eocene, most strepsirrhine species had become extinct in areas where they had to compete with the proto-monkeys. Some strepsirrhines did manage to survive by becoming nocturnal. Others, the lemurs of Madagascar, not only survived but thrived on that large island, where they could adapt and diversify without any haplorrhine competition until the first humans reached Madagascar around 2,000 years ago.

Oligocene Proto-Monkeys The Oligocene epoch (34–23 m.y.a.) was a time of major geological and climatic change. The Great Rift Valley formed in East Africa, and India drifted into Asia. A cooling trend began, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, leading to the extinction of many primate species.

Proto-monkeys appear to have been the most common primates of the Oligocene. Most of our knowledge of those proto-monkeys comes from fossils discovered in Egypt’s Fayum region. This area is a desert today, but 34–31 m.y.a. it was a swampy area, where conditions were favorable for fossilization. The Fayum proto-monkeys lived in trees and ate fruits and seeds. Compared with earlier primates, they had larger brains, reduced snouts, and more forward-looking eyes.

Miocene Hominoids 115

These Fayum fossils reveal that the split between New World monkeys and Old World monkeys was already under way. One group of the Fayum proto-monkeys was plausibly ancestral to the New World monkeys. Members of this group were small (2–3 pounds, or 0.9–1.4 kilograms), with similarities to living marmosets and tamarins, which are small South American monkeys. Like living New World monkeys, members of this group retained the dental formula of earlier primates. That formula, also shared with lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers, is 2.1.3.3, meaning two incisors, one canine, three premolars, and three molars. (The formula is based on one-fourth of the mouth, either the right or left side of the upper or lower jaw.)

The other group of Fayum proto-monkeys had a new and different dental formula (2.1.2.3), indicating the loss of a premolar, and a total of 32 teeth, versus 36 in the other primates. This formula is shared by all later Old World monkeys, apes, and humans. This group of Fayum fossils is plausibly ancestral to the catarrhines—Old World mon- keys, apes, and humans.

Evidence for another important evolutionary split comes from Tanzania’s Rukwa Rift Basin. In 2013, researchers working there reported their discovery of two late Oli- gocene finds, dated to 25.2 m.y.a. One find seems to be a hominoid (a proto-ape, plau- sibly ancestral to apes and humans), while the other is an Old World monkey. The proto-ape fossil is a lower right jaw with teeth, and the Old World monkey find is a jaw fragment with a single tooth (Bower 2013; Stevens et al. 2013). Proto-apes became the most common primate during the Miocene epoch, which followed the Oligocene. But exactly when did the hominoid line diverge from the Old World monkeys? Molecular dating based on DNA comparisons suggests that proto-apes split from the Old World monkey line between 30 and 25 m.y.a. The fact that these Tanzanian fossils date back 25.2 m.y.a. suggests that the split occurred earlier in that range of dates—perhaps 30 m.y.a. In addition to Egypt and Tanzania, primate bones have been found in Oligocene deposits in other parts of North Africa, West Africa, southern Arabia, China, Southeast Asia, and North and South America.

Miocene Hominoids

Hominoid fossils become abundant during the Miocene epoch (23–5 m.y.a.), which is divided into three parts: lower, middle, and upper or late. The early or lower Miocene (23–16 m.y.a.) was a warm and wet period, when forests covered East Africa. Recall that Hominoidea is the superfamily that includes fossil and living apes and humans. For simplicity’s sake, the earliest hominoids are here called proto-apes, or simply apes. Al- though some of these may be ancestral to living apes, none is identical, or often even very similar, to modern apes.

Proconsul is the name of a group (three known species) of early Miocene proto-apes. These ancient African apes had teeth with similarities to those of living apes. Below the neck, however, their skeleton was more monkeylike. The Proconsul species ranged in size from that of a small monkey to that of a chimpanzee, usually with marked sexual dimorphism. Their dentition suggests they ate fruits and leaves. By the middle Miocene, Proconsul had been replaced by other apes.

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During the early (lower) Miocene (23–16 m.y.a.), water had separated Africa from Europe and Asia. During the middle Miocene, however, Arabia drifted into Eurasia, providing a land connection between Africa, Europe, and Asia. Migrating both ways— out of and into Africa—after 16 m.y.a. were various animals, including hominoids. Proto-apes were the most common primates of the middle Miocene (16–10 m.y.a.). Over 20 species have been discovered in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

The most remarkable Miocene ape was Gigantopithecus—almost certainly the larg- est primate that ever lived. Confined to Asia, it persisted for millions of years, from the Miocene until 400,000 years ago, when it coexisted with members of our own genus, Homo erectus. Some people think Gigantopithecus is not extinct yet, that we know it today as the yeti and Bigfoot (Sasquatch).

With a fossil record consisting of nothing more than jawbones and teeth, it is difficult to say for sure just how big Gigantopithecus was. Based on ratios of jaw and tooth size to body size in other apes, various reconstructions have been made. One has Giganto- pithecus weighing 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) and standing 10 feet (3 meters) tall (Ciochon, Olsen, and James 1990). Another puts the height at 9 feet (2.7 meters) and cuts the weight in half (Simons and Ettel 1970). All reconstructions agree, however, that

Paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer is dwarfed by a reconstruction of Gigantopithecus. The extinct ape was reconstructed for an exhibit titled “Myths and Monsters” at London’s Natural History Museum. What would be the likely environmental effects of a population of such large apes? ©Daily Mail/Rex/Alamy Stock Photo

Miocene Hominoids 117

Anthropology Today Should Apes Have Human Rights?

In Africa and Asia, the dwindling popula- tions of great apes face extinction due to human warfare, oil exploration, deforesta- tion, deliberate hunting, and other threats. Continents away, animal rights activists work to conserve apes, even to grant them legal rights. In 2000, the U.S. Con- gress enacted the Great Apes Conserva- tion Act, which authorized $5 million annually over five years to protect apes in the wild. In 2005, Congress reauthorized that act, which matched public with private funding, for another five years. The money would help protect habitats, battle poach- ers, and educate local populations about the importance of the apes. In Indonesia, for example, funding has slowed the conversion of forests to com- mercial plantations. In Congo, one of the few countries in which the mountain go- rilla survives, promotion of alternative fu- els has helped reduce deforestation for charcoal production. By 2010, when it ended, the Great Apes Conservation Fund had helped fund more than 50 programs in 7 Asian and 12 African countries. The humanlike characteristics of the great apes are evident to anyone who has seen the various Planet of the Apes mov- ies, especially the most recent ones, fea- turing the intelligent, speaking chimpanzee named Caesar and his companions. Scien- tific knowledge confirms that apes are close to humans in their cognitive abilities and emotional states. Experiments teach- ing sign language to chimps and gorillas, described in the chapter “Language and Communication,” demonstrate that apes are capable of learning hundreds of mean- ingful signs and of communicating with humans and other signing apes. DNA con- firms the close relationships among hu- mans, chimps, and gorillas. Scientists know that the great apes have complex

mental abilities, which elevate their capa- bility for suffering. On that basis alone, say rights advocates, apes deserve basic pro- tections from the pain, isolation, and arbi- trary imprisonment inflicted by medical experiments or captivity in zoos. In 1993, philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri published The Great Ape Project, a book that argued that chimpan- zees, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans should have the same basic rights as hu- man beings. In fact, in December 2014, an Argentine court did extend legal rights to a 28-year-old orangutan named Sandra, a captive ape born in Germany and taken to the Buenos Aires zoo, where she lived for 20 years. As the world’s first animal legally recognized as a “nonhuman person,” Sandra’s new status facilitated her transfer to a sanctuary in Brazil. A month earlier, in North America, a New York state court had denied an appeal put forth on behalf of a pet chimp named Tommy. The court ar- gued that, regardless of their intelligence or feelings, chimpanzees cannot fulfill the social obligations expected of a person with rights. In addition to promoting legal rights for apes, advocates have urged governments and the United Nations to ban ape captiv- ity in zoos and circuses and their use in scientific research, especially medical testing. Several nations, including New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands have banned research on apes for ethical reasons. In January 2013, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) accepted a com- mittee recommendation to curtail the use of chimpanzees in research. Of the 450 chimpanzees then under NIH control, 400 would be retired and moved to sanctuar- ies. NIH did retain 50 chimps for possible future research use, but they, too, were

continued

118 Chapter 5 The Primates

Gigantopithecus was the largest ape that ever lived. There were at least two species of Gigantopithecus: One coexisted with H. erectus in China and Vietnam, and the other, much earlier (5 m.y.a.), lived in northern India.

Pierolapithecus catalaunicus An ancient ape species known as Pierolapithecus catalaunicus has been proposed as the last common ancestor of humans, chimps, gorillas, and orangs (Moyá-Solá et al. 2004). Pierolapithecus lived around 13 m.y.a., during the middle Miocene. The find includes much of the skull, hand and foot bones, three vertebrae, two complete ribs, and large pieces of a dozen other bones. Pierolapithecus was an adult male that weighed about 75 pounds (34 kilograms). Like chimps and gorillas, this ape was well adapted for tree climbing and knuckle-walking on the ground. Based on the shape of the single surviving tooth, it probably was a fruit eater. Several features distinguished Pierolapithecus from the lesser apes (gibbons and siamangs) and monkeys. Its rib cage, lower spine, and wrist suggest it climbed the way modern great apes do. The ape’s chest, or thorax, is wider and flatter than that of monkeys and is the earliest modern apelike thorax yet found in the fossil record.

In the current timetable of primate evolution, the lineage of Old World monkeys di- verged from the hominoid line around 30 m.y.a. The ancestors of the lesser apes sepa- rated from those of the great apes some 16–14 m.y.a. Then, by 11–10 m.y.a., the orangutan line had diverged from that leading to the African apes and humans. Yet an- other split took place when the gorilla line branched off from the line leading to chim- panzees and hominins. Around 7–6 m.y.a., another split in the lineage led to the various early hominins. Some intriguing fossils dating from that critical time period have been discovered recently (see Chapter 6).

We construct such evolutionary timetables based on a combination of comparative DNA and fossil evidence. We know that chimps, bonobos, and gorillas are our closest surviving cousin species. We do not, however, know much about the specific ancestry of gorillas and chimps. This is primarily because those apes tend to live in humid forests, where conditions are not favorable to preservation and fossilization. Ancient

Anthropology Today continued

transferred to a sanctuary in November 2015. Today, NIH no longer uses chimps for research; its former research chimps are enjoying their freedom in animal sanc- tuaries. Almost 300 of them were moved to Chimp Haven near Shreveport, Louisi- ana, where they live in large social groups on 200 acres of parkland (see http://www. chimphaven.org/).

How do you feel about animal rights in general and ape rights in particular? Be- cause the great apes are so close to humans genetically, physically, and temperamentally, do they merit special treatment among the animals?

Source: Becker (2013), Eldred (2013), Kahn (2011), Keim (2014), Mitani (2011), The Week (2013), and 2015–2016 news accounts.

Summary 119

hominins, however, tended to live in less humid environments, so we are fortunate to have a larger, and constantly growing, hominin fossil record, which we consider in Chapters 6 and 7.

Summary 1. Humans, apes, monkeys, tarsiers, lemurs, and lorises are primates. The primate

order is subdivided into suborders, infraorders, parvaorders, superfamilies, fami- lies, tribes, genera, species, and subspecies. Organisms in any subdivision (taxon) of a taxonomy are assumed to share more recent ancestry with each other than they do with organisms in other taxa. But it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between homologies, which reflect common ancestry, and analogies, biological similarities that develop through convergent evolution.

2. The primate order has two suborders: Strepsirrhini (lemurs and lorises) and Haplorrhini (tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans). The strepsirrhine and haplor- rhine lines had split by 60 m.y.a. By the end of the Eocene, early simians (proto- monkeys) had adapted to a diurnal (daytime) ecological niche. Tarsiers and lorises survived by adapting to nocturnal life. Lemurs survived on the island of Madagascar.

3. The infraorder Simiiformes includes the anthropoid or “humanlike” primates— monkeys, apes, and humans. All share a common dental formula (2.1.2.3) and fully developed primate features, such as depth and color vision, and a shift in tactile areas to the fingers. All New World monkeys are arboreal. Old World monkeys include both terrestrial species (e.g., baboons and macaques) and arboreal ones. The great apes are orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos. The lesser apes are gibbons and siamangs.

4. Gibbons and siamangs live in Southeast Asian forests. These apes are slight, arbo- real animals whose mode of locomotion is brachiation. Sexual dimorphism, slight among gibbons, is marked among orangutans, which are confined to two Indone- sian islands. Sexually dimorphic gorillas, the most terrestrial apes, are vegetarians confined to equatorial Africa. Two species of chimpanzees live in the forests and woodlands of tropical Africa. Chimps are less sexually dimorphic, more numerous, and more omnivorous than gorillas are.

5. Primates have lived during the past 65 million years, the Cenozoic era, with seven epochs: Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holo- cene, or Recent. 

6. The earliest known primate, discovered in China 55 m.y.a., dates to the late Paleo- cene epoch (65–54 m.y.a.). Thereafter, lemurlike and tarsierlike primates prolifer- ated during the Eocene (54–34 m.y.a.). During the Oligocene (34–23 m.y.a.), proto-monkeys became the most common primates. The split between ancestral platyrrhines (New World monkeys) and catarrhines (Old World monkeys, apes, and humans) occurred during the Oligocene, as did the split between Old World mon- keys and hominoids.

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7. The earliest known hominoid (proto-ape) dates to 25.2 m.y.a., just before the Miocene (23–5 m.y.a.). Proto-apes proliferated during the middle and late Miocene. Since the middle Miocene (16–10 m.y.a.), Africa, Europe, and Asia have been con- nected. Proto-apes spread to all three continents and became the most common primates of the middle Miocene. Asia’s Gigantopithecus, the largest primate ever to live, persisted for millions of years, finally coexisting with Homo erectus. Piero- lapithecus catalaunicus, which lived around 13 m.y.a., could be the last common ancestor of humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. There have been reported sightings of Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest of North

America and of the yeti (abominable snowman) in the Himalayas. What facts about apes might lead you to question such reports?

2. Our cultural background affects the ways in which we perceive nature, human na- ture, and “the natural.” Can you think of aspects of your culture that have affected the way you think about humans’ relationship to other primates?

Key Terms analogies, 99 anthropoids, 101 arboreal, 101 bipedal, 101 brachiation, 105 convergent

evolution, 99

primatology, 96 Strepsirrhini, 102 taxonomy, 97 terrestrial, 96

Haplorrhini, 102 hominoid, 105 homologies, 97 m.y.a., 112 opposable

thumb, 101 primates, 96

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Chapter 6 Early Hominins

What Makes Us Human? Bipedalism Brains, Skulls, and Childhood Dependency Tools Teeth

Chronology of Hominin Evolution

Who Were the Earliest Hominins? Sahelanthropus tchadensis Orrorin tugenensis Ardipithecus

The Varied Australopiths Australopithecus anamensis Australopithecus afarensis Gracile and Robust Australopiths

Early Stone Tools Surprisingly Early Stone Tools Oldowan Hominins at the Kanjera Site

Anthropology Today: Au. sediba: Ancestor or Fascinating Sideline?

What Makes Us Human?

In trying to determine whether a fossil is a human ancestor, should we look for traits that make us human today? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. We do look for similarities in DNA, including mutations shared by certain lineages but not others. But what about such key human attributes as bipedal locomotion, a long period of childhood dependency, big brains, and the use of tools and language? Some of these key markers of humanity are fairly recent—or have origins that are difficult to date. And ironically, some of the phys- ical markers that have led scientists to identify certain fossils as early hominins rather than apes are features that have been lost during subsequent human evolution.

Bipedalism Postcranial (below the head) material from Ardipithecus, the earliest widely accepted hominin genus (5.8–4.4 m.y.a.), indicates a capacity—albeit an imperfect one—for up- right bipedal locomotion. The Ardipithecus pelvis appears to be transitional between one suited for arboreal climbing and one modified for bipedalism. Reliance on bipedalism—upright, two-legged locomotion—is the key feature differentiating early hominins from the apes. Based on African fossil discoveries, such as Ethiopia’s Ardipi- thecus, hominin bipedalism is more than 5 million years old. Some scientists see even

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earlier evidence of bipedalism in two other fossil finds, described later in this chapter— one from Chad (Sahelanthropus tchadensis) and one from Kenya (Orrorin tugenensis).

Bipedalism traditionally has been viewed as an adaptation to open grassland or sa- vanna country, although Ardipithecus appears to have lived in a humid woodland habi- tat. Perhaps bipedalism developed in the woodlands but became even more adaptive out on the savanna (see Choi 2011). Scientists have suggested several advantages of biped- alism: the ability to see over long grass and scrub vegetation, to carry items back to a home base, and to reduce the body’s exposure to solar radiation (see Ferraro et al. 2013). Studies with scale models of primates suggest that quadrupedalism exposes the body to 60 percent more solar radiation than does bipedalism. Based on the fossil and archaeo- logical records, upright bipedal locomotion preceded stone tool manufacture and the expansion of the hominin brain. However, although early hominins could move biped- ally on the ground, they also preserved enough of an apelike anatomy to make them good climbers (see the description of Ardipithecus as well as of “Lucy’s baby”). They could take to the trees to sleep and to escape terrestrial predators.

Brains, Skulls, and Childhood Dependency Compared with contemporary humans, early hominins had very small brains. Australo- pithecus afarensis, a bipedal hominin that lived more than 3 million years ago, had a cranial capacity (430 cm3—cubic centimeters) that barely surpassed the chimp average

Australopithecus afarensis (3.8–3.0 m.y.a.) striding bipedally. A key part of being human, bipedalism evolved among hominins long before the big brain. ©Encyclopaedia Britannica/UIG/Getty Images

Chronology of Hominin Evolution 123

(390 cm3). The form of the afarensis skull also is like that of the chimpanzee, although the ratio of brain to body size may have been larger. Brain size has increased during hominin evolution, especially with the advent of the genus Homo. But this increase had to overcome some obstacles. Compared with the young of other primates, human chil- dren have a long period of childhood dependency, during which their brains and skulls grow dramatically. Larger skulls demand larger birth canals, but the requirements of upright bipedalism impose limits on the expansion of the human pelvic opening. If the opening is too large, the pelvis doesn’t provide sufficient support for the trunk. Locomo- tion suffers, and posture problems develop. If, by contrast, the birth canal is too narrow, mother and child (without the modern option of Caesarean section) may die. Natural selection has struck a balance between the structural demands of upright posture and the tendency toward increased brain size—the birth of immature and dependent children whose brains and skulls grow dramatically after birth.

Tools Given what is known about tool use and manufacture by the great apes, it is likely that early hominins shared this ability as a homology with the apes. We’ll see later that the first firm evidence for hominin stone tool manufacture is dated to 3.3 m.y.a. Upright bipedalism would have permitted the use of tools and weapons against predators and competitors. Bipedal locomotion also allowed early hominins to carry things, including scavenged parts of carnivore kills, back to a home base (see Ferraro et al. 2013). 

Teeth One example of a hominin trait that has been lost during subsequent human evolution is big back teeth. (Indeed, a pattern of overall dental reduction has characterized human evolution.) Once they adapted to the savanna, with its gritty, tough, and fibrous vegeta- tion, it was adaptively advantageous for early hominins to have large back teeth and thick tooth enamel. This permitted thorough chewing of tough, fibrous vegetation and mixture with salivary enzymes to permit digestion of foods that otherwise would not have been digestible. The churning, rotary motion associated with such chewing also favored reduction of the canines and first premolars (bicuspids). These front teeth are much sharper and longer in the apes than in early hominins. The apes use their sharp, self-honing teeth to pierce fruits. Males also flash their big, sharp canines to intimidate and impress others, including potential mates and competitors for those mates. Although bipedalism seems to have characterized the human lineage since it split from the line leading to the African apes, many other “human” features came later. Yet other early hominin features, such as large back teeth and thick enamel—which we don’t have now—offer clues about who was a human ancestor back then.

Chronology of Hominin Evolution

Recall that the term hominin is used to designate the human line after its split from ancestral chimps. Hominid refers to the taxonomic family that includes humans and the African apes and their immediate ancestors. In this book, hominid is used when there is

124 Chapter 6 Early Hominins

doubt about the hominin status of the fossil (e.g., with Toumai, as described later). Although recent fossil discoveries have pushed the hominin lineage back to almost 6 million years, humans actually haven’t been around too long when the age of the Earth is considered. If we compare Earth’s history to a 24-hour day (with one second equaling 50,000 years),

Earth originates at midnight. The earliest fossils were deposited at 5:45 A.M. The first vertebrates appeared at 9:02 P.M. The earliest mammals, at 10:45 P.M. The earliest primates, at 11:43 P.M. The earliest hominins, at 11:57 P.M. And Homo sapiens arrives 36 seconds before midnight. (Wolpoff 1999, p. 10) Although the first hominins appeared late in the Miocene epoch, for the study of

hominin evolution, the Pliocene (5–2.6 m.y.a.), Pleistocene (2.6 m.y.a.–10,000 B.P.), and Recent (10,000 B.P.–present) epochs are most important. 

Who Were the Earliest Hominins?

Decades of important, and continuing, discoveries of fossils and tools have increased our knowledge of hominid and hominin evolution. The most significant recent discover- ies have been made in Africa—Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Chad, and South Africa. These finds come from different sites and may be the remains of individuals that lived hundreds of thousands of years apart. Furthermore, geological processes operating over thousands or millions of years inevitably distort fossil remains. Table 6.1 summarizes the major events in hominid and hominin evolution. You should consult it throughout this chapter and the next one.

Sahelanthropus tchadensis In July 2001, anthropologists working in Central Africa—in northern Chad—unearthed the 6- to 7-million-year-old skull of the oldest possible human ancestor yet found. This discovery consists of a nearly complete skull, two lower jaw fragments, and three teeth. It dates to the time period when humans and chimps could have been diverging from a recent common ancestor. The discovery was made by a 40-member multinational team led by the French paleontologist Michel Brunet. The actual discoverer was the univer- sity undergraduate Ahounta Djimdoumalbaye, who spied the skull embedded in sand- stone. The new fossil was dubbed Sahelanthropus tchadensis, referring to the northern Sahel region of Chad where it was found. The fossil also is known as Toumai, a local name meaning “hope of life.”

The skull was that of an adult male with a chimp-sized brain (320–380 cm3), heavy brow ridges, and a relatively flat, humanlike face. Toumai’s habitat included savanna, forests, rivers, and lakes—and abundant animal life such as elephants, antelope, horses, giraffes, hyenas, hippopotamuses, wild boars, crocodiles, fish, and rodents. The animal

Who Were the Earliest Hominins? 125

TABLE 6.1 Dates and Geographic Distribution of Major Hominoid, Hominid, and Hominin Fossil Groups

Fossil Group Dates, m.y.a. Known Distribution

Hominoid Pierolapithecus 13 Spain catalaunicus Hominid Common ancestor

of hominids 8? East Africa

Sahelanthropus tchadensis

7–6 Chad

Orrorin tugenensis 6 Kenya Hominins Ardipithecus 5.8–5.5 Ethiopia kadabba Ardipithecus 4.4 Ethiopia ramidus Gracile australopiths (Australopithecus)

4.2–1.78 Ethiopia, East and South Africa

Au. anamensis 4.2–3.9 Kenya Au. afarensis 3.8–3.0 East Africa (Laetoli, Hadar) Au. garhi 2.6–2.5 Ethiopia Au. africanus 3.5–2.5 South Africa Au. sediba 1.98–1.78 South Africa Robust australopiths (Paranthropus)

2.6–1.0 East and South Africa

P. aethiopicus 2.6 Kenya P. robustus 1.9–1.0 South Africa P. boisei 2.3–1.4 East Africa Homo H. rudolfensis 2.03–1.78 East Africa H. habilis 1.9–1.44 East Africa H. erectus 1.9–0.44? Africa, Asia, Europe H. heidelbergensis 0.8–0.2 Africa, Asia, Europe Neandertals 0.13–0.028

(130,000–28,000) Europe, Middle East, Central Asia, Siberia

Anatomically modern humans

0.195–present (195,000–present)

Worldwide (after 20,000 B.P.)

species enabled the team to date the site where Toumai was found (by comparison with radiometrically dated sites with similar fauna).

Toumai blends apelike and human characteristics. Although the brain was chimp- sized, the tooth enamel was thicker than a chimp’s enamel, suggesting a diet that in- cluded not just fruits but also tougher vegetation. Also, Toumai’s snout did not protrude as far as a chimp’s, making it more humanlike, and the canine tooth was shorter than those of other apes. “The fossil is showing the first glimmerings of evolution in our

126 Chapter 6 Early Hominins

direction,” according to University of California at Berkeley anthropologist Tim White (quoted in Gugliotta 2002).

The Sahelanthropus skull is nearly complete, despite having been crushed and dis- torted by geological processes. The placement of its foramen magnum (the “big hole” through which the spinal cord joins the brain) farther forward than in apes suggests that Sahelanthropus moved bipedally. Its discovery in Chad indicates that early hominid (and possibly hominin) evolution was not confined to East Africa’s Rift Valley. The abundant early hominin fossil record that has come out of the Rift Valley may well reflect geology, preservation, and modern exposure of fossils rather than the actual geographic distribution of species in the past. The discovery of Sahelanthropus in Chad is the first proof of a more widespread distribution of early hominids.

Orrorin tugenensis In January 2001, Brigitte Senut, Martin Pickford, and others reported the discovery, near the village of Tugen in Kenya, of possible early hominin fossils they called Orrorin tugenensis (Aiello and Collard 2001; Senut et al. 2001). The find consisted of 13 fossils from at least five individuals. The fossils include pieces of jaw with teeth, isolated upper and lower teeth, arm bones, and a finger bone. Orrorin appears to have been a chimp-sized or smaller creature that climbed easily and walked on two legs when on the ground. Its date of 6 million years approaches the time of the common ancestor of humans and chimps. The fossilized left femur (thigh bone) suggests upright bipedalism, while the

In N’Djamena, Chad, the French paleontologist Michel Brunet holds Toumai’s skull along with Ahounta Djimdoumalbaye (left), who discovered the skull. Toumai is a possible hominin ancestor. ©Patrick Robert/Corbis

Who Were the Earliest Hominins? 127

thick right humerus (upper arm bone) suggests tree-climbing skills. Associated animal remains indicate that Orrorin lived in a wooded environment.

Orrorin’s upper incisor, upper canine, and lower premolar are more like the teeth of a female chimpanzee than like human teeth. But other dental and skeletal features, espe- cially bipedalism, led the discoverers to assign Orrorin to the hominin lineage. Orrorin lived after Sahelanthropus tchadensis but before Ardipithecus kadabba, discovered in Ethiopia, also in 2001, and dated to 5.8–5.5 m.y.a. The hominin status of Ardipithecus is more generally accepted than is that of either Sahelanthropus or Orrorin.

Ardipithecus Ardipithecus had two known species—Ardipithecus kadabba (5.8–5.5 m.y.a.) and Ardipithecus ramidus (4.4 m.y.a.). The later (ramidus) fossils were discovered first, in 1992–1994 in Ethiopia by Berhane Asfaw, Gen Suwa, and Tim White. Dating to 4.4 m.y.a., those ramidus fossils are the remains of some 17 individuals, with cranial, facial, dental, and upper limb bones. Subsequently, much older Ardipithecus (kadabba) fossils, dating back to the Miocene epoch, were found in Ethiopia. The kadabba find consists of 11 specimens, including a jawbone with teeth, hand and foot bones, frag- ments of arm bones, and a piece of collarbone. At least five individuals are represented. These creatures were apelike in size and anatomy. As of this writing, because of its likely bipedalism, Ardipithecus kadabba is recognized as the earliest known hominin, with the Sahelanthropus find from Chad, dated to 7–6 m.y.a., and Orrorin from Kenya, dated to 6 m.y.a., as possibly even older hominins.

In 2009, a newly reported find—a fairly complete skeleton dubbed “Ardi”—was heralded on the front page of the New York Times and throughout the media (Wilford

Ardipithecus ramidus: Representations of “Ardi,” including its skeleton and a map of the discovery area. Living 4.4 million years ago, Ardi was both a hominid and a hominin. What’s the difference between those terms? ©Yingling/MCT/ Newscom

128 Chapter 6 Early Hominins

2009a). Ardi (4.4 m.y.a.), a member of the species Ardipethicus ramidus, replaces Lucy (3.2 m.y.a.—see the section on Austrolapithecus afarensis) as the earliest known hominin skeleton. Ardi’s Ethiopian discovery site lies 45 miles south of Hadar, where Lucy was found. Scientists infer that Ardi was female, based on its small, slight skull and small canine teeth compared with others at the site. At 4 feet (1.2 meters) tall and 120 pounds (54 kg), Ardi stood about a foot taller than and weighed twice as much as Lucy.

Ardi’s pelvis appears to be transitional between one suited for climbing and one modified for bipedal locomotion. The pelvis of later hominins such as Lucy shows nearly all the adaptations needed for full bipedalism. Although Ardi’s lower pelvis re- mains primitive, the structure of her upper pelvis allowed her to walk on two legs with a straightened hip. Still, she probably could neither walk nor run as well as Lucy and later hominins. Her feet lacked the archlike structure of later hominin feet, and she had a divergent big toe, like an ape (see Ward, Kimbel, and Johanson 2011). Ardi’s apelike lower pelvis indicates retention of powerful hamstring muscles for climbing. Her hands, very long arms, and short legs all recall those of extinct apes, and her brain was no larger than that of a modern chimp.

Based on associated animal and plant remains, Ardipithecus lived in a humid wood- land habitat. In this environment, ramidus did not need, or have, the heavy chewing specializations of later australopiths. The size, shape, and wear patterns of ramidus teeth suggest an omnivorous diet of plants, nuts, and small mammals. Although Ardipithecus probably fed both in trees and on the ground, the canines suggest less of a fruit diet than is characteristic of living apes. Ardipithecus canines resemble modern human canines more than the tusklike, piercing upper canines of chimps and gorillas.

The Ethiopian paleoanthropologist Yohannes Haile-Selassie was a key member of the multinational, multidisciplinary team responsible for the “Ardi” discovery and analysis. ©AFP/ Getty Images

The Varied Australopiths 129

The first comprehensive reports describing Ardi and related findings, the result of 17 years of study, were published on October 2, 2009, in the journal Science, including 11 papers by 47 authors from 10 countries. They analyzed more than 110 Ardipithecus specimens from at least 36 different individuals, including Ardi. The ancestral relation- ship of Ardipithecus to Australopithecus has not been determined, but Ardi has been called a plausible ancestor for Australopithecus (see Wilford 2009a).

The Varied Australopiths

Some Miocene hominins evolved into a varied group of Pliocene–Pleistocene hominins known collectively as the australopiths—for which there is an abundant fossil record. Two genera are generally recognized within the australopiths: Australopithecus (Au.) and Paranthropus. The various species (with the oldest at the bottom of each group) are as follows:

Genus Australopithecus Au. sediba (1.98–1.78 m.y.a.) Au. garhi (2.6–2.5 m.y.a.) Au. africanus (3.5–2.5 m.y.a.) Au. afarensis (3.8–3.0 m.y.a.) Au. anamensis (4.2–3.9 m.y.a.)

Genus Paranthropus Paranthropus robustus (1.9–1.0 m.y.a.) Paranthropus boisei (2.3–1.4 m.y.a.) Paranthropus aethiopicus (2.6 m.y.a.) The date ranges given for these species are approximate, with some fossils dated

more precisely than others. The earliest South African australopith fossils (Au. africa- nus and Paranthropus robustus), for example, were found in a nonvolcanic area where radiometric dating could not be done until recently. The hominin fossils from the volca- nic regions of East Africa usually have radiometric dates. See “Anthropology Today” for the most recent Australopithecus find from South Africa.)

Australopithecus anamensis Ardipithecus may (or may not) have evolved into Au. anamensis, a bipedal hominin from northern Kenya, whose fossil remains were first reported by Meave Leakey and Alan Walker in 1995. Au. anamensis consists of 78 fragments from two sites: Kanapoi and Allia Bay. The fossils include upper and lower jaws, cranial fragments, and a partial shin bone (tibia). The Kanapoi fossils date to 4.2 m.y.a., and those at Allia Bay to 3.9 m.y.a. Members of this species had apelike canines, along with strong jaws and heavily enameled teeth, suggesting they may at times have eaten hard, abrasive foods. They probably preferred the fruits and nuts available in their

130 Chapter 6 Early Hominins

habitat—one of lakes surrounded by forests and woodlands. Based on the tibia, ana- mensis weighed about 110 pounds (50 kg). This would have made it larger than either the earlier Ardipithecus or the later Au. afarensis. Because of its date and its location in the East African Rift Valley, Au. anamensis may be ancestral to Au. afarensis (3.8–3.0 m.y.a.), which usually is considered ancestral to all the later australopiths, as well as to Homo (see Figure 6.1).

FIGURE 6.1 Phylogenetic Tree for African Apes, Hominids, and Hominins The presumed divergence date for ancestral chimps and hominins was between 6 and 8 m.y.a. Branching in later hominin evolution is also shown. For more exact dates, see the text and Table 6.1.

?

? ?

?

African ape line

Present Hyperrobust line

(extinct)

Paranthropus boisei

N o

Fo ss

il Ev

id en

ce

Africanus- Robustus line

(extinct)

Modern human line

H. sapiens

m.y.a. 1.0

Paranthropus aethiopicus (“Black Skull”)

Paranthropus robustusm.y.a. 2.0

Au. afarensis (“Lucy”)

m.y.a. 3.0

Ardipithecus kadabba

m.y.a. 4.0

Common ancestor

? ”Toumai”

?

m.y.a. 5.0

m.y.a. 6.0

m.y.a. 7.0

m.y.a. 8.0

H. erectusAu. sediba

H. habilis / rudolfensis

Au. garhi

? Kenyanthropus

platyops ?

Ardipithecus ramidus

? Orrorin tugenensis

?

Au. africanus

?

Australopithecus anamensis = Au. anamensis

The Varied Australopiths 131

Australopithecus afarensis Au. afarensis includes fossils found at two sites, Laetoli in northern Tanzania and Hadar in the Afar region of Ethiopia. Laetoli is earlier (3.8–3.6 m.y.a.). The Hadar fossils date to between 3.3 and 3.0 m.y.a. All told, Au. afarensis existed for about 800,000 years, from 3.8 to 3.0 m.y.a. Mary Leakey (Meave’s mother-in-law) directed the research that led to the Laetoli finds. D. C. Johanson and M. Taieb led the inter- national expedition that made the discoveries at Hadar. The two sites have yielded significant samples of early hominin fossils. From Laetoli we have two dozen speci- mens; and from Hadar, between 35 and 65 individuals. The Laetoli remains are mainly teeth and jaw fragments, along with some very informative fossilized foot- prints. The Hadar sample includes skull fragments and postcranial material, most notably 40 percent of the skeleton of a tiny hominin female, dubbed “Lucy,” who lived around 3 m.y.a.

Although the hominin remains at Laetoli and Hadar were deposited half a million years apart, their many resemblances explain their placement in the same species. Au.  afarensis, although clearly a hominin, was similar in many ways to chimps and gorillas (Ardipithecus and Au. anamensis were even more apelike).

From the same general area of northern Ethiopia as Lucy comes another important member of Au. afarensis (Owen 2006, 2012). This toddler, the world’s oldest fossil child, soon was dubbed “Lucy’s Baby”—despite having lived a hundred thousand years before Lucy (3.3 m.y.a. for the child versus 3.2 for Lucy). The child is an amazingly complete find, with a more intact skull and much more skeletal material than exists for Lucy. Unearthed in 2000, the child probably was female and about 3 years old when she died. The remains include a well-preserved skull with a monkey-sized face, a mandible (jawbone), baby teeth, tiny fingers, a torso, a foot, and a kneecap. Not surprisingly, given what we already know about Au. afarensis, the skull and upper body are apelike, while the lower body confirms bipedalism. Despite bipedalism, the skeleton’s upper body includes two complete shoulder blades similar to a gorilla’s, suggesting that it was an adept climber (see Owen 2012). 

If Lucy’s Baby had lived, she would have developed rapidly, reaching adulthood earlier than modern humans, and her lifespan would have been much shorter than ours. The afarensis growth cycle was more similar to the chimpanzee pattern than to the modern human pattern. The shorter growth period would have allowed less time for guidance and socialization.

How did the dentition of Au. afarensis compare with ape and human dentitions? The afarensis canines were longer and sharper than in Homo and projected beyond the other teeth. Compared with an ape’s tusklike canines, however, the afarensis ca- nines were reduced. More like an ape’s than a human’s premolar, the afarensis lower premolar was pointed and projecting. It had one long cusp and only a tiny bump that hints at the bicuspid premolar that eventually developed in hominin evolution (see Figure 6.2). 

The afarensis diet was mainly vegetarian, including leaves, seeds, fruits, and nuts. Lucy and her kind probably also ate insects and small vertebrates, such as lizards. Dental microwear studies show that afarensis ate soft, sugar-rich foods (such as fruits),

132 Chapter 6 Early Hominins

but their tooth size and shape confirm that they could also process hard, brittle foods. These may have been fallback foods, which they ate when more desirable foods were unavailable. Au. afarensis molars are large. The lower jaw (mandible) is thick and is buttressed with a bony ridge behind the front teeth. The cheekbones are large and flare out to the side for the attachment of chewing muscles. The small Au. afarensis skull contrasts with those of later hominins. Its cranial capacity (430 cm3) barely surpasses the chimp average (390 cm3).

Although bidepal, Au. afarensis still contrasts in many ways with later hominins. For example, sexual dimorphism is marked. Au. afarensis females, such as Lucy, stood between 3 and 4 feet (0.9 and 1.2 meters) tall; males might have reached 5 feet (1.5 meters). Adult males may have weighed almost twice as much as the females did. Table  6.2  includes data on the various australopiths, including mid-sex body

FIGURE 6.2 Comparison of Dentition in Ape, Human, and Au. afarensis Palates Teeth of chimpanzee, Australopithecus afarensis, and modern human. In (a), note the parallel tooth rows in the chimpanzee, as compared to those of the modern human. In (b), note the sharply pointed premolar of the chimpanzee, the pointed premolar of Au. afarensis, and the bicuspid premolar of the modern human. Source: Relethford, John,The Human Species: An Introduction to Biological Anthropology, 9th ed., (top) p. 134 and (bottom) p. 232. Copyright © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Chimpanzee Australopithecus afarensis Modern human

Gap Canine

Sharply pointed premolar

Pointed premolar

Bicuspid premolar

(a)

(b)

Sharply pointed premolar Pointed premolar Bicuspid premolar

Chimpanzee Modern humanAustralopithecus afarensis

The Varied Australopiths 133

weight and brain size. Mid-sex means midway between the male average and the female average.

Lucy and her kind were far from dainty. Her muscle-engraved bones are much more robust than ours are. With only rudimentary tools and weapons, early hominins needed powerful and resistant bones and muscles. Lucy’s apelike arms are longer relative to her legs than are those of later hominins; she probably spent some of her time in the trees. Canines, premolars, and skulls were apelike as well, but the molars, chewing apparatus, and cheekbones foreshadowed later hominin trends, and the pelvic and limb bones were indisputably hominin. The hominin pattern was being built from the ground up.

Important evidence of striding bipedalism by Au. afarensis comes from Laetoli. Volcanic ash, which can be dated by the K/A (potassium/argon) technique, covered a trail of footprints of two or three hominins walking to a water hole. These prints leave no doubt that a striding biped lived in Tanzania by 3.6 m.y.a. The structure of the pelvic, hip, leg, and foot bones all indicate that upright bipedalism was Au. afarensis’s mode of locomotion (see Choi 2012; Ward et al. 2011). Accordingly, australopith

TABLE 6.2 Facts about the Australopiths Compared with Chimps and Homo

Species Dates (m.y.a.)

Known Distribution

Important Sites

Body Weight (Mid-Sex)

Brain Size (Mid-Sex) (cm3)

Anatomically modern humans (AMHs)

0.195– present (195,000– present)

Worldwide Beijing, Mumbai, Nairobi, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney

132 lb/60 kg 1,350

Pan troglodytes (chimpanzee)

Modern Tropical Africa

Gombe (Tanzania), Ivory Coast

93 lb/42 kg 390

Au. sediba 1.98–1.78 South Africa Malapa Insufficient data

420

Paranthropus boisei

2.3–1.4 East Africa Olduvai, East Turkana

86 lb/39 kg 490

Paranthropus robustus

1.9–1.0 South Africa Kromdraai, Swartkrans

81 lb/37 kg 540

Au. africanus 3.5–2.5 South Africa Taung, Sterkfontein, Makapansgat

79 lb/36 kg 490

Au. afarensis 3.8–3.0 East Africa Hadar, Laetoli 77 lb/35 kg 430 Au. anamensis 4.2–3.9 Kenya Kanapoi Allia

Bay Not enough data

No published skulls

Ardipithecus 5.8–4.4 Ethiopia Aramis Not enough data

Not enough data

134 Chapter 6 Early Hominins

(afarensis and later) pelvises are much more similar to the human pelvis than to an ape pelvis. The blades of the afarensis pelvis (iliac blades) are shorter and broader than those of the ape. The sacrum, which anchors the pelvis’s two side bones, is larger, as in Homo. With bipedalism, the pelvis forms a sort of bowl that balances the weight of the trunk and supports that weight with less stress. The afarensis spine had the lower spine (lumbar) curve characteristic of Homo. This curvature helps transmit the weight of the upper body to the pelvis and the legs. The head balanced directly on top of the neck, with the foramen magnum located right underneath the skull rather than at the back, as in a quadruped. In apes, the thigh bone (femur) extends straight down from the hip to the knees. In Australopithecus and Homo, however, the thigh bone angles into the hip, permitting the space between the knees to be narrower than the pelvis during walking.

Although the pelvises of the australopiths were similar to those of Homo, they were not identical. The most significant contrast is a narrower australopith birth canal. Expansion of the birth canal is a trend in hominin evolution. Undoubtedly, australopith skulls grew after birth to accommodate a growing brain, as ours do. However, the brains of the australopiths expanded less than ours do. The cranial sutures (the lines where the bones of the skull eventually come together) fused earlier for australopiths than for humans. Nevertheless, young australopiths must have depended on their parents and kin for nurturance and protection. Those years of childhood dependency would have

An ancient trail of hominin footprints fossilized in volcanic ash. Mary Leakey found this 230-foot (70-meter) trail at Laetoli, Tanzania, in 1979. It dates from 3.6 m.y.a. and confirms that Au. afarensis was a striding biped. ©John Reader/Science Photo Library/Science Source

The Varied Australopiths 135

provided time for observation, teaching, and learning. This may provide indirect evidence for a rudimentary cultural life.

Gracile and Robust Australopiths In 1924, the Australian anatomist Raymond Dart, working in South Africa, coined the term Australopithecus africanus to describe the first fossil representative of this spe- cies, the skull of a juvenile that was found accidentally in a quarry at Taung, South Africa. The many australopith fossils found subsequently in South Africa appear to have lived between 3.5 and 1 m.y.a. The most recent South African Australopithecus find, Au. sediba, described in this chapter’s “Anthropology Today,” has been dated to 1.98 m.y.a.

The South African australopiths fall into two groups: gracile (Au. africanus and Au. sediba) and robust (Paranthropus robustus). “Gracile” indicates that the australopiths in that category were slighter and less rugged, with smaller teeth and faces, than were members of Paranthropus robustus. 

Based on recent advances in dating techniques, Au. africanus appears to have lived between 3.5 and 2.5 m.y.a. Au. sediba, also gracile and a likely descendant of africanus, is more recent, having lived just under 2 m.y.a. The current dating for Paranthropus robustus is 1.9–1.0 m.y.a. A related hominin is the somewhat older and even more robust, or hyperrobust, Paranthropus boisei of East Africa, whose dates are 2.3–1.4 m.y.a. Both Au. africanus and Paranthropus probably descend from Au. afarensis, which itself was gracile in form, or from a South African version of Au. afarensis.

In 1985 the paleoanthropologist Alan Walker made a significant fossil find near Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. This discovery is commonly called the “black skull” be- cause of the blue-black sheen it bore from the minerals surrounding it. The jaw was apelike and the brain was small (as in Au. afarensis), but there was a massive bony crest

(Left) Profile view of Paranthropus boisei skull—Olduvai Hominid (OH) 5, originally called Zinjanthropus boisei. This skull of a young male, discovered by Mary Leakey in 1959 at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, dates back to 1.8 m.y.a. (Right) Profile view of an Au. africanus (gracile) skull (Sterkfontein 5). The cranium, discovered by Dr. Robert Broom and J. T. Robinson in April 1947, dates back to 3.5–2.5 m.y.a. Left: ©The Natural History Museum/Alamy Stock Photo; Right: ©The Natural History Museum/Alamy Stock Photo

136 Chapter 6 Early Hominins

atop the skull (as in Paranthropus boisei). Walker and Richard Leakey (Meave’s hus- band, and Walker’s associate on the 1985 expedition) view the black skull (dated to 2.6 m.y.a.) as a very early hyperrobust Paranthropus boisei. Others assign the black skull to its own species, Paranthropus aethiopicus. The black skull shows that some of the anatomical features of the genus Paranthropus (2.6–1.0 m.y.a.) did not change very much during about 1.5 million years.

Like earlier hominins, the South African australopiths still had skulls that were more ape-sized than human. The average brain size of Au. africanus was 490 cm3, compared with 540 cm3 for Paranthropus robustus. These figures can be compared with an average cranial capacity of 430 cm3 in Au. afarensis and 1,350 cm3 in Homo sapiens. The cranial capacity of chimps (Pan troglodytes) averages 390 cm3 (see Table 6.2). The brains of gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) average around 500 cm3, which is within the australopith range, but gorilla body size is much greater.

Also as in earlier hominins, sexual dimorphism within each South African species remained much more pronounced than it is in Homo sapiens. Australopith females, whether gracile or robust, were shorter, weighed much less, and had smaller canines than males of the same species. The dimorphism in body size exceeded that in chimpan- zees but probably was less than in gorillas.

The teeth, jaws, and skulls of these australopiths leave no doubt that their diet was mainly vegetarian, although they did eat meat from time to time. They captured small and slow-moving game, and they scavenged, bringing home parts of kills made by large cats and other carnivores. Natural selection modifies the teeth and surrounding structures to conform to the stresses associated with a particular diet. Large back teeth, jaws, and associated facial and cranial structures confirm a diet requiring exten- sive grinding and crushing. The cheekbones of the South African australopiths ( especially Paranthropus) were elongated structures that anchored large chewing muscles running up the jaw. Another set of robust chewing muscles extended from the back of the jaw to the sides of the skull. Their canines, however, are reduced, and their premolars are fully bicuspid.

Compared with the graciles, Paranthropus had larger skulls and back teeth. They also had thicker faces and more rugged skull features and muscle markings on the skel- eton. Their front teeth, however, were about the same size as those of the graciles. Paranthropus had chewing muscles that were strong enough to produce a sagittal crest, a bony ridge on the top of the skull. Such a crest forms as the bone grows. It develops from the pull of the chewing muscles as they meet at the midline of the skull and serves to anchor those muscles.

Members of Paranthropus boisei had mammoth back teeth. Their females had bigger back teeth than did earlier australopith males. The destiny of the Paranthropus branch of the hominin family tree was to adapt to arid areas and become ever more specialized with respect to one part of the traditional australopith diet. The need to process vegeta- tion that was harder to chew than for any previous hominin would explain the hyperrobusts’ huge back teeth, jaws, and associated areas of the face and skull. Paranthropus boisei persisted in East Africa until about 1.4 m.y.a., when it finally became extinct, as did Paranthropus robustus in South Africa around 1 m.y.a. Figure 6.3 is a drawing of the skulls of four species of australopithecus.

Early Stone Tools 137

Early Stone Tools

The simplest obviously manufactured stone tools were discovered in 1931 by L. S. B. and Mary Leakey at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. That locale gave the tools their name— Oldowan tools. The oldest tools from Olduvai are about 1.8 million years old, but older Oldowan tools (from 2.6–2.0 m.y.a.) have been found in other parts of Africa.

Stone tools consist of flakes and cores. The core is the piece of rock, in the Oldowan case about the size of a tennis ball, from which flakes are struck. Once flakes have been removed, the core can become a tool itself. A chopper is a tool made by flaking the edge of such a core on one side and thus forming a cutting edge.

The purpose of flaking stone in the Oldowan tradition was not so much to make choppers as to create the sharp stone flakes that were the mainstay of the Oldowan tool kit (Figure 6.4). Flakes probably were used mainly as cutters, for example, to dismember game carcasses. Choppers were a convenient by-product of flaking and were used as well, probably for food processing—by pounding, breaking, or bashing. Crushed fossil animal bones suggest that choppers were used to break open marrow cavities. In addi- tion to their stone tools, Oldowan toolmakers also used bone and horn as tools; pieces of bone or horn with scratch marks have been found in Oldowan deposits, suggesting they were used to dig up tubers or insects.

Surprisingly Early Stone Tools In 1999 an international team reported the discovery, in Ethiopia, of a new australopith species, dated to 2.6–2.5 m.y.a. Surprised by the combination of skeletal and dental

Paranthropus robustus

Au. afarensis Au. africanus

Paranthropus boisei

FIGURE 6.3 Four Types of Early Hominins What are the main differences you notice?

138 Chapter 6 Early Hominins

features in this new hominin, they named it Australopithecus garhi (Au. garhi). The word garhi means “surprise” in the Afar language. Associated with these hominin fos- sils is evidence, the earliest yet found, of animal butchery (Asfaw, White, and Lovejoy 1999). Au. garhi (or whoever did the butchering) had used early stone tools to butcher, and extract marrow from, the bones of the antelopes and horses found at the site. 

In 1997 the Ethiopian archaeologist Sileshi Semaw had found stone tools dating to 2.6 m.y.a. at the nearby Ethiopian site of Gona. Did Au. garhi make these tools? If not, who did? Based on what we know about chimpanzee stone tool use, combined with discoveries of even older stone tools, it becomes increasingly likely that the australo- piths were toolmakers, with some capacity for culture.

The year 2015 was an important one for announcements about hominin evolution. A hard-to-reach cave in South Africa yielded a treasure trove of fossils (see Chapter 7). The earliest member of the genus Homo, dated to 2.8 m.y.a., was found in Ethiopia, and the earliest stone tools were discovered in Kenya. Dated to 3.3 m.y.a., these tools are 700,000 years older than the previously recognized earliest stone tools. Sonia Harmand of Stony Brook University led the team that discovered these tools, scattered in a dry

FIGURE 6.4 Making Oldowan Tools The toolmaker strikes a hard stone (the core) in just the right place to remove thin, sharp flakes. Source: Fuentes, Agustin, Biological Anthropology: Concepts and Connections, 2nd ed., p. 237. Copyright © 2014 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Hammerstone

Flake

Core

Striking platform

Outer surface of core

Striking point

Flake scar

Early Stone Tools 139

river bed near the western shore of Kenya’s Lake Turkana. At this site, Lomekwi 3, the ancient toolmakers had knapped stone intentionally, breaking off sharp pieces from a core with quick, hard strikes. Much larger and cruder than the Oldowan tools that came later, the Lomekwi tools bear scars from the rudimentary techniques used to make them. The toolmakers probably used two hands and rested the stone core on an anvil while hitting it with a hammer stone, as wild chimps still do today when cracking open nuts.

Oldowan Hominins at the Kanjera Site Comparisons with chimps and bonobos suggest that hominins always have lived in so- cial groups composed of multiple males and females. In such a group, a chimp female in estrus will mate with multiple males, and males mate with multiple females. At some point in their evolution, hominins developed pair bonding (Lukas and Clutton-Brock 2013; Opie et al. 2013; Zimmer 2013). A male and a female would pair off, bond, and mate exclusively or mainly with each other for a significant length of time. Such a bond would increase the likelihood that the offspring of the female were also those of the male. Both parents would do all they could to ensure the child’s survival and well-being. At some point, especially as hominins became dependent on hunting, a gender-based division of labor developed. Men who hunted took meat home to share with their mates, their children, and other members of their social group.

Anthropologists have found excellent evidence for hunting around 2 million years ago at a very rich site in Kenya—the Kanjera South, or KJS, site, located on the shores of Lake Victoria (Ferraro et al. 2013). The archaeologists analyzed thousands of tools and animal bones (many showing marks of cutting or cracking) from the site. Using Oldowan stone tools, the ancient hominins who occupied the site were acquiring and processing meat—from hunting and scavenging. The animal bones at the site reveal that these Oldowan hominins hunted and butchered numerous small antelopes. The archaeologists could tell this because bones of the entire animal were present at the site—indicating that carcasses had been brought back whole. Cut marks show that hominins used their simple stone tools to remove animal flesh. They also used fist-sized stones to crack open animal bones to get at the marrow. The Oldowan hominins also ate larger antelopes, which they almost certainly scavenged. These antelopes were represented by only part of the skele- ton and skull, suggesting that hominins brought back remainders from the kills of other predators, which could not as easily get at the brains and bone marrow of their prey.

The Kanjera site provides the earliest, and very complete, evidence for what the an- thropologists call “persistent” reliance on meat within the hominin diet. We don’t know the genus or species of these hominins, but we do know the significance of a meat-laden diet. Among the likely social changes associated with such a diet were a gender-based division of labor, pair bonding, and increased parental (especially male) investment in children. Meat supported population increase and territorial expansion among homi- nins. We hear so much today about the dangers of too much red meat that we forget that meat is an excellent and concentrated source of calories, protein, and fat. Its inclusion in the ancient hominin diet supported an increase in the size of the human body and brain, which is a very expensive organ in terms of its energy needs. To summarize, a regular diet of red meat was a key factor allowing the growth of the hominin body and brain and the spread of hominins within and beyond Africa, a story told in Chapter 7.

140 Chapter 6 Early Hominins

Anthropology Today Au. sediba: Ancestor or Fascinating Sideline?

Named by Smithsonian magazine as the number one hominid (and hominin) fossil discovery of 2011, Australopithecus sediba (actually discovered between 2008 and 2010 but described in 2011) has generated a new debate about human origins. The original find is an almost complete skull and partial skeleton of an 11- to 12-year-old boy who stood 4’ 3” (1.3 m.) tall. Is this aus- tralopith a plausible human ancestor, as is claimed by its discoverer, paleoanthropol- ogist Lee Berger? Most experts are skepti- cal about that claim, while appreciating the fossil for its unique blend of hominin features. With long arms . . . and powerful fin- gers, the ancient creatures were built for climbing trees. But they also had long lower limbs, flat feet and a flexible lumbar spine that [allowed them to] . . . cover long distances by walking upright on two legs. After four years of intense analysis, a team of paleoanthropologists is making its most detailed case yet that a pair of an- cient skeletons discovered in a grassy South African valley could represent the direct evolutionary link between modern humans and the family of human ances- tors that includes the Australopithecus known as Lucy. In a series of papers published in . . . the journal Science [on April 12, 2013], the researchers argue that the “mosaic na- ture” of the Australopithecus sediba spec- imens makes them a strong candidate to be the . . . “branch of Australopithecus that ultimately gave rise to the genus Homo, which includes Homo sapiens.” The skeleton fossils have so many human-like features “across the whole of the body that it must be considered, at the very least, a possible ancestor,” said Lee R.

Berger, a paleoanthropologist at the Uni- versity of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, who discovered the fossils in 2008. . . . But not everyone accepts this view. Critics say the skeletons are not old enough to be the precursors to Homo. Others say the similarities can be chalked up to the diversity of early hominids. At a minimum, the new details . . . are causing scientists to revise . . . some long- held assumptions about the anatomical makeup of our extended evolutionary fam- ily. For example, though it was long be- lieved that Australopiths had six lower vertebrae, “one more than humans and at least two more than apes,” it is now clear that they had the same number as hu- mans: five. The ape-like boy and older woman who tumbled through a sinkhole and lay buried in a deep underground cave for nearly 2 million years have also given scientists a better view of how our early relatives walked. . . .  By examining bone grooves and mus- cle attachments in the kneecap, thigh and lower leg bones and comparing them with

Lee Berger with his son, Matthew, and the fossil remains of Australopithecus sediba. Matthew found one of the fossils while chasing his dog. ©Alexander Joe/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Summary 141

Summary 1. A skull found in northern Chad, dated at 6–7 million years old, officially named

Sahelanthropus tchadensis, more commonly called “Toumai,” may or may not be the earliest hominin yet known, as may the somewhat less ancient Orrorin tugenensis, found in Kenya in 2001.

2. Hominins have lived during the late Miocene, Pliocene (5.0–2.6 m.y.a.), and Pleis- tocene (2.6 m.y.a–10,000 B.P.) epochs. The australopiths had appeared by 4.2 m.y.a. (as Au. anamensis). The australopiths include two genera: Australopithecus and Paranthropus. The known species of Australopithecus are as follows: Au. anamensis (4.2–3.9 m.y.a.), Au. afarensis (3.8–3.0 m.y.a.), Au. africanus (3.5–2.5 m.y.a.), Au. garhi (2.6–2.5 m.y.a.), and Au. sediba (1.98–1.78 m.y.a.). The species of Paranthropus are as follows: Paranthropus robustus (1.9–1.0 m.y.a.), Paranthro- pus boisei (2.3–1.4 m.y.a.), and Paranthropus aethiopicus (2.6 m.y.a.). The earliest definite hominin remains, from Ethiopia, are classified as Ardipithecus kadabba

those in humans and apes, the scientists were able to figure out that the roughly 4-foot-tall [female] walked upright. But she probably did so with a peculiar gait marked by an inward rotation of the knee and hip, causing her narrow-heeled feet to twist slightly. . . . The team wrote that it would need to examine more fossils before it could say whether the entire species walked the same way. Berger said that if modern humans were to observe an Au. sediba walking by, their attention would probably not be drawn to its legs. “What would be a great difference would be how it swung its long upper limbs during that walk and the shrugged-shoulder appear- ance of its upper body,” he said. The re- searchers speculated that the animals spent their lives both in trees and walking on the ground. In other aspects of the research, scientists reported that these specimens had jaws and teeth that are recognizably human. In earlier studies, researchers concluded too that the crea- ture’s hands were capable of precise

gripping. The presence of several human- like features has led Berger and others to suggest that Au. sediba, which lived an estimated 1.78 million to 1.95 million years ago, may have been the species that evolved into the earliest members of the Homo genus. But other paleoanthropolo- gists have pointed out several problems with that thesis. Donald Johanson, the Arizona State University paleoanthropologist who dis- covered Lucy in 1974, said the first Homo species appeared 2.4 million years ago in eastern Africa. Instead of giving rise to the genus Homo, Au. sediba would have been a contemporary. “Sediba abundantly dem- onstrates a unique set of anatomical features of an Australopithecus species that was most likely a dead-end branch on our tree,” said Johanson, who was not involved in the new studies. . . . 

Source: Morin Monte, “Evidence Points toward Solving Evolutionary ‘Missing Link.’” Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2013. Copyright © 2013 Los Angeles Times. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

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(5.8–5.5 m.y.a.) and ramidus (4.4 m.y.a.). Next comes Au. anamensis, then a group of fossils from Hadar, Ethiopia, and Laetoli, Tanzania, classified as Au. afarensis.

3. These earliest hominins shared many primitive (apelike) features, including upper bodies adapted for climbing; elongated premolars; a small, apelike skull; and marked sexual dimorphism. Still, Au. afarensis and its predecessors were definite hominins. In Au. afarensis this is confirmed by abundant skeletal evidence for upright bipedalism.

4. Remains of two later groups, Au. africanus (graciles) and Paranthropus robustus (robusts), were found in South Africa. Both groups show the australopith trend toward a powerful chewing apparatus. They had large molars and premolars and large and robust faces, skulls, and muscle markings. All these features are more pronounced in the robusts than they are in the graciles. The basis of the australopith diet was savanna vegetation.

5. Paranthropus boisei, the hyperrobust australopiths, became extinct around 1.4 m.y.a., as did Paranthropus robustus around 1 m.y.a. Paranthropus became increasingly specialized, dependent on tough, coarse, gritty, fibrous savanna vegetation.

6. Oldowan tools (flakes and choppers) dated to 1.8 m.y.a. were first found at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, hence, their name. Earlier Oldowan tools (some as old as 2.6 m.y.a.) have been found subsequently at other African sites. Even earlier stone tools (3.3 m.y.a.) come from a recent discovery at the Lomekwi 3 site in Kenya. A regular diet of red meat was a key factor allowing the growth of the hominin body and brain and the spread of hominins within and beyond Africa. Among the likely social changes associated with the new diet were a gender-based division of labor, pair bonding, and increased parental (especially male) investment in children.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. If you found a new hominid fossil in East Africa, dated to 5 m.y.a., would it most

likely be an ape ancestor or a human ancestor? How would you tell the difference? 2. Compare the significance of the Ardipithecus and Au. afarensis finds (i.e., Ardi and

Lucy, respectively). Which do you consider to be more important, and why?

Key Terms Ardipithecus, 121 Au. afarensis, 131 Au. africanus, 135 Au. anamensis, 129 Au. garhi, 138

Paranthropus robustus, 135

robust, 135

australopiths, 129 gracile, 135 Oldowan tools, 137 Paranthropus

boisei, 135

143

Chapter 7 The Genus Homo

Early Homo 2015 Discoveries H. rudolfensis H. habilis and H. erectus

Out of Africa I: H. erectus Acheulean Tools Adaptive Strategies of H. erectus The Evolution and Expansion of H. erectus

Middle Pleistocene Hominins Ice Ages of the Pleistocene H. heidelbergensis

The Neandertals Cold-Adapted Neandertals The Neandertals and Modern People

The Denisovans

Homo floresiensis

Modern Humans Out of Africa: AMH Edition “Mitochondrial Eve” and the Spread of AMHs AMHs on the Move

The Advent of Behavioral Modernity

Advances in Technology

Glacial Retreat

Settling the Americas

Anthropology Today: The Rising Stars of a South African Cave

Early Homo

This chapter surveys the biological and cultural features associated with the various spe- cies of Homo known through the fossil record: H. rudolfensis, H. habilis, H. erectus, H. heidelbergeneis, the Neandertals, their cousins the Denisovans, and the diminutive species known as H. floresiensis. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the advent of anatomically modern humans (AMHs). Also considered is a recent and highly significant 2015 discovery known as H. naledi.

2015 Discoveries Chapter 6 reported on the discovery of the earliest stone tools (dated to 3.3 m.y.a.) in Lomekwi, Kenya. This was one of three very important early hominin discoveries in Africa announced in 2015. The second is the discovery in Ethiopia of a hominin jaw- bone fragment with five teeth dated to 2.8 m.y.a.—close to the end of the Au. afarensis

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time span (3 m.y.a.) The fossil, found by a multinational team, represents the earliest known member of the Homo lineage (Villmoare et al. 2015). It’s unclear whether this fossil, known as LD 350-1, belongs to a known early species of Homo, or whether it deserves its own species name. Linking the fossil to Homo are its slim molar teeth, its cusp pattern, and the shape of the mandible. The front of the jaw, however, has a more primitive look, including a receding chin line, like Au. afarensis.

The third key 2015 announcement was one of the most exciting fossil finds of the 21st century. The discovery site was South Africa’s Rising Star cave, located in an area known as the “Cradle of Humankind,” because of the important hominin fossil discover- ies made there during the first half of the 20th century. So far, the Rising Star cave has yielded the remains of at least 15 individuals, ranging in age from infants and juveniles to older adults. Paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, the leader of the discovery team, dubbed the fossils Homo naledi, after the word (naledi) for “star” in the local Sotho language. Based on their mix of primitive and modern features, these fossils, originally undated, could have lived between 3 and 2 m.y.a. However, H. naledi recently has been assigned a surprisingly late date—of merely 335,000 to 236,000 B.P.

Among their primitive, apelike features are curved fingers on an otherwise human- like hand, apelike shoulders adapted to climbing, and flaring iliac blades in the upper pelvis. As in other early hominins, the skeleton gets more human as it gets closer to the ground, reflecting bipedalism. The lower pelvis, lower legs, and feet are very human. The teeth, too, especially the reduced molars, are more modern, and belong with H. erectus, Neandertals, and modern humans rather than with australopiths.

One of H. naledi’s most noticeable primitive characteristics is its tiny brain. The re- mains include four skulls, two males and two females. Cranial capacity was small in both sexes, averaging just 560 cm3 for the males and 465 cm3 for the females (compared with an average of 1,350 cm3 for modern humans). As expected, sexual dimorphism shows up not only in the skulls but also in body size. The males were about 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, weighing about 100 pounds (45 kg); females were somewhat shorter and lighter.

The members of Berger’s team who did the actual work of collecting and excavating the bones were all young, slender women (see this chapter’s “Anthropology Today”). Such a body frame was necessary to navigate the extremely narrow passages leading to the chamber where the fossils were located. Many of the bones were simply lying on the cave floor; others had to be dug out. The researchers removed more than 1,500 bones during an initial three weeks of intensive work. These fossils, which include bones, teeth, and skulls, provide an unusually complete picture of the hominins buried there. The bones range from skulls, ribs, and long bones, to remains as tiny as the bones of the inner ear. There also are complete hands and feet. The range of ages present spans the entire length of the H. naledi life cycle.

Some paleoanthropologists, while recognizing the importance of this find, doubt that H. naledi represents a new species. Tim White, a member of the Ardi team, suggested assign- ment of H. naledi to H. erectus. Watch the news for further developments on H. naledi and the Rising Star cave.

H. rudolfensis In 1972, in an expedition led by Richard Leakey, Bernard Ngeneo unearthed a skull des- ignated KNM-ER 1470. The name comes from its catalog number in the Kenya National

Early Homo 145

Museum (KNM) and its discovery location (East Rudolph—ER)—east of Lake Rudolph, at a site called Koobi Fora. The 1470 skull attracted immediate attention because of its unusual combination of a large brain (775 cm3) and very large molars. Its brain size was more human than that of the australopiths, but its molars recalled those of the hyperro- bust australopiths. Some paleoanthropologists attributed the large skull and teeth to a very large body, assuming that this had been one really big hominin. But no postcranial remains were found with 1470, nor have they been found with any later discovery of a 1470-like specimen. How does one interpret 1470 when its brain size suggests Homo, while its back teeth resemble those of an australopith? In 1986, 1470 received its own species name, Homo rudolfensis, from the lake near which it was found. 

Note the contrasts in the two skulls in the photo below. KNM-ER 1470, on the right, is H. rudolfensis; KNM-ER 1813, on the left, is a skull of H. habilis. (H. habilis, dis- cussed in the next section, is a species of early Homo discovered and named in 1960 by L. S. B. and Mary Leakey, parents of Richard). The habilis skull has a more marked brow ridge and a depression behind it, whereas 1470 has a less pronounced brow ridge and a longer, flatter face.

For almost 40 years after finding 1470, the Leakey family and others scoured depos- its near Lake Turkana for fossils similar to 1470. Between 2007 and 2009 they found them, near the 1470 discovery site (see Gibbons 2012; Leakey et al. 2012). In 2012 Meave Leakey (Richard’s wife) and her associates announced the discovery at Koobi Fora of a face and two jawbones, showing that 1470 was not unique. These new fossils, dating to 2.03–1.78 m.y.a., confirmed that H. rudolfensis lived in the same area and at the same time as at least two other species of Homo—habilis and erectus. Note that Paranthropus also existed at this time. The bushy tree of hominin evolution had pro- duced at least four species living in Africa at the same time, but no doubt separated in space or by adaptation to different ecological niches.

The face of the new H. rudolfensis skull—that of a juvenile—was well preserved and included upper teeth. It was a smaller version of the 1470 skull, both featuring an

Meet two kinds of early Homo: on the left KNM-ER 1813, on the right KNM-ER 1470. The latter (1470) has been classified as H. rudolfensis. What’s the classification of 1813? ©Kenneth Garrett

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unusually flat face that contrasts with the more jutting upper jaw of H. habilis. The lower jaw bones, one of which was remarkably complete, provided new information, because the 1470 fossil lacked a lower jaw. H. rudolfensis had an unusual, U-shaped palate, with canines facing the front of the jaw rather than placed on the sides in a V-shaped palate, as in H. habilis. The new jaws also had smaller molars than expected, based on those of 1470.

H. habilis and H. erectus A team headed by L. S. B. and Mary Leakey discovered the first representative of H. habilis (OH7—Olduvai Hominid 7) at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania in 1960. We now know that H. habilis was a contemporary of H. erectus and lived from about 1.9 to 1.44 m.y.a. The original H. habilis find was from Olduvai’s oldest layer, Bed I, which dates to 1.8 m.y.a. This layer has yielded both small-brained Paranthropus boisei fossils (average 490 cm3) and H. habilis skulls, with cranial capacities between 600 and 700 cm3. (Table 7.1 gives cranial capacities for the various forms of Homo discussed in this chapter.) The Leakeys chose the name Homo habilis (which means “able man” in Latin), because they assumed that H. habilis had tool-making ability and was responsi- ble for the Oldowan tools also found in Bed I. We now know, however, that tool making preceded H. habilis and may be as old as 3.3 m.y.a.

Another important habilis find was made in 1986 by Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley. OH62 is the partial skeleton of a female H. habilis from Olduvai

TABLE 7.1 Summary of Data on Homo Fossil Groups

Fossil representatives of the genus Homo, compared with anatomically modern humans (AMHs) and chimps (Pan troglodytes)

Species Dates Known Distribution Important Sites

Brain Size (in cm3)

Anatomically modern humans (AMHs)

195,000 B.P.– present

Worldwide Omo Kibish, Herto, Border Cave, Klasies River, Skhül, Qafzeh, Cro-Magnon

1,350

Neandertals 130,000– 28,000 B.P.

Europe, southwestern Asia

La Chapelle- aux-Saints

1,430

H. floresiensis 700,000– 50,000 B.P.

Flores island, Indonesia

Liang Bua cave     400

H. heidelbergensis 850,000– 200,000 B.P.

Africa, Europe, Asia

Kabwe, Petralona, Dali

1,135

H. erectus 1.9 m.y.a.– 400,000 B.P.

Africa, Asia, Europe

East/West Turkana, Olduvai, Dmanisi, Zhoukoudian, Java, Ceprano

   900

H. habilis 1.9–1.44 m.y.a.

East Africa Olduvai, East Turkana

   650

H. rudolfensis 2.03–1.78 m.y.a.

East Africa East Africa, East Turkana

   775

Pan troglodytes Modern Central Africa Gombe, Mahale    390

Early Homo 147

Bed I. This was the first find of an H. habilis skull with a significant amount of skeletal material. OH62, dating to 1.8 m.y.a., consists of parts of the skull, the right arm, and both legs. Because scientists had assumed that H. habilis would be taller than tiny Lucy (Au. afarensis), OH62 was surprising because of its small size and apelike limb bones. Not only was OH62 just as tiny as Lucy (3 feet, or 0.9 meter), but also its arms were longer and more apelike than expected. The limb proportions suggested greater tree- climbing ability than later hominins had. H. habilis may still have sought occasional refuge in the trees.

The small size and primitive proportions of H. habilis were unexpected, given what was known about early H. erectus in East Africa. In deposits near Lake Turkana, Kenya, Richard Leakey had uncovered two H. erectus skulls dating to 1.6 m.y.a. By that date, H. erectus (males, at least) had already attained a cranial capacity of 900 cm3, along with a modern body shape and height. An amazingly complete young male H. erectus fossil (WT15,000) found at West Turkana in 1984 by Kimoya Kimeu, a collaborator of the Leakeys, has confirmed this. WT15,000, also known as the Nariokotome boy, was a 12-year-old male who had already reached 5 feet 5 inches (1.67 meters). He might have grown to 6 feet had he lived.

Sister Species Two recent hominin fossil finds from Ileret, Kenya (east of Lake Turkana), are very significant for two main reasons; they show that (1) H. habilis and H. erectus overlapped in time rather than being ancestor and descendant, as had been thought, and (2) sexual dimorphism in H. erectus was much greater than expected (see Spoor et al. 2007; Wilford 2007a).

This photo shows the early (1.6 m.y.a.) H. erectus WT15,000, or Nariokotome boy, found in 1984 near Lake Turkana, Kenya. This is the most complete H. erectus ever found. ©Kenneth Garrett/National Geographic Creative

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One of these finds (KNM-ER 42703) is the upper jawbone of a 1.44-million-year-old H. habilis. The other (KNM-ER 42700) is the almost complete but faceless skull of a 1.55-million-year-old H. erectus. Their names come from their catalog numbers in the Kenya National Museum–East Rudolph, and their dates were determined from volcanic ash deposits.

These Ileret finds negated the conventional view (held since the Leakeys described the first habilis in 1960) that habilis and then erectus evolved one after the other. In- stead, they apparently split from a common ancestor prior to 2 m.y.a. Then they lived side by side in eastern Africa for perhaps half a million years. According to Meave Leakey, one of the authors of the report (Spoor et al. 2007), the fact that they remained separate species for so long “suggests that they had their own ecological niche, thus avoiding direct competition” (quoted in Wilford 2007a, p. A6). They coexisted in the same general area (an ancient lake basin), much as gorillas and chimpanzees do today.

Given these finds, the fossil record for early Homo in East Africa must be revised as follows: H. rudolfensis (2.03–1.78 m.y.a.), H. habilis (1.9–1.44 m.y.a), and H. erectus (1.9–0.4? m.y.a). The oldest definite H. habilis (OH24) dates to 1.9 m.y.a., as does the oldest erectus.

What about sexual dimorphism in H. erectus? As the smallest erectus find ever, KNM-ER 42700 also may be the first female erectus yet found, most probably a young adult or late subadult. Its small skull suggests that the range in overall body size among H. erectus may have been greater than previously thought, with greater sexual dimor- phism than among chimps or contemporary humans. Another possibility is that the (as yet undiscovered) H. erectus males that lived in this area along with the female also were smaller than the typical erectus male.

Hunting, Tools, and Teeth The ecological niche that separated H. erectus from earlier hominins involved greater reliance on hunting, along with improved cultural means of adaptation. Significant changes in technology occurred during the 200,000-year period between Bed I (1.8 m.y.a.) and Lower Bed II (1.6 m.y.a) at Olduvai. Out of the crude Oldowan tools in Bed I evolved more varied tools. The earliest (1.76 m.y.a.) tools of the Acheulean type (see the next section) associated with H. erectus come from a site near Lake Turkana in Kenya (Wilford 2011c). These tools show signs of symmetry, uniformity, and functional differentiation. H. erectus was making and using tools for different jobs, such as smash- ing bones or digging for tubers. The new technology allowed H. erectus to acquire meat more reliably and to dig and process tubers, roots, nuts, and seeds more efficiently. New  tools that could batter, crush, and pulp coarse vegetation also reduced chewing demands.

Dietary changes eased the burden on the chewing apparatus, so that chewing muscles developed less. Supporting structures, such as jaws and cranial crests, also were re- duced. Smaller jaws had less room to fit large teeth. The size of teeth, which form before they erupt, is under stricter genetic control than jaw size and bone size are (see von Cramon-Taubadel 2011). Natural selection began to operate against the genes that pro- duced large teeth, which now caused dental crowding, impaction, pain, sickness, fever, and sometimes death (there were no dentists). H. erectus back teeth are smaller, and the

Out of Africa I: H. erectus 149

front teeth are relatively larger, than australopith teeth. H. erectus used those front teeth to pull, twist, and grip objects.

Out of Africa I: H. erectus

Hominins migrated out of Africa in multiple waves. First to expand was H. erectus, whose spread occurred between 2 and 1 m.y.a. Much later, populations of anatomically modern humans (AMHs) left Africa, maybe more than once, as early perhaps as 110,000 B.P., but mainly around and after 70,000 B.P. That last wave included the ances- tors of all humans on Earth today. 

H. erectus initiated the expansion of hominins beyond Africa—to Asia and Europe. Small groups broke off from larger ones and moved a few miles away. They foraged new tracts of edible vegetation and carved out new hunting territories. Through population growth and dispersal, H. erectus gradually spread. Fueling this expansion was commit- ment to an essentially human lifestyle based on hunting and gathering. This basic pat- tern survived until recently in certain parts of the world, although it now is fading rapidly. We focus in this chapter on the biological and cultural changes that led from early Homo, through intermediate forms, to anatomically modern humans. 

Acheulean Tools The stone tool-making techniques that evolved out of the Oldowan tradition, and that lasted until about 15,000 years ago, are described by the term Paleolithic (from Greek roots meaning “old” and “stone”). The Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age, has three divi- sions: Lower (early), Middle, and Upper (late). Stone tools were made from rocks, such as flint, that fracture sharply and in predictable ways when hammered. Quartz, quartz- ite, chert, and obsidian also are suitable. Each of the three main divisions of the Paleo- lithic had its typical tool-making traditions—coherent patterns of tool manufacture. 

The main Lower Paleolithic tool-making tradition used by H. erectus was the Acheulean, named after the French village of St. Acheul, where it was first identi- fied. (Middle and Upper Paleolithic traditions, associated with later hominins, are dis- cussed later in this chapter.) Recent finds in Kenya date the oldest Acheulean hand axes to 1.76 m.y.a. With Oldowan tools, flaking was done simply to produce sharp flakes. A fundamental difference shows up in the Acheulean tradition, in which the core was chipped bilaterally and symmetrically. This type of chipping converted the core from a round piece of rock into a flattish, oval hand ax about 6 inches (15 cm) long. The Acheu- lean hand ax embodies a predetermined shape created from a template in the toolmak- er’s mind. Archaeological evidence for tools illustrating such a mental template confirms a cognitive leap between earlier hominins and H. erectus.

Analysis of their wear patterns suggests that hand axes were versatile tools used for many tasks, from butchering and cutting to woodworking and vegetable preparation. Cleavers—core tools with a straight edge at one end—were used for heavy chopping and hacking at the sinews of larger animals. Stone picks probably were used for digging. Acheulean toolmakers also used flakes, with finer edges, as light-duty tools—to make incisions and for finer work. Flakes became increasingly important in Middle and Upper

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Paleolithic tool making. Dating back at least 1.76 m.y.a., the Acheulean tradition illus- trates trends in the evolution of technology: the manufacture of more varied tools with predetermined forms, designed for specific tasks.

Adaptive Strategies of H. erectus Interrelated changes in biology and culture have increased human adaptability—the capacity to live in and modify an ever-wider range of environments. More sophisticated tools helped H. erectus expand its range. Biological changes also increased hunting ef- ficiency. H. erectus had a rugged but essentially modern, long-legged skeleton that permitted long-distance stalking and endurance during the hunt. There is archaeological evidence of H. erectus’s success in hunting elephants, horses, rhinos, and giant baboons.

In both body and brain H. erectus was closer to H. sapiens than to the australopiths. Increasing cranial capacity has been a trend in human evolution. The average H. erectus brain (about 1,000 cm3) doubled the australopith average and ranged between 800 and 1,250 cm3, well above the modern minimum. Still, several anatomical contrasts, par- ticularly in the cranium, distinguish H. erectus from modern humans. H. erectus had a lower and more sloping forehead accentuated by a large brow ridge above the eyes. Skull bones were thicker; the brain case was lower and flatter than in H. sapiens, with spongy bone development at the lower rear of the skull. Seen from behind, the H. erec- tus skull has a broad-based, angular shape that has been compared to a half-inflated football and a hamburger bun. The H. erectus face, teeth, and jaws were larger than those in contemporary humans but smaller than those in the australopiths. The front teeth were especially large, but molar size was well below the australopith average. Presum- ably, this reduction reflected changes in diet or food processing.

Hearths at various sites confirm that fire was part of the adaptive kit controlled by H. erectus. Early evidence for human control over fire has been found in Israel, dating back to almost 800,000 years ago. The newest early evidence of fire, dated at 1 m.y.a., comes from Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa, where microscopic plant ashes and burned bits of bone have been found in soil that previously yielded dozens of stone tools (Berna 2012). However, no remains of a hearth or campfire area, where fires would re- peatedly have been lit, have been found in Wonderwerk Cave. The first hearths date back about 400,000 years (Rice 2012). Fire provided protection against predators. It permit- ted H. erectus to occupy cave sites and widened the range of climates open to human colonization. Its warmth enabled people to survive winter cold in temperate regions. Human control over fire offered other advantages, such as cooking, which breaks down vegetable fibers and tenderizes meat. Cooking kills parasites and makes meat more di- gestible, thus reducing strain on the chewing apparatus.

The Evolution and Expansion of H. erectus Let’s review some of the H. erectus fossil finds, whose geographic distribution is mapped in Figure 7.1. The most important early out-of-Africa site is Dmanisi in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, at the easternmost edge of Europe. Discoveries there include one fairly complete skull, one large mandible, and two partial skulls—one of a young adult male (780 cm3) and one of an adolescent female (650 cm3). Note the small cranial capacities, at the lower end of the H. erectus range of variation. These fossils are

dated to 1.77–1.7 m.y.a. There are notable similarities between the two partial skulls and that of the Nariokotome boy from Kenya (1.6 m.y.a.). Tools of comparable age associ- ated with the Kenyan and Georgian fossils also are similar (see Vekua, Lordkipanidze, and Rightmire 2002). The Dmanisi finds suggest a rapid spread, by 1.77 m.y.a., of early Homo out of Africa and into Eurasia.

The Dmanisi fossils are the most ancient undisputed hominin finds outside Africa. What led early hominins to spread beyond Africa, eventually to reach a location as distant as Georgia? The most probable answer is “in pursuit of meat.” As hominins became more carnivorous, they expanded their home ranges in accordance with those of the animals they hunted. Meat-rich diets provided higher-quality protein and fat as fuel. Once hominins developed stronger bodies and high-protein meat diets, they could—indeed had to—spread out. They ranged farther to find meat, and this expan- sion eventually led them out of Africa, into Eurasia (Georgia) and eventually Asia. More recent skeletal finds from Dmanisi suggest how this expansion might have taken place (Wilford 2007b). (Previously only skulls had been found there.) Four

Lantian Hexian

Zhoukoudian

Turkana

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Sangiran Trinil

Sambungmachan Ngandong

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FIGURE 7.1 Location of Some Major H. erectus Sites Source: Relethford, John, The Human Species: An Introduction to Biological Anthropology, 9th ed., p. 273. Copyright © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

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new fossil skeletons revealed an advanced spine and lower limbs that would have facilitated mobility.

If the country of Georgia provides the earliest evidence for H. erectus outside of Africa, the country of Indonesia provided the very first fossil evidence for H. erectus as a species. In 1891, the Indonesian island of Java yielded the first (although not the most ancient) H. erectus fossil find, popularly known as “Java man.” Eugene Dubois, a Dutch army surgeon, had gone there specifically to discover a transitional form between apes and humans. Of course, we now know that the transition to hominin had taken place much earlier than the H. erectus period and occurred in Africa. However, Dubois’s good luck did lead him to the most ancient human fossils then known—parts of an H. erectus skull and a thigh bone. Later excavations in Java uncovered additional remains. The various Indonesian H. erectus fossils date back at least 700,000, and perhaps as much as 1.6 million, years.

Fragments of a skull and a lower jaw found in northern China at Lantian may be as old as the oldest Indonesian fossils. Other H. erectus remains, of uncertain date, have been found in Algeria and Morocco in North Africa. H. erectus remains have been found in Upper Bed II at Olduvai, Tanzania, in association with Acheulean tools. Other African H. erectus finds come from Ethiopia, Eritrea, and South Africa (in addition to Kenya and Tanzania). The time span of H. erectus in East Africa was long. Later H. erectus fossils have been found in Bed IV at Olduvai, dating to 500,000 B.P., about the same age as an important group of fossils found near Beijing, China.

The largest group of H. erectus fossils ever found comes from the Zhoukoudian cave, near Beijing, China. The Zhoukoudian (“Peking”—now Beijing—”man”) site, exca- vated from the late 1920s to the late 1930s, was a major find for the human fossil record. Zhoukoudian yielded remains of tools, hearths, animal bones, and more than 40 homi- nins, including five skulls. The Zhoukoudian group lived between 780,000 and 400,000 years ago, when the Chinese climate was colder and moister than it is today. These dates are based on animal remains found with the human fossils. The people at Zhoukoudian hunted venison; seed and plant remains show they gathered as well.

Meet Homo erectus. On the left is a reconstruction of one of the H. erectus skulls from Zhoukoudian, China; on the right, an attempt to render H. erectus in the flesh. (left): ©CM Dixon/age fotostock; (right): ©Tom McHugh/Science Source

Middle Pleistocene Hominins 153

What about Europe? No definite H. erectus remains have been found in western or northern Europe, whose earliest fossil hominins are now generally assigned to a Middle Pleistocene group known as Homo heidelbergensis (see the next section).

Middle Pleistocene Hominins

The geological epoch known as the Pleistocene is considered the epoch of early human (as opposed to merely hominin) life. Its subdivisions are the Lower Pleistocene (2.6 m.y.a.–781,000 B.P.), the Middle Pleistocene (781,000–126,000 B.P.), and the Up- per Pleistocene (126,000–10,000 B.P.). These subdivisions refer to the placement of geological strata containing, respectively, older, intermediate, and younger fossils. The Lower Pleistocene extends from the start of the Pleistocene through the advent of the ice ages in the Northern Hemisphere.

Ice Ages of the Pleistocene The Earth has experienced several ice ages, or glacials, major advances of continental ice sheets. These periods were separated by interglacials, long warm periods. With each glacial advance, the world climate cooled and continental ice sheets—massive glaciers—covered the northern parts of Europe and North America. Climates that are temperate today were arctic during the glacials.

The ice sheets advanced and receded several times during the last glacial period, the Würm (75,000–12,000 B.P.). Brief periods of relative warmth during the Würm (and other glacials) are called interstadials, in contrast to the longer interglacials. Hominin fossils found in association with animals known to occur in cold or warm climates, re- spectively, permit us to date them to glacial or interglacial (or interstadial) periods.

H. heidelbergensis Africa, which was center stage before and during the australopith period, is joined by Asia and Europe during later hominin evolution. In fact, European fossils and tools have contributed disproportionately to our knowledge and interpretation of later hominin evolution. This doesn’t mean that our own species, H. sapiens, evolved in Europe. Far from it! There is no doubt that H. sapiens, like H. erectus before it, originated in Africa. Anatomically modern H. sapiens lived in Africa for perhaps 150,000 years before reach- ing Europe around 45,000 years ago (Benazzi et al. 2011; Higham et al. 2011). There probably were many more AMHs in the tropics than in Europe during the ice ages. We merely know more about recent human evolution in Europe because archaeology and fossil hunting—not human evolution—have been going on longer there than in Africa and Asia.

Recent discoveries, along with reinterpretation of the dating and the anatomical relevance of some earlier finds, are filling in the gap between H. erectus and later forms of Homo. (See Table 7.1 and Figure 7.2 for a summary and timeline of species within the genus Homo.) The human skull and brain continued to increase after H. erectus and eventually overlapped with the modern range. (The modern average, remember, is about 1,350 cm3.) A rounding out of the brain case was associated with the increased

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brain size. As Jolly and White (1995) put it, evolution was pumping more brain into the cranium—like filling a football with air.

A massive hominin jaw was discovered in 1907 in a gravel pit at Mauer, near Heidel- berg, Germany. Dubbed “Heidelberg man,” or Homo heidelbergensis, the jaw appears to be around 500,000 years old. The deposits that yielded this jaw also contained fossil remains of several animals, including bear, bison, deer, elephant, horse, and rhinoceros. The species name H. heidelbergensis is now commonly used to refer to the Middle Pleistocene hominins that lived between H. erectus and the Neandertals. This group includes fossil hominins that lived in Europe, Asia, and Africa between (very roughly) 850,000 and 200,000 B.P. (see Mounier, Condemi, and Manzi 2011).

A hominin jaw that is more than one million years old, found in Spain, is the oldest known hominin fossil in Europe and may be ancestral to H. heidelbergensis. Some of the earliest likely members of H. heidelbergensis come from northern Spain’s Atapuerca Mountains, where the site of Gran Dolina has yielded the remains of 780,000-year-old hominins. The Spanish researchers who excavated them call this group Homo anteces- sor, but others include them in H. heidelbergensis. The nearby Spanish cave of Sima de los Huesos has yielded thousands of fossils representing at least 33 hominins, dated considerably later, at about 300,000 B.P. Another early possible H. heidelbergensis fossil is a cranial fragment found at Ceprano, near Rome, Italy, dated to 850,000 B.P. (see Mounier et al. 2011). Other European fossils now assigned to H. heidelbergensis have been found in England (at Swanscombe), Germany (at Steinheim and Mauer), and Greece (at Petralona).

H. heidelbergensis lived during the Mindel (second) glacial, the interglacial that followed it, and the following Riss (third) glacial. Hominins (probably late members of

0.5 Present1.02.0 1.5 million years ago (m.y.a.)

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H. habilis

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H. heidelbergensis

Neandertals

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FIGURE 7.2 Timeline of Species within the Genus Homo in Increments of 100,000 Years, from 2.5 m.y.a. through the Present

The Neandertals 155

H. heidelbergensis) occupied the Arago cave in southeastern France during the Riss glacial—a time when Europe was bitterly cold. Arago is the only Riss glacial site with hominin facial material. The fossils from this cave consist of a partially intact skull, two jawbones, and teeth from a dozen individuals, with an apparent date of about 200,000 B.P. The geographic distribution of H. heidelbergensis extended well beyond Europe. African representatives have been found in Ethiopia (at Bodo), Tanzania (at Ndutu), and Zambia (at Broken Hill/Kabwe). Asian representatives have been found at the Chinese sites of Dali and Maba. An African version of H. heidelbergensis gave rise to AMHs by 195,000 years ago.

In addition to the fossil record, there also is ample archaeological evidence for the presence and behavior of Middle Pleistocene hominins in Europe. A chance discovery on England’s Suffolk seacoast shows that humans had reached northern Europe by 700,000 years ago (Gugliotta 2005). Several stone flakes were recovered from seashore sediment bordering the North Sea. These early human colonists reached northern Europe more than 200,000 years earlier than previously imagined—during an intergla- cial period. At that time, the fertile lowlands they inhabited were part of a land bridge connecting what is now Britain to the rest of Europe. They lived in a large delta with several rivers and a dry, mild Mediterranean climate. Various animals were among its abundant resources. It is not known whether the descendants of these settlers remained in England. The next glacial period may have been too extreme for human habitation.

At the site of Terra Amata, overlooking Nice in southern France, archaeologists have documented human activity dating back 300,000 years. Small bands of hunter-gatherers (15–25 people) made annual visits, during late spring–early summer, to Terra Amata, then a sandy cove on the Mediterranean coast, where they established camps, depending on the year, on a sand bar, the beach, or a sand dune (deLumley 1969/1976).

From a camp atop the dune, these people looked down on a river valley where ani- mals were abundant. Bones found at Terra Amata show that their diet included red deer, young elephants, wild boars, wild mountain goats, an extinct variety of rhinoceros, and wild oxen. The Terra Amata people also hunted turtles and birds, fished, and collected oysters and mussels. The arrangement of postholes shows that these people used sap- lings to support temporary huts. There were hearths within the shelters. Tools were made from locally available rocks and beach pebbles. Thus, at Terra Amata, hundreds of thousands of years ago, people were already pursuing a lifestyle that survived in cer- tain coastal regions until very recently.

The Neandertals

Neandertals were first discovered in western Europe. The first one was found in 1856 in a German valley called Neander Valley—tal is the German word for “valley.” Scientists at that time had trouble interpreting the discovery. It was clearly human, yet different enough from modern Europeans to be considered strange and abnormal. This was, after all, 35 years before Dubois found the first H. erectus fossils in Java and almost 70 years before the first australopith was found in South Africa. Darwin’s On the Origin of Spe- cies, published in 1859, had not yet appeared to offer a theory of evolution through

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natural selection. There was no framework for understanding human evolution. Over time, the fossil record filled in, along with evolutionary theory. There have been numer- ous subsequent discoveries of Neandertals in Europe and the Middle East, and extend- ing eastward to central Asia and even Siberia.

In 2007 Svante Pääbo and his colleagues at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evo- lutionary Anthropology announced their identification of Neandertal DNA in bones found at two sites in central Asia and Siberia. One of them, Teshik-Tash, in Uzbekistan, previously had been seen as the easternmost limit of Neandertal territory. However, bones from the second site, the Okladnikov cave in the Altai Mountains, place the Neandertals much farther (1,250 miles) east, in southern Siberia. The DNA sequence at these sites differs only slightly from that of European Neandertals. The Neandertals may have reached these areas around 127,000 years ago, when a warm period made Siberia more accessible than it is today (see Wade 2007).

Cold-Adapted Neandertals By 75,000 B.P., after an interglacial interlude, western Europe’s hominins (Neandertals, by then) again faced extreme cold as the Würm glacial began. To deal with this environ- ment, they wore clothes, made more elaborate tools, and hunted reindeer, mammoths, and woolly rhinos (see Conard 2011).

The Neandertals were stocky, with large trunks relative to limb length—a phenotype that minimizes surface area and thus conserves heat. Another adaptation to extreme cold was the Neandertal face, which has been likened to a H. erectus face that has been pulled forward by the nose. This extension increased the distance between outside air and the arteries that carry blood to the brain and was adaptive in a cold climate. The brain is sensitive to temperature changes and must be kept warm. The massive nasal cavities of Neandertal fossils suggest long, broad noses that would expand the area for warming and moistening air.

Other Neandertal characteristics include huge front teeth, broad faces, and large brow ridges, as well as ruggedness of the skeleton and musculature. Neandertal teeth proba- bly did many jobs later done by tools. The front teeth show heavy wear, suggesting that they were used for varied purposes, including chewing animal hides to make soft winter clothing out of them. The massive Neandertal face showed the stresses of constantly using the front teeth for holding and pulling.

Neandertal technology, a Middle Paleolithic tradition called Mousterian, included a variety of tools designed for different jobs. The Neandertals elaborated on a revolution- ary technique of flake-tool manufacture (the Levallois technique) invented in southern Africa around 200,000 years ago, which spread widely throughout the Old World. Uni- form flakes were chipped off a specially prepared core of rock. Additional work on the flakes produced the special-purpose tools shown in Figure 7.3. Scrapers were used to prepare animal hides for clothing. Larger points were attached to spears. Other special tools were designed for sawing, gouging, and piercing (Conard 2011).

The Neandertals and Modern People Generations of scientists have debated whether and to what extent the Neandertals may have been ancestral to anatomically modern humans especially those of the Middle East

The Neandertals 157

and Europe, where fossils of both groups have been found. The current prevailing view proposes that H. erectus split into separate groups: one ancestral to the Neandertals, the other ancestral to AMHs, who first reached Europe around 45,000 B.P. Current evidence leaves little doubt that modern humans evolved in Africa and eventually colonized Europe, displacing, or at least replacing, the Neandertals there.

Consider the contrasts between the Neandertals and AMHs. Like H. erectus before them, the Neandertals had heavy brow ridges and slanting foreheads. However, average Neandertal cranial capacity (more than 1,400 cm3) actually surpassed the modern aver- age. Neandertal jaws were large, providing support for huge front teeth, and their faces were massive. The bones and skull were generally more rugged and had greater sexual dimorphism—particularly in the face and skull—than do those of AMHs. In some west- ern European Neandertals, the contrasts with AMHs were particularly marked. The in- terpretation of one such fossil helped create the popular stereotype of the slouching cave dweller. This was the complete human skeleton discovered in 1908 at La Chapelle-aux- Saints in southwestern France. This was the first Neandertal to be discovered with the whole skull, including the face, preserved (Figure 7.4).

The La Chapelle skeleton was given for study to the French paleontologist Marcellin Boule. His analysis helped create an inaccurate stereotype of Neandertals as brutes who had trouble walking upright. Boule suggested that the Neandertal head was slung forward like an ape’s. To round out the primitive image, Boule proclaimed that the Neandertals were incapable of straightening their legs for fully erect locomotion. However, a series of subsequent fossil discoveries show that the La Chapelle fossil wasn’t a typical Neandertal but an extreme one. This much-publicized Neandertal “cave man” turned out to be an aging man whose skeleton had been distorted by osteoarthritis. Hominins, after all, have been erect bipeds for millions of years. European Neandertals were a variable population. Other Neandertal finds lack La Chapelle’s combination of extreme features.

FIGURE 7.3 Examples of Mousterian Tools: (a) Scraper, (b) Point, (c) Scraper, (d) Point, (e) Hand Ax. The Neandertals manufacture of diverse tool types for special purposes confirms Neandertal sophistication.  Source: Relethford, John, The Human Species: An Introduction to Biological Anthropology, 9th ed., p. 303. Copyright © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

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H. erectus H. heidelbergensis

Neandertal AMH

Based on his reconstruction (announced in 2010) of the complete Neandertal ge- nome, Svante Pääbo and his colleagues concluded that modern humans and Neandertals descend from common ancestors that lived 600,000 years ago. The geneticists also found between 1 and 4 percent of the Neandertal genome incorporated within the DNA of living Europeans and Asians (but not Africans). This finding suggests that Neandertals did some interbreeding with AMHs soon after the latter left Africa.

The Denisovans

In late 2010, scientists identified the Denisovan group as distant cousins of Neandertals (Callaway 2011; Zimmer 2010). The name comes from Denisova, a cave in southern Siberia where hominin traces (so far only a finger fragment and a wisdom tooth) were found. The Denisovans apparently lived in Asia from roughly 400,000 to 50,000 years ago. Remarkably, scientists have managed to extract the entire Denisovan genome from

FIGURE 7.4 Drawings of H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, Neandertal, and an anatomically modern human (AMH) What are the main differences you notice? Is the Neandertal more like H. erectus or the AMH?

Homo floresiensis 159

that finger and tooth. The DNA suggests that the split between ancestral Neandertals and Denisovans happened around 400,000 years ago. The Neandertals spread to the west, eventually reaching the Middle East and Europe. The Denisovans headed east (while AMHs remained for a time in Africa).

The Denisovan wisdom tooth resembles the teeth of neither AMHs nor Neandertals. It has bulging sides and large, flaring roots. Only when someone finds the same kind of tooth in a fossil skull, or perhaps even a complete skeleton, will we be able to see what the Denisovans really looked like. The genome sequencing does, however, suggest that the phenotype included brown skin, hair, and eyes.

Homo floresiensis

A decade or so ago, news reports trumpeted the discovery of bones and tools of a group of tiny humans who inhabited a cave on Flores, an Indonesian island 370 miles east of Bali, until fairly recent times. As described in 2016, much older H. floresiensis remains, apparently dating back 700,000 years, have been found subsequently in another cave. At 3.5 feet (a bit over 1 meter) tall, these tiny hominins, known as H. floresiensis lived, hunted, and gathered there until at least 50,000 B.P. One of their most surprising features is a very small skull, about 370 cm3—slightly smaller than the chimpanzee average. The lower limbs and feet also were apelike. The big toe, for example, was stubby, like a chimp’s. The feet were large, more than 7.5 inches (20 cm) long, out of proportion to the short lower limbs. These proportions, similar to those of some African apes, had never before been seen in hominins. 

Before modern people reached Flores, which is very isolated, the island was inhab- ited only by a distinctive group of animals that had managed to reach it. These animals, including H. floresiensis, faced unusual evolutionary forces that pushed some toward gigantism and some toward dwarfism. Large carnivorous lizards known as Komodo dragons now are confined mainly to the nearby island of Komodo. Elephants, which are excellent swimmers, also reached Flores, where they evolved to a dwarf form the size of an ox. H. floresiensis must have been influenced by the same evolutionary forces that reduced the size of the elephants. 

The first specimen of H. floresiensis, an adult female, was uncovered in 2003 from a cave floor. Paleoanthropologists identified her as a very small but otherwise normal individual—a diminutive version of H. erectus. Because the downsizing was so ex- treme, she and her fellows were assigned to a new species. Remains of six additional individuals from that cave date from 95,000 to 50,000 B.P. Stone tools found with these remains appear more sophisticated than any known to have been made by H. erectus. Among the tools were small blades that might have been mounted on wooden shafts and used to hunt elephants.

A pair of apparent AMH teeth dated to 46,000 B.P. were unearthed in 2010 and 2011 in the same cave (Callaway 2016). The fact that these teeth are dated not too long (in geological time) after the last known members of H. floresiensis suggests that the arrival of AMHs may have contributed to the demise of the diminutive species. Other recent evidence suggests that AMHs used fire in that cave between 41,000 and 24,000 B.P.

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(Morley et al. 2016). A date of 41,000 B.P. is one of the earliest for AMHs in Southeast Asia. There is no evidence for the prior use of fire by H. floresiensis. 

In fact, we do not know how long H. floresiensis managed to survive. The Ngadha people of central Flores and the Manggarai people of west Flores still tell stories about little people who lived in caves until the arrival of the Dutch traders in the 16th century (Wade 2004).

Modern Humans

Anatomically modern humans (AMHs) evolved from an African version of H. heidel- bergensis by as early as 300,000 years ago. Eventually, AMHs spread from Africa to other areas, including Europe, where they replaced the Neandertals.

Out of Africa: AMH Edition Considerable fossil and archaeological evidence supports the African origin of AMHs. A major fossil find was announced in 2003: the discovery in an Ethiopian valley near a village called Herto of three AMH skulls—two adults and a child. The skulls showed evidence of cutting and handling. (All three were missing their lower jaw.) The skulls had been detached from their bodies and used—perhaps ritually—after death. Layers of volcanic ash allowed geologists to date the skulls to 160,000 to 154,000 B.P. The people represented by the skulls had lived on the shore of an ancient lake, where they hunted and fished. The skulls were found along with hippopotamus and antelope bones and some 600 tools, including blades and hand axes. Except for a few primitive characteristics, the Herto skulls are anatomically modern—long with broad midfaces, featuring tall, narrow nasal bones. The cranial vaults are high, falling within modern dimensions.

Omo Kibish is one of several sites along the Omo River in southwestern Ethiopia. Excavating there between 1967 and 1974, Richard Leakey and his colleagues from the Kenya National Museum recovered AMH remains originally considered to be about 125,000 years old. The specimens now appear to be much older, with an estimated date of 195,000 B.P. ( McDougall, Brown, and Fleagle 2005). The Omo remains include two partial skulls (Omo 1 and Omo 2), four jaws, a leg bone, and about 200 teeth. The Omo 1 site (Omo Kibish) also yielded a nearly complete skeleton of an adult male. The Omo 1 skull and skeleton have a modern human morphology with some primitive fea- tures. The Omo 2 skull is more primitive.

In June 2017, scientists announced the discovery and surprisingly early dating (300,000 B.P.) of several apparent AMH skull bones and tools, and evidence for cook- ing, at the desert site of Jebel Irhoud in Morocco. If confirmed as AMHs, these fossils would become the earliest known members of our species. Their faces were much like our own, although their elongated brains were more primitive.

Early AMHs also have been found at South African sites, including Bor der Cave, where AMH fossils and tools date back 150,000 years.

A complex of South African caves near the Klasies River mouth was occupied by a group of hunter-gatherers some 120,000 years ago. Fragmentary bones suggest how

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those people looked. A forehead fragment has a modern brow ridge. There is a thin- boned cranial fragment and a piece of jaw with a modern chin. The archaeological evidence suggests that these cave dwellers did coastal gathering.

Anatomically modern specimens, in- cluding the skull shown in Figure 7.5, have been found at Skhūl, a site on Mount Carmel in Israel. The Skhūl fossils date to 100,000 B.P. Another group of modern- looking and similarly dated (92,000 B.P.) skulls comes from the Israeli site of Qafzeh. All these skulls have a modern shape; their brain cases are higher, shorter, and rounder than Neandertal skulls. There is a more-filled-out forehead region, which rises more vertically above the brows. A marked chin is another modern feature.

“Mitochondrial Eve” and the Spread of AMHs In 1987 geneticists at the University of California at Berkeley gathered evidence supporting the hypothesis that modern humans (AMHs) arose fairly recently in Africa, then spread to the rest of the world. Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking, and Allan C. Wilson (1987) analyzed genetic samples from 147 women whose ancestors came from Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, New Guinea, and Australia. The researchers focused on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is located in the cytoplasm (the outer part, rather than the nucleus) of cells. Ordinary DNA, which makes up the genes that determine most physical traits, is found in the nucleus and comes from both parents. Only the mother, however, can transmit mtDNA to her offspring. The father plays no part in mtDNA trans- mission, just as the mother has nothing to do with the transmission of the Y chromosome, which comes from the father (and determines the sex of the child).

The Berkeley researchers counted, then compared, the number of mutations in the mtDNA in each of their 147 tissue samples. Based on the number of mutations shared, the researchers drew an evolutionary, or phylogenetic, tree. That tree started in Africa, then branched in two. One group remained in Africa, while the other one split off, carry- ing its mtDNA to the rest of the world. The variation in mtDNA was greatest among Africans. This suggests they have been evolving the longest. The Berkeley researchers concluded that everyone alive today has mtDNA that descends from a woman (they called her “Mitochondrial Eve”) who lived in sub-Saharan Africa around 200,000 years ago. Eve was not the only woman alive then; she was just the only one whose descendants

FIGURE 7.5 Skhül V This AMH with some archaic features was recently redated to 100,000 B.P. This is one of several fossils found at Skhūl, Israel.

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have included a daughter in each generation up to the present. Because mtDNA passes exclusively through females, mtDNA lines disappear whenever a woman has no children or has only sons. The nature of the branches in the phylogenetic tree suggests that Eve’s descendants left Africa no more than 135,000 years ago. 

Other evidence suggests a major migration of AMHs out of Africa between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago. As reported in Nature magazine in September 2016, three sepa- rate teams of geneticists studied a total of 787 DNA samples collected from human populations around the world (see Malaspinas et al. 2016; Mallick et al. 2016; Tucci and Akey 2016; Zimmer 2016). Unlike previous studies, based mainly on Europeans and Asians, these genetic studies sampled multiple indigenous populations. Included, among many others, were the following: Basques, African pygmies, Mayans, Bedouins, Sherpas, and Cree Indians. Analysis of these genomes confirmed that all non-Africans today trace their ancestry to a single dispersal out of Africa between 80,000 and 50,000 B.P. This was not the first spread of AMHs out of Africa; it was merely the only one that appears to have left descendants that survive today. Illustrating an earlier AMH migra- tion are the Skhül (100,000 B.P.) and Qafzeh (92,000 B.P.) fossils from Israel, discussed previously. Only in Papua New Guinea (PNG) was there slight evidence for survival of the more ancient AMH DNA. About 2 percent of the DNA in the PNG sample appeared to come from the earlier migration (Zimmer 2016).

In 1997 Svante Pääbo succeeded in extracting ancient DNA from a Neandertal bone (an upper arm or humerus) originally found in Germany’s Neander Valley in 1856. This was the first time that DNA of a premodern human had been recovered. A systematic comparison of that Neandertal genome with modern human DNA allowed Pääbo to estimate that the common ancestor of Neandertals and AMHs probably lived around 600,000 years ago. Eve’s descendants eventually displaced the Neandertals in Europe, as they went on to colonize the rest of the world.

AMHs on the Move In January 2015, scientists announced the discovery in Israel of a 55,000-year-old AMH skull that may be closely related to the first modern humans to colonize Europe (Hershkovitz et al. 2015). The partial skull is that of a small adult of undetermined sex. The area where the skull was found would have been a likely corridor for AMHs ex- panding out of Africa into Eurasia. Designated Manot 1 after Israel’s Manot Cave, where it was found, this fossil dates to a time when AMHs are likely to have been ex- panding beyond Africa. Manot 1 is more similar to early European AMHs than to such earlier Middle Eastern AMHs as Skhül and Qafzeh. Some features of Manot 1 suggest that its ancestors, although mainly African AMHs, may also have included a few Neandertals, which are known to have occupied several nearby caves between 65,000 and 50,000 B.P. During the last (Würm) glacial period, which began around 75,000 years ago, Neandertals appear to have spread from western Europe into the Middle East, as part of a general southward expansion of cold-adapted fauna (Bar-Yosef 1987). Manot 1 provides the first evidence that Neandertals and moderns were living in this area around 55,000 B.P. This suggests that whatever interbreeding did take place be- tween Neandertals and moderns may have occurred in the Middle East, prior to the AMH colonization of Europe. 

The Advent of Behavioral Modernity 163

The Neandertals may (or may not) have coexisted with modern humans in the Middle East for thousands of years. The overlap in Europe apparently spanned the  period between around 45,000 B.P. and Neandertal extinction around 28,000 B.P. The recent redatings of a piece of modern jawbone with three teeth from England and of two baby teeth from Italy provide the oldest known skeletal evidence for AMHs in Europe (Wilford 2011a). The baby teeth from Italy were dated at 43,000 to 45,000 years old (Benazzi et al. 2011). The jawbone, from Kents Cavern in Devon, England, was 41,500 to 44,200 years old—the oldest known AMH fossil from northwestern Europe. Also significant is the fact that the English jawbone was found in cave layers associated with Upper Paleolithic tools (Higham et al. 2011). Prior to these dates, the earliest reliably dated European AMH came from Romania (42,000–37,800 B.P.). The English jawbone might represent an early dispersal of AMHs through central Europe, then crossing into Britain on a land bridge where the North Sea now stands. The southern Italian remains might represent an even earlier migration along the southern European coasts (Wilford 2011a).

The Advent of Behavioral Modernity

Scientists agree that (1) around 6 million years ago, our hominin ancestors originated in Africa, and as apelike creatures they became habitual bipeds; (2) by 3.3 million years ago, still in Africa, hominins were making crude stone tools; (3) by 1.7 million years ago, hominins had spread from Africa to Asia and eventually Europe; and (4) sometime

In early 2015, scientists announced the discovery in Israel’s Manot cave of a 55,000-year-old AMH (partial) skull that may be closely related to the first modern humans to colonize Europe. The skull, that of a small adult, is pictured here between a Neandertal on the left and a modern human on the right. ©Jim Hollander/epa/Corbis

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around 200,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans evolved from ancestors who had remained in Africa. Like earlier hominins (Homo erectus), AMHs spread out from Africa. Eventually they replaced nonmodern human types, such as the Neandertals in Europe and the successors of H. erectus in Asia.

There is disagreement, however, about when, where, and how early AMHs achieved behavioral modernity—relying on symbolic thought, elaborating cultural creativity, and as a result becoming fully human in behavior as well as in anatomy. Was it as much as 200,000 or as little as 45,000 years ago? Was it in Africa, the Middle East, or Europe? What triggered the change: a genetic mutation, population increase, competition with nonmodern humans, or some other cause? 

The traditional view has been that modern behavior originated fairly recently, per- haps 45,000–40,000 years ago, and only after Homo sapiens pushed into Europe. This theory of a “creative explosion” is based on finds such as the impressive cave paintings at Lascaux, Chauvet Cave, and other sites in France, Spain, and Romania (Balter 2010). However, recent discoveries outside Europe increase the possibility of a much older, more gradual evolution of modern behavior.

Body ornamentation, a sign of behavioral modernity. The first photo shows a man from Mount Hagen, Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea. The second photo also features body piercing and a necklace, plus distinctive eyeglasses and body tattoos. What are the social functions of such ornamentation? (left): ©John W. Banagan/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images; (right): ©druvo/Vetta/Getty Images RF

The Advent of Behavioral Modernity 165

Discoveries made in Africa and the Middle East during the past 40 years provide substantial evidence for earlier (than in Europe) modern behavior, in the form of finely made stone and bone tools, self-ornamentation, and abstract carvings. Surveying African archaeological sites dating to between 300,000 and 30,000 years ago, Sally McBrearty and Alison Brooks (2000) conclude that what might appear to be a sudden event in Europe actually rested on a slow process of cultural accumulation within Africa, where H. sapiens became fully human long before 40,000 years ago. At South Africa’s Blombos Cave, for example, an archaeological team led by Christopher Henshilwood found evidence that AMHs were making bone awls and weapon points more than 70,000 years ago. Three points had been shaped with a stone blade and then finely polished. Henshilwood thinks these artifacts indicate symbolic behavior and artistic creativity—people trying to make beautiful objects.

Representing an even earlier occupation of Blombos Cave, Henshilwood’s team has excavated a 100,000-year-old workshop, where early AMHs mixed the world’s earliest known paint. Those AMHs used stones to grind colorful chunks of dirt, trans- ported to Blombos from several miles away, into a red powder, known as ochre. They mixed the ochre with charcoal, and fat from animal bone marrow, to make it stick to the body or other surfaces. The Blombos people collected their ochre in large abalone shells, where they liquefied and stirred it, then scooped it out as paint, using a bone spatula (Wilford 2011b). They may have applied the mixture to their skin, perhaps as decoration for a special event. What, if anything special, did the color red mean to these ancient people? Did they associate it with blood as a sign of life or death, or with menstruation as a sign of fertility? Could they have used red ochre to inspire anger in others? The ochre makers apparently used Blombos Cave only as a work site. Archae- ologists found no associated evidence of living quarters, such as hearths (Wilford 2011b). What they did the rest of the time remains a mystery. Surely, they hunted, gathered, and fished, most likely eating the abalone and other sea products whose shells also served as tools.

In 2007 anthropologists reported even earlier evidence (dating back to 164,000 B.P.) for behavioral modernity in a cave site at Pinnacle Point, South Africa. The cave yielded small stone bladelets, which could be attached to wood to make spears, as well as red ochre. Also significant is the ancient diet revealed by remains from this seaside site. For the first time, we see early representatives of H. sapiens subsisting on a variety of shell- fish and other marine resources. According to paleoanthropologist Curtis Marean, who led the discovery team, once early humans knew how to make a living from the sea, they could use coastlines as productive home ranges and move long distances (Guyot and Hughes 2007).

Cultural advances would have facilitated the spread of AMHs out of Africa. Such advances had reached the Middle East by 43,000 years ago, where, in Turkey and Lebanon, Steven Kuhn, Mary Stiner, and David Reese (2001) found evidence that coastal people made and wore beads and shell ornaments. Some of the shells were rare varieties, white or brightly colored. Such body ornaments could have been part of a system of communication, signaling group identity and social status.

The origin of behavioral modernity continues to be debated. We see, however, that archaeological work in many world areas suggests strongly that neither anatomical

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modernity nor behavioral modernity was a European invention. Africa’s role in the origin and development of humanity has been prominent for millions of years of hominin evolution (see Stringer 2012 and Wilford 2012b; for a contrary view, see Klein 2013).

Advances in Technology

Anatomically modern humans made tools in a variety of traditions, collectively known as Upper Paleolithic because of the tools’ location in the upper, or more recent, layers of sedimentary deposits. Some European cave deposits have Middle Paleolithic Mouste- rian tools (made by Neandertals) at lower levels and increasing numbers of Upper Pa- leolithic tools at higher levels (see Hublin 2012).

The Upper Paleolithic traditions all emphasized blade tools. Blades were ham- mered off a prepared core, as in Mousterian technology, but a blade is longer than a flake—its length is more than twice its width. Blades were chipped off cores 4–6 inches (10–15 cm) high by hitting a punch made of bone or antler with a hammerstone. Blades were then modified to produce a variety of special-purpose implements. Some were composite tools that were made by joining reworked blades to other materials.

The blade-core method was faster than the Mousterian and produced 15 times as much cutting edge from the same amount of material. More efficient tool production might have been especially valued by people whose economy depended on coopera- tive hunting of mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, bison, wild horses, bears, wild cattle, wild boars, and—principally—reindeer. It has been estimated that approximately 90 percent of the meat eaten by western Europeans between 25,000 and 15,000 B.P. came from reindeer.

Trends observable throughout the archaeological record also mark the changeover from the Mousterian to the Upper Paleolithic. First, the number of distinct tool types increased. This trend reflected functional specialization—the manufacture of special tools for particular jobs. A second trend was increasing standardization in tool manufac- ture. The form and inventory of tools reflect several factors: the jobs tools are intended to perform, the physical properties of the raw materials from which they are made, and distinctive cultural traditions about how to make tools.

Other trends include growth in Homo’s total population and geographic range and increasing local cultural diversity as people specialized in particular economic activi- ties. Illustrating increasing economic diversity are the varied special-purpose tools made by Upper Paleolithic populations. Scrapers were used to hollow out wood and bone, scrape animal hides, and remove bark from trees. Burins, the first chisels, were used to make slots in bone and wood and to engrave designs on bone. Awls, which were drills with sharp points, were used to make holes in wood, bone, shell, and skin. Upper Paleolithic bone tools have survived: knives, pins, needles with eyes, and fishhooks. The needles suggest that clothes sewn with thread—made from the sinews of animals—were being worn. Fishhooks and harpoons confirm an increased emphasis on fishing.

Different tool types may represent culturally distinct populations who made their tools differently because of different ancestral traditions. Archaeological sites also may

Settling the Americas 167

represent different activities carried out at different times of the year by a single popula- tion. Some sites, for example, are obviously butchering stations, where prehistoric peo- ple hunted, made their kills, and carved them up. Others are residential sites, where a wider range of activities was carried out. 

Glacial Retreat

Western Europe provides one well-studied example of the  consequences  of glacial retreat. The Würm glacial ended between 17,000 and 12,000 years ago. As the ice re- treated, the tundra and steppe vegetation grazed by reindeer and other large herbivores gradually moved north. Some people moved north, too, following their prey.

Shrubs, forests, and more solitary animals appeared in southwestern Europe. With most of the big-game animals gone, western Europeans were forced to use a greater variety of foods. To replace specialized economies based on big game, more generalized adaptations developed during the 5,000 years of glacial retreat.

As water flowed from melting glacial ice, sea levels all over the world started rising. Today, off most coasts, there is a shallow-water zone called the continental shelf, over which the sea gradually deepens until the abrupt fall to deep water, which is known as the continental slope. During the ice Ages, so much water was frozen in glaciers that most continental shelves were exposed. Dry land extended up to the slope’s edge. The waters right offshore were deep, cold, and dark. Few species of marine life could thrive in this environment.

As seas rose, conditions more encouraging to marine life developed in the shallower, warmer offshore waters. The quantity and variety of edible species increased tremen- dously in waters over the shelf. Furthermore, because rivers now flowed more gently into the oceans, fish such as salmon could ascend those rivers to spawn. Flocks of birds that nested in seaside marshes migrated across Europe during the winter. Even inland Europeans could take advantage of new resources, such as migratory birds and spring- time fish runs, which filled the rivers of southwestern France.

Although hunting remained important, southwestern European economies became less specialized. A wider range, or broader spectrum, of plant and animal life was be- ing hunted, gathered, collected, caught, and fished. This was the beginning of what anthropologist Kent Flannery (1969) has called the broad-spectrum revolution. It was revolutionary because, in the Middle East, it led to food production—human control over the reproduction of plants and animals, a process to be examined in Chapter 8. 

Settling the Americas

Another effect of continental glaciation had been to expose—during periods of glacial advance—Beringia, the land bridge that once connected North America and Siberia. Submerged today under the Bering Sea, Beringia was once a vast area of dry land sev- eral hundred miles wide. The original settlers of the Americas came from Northeast Asia. Living in Beringia thousands of years ago, these ancestors of Native Americans

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didn’t realize they were embarking on the colonization of a new continent. They were merely big-game hunters who, over the generations, moved gradually eastward as they spread their camps and followed their prey—woolly mammoths and other tundra-adapted herbivores. Other ancient hunters would enter North America along the shore by boat, fishing and hunting sea animals.

This was truly a “new world” to its earliest colonists, as it would be to the European voyagers who rediscovered it thou- sands of years later. Its natural resources, particularly its big game, never before had been exploited by humans. Early bands followed the game south. Although ice sheets covered most of what is now Canada, colonization gradually penetrated the heartland of what is now the United States. Successive genera- tions of hunters followed game through unglaciated corridors, breaks in the continental ice sheets. Other colonists spread by boat down the Pacific coast.

On North America’s rolling grasslands, early American Indians, Paleoindians, hunted horses, camels, bison, elephants, mammoths, and giant sloths. The Clovis tradition—a sophisti- cated stone technology based on points that were fastened to the end of a hunting spear (see Figure 7.6)—flourished, widely but very briefly, in the Central Plains, on their western margins, and in what is now the eastern United States (Green 2006; Largent 2007a, 2007b).

Using C14 (radiocarbon) dates, where available, for all known Clovis sites, Michael Waters and Thomas Stafford (2007) conclude that the Clovis tradition lasted no more than 450 years (13,250–12,800 B.P.) and perhaps only 200 years (13,125–12,925 B.P.). During this short time span, Clovis technology origi- nated and spread throughout North America. Unknown is whether this spread involved the actual movement of big-game hunters or the very rapid diffusion of a superior tech- nology from group to group (Largent 2007b). At least four non-Clovis sites in southern South America have C14 dates about the same as the Clovis C14 dates.

The Clovis people were not the first inhabitants of the Americas. One pre-Clovis find is a bone projectile point, embedded in a mastodon rib, from the Manis site in Washing- ton state, dated to 13,800 B.P. (Waters et al. 2011). Sites in Wisconsin have yielded non- Clovis tools and butchered mammoth remains dating to 13,500 B.P. and 12,500 B.P. In Oregon’s Paisley Caves, scientists have uncovered 13,200-year-old non-Clovis projec- tile points and human coprolites (fossilized feces), from which DNA has been extracted (Jenkins et al. 2012). The oldest pre-Clovis site is in South America, at the northern Patagonia settlement of Monte Verde, Chile, dating to 14,800 B.P. The DNA from the Paisley coprolites provides the oldest direct evidence for humans in the Americas. Adapt- ing to different environments as they expanded through the Americas, Native Americans developed a variety of cultures. Some continued to rely on big game. Others became broad-spectrum foragers, and eventually farmers, as we shall see in Chapter 8.

FIGURE 7.6 A Clovis Spear Point Such points were attached to spears used by Paleoindians of the North American plains between 13,250 and 12,800 B.P. Are there sites with comparable ages in South America?

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Anthropology Today The Rising Stars of a South African Cave

Lee Berger is an American paleoanthro- pologist who has worked at South Africa’s Witwatersrand University since the 1990s. Prior to the discovery of H. naledi, as de- scribed here, Berger was best known for the discovery of Au. sediba, another im- portant recent find, as described in the “Anthropology Today “ in Chapter 6. Cavers Rick Hunter and Steve Tucker first drew Berger’s attention to the Rising Star cave, located about 30 miles north- west of Johannesburg. When Hunter and Tucker entered that cave in October 2013, they weren’t expecting to make a new dis- covery. Cavers had explored there for de- cades. Tucker made the discovery by accident when, after wedging himself into a crevice, he found that his feet didn’t touch the bottom. That crevice, it turned out, led to a very narrow shaft, which de- scended for 40 feet (12 meters) before opening into a chamber. Tucker and Hunter dropped into that chamber and found its floor covered with bones. Tucker took snapshots to show Berger, who had asked Tucker and Hunter to look out for bones during their caving. Once he saw the photos, Berger knew he was dealing with a hominin site. As a National Geographic explorer-in-resi- dence, he persuaded that organization to fund a research expedition. His most im- mediate need was for researchers who could navigate the cave’s ups, downs, and narrow passages to reach the floor where the bones were located. Berger used so- cial media to recruit his ideal candidates: researchers who had a slim or thin build, a background in paleoanthropology or ar- chaeology, and some caving and climbing experience. In response to his October 2013 Facebook post, he received 57 ap- plications and chose six young, fit, well- trained women—Canadian Marina Elliott; Australian Elen Feuerriegel; and Americans

Lindsay Eaves, Alia Gurtov, Hannah Morris, and Becca Peixotto. The fossil chamber containing the bones lies just 100 yards from the cave en- trance, but that distance is a tortuous one, with three daunting obstacles. The first is a narrow space, a mere 10 inches wide, called “Superman’s Crawl,” because one can best squeeze through it by extending one arm in front while holding the other arm tightly against one’s side, like Super- man in flight. The next challenge is to climb a sharp ridge called the Dragon’s Back, with steep falls on either side. The final ob- stacle is the 40-foot chute, barely 8 inches wide. (Tucker and Hunter were wiry enough to make the descent; Berger and most of his male associates were not.) At the bottom of the chute lies the Landing Zone (as the team members dubbed it), which leads into the Dinaledi (“many stars”) chamber where the fossils were located. For three weeks, the six young women, whom Berger described as “underground astronauts,” went to and fro along this daunting route each day, working in teams of three for alternating shifts. They wore hat torches to light their way. Prior to their arrival, cavers had threaded commu- nication cables down to the fossil cham- ber. Their mission was to collect the bones scattered on the cave floor and to exca- vate fossils embedded in that floor. In 21  days, they brought up more than 1,500 bones, representing at least 15 indi- viduals—a treasure trove of hominin fossils unsurpassed in the history of paleoanthropology. While the six underground astronauts worked below the surface, other team members were busy examining and ana- lyzing the bones being brought out of the cave. Eventually, Berger would host an analytic workshop at Witwatersrand University, attended not only by members

continued

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Anthropology Today continued

of his Au. sediba team but also by young paleoanthropologists from around the world invited to help interpret this enig- matic new hominin. Berger’s approach to analyzing and publicizing the H. naledi fossils posed a sharp contrast to what was usual in pa- leoanthropology. Typically a discovery team spends years working on its analy- sis before announcing the discovery and its presumed significance. Berger’s team immediately made the information widely available in the media, including a 2015 PBS program based on filming done dur- ing the excavation and analysis. The team also made images of the fossils available worldwide for study by other scientists and their students. Some paleoanthro- pologists were peeved (or worse) at Berger’s departure from tradition and,

An elaborate wiring setup allows Lindsay Eaves, one of the six “underground astronauts” who excavated South Africa’s Rising Star cave, to enter data into a laptop computer. Source: ©University Of The Witwatersrand/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

Location of the Rising Star cave in South Africa, and a cross-section showing the Dinaledi chamber within the cave and the tortuous path leading to that chamber—the fossil site. Source: Treat, Jason/National Geographic Creative. Copyright © 2015 National Geographic Society. Reprinted with permission.

Summary 171

Summary 1. Key hominin fossil discoveries announced in 2015 included (a) a jaw fragment found

in Ethiopia, dating to 2.8 m.y.a., that appears to be the earliest known member of the genus Homo, and (b) finds at South Africa’s Rising Star cave of more than 1,500 bones, representing at least 15 individuals, which have been assigned to a new species, H. naledi. With a surprisingly recent date of 335,000 to 236,000 B.P., the naledi finds show a mixture of apelike and human characteristics.

2. Four hominin species coexisted in Africa around 2 m.y.a. They were Paranthropus (2.4–1.0 m.y.a.), H. rudolfensis (2.03–1.78 m.y.a.), H. habilis (1.9–1.44 m.y.a.), and H. erectus (1.9–0.4 m.y.a.). Compared with the australopiths, dental, facial, and cranial robustness was reduced in early H. habilis (1.9–1.44 m.y.a.) and H. erectus (1.9?–0.4? m.y.a.). H. erectus was the first hominin to achieve modern body size and form. H. erectus’s average cranial capacity doubled the australopith average. Tool complexity and archaeological evidence for cooperative hunting sug- gest a long period of enculturation and learning. H. erectus extended the hominin range beyond Africa to Asia and Europe.

3. Ancient H. erectus skulls have been found in Kenya and Georgia (in Eurasia), dat- ing back some 1.77–1.6 million years. H. erectus persisted for more than a million years, evolving into H. heidelbergensis by the Middle Pleistocene. Fire allowed H. erectus to expand into cooler areas, to cook, and to live in caves.

4. H. heidelbergensis lived in Europe, Africa, and Asia between about 850,000 and 200,000 years ago. An African version of H. heidelbergensis gave rise to anatomi- cally modern humans (AMHs) by 195,000 years ago.

5. The Neandertals (130,000–28,000 B.P.)  who inhabited western Europe during the early part of the Würm glacial, were among the first hominin fossils found. With no examples of the australopiths or H. erectus yet discovered, the differences between them and modern humans were accentuated. The last common ancestors of Neander- tals and AMHs lived about 600,000 years ago. Neandertals may have persisted in western Europe, where they did some interbreeding with AMHs, through 28,000 B.P.

6. The Denisovans were cousins of the Neandertals who lived in Asia between about 400,000 and 50,000 years ago. After their split around 400,000 B.P., the ancestral Neandertals spread westward, to the Middle East and Europe, while the Denisovans headed east.

hominins would have been capable of that type of behavior. The fossils them- selves are described more fully in the text. It is likely that additional information on this find will be available by the time you read this.

particularly, his release of information about the naledi find before dating was established for the fossils. Berger’s initial description of the find as a possible burial site drew specific criticism. Most scien- tists doubted that such small-brained

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7. H. floresiensis is the name of a species of tiny humans that managed to survive on the isolated island of Flores in Indonesia between 700,000 and 50,000 B.P. A prob- able descendant of H. erectus, H. floresiensis is marked by the unusually small size of its body and its chimp-sized skull. 

8. An African version of H. heidelbergensis gave rise to AMHs by 195,000 years ago. The earliest AMH fossil finds include Omo Kibish (195,000 B.P.), Herto (160,000– 154,000 B.P.), and various South African sites, along with Skhūl (100,000 B.P.) and Qafzeh (92,000 B.P.). AMHs made Upper Paleolithic blade tools in Europe and Middle and Late Stone Age flake tools in Africa.

9. Scientists continue to debate whether human behavioral modernity originated in Af- rica as early as 200,000 years ago or in Europe around 45,000 years ago. Mounting evidence now tends to favor an African origin. In western Europe, as glacial ice melted and the Upper Paleolithic ended, a broad-spectrum economy that incorporated fish, fowl, and plant foods supplemented, then replaced, the diminishing big-game supply. 

10. Humans probably entered the Americas no more than 18,000 years ago. Pursuing big game across Beringia, or moving by boat along the Pacific coast, they gradually moved into North America. The Clovis (spear point) tradition flourished, widely but very briefly (13,250–12,800 B.P.), in a wide area of North America. The Clovis people were not the first inhabitants of the Americas. Adapting to different envi- ronments, Native Americans developed a variety of cultures. Some continued to rely on big game. Others became broad-spectrum foragers.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. As anatomically modern humans, we make up a variable population, yet we are all

one species. When looking at the fossil record, how have scientists confronted the issue of variability and speciation? Consider the Neandertals and AMHs. Remem- bering the definition of species given in Chapter 4, should these hominins be placed in the same or different species?

2. What does behavioral modernity mean? What are the competing theories that at- tempt to explain the advent of behavioral modernity in AMHs? Is behavioral mo- dernity a quality of individual humans or of humans as part of a social group? (Perhaps the answer is not one or the other but an interaction between the two, which some anthropologists might argue are inseparable.)

Key Terms Acheulean, 149 anatomically

modern humans (AMHs), 149

behavioral modernity, 164

blade tool, 166 Clovis tradition, 168

Herto, 160 interglacials, 153 Mousterian, 156 Neandertals, 156 Paleolithic, 149 Pleistocene, 153 Upper

Paleolithic, 166

Denisovans, 158 glacials, 153 H. (Homo)

erectus, 147 H. floresiensis, 159 H. habilis, 146 H. heidelbergensis,

154

173

Chapter 8 The First Farmers

Broad-Spectrum Economies The Mesolithic in Europe Developments in Asia, Including Early Pottery

The Neolithic

The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle East

The Environmental Setting: A Vertical Economy Where and Why Did Food Production Begin? Genetic Changes and Domestication The Coevolution of Farming and Property Rights Food Production and the State

Other Old World Farmers The Neolithic in Africa The Neolithic in Europe The Neolithic in Asia

The First American Farmers Key Aspects of Food Production in the Americas The Tropical Origins of New World Domestication

Explaining the Neolithic

Costs and Benefits

Anthropology Today: Global Climate Change and Other Threats to Archaeology

Broad-Spectrum Economies

In Chapter 7, we considered the economic implications of the end of the ice age in Europe. With glacial retreat, foragers pursued a more generalized economy, focusing less on large animals. This was the beginning of what Kent Flannery (1969) has called the broad-spectrum revolution. This refers to the period beginning around 15,000 B.P. in the Middle East and 12,000 B.P. in Europe, during which a wider range, or broader spectrum, of plant and animal life was hunted, gathered, collected, caught, and fished. It was revolutionary because, in the Middle East, it led to food production—human control over the reproduction of plants and animals.

The Mesolithic in Europe The broad-spectrum revolution in Europe includes the late Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic, which followed it. The Mesolithic had a characteristic tool type—the

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microlith (Greek for “small stone”). Among such small stone tools were arrowheads, spear points, and fish hooks. Of interest to anthropologists is what an abundance of such small and delicately shaped stone tools tells us about the way of life of the people who made them. The key aspect of the Mesolithic economy was the shift away from big game to the pursuit of a much broader spectrum of plant and animal species.  

By 10,000 B.P.,  the human range in Europe extended to the formerly glaciated British Isles and Scandinavia. The reindeer herds had gradually retreated to the far north, with some human groups following (and ultimately domesticating) them. Forests replaced treeless steppe and tundra, allowing foragers to exploit a wider variety of re- sources. People still hunted, but they stalked solitary forest animals rather than herd species. Coasts and lakes were fished intensively. Some important Mesolithic sites are Scandinavian shell mounds—the garbage dumps of prehistoric oyster collectors. Micro- liths were used as fishhooks and in harpoons. Dugout canoes were used for fishing and travel. For woodworking, Mesolithic carpenters used new kinds of axes, chisels, and gouges. The process of preserving meat and fish by smoking and salting grew increas- ingly important. (Meat preservation had been less of a problem previously, in a subarctic environment.) The bow and arrow became essential for hunting waterfowl in swamps and marshes. Dogs served as retrievers; they also proved useful as hunting companions in a forested environment (see Grimm 2016). 

A recent genomic analysis of dogs and wolves suggests that there were two phases of domestication leading to dogs (see Arnold 2015). The first phase began, long before the Mesolithic, in China around 33,000 years ago. The second phase began around 15,000 years ago, when dogs began to spread out from Asia to other parts of the world. The first dogs may have arrived in Europe no more than 10,000 years ago, where they would have been useful as helpmates to humans in the Mesolithic economy. 

Developments in Asia, Including Early Pottery By 15,000 B.P., foragers in other world areas, including Japan, were also pursuing a broad-spectrum foraging economy. Consider the Japanese site of Nittano (Akazawa 1980), located on an inlet near Tokyo. Nittano was occupied several times between 6000 and 5000 B.P. by members of the widespread Jomon culture (16,000–2500 B.P.). The Jomon people hunted deer, pigs, bears, and antelope; gathered plants and nuts; and ate fish and shellfish. Their sites have yielded the remains of more than 300 species of shellfish and 180 species of edible plants, including berries, nuts, and tubers (Akazawa and Aikens 1986; Habu et al. 2011). 

Based on their knowledge of Middle Eastern prehistory, archaeologists once as- sumed that pottery (ceramics) would have been invented after, rather than well before, the advent of food production (domestication). This assumption turns out to be false: The world’s earliest pottery was made by foragers rather than farmers. Jomon clay pots date back 15,300 years. In the burnt fragments of large clay pots made by those broad- spectrum foragers, scientists have found traces of fat from fish and shellfish (Craig 2013; Subbaraman 2013). The size of the pots suggests that eating was a social activity. Not only did the Jomon people stew their fish, but they also feasted on it in groups. Their pots weren’t just utilitarian cooking vessels; they brought people together to socialize, too (Craig 2013; Subbaraman 2013).

The Neolithic 175

Even older—in fact, the world’s oldest known—pottery comes from Jiangxi Prov- ince, southern China (Wu et al. 2012). Dated to 20,000 B.P., these pots were simple cooking vessels. Pottery making began in China 20,000 years ago and never stopped. The Chinese kitchen always has featured cooking and steaming, which ceramics facili- tate. As in Japan, a group of hunter-gatherers made the earliest pots; plant cultivation did not reach China for another 10,000 years.

In the Middle East, by contrast, the first pottery appeared 3,000–2,000 years after, rather than before, farming. Harvard archaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef suggests that the earliest farmers/herders in the Middle East had a diet based on barbecued meats and pita breads and didn’t need pottery (see Wu et al. 2012). In their cooking style, one simply ground the seeds, mixed them with water, and then cooked the dough right on the fire. Chinese cooking, by contrast, needed pots to cook and steam foods thousands of years earlier.

The Neolithic

The term Neolithic Revolution, sometimes called the Agricultural Revolution, refers to the widespread transition, beginning about 12,000 years ago, of human societies from lifestyles based on foraging to lifestyles based on food production—farming and herd- ing. The Neolithic is considered revolutionary because, in just a few thousand years, after millions of years of foraging as the sole human subsistence strategy, it would trans- form small, mobile groups into larger societies living in permanent settlements— villages, towns, and eventually cities. Neolithic economies fueled population growth, expansion, and the settlement of new environments. The many repercussions, including the advantages and disadvantages of food production, are examined in the section “Costs and Benefits” later in this chapter.

Neolithic was coined to refer to techniques of grinding and polishing stone tools, such as this hammer head and two polished axes found in England.  Was the new tool-making style the most significant thing about the Neolithic? ©CM Dixon/age fotostock

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The transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic occurred when groups became dependent on domesticated foods for more than 50 percent of their diet. This happened gradually, after a long period of experimenting with and using domesticates as supplements to broad-spectrum foraging. The archaeological signature of Neolithic cultures (which are called Formative in the Americas) includes dependence on cultivation, sedentary (settled) life, and the use of ceramic vessels. The term Neolithic was coined to refer to new techniques of grinding and polishing stone tools (see Saville 2012). However, the primary significance of the Neolithic was the new total economy rather than just its char- acteristic artifacts.

The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle East

Geologists date the start of the geological epoch known as the Holocene, which fol- lowed the Pleistocene, to 11,700 B.P. By that time, the shift toward the Neolithic was under way in the Middle East (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, and Israel). No longer simply hunting, gathering, and fishing, people started managing and modifying the characteristics of familiar plants and animals. By 10,000 B.P., domesticates were an established part of the broad spectrum of resources used by Middle Easterners. By 7500 B.P., most Middle Easterners had abandoned broad-spectrum foraging for more specialized, fully Neolithic economies based on fewer species, which were domesti- cates (Bar-Yosef and Valla 2013; Bellwood 2005; Simmons 2007).

Archaeologist Kent Flannery (1969) laid out a series of stages or eras during which the Middle Eastern transition to farming and herding took place. First, the era of semi- nomadic hunting and gathering (12,000–11,000 B.P.) encompassed the last stages of broad-spectrum foraging. This was the period just before domesticated plants (wheat and barley) and animals (goats and sheep) were added to the diet. Next came the era of early dry farming (of wheat and barley) and caprine domestication (11,000–7500 B.P.). Dry farming refers to farming without irrigation; such farming depended on rainfall. Caprine (from capra, Latin for “goat”) refers to goats and sheep, which were domesti- cated during this era.

During the era of increasing specialization in food production (7500–5500 B.P.), new crops were added to the diet, along with more productive varieties of wheat and barley. Cattle and pigs were fully domesticated (Simmons 2007). Table 8.1 highlights these stages, or eras, in the transition to food production. By 5500 B.P., agriculture had spread into the alluvial plain of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (see Figure 8.1), where early Mesopotamians lived in walled towns, some of which grew into cities.

TABLE 8.1 The Transition to Food Production in the Middle East

Era Dates (B.P.)

Origin of state (Sumer) 5500 Increasing specialization in food production 7500–5500 Early dry farming and caprine domestication 11,000–7500 Seminomadic hunting and gathering (e.g., Natufians) 12,000–11,000

The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle East 177

The Environmental Setting: A Vertical Economy  Middle Eastern food production arose in the context of four distinct but linked environ- mental zones. From highest to lowest, they are as follows: (1) high plateau (5,000 feet, or 1,500 meters), (2) hilly flanks, (3) piedmont steppe (treeless plain), and (4) alluvial desert—the low-lying area watered by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The hilly flanks is a woodland zone that flanks those rivers to the north (see Figure 8.1). Alluvial describes rich, fertile soil deposited by rivers and streams.

For thousands of years, the Middle East has had a vertical economy. Such an econ- omy exploits environmental zones that, although close together in space, contrast with one another in altitude, rainfall, overall climate, vegetation, and other resources. This close juxtaposition of varied environments allowed foragers to follow game from zone

High Plateau

Hilly Flanks

Piedmont Steppe

Alluvial Desert PERSIAN

GULF

SALT DESERT

CASPIAN SEA

HIGH MOUNTAIN RANGE S

Copper

Copper HIGH MOUNTAIN

Obsidian Copper

Lake Rezaiyeh

Lake Van

Copper

Eup h rates River

Tigris River

K ar

un R

iv er

Asphalt

Asphalt

H ILLY FLANKS

Mediterranean Sea

Abu Hureyra

Jarmo

Ali Kosh

FIGURE 8.1 The Vertical Economy of the Ancient Middle East Geographically close but contrasting environments were linked by seasonal movements and trade patterns of broad-spectrum foragers. Traded resources included copper, obsidian, and asphalt, located in particular zones. As people traveled and traded, they removed plants from the zones, where they grew wild in the hilly flanks into adjacent zones, where humans became agents of selection.

178 Chapter 8 The First Farmers

to zone. In winter they hunted on the piedmont steppe, which had winter rains that pro- vided pasture for game animals. When winter ended, the steppe dried up. Game moved up to the hilly flanks and high plateau country as the snow melted and pasture land be- came available. Foragers also gathered as they climbed, harvesting wild grains that ripened successively as altitude increased.

The environmental zones also were linked through trade. Certain resources were confined to specific zones. Asphalt, used as an adhesive in the manufacture of sickles, came from the steppe. Copper and turquoise sources were located in the high plateau. The zones therefore were linked in two ways: by foragers’ seasonal migration and by trade. The movement of people, animals, and products between zones was a precondi- tion for the emergence of food production (Bouquet-Appel and Bar-Yosef 2008). As they moved, foragers carried seeds into new habitats, where mutations, genetic recom- binations, and human selection eventually led to domestication.  

Where and Why Did Food Production Begin? The Middle Eastern climate became warmer and moister during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. This climate change favored the expansion of wild plants and animals. (See this chapter’s “Anthropology Today” for the effects of contemporary climate change on archaeology.) Foragers could harvest wild grains as they ripened in the spring at low altitudes, in the summer at middle altitudes, and in the fall at high altitudes. Cer- tain areas, particularly the hilly flanks zone, became so rich in wild plants and animals that foragers could adopt sedentism—sedentary (settled) life in villages—long before they became farmers and herders. 

A prime example of early sedentism is the widespread Natufian culture (12,500 to 10,500 B.P.), which was based on broad-spectrum foraging. The Natufians built their villages, which they occupied year-round, near the densest stands of wild wheat and bar- ley, but also located centrally enough to permit foraging in adjacent zones. Kent Flannery has calculated that a family of experienced Natufian plant collectors could harvest enough ripening grain (over a three-week period)—2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms)—to feed themselves for a year. Having harvested all that grain, they would need a place to store it (e.g., a granary or storage pit). Furthermore, they could no longer maintain a fully no- madic lifestyle, because they’d need to stay close to their grain supply. Furthermore, wild sheep and goats could graze on the stubble that remained after people had harvested the grain. Plants and animals were available and co-dependent in the same area. 

Natufian settlements show permanent architectural features and evidence for the pro- cessing and storage of wild grains. One such site is Abu Hureyra, Syria (see Figure 8.1), which initially was occupied by Natufian foragers around 11,000 to 10,500 B.P. Then it was abandoned—to be reoccupied later by food producers, between 9500 and 8000 B.P. From the Natufian period, Abu Hureyra has yielded the remains of grinding stones, wild plants, and gazelle bones.

Long ago, the archaeologist Robert J. Braidwood (1975) assumed (erroneously it turns out) that food production began in the hilly flanks, where wild grains were so abundant. In 1948, Braidwood’s team found evidence for early food production at Jarmo, a village in the hilly flanks inhabited between 9000 and 8500 B.P. Subsequently, how- ever, archaeologists have found farming villages older than Jarmo (see Figure 8.1) in

The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle East 179

zones adjacent to, rather than in, the hilly flanks. One example is Ali Kosh, a village in the piedmont steppe (Hole, Flannery, and Neely 1969). 

In the view of many scholars, the people most likely to adopt a new subsistence strat- egy, such as cultivation, would be those having the hardest time maintaining their tradi- tional subsistence base (Binford 1968; Flannery 1973; Wenke and Olszewski 2007). This suggests that those ancient Middle Easterners who lived in areas where wild foods were scarcer would be more likely to experiment with new subsistence strategies than people living in the favored zone. Why should people start farming when their wild grain supply was assured—and available at a lower labor cost? Recent estimates suggest that the pro- ductivity of the first farmers (calories produced per hour of labor input) was significantly less than that of the foragers they eventually replaced (see Bowles 2011; Bowles and Choi 2013). Indeed, we know now that Middle Eastern food production did begin in marginal areas, such as the piedmont steppe, rather than in the optimal zones, such as the hilly flanks. The sparser supply of wild foods outside the hilly flanks provided more of an in- centive for foragers to experiment with early domestication (Binford 1968; Bouquet- Appel and Bar-Yosef 2008; Flannery 1969).

Around 11,000 B.P., the Middle Eastern climate turned drier, and the optimal zone for foraging shrank. People had fewer choices for village sites, which needed a permanent water source. Early ex- periments with domestication—planting the seeds of wild plants outside the optimal zone—may have taken place in well-watered areas outside the hilly flanks. The ensuing process of human selec- tion and genetic change in plants and animals eventually led to cultivation. In either case— whether pushed by climate change or merely the need to subsist in marginal areas—necessity seems to have been the mother of invention.

Genetic Changes and Domestication Let’s consider the main differences between wild and domesticated plants. Domesticated plants are known as cultivars; their seeds, and often the en- tire plant, are larger. Compared with wild plants, established cultivars tend to produce a higher yield per unit of area. They also lose their natural seed dispersal mechanisms. Cultivated beans, for example, have pods that hold together, rather than shattering as they do in the wild. Domesticated cereals have tougher connective tissue holding the seedpods to the stem.

Grains of wheat, barley, and other cereals occur in bunches at the end of a stalk (see Figure 8.2). The grains are attached to the stalk by an axis

FIGURE 8.2 A Head of Wheat or Barley In the wild, the axis comes apart as its parts fall off one by one. The connecting parts (interstices) are tough and don’t come apart in domesticated grains. In wild grains, the husks are hard. In domestic plants, they are brittle, which permits easy access to the grain. How did people deal with hard husks before domestication?

IntersticesAxis

Husk (glume)

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(plural axes). In wild cereals, this axis is brittle. Sections of the axis break off one by one, and a seed attached to each section falls to the ground. This is how wild cereals spread their seeds and propagate their species. But a brittle axis is a problem for people. Imagine the annoyance experienced by broad-spectrum foragers as they tried to harvest wild wheat, only to have the grain fall off or be blown away.

In very dry weather, wild wheat and barley ripen—their axes totally disintegrating— in just three days (Flannery 1973). The brittle axis must have been even more irritating to people who planted the seeds and waited for the harvest. But fortunately, certain stalks of wild wheat and barley happened to have tough axes. These were the ones whose seeds people saved to plant the following year.

Another problem with wild cereals is that the edible portion is enclosed in a tough husk. This husk was too tough to remove with a pounding stone. Foragers had to roast the grain to make the husk brittle enough to come off. However, some wild plants hap- pened to have genes for brittle husks. Humans chose the seeds of these plants (which would have germinated prematurely in nature) because they could be more effectively prepared for eating.

People also selected traits in animals (Diamond 1997; Miller, Zeder, and Arter 2009). Plants got larger with domestication, while animals got smaller, probably be- cause smaller animals are easier to control. Wild sheep aren’t woolly; wool coats were products of domestication. Although it’s hard to imagine, a wool coat protects against extreme heat. Skin temperatures of domesticated sheep in very hot areas are much lower than temperatures on the surface of their wool. Woolly sheep, but not their wild ancestors, could survive in hot, dry alluvial lowlands. Wool had an additional advan- tage: its use for clothing.

Archaeological evidence for herd management predates anatomical evidence (e.g, in size) for full animal domestication. For example, certain early sites indicate a focus on killing 2- to 3-year-old males, which suggests a concern with preserving female breed- ing stock. Those ancient herd managers realized that a steady stream of young immi- grant males from surrounding territories would replace slaughtered local males. By selectively culling wild animal populations, ancient Middle Easterners were gradually converting their prey animals into herd animals. In doing so, in a process that lasted more than a thousand years, they also were transforming themselves from hunters into herders (Zeder 2008).

The Coevolution of Farming and Property Rights Samuel Bowles and Jung-Kyoo Choi (2013) have proposed that a transition from com- mon to private property rights accompanied (coevolved with) the transition from forag- ing to food production. Property notions vary depending on how easy it is to demarcate a society’s key resources. When resources are wild, dispersed, and mobile, as among foragers, a common property system works best. No doubt prehistoric foragers, like re- cent foragers, made food sharing a habit. When a game animal was killed, its meat was shared widely, as was access to plant foods, which were scattered and subject to seasonal availability. Things changed with food production, as individuals and families began to work, claim, and exclude others from fields and livestock.

The First Farmers and Herders in the Middle East 181

We know that mature Neolithic economies out-produce foraging economies. Why, then, don’t foragers immediately adopt farming when the opportunity presents itself? Multiple factors may constrain them. First is the fact that early farming was not more productive than broad-spectrum foraging, particularly when wild resources were as abundant as they were in the hilly flanks. Another constraint is a worldview—typical of foragers—that values sharing and common property. Individual foragers who want to try farming may have their innovative efforts thwarted by the value system of their tra- ditional society. Bowles and Choi (2013) describe two Batek men, members of a South- east Asian foraging society, who decided to try planting rice. When harvest time arrived, the novice farmers could not prevent other group members from harvesting their rice and sharing it with the entire group. Such a sharing ethos is incompatible with the dis- proportionate individual labor invested in farming. A change from common to more restrictive property rights was needed for farming and herding.

Sedentism made it easier to demarcate resources, such as dwellings and storage pits. Once a family of foragers had harvested and stored a ton of wheat, they would want to stay close enough to consume it—perhaps excluding those who did not help with the work involved. Individual labor was even more apparent when people started clearing land and planting and tending crops. A new system of property rights emerged—one that ensured a family’s claim and control over the food they produced, excluding others.

Within the emerging Neolithic economy, the old ethos of sharing was replaced by a system in which fields, crops, dwellings, storage sites, and animals were recognized as the property of individuals or families. There is archaeological evidence that domesti- cated animals and cereals were stored within particular dwellings—making their owner- ship apparent. Once a critical mass of people adopted both the new property rights and the Neolithic economy, communities of farmers could out-produce foragers and spread widely as a result (Bowles and Choi 2013).

Food Production and the State Over time, Middle Eastern economies grew more specialized, geared more exclusively toward crops and herds. The former marginal zones became centers of the new economy and of population increase and emigration. Some of the increasing population spilled back into the hilly flanks, where people eventually had to intensify production by culti- vating. Domesticated crops could now provide a bigger harvest than could the grains that grew wild there. Thus, in the hilly flanks, too, farming eventually replaced foraging as the economic mainstay.

Farming colonies spread down into drier areas. By 7000 B.P., simple irrigation systems had developed, tapping springs in the foothills. By 6000 B.P., more complex irrigation techniques made agriculture possible in the arid lowlands of southern Mesopotamia. In the alluvial desert plain of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, a new economy based on irrigation and trade fueled the growth of an entirely new form of society. This was the state, a social and political unit featuring a central government, extreme contrasts of wealth, and social classes. The process of state formation is examined in Chapter 9.

182 Chapter 8 The First Farmers

Other Old World Farmers

The path from foraging to farming was one that people followed independently in at least seven world areas. As we’ll see later in this chapter, at least three were in the Americas. At least four were in the Old World. In each of these seven centers, people invented domestication independently—albeit of different sets of crops and animals. (Figure 8.3 is a map highlighting those seven areas.)

In the Old World, food production soon began to expand beyond the Middle East. This happened through trade, through the spread of domesticated plants and animals, and through the actual migration of farmers. Middle Eastern domesticates spread west- ward to northern Africa, including northern Egypt, and eventually into Europe (Zeder 2008). Those domesticates also spread eastward to India and Pakistan. In Egypt, an ag- ricultural economy based on plants and animals originally domesticated in the Middle East led to a pharaonic civilization.

The Neolithic in Africa Excavations at the Nabta Playa site in southern Egypt have revealed considerable com- plexity in its early Neolithic economy and social system, along with very early pottery and cattle. Nabta Playa is a basin in the eastern Sahara Desert that, during prehistoric summers, filled with water. Over several millennia this temporary lake attracted people

Simple irrigation systems like this one (in a rice paddy in Chandbali, Orissa, India) were being used in the Middle East by 7000 B.P.  By 6000 B.P., more complex irrigation techniques had made agriculture possible in the arid lowlands of southern Mesopotamia. ©Lindsay Brown/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images

Other Old World Farmers 183

who used it for social and ceremonial activities (Wendorf and Schild 2000). The earliest settlements there (11,000–9300 B.P.) were small camps of herders. (Note the very early, and perhaps independent, domestication of cattle here.) Nabta was occupied only sea- sonally, as people came over from the Nile or from better-watered areas to the south. They returned to those areas in the fall.

By 9000 B.P., people were living at Nabta Playa year round. To survive in the desert, they dug large, deep wells and lived in well-organized villages, with huts arranged in straight lines. They collected sorghum, millet, legumes (peas and beans), tubers, and fruits. These were wild plants, and so the economy was not fully Neolithic. By 8800 B.P., these people were making their own pottery, possibly the earliest pottery in Egypt. By 8100 B.P., domesticated sheep and goats had arrived from the Middle East.

Around 7500 B.P., new settlers occupied Nabta Playa, introducing a more sophisticated social and ceremonial system. They sacrificed young cattle, which they buried in clay-lined chambers covered with stone slabs. They also built Egypt’s earliest astronomical measuring device: a “calendar circle” used to mark the summer solstice. Nabta had become a regional ceremonial center: a place where groups gathered for ceremonies and to socialize. The site also is notable for an alignment of nine large, upright stone slabs. This formation, probably dating between 7500 and 5500 B.P., recalls similar large stone (megalithic) alignments, such as Stonehenge, found in western Europe. To construct such structures is a major effort re- quiring work parties—perhaps organized by a religious or civil authority. The findings at Nabta Playa reveal an elaborate and previously unsuspected ceremonialism, as well as so- cial complexity, during the African Neolithic (see also Sadig 2010).

The Neolithic in Europe How did the Neolithic reach Europe? Did Middle Eastern farmers colonize Europe, or did their ideas, techniques, and domesticates spread there without any actual migration?

FIGURE 8.3 Seven World Areas Where Food Production Was Invented Independently Do any of these areas surprise you? Source: Bruce D. Smith, The Emergence of Agriculture (New York: Freeman, 1999), p. 12. 

120°W150°W 90°W 60°W 30°W 30°E 60°E 90°E 120°E 150°E 180°0°

120°W150°W 120°E 150°E 180°0°

30°N

0°

30°S

30°N

30°S

0°

Tropic of Cancer

Tropic of Capricorn

Equator

INDIAN OCEAN

PACIFIC OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

ARCTIC OCEAN

PACIFIC OCEAN

3,000 km

0

0

1,500 3,000 mi

1,500

184 Chapter 8 The First Farmers

We have good evidence now that the Neolithic was spread by the migration of farmers. Scandinavian scientists compared DNA from two sets of Swedish burials, both 5,000 years old. One burial represented a hunter-gatherer group; the other, a farmer group about 250 miles (400 kilometers) away. The ancient hunter-gatherer DNA linked them to living northern Europeans, especially Finns, while the farmer genome resembled that of con- temporary southeastern Europeans. The researchers concluded that migrating farmers expanded across Europe from the Mediterranean beginning around 8,500 years ago. It took them about 3,000 years to reach northwestern Europe (Skoglund et al. 2012).

Excavations on Cyprus show that the island had been colonized by 10,600 B.P.—the early Neolithic—with village life and farming well under way. This confirms that mi- gration from the mainland Middle East began—by boat—shortly after the beginning of farming (Vigne et al. 2012). Sailing about 40 miles (60 kilometers) from the mainland to Cyprus, Neolithic colonists carried with them all four major livestock species (do- mesticated sheep, goats, cattle, and pigs). To Cyprus they introduced the full Neolithic package: farming and herding, technologies, and, most likely, the social networks and belief systems they brought from their original homeland. The colonization of Cyprus can serve as a model of how the Neolithic spread across the rest of the Mediterranean basin—by boat and seafaring colonists (Zeder 2008).

The Mediterranean basin experienced a diaspora—slowly at first, then more rapidly— of Neolithic people and their lifestyle westward from the Middle East and Cyprus to the shores of the Atlantic (Zeder 2008). Expansion from Cyprus to Greece and its islands may have taken as long as 2,000 years. Thereafter, only 500 years were required for sea- faring colonists to reach Italy, then just 500–600 years to travel the much greater distance from Italy to the Atlantic. Reaching southern France by 7700–7600 B.P., Neolithic colo- nists established a site that has yielded pottery, the remains of domestic sheep, and wheat. Thereafter, southern France experienced a marked geographic, ecological, and cultural break between its interior Mesolithic settlements and its coastal Neolithic colonies. Rather than entirely replacing indigenous European foraging populations, the Neolithic colonists seem to have been confined initially to scattered Mediterranean coastal farming communities (Zeder 2008). By 6000 B.P., however, Europe had thousands of farming vil- lages, from as far east as Russia to as far west as northern France (see Fowler 2015).

Recent studies confirm that modern Europeans get their DNA from three main sources (Zimmer 2015). First is that of the pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. Second was a wave of farmers who started arriving from Anatolia (in what is now Turkey) around 8500 B.P. They share DNA with contem- porary Middle Easterners. The third source, reaching Europe around 4500 B.P., was a population of nomads from the Russian steppes known as the Yamnaya.

The DNA of Europeans changed significantly after the introduction of farming ( Zimmer 2015). Those changes affected digestion, skin color, and height. A team led by David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, analyzed the genomes of 230  Europeans who lived between 8,500 and 2,300 years ago. Reich’s team observed specific genetic changes that were adaptations to the new diet based on farming and herding. One genetic change made it easier to absorb nutrients from wheat and other crops. Another involved a gene that aids milk digestion, useful among herders, which became increasingly common after 4500 B.P.

Other Old World Farmers 185

Reich’s team also identified changes in Europeans’ skin color. Europe’s original hunter-gatherers, as descendants of people who had come from Africa, retained dark skin as recently as 9,000 years ago. Apparently they did not need to reduce the melanin in their skin because their meat-rich diet was a sufficient source of vitamin D. The Anatolian farmers who colonized Europe after 8500 B.P. had lighter skin, and a new gene variant that emerged later lightened European skin even more. The widespread shift to farming, which reduced the intake of vitamin D compared with a meat diet, may have triggered the reduction in epidermal melanin.

Finally, the DNA of the Anatolian farmers made them relatively tall, with the Yamnaya even taller. Northern Europeans have inherited a larger amount of Yamnaya DNA, making them taller, too. The average height of southern Europeans, however, declined after the advent of farming, probably because of reduced animal protein in their diet (Zimmer 2015).

The Neolithic in Asia Archaeological research confirms the presence of Middle Eastern domesticates, in- cluding goats, sheep, cattle, wheat, and barley in Pakistan by 8000 B.P. A regional trade network must have extended from the Middle East to the Indus Valley of Pakistan and India.

Unlike the Indus Valley, which owed its Neolithic economy to diffusion from the Middle East, China developed farming on its own—and twice, with one farming system

Rice, originally domesticated in Asia, became a key caloric staple within mixed economies, including domesticated animals. This Vietnamese woman is herding ducks near a rice paddy. ©Christophe Boisvieux/Corbis

186 Chapter 8 The First Farmers

based on millet and another based on rice. Millet, a tall, small-seeded cereal still grown in northern China, is used in contemporary North America mainly as birdseed. Millet was first domesticated in northern China around 10,000 B.P. By 7500 B.P., two varieties of that grain supported early farming communities in northern China, along the Huang He (Yellow River). Millet cultivation paved the way for widespread village life and eventually for Shang dynasty civilization, based on irrigated agriculture, between 3600 and 3100 B.P. The northern Chinese also had domesticated dogs, pigs, and possibly cattle, goats, and sheep by 7000 B.P.

Rice was domesticated in southern China at about the same time that millet was do- mesticated in northern China—around 10,000 B.P. (Cambridge 2015). Rice was being cultivated in the Yangtze River corridor of southern China by 8400 B.P. (Jiao 2007). Southern Chinese farming was rice aquaculture in rich subtropical wetlands. Southern winters were mild and summer rains reliable. Northern China, by contrast, had harsh winters, with unreliable rainfall during the summer growing season. Still, food produc- tion was supporting large and stable villages in both areas by 7500 B.P. Based on the archaeological evidence, early Chinese villagers lived in substantial houses, made elab- orate ceramic vessels, and had rich burials.

Northern and southern China are two of the seven areas where food production was invented independently. (The others, recall, were the Middle East, Africa, and three areas of the New World—see the next section.) A different set of major foods was domesticated, at different times, in each area, as is shown in Table 8.2. Some grains, such as millet and rice, were domesticated more than once. Millet grows wild in China and Africa, where it became an important food crop, as well as in Mexico, where it did not. Indigenous African rice, grown only in West Africa, belongs to the same genus as Asian rice. Pigs and probably cattle were domesticated independently in the Middle East, China, and sub-Saharan Africa. We turn now to archaeological sequences in the Americas.

TABLE 8.2 Seven World Areas Where Food Production Was Invented Independently

World Area Major Domesticated Plants/Animals Earliest Date (B.P.)

Middle East Wheat, barley Sheep, goats, cattle, pigs

11,000–10,000

Northern China (Yellow River)

Millet Dogs, pigs, chickens

10,000

Southern China (Yangtze River corridor)

Rice Water buffalo, dogs, pigs

10,000–6500

Sub-Saharan Africa Sorghum, pearl millet, African rice Cattle

10,000–4000

Andean Region Squash, potato, quinoa, beans Camelids (llama, alpaca), guinea pigs

10,000–5000

Mesoamerica Maize, beans, squash Dogs, turkeys, guinea fowl

8000–4700

Eastern United States Goosefoot, marsh elder, sunflower, squash

4500

The First American Farmers 187

The First American Farmers

Homo did not, of course, originate in the Western Hemisphere. Never have fossils of Neandertals or earlier hominins been found in North or South America. The settle- ment of the Americas was one of the major achievements of anatomically modern humans. Spreading gradually through the Americas, early Native Americans occupied a variety of environments. Their descendants would independently invent food pro- duction, paving the way for the emergence of states based on agriculture and trade in Mexico and Peru.

Key Aspects of Food Production in the Americas The most significant contrast between Old and New World food production involved animal domestication, which was much more important in the former than the latter. The animals that were hunted during the early American big-game tradition either became extinct before people could domesticate them or were not domesticable. The largest animal ever domesticated in the New World (in Peru, around 4500 B.P.) was the llama. Early Peruvians and Bolivians ate llama meat and used that animal as a beast of burden. They bred the llama’s relative, the alpaca, for its wool. Peruvians also added animal protein to their diet by raising and eating guinea pigs and ducks. The turkey was domes- ticated in the southwestern United States and in Mesoamerica. (Mesoamerica includes Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize.) The dog is the only animal that was domesticated throughout the New World. There were no cattle, sheep, or goats in the areas of the Americas where food production began. As a result, neither herding nor the kinds of relationships that developed between herders and farmers in many parts of the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and Africa emerged in the precolonial Americas. 

The New World crops were different, although staples as nutritious as those of the Old World were domesticated from native wild plants. Three key caloric staples, major sources of carbohydrates, were domesticated by Native American farmers. Maize, or corn, was first domesticated in the tropical lowlands of southwestern Mexico. It became the major source of calories in Mesoamerica and Central America and eventually reached coastal Peru. The two other starchy staples domesticated in the Americas were root crops (potatoes and manioc). White (“Irish”) potatoes were first domesticated in the Andes. Manioc, or cassava, was domesticated in the South American lowlands, where other root crops such as yams and sweet potatoes also were important. Secondary crops, especially beans and squash, added variety and essential proteins, vitamins, and miner- als to the diet.

Food production was invented independently in at least three areas of the Americas: Mesoamerica, the eastern United States, and the south central Andes. Food plants known as goosefoot and marsh elder, along with the sunflower and a species of squash, were domesticated in the eastern United States by 4500 B.P. Those crops supplemented a diet based mainly on hunting and gathering. They never became caloric staples like maize, wheat, rice, millet, manioc, and potatoes. Eventually, maize spread to what is now the United States, where it was grown in areas of the Southwest, the central Plains, the eastern area just mentioned, and even parts of Canada. Domestication of several

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other species was under way in the south central Andes of Peru and Bolivia by 5000 B.P. They were the potato, quinoa (a cereal grain), beans, llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs.

The Tropical Origins of New World Domestication Microscopic evidence from early cultivars has confirmed that New World farming be- gan in the tropical lowlands of South America and then spread to Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean islands. In Chapter 3, we learned about new techniques that allow archaeologists and botanists to recover and analyze microscopic evidence from pollens, starch grains, and phytoliths (plant crystals) (Bryant 2007a, 2013). This evi- dence has forced the revision of old assumptions, most prominently the idea that New World farming originated in upland areas, such as the highlands of Mexico and Peru.

Dolores Piperno and Karen Stothert (2003) found that phytoliths from cultivated squashes and gourds are substantially larger than those from wild species. They then used phytolith size to confirm that domesticated squash and gourds (Cucurbita) were grown in coastal Ecuador between 9,000 and 10,000 years ago.

According to Piperno and Deborah Pearsall (1998), farming in the tropical lowlands of Central and South America began at about the same time that food production arose in the Middle East—around 10,000 years ago. By that time, cultural groups in Panama, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia were cultivating plants in garden plots near their homes. Between 9000 and 8000 B.P., changes in seed form and phytolith size suggest that farm- ers were selecting certain characteristics in plants. By 7,000 years ago, farmers had ex- panded their plots into nearby forests, which they cleared using slash-and-burn techniques. By that time also, early farming ideas and techniques were diffusing from tropical lowlands into drier regions at higher elevations (Bryant 1999, 2003; Piperno and Pearsall 1998).

Recent molecular and genetic studies indicate that maize domestication actually took place in the lowlands of southwestern Mexico. The wild ancestor of maize is a species of wild grain called teosinte (or teocentli) that is native to the Río Balsas watershed of tropical southwestern Mexico (Holst, Moreno, and Piperno 2007). 

Scientists have been puzzled by the fact that teosinte does not look much like corn. The teosinte that grows today in southwestern Mexico is a wild grass with hard kernels and no central stalk. What would have made this plant attractive to proto- farmers? Could it be that teosinte had different characteristics when domestication began than it does now? Smithsonian researcher and archaeobotanist Dolores Piperno decided to experiment by growing teosinte in a glass chamber under environmental conditions (temperatures and CO2 levels) mimicking those that prevailed in south- western Mexico between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago. The teosinte that she grew resembled modern corn, including a central stalk, much more closely than does mod- ern teosinte. It turns out that teosinte has significant phenotypical plasticity, which made it much more attractive to proto-farmers than the modern wild grain would be (see Fawcett 2014). 

Although evidence for the actual evolution of maize from its wild ancestor has yet to be found, we can infer some of the likely steps. Such a process would have included in- creases in the number of kernels per cob, the cob size, and the number of cobs per stalk. The kernels would need to ripen simultaneously rather than serially, as in wild teosinte.

Explaining the Neolithic 189

Data from many sites now confirm that maize spread rapidly from its domestication cradle in tropical southwestern Mexico during the eighth millennium B.P. (8000–7001) (Bryant 2007b; Piperno 2001; Pohl et al. 2007). For example, analysis of starch grains from stone tools in Panama’s tropical lowlands confirms that maize was grown there by 7800–7000 B.P. (Dickau, Ranere, and Cooke 2007).

Explaining the Neolithic

Several factors had to converge to make domestication happen and to promote its spread. Most plants, and especially animals, aren’t easy—or particularly valuable—to domesti- cate. Thus, of some 148 large animal species that seem potentially domesticable, only 14 have been domesticated. A mere dozen among 200,000 known plant species account for 80 percent of the world’s farm production. Those 12 caloric staples are wheat, corn (maize), rice, barley, sorghum, soybeans, potatoes, cassava (manioc), sweet potatoes, sugarcane, sugar beets, and bananas.

Domestication resulted from a combination of conditions that had not come together previously. The development of a full-fledged Neolithic economy required settling down. Sedentism, such as that adopted by ancient Natufian hunter-gatherers, was espe- cially attractive when several species of plants and animals were available locally for foraging and eventual domestication. The Middle East had such species, along with a Mediterranean climate favorable to the Neolithic economy. Among those species were the easiest wild plants to domesticate, including wheat, which required few genetic changes. The Natufians, as we’ve seen, adopted sedentism prior to farming. They lived off abundant wild grain and the animals attracted to the stubble left after the harvest. Eventually, with climate change and the need for people to sustain themselves in the marginal zones, hunter-gatherers started cultivating. In Mesoamerica, the shift from teo- sinte to maize required more genetic changes, so the domestication process took longer. The paucity of domesticable animals in Mesoamerica also slowed the transition to a full-fledged Neolithic economy.

When the Neolithic began, the Middle East had the world’s largest Mediterranean climate with the highest species diversity. As we saw previously, this was an area of diverse environments concentrated in a limited area. This setting offered a multiplicity of plant species, as well as goats, sheep, pigs, and cattle. The first farmers eventually domesticated several crops: two kinds of wheat, barley, lentils, peas, and chickpeas (gar- banzo beans). As in Mesoamerica, where corn (supplying carbohydrate) was supple- mented by squash and beans (supplying protein), the Neolithic diet of the Middle East combined caloric staples such as wheat and barley with protein-rich pulses such as lentils, peas, and chickpeas.

A full-fledged Neolithic economy requires a minimal set of nutritious domesticates. Some world areas, such as North America (north of Mesoamerica), managed indepen- dently to invent domestication, but the inventory of available plants and animals was too meager to maintain a Neolithic economy. The early domesticates—squash, sunflower, marsh elder, and goosefoot—had to be supplemented by hunting and gathering. A full Neolithic economy and sedentism did not develop in the east, southeast, and southwest

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of what is now the United States until maize diffused in from Mesoamerica—more than 3,000 years after the first domestication in the eastern United States.

As Jared Diamond (1997, ch. 10) observes convincingly, the geography of the Old World facilitated the diffusion of plants, animals, technology (e.g., wheels and vehi- cles), and information (e.g., writing) (Ramachandran and Rosenberg 2011). Most crops in Eurasia were domesticated just once and spread rapidly in an east–west direc- tion. The first domesticates spread from the Middle East to Egypt, North Africa, Europe, India, and eventually China (which, however, also had its own domesticates, as we have seen).

Figure 8.4 shows that Eurasia has a much broader east–west expanse than do Africa and the Americas, which are arranged north–south. This is important because climates are more likely to be similar moving across thousands of miles east–west than north– south. In Eurasia, plants and animals could easily spread east–west because of common day lengths and similar seasonal variations. More radical climatic contrasts have hin- dered north–south diffusion. In the Americas, for example, although the distance be- tween the Mexican highlands and the South American highlands is just 1,200 miles, those two similar zones are separated by a low, hot, tropical region, which supports very different plant species than the highlands. Such environmental barriers to diffusion kept the Neolithic societies (of Mesoamerica and South America) more separate and inde- pendent in the Americas than they were in Eurasia. It took some 3,000 years for maize to reach what is now the United States, where productive Neolithic economies eventu- ally did develop.

Tropic of Cancer

Tropic of Capricorn

Equator

Americas

Africa

Eurasia

INDIAN OCEAN

PACIFIC OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

ARCTIC OCEAN

PACIFIC OCEAN

3,000 km

0

0

1,500 3,000 mi

1,500

FIGURE 8.4 Major Axes of the Continents Note the breadth of the east–west axis in Eurasia, compared with the much narrower east–west spreads in Africa, North America, and South America. Those three continents have north–south as their major axis.

Costs and Benefits 191

Costs and Benefits

Food production brought advantages and disadvantages. Among the advantages were discoveries and inventions. People learned to spin and weave; to make pottery, bricks, and arched masonry; and to smelt and cast metals. They developed trade and commerce by land and sea. By 5500 B.P., Middle Easterners were living in vibrant cities with mar- kets, streets, temples, and palaces. They created sculpture, mural art, writing systems, weights, measures, mathematics, and new forms of political and social organization.

Because it increased economic production and led to new social, scientific, and cre- ative forms, food production often is considered an evolutionary advance. But the new economy also brought hardships. For example, food producers typically work harder than foragers do—and for a less adequate diet.

Herds, fields, and irrigation systems need care. Weeding can require hours of ardu- ous bending. Pens and corrals must be built and maintained for livestock. Trade takes men, and sometimes women, away from home, leaving burdens for those who stay be- hind. For several reasons, food producers tend to have more children than foragers do. This means greater child care demands, but child labor also tends to be more needed and valued than it is among foragers. Many tasks in farming and herding can be done by children. The division of economic labor grows more complex, so that children and older people have assigned economic roles.

Public health declined in food-producing societies. Diets based on crops and dairy products tend to be less varied, less nutritious, and less healthful than foragers’ diets, which usually are higher in proteins and lower in fats and carbohydrates. With the shift to food production, the physical well-being of the population often declines. Communicable diseases, protein deficiency, and dental caries increase (Cohen and Armelagos 2013).

Food producers tend to be sedentary, with denser populations, which makes it easier to transmit and maintain diseases. Malaria, sickle-cell anemia, and smallpox all spread along with food production. Population concentrations, especially cities, are breeding grounds for pathogens. Compared with farmers, herders, and city dwellers, foragers were relatively disease free, stress free, and well nourished.

Other hardships and stresses accompanied food production. Social inequality and pov- erty increased (see Flannery and Marcus 2012). Elaborate systems of social stratification eventually replaced the egalitarianism of the past. Resources were no longer common goods, open to all, as they tend to be among foragers. Slavery and other forms of human bondage eventually were invented. Crime, war, and human sacrifice became widespread.

Population increase and the need to expand farming spurred deforestation. Farmers and herders often burn trees, brush, and pasture. Farmers burn to remove weeds; they also use the ashes for fertilizer. Herders burn to promote the growth of new, tender shoots for their livestock. But such practices, as well as the smelting of metals, have environmental costs, including air pollution. Salts, chemicals, and microorganisms ac- cumulate in irrigated fields. Pathogens and pollutants that were nonissues during the Paleolithic endanger growing human populations. To be sure, food production has ben- efits. But its costs are just as evident. Is “progress” an appropriate word to describe food production and its consequences? 

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Anthropology Today Global Climate Change and Other Threats to Archaeology

Global climate change (GCC) involves not only global warming but also weather pat- terns that are becoming more extreme and less predictable. GCC threatens ar- chaeological sites. Andrew Curry (2009) highlights some of those threats, which are summarized here, in locales as di- verse as the Swiss Alps, coastal Peru, Greenland, the Eurasian steppes, California’s Channel Islands, and Africa’s Sahara Desert. The Alps: Recent heat waves have melted Alpine snow and glaciers. This has been both good and bad for archaeol- ogy—good because new sites have been uncovered, bad because thawing can rot remains. In summer 2003, after a record European heat wave, a hiker high in the Alps spotted a leather quiver left there by a Neolithic hunter almost 5,000 years ago. The next summer, that hiker guided

archaeologists back up the mountain, where they found a melting ice patch 260  feet (80 meters) long and 100 feet (30 meters) wide. As that ice pack shrank over two summers of fieldwork, archaeolo- gists recovered both prehistoric and Ro- man remains. The finds show that people have been crossing the Alps for millennia, despite bitter cold and ice (Curry 2009). Coastal Peru: When Spanish conquista- dors arrived in Peru, they noticed a weather phenomenon that occasionally occurred around Christmas. They called it El Niño, or “little boy,” after the Christ child. El Niño occurs every 3 to 10 years, as cur- rents in the Pacific Ocean shift, changing global weather patterns. In Peru, El Niño brings warmer water and heavy rainfall along the coast. Peru’s deserts typically get just over an inch of rain annually. In 1998, a particularly severe El Niño season,

The Peruvian village of Aguas Calientes was flooded by the Vilcanota River in January 2010. Heavy rains and mudslides that year blocked the train route to the nearby ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, leaving nearly 2,000 tourists stranded. ©AFP/Getty Images

Costs and Benefits 193

however, the region got 120 inches (3 me- ters) and serious flooding. Excess water can threaten archaeological sites, many of which are located along rivers or on easily eroded slopes (Curry 2009). Severe flood- ing in 2010 closed Machu Picchu, Peru’s most famous ancient site, to tourism. If GCC leads to more frequent El Niño years, Peru’s archaeological treasures may be further damaged. Greenland: Violent wave action linked to GCC is destroying early coastal sites. Tradi- tionally in summer, Greenland’s coasts have been surrounded by an ice belt 30 to 40 miles (48 to 64 kilometers) wide. This drift- ing ice serves as a shock absorber, damp- ening the strength of the North Atlantic. In the past decade, however, this ice shield has virtually vanished, and Greenland’s coasts are being pounded by huge waves. Most threatened are sites associated with the Thule culture, likely ancestors of the In- uit, whose members reached Greenland about 2,000 years ago. Supported by hunt- ing and fishing, Thule villages were built close to the shore. Today, their ancient homes are disappearing, along with buried tools and artifacts (Curry 2009). Scythian tombs: Between 3,000 and 2,200 years ago, Scythian nomads domi- nated the Eurasian steppes from the Black Sea in the west to China in the east. Huge Scythian burial mounds, called kurgans, have been rich resources for archaeolo- gists. Found from Ukraine to Kazakhstan, some of the best preserved kurgans are located in the Altai Mountains, near Sibe- rian permafrost, where the cold has pro- tected the graves for millennia. The tombs have yielded well-preserved mummies, often with clothing, burial goods, horses, and even stomach contents intact. With GCC, as the mountains warm up and the permafrost melts, the tombs are in danger of thawing and rotting away (Curry 2009).

California’s Channel Islands: Some of the early settlers of the Americas came by boat, island-hopping from Siberia down to the California coast. Some of the best evi- dence for this comes from the Channel Is- lands, which were occupied at least 13,000 years ago by settlers who hunted pygmy mammoths, elephant seals, and sea lions. Human bones found on Santa Rosa Island, radiocarbon-dated to 13,000 B.P., are the oldest human bones yet found in the Americas. At that time, the world was much colder, and the oceans much lower, than today. Rising sea levels now threaten shell middens and coastal rock shelters. As well, coastal winds, waves, storm surges, and even seals can damage coastal sites. GCC now threatens to wipe out clues about how early humans settled the Americas just as researchers have be- gun to focus on the likelihood of coastal migration (Curry 2009). Sudan desertification: Encroaching desert sands increasingly threaten his- toric artwork at Musawwarat es-Sufra, Sudan. More than 2,000 years ago, the rulers of Meroe—a desert kingdom linked to ancient Egypt—constructed a temple complex and pilgrimage site 20 miles (32  kilometers) east of the Nile. Built of soft yellow sandstone, the walls and col- umns of the complex featured hiero- glyphs and elaborate painted reliefs. Dominating the site was the 50-foot-long Temple of the Lion God, decorated with reliefs dedicated to the Meroitic god of fertility. Rising temperatures and overuse have killed off the area’s vegetation, and Saharan sands creep ever closer. The re- liefs suffer heavily from wind erosion, be- cause the soft sandstone abrades easily (Curry 2009). GCC is not, of course, the only current threat to archaeological sites and research. Political events also pose risks. In 2001 in

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Anthropology Today continued

emerging food production and state for- mation in the Middle East, archaeologists turned increasingly to Syria and Turkey. The former country, too, now is off-limits because of political unrest. Fortunately, previously assembled museum collections of human and animal remains outside those countries allow continuing analysis and new insights (e.g., Zeder 2008), even when national borders are closed to new fieldwork. However, archaeologists who manage museum collections increasingly must deal with nations and cultural groups that wish to repatriate remains collected, often a century ago or more, and some- times without proper legal authorization. Can you think of other threats to archaeo- logical sites and research?

Afghanistan the Taliban destroyed a series of pre-Islamic figures, including two monu- mental stone Buddhas, in an attempt to stop the worship of false idols. In 2013, a group of ancient Islamic manuscripts in Mali’s historic city of Timbuktu were threat- ened by a fire caused by fighting between Islamist militants and French troops.  In 2015, members of the Islamic State (known variously as  ISIS, IS, ISIL, and Daesh) de- stroyed architectural ruins—and murdered a prominent Syrian archaeologist—at Palmyra, Syria, a major cultural center of the ancient world. Politics and regime change also can limit archaeological research. Iran and Iraq have been dangerous or off-limits for decades. For on-site investigation of

Summary 1. After 15,000 B.P., as the big-game supply diminished, Mesolithic foragers sought

out new foods. By 11,000 B.P., domesticated plants and animals were part of a broad spectrum of resources used by Middle Easterners. By 7500 B.P., most Middle Easterners were moving away from broad-spectrum foraging toward more special- ized food-producing economies. Neolithic refers to the period when the first signs of domestication appeared.

2. Braidwood proposed that food production began in the hilly flanks zone. Others questioned this: The abundant wild grain supply there already provided an excel- lent diet for the Natufians and other ancient Middle Easterners, who adopted sed- entism before farming. There would have been no incentive to domesticate.

3. Ancient Middle Eastern foragers migrated seasonally in pursuit of game. They also collected wild plant foods as they ripened at different altitudes. As they moved about, these foragers took grains from the hilly flanks zone, where they grew wild, to adjacent areas. Humans became agents of selection, prefer- ring plants with certain attributes. Population spilled over from the hilly flanks into adjacent areas like the piedmont steppe. In such marginal zones, people started cultivating plants. They were trying to duplicate the dense wild grains of the hilly flanks.

Summary 195

4. After the harvest, sheep and goats fed off the stubble of these wild plants. Animal domestication occurred as people started selecting certain features and behavior and guiding the reproduction of goats, sheep, cattle, and pigs. Gradually, food pro- duction spread into the hilly flanks. Later, with irrigation, it spread down into Mesopotamia’s alluvial desert, where the first cities, states, and civilizations devel- oped by 5500 B.P. Food production then spread west from the Middle East into North Africa and Europe and east to Pakistan and India.

5. Excavations at Nabta Playa in southern Egypt provide evidence for the very early (11,000–9300 B.P.) domestication of cattle, and for ceremonialism and social complexity during the African Neolithic. The Neolithic reached Europe through the migration of farmers. Modern Europeans get their DNA from three main sources: pre-Neolithic European hunter-gatherers, farmers from Anatolia (8500 B.P.), and Yamnaya nomads from the Russian steppes (4500 B.P.). The Indus Valley (Pakistan and India) owed its Neolithic economy to diffusion from the Middle East. China developed farming on its own around 10,000 B.P. This happened twice, in northern China based on millet and in southern China based on rice.

6. There were at least seven independent inventions of food production: in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, northern and southern China, Mesoamerica, the south central Andes, and the eastern United States.

7. In the New World, the most important domesticates were maize, potatoes, and manioc. The llama of the central Andes was the largest animal domesticated in the New World, where herding traditions analogous to those of the Old World did not develop. Economic similarities between the hemispheres must be sought in forag- ing and farming.

8. New World farming started in the tropical lowlands of South America, then spread to Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean islands. Cultivation in South America began at about the same time that food production arose in the Middle East—around 10,000 years ago. By 7000 B.P., farming was diffusing from tropical lowlands into drier regions at higher elevations. The specific ancestor of maize, teosinte, grows wild in tropical southwestern Mexico, where maize probably was domesticated around 8000 B.P.

9. Several factors, including a diversity of useful plant and animal species and early sedentism, combined to promote early domestication in the ancient Middle East. The first domesticates spread rapidly across Eurasia, facilitated by climatic simi- larities across a broad territorial expanse. In the Americas, food production spread less rapidly because of north–south contrasts. Another factor that slowed the Neolithic transition in the Americas was the lack of large animals suitable for domestication.

10. Food production and the social and political system it supported brought advan- tages and disadvantages. The advantages included discoveries and inventions. The disadvantages included harder work, poorer health, crime, war, social inequality, and environmental degradation.

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Think Like an Anthropologist

1. Considering that the transition from broad-spectrum foraging to a full Neolithic economy took thousands of years, do you think it’s appropriate to use the word revolution to describe either the Neolithic or the broad-spectrum economy? Can you think of a better word to use?

2. In this chapter, what are some examples of the role geography plays in key events in human history? Geography also affects how we come to know about the past. How so?

Key Terms broad-spectrum revolution, 173

cultivars, 179 hilly flanks, 177 Holocene, 176

Neolithic, 176 sedentism, 178 teosinte, 188

maize, 187 manioc, 187 Mesoamerica, 187 Mesolithic, 173 Natufians, 178

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Chapter 9 The First Cities and States

State Formation Regulation of Hydraulic Economies Regional Trade Population, War, and Circumscription

Attributes of States

State Formation in the Middle East Urban Life An Early Ritual Center The Halafian and Ubaid Periods Social Ranking and Chiefdoms The Rise of the State

Other Early States

State Formation in Mesoamerica Early Chiefdoms and Elites Warfare and State Formation: The Zapotec Case States in the Valley of Mexico

Why States Collapse The Decline of the Maya

Anthropology Today: The Fantastic Claims of Pseudo-Archaeology

State Formation

As Neolithic economies spread, diversified, and became more productive, new political entities, or polities (singular, polity), developed to manage them. The major new politi- cal forms were chiefdoms and states. A chiefdom is a polity with hereditary leaders and a permanent political structure. Some of its people and some of its settlements are ranked above others, and people with higher rank are favored in their access to re- sources. Often in chiefdoms, individuals are ranked in terms of their genealogical dis- tance from the chief. The closer one is to the chief, the greater one’s social importance, but the status distinctions are of degree rather than of kind. Chiefdoms are not divided into clearly defined social classes. Such social stratification is, however, a key feature of the state.

A state is a polity that has a formal, central government and social stratification—a division of society into classes. The first states had formed in Mesopotamia by 5500 B.P. and in Mesoamerica about 3,000 years later. Chiefdoms were precursors to states, with privileged and effective leaders—chiefs—but lacking the sharp class divisions that characterize states. By 7000 B.P. in the Middle East and 3200 B.P. in Mesoamerica, there

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is evidence for what archaeologists call the elite level of social and political organiza- tion, indicating a chiefdom or a state.

How and why did these new polities originate? The development and spread of Neolithic economies fueled population growth and established large group settlements. New tasks, activities, and functions emerged in the larger and denser populations. Sys- tems of political authority and control typically develop to handle regulatory problems that arise as the population grows, social groups proliferate, and the economy increases in scale and diversity.

Primary states are states that formed on their own, rather than through contact with already-established state societies (Wright 1994). Primary states are also known as archaic states or first-generation states. They formed in the context of competition among chiefdoms, as one chiefdom managed to conquer its neighbors and make them part of a larger political unit (Stanish and Levine 2011). Scholars have documented the process of state formation in at least six areas where first-generation states developed: Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus River Valley, northern China, Mesoamerica, and the Andes (Millaire 2010).

A systemic, regional perspective is necessary to understand any case of state forma- tion. Primary states emerge from a regional process that requires a long period (genera- tions) of interaction among competing polities (Stanish and Levine 2011). Furthermore, multiple factors always contribute to state formation, with the effects of one magnifying those of the others.

Regulation of Hydraulic Economies Many factors have played a role in state formation. One such factor has been the need to regulate hydraulic (water-based, e.g., irrigation) systems in societies with agricultural economies (Wittfogel 1957). In arid areas, such as ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, a key role of state officials was to manage systems of irrigation, drainage, and flood control (see Scarre and Fagan 2016). Hydraulic agriculture spurs state formation be- cause it has certain implications. Because it can feed more people, while requiring more labor, irrigated agriculture sustains and fuels population growth, which in turn promotes expansion of the system. With larger and denser concentrations of people, the potential grows for conflict over access to water and irrigated land. Political authorities typically arise to regulate production, as well as to manage interpersonal and inter- group relations. Regulators protect the economy by mobilizing crews to maintain and repair the hydraulic system, and they settle disputes about access to water. These life- and-death functions enhance the authority of state officials. Thus, growth in hydraulic systems is often (as in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Valley of Mexico) but not always associated with state formation.

Regional Trade All states have well-developed trade networks, and regional trade is a key factor that contributes to primary state formation (Stanish and Levine 2011). States may arise to control and regulate key nodes in regional trade networks. Examples include crossroads

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of caravan routes and places (e.g., mountain passes and river narrows) situated to threaten trade between centers. Long-distance trade has been important in the formation of many states, including those of Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, and Peru (Hirth and Pillsbury 2013). Long-distance trade also exists, however, in areas where no primary states developed, such as in Papua New Guinea.

Population, War, and Circumscription Robert Carneiro (1970) saw three key factors as interacting to promote state formation: environmental circumscription, population increase, and warfare. An environment is circumscribed when it has definite boundaries that cut it off from surrounding areas and confine it. Environmental circumscription may be physical or social. Physically circumscribed environments include small islands and, in arid areas, river plains, oases, and valleys with streams—areas surrounded by some sort of physical or geo- graphic boundary. Social circumscription exists when neighboring societies block expansion, emigration, or access to resources. When resources are concentrated in a limited area—even when no obstacles to migration exist—the effects are similar to those of circumscription.

Coastal Peru, usually one of the world’s most arid areas, illustrates the interaction of environmental circumscription, warfare, and population increase. The earliest cultiva- tion there was limited to valleys with springs. Each valley was circumscribed by the Andes Mountains to the east, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and desert regions to the north and south (see Millaire 2010). The advent of food production triggered population increase, leading to bigger villages in each valley. Colonists split off from the old vil- lages and founded new ones. With more villages and people, a scarcity of land devel- oped. Rivalries and raiding arose among villages in the same valley.

Because the valleys were circumscribed, when one village conquered another, the losers had to submit to the winners—they had nowhere else to go. Conquered villagers were allowed to keep their land only by paying tribute to their conquerors. To do this, they had to intensify production, using new techniques to produce more food. By working harder, they managed to pay tribute while meeting their own sub- sistence needs. Villagers brought new areas under cultivation by means of irrigation and terracing.

Those early Peruvians didn’t work harder because they chose to do so. They were forced to pay tribute, accept political domination, and intensify production by factors beyond their control. Once established, all these trends accelerated. Population contin- ued to grow, warfare intensified, and villages eventually were incorporated into chief- doms. Remember that primary states emerge in the context of competition among chiefdoms. State formation occurred when one chiefdom in a valley succeeded in con- quering and incorporating the others (Carneiro 1990; Stanish and Levine 2011). Eventu- ally, the states based in different valleys began to fight. The winners brought the losers into growing states and empires, which eventually expanded from the coast to the high- lands. (An empire is a mature state that is large, multiethnic, militaristic, and expan- sive.) By the 16th century, from their capital, Cuzco, in the high Andes, the Inca ruled one of the major empires of the tropics.

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The combination of population increase, warfare, and circumscription does not al- ways lead to state formation. In highland Papua New Guinea, for example, valleys that were socially or physically circumscribed had population densities close to those of many states. Warfare also was present, but no states emerged. Whether states would have formed eventually will never be known, because European conquest truncated au- tonomous development there.

Whenever state formation occurred, the interacting causes, such as irrigation, popu- lation increase, or regional trade, magnified each other’s effects. Key factors in state formation are changes in patterns of control over resources, resulting in social stratifica- tion, and increasing regulatory concerns, fostering management by state machinery. Different agencies arise to handle particular tasks and concerns. We must also remem- ber that food production did not always lead to chiefdoms and states. Many societies with Neolithic economies never developed even chiefdoms. Similarly, there are chief- doms that never developed into states, just as certain foragers never adopted food pro- duction, even when they knew about it.

Attributes of States

The following attributes (from Fagan 1996) distinguish states from earlier forms of society:

1. Early states arose from competition among chiefdoms, as the most powerful chief- dom conquered the others, extended its rule over a larger territory, and managed to hold on to, and rule, the land and people acquired through conquest. Any state controls a specific regional territory, such as the Nile Valley or the Valley of Mexico. The regional expanse of a state contrasts with the smaller territories controlled by villages, kin groups, and chiefdoms in prestate societies. 

2. Early states had productive agricultural economies, supporting dense populations, often in cities. Those economies usually featured some form of water control or irrigation.

3. Early states used tribute and taxation to accumulate, at a central place or treasury, resources needed to support hundreds, or thousands, of specialists. Among the specialists supported by that treasury were the state’s rulers, its military, and other government officials.

4. States are stratified into social classes. In the first states, the non-food-producing population consisted of a tiny elite, plus artisans, officials, priests, and other spe- cialists. Most people were commoners. Slaves and prisoners constituted the lowest rung of the social ladder. Rulers stayed in power by combining personal ability, religious authority, economic control, and force.

5. Early states had imposing public buildings and monumental architecture, including temples, palaces, and storehouses.

6. Early states developed some form of record-keeping system, frequently a written script.

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State Formation in the Middle East

In Chapter 8, we saw that Neolithic economies emerged in the ancient Middle East be- tween 12,000 and 10,000 B.P.  In the ensuing process of change, the center of population growth shifted from the zone where wheat and barley grew wild to adjacent areas where those grains were first domesticated. By 6000 B.P., population was increasing most rap- idly in the alluvial plain of southern Mesopotamia. (Mesopotamia refers to the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now southern Iraq and southwestern Iran.) This growing population supported itself through irrigation and intensive river valley agriculture. The first Middle Eastern towns had appeared around 10,000 B.P. By 5500 B.P., towns had grown into cities. The earliest city-states were Sumer (southern Iraq) and Elam (southwestern Iran), with their capitals at Uruk (Warka) and Susa, respectively (see Potts 2015).

Urban Life In the earliest settlements, houses of mud brick were built and rebuilt in the same place over the generations. Substantial tells, or mounds, arose from the debris of a succession of such houses (see Menez and Ur 2012). These sites have yielded remains of ancient com- munity life, including streets, buildings, terraces, courtyards, wells, and other artifacts. 

Early states had hereditary rulers and a military, with the rulers often playing a military role. Rulers stayed in power by combining personal ability, religious authority, economic control, and the privileged use of force. Shown here is a detail from the painted casket of Egypt’s Tutankhamun, the famous “King Tut,” who ruled between 1332 and 1323 B.C.E. ©Roger Wood/Corbis

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The earliest known town was Jericho, located in what now is Israel, at a well-watered oasis near the Dead Sea (see Figure 9.1). From the lowest (oldest) level, we know that around 11,000 years ago, Jericho was first settled by Natufian foragers. Occupation continued thereafter, through and beyond biblical times (Laughlin 2006).

Soon after the Natufians, the earliest town rose up as an unplanned, densely popu- lated settlement with round houses and about 2,000 people. Surrounding that town was a sturdy wall with a massive tower. The wall may have been built initially as a flood barrier rather than for defense. Around 9000 B.P., Jericho was destroyed, to be rebuilt later. The rebuilt town featured square houses with finished plaster floors. Its people buried their dead beneath their homes, a pattern seen at other sites, such as Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, Turkey (see the following paragraph). Pottery reached Jericho around 8000 B.P.

Long-distance trade, especially of obsidian, a volcanic glass used to make tools and ornaments, became important in the Middle East between 9500 and 7000 B.P. One town that prospered from that trade was Çatalhöyük (Fowler 2011; Hodder 2013). A grassy mound 65 feet (20 meters) high holds the remains of this 9,000-year-old town, probably the largest settlement of the Neolithic age. Çatalhöyük was located on a river, which deposited rich soil for crops, created a lush environment for animals, and was harnessed for irrigation by 7000 B.P. Over the mound’s 32 acres (12.9 hectares), up to 10,000 people once lived in crowded mud-brick houses packed so tightly that residents entered from their roofs.

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FIGURE 9.1 Sites in Middle Eastern State Formation

State Formation in the Middle East 203

Shielded by a defensive wall, Çatalhöyük flourished between 8000 and 7000 B.P. Its mud-brick dwellings, rarely larger than an American bedroom, had separate areas for ritual and secular uses. In a given house, the ritual images (wall paintings) were placed along the walls that faced north, east, or west, but never south. That area was reserved for cooking and other domestic tasks. The wall paintings depicted bulls surrounded by stick figures running, dancing, and sometimes throwing stones. Vultures attacked head- less humans. These images and their placement are reminiscent of Paleolithic cave art. The dwellings at Çatalhöyük were entered through the roof, and people had to crawl through holes from room to room, somewhat like moving between chambers in a cave. The deeper down one went, the richer the art became. The town’s spiritual life seems to have revolved around a preoccupation with animals, danger, and death, perhaps related to the site’s hunter-gatherer past.

Two or three generations of a family were buried beneath their homes. In one dwell- ing, archaeologists found remains of 17 individuals, mostly children. After two or three generations of family burials, the dwelling was burned. The site was then covered with fine dirt and a floor laid for a new dwelling.

Çatalhöyük’s residents, although they lived in a town, acted independently in family groups without any apparent control by a priestly or political elite. The town never became a full-fledged city with centralized organization. Just as it lacked priests, Çatalhöyük never had leaders who controlled or managed trade and production. Food was stored and processed not collectively but on a smaller, domestic scale (Fowler 2011; Hodder 2013). 

An Early Ritual Center Göbekli Tepe is a remarkable archaeological site in southeastern Turkey that has be- come a major tourist attraction, despite its proximity to a crossing point for Syrian refugees fleeing into Turkey. Dated to 11,600 B.P., Göbekli Tepe provides the world’s earliest evidence for monumental architecture. The site, a ceremonial center, which remains only partially excavated, was discovered in 1994, but the most significant findings have been published in and after 2008 (see Curry 2008, 2016; Flannery and Marcus 2012).

Göbekli Tepe was a ritual center, rather than a village or town. Located atop a high limestone ridge, the site apparently was chosen so that massive limestone blocks could be quarried from the ridgetop and used to make upright posts or pillars for ritual houses. The site is particularly remarkable because it was built by hunter-gatherers. Other known prehistoric megalithic (massive stone) sites, such as Stonehenge, Easter Island, and the Olmec centers (see later in this chapter), were built much later than Göbekli Tepe, and by chiefdoms rather than foragers.

Göbekli Tepe’s ancient architects looked out onto a well-watered riverine plain that offered an abundance of resources to broad-spectrum foragers. There for the taking were herds of gazelles, cattle, and other wild game; fruit and nut trees; migratory water fowl; and dense stands of wild wheat. Somehow those ancient foragers marshaled the labor to construct and reconstruct these ritual houses over the centuries—from about 11,600 B.P. until around 8200 B.P. They used flint tools to carve massive T-shaped limestone pillars, the tallest of which stood 18 feet (5.5 meters) and weighed 16 tons (14.5 metric tons).

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The buildings at Göbekli Tepe may have been maintained by multiple clans or de- scent groups, each of which built its own ritual house. The earliest buildings were round or oval; later they would become rectangular. The lower half of each building was subterranean, with stone masonry walls. A sitting bench ran the length of the in- terior, except for the doorway.  The most distinctive feature of each building was the pair of huge T-shaped pillars that supported the roof. Those two pillars were set in the center of the floor, with a ring of slightly smaller pillars set into the walls. Many of the pillars were carved in low relief with images of animals: boars, cattle, ducks, foxes, herons, lions, scorpions, and snakes. Some of the pillars have carvings of what may have been mythical human ancestors. The animal carvings may refer to origin myths. Some pillars showed signs of having had earlier images ground off, so that new ones could be carved. The owners of these ritual houses eventually abandoned them, filling them in with dirt—perhaps to preclude their appropriation by outsiders (Flannery and Marcus 2012). The marshalling of human labor demonstrated at Göbekli Tepe foreshadows processes and events that would become much more com- mon in chiefdoms and states.

The Halafian and Ubaid Periods The first Middle Eastern pottery (ceramics) dates back a bit more than 8,000 years, and by 7000 B.P., pottery had become widespread. Archaeologists consider pottery shape, finishing, decoration, and type of clay as features used for dating. Wide geographic distribution of a given pottery style may indicate trade, alliance, or a polity spanning a large area at a particular time.

Dated to 11,600 B.P., Göbekli Tepe is an important archaeological site in southeastern Turkey. Built by hunter-gatherers, Göbekli Tepe, a ritual center, provides the world’s earliest evidence for monumental architecture. Photo by Klaus Schmidt, DAI (German Archaeological Institute)

State Formation in the Middle East 205

An early widespread pottery style, the Halafian, was first found at Tell Halaf in northern Syria. Halafian (7500–6000 B.P.) refers to a delicate ceramic style. It also describes the period during which the first chiefdoms emerged (by 7000 B.P.). The low number of Halafian ceramics at each site suggests they were luxury goods associated with a social hierarchy.

The partially overlapping Ubaid period (7000–6000 B.P.) is named for a southern Mesopotamian pottery type first discovered at a small site, Tell el-’Ubaid, near the ma- jor city of Ur in southern Iraq. Ubaid pottery is associated with advanced chiefdoms and perhaps the earliest states. It diffused rapidly over a large area, becoming much more widespread than the Halafian style.

Archaeological research focusing on the Ubaid period farther north, in northern Syria, has found evidence for emerging urbanism dating back more than 6,000 years. At a site known as Tell Zeidan, American and Syrian investigators uncovered an array of artifacts from an ancient town on the upper Euphrates River. People occupied this site for two millennia, until 6000 B.P. The site featured houses with mud-brick walls, floors with hearths, painted pottery, stone seals, kilns, and obsidian blades. There also is evi- dence suggesting the emergence of irrigated agriculture, long-distance trade, political leadership, and social differentiation (Wilford 2010).

For a time, although blocked by war and politics from Iraq and Iran (with their prime sites of Mesopotamian antiquity), archaeologists could still work in Syria. They turned their attention to the upper river valleys, across the border from Iraq in Syria and south- ern Turkey (see Hodder 2006; Wilford 2010). Unfortunately, recent political chaos has impeded further archaeological research in Syria, leaving Turkey as today’s prime locus for research on Neolithic transformations and the emergence of social complexity in the Middle East (see Özdoğan, Başğelen, and Kuniholm 2011).

Social Ranking and Chiefdoms The anthropologist Morton Fried (1960) defined three kinds of societies, based on the degree of status differentiation within each type. An egalitarian society, most typically found among foragers, has few status distinctions. It makes those distinc- tions based only on age, gender, and individual talents or achievements. Thus, de- pending on the society, adult men, elder women, talented musicians, or ritual specialists might have somewhat higher status because of their activities or knowledge. In egalitarian societies, status distinctions are not usually inherited. Children of a respected person get no special recognition because of their parent; they have to earn it on their own.

Fried’s second type of society, the  ranked society, does have hereditary inequality, but it lacks stratification—clearly defined social classes. In a ranked society, individuals often are ranked according to their genealogical distance from the chief. Refining Fried’s typology, Carneiro (1991) points out that we should distinguish between two kinds of ranked society. In type 1, individuals are ranked, but villages are independent (autonomous) of one another. In type 2, both individuals and villages are ranked, and there is loss of village autonomy. Smaller villages, no longer independent, have come under the authority of leaders who live in larger, higher-ranked, villages. According to Kent Flannery (1999), only this second type of ranked society, featuring loss of village

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autonomy, should be called a chiefdom. Chiefdoms are marked by differences in rank among both individuals and communities.

Fried’s third type of society is the stratified society. It is based on social stratification— the organization of society into sharp social divisions—strata—based on unequal access to socially valued resources. The upper classes have privileged access to wealth and power, while the lower classes have inferior access. In stratified societies, class status often is hereditary. In early state-organized societies, the social classes were often nobles, common- ers, and slaves. Table 9.1 lists key features and examples of egalitarian, ranked (two types), and stratified societies.

The first chiefdoms had developed in the Middle East by 7300 B.P. By that date, the archaeological record confirms behavior typical of chiefdoms, including exotic goods used as markers of status, along with raiding and political instability. Early chiefdoms included both the Halafian culture of northern Iraq and the Ubaid culture of southern

TABLE 9.1 Egalitarian, Ranked, and Stratified Societies

Kind of Status Distinction

Nature of Status

Common Form of Subsistence Economy

Common Forms of Social Organization Examples

Egalitarian Status distinctions are not inherited. Status is based on age, gender, and individual qualities, talents, and achievements.

Foraging Bands and tribes

Inuit, Ju/’hoansi San, and Yanomami

Ranked Horticulture, pastoralism, and some foraging groups

Chiefdoms and some states

Type 1 Status distinctions are distributed along a continuum and inherited; independent villages.

Salish, Kwakiutl (Pacific North- west)

Type 2 Status distinctions are distributed along a continuum and inherited; loss of village autonomy, ranked villages.

Halafian and Ubaid period polities, Olmec, Cauca (Colombia), Natchez (eastern U.S.)

Stratified Status distinctions are inherited and divided sharply between classes.

Agriculture States Teotihuacán, Uruk period states, Inca, Shang dynasty, Rome, United States, Great Britain

State Formation in the Middle East 207

Iraq, which spread north. Those chiefdoms left behind cemeteries where high-status people were buried with distinctive items: vessels, statuettes, necklaces, and high-quality ceramics. Such goods were buried with children too young to have earned prestige on their own, who happened to be born into elite families. In the ancient village of Tell es-Sawwan, infant graves show a continuum of richness from six statuettes, to three statuettes, to one statuette, to none. Such signs of slight gradations in social status are exactly what one expects in ranked societies.

These burials demonstrate that hereditary status distinctions were present in the Middle East by 7300 B.P. But had chiefdoms (as opposed to type 1 ranked societies) formed? Had the leaders of large villages extended their authority to the smaller villages nearby? One line of evidence for such loss of village autonomy is that a common canal was used to irrigate several villages. This suggests a way of resolving disputes among farmers over access to water, for example, by appeal to a strong leader—a chief. Further evidence for the loss of village autonomy is the emergence of a two-tier settlement hier- archy, with small villages clustering around a large village, especially one with public buildings. This settlement pattern was present in northern Mesopotamia during the Halafian period.

The Rise of the State It’s easy for archaeologists to identify early states, which emerged in the Middle East between 6000 and 5500 B.P. Evidence for state organization includes monumental archi- tecture, aqueducts, central storehouses, and written records. By 5700 B.P. in southern Mesopotamia, an expanding population and increased food production from irrigation were drastically altering the social landscape. Irrigation had allowed Ubaid communi- ties to spread along the Euphrates River. Travel and trade were expanding, with water serving as the highway system. Raw materials such as hardwood and stone, which southern Mesopotamia lacked, were imported via river routes.  Social and economic networks now linked communities on the rivers in the south and in the foothills to the north. Social differentiation also increased. Priests and political leaders joined expert potters and other specialists. These non-food-producers were supported by the larger population of farmers and herders.

Economies were being managed by central leadership. Agricultural villages had grown into cities, some of which were ruled by local kings. The Uruk period (6000– 5200 B.P.), which succeeded the Ubaid period, takes its name from a prominent southern city-state (see Table 9.2). The Uruk period established Mesopotamia as “the cradle of civilization.”

The first writing, which originated in Sumer, southern Mesopotamia, presumably developed to handle record keeping, for example, of trade transactions. Rulers, no- bles, priests, and merchants were the first to benefit from it. Writing had spread from Mesopotamia to Egypt by 5000 B.P. The earliest writing was pictographic, for exam- ple, with pictorial symbols of horses used to represent them. Early Mesopotamian scribes used a stylus (writing implement) to scrawl symbols on raw clay. This writing left a wedge-shaped impression on the clay, called cuneiform writing, from the Latin word for “wedge.” Both the Sumerian (southern Mesopotamia) and Akkadian (north- ern Mesopotamia) languages were written in cuneiform.

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Writing and temples played key roles in the Mesopotamian economy. For the his- torical period after 5600 B.P., when writing was invented, there are temple records of economic activities. States can exist without writing, but literacy facilitates the flow and storage of information. As the economy expanded, trade, manufacture, herding, and grain storage were centrally managed. Temples collected and distributed meat, dairy products, crops, fish, clothing, tools, and trade items. Potters, metalworkers, weavers, sculptors, and other artisans perfected their crafts.

Prior to the invention of metallurgy (knowledge of the properties of metals, in- cluding their extraction and processing and the manufacture of metal tools), raw cop- per was shaped by hammering. If copper is hammered too long, it hardens and becomes brittle, with a risk of cracking. But once heated (annealed) in a fire, copper becomes malleable again. Such annealing of copper was an early form of metallurgy. A vital step for metallurgy was the discovery of smelting, the high-temperature pro- cess by which pure metal is produced from an ore. Ores, including copper ore, have a much wider distribution than does native copper, which initially was traded as a luxury good because of its rarity.

When and how smelting was discovered is unknown. But after 5000 B.P., metallurgy evolved rapidly. The Bronze Age began when alloys of arsenic and copper, or tin and copper (in both cases known as bronze), became common and greatly extended the use of metals. Bronze flows more easily than copper does when heated to a similar tem- perature, so bronze was more convenient for metal casting. Early molds were carved in stone, as shaped depressions to be filled with molten metal. A copper ax cast from such a mold has been found in northern Mesopotamia and predates 5000 B.P. Thereafter, other metals came into common use. By 4500 B.P., golden objects were being placed in royal burials at Ur.

Iron ore is distributed more widely than is copper ore. Iron, when smelted, can be used on its own; there is no need for tin or arsenic to make a metal alloy (bronze). The Iron Age began once high-temperature iron smelting was mastered. In the Old World

TABLE 9.2 Archaeological Periods in Middle Eastern State Formation

Dates Period Advent of

3000–2539 B.P. Neo-Babylonian Iron Age 3600–3000 B.P. Kassite 4000–3600 B.P. Old Babylonian Bronze Age 4150–4000 B.P. Third Dynasty of Ur 4350–4150 B.P. Akkadian 4600–4350 B.P. Early Dynastic III 4750–4600 B.P. Early Dynastic II 5000–4750 B.P. Early Dynastic I 5200–5000 B.P. Jemdet Nasr 6000–5200 B.P. Uruk Chalcolithic 7500–6000 B.P. Ubaid (southern Mesopotamia)–

Halafian (northern Mesopotamia) 10,000–7000 B.P. Neolithic

State Formation in the Middle East 209

after 3200 B.P., iron spread rapidly. Formerly valued as highly as gold, iron crashed in value when it became plentiful.

The Mesopotamian economy, based on intensive agriculture, craft production, and trade, spurred population growth and an increase in urbanism. Sumerian cities were protected by a fortress wall and surrounded by a farming area. By 4800 B.P., Uruk, the largest early Mesopotamian city, had a population of 50,000. As irrigation and the popu- lation expanded, communities fought over water. People sought protection in the forti- fied cities (Adams 2008), which could defend themselves when threatened.

By 4600 B.P., secular authority had replaced temple rule. The office of military coor- dinator developed into kingship. This change shows up architecturally in palaces and royal tombs. The palace raised armies and supplied them with armor, chariots, and metal armaments. At Ur’s royal cemetery, by 4600 B.P., monarchs were being buried with soldiers, charioteers, and ladies in waiting. These subordinates were killed at the time of royal burial to accompany the monarch to the afterworld.

Agricultural intensification made it possible for the number of people supported by a given area to increase. Population pressure on irrigated fields helped create a stratified society. Land became scarce private property that was bought and sold. Some people amassed large estates, and their wealth set them off from ordinary farmers. These land- lords joined the urban elite, while sharecroppers and serfs toiled in the fields. By 4600 B.P., Mesopotamia had a well-defined class structure, with complex stratification into nobles, commoners, and slaves.

Early Mesopotamian scribes used a stylus to scrawl symbols on raw clay. This writing, called cuneiform, left a wedge-shaped impression on the clay. What languages were written in cuneiform? Source: LACMA - Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

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Other Early States

The Indus River Valley state takes its name from the river valley along which it ex- tended. Located in what is today northwestern India and adjacent Pakistan, the major cities of that state were Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. (Figure 9.2 maps the four great early river valley states of the Old World: Mesopotamia, Egypt, India/Pakistan, and northern China.) Trade and the spread of writing from Mesopotamia may have played a role in the emergence of the Indus River Valley state around 4600 B.P. The ruins of the ancient city of Harappa, located in Pakistan’s Punjab Province, were the first to be iden- tified as part of that civilization. At its peak, the Indus River Valley state incorporated 1,000 cities, towns, and villages and spanned 280,000 square miles (725,000 square ki- lometers). This state, which flourished between 4600 and 3900 B.P., featured urban planning, social stratification, and an early, and as yet undeciphered, writing system. The Indus state maintained a uniform system of weights. Its cities had carefully planned residential areas with waste-water systems. Sophisticated craft industries produced an array of products, including ceramic vessels made on potter’s wheels (Meadow and Kenoyer 2000).

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FIGURE 9.2 The Four Great Early River Valley States of the Old World By approximately 4000 B.P., urban life had been established along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia, the Nile River in Egypt, the Indus and Ganges Rivers in India/Pakistan, and the Yellow River in China. Source: A. M. Craig, W. A. Graham, D. M. Kagan, S. Ozment, and F. M. Turner, Heritage of World Civilizations, Volume 1 to 1650, 4th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pearson Education, 1997, map 1-1. Copyright © 1997.

Other Early States 211

The Indus River Valley state collapsed, apparently because of warfare, around 3900 B.P. Its cities were destroyed and abandoned. Skeletons of massacre victims have been found in the streets of Mohenjo-daro. Harappa continued to be occupied but on a much smaller scale (Meadow and Kenoyer 2000). (For more on the Harappa Archaeo- logical Research Project, visit http://www.harappa.com.)

The first Chinese state, dating to 3750 B.P., was that of the Shang dynasty. It arose in the Yellow River area of northern China, where wheat had replaced millet as the dietary staple. This state was characterized by urbanism, palatial (as well as domestic) architec- ture, human sacrifice, and a sharp division between social classes. Burials of the aristoc- racy were marked by ornaments of stone, including jade. The Shang had bronze metallurgy and an elaborate writing system. In warfare they used chariots and took prisoners.

As in Mesopotamia and China, many other early civilizations came to rely on metal- lurgy. In the Peruvian Andes, for example, metalworking appeared around 4000 B.P. An- cient Andeans were skilled workers of bronze, copper, and gold. They also are well known for their pottery. Their arts, crafts, and agricultural knowledge compared well with those of Mesoamerica at its height, to which we now turn. Note that both Meso- american and Andean state formation were truncated by Spanish conquest. The Aztecs of Mexico were conquered in 1519 C.E. (formerly A.D.); the Inca of Peru, in 1532 (see Marcus and Williams 2009; Quitter 2014).

Overlooking the Indus River Valley, where an ancient civilization flourished between 4600 and 3900 B.P., ruins of India’s Lamayuru Monastery occupy the higher part of a hill, with local houses below, closer to the road. ©David Samuel Robbins/Corbis

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State Formation in Mesoamerica

In Chapter 8, we examined the independent inventions of farming in the Middle East and Mesoamerica. The processes of state formation that took place in these areas also were comparable, beginning with ranked societies and chiefdoms and ending with fully formed states and empires. The first monumental buildings (temple complexes) in the Western Hemisphere were constructed by Mesoamerican chiefdoms in many areas, from the Val- ley of Mexico to Guatemala (see Evans 2013). These chiefdoms influenced one another as they traded materials, such as obsidian, shells, jade, and pottery. (Figure 9.3 maps major sites in the emergence of Mesoamerican food production, chiefdoms, and states.)

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Kaminaljuyu

FIGURE 9.3 Major Sites in the Emergence of Food Production and the State in Mesoamerica

State Formation in Mesoamerica 213

Early Chiefdoms and Elites The Olmec built a series of ritual centers on Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast between 3,200 and 2,500 years ago. Three of these centers, each from a different century, are known. Earthen mounds were grouped into plaza complexes, presumably for religious use. Such centers show that Olmec chiefs could marshal human labor to construct such mounds. The Olmec also were master sculptors; they carved massive stone heads, per- haps as images of their chiefs or their ancestors.

There is evidence, too, that regional trade linked the Olmec with other parts of Me- soamerica, including the Oaxaca Valley. By 3000 B.P. (1000 B.C.E.—formerly B.C.), a ruling elite had emerged in Oaxaca (see the next section). The items traded between Oaxaca and the Olmec were for elite consumption. High-status Oaxacans wore mussel- shell ornaments from the coast. In return, the Olmec elites got mirrors and jade made by Oaxacan artisans. Oaxacan chiefdoms developed irrigation systems, exported magnetite mirrors, and were precocious in their use of adobes (mud bricks), stucco, stone masonry, and architecture. Olmec chiefdoms farmed river levees, built mounds of earth, and carved colossal stone heads. Other early Mexican chiefdoms also had skilled artists and builders, who used adobes and plaster and constructed stone buildings precisely ori- ented 8 degrees north of east—a positioning assumed to have had some sort of ritual significance.

The period between 3200 and 3000 B.P. (1200–1000 B.C.E.) was one of rapid social change in Mesoamerica. Its many chiefdoms were concentrating labor power, intensify- ing agriculture, exchanging trade goods, and borrowing ideas, including art motifs and styles, from each other. Archaeologists now believe it was the intensity of competitive interaction—rather than the supremacy of any one chiefdom—that made social change so rapid. The social and political landscape of Mexico around 3000 B.P. (1000 B.C.E.) was one in which 25 or so chiefly centers were (1) sufficiently separate and autonomous to adapt to local zones and conditions and (2) sufficiently interactive and competitive to  borrow and incorporate new ideas and innovations as they arose in other regions (Flannery and Marcus 2000).

It used to be thought that a single chiefdom could become a state on its own. Archae- ologists know now that state formation typically involves one chiefdom’s incorporating several others into the emerging state it controls, and making changes in its own infra- structure as it acquires and holds on to new territories, followers, and goods. Waging warfare and attracting followers are two key elements in state formation (see Stanish and  Levine 2011). (This chapter’s “Anthropology Today” debunks popular pseudo- archaeological theories about the origin of Mesoamerican civilization.)

Many chiefdoms have dense populations, intensive agriculture, and settlement hier- archies that include hamlets, villages, and perhaps towns. These factors pave the way for greater social and political complexity as states begin to form. Political leaders emerge, and military success often solidifies their position. Such figures attract lots of followers, loyal to their leader. Conquest warfare brings in new territories and subjects. Unlike chiefdoms, states can acquire labor and land and hold on to them. States have armies, warfare, developed political hierarchies, law codes, and military force, which can be used in fact or as a threat.

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Olmec and Oaxaca were just two among many flamboyant early Mexican chiefdoms that once thrived in the area from the Valley of Mexico to Guatemala (see Figure 9.3). Oaxaca went on to develop a state a bit earlier than the Teotihuacán state of the Valley of Mexico. Oaxaca and other highland areas came to overshadow the Olmec area and the Mesoamerican lowlands in general. We turn now to the process of state formation that unfolded in Oaxaca among its Zapotec people.

Warfare and State Formation: The Zapotec Case The first Mesoamerican state, the Zapotec state, arose in the Valley of Oaxaca. The city of Monte Albán served as capital of this Zapotec polity for 1,200 years, between 500 B.C.E. and 700 C.E. The polity was a chiefdom from about 500 B.C.E. to 100 B.C.E. and after that a state that lasted 800 years—from 100 B.C.E. to 700 C.E.

As has been noted previously, warfare plays a key role in primary state formation. In the Valley of Oaxaca, armed conflict began as village-on-village raiding, with killing, burning, and captive taking but no permanent acquisition of territory (Flannery and Marcus 2003b). A monument from the Oaxacan site of San José Mogote, erected no later than 500 B.C.E., is the earliest reliably dated monument with writing in Meso- america. It depicts a named, sacrificed captive, likely a rival chief. The first evidence for organized conquest warfare in Oaxaca occurs four centuries later, simultaneously with evidence for state formation. This co-occurrence supports the idea of a causal link be- tween conquest warfare and state formation (Spencer 2003, 2010).

As states emerge and grow, they develop an internally specialized, administrative organization—a bureaucracy. Chiefdoms, by contrast, lack such administrative special- ization. States have at least four levels of decision making (Wright 1977). The center, or capital, establishes subsidiary administrative centers (Elson 2007). The result is a nested structure of secondary, tertiary, and even quaternary centers. Population size tends to follow this administrative structure. A key difference between chiefdoms and states is that states typically have at least a four-level hierarchy of settlements according to both administrative functions and population size. Chiefdoms have no more than three levels (Spencer 2003, 2010).

Three of more than 300 carved stones depicting slain war captives at the important archaeological site of Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico. Dated to 500–400 B.C.E., these images originally were set in the Prisoner Gallery of Monte Albán’s Building L. This huge display of slain enemies was a form of political and military propaganda. The carved stones warned potential rivals what would happen if they defied Monte Albán. ©DEA/G. Dagli Orti/Getty Images

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Conquest warfare helps the state build its bureaucracy. An expansive state must send delegates, such as soldiers, governors, and other officials, to subjugate and rule in dis- tant territories. Lacking such bureaucrats, chiefdoms can’t do this, which means that the geographic range of chiefly authority is smaller than in a state. According to Spencer (2003, 2010), the limit of a chiefdom’s range is half a day’s travel from its center. States, however, can transcend such limits and carry out long-distance conquests. Archaeologi- cal evidence for conquest warfare includes burned and abandoned villages; specialized forts and administrative outposts; and forced changes in the economic, social, and reli- gious behaviors of subjugated peoples.

The conquest of polities in distant regions, coupled with regularized tribute exaction, can bring about a transition from chiefdom to state (Spencer 2003, 2010). For such a strategy to succeed (especially when the conquered polities lie more than a half-day’s trip away), the conquering state has to send agents to the subjugated areas. Generals and bureaucrats are needed not only to carry out the subjugation but also to maintain long-term control and to manage tribute collection. Given its need to rely on distant representatives, the state’s central leadership promotes internal administrative specialization and loyalty. Tribute provides new resources to support this administrative transformation. The conquest of distant polities and bureaucratic growth were integral parts of the process of Zapotec state formation.

Typically, state bureaucracies occupy a group of administrative buildings, especially at the capital. Thus, surrounding the Main Plaza at Monte Albán were specialized build- ings, including palaces, temples, and ball courts. Hieroglyphs on one building in Monte Albán’s Main Plaza record how outlying areas were acquired. We learn that although the Zapotec state had managed to conquer distant regions to the north, west, and southwest, certain areas to the east and south managed to resist for centuries.

By 30–20 B.C.E., the Zapotec state, from its capital at Monte Albán, presided over a fully developed four-tier settlement hierarchy (see Elson 2007), which it maintained for several hundred years. Eventually, Monte Albán lost its prominence, as other Zapotec centers successfully challenged its authority. After 700 C.E. (formerly A.D. 700), the Zapotec state fragmented into a series of smaller centers, or principalities, alternately vying for supremacy through continued warfare and peaceful alliances through mar- riage (Flannery and Marcus 2003a; Marcus 1989).

States in the Valley of Mexico During the first century C.E., the Valley (Basin) of Mexico, located in the highlands where Mexico City now stands, rose to prominence in Mesoamerican state formation. In this large valley, Teotihuacán flourished between 100 and 700 C.E.

The valley is actually a large basin surrounded by mountains; it has rich volcanic soils, but rainfall isn’t always reliable. The northern valley, where the huge city and state of Teotihuacán eventually arose, is colder and drier than the south. Frosts limited farm- ing in that area until quick-growing varieties of maize were developed. Until 500 B.C.E., most people lived in the southern part of the valley, where rainfall made farming pos- sible. After 500 B.C.E., new maize varieties and small-scale irrigation appeared. The population increased and began to spread north (see Carballo 2016).

By 1 C.E., Teotihuacán was a town of 10,000 people. It presided over a state whose territory spanned a few thousand square kilometers and included some 50,000 people (Cowgill 2015; Parsons 1974). Teotihuacán’s growth reflected its agricultural potential.

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Perpetual springs permitted irrigation of a large alluvial plain. Rural farmers supplied food for the growing urban population. By this time, a clear settlement hierarchy had emerged. This is a ranked series of communities that differ in size, function, and build- ing types. The settlements at the top of the hierarchy were political and religious centers. Those at the bottom were rural villages.

Along with state organization went large-scale irrigation, status differentiation, and complex architecture. Teotihuacán developed as a planned city built on a grid pattern, with the Pyramid of the Sun at its center. By 500 C.E., the population of Teotihuacán had reached 130,000, making it larger than imperial Rome. Farmers were one of its diverse specialized groups, along with artisans, merchants, and political, religious, and military personnel.

After 700 C.E., Teotihuacán, like the Zapotec state, declined in size and power. By 900 C.E., its population had shrunk to 30,000. Between 900 and 1200 C.E., the Toltec period, the population scattered, and small cities and towns sprang up throughout the valley. People also left the Valley of Mexico to live in larger cities—like Tula, the Toltec capital—on its edge (see Figure 9.3).

Population increase (including immigration by the ancestors of the Aztecs) and urban growth returned to the Valley of Mexico between 1200 and 1520 C.E. During the Aztec period (1325 to 1520 C.E.) there were several cities, the largest of which—Tenochtitlán, the capital—may have surpassed Teotihuacán at its height (see Gonlin and French 2015). A dozen Aztec towns had more than 10,000 people. Fueling this population growth was intensification of agriculture, particularly in the southern part of the valley, where the drainage of lake bottoms and swamps added new cultivable land.

Another factor in the renaissance of the Valley of Mexico was trade. The major towns and markets were located on lakeshores, with easy access to canoe traffic (see Hirth 2016). The Aztec capital stood on an island in the lake. In Tenochtitlán, the production of luxury goods was more prestigious and more highly organized than that of pottery

The layout of Teotihuacán in the Valley of Mexico. Teotihuacán is one of the most important archaeological sites in the Americas. At its height around 500 C.E., the city was larger than imperial Rome. The mobilization of manual labor to build such a city is one of the costs of state organization. ©aerialarchives.com/Alamy Stock Photo

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making, basket making, and weaving (Smith 2016). Luxury producers, such as stone workers, feather workers, and gold- and silversmiths, occupied a special position in Aztec society. The manufacture of luxury goods for export was an important part of the economy of the Aztec capital (see Garraty 2013).

Why States Collapse

States can be fragile and decomposable, falling apart along the same cleavage lines (e.g., regional political units) that were forged together to form that state originally. Various factors might threaten their economies and political institutions. Invasion, dis- ease, famine, or prolonged drought can upset the balance. A state’s citizens might harm the environment, usually with economic costs. For example, farmers and smelters might cut down trees. Such deforestation promotes erosion and leads to a decline in the water supply. Overuse of land may deplete the soil of the nutrients needed to grow crops.

The Decline of the Maya Generations of scholars have puzzled over the decline of Maya civilization around 900 C.E. Classic Maya culture, featuring several competing states, flourished between 300 and 900 C.E. in parts of what are now Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Belize. Some important Maya cities, now archaeological sites and tourist attrac- tions, included Bonampak, Calakmul, Chichen Itzá, Copán, Palenque, Tikal, Tulum, and Uaxactún. Maya cities had marketplaces, manufacturing areas, and community gardens. The ancient Maya probably are best known for their monuments (temples and pyra- mids), calendars, mathematics, and hieroglyphic writing (see Coe 2011; Edwards 2015).

Some important archaeological clues to the Maya decline have been found at Copán, in western Honduras. This classic Maya royal center, the largest site in the southeastern part of the Maya area, covered 29 acres. It was built on an artificial terrace overlooking the Copán River. Its rulers inscribed their monuments with accounts of their coronation, their lineage history, and reports of important battles. The Maya dated their monuments with the names of kings and when they reigned. One monument at Copán was intended to be the ruler’s throne platform, but only one side was ever finished. The monument bears a date, 822 C.E., in a section of unfinished text. Copán has no monuments with later dates. The site probably had been abandoned by 830 C.E.

Environmental factors implicated in Copán’s demise may have included erosion and soil exhaustion caused by overfarming. Debris at excavated hillside farms confirms ero- sion, probably due to unsustainable agricultural intensification beginning around 750 C.E. Eventually, most farm sites were abandoned, some buried by erosion debris. Food stress and malnutrition were clearly present at Copán, where 80 percent of the buried skeletons display signs of anemia, due to iron deficiency. One skull shows anemia severe enough to have caused death. Even the nobles were malnourished. The skull of one member of the nobility, known to be such from its carved teeth and cosmetic deformation, also has telltale signs of anemia: spongy areas at its rear (Annenberg/CPB Exhibits 2000).

Just as the causes of state formation are diverse, so are the reasons for state decline. In the long run, Maya political organization turned out to be vulnerable (see Fojas

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Anthropology Today    The Fantastic Claims of Pseudo-Archaeology

Interest in prehistory has spawned numer- ous popular-culture creations, including movies, TV programs, and books. In fic- tional works, the anthropologists don’t bear much resemblance to their real-life counterparts. Unlike the most famous pop- culture archaeologist, Indiana Jones, real archaeologists don’t go around fighting Nazis, lashing whips, or seizing antiquities. The archaeologist’s profession isn’t a mat- ter of raiding lost arks, going on crusades, or finding crystal skulls, but of reconstruct- ing ancient lifeways through the careful and systematic analysis of material remains. Over the generations, the media have exposed us to the pseudoscientific theo- ries of such popular writers as Thor Heyer- dahl (1971), Erich von Daniken (1971), and Graham Hancock (2015)—none of them a professional archaeologist. Heyerdahl ar- gued that developments in one world area (e.g., Mesoamerica) were based on ideas borrowed from somewhere else (e.g., Egypt). Von Daniken carried diffusionism several steps further, pro- posing that major human achievements were cre- ated or assisted by extra- terrestrials. In Fingerprints of the Gods (2011) and other books aimed at popular audiences, Hancock has advanced a series of fan- tastic claims, including that Africans influenced the Olmecs (because of, in his opinion, African-looking faces in Olmec sculpture).  In The Ra Expeditions, world traveler and adven- turer Heyerdahl (1971) argued that his voyage in a  papyrus boat from the Mediterranean to the

Caribbean demonstrated that ancient Egyptians could have navigated to the New World. (The boat was modeled on an ancient Egyptian vessel, but Heyerdahl and his crew had with them such modern conveniences as a radio and canned goods.) Heyerdahl maintained that, given the possibility of ancient trans-Atlantic travel, Old World people could have influ- enced the emergence of civilization in the Americas.  Pseudo-archaeologists often have trou- ble with chronology. We’ve seen in this chapter that, around 2,000 years ago, states fully comparable to those of Meso- potamia and Egypt began to rise and fall in the Mexican highlands. This occurred about 1,500 years after the major period of Egyptian pyramid building. If Egypt did con- tribute to Mesoamerican civilization, we would expect this influence to have been exerted during Egypt’s heyday as an an- cient power—not 1,500 years later. There is, however, no archaeological evidence for trans-Atlantic contact at either time.

Sarajevo-born American Sam Semir Osmanagich claims to have discovered a giant pyramid built by an ancient civili- zation under Visocica Hill, Bosnia. Most scientists doubt his claim. ©Fehim Demir/epa/Corbis

Why States Collapse 219

There is, on the other hand, abundant archaeological evidence for the gradual emergence of food production and the state in Mesoamerica. Fantastic claims to the contrary, changes, advances, and set- backs in ancient American social life were the products of the ideas and activities of Native Americans themselves. The archaeological record also casts doubt on contentions that the advances of earthlings came with extraterrestrial help. Abundant, well-analyzed archaeological data from the Middle East, Mesoamerica, and Peru tell a clear story. Food produc- tion and the state were not brilliant discov- eries that humans needed to learn from outsiders. They were gradual processes with down-to-earth causes and effects. They required thousands of years of or- derly change, not some chance meeting in the high Andes between an ancient Inca chief and a beneficent Johnny Appleseed from Aldebaran. Occasionally, fantastic claims about prehistory exaggerate, rather than deny, the abilities of ancient humans. One ex- ample is when pseudo-archaeologists claim that Paleolithic societies could have constructed monumental structures. Gra- ham Hancock, for example, has suggested that an Upper Paleolithic civilization, rather than ancient Egyptians, built Egypt’s great Sphinx, some 7,000 years earlier than its actual construction date (Hancock 2015).

Sam Semir Osmanagich is a Bosnian-born amateur archaeologist who has been dubbed the Indiana Jones of the Balkans because of his flat-crowned Navajo hat. Osmanagic claims to have identified in Bosnia the world’s largest ancient pyra- mid, which he thinks is “older than the last ice age” (Smith 2006). Archaeologists and geologists, however, say that his “pyramid” is actually a large, symmetrical hill formed by buckling of the Earth’s crust millions of years ago. Responding to Osmanagich’s claims, the European Association of Archaeolo- gists issued an official statement signed by the heads of the official archaeological organizations of seven European coun- tries (Parzinger et al. 2006). Their state- ment called his so-called pyramid project “a cruel hoax on an unsuspecting public” that “has no place in the world of genuine science” (Parzinger et al. 2006).  The University of Michigan offers a popular undergraduate class titled Frauds and Fantastic Claims in Archaeology. The course examines and debunks theories that archaeologists view as fringe or pseudoscientific. The course textbook is Kenneth L. Feder’s Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology (2014)—a must for any reader wanting to pursue this topic further. When and where have you heard a fantastic claim about prehistory?

2013). Increased warfare and political competition destabilized many of its dynasties and governments. Archaeologists now stress the role of warfare in Maya state decline. Hieroglyphic texts document increased warfare among many Maya cities (see Houk 2015). From the period just before the collapse, there is archaeological evidence for in- creased concern with fortifications (moats, ditches, walls, and palisades) and relocation to defensible locations. Archaeologists have evidence of the burning of structures, the projectile points from spears, and some of the bodies of those killed. Some sites were abandoned, with the people fleeing into the forests to occupy perishable huts. (Copán,

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as we have seen, was depopulated soon after 822 C.E.) Archaeologists now believe that social, political, and military upheaval had as much to do with the Maya decline and abandonment of cities as did natural environmental factors (Marcus, personal commu- nication).

Formerly archaeologists tended to seek explanations for state origin and decline al- most exclusively in terms of natural environmental factors, such as climate change, habitat destruction, and demographic pressure (see Weiss 2005). Archaeologists now see state origins and declines more fully—in social and political terms—because we can read the texts. The Maya texts document competition and warfare between dynasties jockeying for position and power. The two explanations (environmental versus sociopo- litical) are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Environmental destruction and demo- graphic pressure can create resource shortages that fuel conflict and warfare. Whatever its cause, we know that warfare played a key role in both the rise and fall of ancient chiefdoms and states. What’s its role in our own?

Summary 1. States develop to handle regulatory problems as the population grows and the

economy gets more complex. Multiple factors, including irrigation, regional trade, warfare, population growth, and environmental circumscription have contributed to state formation.

2. A state is a society with a formal, central government and a division of society into classes. The first cities and states, supported by irrigated farming, developed in southern Mesopotamia between 6000 and 5500 B.P. Evidence for early state orga- nization includes monumental architecture, central storehouses, irrigation systems, and written records.

3. Towns predate pottery in the Middle East. The first towns grew up 10,000 to 9,000 years ago. Even earlier, Göbekli Tepe was an early ritual center supported by broad- spectrum foraging. The first pottery dates back just over 8,000 years. Halafian (7500–6000 B.P.) refers to a pottery style and to the period when the first chiefdoms emerged. Ubaid pottery (7000–6000 B.P.) is associated with advanced chiefdoms and perhaps the earliest states. Most state formation occurred during the Uruk period (6000–5200 B.P.).

4. Based on the status distinctions they include, societies may be classified as egalitar- ian, ranked, or stratified. In egalitarian societies, status distinctions are not usually inherited. Ranked societies, of which there are two types, have hereditary inequality, but they lack stratification. In type 1 ranked societies, individuals are ranked, but villages are independent (autonomous) of one another. In type 2, both individuals and villages are ranked, and there is loss of village autonomy. Stratified societies have sharp social divisions—social classes or strata—based on unequal access to wealth and power. Ranked societies with loss of village autonomy are chiefdoms.

5. Mesopotamia’s economy was based on intensive agriculture, craft production, and trade. Writing, invented by 5600 B.P., was first used to keep accounts for trade. With the invention of smelting, the Bronze Age began just after 5000 B.P.

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6. In northwestern India and Pakistan, the Indus River Valley state flourished from 4600 to 3900 B.P. The first Chinese state, dating to 3750 B.P., was that of the Shang dynasty in northern China. The major early states of the Western Hemisphere were in Mesoamerica and Peru.

Between 3200 and 3000 B.P., intense competitive interaction among the many chief- doms in Mesoamerica fueled rapid social change. Some chiefdoms would develop into states (e.g., Oaxaca, Valley of Mexico). Others (e.g., Olmec) would not. In the Valley of Oaxaca, changing patterns of warfare—from village raiding to conquest warfare—played a prominent role in the formation of Mesoamerica’s earliest state, the Zapotec state, whose capital was Monte Albán. By 1 C.E. (2000 B.P.), the Valley of Mexico had come to prominence. In this large valley in the highlands, Teotihuacán thrived between 100 and 700 C.E. Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztec state (1325 to 1520 C.E.), may have surpassed Teotihuacán at its height.

7. Early states faced various threats: invasion, disease, famine, drought, soil exhaus- tion, erosion, and the buildup of irrigation salts. States may collapse when they fail to keep social and economic order or to protect themselves against outsiders. The Maya state fell in the face of increased warfare among competing dynasties.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. Only those ranked societies with loss of village autonomy should be called chief-

doms. What kinds of evidence could archaeologists search for as clues to this loss of autonomy? 

2. Based on the evidence from coastal Peru (near the beginning of this chapter) and Oaxaca (near the end of this chapter), what role did warfare play in early state formation?  

Key Terms Aztec, 216 bronze, 208 chiefdoms, 197 cuneiform, 207 egalitarian

society, 205 empire, 199 Halafian, 205

state, 197 stratification, 206 Teotihuacán, 215 Zapotec state, 214

Mesopotamia, 201 metallurgy, 208 polities, 197 primary states, 198 ranked society, 205 settlement

hierarchy, 216 smelting, 208

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Chapter 10 Language and Communication Language

Nonhuman Primate Communication Call Systems Sign Language The Origin of Language

Nonverbal Communication Kinesics Personal Space and Displays of Affection

The Structure of Language

Language, Thought, and Culture The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Focal Vocabulary

Sociolinguistics Social and Linguistic Variation The Language of Food Linguistic Diversity within Nations Linguistic Diversity in California Gender Speech Contrasts Stratification and Symbolic Domination African American Vernacular English (AAVE)

Historical Linguistics Language, Culture, and History Language Loss

Anthropology Today: Words of the Year

Language

Linguistic anthropology illustrates anthropology’s characteristic interests in diversity, comparison, and change—but here the focus is on language (see Ahearn 2012; Bonvillain 2016; Duranti 2009; Ottenheimer 2013). Language, whether spoken (speech) or written (writing—which has existed for less than 6,000 years), is our primary means of com- munication. Like culture in general, of which language is a part, language is transmitted through learning. Language is based on arbitrary, learned associations between words and the things they stand for. Unlike the communication systems of other animals, lan- guage allows us to discuss the past and future, share our experiences with others, and benefit from their experiences.

Anthropologists study language in its social and cultural context (see Bonvillain 2012; Salzmann, Stanlaw, and Adachi 2015). Some linguistic anthropologists recon- struct ancient languages by comparing their contemporary descendants. Others study

Nonhuman Primate Communication 223

languages to discover the varied worldviews and patterns of thought in different cultures. Sociolinguists examine dialects and styles in a single language to show how speech re- flects social differences. Linguistic anthropologists also explore the role of language in colonization and globalization (Blommaert 2010; Trudgill 2010).

Nonhuman Primate Communication

Call Systems No other animal has anything approaching the complexity of language. The communi- cation systems of other primates (monkeys and apes) are call systems. These vocal systems consist of a limited number of sounds—calls—that are produced only when particular environmental stimuli are encountered. Such calls may be varied in intensity and duration, but they are much less flexible than language because they are automatic and can’t be combined. At some point in human evolution, however, our ancestors began to combine calls and to understand the combinations. The number of calls also ex- panded, eventually becoming too great to be transmitted, from generation to generation, even partly through the genes. Communication came to rely almost totally on learning.

Although wild primates use call systems, the vocal tract of apes is not suitable for speech. Until the 1960s, attempts to teach spoken language to apes suggested that they lack linguistic abilities. In the 1950s, a couple raised a chimpanzee, Viki, as a member of their family and systematically tried to teach her to speak. However, Viki learned only four words (“mama,” “papa,” “up,” and “cup”).

Sign Language More recent experiments have shown that apes can learn to use, if not speak, true language (Fouts 1997). Several apes have learned to converse with people through means other than speech. One such communication system is American Sign Language, or ASL, which is widely used by deaf Americans. ASL employs a limited number of basic gesture units that are analogous to sounds in spoken language. These units com- bine to form words and larger units of meaning.

The first chimpanzee to learn ASL was Washoe, a female, who died in 2007 at the age of 42. Captured in West Africa, Washoe was acquired by R. Allen Gardner and Beatrice Gardner, scientists at the University of Nevada in Reno, in 1966, when she was a year old. Four years later, she moved to Norman, Oklahoma, to a converted farm that had become the Institute for Primate Studies. Washoe revolutionized the discussion of the language-learning abilities of apes (Carey 2007). At first she lived in a trailer and heard no spoken language. The researchers always used ASL to communicate with each other in her presence. The chimp gradually acquired a vocabulary of more than 100 signs representing English words (Gardner, Gardner, and Van Cantfort, 1989). At the age of 2, Washoe began to combine as many as five signs into rudimentary sentences such as “you, me, go out, hurry.”

The second chimp to learn ASL was Lucy, Washoe’s junior by one year. Lucy died, or was murdered by poachers, in 1986, after having been introduced to “the wild” in Africa in 1979 (Carter 1988). From her second day of life until her move to Africa, Lucy

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lived with a family in Norman, Oklahoma. Roger Fouts, a researcher from the nearby Institute for Primate Studies, came twice a week to test and improve Lucy’s knowledge of ASL. During the rest of the week, Lucy used ASL to converse with her foster parents. After acquiring language, Washoe and Lucy exhibited several human traits: swearing, joking, telling lies, and trying to teach language to others (Fouts 1997).

When irritated, Washoe called her monkey neighbors at the institute “dirty mon- keys.” Lucy insulted her “dirty cat.” On arrival at Lucy’s place, Fouts once found a pile of excrement on the floor. When he asked the chimp what it was, she replied, “dirty, dirty,” her expression for feces. Asked whose “dirty, dirty” it was, Lucy named Fouts’s coworker, Sue. When Fouts refused to believe her about Sue, the chimp blamed the excrement on Fouts himself.  

Fundamental to any language is its cultural transmission through learning. People talk to you and around you, and you learn. Washoe, Lucy, and other chimps have tried to teach ASL to other animals, including their own offspring. Washoe taught gestures to other institute chimps, including her son Sequoia, who died in infancy (Fouts, Fouts, and Van Cantfort 1989).

Because of their size and strength as adults, gorillas are less likely subjects than chimps for such experiments. Psychologist Francine “Penny” Patterson’s work with gorillas at

Apes, such as these Congo chimpanzees, use call systems to communicate in the wild. Their vocal systems consist of a limited number of sounds—calls—that are produced only when particular environmental stimuli are encountered. ©Michael Nichols/National Geographic Creative

Nonhuman Primate Communication 225

Stanford University therefore seems more daring than the chimp experiments. Patterson raised the now full-grown female gorilla Koko, born in 1971, in a trailer next to a Stanford museum. Koko’s vocabulary surpasses that of any chimp. She has learned more than 1,000 signs, of which she regularly uses over 800. She also recognizes at least 2,000 spoken words in English when she hears them (see http://www.koko.org/sign-language).

Koko and the chimps also show that apes share still another linguistic ability with humans: productivity. Speakers use the rules of their language to produce entirely new expressions that are comprehensible to other native speakers. I can, for example, create “baboonlet” to refer to a baboon infant. I do this by analogy with English words in which the suffix -let designates the young of a species. Anyone who speaks English immedi- ately understands the meaning of my new word. Apes can also use language produc- tively. Lucy used gestures she already knew to create “drinkfruit” for “watermelon.” Washoe, seeing a swan for the first time, coined “waterbird.” Koko, who knew the ges- tures for “finger” and “bracelet,” formed “finger bracelet” when she was given a ring.

Although apes have never invented their own meaningful gesture system in the wild, when given such a system, they show many humanlike abilities in learning it. They can employ it productively and creatively, although not with the sophistication of human ASL users.

Apes also have demonstrated linguistic displacement. Absent in call systems, displacement is our ability to talk about things that are not present. We don’t have to see the objects before we say the words. We can discuss the past and future, share our expe- riences with others, and benefit from theirs. Patterson has described several examples of Koko’s capacity for displacement. The gorilla once expressed sorrow about having bitten Patterson three days earlier. Koko has used the sign “later” to postpone doing things she doesn’t want to do. Table 10.1 summarizes the contrasts between language, whether sign or spoken, and call systems.

No one denies the huge difference between human language and gorilla signs. There is surely a major gap between the ability to write a book or say a prayer and an ape’s use of signs. Apes may not be people, but they aren’t just animals, either. Let Koko express it: When asked by a reporter whether she was a person or an animal, Koko signed “fine animal gorilla” (Patterson 1978).  For the latest on Koko, see http://www.koko.org.

TABLE 10.1 Language Contrasted with Call Systems

Human Language Primate Call Systems

Has the capacity to speak of things and events that are not present (displacement)

Are stimuli dependent (e.g., the food call will be made only in the presence of food); it cannot be faked

Has the capacity to generate new expressions by combining other expressions (productivity)

Consist of a limited number of calls that cannot be combined to produce new calls

Is group specific in that all humans have the capacity for language, but each linguistic community has its own language, which is culturally transmitted

Tend to be species specific, with little variation among communities of the same species for each call

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The Origin of Language Although the capacity to remember and combine linguistic symbols may be latent in the apes, human evolution was needed for this seed to sprout into language. A mutated gene known as FOXP2 helps explain why humans speak and chimps don’t (Paulson 2005). The key role of FOXP2 in speech came to light in a study of a British family, identified only as KE, half of whose members had an inherited, severe speech deficit (Trivedi 2001). The same variant form of FOXP2 that is found in chimpanzees causes this disor- der. Those with the nonspeech version of the gene can’t make the tongue and lip move- ments necessary for clear speech, and their speech is unintelligible—even to other family members (Trivedi 2001). Chimps have the same (genetic) sequence as the KE family members with the speech deficit. Based on genomics, it appears that the speech- friendly form of FOXP2 took hold in humans around 150,000 years ago (Paulson 2005). We know now that other genes and a series of anatomical changes were necessary for fully evolved human speech. It would be an oversimplification to call FOXP2 “the language gene,” as was done initially in the popular press, because other genes also determine language development.

Nonverbal Communication

Language is our principal means of communicating, but it isn’t the only one we use. We communicate when we transmit information about ourselves to others and receive such information from them. Our expressions, stances, gestures, and movements, even if un- conscious, convey information and are part of our communication styles. Deborah Tannen (1990) discusses differences in the communication styles of American men and women, and her comments go beyond language. She notes that American girls and women tend to look directly at each other when they talk, whereas boys and men do not. Males are more likely to look straight ahead rather than turn and make eye contact with someone, espe- cially another man, seated beside them. Also, in conversational groups, American men tend to relax and sprawl out. Consider the phenomenon known as “manspreading”—the tendency for men using public transportation to open their legs and thus take up more than one place. American women may relax their posture in all-female groups, but when they are with men, they tend to draw in their limbs and assume a tighter stance.

Kinesics The study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures, and expres- sions is known as kinesics. Linguists pay attention not only to what is said but also to how it is said. A speaker’s enthusiasm is conveyed not only through words but also through facial expressions, gestures, and other signs of animation. We use gestures, such as a jab of the hand, for emphasis. We vary our intonation and the pitch or loudness of our voices. We communicate through strategic pauses, and even by being silent. An ef- fective communication strategy may include altering pitch, voice level, and grammatical forms such as declaratives (“I am . . .”), imperatives (“Go forth . . .”), and questions (“Are you . . . ?”). Culture teaches us that certain manners and styles should accompany certain kinds of speech.

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Much of what we communicate is nonverbal and reflects our emotional states and in- tentions. This can create problems when we use rapid means of communication such as texting and online messaging. People can use emoticons (☺,☹, :~/ [confused], :~0 [“hah!” no way!]) and abbreviations (lol—laugh out loud; lmao—laugh my a** off; wtf— what the f***; omg—oh my god) to fill in what would otherwise be communicated by tone of voice, laughter, and facial expression (see Baron 2009; Tannen and Trester 2012).  This chapter’s “Anthropology Today” considers the growing role of emojis in digital communication. An emoji is a digital image or pictograph, widely available on smartphones and tablets, used to express an idea or emotion, such as happiness or sadness. 

Culture always plays a role in shaping the “natural.” Cross-culturally, nodding does not always mean affirmative, nor does head shaking from side to side always mean negative. Americans say “uh huh” to affirm, whereas in Madagascar a similar sound is made to deny. Americans point with their fingers; the people of Madagascar point with their lips.

Body movements communicate social differences. In Japan, bowing is a regular part of social interaction, but different bows are used depending on the social status of the people who are interacting. In Madagascar and Polynesia, people of lower status should not hold their heads above those of people of higher status. When one approaches some- one older or of higher status, one bends one’s knees and lowers one’s head as a sign of respect. In Madagascar, one always does this, for politeness, when passing between two people. Although our gestures, facial expressions, and body stances have roots in our primate heritage, and can be seen in the monkeys and the apes, they have not escaped cultural shaping (see Salzmann et al. 2015).

Personal Space and Displays of Affection The world’s nations and cultures have strikingly different notions about personal space and displays of affection. Cocktail parties in international meeting places such as the United Nations can resemble an elaborate insect mating ritual as diplomats from differ- ent countries advance, withdraw, and sidestep. When Americans talk, walk, and dance, they maintain a certain distance from others. Italians and Brazilians, who need less personal space, may interpret such “standoffishness” as a sign of coldness. In conversa- tional pairs, the Italian or Brazilian typically moves in, while the American “instinctively” retreats from a “close talker.” Such bodily movements illustrate culture—behavior programmed by years of exposure to a particular cultural tradition. 

Consider, too, some striking contrasts between a national culture (American) that tends to be reserved about displays of physical affection and a national culture ( Brazilian) in which the opposite is true. Brazilians approach, touch, and kiss one another much more frequently than North Americans do. Middle-class Brazilians teach their kids to kiss (on the cheek, two or three times, coming and going) all their adult relatives. Given the size of Brazilian extended families, this can mean hundreds of people. Women continue kissing those people throughout their lives. Until they are adolescents, boys kiss adult relatives. Thereafter, with extended family men and close male friends, they may adopt the characteristic Brazilian hug (abraço). Men typically continue to kiss fe- male relatives and friends, as well as their fathers and uncles, throughout their lives.

Do you kiss your father? Your uncle? Your grandfather? How about your mother, aunt, or grandmother? The answers to these questions may differ between men and

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women, and for male and female relatives. In the United States, a cultural homophobia (fear of homosexuality) may deter American men from displays of affection with other men. American girls are typically encouraged to show affection; this is less true for boys.

However, culture is not static. Sarah Kershaw (2009) describes a surge of teenage hug- ging behavior in American schools. Concerned about potential sexual harassment issues, parents and school officials are suspicious of such public displays of affection, even if the younger generation is more tolerant. Even American boys appear to be more likely now- adays to share nonromantic hugs, as such expressions as “bromance” and “man crush” have entered our vocabulary. What’s your position on displays of affection?

The Structure of Language

The scientific study of a spoken language (descriptive linguistics) involves several in- terrelated areas of analysis: phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax (see McGregor 2015). Phonology, the study of speech sounds, considers which sounds are present and meaningful in a given language. Morphology studies how sounds combine to form morphemes—words and their meaningful parts. Thus, the word cats would be analyzed as containing two morphemes—cat, the name for a kind of animal, and -s, a morpheme indicating plurality. A language’s lexicon is a dictionary containing all its morphemes and their meanings. Syntax refers to the arrangement and order of words in phrases and sentences. For example, do nouns usually come before or after verbs? Do adjectives normally precede or follow the nouns they modify?

From the media, and from meeting foreigners, we know something about foreign ac- cents and mispronunciations. We know that someone with a marked French accent doesn’t

Syntax refers to the arrangement and order of words in phrases and sentences. A photo of Yoda from Star Wars (Revenge of the Sith) this is. What’s odd about Yoda’s syntax? ©Lucas Film/Topham/The Image Works

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pronounce r as an American does. But at least someone from France can distinguish be- tween “craw” and “claw,” which someone from Japan may not be able to do. The differ- ence between r and l makes a difference in English and in French, but it doesn’t in Japanese. In linguistics we say that the difference between r and l is phonemic in English and French but not in Japanese. In English and French r and l are phonemes but not in Japanese. A phoneme is a sound contrast that makes a difference, that differentiates meaning.

We find the phonemes in a given language by comparing minimal pairs, words that resemble each other in all but one sound. The words have different meanings, but they differ in just one sound. The contrasting sounds therefore are phonemes in that language. An example in English is the minimal pair pit/bit. These two words are distinguished by a single sound contrast between /p/ and /b/ (we enclose phonemes in slashes). Thus, /p/ and /b/ are phonemes in English. Another example is the different vowel sound of bit and beat (see Figure 10.1). This contrast distinguishes these two words and the two vowel phonemes written /I/ and /i/ in English.

Tongue high

Mid

Tongue low

Tongue front

Tongue backCentral

i u I e o

c e

æ a

Ω

high front (spread) lower high front (spread) mid front (spread) lower mid front (spread) low front central low back lower mid back (rounded) mid back (rounded) lower high back (rounded) high back (rounded)

as in beat as in bit as in bait as in bet as in bat as in butt as in pot as in bought as in boat as in put as in boot

϶

c

e

Ω

[i] [I] [e] [ ] [æ] [ ] [a] [ ] [o] [ ] [u]

϶

FIGURE 10.1 Vowel Phonemes in Standard American English The phonemes are shown according to height of the tongue and tongue position at the front, center, or back of the mouth. Phonetic symbols are identified by English words that include them; note that most are minimal pairs. Source: Bolinger Dwight, Aspects of Language, 3rd ed., Independence, KY: Cengage Learning, Inc., 1981, fig. 2.1. Copyright © 1981 Cengage Learning, Inc. 

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Standard (American) English (SE), the “region-free” dialect of TV network news- casters, has about 35 phonemes—at least 11 vowels and 24 consonants. The number of phonemes varies from language to language—from 15 to 60, averaging between 30 and 40. The number of phonemes also varies between dialects of a given language. In North American English, for example, vowel phonemes vary noticeably from dialect to dia- lect. Readers should pronounce the words in Figure 10.1, paying attention to (or asking someone else) whether they distinguish each of the vowel sounds. Most North Americans don’t pronounce them all. 

My grandson Lucas thinks it’s funny that I make a phonemic distinction he doesn’t make. I pronounce words beginning with wh as though they began with hw. My personal set of phonemes includes both /hw/ and /w/. This enables me to distinguish between white and Wight (as in the Isle of Wight) and between where and wear. Lucas pronounces all four of those words as though they begin with [w], so that he does not distinguish between white and Wight or between where and wear. How about you?

Phonetics is the study of speech sounds in general, what people actually say in vari- ous languages or dialects (see the “Sociolinguistics” section of this chapter). Phonemics studies only the significant sound contrasts (phonemes) of a given language. In English, like /r/ and /l/ (remember craw and claw), /b/ and /v/ also are phonemes, occurring in minimal pairs like bat and vat. In Spanish, however, the contrast between [b] and [v] doesn’t distinguish meaning, and they therefore are not phonemes (we enclose sounds that are not phonemic in brackets). Spanish speakers normally use the [b] sound to pro- nounce words spelled with either b or v.

In any language, a given phoneme extends over a phonetic range. In English the pho- neme /p/ ignores the phonetic contrast between the [ph] in pin and the [p] in spin. Most English speakers don’t even notice that there is a phonetic difference. The [ph] is aspi- rated, so that a puff of air follows the [p]. The [p] in spin is not. (To see the difference, light a match, hold it in front of your mouth, and watch the flame as you pronounce the two words.) The contrast between [ph] and [p] is phonemic in some languages, such as Hindi (spoken in India). That is, there are words whose meaning is distinguished only by the contrast between an aspirated and an unaspirated [p].

Native speakers vary in their pronunciation of certain phonemes, such as the /e/ pho- neme in the midwestern United States. This variation is important in the evolution of language. Without shifts in pronunciation, there could be no linguistic change. The “Sociolinguistics” section later in this chapter considers phonetic variation and its relationship to social divisions and the evolution of language.

Language, Thought, and Culture

The well-known linguist Noam Chomsky (1957, 2014) has argued that the human brain contains a limited set of rules for organizing language, so that all languages have a com- mon structural basis. (Chomsky calls this set of rules universal grammar.) That people can learn foreign languages and that words and ideas translate from one language to another support Chomsky’s position that all humans have similar linguistic abilities and thought processes. Another line of support comes from creole languages. Such languages

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develop from pidgins, which form during acculturation, when different societies come into contact and must devise a system of communication (see Gu 2012; Lim and Ansaldo 2016). After generations of being spoken, pidgins may develop into creole languages, which have fully developed grammatical rules and native speakers (people who learn the language as their primary one during enculturation).

Creoles are spoken in several Caribbean societies. Gullah, which is spoken by African Americans on coastal islands in South Carolina and Georgia, is a creole language. Supporting the idea that creoles are based on universal grammar is the fact that such languages all share certain features. Syntactically, all use particles (e.g., will, was) to form future and past tenses and multiple negation to deny or negate (e.g., “he don’t got none”). Also, all form questions by changing inflection rather than by changing word order—for example, “You’re going home for the holidays?” (with a rising tone at the end) rather than “Are you going home for the holidays?”

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Other linguists and anthropologists take a different approach to the relation between language and thought. Rather than seeking universal linguistic structures and processes, they believe that different languages produce different ways of thinking. This position sometimes is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis after Edward Sapir (1931) and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf (1956), its prominent early advocates. Sapir and Whorf argued that the grammatical categories of different languages lead their speakers to think about things in particular ways. For example, English divides time (tenses) into past, present, and future. Hopi, a language of the Pueblo region of the Native American Southwest, does not. Rather, Hopi distinguishes between events that exist or have ex- isted (what we use present and past to discuss) and those that don’t or don’t yet (our future events, along with imaginary and hypothetical events). Whorf argued that this difference leads Hopi speakers to think about time and reality in different ways than English speakers do.

A similar example comes from Portuguese, which employs a future subjunctive verb form, introducing a degree of uncertainty into discussions of the future. In English we routinely use the future tense to talk about something we think will happen. We don’t hesitate to proclaim “I’ll see you next year,” even when we can’t be absolutely sure we will. The Portuguese future subjunctive qualifies the future event, recognizing that the future can’t be certain. Our way of expressing the future as certain is so ingrained that we don’t even think about it, just as the Hopi don’t see the need to distinguish between present and past, both of which are real, while the future remains hypothetical. However, language restricts thought and perception only partially, because cultural changes can produce changes in thought and in language, as we’ll see in the next section.

Focal Vocabulary A lexicon (vocabulary) is a language’s dictionary, its set of names for things, events, and ideas. Lexicon influences perception. Thus, Eskimos (Inuit) have several distinct words for different types of snow that in English are all called snow. Eskimos recognize and think about differences in snow that English speakers don’t see because our language gives us just one word.

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Similarly, the Nuer of South Sudan have an elaborate vocabulary to describe cattle. Eskimos have several words for snow and Nuer have dozens for cattle because of their particular histories, economies, and environments (Robson 2013). When the need arises, English speakers can also elaborate their snow and cattle vocabularies. For example, skiers name varieties of snow with words that are missing from the lexicons of Florida retirees. Similarly, the cattle vocabulary of a Texas rancher is much more ample than that of a salesperson in a New York City department store. Such specialized sets of terms and distinctions that are particularly important to certain groups (those with particular foci of experience or activity) are known as focal vocabulary.

Vocabulary is the area of language that changes most readily. New words and distinc- tions, when needed, appear and spread. For example, who would have “texted” or “emailed” anything a generation ago? Names for items get simpler as they become com- mon and important. A television has become a TV, an automobile a car, and an applica- tion for a smartphone an app (see this chapter’s Anthropology Today for a discussion of recent changes in word use in English).

Language, culture, and thought are certainly interrelated. In opposition to Sapir- Whorf, however, it is probably more accurate to say that changes in culture produce changes in language and thought than to say the reverse. Consider differences in the color terms used by American men and women (Lakoff 2004). Distinctions implied by such terms as salmon, rust, peach, beige, teal, mauve, cranberry, and dusky orange aren’t in the vocabularies of most American men. However, many of them weren’t even in Amer- ican women’s lexicons 60–70 years ago. Color terms and distinctions have increased with

Clark Tenakhongva, who was (or is) a candidate to be Hopi tribal chairman, spoke (or speaks) to an audience member during a forum in Flagstaff, Arizona. The Hopi language would not distinguish between was and is or spoke and speaks in the previous sentence. For the Hopi, present and past are real and are expressed grammatically in the same way, while the future remains hypothetical and has a different grammatical expression. ©Felicia Fonseca/AP Images

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the growth of the fashion and cosmetic industries. Thus, cultural contrasts and changes affect lexical distinctions (for instance, peach versus salmon) within semantic domains (for instance, color terminology). Semantics refers to a language’s meaning system.

The ways in which people divide the world—the lexical contrasts they perceive as meaningful or significant—reflect their experiences. Anthropologists have discovered that certain sets of vocabulary items evolve in a determined order. For example, after studying more than 100 languages, Berlin and Kay (1969/1992) discovered 10 basic color terms: white, black, red, yellow, blue, green, brown, pink, orange, and purple (they evolved in more or less that order). The number of terms varied with cultural complex- ity. Representing one extreme were Papua New Guinea cultivators and Australian hunt- ers and gatherers, who used only two basic terms, which translate as black and white or dark and light. At the other end of the continuum were European and Asian languages with all the color terms. Color terminology was most developed in areas with a history of using dyes and artificial coloring.

Sociolinguistics

Social and Linguistic Variation Is there anything distinctive or unusual about the way you talk? If you’re from Canada, Virginia, or Savannah, you may say “oot” instead of “out.” A southerner might request a “soft drink” rather than a New Yorker’s “soda” or someone else’s “pop.” Can you imitate how a “Valley Girl” or “surfer dude” might talk? Usually when we pay attention to how we talk, it’s because someone comments on our speech. It may be only when students move from one state or region to another that they realize how much of a regional accent they have. I moved as a teenager from Atlanta to New York City. Previously I hadn’t real- ized I had a southern accent, but some guardians of linguistic correctness in my new high school did. They put me in a speech class, pointing out linguistic flaws I never knew I had. One was my “dull s,” particularly in terminal consonant clusters, as in the words tusks and breakfasts. Apparently I didn’t pronounce all three consonants at the ends of those words. Later it occurred to me that these weren’t words I used very often. As far as I know, I’ve never had a conversation about tusks or proclaimed, “I ate seven breakfasts last week.”

We all have stereotypes about how people in other regions talk. Some stereotypes, spread by the media, are more generalized than others are. Most Americans think they can imitate a “Southern accent.” We also stereotype speech in Boston (“I pahked the kah in Hahvahd Yahd”) and Canada (“oot” for “out”). Although many people assume, er- roneously, that midwesterners don’t have accents, people from that region do exhibit significant linguistic variation (see Eckert 1989, 2000). One of the best examples is pronunciation of the e vowel sound (called the /e/ phoneme), in such words as ten, rent, section, lecture, effect, best, and test. In southeastern Michigan, there are four different ways of pronouncing this e sound. African Americans and immigrants from Appalachia often pronounce ten as “tin,” just as Southerners habitually do. Some Michiganders say “ten,” the correct pronunciation in Standard English. However, two other pronunciations also are common. Instead of “ten,” many Michiganders say “tan” or “tun” (as though they were using the word ton, a unit of weight).

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I remember, for example, how one of my Michigan-raised teaching assistants ap- peared deliriously happy one afternoon. When I asked why, she replied, “I’ve just had the best suction.” “What?” I asked, and she replied more precisely. “I’ve just had the best saction.” She considered this a clearer pronunciation of the word section. Another TA complimented me, “You luctured to great effuct today.” After an exam, a student lamented that she had not done her “bust on the tust” (i.e., “best on the test”). The truth is, regional patterns affect the way we speak.

Unlike grammarians, linguists and anthropologists are interested in what people do say, rather than what they should say. Speech differences are associated with, and tell us a lot about, social variation, such as region, education, ethnic background, and gender. Men and women talk differently. I’m sure you can think of examples based on your own experience, although you probably never realized that women tend to peripheralize their vowels (think of the sounds in weasel and whee), whereas men tend to centralize them (think of rough and ugh). Men are more likely to speak “ungrammatically” than women are. As mentioned previously, men and women differ in their use of color terms. In an- other lexical domain, sports vocabulary, men typically know more terms, make more distinctions among them (e.g., runs versus points), and try to use the terms more pre- cisely than women do. Correspondingly, women use more color terms and attempt to use them more specifically than men do. To make this point when I lecture, I bring an off-purple shirt to class. Holding it up, I first ask women to say aloud what color the shirt is. The women rarely answer with a uniform voice, as they try to distinguish the actual shade (mauve, lilac, lavender, wisteria, or some other purplish hue). I then ask the men, who consistently answer as one, “PURPLE.”

No language is a uniform system in which everyone talks just like everyone else. The field of sociolinguistics investigates relationships between social and linguistic variation (Edwards 2013; Spencer 2010; Wardhaugh and Fuller 2015). How do linguistic features correlate with social diversity and stratification, including class, ethnic, and gender differ- ences (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2013; McConnell-Ginet 2010; Tannen 1990, 1993)? How is language used to express, reinforce, or resist power (Fairclough 2015; Mesthrie 2011; Mooney 2011; Trudgill 2010)? To study variation, sociolinguists must observe, define, and measure variable use of language and speakers in real-world situations.

The Language of Food In his book The Language of Food, linguist Dan Jurafsky (2014) describes a recent study based on measurement of sociolinguistic variation. Jurafsky and his colleagues analyzed the menus of 6,500 contemporary American restaurants. One of their goals was to see how the food vocabularies of upscale restaurants differed from those of cheaper estab- lishments. One key difference they found was that upscale menus paid much more atten- tion to the sources of the foods they served. They named specific farms, gardens, ranches, pastures, woodlands, and farmers’ markets. They were careful to mention, if the season was right, that their tomatoes or peas were heirloom varieties. Very expensive restaurants mentioned the origin of food more than 15 times as often as inexpensive restaurants.

Word length was another differentiator. Upscale menu words averaged half a letter lon- ger than in the cheaper restaurants. Cheaper eateries, for instance, were more likely to use decaf, rather than decaffeinated, and sides rather than accompaniments. Diners had to pay

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higher prices for those longer words: Every increase of one letter in the average length of words describing a dish meant an average increase of $.18 in the price of that dish.

Cheaper restaurants were more apt to use linguistic fillers. These included posi- tive but vague words like delicious, tasty, mouthwatering, and flavorful, or other positive, but impossible to measure, adjec- tives such as terrific, wonderful, delight- ful, and sublime. Each positive vague word for a dish in a modest restaurant reduced its average price by 9 percent. Downscale restaurants also were more likely to assure their diners that their offerings were “fresh.” Expensive restaurants expected their patrons to assume that their offerings were fresh, without having to say it.

Jurafsky and his associates also ana- lyzed vocabulary used in 1 million online Yelp restaurant reviews, representing seven American cities—Boston, Chicago, Los  Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San  Francisco, and Washington. The re- searchers found that good and bad reviews differed linguistically. Reviewers used a greater variety of words, with more differ- entiated meanings, to express negative rather than positive opinions. This tendency, known as negative differentiation, extends to other linguistic domains in English, and even to other languages. People seem to need more varied and elaborate ways of being negative. Negative reviewers wanted to comment on the restaurant’s failings as fully as possible and to present it as a shared experience. Bad reviews were much more likely than good ones to use the inclusive pronouns we and us. Psychologists know that traumatized people seek comfort in groups by emphasizing their belonging, using the words we and us with high frequency when reporting about negative experiences. Next time you eat out and/or are tempted to write a review, pay attention to these findings about “the language of food.”

Linguistic Diversity within Nations As an illustration of the linguistic variation encountered in all nations, consider the contemporary United States. Ethnic diversity is revealed by the fact that millions of Americans learn first languages other than English. Spanish is the most common. Many of those people eventually become bilingual, adding English as a second language. In many multilingual (including colonized) nations, people use two or more languages on different occasions—one in the home, for example, and the other on the job or in public. In India, where some 22 languages are spoken, a person may need to use three different

Study these menus from two restaurants, one more upscale than the other. Note the use of names of farms (food origin) in one menu and the use of adjectives such as delicious, fresh, and premium in the other. Which menu is from the more upscale restaurant? ©McGraw-Hill Education. Mark Dierker, photographer

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languages when talking, respectively, with a boss, a spouse, and a parent. Only about one-tenth of India’s population speaks English, the colonial language. As they interact today with one of the key instruments of globalization—the Internet—even those Eng- lish speakers appreciate being able to read, and to find Internet content in, their own regional languages.

Whether bilingual or not, we all vary our speech in different contexts; we engage in style shifts. In 2013, I traveled to India with a friend, an India-born American who speaks perfectly good Standard (American) English (SE). During the time we spent in India, it was fascinating to watch as he shifted back and forth between Hindi, English with a strong Indian accent (when speaking to Indians in English), and SE (when speak- ing to his American fellow travelers). 

In certain parts of Europe, people regularly switch dialects. This phenomenon, known as diglossia, applies to “high” and “low” variants of the same language, for ex- ample, in German and Dutch. People employ the high variant at universities and in writ- ing, professions, and the mass media. They use the low variant for ordinary conversation with family members and friends.

Just as social situations influence our speech, so do geographic, cultural, and socio- economic differences. Many dialects coexist in the United States with SE, which itself is a dialect that differs from, say, “BBC English,” the preferred dialect in Great Britain. Different dialects are equally effective as systems of communication, which is the main job of language. Our tendency to think of particular dialects as cruder or more sophisti- cated than others is a social rather than a linguistic judgment. We rank certain speech patterns as better or worse because we recognize that they are used by groups that we also rank. People who say dese, dem, and dere instead of these, them, and there com- municate perfectly well with anyone who recognizes that the d sound systematically replaces the th sound in their speech. However, this form of speech has become an indi- cator of low social rank. We call it, like the use of ain’t, “uneducated speech.” The use of dese, dem, and dere is one of many phonological differences that Americans recog- nize and look down on (see Labov 2012).

In Renton, Washington, this King County Department of Elections sign shows the word “vote” in English, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Spanish. Washington, Oregon and Colorado are three states that conduct all elections by mail, with no traditional polling places. The U.S. Voting Rights Act mandates that certain counties provide bilingual or multilingual ballots and voting instructions. ©Jason Remond/AFP/ Getty Images

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Linguistic Diversity in California Popular stereotypes of how Californians talk reflect media images of White, blonde, Valley girls and White, blond surfers, who say things like “dude,” “gnarly,” and “Like, totally!” These stereotypes have some accuracy. Among coastal California Whites, a distinctive “Valley girl accent” has been developing since the 1940s. That accent is most evident in vowels. For example, the vowels in hock and hawk, or cot and caught, are pronounced the same, so that awesome rhymes with possum. Second, the vowel sound in boot and dude has shifted and now is pronounced as in cute or pure (thus, boot becomes “beaut,” and dude becomes “dewed,” rather than “dood”) (see Eckert and Mendoza-Denton 2002).

California is even more notable, however, for its linguistic diversity. To document this variation, Penelope Eckert, a sociolinguist at Stanford University, leads an ongoing research project called Voices of California. Recently, her team has focused on inland California. The researchers always test certain words that elicit specific pronunciations associated with social differentiation. Those words include wash, sometimes pro- nounced “warsh,” greasy (“greezy”), and pin and pen, which some people pronounce the same. Depression-era migrants from Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl have left their mark on inland California speech, as in their alternate pronunciations of wash, greasy, and pen (see King 2012).

Another factor contributing to diversity is how people feel about their home com- munity versus the outside world. In California’s Central Valley, which is economically depressed, young people must choose whether to stay put or move elsewhere. When people want to stay involved in their home community, they tend to talk like locals. A desire not to be perceived as being from a particular place can motivate people to change their speech (King 2012).

Ethnicity also influences speech patterns. So strong is California’s Spanish heritage that Spanish-like vowels influence the way English is spoken even by Hispanics who learn English as their first, or native, language. For example, among Mexican-American English speakers in northern California, the vowel in the second syllable of nothing has come to resemble the Spanish “ee” sound (see Eckert and Mendoza-Denton 2002).

Gender Speech Contrasts According to Robin Lakoff (2004), the use of certain types of words and expressions has been associated with women’s traditional lesser power in American society. For exam- ple, Oh dear, Oh fudge, and Goodness! are less forceful than Hell and Damn. Watch the lips of a disgruntled athlete in a televised competition, such as a football game. What’s the likelihood he’s saying “Phooey on you”? Women are more likely to use such adjec- tives as adorable, charming, sweet, cute, lovely, and divine than men are.

Differences in the linguistic strategies and behavior of men and women are examined in several books by the well-known sociolinguist Deborah Tannen (1990, 1993). Tannen uses the terms rapport and report to contrast women’s and men’s overall linguistic styles. Women, says Tannen, typically use language and the body movements that accompany it to build rapport, social connections with others. Men, on the other hand, tend to make reports, reciting information to establish a place for themselves in a hier- archy, as they also attempt to determine the relative ranks of their conversation mates.

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Stratification and Symbolic Domination We use and evaluate speech in the context of extralinguistic forces—social, political, and economic. Mainstream Americans evaluate the speech of low-status groups nega- tively, calling it “uneducated.” This is not because these ways of speaking are bad in themselves but because they have come to symbolize low status. Consider variation in the pronunciation of r. In some parts of the United States, r is regularly pronounced, and in other (rless) areas it is not. Originally, American rless speech was modeled on the fashionable speech of England. Because of its prestige, rlessness was adopted in many areas and continues as the norm around Boston and in the South.

New Yorkers sought prestige by dropping their r’s in the 19th century, after having pronounced them in the 18th. However, contemporary New Yorkers are going back to the 18th-century pattern of pronouncing r’s. What matters, and what governs linguistic change, is not the reverberation of a strong midwestern r but social evaluation, whether r’s happen to be “in” or “out.”

Studies of r pronunciation in New York City have clarified the mechanisms of pho- nological change. William Labov (1972b) focused on whether r was pronounced after vowels in such words as car, floor, card, and fourth. To get data on how this linguistic variation correlated with social class, he used a series of rapid encounters with employ- ees in three New York City department stores, each of which had prices and locations that attracted a different socioeconomic group. Saks Fifth Avenue (68 encounters) catered to the upper middle class, Macy’s (125) attracted middle-class shoppers, and S.  Klein’s (71) had predominantly lower-middle-class and working-class customers. The class origins of store personnel reflected those of their customers.

Having already determined that a certain department was on the fourth floor, Labov approached ground-floor salespeople and asked where that department was. After the salesperson had answered, “Fourth floor,” Labov repeated his “Where?” in order to get a second response. The second reply was more considered and emphatic, the salesper- son presumably thinking that Labov hadn’t heard or understood the first answer. For each salesperson, therefore, Labov had two samples of r pronunciation in two words.

Labov calculated the percentages of workers who pronounced r at least once during the interview. These were 62 percent at Saks, 51 percent at Macy’s, but only 20 percent at S. Klein’s. He also found that personnel on upper floors, where he asked, “What floor is this?” (and where more expensive items were sold), pronounced r more often than ground-floor salespeople did (see also Labov 2006).

In Labov’s study, r pronunciation was clearly associated with prestige. Certainly the job interviewers who had hired the salespeople never counted r’s before offering employment. However, they did use speech evaluations to make judgments about how effective certain people would be in selling particular kinds of merchandise. In other words, they practiced sociolinguistic discrimination, using linguistic features in deciding who got certain jobs.

Our speech habits help determine our access to employment and other material re- sources. Because of this, “proper language” itself becomes a strategic resource—and a path to wealth, prestige, and power. Illustrating this, many ethnographers have described the importance of verbal skill and oratory in politics (Lakoff 2008; Lakoff and Wehling 2012). Ronald Reagan, known as a “great communicator,” dominated American society in the 1980s as a two-term president. Another twice-elected president, Bill Clinton,

Sociolinguistics 239

despite his Arkansas accent, was known for his verbal skills in certain contexts (e.g., televised debates and town-hall meetings). Communications flaws may have helped doom the presidencies of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George Bush the elder. Does the current U.S. president’s use of language affect your perception of that officeholder?

The French anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu views linguistic practices as symbolic capital that properly trained people may convert into economic and social capital. The value of a dialect—its standing in a “linguistic market”—depends on the extent to which it provides access to desired positions in the labor market. In turn, this reflects its le- gitimation by formal institutions—educational institutions, state, church, and prestige media. Even people who don’t use the prestige dialect accept its authority and correct- ness, its “symbolic domination” (Bourdieu 1982, 1984; Labov 2012). Thus, linguistic forms, which lack power in themselves, take on the power of the groups they symbolize (see Mooney and Evans 2015). The education system, however (defending its own worth), denies linguistic relativity. It misrepresents prestige speech as being inherently better. The linguistic insecurity often felt by lower-class and minority speakers is a result of this symbolic domination.

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) The sociolinguist William Labov and several associates, both White and Black, have conducted detailed studies of what they call African American Vernacular English (AAVE). (Vernacular means ordinary, casual speech.) AAVE is the “relatively uniform dialect spoken by the majority of Black youth in most parts of the United States today,

Certain dialects are stigmatized, not because of actual linguistic deficiencies, but because of a symbolic association between a certain way of talking and low social status. In this scene from the movie My Fair Lady, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) teaches Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), formerly a Cockney flower girl, how to speak “proper English.” ©Warner Brothers/Album/Newscom

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especially in the inner city areas of New York, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, Cleveland, . . . and other urban centers. It is also spoken in most rural areas and used in the casual, intimate speech of many adults” (Labov 1972a, p. xiii). This does not imply that all, or even most, African Americans speak AAVE.

AAVE is a complex linguistic system with its own rules, which linguists have described. Consider some of the phonological and grammatical differences between AAVE and SE. One phonological difference is that AAVE speakers are less likely to pronounce r than SE speakers are. Actually, many SE speakers don’t pronounce r’s that come right before a consonant (card) or at the end of a word (car). But SE speakers usually do pronounce an r that comes right before a vowel, either at the end of a word (four o’clock) or within a word (Carol). AAVE speakers, by contrast, are much more likely to omit such intervocalic (be- tween vowels) r’s. The result is that speakers of the two dialects have different homonyms (words that sound the same but have different meanings). AAVE speakers who don’t pro- nounce intervocalic r’s have the following homonyms: Carol/Cal; Paris/pass.

Observing different phonological rules, AAVE speakers pronounce certain words dif- ferently than SE speakers do. Particularly in the elementary school context, the homonyms of AAVE-speaking students typically differ from those of their SE-speaking teachers. To evaluate reading accuracy, teachers should determine whether students are recognizing the different meanings of such AAVE homonyms as passed, past, and pass. Teachers need to make sure students understand what they are reading, which is probably more important than whether they are pronouncing words correctly according to the SE norm.

Phonological rules may lead AAVE speakers to omit -ed as a past-tense marker and -s as a marker of plurality. However, other speech contexts demonstrate that AAVE speak- ers do understand the difference between past- and present-tense verbs, and between singular and plural nouns. Confirming this are irregular verbs (e.g., tell, told) and irregu- lar plurals (e.g., child, children), in which AAVE works the same as SE.

SE is not superior to AAVE as a linguistic system, but it does happen to be the pres- tige dialect—the one used in the mass media, in writing, and in most public and profes- sional contexts. SE is the dialect that has the most “symbolic capital.” In areas of Germany where there is diglossia, speakers of Plattdeusch (Low German) learn the High German dialect (originally spoken in the highlands of southern Germany) to com- municate appropriately in the national context. High German is the standard literary and spoken form of German. Similarly, upwardly mobile AAVE-speaking students learn SE.

Historical Linguistics

Sociolinguists study contemporary variation in speech, which is language change in progress. Historical linguistics deals with longer-term change. Historical linguists can reconstruct many features of past languages by studying contemporary daughter languages. These are languages that descend from the same parent language and that have been changing separately for hundreds or even thousands of years. We call the original language from which they diverge the protolanguage. Romance languages such as French and Spanish, for example, are daughter languages of Latin, their com- mon protolanguage. German, English, Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages are

Historical Linguistics 241

daughter languages of proto-Germanic. The Romance languages and the Germanic languages all belong to the Indo-European (IE) language family. Proto-Indo-European (PIE), spoken in the more distant past, was the common protolanguage of Latin, proto-Germanic, and many other ancient languages (see Figure 10.2).

When did PIE originate, and how did it spread? Decades ago, archaeologist Colin Renfrew (1987) traced the origin of PIE to a farming population living in Anatolia, in what is now Turkey, about 9,000 years ago. Recent studies by the evolutionary biologist Quentin Atkinson and his colleagues in New Zealand support this Anatolian origin of PIE (see Bouckaert et al. 2012). Atkinson’s team focused on a set of vocabulary items known to be resistant to linguistic change. These include pronouns, parts of the body, and family relations. For 103 IE languages, the researchers compared those words with the PIE ancestral word (as reconstructed by historical linguists). Words that clearly

Proto-Indo-European

C e l t i c

I t a l i c

O l d

N o r s e

G e r m a n i c

C l a s s i c a l

G r e e k

B a l t o

S l a v i c

O l d

I r a n i a n

S a n s k r i t

H i t t i t e

1000 B.P.*

2000 B.P.

3000 B.P.

4000 B.P.

5000 B.P.

*years before present

La ng

ua ge

s o f

th e p

re se

nt :

Ga eli

c W

els h,

et c.

Fr en

ch Sp

an ish

Ita lia

n Ro

m an

ian , e

tc.

Sc an

di na

vi an

Ge rm

an Du

tch En

gl ish

Am er.

E ng

lis h

M od

er n

Gr ee

k

Li th

ua ni

an , e

tc.

Po lis

h Ru

ss ian

Bu lg

ar ian

, e tc.

Pe rsi

an

Hi nd

i Be

ng ali

, e tc.

Ar m

en ian

(e xt

in ct)

FIGURE 10.2 PIE Family Tree Main languages and subgroups of the Indo-European language stock, showing approximate time to their divergence.

242 Chapter 10 Language and Communication

descend from the same ancestral word are known as cognates. For example, mother (English) is a cognate with all these words for the same relative: mutter (German), mat (Russian), madar (Persian), matka (Polish), and mater (Latin). All are descendants of the PIE word mehter.

For each language, when the word was a cognate, the researchers scored it 1; when it was not (having been replaced by an unrelated word), it was scored 0. With each language represented by a string of 1s and 0s, the researchers could establish a family tree showing the relationships among the 103 languages. Based on those relationships and the geo- graphic areas where the daughter languages are spoken, the computer determined the likeliest routes of movement from an origin. The calculation pointed to Anatolia, south- ern Turkey. This is precisely the region originally proposed by Renfrew, because it was the area from which farming spread to Europe. Atkinson also ran a computer simulation on a grammar-based IE tree—once again finding Anatolia to be the most likely origin point for PIE (Wade 2012). Several lines of biological and archaeological evidence now indicate that the Neolithic economy spread more through the actual migration of farmers than through the diffusion of crops and ideas. This would seem to offer support to the Renfrew-Atkinson model of PIE origin and dispersal of Neolithic farmers.

Historically oriented linguists suspect that a very remote protolanguage, spoken per- haps 50,000 years ago in Africa, gave rise to all contemporary languages. Murray Gell- Mann and Merritt Ruhlen (2011), who co-direct the Evolution of Human Languages project at the Sante Fe Institute, have reconstructed the syntax (word ordering) of this ancient protolanguage. Their study focused on how subject (S), objects (O), and verbs (V) are arranged in phrases and sentences in some 2,000 contemporary languages. There are six possible word orders: SOV, SVO, OSV, OVS, VSO, and VOS. Most common is SOV (“I you like,” e.g., Latin), present in more than half of all languages. Next comes SVO (“I like you,” e.g., English). Much rarer are OSV, OVS, VSO, and VOS. Gell-Mann and Ruhlen constructed a family tree of relationships among 2,000 contemporary lan- guages. The directions of change involving the six word orders were clear. All the lan- guages that were SVO, OVS, and OSV derived from SOV languages—never the other way around. Furthermore, any language with VSO or VOS word order always came from an SVO language (see Figure 10.3). The fact that SVO always comes from SOV confirms SOV as the original, ancestral word order.

Language changes over time. It evolves—varies, spreads, and divides into subgroups (languages within a taxonomy of related languages that are most closely related). Dia-

lects of a single parent language be- come distinct daughter languages, especially if they are isolated from one another. Some of them split, and new “granddaughter” languages de- velop. If people remain in the ances- tral homeland, their speech patterns also change. The evolving speech in the ancestral homeland should be considered a daughter language like the others.

FIGURE 10.3 Evolution of Word Order from Original SOV (Subject, Object, Verb) in Ancient Ancestral Protolanguage

SOV

OSV VSO

SVO

OVS VOS

Historical Linguistics 243

About 30 Native American groups are using a device known as the “phraselator” as an aid in preserving their endangered indigenous language. Shown here, Dakota tribal elder Curtis Campbell (left) and Dakota language teacher Wayne Wells work with the device at the Prairie Island Reservation in Minnesota. ©Elizabeth Flores/ZUMA Press/Newscom

Language, Culture, and History A close relationship between languages doesn’t necessarily mean that their speakers are closely related biologically or culturally, because people can adopt new languages. In the equatorial forests of Africa, “pygmy” hunters have discarded their ancestral lan- guages and now speak those of the cultivators who have migrated to the area. Immi- grants to the United States spoke many different languages on arrival, but their descendants now speak fluent English.

Cultural features may (or may not) correlate with the distribution of language fami- lies. Groups that speak related languages may (or may not) be more culturally similar to each other than they are to groups whose speech derives from different linguistic ances- tors. Of course, cultural similarities aren’t limited to speakers of related languages. Even groups whose members speak unrelated languages have contact through trade, intermar- riage, and warfare. Many items of vocabulary in contemporary English, particularly food items such as “beef” and “pork,” come from French. Even without written docu- mentation of France’s influence after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, linguis- tic evidence in contemporary English would reveal a long period of important firsthand contact with France. Similarly, linguistic evidence may confirm cultural contact and borrowing when written history is lacking. By considering which words have been bor- rowed, we also can make inferences about the nature of the contact.

Language Loss One aspect of linguistic history is language loss. According to linguist K. David Harrison, “When we lose a language, we lose centuries of thinking about time, . . . seasons,

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Anthropology Today Words of the Year

Annual lists of “words of the year” pro- vide an excellent illustration of how vo- cabulary shifts in response to cultural changes. Organizations in various coun- tries routinely publish such lists, which usually choose one increasingly common word as the winner—the “word of the year.” According to various lists, the 2015 winners in English included single words, words in combination (such as “binge watch”), and even, in one case, a picto- graph, known as the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji. Among the 2015 words of the year listed by the American Dialect Soci- ety were they (as a singular pronoun), binge watch, sharing economy, identity, austerity, content marketing, microag- gression, refugee, feardom, and ammo- sexual. These words are viewed as reflecting the ethos, mood, and preoccu- pations of 2015 (Northover 2016). Let’s consider two of the more interesting choices, the singular they and the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji.

Several organizations chose singular they as their word of the year (Baron 2015). They is a third-person pronoun that is gen- der neutral; it includes males and females. For centuries it also has been used infor- mally in speech and writing as a singular pronoun. Someone can use they when they want to avoid having to use “he or she” in a sentence—as I just did. Historical documents show that they has been used as a singular pronoun for over 600 years (Baron 2015). The popularity of the singular they has been growing recently because it fills an important linguistic niche—the need for a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun. The word they itself was introduced into the English language by Danish immi- grants in the ninth century. It gradually re- placed the then-existing English third-person plural pronoun. For centuries thereafter, English writers and speakers commonly used both the singular and the plural they. Its use as a singular pronoun began to meet resistance around 1800. Grammarians discouraged the use of the singular they because of lack of agree- ment between an apparently plural pro- noun and a singular verb (e.g., “They eats dinner.”). Those grammatical purists who continue to resist the singular they might be reminded that the singular pronoun you in English began as a plural pronoun, which eventually replaced thou and thee as a singular pronoun. According to vari- ous “word of the year” lists, the time has come for a similar shift to using they in- stead of the more unwieldy “he or she.” If someone wants to do that, they won’t get any flak from me. Another illustration of lexical change in progress today is Oxford Dictionaries’ first-ever choice of an emoji as 2015’s word of the year (Oxford University Press 2015). An emoji is a digital image used to

The Face with Tears of Joy emoji—a recent “word” of the year. Have you ever used this, or a similar, emoji? ©Maksym Chechel/ Shutterstock.com RF

Summary 245

2016). According to a study done by Ox- ford University Press and the mobile technology company SwiftKey, the most popular emoji—the “Face with Tears of Joy”—represented 20 percent of all emojis used in the United Kingdom, and 17 percent of those used in the United States, in 2015 (Northover 2016). The growing role of digital transmission in our everyday lives, including reliance on emojis, illustrates once again how lan- guage and communication continue to evolve in our globalizing world. Google some of the sources mentioned here to see the most recent words of the year.

express an idea or emotion in electronic communication. Despite its similarity to the English word emoticon (coined from emotion and icon), the word emoji actu- ally comes from Japanese. Emojis have been around since the late 1990s, but their use, along with the use of the term emoji itself, have increased substantially. No doubt this reflects the growing avail- ability of these pictographs on smart- phones, tablets, computers, and other devices we use to communicate on a daily basis. Between 2014 and 2015, use of the word emoji tripled in the United States and the United Kingdom (Northover

mathematics, landscapes, myths, music, the unknown and the everyday” (quoted in Maugh 2007). Harrison’s book When Languages Die (2007) notes that an indigenous language goes extinct every two weeks. The world’s linguistic diversity has been cut in half (measured by number of distinct languages) in the past 500 years, and half of the remaining languages are predicted to disappear during this century. Colonial languages (e.g., English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Russian) have expanded at the ex- pense of indigenous ones. Of approximately 7,000 remaining languages, about 20 per- cent are endangered, compared with 18 percent of mammals, 8 percent of plants, and 5 percent of birds (Harrison 2010; Maugh 2007).

National Geographic’s Enduring Voices Project strives to preserve endangered lan- guages by identifying the geographic areas with unique, poorly understood, or threat- ened languages and by documenting those languages and cultures. The website shows various language hot spots where the endangerment rate ranges from low to severe. The rate is high in an area encompassing Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, where 40 Na- tive American languages are at risk. The top hot spot is northern Australia, where 153 Aboriginal languages are endangered (Maugh 2007). Other hot spots are in central South America, the Pacific Northwest of North America, and eastern Siberia. In all these areas, indigenous tongues have yielded, either voluntarily or through coercion, to a colonial language (see Harrison 2010).

Summary 1. Wild primates use call systems to communicate. Contrasts between language

and call systems include displacement, productivity, and cultural transmission. Over time, our ancestral call systems grew too complex for genetic transmission,

246 Chapter 10 Language and Communication

and hominin communication began to rely on learning. Humans still use nonver- bal communication, such as facial expressions, gestures, and body stances and movements. But language is the main system humans use to communicate. Chimps and gorillas can understand and manipulate nonverbal symbols based on language.

2. No language uses all the sounds the human vocal tract can make. Phonology—the study of speech sounds—focuses on sound contrasts (phonemes) that distinguish meaning. The grammars and lexicons of particular languages can lead their speak- ers to perceive and think in certain ways.

3. Linguistic anthropologists share anthropology’s general interest in diversity in time and space. Sociolinguistics investigates relationships between social and linguistic variation by focusing on the actual use of language. Only when features of speech acquire social meaning are they imitated. If they are valued, they will spread. Peo- ple vary their speech, shifting styles, dialects, and languages.

4. As linguistic systems, all languages and dialects are equally complex, rule- governed, and effective for communication. However, speech is used, is evaluated, and changes in the context of political, economic, and social forces. Often the lin- guistic traits of a low-status group are negatively evaluated. This devaluation is not because of linguistic features per se. Rather, it reflects the association of such fea- tures with low social status. One dialect, supported by the dominant institutions of the state, exercises symbolic domination over the others.

5. Historical linguistics is useful for anthropologists interested in historical rela- tionships among populations. Cultural similarities and differences often corre- late with linguistic ones. Linguistic clues can suggest past contacts between cultures. Related languages—members of the same language family—descend from an original protolanguage. Relationships between languages don’t neces- sarily mean there are biological ties between their speakers, because people can learn new languages.

6. One aspect of linguistic history is language loss. The world’s linguistic diversity has been cut in half in the past 500 years, and half of the remaining 7,000 languages are predicted to disappear during this century.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. What dialects and languages do you speak? Do you tend to use different dialects,

languages, or speech styles in different contexts? Why or why not? 2. Consider how changing technologies have affected how you communicate with

family, friends, and even strangers. Suppose your best friend decides to study so- ciolinguistics in graduate school. What ideas about the relationship among chang- ing technologies, language, and social relations could you suggest to him or her as worth studying?

Key Terms 247

Key Terms African American Vernacular English (AAVE), 239

call systems, 223 cultural

transmission, 224 daughter

languages, 240 descriptive

linguistics, 228

phonetics, 230 phonology, 228 productivity, 225 protolanguage, 240 Sapir-Whorf

hypothesis, 231 semantics, 233 sociolinguistics, 234 style shifts, 236 subgroups, 242 syntax, 228

diglossia, 236 displacement, 225 focal

vocabulary, 232 historical

linguistics, 240 kinesics, 226 lexicon, 228 morphology, 228 phoneme, 229 phonemics, 230

248

Chapter 11 Making a Living

Adaptive Strategies

Foraging Geographic Distribution of Foragers Correlates of Foraging

Adaptive Strategies Based on Food Production

Horticulture Agriculture The Cultivation Continuum Agricultural Intensification: People and the Environment Pastoralism

Economic Systems Organization of Production in Nonindustrial Societies

Means of Production Alienation in Industrial Economies

Economizing and Maximization Alternative Ends

Distribution, Exchange The Market Principle Redistribution Reciprocity Coexistence of Exchange Principles  Potlatching

Anthropology Today: Scarcity and the Betsileo

Adaptive Strategies

In today’s globalizing world, communities and societies are being incorporated, at an accelerating rate, into larger systems (Caldararo 2014). The first major acceleration in the growth of human social systems can be traced back to around 12,000–10,000 years ago, when humans started intervening in the reproductive cycles of plants and animals. Food production refers to human control over the reproduction of plants and animals, and it contrasts with the foraging economies that preceded it and that still persist in some parts of the world. To make their living, foragers hunt, gather, and collect what nature has to offer. Foragers may harvest, but they don’t plant. They may hunt animals, but (except for the dog) they don’t domesticate them. Only food producers systematically select and breed for desirable traits in plants and animals. With the advent of food pro- duction, which includes plant cultivation and animal domestication, people, rather than

Foraging 249

nature, become selective agents. Human selection replaces natural selection as food collectors become food producers.

The origin and spread of food production accelerated human population growth and led to the formation of larger and more powerful social and political systems. The pace of cultural transformation increased enormously. This chapter provides a framework for understanding a variety of human adaptive strategies and economic systems.

The anthropologist Yehudi Cohen (1974) used the term adaptive strategy to describe a society’s main system of economic production. Cohen argued that the most important reason for similarities between two (or more) unrelated societies is their possession of a similar adaptive strategy. In other words, similar economic causes have similar sociocul- tural effects. For example, there are clear similarities among societies that have a forag- ing (hunting and gathering) strategy. Cohen developed a typology of societies based on correlations between their economies and their social features. His typology includes these five adaptive strategies: foraging, horticulture, agriculture, pastoralism, and indus- trialism. Industrialism is the focus of the last two chapters of this book. The present chapter focuses on the first four adaptive strategies, which are characteristic of nonin- dustrial societies.

Foraging

Foraging—an economy and way of life based on hunting and gathering—was humans’ only way of making a living until about 12,000 years ago, when people began experi- menting with food production. To be sure, environmental differences created substantial contrasts among foragers living in different parts of the world. Some, like the people who lived in Europe during the ice ages, were big-game hunters. Today, hunters in the Arctic still focus on large animals. Those far northern foragers have much less vegeta- tion and variety in their diets than do tropical foragers. Moving from colder to hotter areas, the number of species increases. The tropics contain tremendous biodiversity, and tropical foragers typically hunt and gather a wide range of plant and animal species. Some temperate areas also offer abundant and varied species. For example, on the North Pacific Coast of North America, foragers could draw on varied sea, river, and land spe- cies, such as salmon and other fish, sea mammals, mountain goats, and berries. Despite differences caused by such environmental variation, all foraging economies have shared one essential feature: People rely on nature to make their living. They don’t grow crops or breed and tend animals.

Animal domestication (initially of sheep and goats) and plant cultivation (of wheat and barley) began 12,000 to 10,000 years ago in the Middle East. Cultivation based on different crops, such as corn (maize), manioc (cassava), and potatoes, arose indepen- dently in the Americas. In both hemispheres most societies eventually turned from for- aging to food production. Today most foragers have at least some dependence on food production or on food producers (Kent 2002).

Foraging economies survived into modern times in certain forests, deserts, islands, and very cold areas—places where cultivation was not practicable with simple technology (see Lee and Daly 1999). Figure 11.1  presents a partial distribution of recent foragers.

250 Chapter 11 Making a Living

Their habitats tend to have one thing in common—their marginality. Posing major obsta- cles to food production, these environments did not attract farmers or herders. The diffi- culties of cultivating at the North Pole are obvious. In southern Africa, the Dobe Ju/’hoansi San area studied by Richard Lee and others is surrounded by a huge waterless belt (Solway and Lee 1990). Farming could not exist in much of California without irrigation, which is why its native populations were foragers. 

We should not assume that foragers will inevitably turn to food production once they learn of its existence. In fact, foragers in many areas have been—and still are—in con- tact with farmers or herders, but they have chosen to maintain their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Their traditional economy supports them well enough, lacks the labor require- ments associated with farming and herding, and provides an adequate and nutritious diet. In some places, people have tried food production, only to abandon it eventually and return to foraging. 

All surviving foragers now live in nation-states. Typically they are in contact with food-producing neighbors as well as with missionaries and other outsiders. We should not view contemporary foragers as isolated or pristine survivors of the Stone Age. Mod- ern foragers are influenced by national and international policies and political and eco- nomic events in the world system.

Geographic Distribution of Foragers It will be helpful to refer to Figure 11.1 throughout this section. Africa contains two broad belts of contemporary or recent foraging. One is the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa. This is the home of the San (“Bushmen”), who include the Ju/’hoansi (Lee 2003, 2012).

Baffinland Inuit

Copper Inuit

Polar Inuit

Kutchin

Tareumiut Han

Tanana Hare

Slavey Dogrib

Kaska Chipewyan

Cree

Angmagsa

Naskapi

Micmac

Inujjuamiut Montagnais

Caribou Inuit

Beaver Blackfoot

Crow

Cheyenne Seri

Hiwi

Borjeno Karankawa

Ache

Yahgan

Alacaluf

Aweikoma

Ona

Aka

Siriono

TutchoneIngalik

Aleut Tlingit Haida

Tsimshian Bella Bella, Bella Coola

Kwakiutl, Nootka, Salish

Twana Shasta, Tolowa, Yurok

Klamath

Paiute Miwok

Shoshone Chumash

Southern Paiute

Achumawi, Atsugewi,

Maidu

Lillooet Makah

Bering Strait

Eskimo

Nunamiut

Iglulik Netsilingmiut

Chenchu Hill Pandaram,

Paliyan Birhor

Botocudo

Kiowa, Comanche

Yukaghir

Chukchee

Gilyak

Ainu

Agta

Mlabri

Murngin

Wikmunkan

Anbarra, Gunwinggu

BatakVedda

Aranda Walbiri

Penan

Kariera

Mikea

Hadza

Mbuti, Ele

Glwi

Jul’hoansi

Dieri Pitjantjara

Ngadadjara Mardudjara

Mistassini Cree Gros Ventre,

Flathead

Semang Andamanese

Tiwi

Tasmanians

Koriak

FIGURE 11.1 Locations of Some Recent Hunter-Gatherers Source: Robert L. Kelly, The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways, fig. 1.1. Copyright © 2007 by Eliot Werner Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.

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The other main African foraging area is the equatorial forest of central and eastern Africa, home of the Mbuti, Efe, and other “pygmies.”

People still do, or until recently did, subsistence foraging in certain remote forests in Madagascar, in South and Southeast Asia, in Malaysia, in the Philippines, and on certain islands off the Indian coast. In addition, some of the best-known recent foragers are the Aborigines of Australia. Those Native Australians lived on their island continent for perhaps 50,000 years without developing food production.

The Western Hemisphere also had recent foragers. The Eskimos, or Inuit, of Alaska and Canada are well-known hunters. These (and other) northern foragers now use mod- ern technology, including rifles and snowmobiles, in their subsistence activities. The native populations of the North Pacific Coast of North America (northern California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and southern Alaska) all were foragers, as were those of inland subarctic Canada and the Great Lakes. For many Native Americans, fishing, hunting, and gathering remain important subsistence (and sometimes commer- cial) activities. Considering South America, there were coastal foragers along that con- tinent’s southern tip, in Patagonia. Additional foragers inhabited the grassy plains of Argentina, southern Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay.

Jana Fortier (2009) summarizes key attributes of foragers in South Asia, which to- day is home to more full- and part-time hunter-gatherers than any other world area. In India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, about 40 societies and an estimated 150,000 people con- tinue to derive their subsistence from full- or part-time foraging. The Hill Kharia and the Yanadi are the largest contemporary South Asian foraging populations, with about 20,000 members each. Several other ethnic groups are highly endangered, with fewer than 350 members still engaging in subsistence foraging.

Surviving South Asian foraging societies are those whose members, despite having lost many of their natural resources to deforestation and spreading farming populations, have been unwilling to adopt food cultivation and its cultural correlates. These hunter- gatherers share features with other foragers worldwide: small social groups, mobile settlement patterns, sharing of resources, immediate food consumption, egalitarianism, and decision making by mutual consent (Fortier 2009).

As is true elsewhere, specific foraging techniques reflect variations in environment and resource distribution. Hill and mountain South Asian foragers favor focused hunt- ing of medium-sized prey (langur monkey, macaque, porcupine). Other groups pursue several small species or practice broad-spectrum foraging of bats, porcupines, and deer. Larger groups use communal hunting techniques, such as spreading nets over large fig trees to entangle sleeping bats. Some South Indian foragers focus on such wild plant resources as yams, palms, and taro, in addition to more than 100 locally available plants. Harvesting honey and beeswax has been prominent in many South Asian foraging societies (Fortier 2009).

Members of these societies cherish their identities as people who forage for a living in biologically rich and diverse environments. They stress their need for continued ac- cess to rich forest resources to continue their lifestyles, yet many have been evicted from their traditional habitats. Their best chances for cultural survival depend on national governments that maintain healthy forests, allow foragers access to their traditional resources, and foster cultural survival rather than assimilation (Fortier 2009).

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Some governments have done quite the opposite. For example, between 1997 and 2002, the government of Botswana (in southern Africa) carried out a relocation scheme affecting about 3,000 Basarwa San Bushmen (Motseta 2006). The government forced these people to leave their ancestral territory, which became a wildlife reserve. After some of them sued, Botswana’s High Court eventually ruled that the Basarwa had been wrongly evicted, and issued a court order allowing them to return, but under very re- strictive conditions. Although 3,000 people had been relocated, only the 189 people who actually filed the lawsuit were granted an automatic right of return with their children. The many other Basarwa San who wanted to return to their ancestral territory would need to apply for special permits. Even the 189 favored people would be allowed to build only temporary structures and to use only enough water for subsistence needs. Water would be a major obstacle, because the government had shut down the main well. Furthermore, anyone wishing to hunt would have to apply for a permit. This case illustrates how contemporary governments can limit the independence of indigenous peoples and restrict their traditional lifestyle.

Correlates of Foraging Typologies, such as Cohen’s adaptive strategies, are useful because they suggest correlations—that is, associations or covariations between two or more variables. (Cor- related variables are factors that are linked and interrelated, such as food intake and body weight. When one increases or decreases, the other changes as well.) Ethnographic studies in hundreds of societies have revealed many correlations between the economy and social life. Associated (correlated) with each adaptive strategy is a bundle of par- ticular sociocultural features. Correlations, however, rarely are perfect. Some foragers lack cultural features usually associated with foraging, and some of those features are found in groups with other adaptive strategies.

What, then, are some correlates of foraging? People who subsisted by hunting and gathering often, but not always, lived in band-organized societies. Their basic social unit, the band, was a small group of fewer than a hundred people, all related by kinship or marriage. Among some foragers, band size stayed about the same year-round. In oth- ers, the band split up for part of the year. Families left to gather resources that were better exploited by just a few people. Later, they regrouped for cooperative work and ceremonies.

Typical characteristics of the foraging life are flexibility and mobility. In many San groups, as among the Mbuti of Congo, people shifted band membership several times in a lifetime. One could be born, for example, in a band in which one’s mother had kin. Later, one’s family could move to a band in which the father had relatives. Because bands were exogamous (people married outside their own bands), one’s parents came from two different bands, and one’s grandparents could have come from four. People could join any band to which they had kin or marital links. A couple could live in, or shift between, the husband’s and the wife’s bands.

Foraging societies tend to be egalitarian. That is, they make few status distinctions, and the ones they make are based mainly on age, gender, and personal qualities or achievements. For example, old people—elders—may receive respect as guardians of myths, legends, stories, and traditions. Younger people may value the elders’ special

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knowledge of ritual and practical matters. A good hunter, an especially productive gath- erer, or a skilled midwife or shaman may be recognized as such. But foragers are known for sharing rather than bragging. Their status distinctions are not associated with differ- ences in wealth and power, nor are they inherited. When considering issues of “human nature,” we should remember that the egalitarian society associated with foraging was a basic form of human social life for most of our history. Food production has existed less than 1 percent of the time Homo has spent on Earth. However, it has produced huge social differences. We now consider the main economic features of food-producing strategies.

Adaptive Strategies Based on Food Production

In Cohen’s typology, the three adaptive strategies based on food production in nonindus- trial societies are horticulture, agriculture, and pastoralism. With horticulture and agri- culture, plant cultivation is the mainstay of the economy, whereas with pastoralism, herding is key. All three strategies originated in nonindustrial societies, although they may persist as ways of making a living even after some degree of industrialization reaches the nation-states that include them. In fully industrial societies, such as the United States and Canada, most cultivation has become large-scale, commercial, mech- anized, agrochemical-dependent farming. Rather than simple pastoralism, industrial societies use technologically sophisticated systems of ranch and livestock management. These industrial societies, and their global context, are the focus of the last two chapters of this book. This chapter’s focus is on nonindustrial strategies of adaptation.

Food producers typically carry out a variety of economic activities. In Cohen’s typol- ogy, each adaptive strategy refers to the main economic activity. Pastoralists (herders), for example, consume milk, blood, and meat from their animals as mainstays of their diet. However, they also add grain to their diet by doing some cultivating or by trading with neighbors.

Horticulture The two types of plant cultivation found in nonindustrial societies are horticulture (nonintensive, shifting cultivation) and agriculture (intensive, continuous cultivation). Both differ from the commercially oriented farming systems of industrial nations, which use large land areas and rely on machinery and agrochemicals.

When food production arose, both in the Middle East and in Mexico, the earliest cultivators were rainfall-dependent horticulturalists. More recently, horticulture has been—and in many cases still is—the primary form of cultivation in parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, the Pacific islands, Mexico, Central America, and the South American tropical forest.

Horticulturalists use simple tools such as hoes and digging sticks to grow their crops. Horticulturalists typically rely on slash-and-burn techniques. Farmers clear land by cut- ting down (slashing) trees, saplings, and brush. Then they burn that vegetation. They also may set fire directly to grasses and weeds on their farm plots before planting. Slash- ing and burning not only gets rid of unwanted vegetation, but it also kills pests and provides ashes that help fertilize the soil. The farmers then sow, tend, and harvest their

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crops on the cleared plot. They do not use that plot continuously; often they farm it for only a year or two.

Horticulture also is known as shifting cultivation, because farmers shift back and forth between plots, rather than using any one of those plots continuously. With shift- ing cultivation, horticulturalists farm a plot for a year or two, then abandon it, clear another plot, cultivate it for a year or two, then abandon it, and so on. After the origi- nal plot lies fallow for several years (the duration varies in different societies), it can be farmed again.

Shifting cultivation doesn’t mean that whole villages must move when plots are abandoned. Horticulture can support large, permanent villages. Among the Kuikuru of the South American tropical forest, for example, one village of 150 people remained in the same place for 90 years (Carneiro 1956). Kuikuru houses are large and well made. Because the work involved in building them is great, the Kuikuru preferred to walk farther to their fields, rather than construct a new village. They chose to shift their plots rather than their villages. By contrast, other horticulturalists in the montaña (Andean foothills) of Peru maintained small villages of about 30 people (Carneiro 1961/1968). Their houses were small, simple, and easy to rebuild. They would stay a few years in one place, then move on to a different site near their fields where they would build new homes. They preferred rebuilding to walking even a half-mile to their fields.

Agriculture The greater labor demands associated with agriculture, as compared with horticulture, reflect the former’s use of domesticated animals, irrigation, or terracing.

Domesticated Animals Many agriculturists use animals as means of production—for transport, as cultivating machines, and for their manure. Asian farmers typically incorporate cattle and/or water buffalo into their agricultural economies. Those rice farmers may use cattle to trample pre-tilled flooded fields, thus mixing soil and water, before transplanting. Many agricul- turists attach animals to plows and harrows for field preparation before planting or

In slash-and-burn horticulture, the land is cleared by cutting down (slashing) and burning trees and brush, using simple technology, as is done here among mountain rice farmers in the hills of Thailand. ©Universal Images Group via Getty Images

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transplanting. Also, agriculturists typically collect manure from their animals, using it to fertilize their plots, thus increasing yields. Animals are attached to carts for transport and to implements of cultivation.

Irrigation Whereas horticulturalists must await the rainy season, agriculturists can schedule their planting in advance because they control water. Like other irrigation experts in the Philippines, the Ifugao water their fields with canals from rivers, streams, springs, and ponds. Irrigation makes it possible to cultivate a plot year after year. Irrigation enriches the soil because the irrigated field is a unique ecosystem with several species of plants and animals, many of them minute organisms, whose wastes fertilize the land.

An irrigated field is a capital investment that usually increases in value. It takes time for a field to start yielding; it reaches full productivity only after several years of cultiva- tion. The Ifugao, like other irrigators, have farmed the same fields for generations. In some agricultural areas, including the Middle East, however, salts carried in the irriga- tion water can make fields unusable after 50 or 60 years.

Terracing Terracing is another agricultural technique the Ifugao have mastered. Their homeland has small valleys separated by steep hillsides. Because the population is dense, people need to farm the hills. However, if they simply planted on the steep hillsides, fertile soil

Agriculture requires longer work hours than horticulture does and uses land intensively and continuously. Labor demands associated with agriculture reflect its use of domesticated animals, irrigation, and terracing. Shown here, rice terraces surround a farming village in Longsheng, Guangxi province, China. ©KingWu/iStockphoto.com RF

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and crops would be washed away during the rainy season. To prevent this, the Ifugao cut into the hillside and build stage after stage of terraced fields rising above the valley floor. Springs located above the terraces supply their irrigation water. The labor neces- sary to build and maintain a system of terraces is great. Terrace walls crumble each year and must be partially rebuilt. The canals that bring water down through the terraces also demand attention.

Costs and Benefits of Agriculture Agriculture requires human labor to build and maintain irrigation systems, terraces, and other works. People must feed, water, and care for their animals. But agricultural land can yield one or two crops annually for years, or even generations. An agricul- tural field does not necessarily produce a higher single-year yield than does a horti- cultural plot. The first crop grown by horticulturalists on long-idle land may be larger than that from an agricultural plot of the same size. Furthermore, because agricultur- ists have to work more hours than horticulturalists do, agriculture’s yield relative to the labor time invested also is lower. Agriculture’s main advantage is that the long- term yield per area is far greater and more dependable. Because a single field sustains its owners year after year, there is no need to maintain a reserve of uncultivated land as horticulturalists do. This is why agricultural societies tend to be more densely populated than horticultural ones.

The Cultivation Continuum Because some nonindustrial economies have features of both horticulture and agricul- ture, it is useful to discuss cultivators as being arranged along a cultivation continuum. Horticultural systems stand at one end—the “low-labor, shifting-plot” end. Agricultur- alists are at the other—the “labor-intensive, permanent-plot” end.

We speak of a continuum because there are intermediate economies, which combine horticultural and agricultural features. In such economies, cultivation is more intensive than with annually shifting horticulture, but less so than with permanent agriculture. The South American Kuikuru, for example, grow two or three crops of manioc, or cassava—an edible tuber—before abandoning their plots. Cultivation is even more in- tensive in certain densely populated areas of Papua New Guinea, where plots are planted for two or three years, allowed to rest for three to five, and then recultivated. After sev- eral of these cycles, the plots are abandoned for a longer fallow period. These intermedi- ate economies, which support denser populations than does simple horticulture, also are found in parts of West Africa and in the highlands of Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia.

The one key difference between horticulture and agriculture is that horticulture always has a fallow period, whereas agriculture does not.

Agricultural Intensification: People and the Environment The range of environments available for cultivation has widened as people have in- creased their control over nature. Agriculturists have been able to colonize many areas that are too arid for nonirrigators or too hilly for nonterracers. Agriculture’s increased labor intensity and permanent land use have major demographic, social, political, and environmental consequences.

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How, specifically, does agriculture affect society and the environment? Because of their permanent fields, agriculturists tend to be sedentary. People live in larger and more permanent communities located closer to other settlements. Growth in population size and density increases contact between individuals and groups. There is more need to regulate interpersonal relations, including conflicts of interest. Economies that support more people usually require more coordination in the use of land, labor, and other re- sources (see Chapter 12).

Intensive agriculture has significant environmental effects. Irrigation ditches and paddies (fields with irrigated rice) become repositories for organic wastes, chemicals (such as salts), and disease microorganisms. Intensive agriculture typically spreads at the expense of trees and forests, which are cut down to be replaced by fields. Accompa- nying such deforestation is loss of environmental diversity (see Dove and Carpenter 2008). Compared with horticulture, agricultural economies are specialized. They focus on one or a few caloric staples, such as rice, and on the animals that aid the agricultural economy. Because tropical horticulturalists typically cultivate dozens of plant species simultaneously, a horticultural plot mirrors the botanical diversity found in a tropical forest. Agricultural plots, by contrast, reduce ecological diversity by cutting down trees and concentrating on just a few staple foods. Such crop specialization is true of agricul- turists both in the tropics (e.g., Indonesian paddy farmers) and outside the tropics (e.g., Middle Eastern irrigation farmers).

Agriculturists attempt to reduce risk in production by favoring stability in the form of a reliable annual harvest and long-term production. Tropical foragers and horticulturalists, by contrast, attempt to reduce risk by relying on multiple species and benefiting from ecologi- cal diversity. The agricultural strategy is to put all one’s eggs in one big and very depend- able basket. The strategy of tropical foragers and horticulturalists is to have several smaller baskets, a few of which may fail without endangering subsistence. The agricultural strategy makes sense when there are lots of children to raise and adults to be fed. Foraging and hor- ticulture, of course, are associated with smaller, sparser, and more mobile populations.

Agricultural economies also pose a series of regulatory problems. How is water to be managed? How are disputes about access to and distribution of water to be resolved? With more people living closer together on more valuable land, agriculturists have more opportunities for interpersonal contact and conflict than foragers and horticulturalists do. The social and political implications of food production and intensification are ex- amined more fully in Chapter 12, on political systems.

Anthropologists know that many indigenous groups—especially foragers and nonin- tensive cultivators—have done a reasonable job of managing their resources and pre- serving their ecosystems (see Menzies 2006). Such societies had traditional ways of categorizing resources and regulating their use. Increasingly, however, these traditional management systems have been challenged by national and international incentives to exploit and degrade the environment (see Dove, Sajise, and Doolittle 2011). These chal- lenges are the focus of the last two chapters of this book.

Pastoralism Herders, or pastoralists, are people whose activities focus on such domesticated animals as cattle, sheep, goats, camels, yak, and reindeer. They live in North and sub-Saharan

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Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. East African pastoralists, like many others, live in symbiosis with their herds. (Symbiosis is an obligatory interaction between groups—here, humans and animals—that is beneficial to each.) Herders attempt to pro- tect their animals and to ensure their reproduction in return for food (dairy products and meat) and other products, such as leather.

People use livestock in various ways. Natives of North America’s Great Plains, for example, didn’t eat, but only rode, their horses. (They got those horses after Europeans reintroduced them to the Western Hemisphere; the native American horse had gone extinct thousands of years earlier.) For Plains Indians, horses served as “tools of the trade,” means of production used to hunt buffalo, the main target of their economies. So the Plains Indians were not true pastoralists but hunters who used horses—as many ag- riculturists use animals—as means of production.

Pastoralists, by contrast, typically use their herds for food. They consume their meat, blood, and milk, from which they make yogurt, butter, and cheese. Although some pas- toralists rely on their herds more completely than others do, it is impossible to base subsistence solely on animals. Most pastoralists therefore supplement their diet by hunt- ing, gathering, fishing, cultivating, or trading.

The Samis (also known as Lapps or Laplanders) of Norway, Sweden, and Finland domesticated the reindeer, which their ancestors had once hunted, in the 16th century. Like other herders, they follow their animals as they make an annual trek, in this case from coast to interior. Today’s Samis use modern technology, such as snowmobiles and four-wheel-drive vehicles, to accompany their herds on their annual nomadic trek. Some of them probably use reindeer management software on their laptops, tablets, or smart- phones. Although their environment is harsher, the Samis, like other herders, live in nation-states and must deal with outsiders, including government officials, as they fol- low their herds and make their living through animal husbandry, trade, and sales (Hoge 2001; Paine 2009).

Unlike foraging and cultivation, which existed throughout the world before the Indus- trial Revolution, pastoralism was confined almost totally to the Old World. Before European conquest, the only herders in the Americas lived in the Andean region of South America. They used their llamas and alpacas for food and wool and in agriculture and transport. Much more recently, the Navajo of the southwestern United States developed a pastoral economy based on sheep, which were brought to North America by Europeans. The populous Navajo became the major pastoral population in the Western Hemisphere.

Two patterns of movement occur with pastoralism: nomadism and transhumance. Both are based on the fact that herds must move to use pasture available in particular places in different seasons. In pastoral nomadism, the entire group—women, men, and children—moves with the animals throughout the year. The Middle East and North Africa provide numerous examples of pastoral nomads (see Salzman 2008). In Iran, for example, the Basseri and the Qashqai ethnic groups traditionally followed a nomadic route more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) long (see Salzman 2004).

With transhumance, part of the group moves with the herds but most people stay in the home village. There are examples from Europe and Africa. In Europe’s Alps it is just the shepherds and goatherds—not the whole hamlet, village, or town—who accompany the flocks to highland meadows in summer. Among the Turkana of Uganda, men and

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boys take the herds to distant pastures, while much of the village stays put and does some horticultural farming. During their annual trek, pastoral nomads trade for crops and other products with more sedentary people. Transhumants don’t have to trade for crops. Because only part of the population accompanies the herds, transhumants can maintain year-round villages and grow their own crops.

Economic Systems

An economy is a system of production, distribution, and consumption of resources; economics is the study of such systems. Economists tend to focus on modern nations and capitalist systems. Anthropologists have broadened understanding of economic principles by gathering data on nonindustrial economies. Economic anthropology brings a comparative perspective to the study of economics (see Carrier 2012; Chibnik 2011; Gudeman 2016; Hann and Hart 2011; Sahlins 2011).

A mode of production is a way of organizing production—“a set of social relations through which labor is deployed to wrest energy from nature by means of tools, skills, organization, and knowledge” (Wolf 1982, p. 75). In the capitalist mode of production, money buys labor power, and a social gap exists between the people (bosses and workers) involved in the production process. By contrast, in nonindustrial societies, labor usually is not bought but is given as a social obligation. In such a kin-based mode of production, mutual aid in production is one among many expressions of a larger web of social relations

Pastoralists may be nomadic or transhumant, but they don’t typically live off their herds alone. They either trade or cultivate. Shown here, a transhumant shepherd with his herd in Eifel Rheinland Pfalz, Germany. ©tbkmedia.de/Alamy Stock Photo RF

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(see Marshall 2011). A kin-based mode of production typifies foragers, horticulturalists, pastoralists, and many agriculturalists, especially those lacking state organization.

Societies with the same strategy of adaptation (e.g., foraging) and the same mode of production (e.g., kin-based), can organize the specifics of production differently. For example, foraging can be done by individual hunters or teams, depending on whether the game is solitary, or a herd or flocking animal. Gathering usually is more individual- istic than is hunting, although collecting teams may assemble when abundant resources ripen and must be harvested quickly. Fishing may be done alone (as in ice or spear fish- ing) or in crews (as with open-sea fishing and hunting of sea mammals).

Organization of Production in Nonindustrial Societies Although some kind of division of economic labor related to age and gender is a cultural universal, the specific tasks assigned to each sex and to people of different ages vary (see Chapter 14). Many horticultural societies assign a major productive role to women, but some make men’s work primary. Similarly, among pastoralists, men generally tend large animals, but in some societies women do the milking. Jobs accomplished through teamwork in some cultivating societies are done in other societies by smaller groups or by individuals working over a longer period.

The Betsileo of Madagascar have two stages of teamwork in rice cultivation: trans- planting and harvesting. Both activities feature a traditional division of labor by age and gender that is well known to all Betsileo and is repeated across the generations. The first job in the transplanting process is the trampling of a previously tilled and flooded field by young men driving cattle, in order to mix earth and water. The young men yell at and beat the cattle, striving to drive them into a frenzy, so that they will trample the fields properly. Trampling breaks up clumps of earth and mixes irrigation water with soil to form a smooth mud, into which women will soon transplant seedlings. Once the tram- plers leave the field, older men arrive. With their spades, they break up the clumps that the cattle missed. Meanwhile, the owner and other adults uproot rice seedlings and take them to the field, where women will transplant them.

At harvest time, four or five months later, young men cut the rice off the stalks. Young women carry it to the clearing above the field. Older women arrange and stack it. The oldest men and women then stand on the stack, stomping and compacting it. Three days later, young men thresh the rice, beating the stalks against a rock to remove the grain. Older men then beat the stalks with sticks to make sure all the grains have fallen off.

Means of Production In nonindustrial societies the relationship between the worker and the means of produc- tion is more intimate than it is in industrial nations. Means, or factors, of production include land (territory), technology, and the available labor supply.

Land as a Means of Production Among foragers, ties between people and land are less permanent than they are among food producers. The borders between foraging territories are neither precisely demarcated nor enforced.  A hunter’s stake in pursuit of an animal is more important than where that animal finally dies. One acquires the right to use a band’s territory by being born in that

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band or by joining it through a tie of kinship or marriage. On changing bands, one im- mediately acquires rights to hunt or gather in its territory. 

Among food producers, rights to the means of production also come through kinship and marriage. Descent groups (groups whose members claim common ancestry) are common among nonindustrial food producers. Those who descend from the founder share the group’s territory and resources. If the adaptive strategy is horticulture, the estate includes gardens and fallow land for shifting cultivation. With pastoralism, de- scent group members have access to animals to start their own herds, to grazing land, to garden land, and to other means of production.

Labor, Tools, and Specialization Like land, the labor supply is a means of production. In nonindustrial societies, access to both land and labor comes through social links such as kinship, marriage, and de- scent. Mutual aid in production is merely one aspect of ongoing social relations that are expressed on many other occasions.

Nonindustrial societies contrast with industrial nations regarding another means of production—technology. Manufacturing often is linked to age and gender. Women may weave and men may make pottery, or vice versa. Most people of a particular age and gender share the technical knowledge associated with that age and gender. If married women customarily make baskets, most married women know how to make baskets. Neither technology nor technical knowledge is very specialized.

Some tribal societies, however, do promote specialization. Among the Yanomami of Venezuela and Brazil, for instance, certain villages manufacture clay pots and others make hammocks. They don’t specialize, as one might suppose, because certain raw materials happen to be available near particular villages. Clay suitable for pots is widely available. Everyone knows how to make pots, but not everybody does so. Craft special- ization reflects the social and political environment rather than the natural environment. Such specialization promotes trade, which is the first step in creating an alliance with enemy villages (Chagnon 2013).

Alienation in Industrial Economies There are significant contrasts between nonindustrial economies and industrial ones. In the former, economic relations are just one part of a larger, multidimensional social matrix. People don’t just work for and with others; they live with those same people; they pray with, feast with, and care about them. One works for and with people with whom one has long-term personal and social bonds (e.g., kin and in-laws).

In industrial societies, by contrast, workers sell their labor to bosses who can fire them. Work and the workplace are separated—alienated—from one’s social essence. Rather than expressing an ongoing, mutual social relationship, labor becomes a thing (commodity) to be paid for, bought, and sold—and from which the boss can generate an individual profit. Furthermore, industrial workers usually don’t work with their relatives and neighbors. If coworkers are friends, the personal relationship often develops out of their common employment rather than a previous social tie.

In nonindustrial societies, an individual who makes something can use or dispose of it as he or she sees fit. The maker may feel pride in such a personal product and, if it is

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given away, a renewed commitment to the social relationship that is reinforced by the gift. On the other hand, when factory workers produce for their employer’s profit, their products as well as their labor are alienated. Their bosses have use or disposal rights. Human labor and its products belong to someone other than the individual producer. Unlike assembly-line workers, producers in nonindustrial societies typically see their work through from start to finish and feel a sense of accomplishment.

Thus, industrial workers have impersonal relations with their employers, coworkers, and products. People sell their labor for cash in a market economy, and work stands apart from family life. In nonindustrial societies, by contrast, the relations of production, distribution, and consumption are social relations with economic aspects. Economy is not a separate entity but is embedded in the society.

A Case of Industrial Alienation For decades, the government of Malaysia has promoted export-oriented industry, allow- ing transnational companies to install manufacturing operations in rural Malaysia. In search of cheaper labor, corporations headquartered in Japan, Western Europe, and the United States have moved labor-intensive factories to developing countries. Malaysia has hundreds of Japanese and American subsidiaries, which produce garments, foodstuffs, and electronics components. Thousands of young Malaysian women from rural families now assemble microchips and microcomponents for transistors and capacitors. Aihwa

In a garment factory in Hlaing Tharyar, Myanmar, Burmese women stitch sports clothing for a Taiwanese company. Their average wage is less than one American dollar per day. Throughout Southeast Asia, hundreds of thousands of young women from peasant families now work in factories. Chances are good that you own one of their products. ©Paula Bronstein/Getty Images News/Getty Images

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Ong (1987; Ong and Collier 2010) did a study of electronics assembly workers in an area where 85 percent of the workers were young, unmarried females from nearby villages.

Ong found that, unlike village women, female factory workers had to cope with a rigid work routine and constant supervision by men. The discipline that factories en- force was being taught in local schools, where uniforms helped prepare girls for the factory dress code. Village women wore loose, flowing tunics, sarongs, and sandals, but factory workers had to don tight overalls and heavy rubber gloves, in which they felt constrained. Assembling electronics components requires precise, concentrated labor. Labor in these factories illustrates the separation of intellectual and manual activity— the alienation that Karl Marx considered the defining feature of industrial work. One woman said about her bosses, “They exhaust us very much, as if they do not think that we too are human beings” (Ong 1987, p. 202). Nor does factory work bring women a substantial financial reward, given low wages, job uncertainty, and family claims on wages. Although young women typically work just a few years, production quotas, three daily shifts, overtime, and surveillance take their toll in mental and physical exhaustion.

One response to factory relations of production has been spirit possession (factory women are possessed by spirits). Ong interprets this phenomenon as the women’s un- conscious protest against labor discipline and male control of the industrial setting. Sometimes possession takes the form of mass hysteria. Spirits have simultaneously invaded as many as 120 factory workers. Weretigers (the Malay equivalent of the were- wolf) arrive to avenge the construction of a factory on local burial grounds. Disturbed earth and grave spirits swarm on the shop floor. First the women see the spirits; then their bodies are invaded. The weretigers send the women into sobbing, laughing, and shrieking fits. To deal with possession, factories employ local medicine men, who sacrifice chickens and goats to fend off the spirits. This solution works only some of the time; possession still goes on. Ong argues that spirit possession expresses anguish at, and resistance to, the capitalist mode of production. By engaging in this form of rebellion, however, factory women avoid a direct confrontation with the source of their distress. Ong concludes that spirit possession, while expressing repressed resentment, doesn’t do much to modify factory conditions. (Other tactics, such as unionization, would do more.) Spirit possession may even help maintain the current system by oper- ating as a safety valve for accumulated tensions.

Economizing and Maximization

Economic anthropologists have been concerned with two main questions: 1. How are production, distribution, and consumption organized in different societies?

This question focuses on systems of human behavior and their organization. 2. What motivates people in different societies to produce, distribute or exchange, and

consume? Here the focus is not on systems of behavior but on the individuals who participate in those systems.

Anthropologists view economic systems and motivations in a cross-cultural perspec- tive. Motivation is a concern of psychologists, but it also has been a concern of economists

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and anthropologists. American economists assume that people make decisions rationally, guided by the profit motive. Although anthropologists know that the profit motive is not universal, the assumption that individuals try to maximize profits is basic to capitalism and to Western economic theory. In fact, the subject matter of economics often is defined as economizing, or the rational allocation of scarce means (or resources) to alternative ends (or uses) (see Chibnik 2011).

What does that mean? Classical economic theory assumes that our wants are infinite, while our means are limited. People must make choices about how to use their scarce resources—their time, labor, money, and capital. (This chapter’s “Anthropology Today” disputes the idea that people always make economic choices based on scarcity.) Western economists assume that when confronted with choices and decisions, people tend to make the one that maximizes profit. This is assumed to be the most rational choice.

The idea that individuals choose to maximize profits was a basic assumption of the classical economists of the 19th century and one held by many contemporary econo- mists. However, certain economists now recognize that individuals may be motivated by many other goals. Depending on the society and the situation, people may try to maxi- mize profit, wealth, prestige, pleasure, comfort, social harmony, or spiritual goals. Indi- viduals may want to realize their personal, family, or community ambitions, or those of some other group to which they belong (see Chibnik 2011; Sahlins 2011).

Alternative Ends To what uses do people put their scarce resources? Throughout the world, people devote some of their time and energy to building up a subsistence fund (Wolf 1966). In other words, they have to work to eat, to replace the calories they use in daily activity. People also must invest in a replacement fund. They must maintain their technology and other items essential to production. If a hoe or plow breaks, they must repair or replace it. They also must obtain and replace items that are essential not to production but to ev- eryday life, such as clothing and shelter.

People everywhere also have to invest in a social fund. They must help their friends, relatives, in-laws, and neighbors. It is useful to distinguish between a social fund and a ceremonial fund. The latter term refers to expenditures on ceremonies or rituals. To prepare a festival honoring one’s ancestors, for example, requires time and the outlay of wealth.

Citizens of nation-states also must allocate scarce resources to a rent fund. We think of rent as payment for the use of property. Rent fund, however, has a wider meaning. It refers to resources that people must render to an individual or agency that is superior politically or economically. Tenant farmers and sharecroppers, for example, either pay rent or give some of their produce to their landlords, as peasants did under feudalism. The rent fund also includes taxes, which people typically pay in state-organized societies.

Peasants are small-scale farmers who live in state-organized societies and have rent fund obligations. They produce to feed themselves, to sell their produce, and to pay rent. All peasants have two things in common:

1. They live in state-organized societies. 2. They produce food without the elaborate technology—chemical fertilizers, trac-

tors, airplanes to spray crops, and so on—of modern farming or agribusiness.

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Besides paying rent to landlords, peasants must satisfy government obligations, pay- ing taxes in the form of money, produce, or labor. The rent fund is not simply an addi- tional obligation for peasants. Often it becomes their foremost and unavoidable duty. Sometimes their own diets suffer as a result. The demands of social superiors may divert resources from subsistence, replacement, social, and ceremonial funds.

Motivations vary from society to society, and people often lack freedom of choice in allocating their resources. Because of obligations to pay rent, peasants may allocate their scarce means toward ends that are not their own but those of government officials. Thus, even in societies in which there is a profit motive, people often are prevented from rationally maximizing self-interest by factors beyond their control.

Distribution, Exchange

The economist Karl Polanyi (1968) was a key early contributor to the comparative study of exchanges (e.g., gift giving, trade between individuals and/or groups), and several anthropologists followed his lead. Polanyi defined three principles that guide exchanges: the market principle, redistribution, and reciprocity. These principles all can be present in the same society, but in that case they govern different kinds of transactions. In any society, one of them usually dominates. The principle that dominates in a given society is the one that determines how the means of production are exchanged (see Chibnik 2011; Hann and Hart 2011).

The Market Principle In today’s world capitalist economy, the market principle dominates. It governs the distribution of the means of production—land, labor, natural resources, technology, knowledge, and capital. With market exchange, items are bought and sold, using money, with an eye to maximizing profit, and value is determined by the law of supply and de- mand (things cost more the scarcer they are and the more people want them). Bargaining is characteristic of market-principle exchanges. The buyer and seller strive to maxi- mize something—to get what they feel is their “money’s worth.” Bargaining doesn’t require that the buyer and seller meet. Consumers bargain whenever they shop around or use advertisements or the Internet in their decision making (see Hann and Hart 2009; Madra 2004).

Redistribution Redistribution occurs when products, such as a portion of the annual harvest, move from the local level to a center, from which they eventually flow back out. That center may be a capital, a regional collection point, or a storehouse near a chief’s residence. Redistribution typically occurs in societies that have chiefs. To reach the center, where they will be stored, products often move through a hierarchy of officials. Along the way, those officials and their dependents may consume some, but never all, of the products. After reaching the center, the flow of goods eventually will reverse direction—out from the center, down through the hierarchy, and back to the common people. Redistribution is a way of moving a variety of goods from different areas to a central point, where they

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are stored and eventually supplied to the public. The custom of tithing encouraged by many religions is a form of redistribution, in that what the church receives can be used (redistributed) to benefit the needy.

One example of redistribution comes from the Cherokee, Native Americans who were the original inhabitants of the Tennessee Valley. The Cherokee were productive cultiva- tors of maize, beans, and squash, which they supplemented by hunting and fishing. They also had chiefs. Each of their main villages had a central plaza, where meetings of the chief’s council took place and where redistributive feasts were held. According to Cherokee custom, each family farm had an area where the family could set aside part of its annual harvest for the chief. This supply of corn was used to feed the needy, as well as travelers and warriors journeying through Cherokee territory. This store of food was available to all who needed it, with the understanding that it “belonged” to the chief and was available through his generosity. The chief also hosted the redistributive feasts held in the main settlements. On those occasions, ordinary people were able to consume some of the produce they had previously given in the chief’s name (Harris 1978).

Reciprocity Reciprocity is the act of reciprocating—giving back, returning a favor, repaying a debt. More specifically, economic anthropologists use the term reciprocity to refer to exchanges between social equals, people who are related by some kind of personal tie, such as kinship or marriage. Because it occurs between social equals, reciprocity is the dominant exchange principle in the more egalitarian societies—among foragers, cultivators, and pastoralists.

There are three forms of reciprocity: generalized, balanced, and negative (Sahlins 1968, 2011; Service 1966). These may be imagined as areas along a continuum defined by these questions:

1. How closely related are the parties to the exchange? 2. How quickly and unselfishly are gifts reciprocated?

The exchanges that occur between the most closely related people illustrate general- ized reciprocity. There is no expectation of immediate return of a gift or favor. With bal- anced reciprocity, social distance increases, as does the need to reciprocate. In negative reciprocity, social distance is greatest and reciprocation is most calculated. This range, from generalized through balanced to negative, is called the reciprocity continuum.

With generalized reciprocity, someone gives to another person and expects nothing immediately in return. Such exchanges are not primarily economic transactions but ex- pressions of personal relationships. Most parents don’t keep accounts of all the time, money, and energy they expend on behalf of their children. They merely hope their children will respect their culture’s customs involving obligations to parents.

Among foragers, generalized reciprocity—unselfish giving with no immediate ex- pectation of return—tends to govern exchanges. People routinely share with other band members. So strong is the ethic of sharing that most foragers lack an expression for “thank you.” To offer thanks would be impolite because it would imply that a particular act of sharing, which is the keystone of egalitarian society, was unusual. Among the Semai, foragers of central Malaysia (Dentan 2008), to express gratitude would suggest surprise at a hunter’s success (see also Zhang 2016).

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Balanced reciprocity characterizes exchanges between people who are more dis- tantly related than are members of the same band or household. In a horticultural society, for example, a man presents a gift to a distant cousin, a trading partner, or a brother-in- law. The giver expects something in return. This may not come immediately, but the social relationship will be strained if there is no reciprocation.

Exchanges in nonindustrial societies also may illustrate negative reciprocity, mainly in dealing with people beyond their social systems. To people who live in a world of close personal relations, exchanges with outsiders are full of ambiguity and distrust. Exchange is one way of establishing friendly relations, but when trade begins, the rela- tionship is still tentative. Initially, people seek to get something back immediately. Just as in market economies, but without using money, they try to get the best possible im- mediate return for their investment (see Clark 2010; Hann and Hart 2009).

Generalized reciprocity and balanced reciprocity are based on trust and a social tie. With negative reciprocity, the goal is to get something for as little as possible, even if it means being cagey or deceitful or cheating. Among the most extreme and “negative” examples was 19th-century horse thievery by North American Plains Indians. Men would sneak into camps of neighboring tribes to steal horses. Such thefts were likely to be reciprocated. A similar pattern of livestock (cattle) raiding continues today in East Africa, among tribes such as the Kuria (Fleisher 2000). In these cases, the party that starts the raiding can expect reciprocity—a raid on their own village—or worse. The Kuria hunt down cattle thieves and kill them. It’s still reciprocity, governed by “Do unto others as they have done unto you.”

One way of reducing the tension in situations of potential negative reciprocity is to engage in “silent trade.” One example was the silent trade of the Mbuti pygmy foragers of the African equatorial forest and their neighboring horticultural villagers. There was no personal contact during their exchanges. A Mbuti hunter left game, honey, or another forest product at a customary site. Villagers collected it and left crops in exchange. Of- ten the parties bargained silently. If one felt the return was insufficient, he or she simply left it at the trading site. If the other party wanted to continue trade, it was increased.

Coexistence of Exchange Principles In contemporary North America, the market principle governs most exchanges, from the sale of the means of production to the sale of consumer goods. We also have redistribu- tion. Some of our tax money goes to support the government, but some of it also comes back to us in the form of social services, education, health care, and infrastructure. We also have reciprocal exchanges. Generalized reciprocity characterizes the relationship between parents and children. However, even here the dominant market mentality sur- faces in comments about the high cost of raising children and in the stereotypical state- ment of the disappointed parent: “We gave you everything money could buy.”

Exchanges of gifts, cards, and invitations exemplify reciprocity, usually balanced. Everyone has heard remarks like “They invited us to their daughter’s wedding, so when ours gets married, we’ll have to invite them” and “They’ve been here for dinner three times and haven’t invited us yet. I don’t think we should ask them back until they do.” Such precise balancing of reciprocity would be out of place in a foraging band, where resources are communal (common to all) and daily sharing based on generalized reci- procity is an essential ingredient of social life and survival.

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Generalized reciprocity would appear to be the most widespread form of exchange, because it exists in every kind of society, from foraging bands to industrial nations. So- cieties with productive economies based on food production have expanded social and economic networks, which allow for wider and more distant exchanges characterized by balanced and even negative reciprocity. Societies with chiefs have redistribution. The market principle tends to dominate exchanges in state-organized societies, to be exam- ined further in Chapter 12.

Potlatching The potlatch is a festive event within a regional exchange system among tribes of the North Pacific Coast of North America, including the Salish and Kwakiutl of Washington and British Columbia, and the Tsimshian of Alaska. At each potlatch, the sponsoring community gave away food and wealth items, such as blankets and pieces of copper, to visitors from other villages in its network. In return for its giveaway of food and wealth,

This historic (1904) photo shows potlatch participants at the Haida village of Klinkwan, Alaska. Source: Stereograph Cards collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-50908

Distribution, Exchange 269

the sponsoring community received prestige. Prestige increased with the lavishness of the potlatch, the value of the goods distributed. Some North Pacific tribes still practice the potlatch, sometimes as a memorial to the dead (Kan 1986, 1989).

The potlatching tribes were foragers, but not typical ones. Rather than living in no- madic bands, they were sedentary and had chiefs. They enjoyed access to a wide variety of land and sea resources. Among their most important foods were salmon, herring, candlefish, berries, mountain goats, seals, and porpoises (Piddocke 1969).

The economist and social commentator Thorstein Veblen cited potlatching as a prime example of conspicuous consumption in his influential book The Theory of the Leisure Class (1934), claiming that potlatching was based on an economically irrational drive for prestige. His analysis emphasized the lavishness and supposed wastefulness, espe- cially of the Kwakiutl displays, to support his contention that in some societies people strive to maximize prestige at the expense of their material well-being. This interpreta- tion has been challenged.

Ecological anthropology, also known as cultural ecology, is a theoretical school that attempts to interpret cultural practices, such as the potlatch, in terms of their long-term role in helping humans adapt to their environments (see Haenn, Wilk, and Harnish 2016). Wayne Suttles (1960) and Andrew Vayda (1961/1968) saw potlatching not in terms of its immediate wastefulness but in terms of its long-term role as a cultural adap- tive mechanism. This view also helps us understand similar patterns of lavish feasting throughout the world. Here is the ecological interpretation: Customs such as the pot- latch are cultural adaptations to alternating periods of local abundance and shortage.

How did this work? Although the natural environment of the North Pacific Coast is favorable, resources do fluctuate from year to year and place to place. Salmon and her- ring aren’t equally abundant every year in a given locality. One village can have a good year while another is experiencing a bad one. Later, their fortunes reverse. In this con- text, the potlatch cycle had adaptive value; the potlatch was not a competitive display that brought no material benefit.

A village enjoying an especially good year had a surplus of subsistence items, which it could trade for more durable wealth items, such as blankets, canoes, or pieces of cop- per. Such wealth, in turn, could be given away and thereby converted into prestige. Members of several villages were invited to any potlatch and got to take home the re- sources that were distributed. In this way, potlatching linked villages together in a re- gional economy—an exchange system that distributed food and wealth from wealthy to needy communities. In return, the potlatch sponsors and their villages got prestige. The decision to potlatch was determined by the health of the local economy. If there had been subsistence surpluses, and thus a buildup of wealth over several good years, a vil- lage could afford a potlatch to convert its surplus food and wealth into prestige.

The long-term adaptive value of potlatching becomes clear when a formerly prosper- ous village had a run of bad luck. Its people started accepting invitations to potlatches in villages that were doing better. The tables were turned as the temporarily rich became temporarily poor and vice versa. The newly needy accepted food and wealth items. They were willing to receive rather than bestow gifts and thus to relinquish some of their stored-up prestige. They hoped their luck would eventually improve, so that resources could be recouped and prestige regained.

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Anthropology Today Scarcity and the Betsileo

very first day there we did a brief census and found out who lived in which house- holds. We learned people’s names and their relationships to our schoolteacher friends and to each other. We met an ex- cellent informant who knew all about the local history. In a few afternoons I learned much more than I had in the other villages in several sessions. Ivatans were so willing to talk because we had powerful sponsors, villagers who had made it in the outside world, people the Ivatans knew would protect them. The schoolteachers vouched for us, but even more significant was the cabinet minister, who was like a grandfather and benefac- tor to everyone in town. The Ivatans had no reason to fear us because their more influential native son had asked them to answer our questions. Once we moved to Ivato, the elders es- tablished a pattern of visiting us every evening. They came to talk, attracted by the inquisitive foreigners but also by the wine, tobacco, and food we offered. I asked question after question about their customs and beliefs. As our stay neared its end, our Ivatan friends lamented, saying, “We’ll miss you. When you leave, there won’t be any more cigarettes, any more wine, or any more questions.” They wondered what it would be like for us back in the United States. They knew we had an automobile and that we regularly purchased things, including the items we shared with them. We could afford to buy products they never would have. They commented, “When you go back to your country, you’ll need a lot of money for things like cars, clothes, and food. We don’t need to buy those things. We make almost every- thing we use. We don’t need as much money as you, because we produce for ourselves.”

In the realm of cultural diversity, percep- tions and motivations can change sub- stantially over time. Consider some changes I’ve observed among the Betsileo of Madagascar during the de- cades I’ve been studying them. Initially, compared with modern consumers, the Betsileo had little perception of scarcity. Now, with population increase and the spread of a cash-oriented economy, their perceived wants and needs have in- creased relative to their means. Their mo- tivations have changed, too, as people increasingly seek profits, even if it means stealing from their neighbors or destroy- ing ancestral farms. In the late 1960s my wife and I first lived among the Betsileo, studying their econ- omy and social life (Kottak 1980). Soon af- ter our arrival we met two well-educated schoolteachers (first cousins) who were interested in our research. The woman’s father was a congressional representative who became a cabinet minister during our stay. Their family came from a historically important and typical Betsileo village called Ivato, which they invited us to visit with them. We had visited many other Betsileo vil- lages, where often, as we drove up, chil- dren would run away screaming. Women would hurry inside, and men would retreat to doorways. This behavior expressed their fear of the mpakafo. Believed to cut out and devour his victim’s heart and liver, the mpakafo is the Malagasy vampire. These cannibals are said to have fair skin and to be very tall. Because I have light skin and stand over 6 feet tall, I was a natu- ral suspect. The fact that such creatures were not known to travel with their wives helped convince the Betsileo that I wasn’t really a mpakafo. When we visited Ivato, however, its people were friendly and hospitable. Our

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The Betsileo weren’t unusual for nonin- dustrial people. Strange as it may seem to an American consumer, those rice farmers actually believed they had all they needed. The lesson from the Betsileo of the 1960s is that scarcity, which economists view as universal, is variable. Although shortages do arise in nonindustrial societies, the con- cept of scarcity (insufficient means) is much less developed in stable, subsistence-oriented economies than in industrial societies that rely on a host of consumer goods. But with globalization over the past few decades, significant changes have af- fected the Betsileo—and most nonindus- trial peoples. On my most recent visit to Ivato, the effects of cash and of population increase were evident there—and throughout Madagascar—where the pop- ulation growth rate has been about 3 per- cent annually. Madagascar’s population

has quadrupled since 1966, to about 24 million. One result of population pres- sure has been agricultural intensification. In Ivato, farmers who formerly grew only rice in their fields now use the same land for commercial crops, such as carrots, af- ter the annual rice harvest. More tragically, Ivato has witnessed a breakdown of social and political order, fueled by increasing demand for cash. Cattle rustling has become a growing threat. Cattle thieves (sometimes from neighboring villages) have terrorized peasants who previously felt secure in their villages. Some of the rustled cattle are driven to the coasts for commercial ex- port. Prominent among the rustlers are relatively well-educated young men who have studied long enough to be comfort- able negotiating with outsiders, but who have been unable to find formal work, and who are unwilling to work the rice fields as

Women hull rice in a Betsileo village. In the village of Ivato, farmers who traditionally grew only rice in their fields now use the same land for commercial crops, such as carrots, after the annual rice harvest. ©Carl D. Walsh/Aurora Photos

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The potlatch linked local groups along the North Pacific Coast into a regional alli- ance and exchange network. Potlatching and intervillage exchange had adaptive func- tions, regardless of the motivations of the individual participants. The anthropologists who stressed rivalry for prestige were not wrong. They were merely emphasizing moti- vations at the expense of an analysis of economic and ecological systems.

The use of feasts to enhance individual and community reputations and to redis- tribute wealth is not unique to populations of the North Pacific Coast. Competitive feasting is widely characteristic of nonindustrial food producers. But among most foragers, who live, remember, in marginal areas, resources are too meager to support feasting on such a level. Among foragers living in marginal areas, sharing rather than competition prevails.

The potlatch does not, and did not, exist apart from larger world events. For example, within the spreading world capitalist economy of the 19th century, the potlatching tribes, particularly the Kwakiutl, began to trade with Europeans (fur for blankets, for example). Their wealth increased as a result. Simultaneously, a huge proportion of the Kwakiutl population died from diseases brought by the Europeans. The increased wealth from trade flowed into a drastically reduced population. With many of the traditional potlatch organizers dead (such as chiefs and their families), the Kwakiutl extended the right to give a potlatch to everyone. This resulted in intense competition for prestige, to such an extent that Kwakiutl potlatches began to incorporate the ostentatious destruc- tion of wealth, including blankets, pieces of copper, and even their wooden houses. Blankets and homes were burned, and pieces of copper were buried at sea. Being rich enough to destroy wealth conveyed prestige. European trade and local depopulation

their peasant ancestors did. The formal education system has familiarized them with external institutions and norms, in- cluding the need for cash. The concepts of scarcity, commerce, and negative reci- procity now thrive among the Betsileo. I’ve witnessed other striking evidence of the new addiction to cash during my most recent visits to Betsileo country. Near Ivato’s county seat, people now sell pre- cious stones—tourmalines, which were found by chance in local rice fields. We saw an amazing sight: dozens of villagers destroying an ancestral resource, digging up a large rice field, seeking tourmalines— clear evidence of the encroachment of cash on the local subsistence economy.

Throughout the Betsileo homeland, population growth and density are propel- ling emigration. Locally, land, jobs, and money are all scarce. One woman with an- cestors from Ivato, herself now a resident of the national capital (Antananarivo), re- marked that half the children of Ivato now lived in that city. Although she was exag- gerating, a census of all the descendants of Ivato reveals a substantial emigrant and urban population. Ivato’s recent history is one of increas- ing participation in a cash economy. That history, combined with the pressure of a growing population on local resources, has made scarcity not just a concept but a reality for Ivatans and their neighbors.

Anthropology Today continued

Summary 273

caused Kwakiutl potlatching to change its nature. It became much more destructive than it had been previously.

Note, however, that this destructive potlatching also worked to prevent the formation of sharply divided social classes. Wealth relinquished or destroyed was converted into a nonmaterial item: prestige. Under capitalism, we reinvest our profits (rather than burn- ing our cash), with the hope of making an additional profit. The potlatchers, by contrast, were content to relinquish their surpluses rather than use them to widen the social dis- tance between themselves and their fellow tribe members.

Summary 1. Cohen’s adaptive strategies include foraging (hunting and gathering), horticulture,

agriculture, pastoralism, and industrialism. Foraging was the only human adaptive strategy until the transition to food production (farming and herding), which began about 12,000 years ago. Food production eventually replaced foraging in most places. Almost all modern foragers have some dependence on food production or food producers.

2. Horticulture doesn’t use land or labor intensively. Horticulturalists cultivate a plot for one or two years (sometimes longer) and then abandon it. There is always a fal- low period. Agriculturists farm the same plot of land continuously and use labor intensively. They use one or more of the following: irrigation, terracing, domesti- cated animals as a means of production, and manure for fertilizer.

3. The pastoral strategy is mixed. Nomadic pastoralists trade with cultivators. Part of a transhumant pastoral population cultivates while another part takes the herds to pasture. Except for some Peruvians and the Navajo, who are recent herders, the New World lacks native pastoralists.

4. Economic anthropology is the cross-cultural study of systems of production, distri- bution, and consumption. In nonindustrial societies, a kin-based mode of produc- tion prevails. One acquires rights to resources and labor through membership in social groups, not impersonally through purchase and sale. Work is just one aspect of social relations expressed in varied contexts.

5. Economics has been defined as the science of allocating scarce means to alterna- tive ends. Western economists assume the notion of scarcity is universal—which it isn’t—and that in making choices, people strive to maximize personal profit. In nonindustrial societies, indeed as in our own, people often maximize values other than individual profit.

6. In nonindustrial societies, people invest in subsistence, replacement, social, and ceremonial funds. States add a rent fund: People must share their output with their social superiors. In states, the obligation to pay rent often becomes primary.

7. Besides studying production, economic anthropologists study and compare ex- change systems. The three principles of exchange are the market principle, redistri- bution, and reciprocity, which may coexist in a given society. The primary exchange mode is the one that allocates the means of production.

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8. Patterns of feasting and exchanges of wealth among villages are common among nonindustrial food producers, as among the potlatching societies of North America’s North Pacific Coast. Such systems help even out the availability of resources over time.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. When considering issues of “human nature,” why should we remember that the

egalitarian band was a basic form of human social life for most of our history? 2. Give examples from your own exchanges of different degrees of reciprocity. Why

are anthropologists interested in studying exchange across cultures?

Key Terms agriculture, 253 balanced

reciprocity, 267 band, 252 correlation, 252 cultivation

continuum, 256 economy, 259 food

production, 248 foraging, 249

pastoral nomadism, 258

pastoralists, 257 peasants, 264 potlatch, 268 reciprocity, 266 reciprocity

continuum, 266 redistribution, 265 transhumance, 258

generalized reciprocity, 266

horticulture, 253 market

principle, 265 means (factors) of

production, 260 mode of

production, 259 negative

reciprocity, 267

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Chapter 12 Political Systems

What Is “The Political”?

Types and Trends

Bands and Tribes Foraging Bands Tribal Cultivators The Village Head The “Big Man” Pantribal Sodalities Nomadic Politics

Chiefdoms Political and Economic Systems Status Systems The Emergence of Stratification

State Systems Population Control Judiciary Enforcement Fiscal Support

Social Control Hegemony and Resistance Weapons of the Weak Shame and Gossip The Igbo Women’s War

Anthropology Today: The Illegality Industry: A Failed System of Border Control

What Is “The Political”?

Anthropologists share with political scientists an interest in political systems, power, and politics. Here again, however, the anthropological approach is global and compara- tive and includes nonstates, whereas political scientists tend to focus on contemporary nations. Anthropological studies have revealed substantial variation in power, authority, and legal systems in different societies (see Pirie 2013; Walton and Suarez 2016). (Power is the ability to exercise one’s will over others; authority is the formal, socially approved use of power—e.g., by government officials.)

Morton Fried (1967) offered the following definition of political organization: Political organization comprises those portions of social organization that specifically relate to the individuals or groups that manage the affairs of public policy or seek to control the appointment or activities of those individuals or groups. (pp. 20–21)

This definition certainly fits contemporary North America and other nation-states. Under “individuals or groups that manage the affairs of public policy” come various

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agencies and levels of government. Those who seek to influence public policy include political parties, unions, corporations, consumers, lobbyists, activists, political action committees (including super PACs), religious groups, and nongovernmental organiza- tions (NGOs).

In nonstates, by contrast, it’s often difficult to detect any “public policy.” For this reason, I prefer to speak of sociopolitical organization in discussing the exercise of power and the regulation of relations among groups and their representatives. Political regulation includes such processes as decision making, dispute management, and conflict resolution. The study of political regulation draws our attention to those who make decisions and resolve conflicts, for example, by raising the question of whether there are formal leaders (see Rhodes and Hart 2014; Schwartz et al. 2011; Stryker and Gonzalez 2014).

Types and Trends

Ethnographic and archaeological studies in hundreds of places have revealed many cor- relations between the economy and social and political organization. Decades ago, the anthropologist Elman Service (1962) listed four types, or levels, of political organiza- tion: band, tribe, chiefdom, and state. Today, none of the first three types can be studied as a self-contained form of political organization, because all now exist within the con- text of nation-states and are subject to state control. There is archaeological evidence for early bands, tribes, and chiefdoms that existed before the first states appeared. However,

Seeking to influence public policy, hundreds of demonstrators march in midtown Manhattan, New York, in solidarity with protests in North Dakota against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Opposed particularly by Native Americans and environmentalists, the pipeline passes near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. ©Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

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because anthropology came into being long after the origin of the state, anthropologists never have been able to observe “in the flesh” a band, tribe, or chiefdom outside the influence of some state. There still may be local political leaders (e.g., village heads) and regional figures (e.g., chiefs) of the sort discussed in this chapter, but all now exist and function within the context of state organization.

A band is a small, kin-based group (all its members are related by kinship or mar- riage) found among foragers. Tribes typically have economies based on horticulture and pastoralism. Living in villages and organized into kin groups based on common descent, tribes have no formal government and no reliable means of enforcing political decisions. Chiefdom refers to a form of sociopolitical organization intermediate between the tribe and the state. In chiefdoms, social relations are based mainly on kinship, marriage, de- scent, age, generation, and gender—just as in bands and tribes. However, although chiefdoms are kin based, they feature differential access to resources (some people have more wealth, prestige, and power than others do) and a permanent political struc- ture. The state is a form of sociopolitical organization based on a formal government structure and socioeconomic stratification.

The four labels in Service’s typology are much too simple to account for the full range of political diversity and complexity known to anthropologists. We’ll see, for in- stance, that tribes have varied widely in their political systems and institutions. Never- theless, Service’s typology does highlight significant contrasts in political organization, especially those between states and nonstates. For example, in bands and tribes—unlike states, which have clearly visible governments—political organization does not stand out as separate and distinct. In bands and tribes, it is difficult to characterize an act or event as political rather than merely social.

Service’s labels “band,” “tribe,” “chiefdom,” and “state” are categories or types within a sociopolitical typology. These types are correlated with the adaptive strategies (an economic typology) discussed in Chapter 11. Thus, foragers (an economic type) tend to have band organization (a sociopolitical type). Similarly, many horticulturalists and pastoralists live in tribes. Although most chiefdoms have farming economies, herding is important in some Middle Eastern chiefdoms. Nonindustrial states usually have an agricultural base.

Food production led to larger, denser populations and more complex economies than was the case among foragers. Many sociopolitical trends reflect the increased regulatory demands associated with cultivation and herding. Archaeologists have studied these trends through time, and cultural anthropologists have observed them across a range of more contemporary societies (see Shore, Wright, and Peró 2011).

Bands and Tribes

This chapter discusses a series of societies, as case studies, with different political sys- tems. A common set of questions will be addressed for each one. What kinds of social groups does the society have? How do those groups represent themselves to each other? How are their internal and external relations regulated? To answer these questions, we begin with bands and tribes and then consider chiefdoms and states.

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Foraging Bands The strong ties that contemporary and recent foragers maintain with sociopolitical groups beyond the band make them markedly different from Stone Age hunter- gatherers. Modern foragers live in nation-states and an interlinked world. All foragers now trade with food producers. The pygmies of Congo, for example, for generations have shared a social world and economic exchanges with their neighbors who are cultivators. Further- more, most contemporary hunter-gatherers rely on governments and on missionaries for at least part of what they consume.

The San Anthropologists once viewed contemporary and recent foragers (inaccurately) as primi- tive, isolated survivors of the Stone Age. A more recent and accurate view of contempo- rary and recent foragers sees them as groups forced into marginal environments by states, colonialism, and world events (Kent 2002). 

In Chapter 11, we saw how the Basarwa San of Botswana have been affected by gov- ernment policies that relocated them after converting their ancestral lands into a wildlife reserve (Motseta 2006). More generally, San speakers (“Bushmen”) of southern Africa have been influenced by Bantu speakers (farmers and herders) for 2,000 years and by Europeans for centuries. Edwin Wilmsen (1989) argues that many San descend from herders who were pushed into the desert by poverty or oppression. He sees the San today as a rural underclass in a larger political and economic system dominated by Europeans and Bantu food producers. Within this system, many San now tend cattle for wealthier Bantu rather than foraging independently. San also have their own domesticated animals, further illustrating their movement away from a foraging lifestyle.

An Aboriginal elder stands next to his home in the Anangu Pitjantjara lands, South Australia. Like this man, most recent and contemporary foragers and their descendants participate in the modern world system. ©Susie Bennett/ Alamy Stock Photo

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The nature of San life has changed considerably since the 1950s and 1960s, when a series of anthropologists from Harvard University, including Richard B. Lee, embarked on a systematic study of their lives. Studying the San over time, Lee and others have documented many changes (see Lee 2003, 2012). Such longitudinal research monitors variation in time, while fieldwork in many San areas has revealed variation in space. One of the most important contrasts is between settled (sedentary) and nomadic groups (Kent and Vierich 1989). Although sedentism has increased substantially in recent years, some San groups (along rivers) have been sedentary for generations. Others, in- cluding the Dobe Ju/’hoansi San studied by Lee (1984, 2003, 2012) and the Kutse San whom Susan Kent studied, have retained more of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

To the extent that foraging continues to be their subsistence base, groups like the San can illustrate links between a foraging economy and other aspects of life in bands. For example, San groups that still are mobile, or that were so until recently, emphasize social, political, and gender equality, which are traditional band characteristics. A social system based on kinship, reciprocity, and sharing is appropriate for an economy with few people and limited resources. People have to share meat when they get it; otherwise, it rots. The nomadic pursuit of wild plants and animals tends to discourage permanent settlement, wealth accumulation, and social distinctions.

Marriage and kinship create ties between members of different bands. Trade and visiting also link them. Band leaders are leaders in name only. Bands are egalitarian societies. That is, they make only a few social distinctions, based mainly on age, gender, and individual talents or achievements. In these egalitarian societies, the “leaders” are merely first among equals. If they give advice or make decisions, they have no sure way to enforce those decisions. 

The Inuit The Aboriginal Inuit (Hoebel 1954, 2006), another group of foragers, provide a classic example of methods of settling disputes—conflict resolution—in stateless societies. All societies have ways of settling disputes (of variable effectiveness) along with cul- tural rules or norms about proper and improper behavior. Norms are cultural standards or guidelines that enable individuals to distinguish between appropriate and inappropri- ate behavior in a given society (N. Kottak 2002). Although rules and norms are cultural universals, only state societies, those with established governments, have formal laws that are formulated, proclaimed, and enforced (see Donovan 2007; Dresch and Skoda 2012; Pirie 2013).

Foragers lacked formal law in the sense of a legal code with trial and enforcement, but they did have methods of social control and dispute settlement. The absence of law did not mean total anarchy. As described by E. A. Hoebel (1954, 2006) in a classic ethnographic study of conflict resolution, a sparse population of some 20,000 Inuit spanned 6,000 miles (9,500 kilometers) of the Arctic region. The most significant social groups were the nuclear family and the band. Some bands had headmen. There also were shamans (part-time religious specialists). However, these positions conferred little power on those who occupied them. Each Inuit had access to the resources he or she needed to sustain life. Every man could hunt, fish, and make the tools necessary for subsistence. Every woman could obtain the materials needed to make clothing, prepare

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food, and do domestic work. Inuit men could even hunt and fish in the territories of other local groups. There was no notion of private ownership of territory or animals.

Hunting and fishing by men were the primary subsistence activities. The diverse and abundant plant foods available in warmer areas, where female labor in gathering is im- portant, were absent in the Arctic. Traveling on land and sea in a bitter environment, Inuit men faced more dangers than women did. The traditional male role took its toll in lives, so that adult women outnumbered men. This permitted some men to have two or three wives. The ability to support more than one wife conferred a certain amount of prestige, but it also encouraged envy. (Prestige is social esteem, respect, or approval.) If a man seemed to be taking additional wives just to enhance his reputation, a rival was likely to steal one of them. Most Inuit disputes were between men and originated over women, caused by wife stealing or adultery.

A jilted husband had several options. He could try to kill the wife thief. However, if he succeeded, one of his rival’s kinsmen surely would try to kill him in retaliation. One dispute might escalate into several deaths as relatives avenged a succession of murders. No government existed to intervene and stop such a blood feud (a murderous feud be- tween families). However, one also could challenge a rival to a song battle. In a public setting, contestants made up insulting songs about each other. At the end of the match, the audience proclaimed the winner. However, if the winner was the man whose wife had been stolen, there was no guarantee she would return. Often she stayed with her abductor.

Tribal Cultivators As is true of foraging bands, there are no totally autonomous tribes in today’s world. Still, there are societies, for example, in Papua New Guinea and in South America’s tropical forests, in which tribal principles continue to operate. Tribes typically have a horticultural or pastoral economy and are organized into villages and/or descent groups (kin groups whose members trace descent from a common ancestor). Tribes lack socio- economic stratification (i.e., a class structure) and a formal government of their own. A few tribes still conduct small-scale warfare, in the form of intervillage raiding. Tribes have more effective regulatory mechanisms than foragers do, but tribal societies have no sure means of enforcing political decisions (see Gluckman 2012). The main regulatory officials are village heads, “big men,” descent-group leaders, village councils, and lead- ers of pantribal associations (described later in this section). All these figures and groups have limited authority.

Like foragers, horticulturalists tend to be egalitarian, although some have marked gender stratification: an unequal distribution of resources, power, prestige, and personal freedom between men and women (see Chapter 14). Horticultural villages usually are small, with low population density and open access to strategic resources. Age, gender, and personal traits determine how much respect people receive and how much support they get from others. Egalitarianism diminishes, however, as village size and population density increase. Horticultural villages usually have headmen—rarely, if ever, headwomen.

The Village Head The Yanomami (Chagnon 1997, 2013; Ferguson 1995; Ramos 1995) live in southern Venezuela and the adjacent part of Brazil. When anthropologists first studied them, they

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numbered about 26,000 people living in 200 to 250 widely scattered villages, each with a population between 40 and 250. The Yanomami are horticulturalists who also hunt and gather. Their staple crops are bananas and plantains (a banana-like crop). The Yanomami have more social groups than exist in a foraging society. They have families, villages, and descent groups. Their descent groups, which span more than one village, are patrilineal (ancestry is traced back through males only) and exogamous (people must marry outside their own descent group). However, branches of two different descent groups may live in the same village and intermarry.

Traditionally the only leadership position has been that of village head (always a man). A village head is chosen based on his personal characteristics (e.g., bravery, per- suasiveness) and the support he can muster from fellow villagers. The position is not inherited, and the authority of the village head, like that of the leader of a foraging band, is severely limited. The headman lacks the right to issue orders. He can only persuade, harangue, and try to influence public opinion. For example, if he wants people to clean up the central plaza in preparation for a feast, he must start sweeping it himself, hoping his covillagers will take the hint and relieve him.

When conflict erupts within the village, the headman may be called on as a mediator who listens to both sides. He will give an opinion and advice. If a disputant is unsatis- fied, the headman has no power to back his decisions and no way to impose punish- ments. Like the band leader, he is first among equals.

A Yanomami village headman also must lead in generosity. Expected to be more generous than any other villager, he cultivates more land. His garden provides much of the food consumed when his village hosts a feast for another village. The headman rep- resents the village in its dealings with outsiders, including Venezuelan and Brazilian government agents.

Napoleon Chagnon (1983/1992, 2013) describes how one village headman, Kaobawa, guaranteed safety to a delegation from a village with which a covillager of his wanted to start a war. Kaobawa was a particularly effective headman. He had demonstrated his mettle in battle, but he also knew how to use diplomacy to avoid offending other villag- ers. No one in his village had a better personality for the headmanship. Nor (because Kaobawa had many brothers) did anyone have more supporters. Among the Yanomami, when a village is dissatisfied with its headman, its members can leave and found a new village. This happens from time to time and is called village fissioning.

With its many villages and descent groups, Yanomami sociopolitical organization is more complicated than that of a band-organized society. The Yanomami face more problems in regulating relations between groups and individuals. Although a headman sometimes can prevent a specific violent act, intervillage raiding has been common in some areas of Yanomami territory, particularly those studied by Chagnon (1997, 2013).

It’s important to recognize as well that the Yanomami are not isolated from outside events. They live in two nation-states, Venezuela and Brazil, and attacks by outsiders, especially Brazilian ranchers and miners, have plagued them (Chagnon 2013; Cultural Survival Quarterly 1989; Ferguson 1995). During a Brazilian gold rush between 1987 and 1991, one Yanomami died each day, on average, from such attacks. By 1991, there were some 40,000 miners in the Brazilian Yanomami homeland. Some Yanomami were killed outright. The miners introduced new diseases, and the swollen population ensured

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that old diseases became epidemic. Brazilian Yanomami were dying at a rate of 10 per- cent annually, and their fertility rate had dropped to zero. Since then, one Brazilian president declared a huge Yanomami territory off-limits to outsiders. Unfortunately, local politicians, miners, and ranchers have managed to evade the ban. The future of the Yanomami remains uncertain (see Romero 2008).

The “Big Man” Many societies of the South Pacific, particularly on the Melanesian Islands and in Papua New Guinea, had a kind of political leader that we call the big man. The big man (almost always a male) was an elaborate version of the village head, but with one significant difference. Unlike the village head, whose leadership is limited to one village, the big man had supporters in several villages. The big man thus was a regulator of regional political organization.

Consider the Kapauku Papuans, inhabitants of Irian Jaya, Indonesia (located on the island of New Guinea). Anthropologist Leopold Pospisil (1963) studied the Kapauku (then 45,000 people), who grew crops (with the sweet potato as their staple) and raised pigs. Their cultivation system was too labor intensive to be described as simple horticulture. It required mutual aid in turning the soil before planting. The digging of long drainage ditches, which a big man often helped organize, was even more com- plex. Kapauku cultivation supported a larger and denser population than does the simpler horticulture of the Yanomami. The Kapauku economy required collective cultivation and political regulation of the more complex tasks. The key political figure was the big man.

Attributes that distinguished the big man from his fellows included wealth, generosity, eloquence, physical fitness, bravery, supernatural powers, and the ability to gain the support and loyalty of others. Men became big men because they had certain person- alities; they did not inherit their position but created it through hard work and good judgment. Wealth resulted from successful pig breeding and trading. As a man’s pig herd and prestige grew, he attracted supporters. He sponsored pig feasts in which pork (provided by the big man and his supporters) was distributed to guests, bringing him more prestige and widening his network of support (see also O’Connor 2015).

The big man persuades people to organize feasts, which distribute pork and wealth. Shown here is a big man from the Huli (or Haroli) tribe of the southern highlands of Papua New Guinea. Does your own society have equivalents of big men? ©Edward Reeves/Alamy Stock Photo

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The big man’s supporters, acknowledging his past favors and anticipating future re- wards, recognized him as a leader and accepted his decisions as binding. The Kapauku big man, known as the tonowi, was an important regulator of regional events. He helped determine the dates for feasts and markets. He initiated economic projects requiring the cooperation of a regional community.

The Kapauku big man again exemplifies a generalization about leadership in tribal societies: If someone achieves wealth and widespread respect and support, he or she must be generous. The big man worked hard not to hoard wealth but to be able to give away the fruits of his labor, to convert wealth into prestige and gratitude. A stingy big man would lose his support. Selfish and greedy big men sometimes were killed by their fellows (Zimmer-Tamakoshi 1997).

How similar are contemporary politicians to the big man? Big men get their loyalists to produce and deliver pigs, just as modern politicians persuade their supporters to make campaign contributions. And like big men, successful American politicians try to be generous with their supporters. Payback may take the form of a night in the Lincoln bed- room, a strategic dinner invitation, an ambassadorship, or largesse to a place that was particularly supportive. Big men amass wealth, then distribute pigs and their meat. Suc- cessful American politicians also give away “pork.” As with the big man, eloquence and communication skills contribute to political success (e.g., Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama), although lack of such skills isn’t necessarily fatal (e.g., either President Bush). What about physical fitness? Hair, height, and health are still political advantages. Bravery, in the form of military service, also helps political careers (e.g., John Kerry and John McCain), but it certainly isn’t required, nor does it guarantee success. Supernatural powers? Candidates who proclaim themselves atheists are even rarer than self-identified witches (or not witches). Almost all political candidates claim to belong to a mainstream religion. Some even present their candidacies as promoting God’s will. (How does the current leader of your country fare in terms of the attributes discussed in this paragraph?)

On the other hand, contemporary politics isn’t just about personality, as it is in big man systems. We live in a state-organized, stratified society with inherited wealth, power, and privilege, all of which have political implications. As is typical of states, inheritance and kin connections play a role in political success. Just think of the Kennedys, Bushes, Clintons, and Gandhis.

Pantribal Sodalities Big men could forge regional political organization, albeit temporarily, by mobilizing supporters from several villages. Other principles in tribal societies—such as a belief in common ancestry, kinship, or descent—could be used to link local groups within a re- gion. The same descent group, for example, might span several villages, and its dis- persed members might recognize the same leader.

Principles other than kinship also can link local groups, especially in modern socie- ties. People who live in different parts of the same nation may belong to the same labor union, sorority or fraternity, political party, or religious denomination. In tribes, nonkin groups called associations or sodalities may serve a similar linking function. Often, sodalities are based on common age or gender, with all-male sodalities more common than all-female ones.

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Pantribal sodalities are groups that extend across the whole tribe, spanning several villages. Such sodalities were especially likely to develop in situations of warfare with a neighboring tribe. Mobilizing their members from multiple villages within the same tribe, pantribal sodalities could assemble a force to attack, defend, or retaliate against another tribe.

The best examples of pantribal sodalities come from the Central Plains of North America and from tropical Africa. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Native American populations of the Great Plains of the United States and Canada experienced a rapid growth of pantribal sodalities. This development reflected an economic change that fol- lowed the spread of horses, which had been reintroduced to the Americas by the Spanish, to the area between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. Many Plains socie- ties changed their adaptive strategies because of the horse. At first they had been foragers who hunted bison (buffalo) on foot. Later they adopted a mixed economy based on hunting, gathering, and horticulture. Finally they changed to a much more specialized economy based on horseback hunting of bison (eventually with rifles).

As the Plains tribes were undergoing these changes, other groups also adopted horse- back hunting and moved into the Plains. Attempting to occupy the same area, groups came into conflict. A pattern of warfare developed in which the members of one tribe raided another, usually for horses. The economy demanded that people follow the move- ment of the bison herds. During the winter, when the bison dispersed, a tribe fragmented into small bands and families. In the summer, when huge herds assembled on the Plains, the tribe reunited. They camped together for social, political, and religious activities, but mainly for communal bison hunting.

Two activities demanded strong leadership: organizing and carrying out raids on enemy camps (to capture horses) and managing the summer bison hunt. All the Plains societies developed pantribal sodalities, and leadership roles within them, to police the summer hunt. Leaders coordinated hunting efforts, making sure that people did not cause a stampede with an early shot or an ill-advised action. Leaders imposed severe penalties, including seizure of a culprit’s wealth, for disobedience.

Many tribes that adopted this Plains strategy of adaptation had once been foragers for whom hunting and gathering had been individual or small-group affairs. They never had come together previously as a single social unit. Age and gender were available as social principles that could quickly and efficiently forge unrelated people into pantribal sodalities.

Raiding of one tribe by another, this time for cattle rather than horses, was common in eastern and southeastern Africa, where pantribal sodalities also developed. Among the pastoral Masai of Kenya, men born during the same four-year period were circumcised together and belonged to the same named group, an age set, throughout their lives. The sets moved through age grades, the most important of which was the warrior grade. Members of a set felt a strong allegiance to one another. Masai women lacked comparable set organization, but they also passed through culturally recognized age grades: the initiate, the married woman, and the female elder.

In certain parts of western and central Africa, pantribal sodalities are secret societies, made up exclusively of men or women. Like our college fraternities and sororities, these associations have secret initiation ceremonies. Among the Mende of Sierra Leone,

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men’s and women’s secret societies were very influential. The men’s group, the Poro, trained boys in social conduct, ethics, and religion and supervised political and eco- nomic activities. Leadership roles in the Poro often overshadowed village headship and played an important part in social control, dispute management, and tribal political regulation. Age, gender, and ritual can link members of different local groups into a single social collectivity in a tribe and thus create a sense of ethnic identity, of belonging to the same cultural tradition.

Nomadic Politics The political systems associated with pastoralism varied considerably, ranging from tribal societies to chiefdoms. The Masai (just discussed) live in a tribal society. The so- ciopolitical organization of such tribal herders is based on descent groups and pantribal sodalities. Other pastoralists, however, have chiefs and live in nation-states. The scope of political authority among pastoralists expands considerably as regulatory problems increase in densely populated regions (see Salzman 2008). Consider two Iranian pasto- ral nomadic tribes—the Basseri and the Qashqai (Salzman 1974). Starting each year from a plateau near the coast, these groups took their animals to grazing land 17,000 feet (5,400 meters) above sea level. The Basseri and the Qashqai shared this route with one another and with several other ethnic groups.

Use of the same pasture land at different times of year was carefully scheduled. Ethnic-group movements were tightly coordinated. Expressing this schedule is il-rah, a concept common to all Iranian nomads. A group’s il-rah is its customary path in time and space. It is the schedule, different for each group, of when specific areas can be used in the annual trek.

Each tribe had its own leader, known as the khan or il-khan. The Basseri khan, be- cause he dealt with a smaller population, faced fewer problems in coordinating its move- ments than did the leaders of the Qashqai. Correspondingly, his rights, privileges, duties, and authority were weaker. Nevertheless, his authority exceeded that of any political figure discussed so far. The khan’s authority still came from his personal traits rather than from his office. That is, the Basseri followed a particular khan not because of a political position he happened to fill but because of their personal allegiance and loyalty to him as a man. The khan relied on the support of the heads of the descent groups into which Basseri society was divided.

Among the Qashqai, however, allegiance shifted from the person to the office. The Qashqai had multiple levels of authority and more powerful chiefs or khans. Managing 400,000 people required a complex hierarchy. Heading it was the il-khan, helped by a deputy, under whom were the heads of constituent tribes, under each of whom were descent-group heads.

A case illustrates just how developed the Qashqai authority structure was. A hail- storm prevented some nomads from joining the annual migration at the appointed time. Although all the nomads recognized that they were not responsible for their delay, the il-khan assigned them less favorable grazing land, for that year only, in place of their usual pasture. The tardy herders and other Qashqai considered the judgment fair and didn’t question it. Thus, Qashqai authorities regulated the annual migration. They also adjudicated disputes between people, tribes, and descent groups (see Salzman 2008).

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These Iranian cases illustrate the fact that pastoralism often is just one among many specialized economic activities within a nation-state. As part of a larger whole, pastoral tribes are continually pitted against other ethnic groups. Within the context of the mod- ern nation-state, that government becomes a final authority, a higher-level regulator that attempts to limit conflict between ethnic groups. State organization arose not just to manage agricultural economies but also to regulate the activities of ethnic groups within expanding social and economic systems (see Das and Poole, 2004; Saleh 2013).

Chiefdoms

The first states emerged in the Old World around 5,500 years ago. The first chiefdoms de- veloped perhaps a thousand years earlier, but few survive today. In many parts of the world, the chiefdom was a transitional form of organization that emerged during the evolution of tribes into states. State formation began in Mesopotamia (currently Iran and Iraq). It next occurred in Egypt, the Indus Valley of Pakistan and India, and northern China. A few thousand years later, states arose in two parts of the Western Hemisphere—Mesoamerica (Mexico, Guatemala, Belize) and the central Andes (Peru and Bolivia). Early states are known as archaic, or nonindustrial, states, in contrast to modern industrial nation-states. Robert Carneiro (1970) defines the state as “an autonomous political unit encompassing many communities within its territory, having a centralized government with the power to collect taxes, draft men for work or war, and decree and enforce laws” (p. 733).

The chiefdom and the state, like many categories used by social scientists, are ideal types. That is, they are labels that make social contrasts seem sharper than they really are. In reality there is a continuum from tribe to chiefdom to state. Some societies had many attributes of chiefdoms but retained tribal features. Some advanced chiefdoms had many attributes of archaic states and thus are difficult to assign to either category. Rec- ognizing this “continuous change” (Johnson and Earle 2000), some anthropologists speak of “complex chiefdoms” (Earle 1997), which are almost states.

Political and Economic Systems Geographic areas where chiefdoms existed included the circum-Caribbean (e.g., Caribbean islands, Panama, Colombia), lowland Amazonia, what is now the southeastern United States, and Polynesia. Chiefdoms created the megalithic cultures of Europe, including the one that built Stonehenge. Bear in mind that chiefdoms and states can fall (disintegrate) as well as rise. Before Rome’s expansion, much of Europe was organized at the chiefdom level, to which it reverted for centuries after the fall of Rome in the 5th century C.E.

Much of our ethnographic knowledge about chiefdoms comes from Polynesia, where they were common at the time of European exploration. In chiefdoms, social relations are based mainly on kinship, marriage, descent, age, generation, and gender—just as in bands and tribes. This is a fundamental difference between chiefdoms and states. States bring nonrelatives together and oblige them to pledge allegiance to a government.

Unlike bands and tribes, however, chiefdoms administer a clear-cut and permanent regional political system. Chiefdoms may include thousands of people living in many villages or hamlets. Regulation is carried out by the chief and his or her assistants,

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who occupy political offices. An office is a permanent position, which must be refilled when it is vacated by death or retirement. Such vacancies are filled systematically, so that the political system that is the chiefdom endures across the generations, thus ensur- ing permanent political regulation.

Polynesian chiefs were full-time specialists whose duties included managing the economy. They regulated production by commanding or prohibiting (using religious taboos) the cultivation of certain lands and crops. Chiefs also regulated distribution and consumption. At certain seasons—often on a ritual occasion such as a first-fruit ceremony—people would offer part of their harvest to the chief through his or her rep- resentatives. Products moved up the hierarchy, eventually reaching the chief. Con- versely, illustrating obligatory sharing with kin, chiefs sponsored feasts at which they gave back some of what they had received (see O’Connor 2015). Unlike big men, chiefs were exempt from ordinary work and had rights and privileges unavailable to the masses. Like big men, however, they still returned a portion of the wealth they took in.

Such a flow of resources to and then from a central place is known as chiefly redistri- bution, which offers economic advantages. If different parts of the chiefdom specialized in particular products, chiefly redistribution made those products available to the entire society. Chiefly redistribution also helped stimulate production beyond the basic subsis- tence level and provided a central storehouse for goods that might become scarce in times of famine (Earle 1997).

Status Systems Social status (one’s position in society) in chiefdoms was based on seniority of descent. Polynesian chiefs kept extremely long genealogies. Some chiefs (without writing) man- aged to trace their ancestry back 50 generations. All the people in the chiefdom were thought to be related to each other. Presumably, all were descended from a group of founding ancestors.

The chief would be the oldest child (usually son) of the oldest child of the oldest child, and so on. Degrees of seniority were calculated so intricately on some islands that there

Chiefdoms as widespread as Mexico’s Olmecs, England’s Stonehenge, and Polynesia’s Easter Island (Rapa Nui) are famed for their major works in stone. The statues shown here are Easter Island’s major tourist attraction. ©David Madison/The Image Bank/ Getty Images

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were as many ranks as people. For example, the third son would rank below the second, who in turn would rank below the first. The children of an eldest brother, however, would rank above the children of the next brother, whose children in turn would outrank those of younger brothers. However, even the lowest-ranking man or woman in a chiefdom was still the chief’s relative, and everyone, including the chief, had to share with their relatives. It was difficult to draw a line between elites and common people. 

Nevertheless, in chiefdoms as in states, some men, women, and even children had more prestige, wealth, and power than others did. These elites controlled strategic re- sources such as land and water. Earle (1987) characterizes chiefs as “an incipient aris- tocracy with advantages in wealth and lifestyle” (p. 290).

Compared with chiefdoms, archaic states drew a much firmer line between elites and masses, distinguishing at least between nobles and commoners. Kinship ties did not extend from the nobles to the commoners because of stratum endogamy—marriage within one’s own group. Commoners married commoners; elites married elites.

The Emergence of Stratification We see that a key difference between chiefdom and state was the chiefdom’s kinship basis. However, chiefs and their closest relatives, backed by their differential wealth and power, sometimes launched attacks on the kinship basis of their chiefdom. In Madagas- car they would do this by demoting their more distant relatives to commoner status and banning marriage between nobles and commoners (Kottak 1980). Such moves, if ac- cepted by the society, created separate social strata—unrelated groups that differ in their access to wealth, prestige, and power. (A stratum is one of two or more groups that contrast in social status and access to strategic resources. Each stratum includes people of both sexes and all ages.) The creation of separate social strata is called stratification, and its emergence signified the transition from chiefdom to state. The presence of stratification is one of the key distinguishing features of a state.

The influential sociologist Max Weber (1922/1968) defined three related dimen- sions of social stratification: (1) Economic status, or wealth, encompasses a person’s material assets, including income, land, and other types of property. (2) Power, the ability to exercise one’s will over others—to get what one wants—is the basis of political status. (3) Prestige—the basis of social status—refers to esteem, respect, or approval for acts, deeds, or qualities considered exemplary. Prestige, or “cultural capital” (Bourdieu 1984), gives people a sense of worth and respect, which they may often convert into economic advantage (see Table 12.1).

In archaic states—for the first time in human history—there were contrasts in wealth, power, and prestige between entire groups (social strata) of men and women. The superordinate (the higher, or elite) stratum had privileged access to valued

TABLE 12.1 Max Weber’s Three Dimensions of Stratification

wealth economic status power political status prestige social status

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resources. Access to those resources by members of the subordinate (lower, or under- privileged) stratum was limited by the privileged group.

State Systems

Table 12.2 summarizes the information presented so far on bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states. States, remember, are autonomous political units with social strata and a formal government. States tend to be large and populous, and certain systems and sub- systems with specialized functions are found in all states (see Sharma and Gupta 2006). They include the following: ∙ Population control: fixing of boundaries, border control, establishment of citizenship

categories, and censusing. ∙ Judiciary: laws, legal procedure, and judges. ∙ Enforcement: permanent military and police forces. ∙ Fiscal support: taxation.

May, 2016: Pearlie Mae Smith, right, reacts after winning a share of a Powerball jackpot valued at $429.6 million—a nice return on a $6 investment. Do lottery winners usually gain prestige, or merely money, as a result of their luck? ©Mel Evans/AP Images

TABLE 12.2 Economic Basis of and Political Regulation in Bands, Tribes, Chiefdoms, and States

Sociopolitical Type Economic Type Examples Type of Regulation

Band Foraging Inuit, San Local Tribe Horticulture,

pastoralism Yanomami, Masai, Kapauku

Local, temporary, regional

Chiefdom Intensive horticulture, pastoral nomadism, agriculture

Qashqai, Polynesia, Cherokee

Permanent, regional

State Agriculture, industrialism

Ancient Mesopotamia, contemporary U.S., Canada

Permanent, regional

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In archaic states, these subsystems were integrated by a ruling system or govern- ment composed of civil, military, and religious officials. Let’s look at the four sub- systems one by one.

Population Control To keep track of whom they govern, states conduct censuses. States demarcate boundaries—borders—that separate that state from other societies. (See this chapter’s “Anthropology Today” for a discussion of border control issues in today’s world.) Customs agents, immigration officers, navies, and coast guards patrol frontiers. States also regulate population through administrative subdivision: provinces, districts, “states,” counties, and parishes. Lower-level officials manage the populations and ter- ritories of the subdivisions.

States often promote geographic mobility and resettlement, severing long-standing ties among people, land, and kin. Population displacements have increased with global- ization and as war, famine, and job seeking churn up migratory currents. Within states, people claim new identities based on their region, ethnicity, occupation, political party, religion, and team or club affiliation—rather than only as members of a descent group or an extended family.

States also manage their populations by granting different rights and obligations to citizens and noncitizens. Social distinctions among citizens also are common. Archaic states granted different rights to nobles, commoners, and slaves. In American history before the Emancipation Proclamation, there were different laws for enslaved and free people. In European colonies, separate courts judged cases involving only natives and cases involving Europeans. In contemporary America, a military judiciary coexists alongside the civil system.

Judiciary All states have laws based on precedent and legislative proclamations. Without writing, laws may be preserved in oral tradition. Crimes are violations of the legal code (“break- ing the law”), with specified types of punishment. To handle crimes and disputes, all states have courts and judges (see Donovan 2007; Pirie 2013).

A striking contrast between states and nonstates is intervention in internal and do- mestic disputes, such as violence within and between families. Governments step in to halt blood feuds and regulate previously private disputes. However, states aren’t always successful in their attempts to curb internal conflict. About 85 percent of the world’s armed conflicts since the end of World War II have begun within states—in efforts to overthrow a ruling regime or as disputes over ethnic, religious, or human rights issues (see Chatterjee 2004; Nordstrom 2004; Stavenhagen 2013; Tishkov 2004).

Enforcement How do states enforce laws and judicial decisions? All states have enforcement agents— some kind of police force. The duties of these enforcement officers may include appre- hending and imprisoning criminals (those who have broken the law). Confinement requires prisons and jailers. If there is a death penalty, executioners are needed. Govern- ment officials have the power to collect fines and confiscate property. The government

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uses its enforcement agents to maintain internal order, suppress disorder, and guard against external threats (with the military and border officials—see Maguire, Frois, and Zurawski 2014).

Armies help states subdue and conquer neighboring nonstates, but conquest isn’t the only reason state organization has spread. Although states impose hardships, they also offer advantages. States have formal mechanisms (e.g., an army and a police force) designed to protect against external threats and to preserve internal order. When they are successful in promoting internal peace, states enhance production. Their econo- mies can support massive, dense populations, which supply armies and colonists to promote expansion.

Fiscal Support All states have fiscal systems. States could not maintain the government apparatus and agents just discussed without a secure means of financial support. Governments rely on financial, or fiscal, mechanisms (e.g., taxation) to support their officials and numerous other specialists. As in the chiefdom, the state intervenes in production, distribution, and consumption. The state may require a certain area to produce specific things or ban certain activities in particular places. Although, like chiefdoms, states have redistribu- tion (“spreading the wealth around”), less of what comes in from the people goes di- rectly back to the people.

In nonstates, people customarily share with their relatives, but people who live in states also have to turn over a significant portion of what they produce to the state. Markets and trade usually are under at least some state oversight, with officials overseeing distribution and exchange, standardizing weights and measures, and col- lecting taxes on goods passing into or through the state. Of the revenues the state collects, it reallocates part for the general good and keeps another part (often larger) for itself—its agents and agencies. State organization doesn’t bring more freedom or leisure to the common people, who may be conscripted to build monumental public works. Some projects, such as dams and irrigation systems, may be economically necessary, but residents of archaic states also had to build temples, palaces, and tombs for the elites. Those elites reveled in the consumption of sumptuary goods— jewelry, exotic food and drink, and stylish clothing reserved for, or affordable only by, the rich. Peasants’ diets suffered as they struggled to meet government demands for produce, currency, or labor. Commoners perished in territorial wars that had little relevance to their own needs. To what extent are these observations true of contemporary states?

Although it offers advantages, we should not think of the state as “better” than other forms of sociopolitical organization. Stratification and the state are antithetical to the egalitarian and free-ranging way of life practiced by our foraging ancestors. We have just considered some of the demands that states place on ordinary people. It should not be surprising, then, that populations in various parts of the world have re- sisted, and tried to avoid or escape, state organization. We saw in Chapter 11 that foragers do not necessarily adopt food production just because they know of its exis- tence. Similarly, certain societies have managed to resist or escape state organization by adopting nomadic lifestyles that are difficult for states to supervise. For example,

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James C. Scott (2009) discusses how a belt of highland societies with economies based on shifting cultivation in Southeast Asia have survived for generations outside the control of states based in the lowlands of the same countries.

Social Control

In studying political systems, anthropologists pay attention not only to formal, govern- mental institutions but to other forms of social control as well. The concept of social control is broader than “the political.” Social control refers to “those fields of the social system (beliefs, practices, and institutions) that are most actively involved in the main- tenance of any norms and the regulation of any conflict” (N. Kottak 2002, p. 290). Norms, as defined earlier in this chapter, are cultural standards or guidelines that enable individuals to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate behavior.

Previous sections of this chapter have focused more on formal political organization than on sociopolitical process. We’ve seen how the scale and strength of political sys- tems have expanded in relation to economic changes. We’ve examined means of conflict resolution, or their absence, in various types of society. We’ve looked at political deci- sion making, including leaders and their limits. We’ve also recognized that all contem- porary humans have been affected by states, colonialism, and the spread of the world system (Kaplan 2014; Shore et al. 2011).

Sociopolitical was introduced as a key concept at the beginning of this chapter. So far, we’ve focused mainly on the political part of sociopolitical; now we focus on the social part. In this section we’ll see that political systems have their informal, social, and subtle aspects along with their formal, governmental, and public dimensions.

Hegemony and Resistance In addition to the formal mechanisms discussed in the section “State Systems,” what mechanisms do states employ to maintain social order? Antonio Gramsci (1971) de- veloped the concept of hegemony for a stratified social order in which subordinates comply with domination by internalizing their rulers’ values and accepting the “natu- ralness” of domination (this is, the way things were meant to be). According to Pierre Bourdieu (1977, p. 164), every social order tries to make its own arbitrariness (including its mechanisms of control and domination) seem natural and in everyone’s interest— even when that is not the case. Both Bourdieu (1977) and Michel Foucault (1979) argue that it is easier and more effective to dominate people in their minds than to try to control their bodies. Nonphysical forms of social control include various tech- niques of persuading and managing people and of monitoring and recording their beliefs, activities, and contacts.

Hegemony, the internalization of a dominant ideology, is one way in which elites curb resistance to their power and domination. Another way to discourage resistance is to make subordinates believe they eventually will gain power—as young people usu- ally foresee when they let their elders dominate them. Yet another way to curb resis- tance is to separate or isolate people while supervising them closely, as is done in prisons (Foucault 1979).

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Some contexts enable or encourage public resistance, particularly when people are allowed to assemble. The setting of a crowd offers anonymity, while also reinforcing and encouraging the common sentiments that have brought those people together. The elites, sensing the threat of surging crowds and public rebellion, often discourage such gatherings. They try to limit and control holidays, funerals, dances, festivals, and other occasions that might unite the oppressed. For example, in the American South before the Civil War, gatherings of five or more slaves were prohibited unless a White person was present.

Also working to discourage resistance are factors that interfere with community for- mation—such as geographic, linguistic, and ethnic separation. Elites want to isolate the oppressed rather than bringing them together in a group. Consequently, southern U.S. plantation owners sought slaves with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and limited their rights to assemble. Despite the measures used to divide them, the slaves resisted, developing their own popular culture, linguistic codes, and religious vision. The masters stressed portions of the Bible that emphasized compliance (e.g., the book of Job). The slaves, however, preferred the story of Moses and deliverance. The corner- stone of slave religion became the idea of a reversal in the conditions of Whites and Blacks. Slaves also resisted directly, through sabotage and flight. In many New World areas, slaves managed to establish free communities in the hills and other isolated areas (Price 1973).

Weapons of the Weak The study of sociopolitical systems also should consider the sentiments and activity that may be hiding beneath the surface of evident, public behavior. In public, the oppressed may seem to accept their own domination, even when they are questioning it in private. Scott (1990) uses the term “public transcript” to describe the open, public interactions between oppressed people and their oppressors. Scott uses “hidden transcript” to de- scribe the critique of the power structure that goes on out of sight of those who hold power. In public, the elites and the oppressed may observe the etiquette of power rela- tions. The dominants act like masters while their subordinates show humility and defer. But resistance often is seething beneath the surface.

Sometimes, the hidden transcript may include active resistance, but it is individual and disguised rather than collective and defiant. Scott (1985) uses Malay peasants, among whom he did fieldwork, to illustrate small-scale acts of resistance—which he calls “weapons of the weak.” The Malay peasants used an indirect strategy to resist an Islamic tithe (religious tax). Peasants were expected to pay the tithe, usually in the form of rice, which was sent to the provincial capital. In theory, the tithe would come back as charity, but it never did. Peasants didn’t resist the tithe by rioting, demonstrating, or protesting. Instead they used a “nibbling” strategy, based on small acts of resistance. For example, they failed to declare their land or lied about the amount they farmed. They underpaid, or they delivered rice contaminated with water, rocks, or mud, to add weight. Because of this resistance, only 15 percent of what was due actually was paid (Scott 1990, p. 89).

Hidden transcripts tend to be expressed publicly at certain times (festivals and car- navals) and in certain places (such as markets). Because of its costumed anonymity,

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Carnaval (Mardi Gras in New Orleans) is an excellent arena for expressing feelings that are typically suppressed. Carnavals celebrate freedom through immodesty, dancing, gluttony, and sexuality (DaMatta 1991). Carnaval may begin as a playful outlet for frustrations built up during the year. Over time, it may evolve into a powerful annual critique of stratification and domination and thus a threat to the established order (Gilmore 1987).

Shame and Gossip Many anthropologists have noted the importance of “informal” processes of social control, such as fear, stigma, shame, and gossip, especially in small-scale societies (see Freilich, Raybeck, and Savishinsky 1991). Gossip and shame, for example, can function as effective processes of social control when a direct or formal sanction is risky or impossible (Herskovits 1937). Gossip can be used to shame someone who has violated a social norm. Margaret Mead (1937) and Ruth Benedict (1946) distinguished between shame as an external sanction (i.e., forces set in motion by others, for exam- ple, through gossip) and guilt as an internal sanction, psychologically generated by the individual. They regarded shame as a more prominent form of social control in non-Western societies and guilt as a more dominant emotional sanction in Western societies. Of course, to be effective as a sanction, the prospect of being shamed or of shaming oneself must be internalized by the individual. In small-scale societies, in a

“Schwellkoepp,” or “Swollen Heads,” caricature local characters during a Carnaval parade in Mainz, Germany. Because of its costumed anonymity, Carnaval is an excellent arena for expressing feelings that are typically suppressed. Is there anything like Carnaval in your society? ©Daniel Roland/AP Images

Social Control 295

social environment where everyone knows everyone else, most people try to avoid behavior that might shame them or otherwise spoil their reputations and alienate them from their social network.

Bronislaw Malinowski (1927, 2013) described how Trobriand Islanders might climb to the top of a palm tree and dive to their deaths because they couldn’t tolerate the shame associated with public knowledge of some stigmatizing action. Nicholas Kottak (2002) heard Makua villagers in northern Mozambique tell the story of a man rumored to have fathered a child with his stepdaughter. The political authorities imposed no formal sanc- tions (e.g., a fine or jail time) on this man, but gossip about the affair circulated widely. The gossip crystallized in the lyrics of a song that groups of young women would per- form. After the man heard his name and behavior mentioned in that song, he hanged himself by the neck from a tree. (Previously we saw the role of song in the social control system of the Inuit. We’ll see it again in the case of the Igbo women’s war, discussed in the next section.)

Although it isn’t part of any formal or official authority structure, shame can be a powerful social sanction. People aren’t just citizens of governments; they are members of society, and social sanctions exist alongside governmental ones. Such sanctions ex- emplify other “weapons of the weak,” because they often are wielded most effectively by people, such as women or young people, who have limited access to the formal au- thority structure.

The Igbo Women’s War Shame and ridicule—used by women against men—played a key role in a decisive pro- test movement that took place in southeastern Nigeria in late 1929. This is remembered as the “Aba Women’s Riots of 1929” in British colonial history and as the “Women’s War” in Igbo history (see Dorward, 1983; Martin 1988; Mba 1982; Oriji 2000; Van Allen 1971). During this two-month “war,” at least 25,000 Igbo women joined protests against British officials, their agents, and their colonial policies. This massive revolt touched off the most serious challenge to British rule in the history of what was then the British colony of Nigeria.

In 1914, the British had implemented a policy of indirect rule by appointing local Nigerian men as their agents—known as “warrant chiefs.” These chiefs became increas- ingly oppressive, seizing property, imposing arbitrary regulations, and imprisoning people who criticized them. Colonial administrators further stoked local outrage when they announced plans to impose taxes on Igbo market women. These women were key suppliers of food for Nigeria’s growing urban population; they feared being forced out of business by the new tax.

After hearing about the tax in November 1929, thousands of Igbo women assembled in various towns to protest both the warrant chiefs and the taxes on market women. They used a traditional practice of censoring and shaming men through all-night song and dance ridicule (often called “sitting on a man”). This process entailed constant singing and dancing around the houses and offices of the warrant chiefs. The women also followed the chiefs’ every move, forcing the men to pay attention by invading their space (see also Walton and Suarez 2016). Disturbed by the whole process, wives of the warrant chiefs also pressured their husbands to listen to the protesters’ demands.

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Anthropology Today The Illegality Industry: A Failed System of Border Control

“Secure the border!” has become a famil- iar refrain in political discussion about undocumented immigrants to the United States. But what exactly does this mean? How can a border be truly secure in today’s world, in which tens of millions of people are routinely on the move, and what can anthropologists contribute to the discussion?  Ruben Andersson is a Swedish an- thropologist and postdoctoral fellow at the London School of Economics. His 2014 book Illegality, Inc. is based on his ethnographic study of actual and would- be migrants to Europe, along with the people and agencies—some supportive, the majority just the opposite—they en- counter along the way. The book’s title reflects Andersson’s contention that the European Union’s migration policies have created an “illegality industry,” which is fueling, rather than curbing, il- legal activity. In less than half a year—between January 1 and June 19, 2016—214,691 mi- grants and refugees had arrived in Europe by sea, and another 7,457 by land, accord- ing to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). During that period, the IOM also reported 2,859 would-be mi- grants dead or missing, most through drowning, as their boats capsized in the Mediterranean (O’Donnell 2016). Most of these migrants are from West Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. Lack of job opportunities at home is the main driver sending young West Africans toward Europe. Political instability and war have been pushing refugees from the Middle East (especially Syria and Iraq) and Afghanistan toward Europe.  Andersson did his fieldwork for the book between 2005 and 2014 and initially

focused on would-be migrants from West Africa (mainly Senegal and Mali). Although his study took place before the current refugee crisis in the Middle East, the les- sons he derived can easily be applied to today’s refugees. Andersson began his research by fo- cusing on a small sample of people, with whom he established close personal re- lationships. He wanted to understand how border controls affect individual mi- grants. He was particularly struck by his informants’ accounts of the various peo- ple and organizations they encountered (or tried to avoid) as they moved, and he extended his study to those intermediar- ies. He discovered an entire “illegality industry” deployed around, and benefit- ing financially from, migrants and their misfortunes. This industry supports border guards and police; defense, monitoring, and construction companies; nongovernmental aid organizations; jour- nalists; and even academics building their careers on the study of migrants. Benefiting especially are human smug- glers and traffickers, who increase their prices whenever and wherever border control is tightest.  One of Andersson’s main conclusions is that the current system of deterrence is complex and expensive, and is not working as intended. The EU’s costly, militarized, high-tech border-control sys- tem includes razor-wire fences, naval blockades, drones, and command cen- ters. In the nations through which mi- grants typically move (e.g., Turkey, Ukraine, Mauritania, Morocco, Libya), the EU subsidizes police officers to seek out and stop would-be migrants. Despite these numerous barriers, migrants and refugees keep coming.

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would be to normalize migration and pro- vide people with legal, safe, and efficient ways of moving across national and conti- nental borders. For our 21st-century world, he continues, we need a “political strategy that takes into consideration the global- ized nature of human movement.” “Ulti- mately, we need to unfence migration” (both quotes from O’Donnell 2016). Can you apply lessons from Anders- son’s study to border control issues in con- temporary North America? Is building walls likely to be an effective way to se- cure the border?

In 2015, just over 1 million migrants en- tered Europe by sea, according to the IOM. Note, however, that this figure repre- sents considerably less than 1 percent of Europe’s total population of about 740 mil- lion. Andersson contends that Europe is wealthy enough to easily absorb this num- ber of arrivals. He also notes that, despite right-wing outrage in Europe and the United States, most refugees today wind up in poorer, rather than wealthier, nations (O’Donnell 2016).  A more effective policy than creating barriers to immigration, Andersson argues,

In less than half a year—between January 1 and June 19, 2016—more than 200,000 migrants and refugees reached Europe by sea. Shown here in September, 2016, a rubber boat carrying 120 people is in distress a few miles northeast of Tripoli, Libya. Its passengers will soon be rescued by the rescue vessel Aquarius, operated by the NGOs SOS Méditerranée and Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF). ©Marco Panzetti/NurPhoto via Getty Images

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The protests were remarkably effective. The tax was abandoned, and many of the warrant chiefs resigned, some to be replaced by women. Other women were appointed to the Native courts as judges. The position of women improved in Nigeria, where mar- ket women especially remain a powerful political force to this day. Many subsequent Nigerian political events were inspired by the Women’s War, including additional tax protests. This Women’s War inspired many other protests in regions all over Africa. The Igbo uprising is seen as the first major challenge to British authority in Nigeria and West Africa during the colonial period.

At the beginning of this chapter, power was defined as the ability to exercise one’s will over others. It was contrasted with authority—the formal, socially approved use of power by government officials and others. The case of the Igbo Women’s War shows how women effectively used their social power (through song, dance, noise, and “in-your-face” behavior) to subvert the formal authority structure and, in so doing, gained greater influence within that structure. Can you think of other, perhaps recent examples? We see how gossip, ridicule, and shaming can be effective processes of social control, which can even result in governmental change. The Igbo case also shows the importance of community organizing and political mobilization in effec- tive resistance.

Summary 1. Although no ethnographer has been able to observe a polity uninfluenced by some

state, many anthropologists use a sociopolitical typology that classifies societies as bands, tribes, chiefdoms, or states. Foragers tended to live in egalitarian, band- organized societies. Personal networks linked individuals, families, and bands. Band leaders were first among equals, with no sure way to enforce decisions. Dis- putes rarely arose over strategic resources, which were open to all.

2. Political authority increased with growth in population size and density and in the scale of regulatory problems. More people mean more relations among individuals and groups to regulate. Increasingly complex economies pose further regulatory problems.

3. Heads of horticultural villages are local leaders with limited authority. They lead by example and persuasion. Big men have support and authority beyond a single village. They are regional regulators, but temporary ones. In organizing a feast, they mobilize labor from several villages. Sponsoring such events leaves them with little wealth but with prestige and a reputation for generosity.

4. Age and gender also can be used for regional political integration. Among North America’s Plains tribes, men’s associations (pantribal sodalities) organized raiding and buffalo hunting. Such sodalities provide offense and defense when there is in- tertribal raiding for animals. Among pastoralists, the degree of authority and po- litical organization reflects population size and density, interethnic relations, and pressure on resources.

5. The state is an autonomous political unit that encompasses many communities. Its government collects taxes, drafts people for work and war, and decrees and

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enforces laws. The state is a form of sociopolitical organization based on central government and social stratification. Early states are known as archaic, or non- industrial, states, in contrast to modern industrial nation-states.

6. Unlike tribes, but like states, chiefdoms had permanent regional regulation and dif- ferential access to resources. But chiefdoms lacked stratification. Unlike states, but like bands and tribes, chiefdoms were organized by kinship, descent, and marriage. Chiefdoms emerged in several areas, including the circum-Caribbean, lowland Amazonia, the southeastern United States, and Polynesia.

7. Weber’s three dimensions of stratification are wealth, power, and prestige. In early states—for the first time in human history—contrasts in wealth, power, and pres- tige between entire groups of men and women came into being. A socioeconomic stratum includes people of both sexes and all ages. The superordinate—higher, or elite—stratum enjoys privileged access to resources.

8. Certain systems are found in all states: population control, judiciary, enforce- ment, and fiscal support. These systems are integrated by a ruling system or government composed of civil, military, and religious officials. States conduct censuses and demarcate boundaries. Laws are based on precedent and legislative proclamations. Courts and judges handle disputes and crimes. A police force maintains internal order, as a military defends against external threats. A finan- cial, or fiscal, system supports rulers, officials, judges, and other specialists and government agencies.

9. Hegemony describes a stratified social order in which subordinates comply with domination by internalizing its values and accepting its “naturalness.” Situations that appear hegemonic may have resistance that is individual and disguised rather than collective and defiant. “Public transcript” refers to the open, public interac- tions between the dominators and the oppressed. “Hidden transcript” describes the critique of power that goes on where the power holders can’t see it. Discontent also may be expressed in public rituals such as Carnaval.

10. Broader than the political is the concept of social control—those fields of the so- cial system most actively involved in the maintenance of norms and the regulation of conflict. Sanctions are social as well as governmental. Shame and gossip can be effective social sanctions. In the Igbo Women’s War, women effectively used their social power (through song, dance, noise, and “in-your-face” behavior) to subvert the formal authority structure and, in so doing, gained greater influence within that structure.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. This chapter notes that the labels “band,” “tribe,” “chiefdom,” and “state” are too

simple to account for the full range of political diversity and complexity known to archaeologists and ethnographers. Why not get rid of this typology altogether if it does not accurately describe reality? What is the value, if any, of retaining the use of such ideal types to study society?

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2. This chapter describes population control as one of the specialized functions found in all states. What are examples of population control? Have you had direct experi- ences with these controls? (Think of the last time you traveled abroad, registered to vote, paid taxes, or applied for a driver’s license.) Do you think these controls are good or bad for society?

Key Terms authority, 275 big man, 282 chiefdom, 277 conflict

resolution, 279 differential

access, 277 fiscal, 291 hegemony, 292

sociopolitical typology, 277

state, 277 subordinate, 289 superordinate, 288 tribe, 277 village head, 281 wealth, 288

law, 279 norms, 279 office, 287 pantribal

sodality, 284 power, 275 prestige, 288 social

control, 292

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Chapter 13 Families, Kinship, and Marriage How Anthropologists View Families and Kinship

Families Nuclear and Extended Families Industrialism and Family Organization Changes in North American Kinship The Family among Foragers

Descent Attributes of Descent Groups Lineages, Clans, and Residence Rules

Defining Marriage

Exogamy and Incest

Incest and Its Avoidance

Endogamy

Same-Sex Marriage

Marriage: A Group Affair Gifts at Marriage Durable Alliances

Divorce

Plural Marriages Polygyny Polyandry

The Online Marriage Market

Anthropology Today: What Anthropologists Could Teach the Supreme Court about the Definition of Marriage

How Anthropologists View Families and Kinship

Although it still is something of an ideal in our culture, the nuclear family (parents and their children) now accounts for less than one-fifth of all American households. What kind of family raised you? Perhaps it was a nuclear family. Or maybe you were raised by a single parent, with or without the help of extended kin. Perhaps your extended kin acted as your parents. Or maybe you had a stepparent and/or step or half siblings in a blended family. Maybe you had two moms or two dads. Given the diversity of families in contemporary North America, your family may not have fit any of these descriptions, or perhaps it varied over time.

Although contemporary American family types are diverse, other cultures offer family alternatives that Americans might have trouble understanding. Imagine a society

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in which someone doesn’t know for sure, and doesn’t care much about, who his actual mother was. Consider Joseph Rabe, a Betsileo man who was my field assistant in Madagascar. Illustrating an adoptive pattern common among the Betsileo, Rabe was given as a toddler to his childless aunt, his father’s sister. He knew that his birth mother lived far away but did not know which of two sisters in his birth mother’s family was his biological mother. His mother and her sister both died in his childhood (as did his father), so he didn’t really know them. But he was very close to his father’s sister, for whom he used the term for mother. Indeed, he had to call her that, because the Betsileo have only one word, reny, for mother, mother’s sister, and father’s sister. (They also use a single term, ray, for father and all uncles.) The difference between “real” (biologically based) and socially constructed kinship didn’t matter to Rabe.

Contrast this Betsileo case with the common American view that kinship is, and should be, biological. It’s increasingly common for adopted children to seek out their birth mothers or sperm donors (which used to be discouraged as disruptive), even after a perfectly satisfactory upbringing in an adoptive family. The American emphasis on biology for kinship is seen also in the recent proliferation of DNA testing. Viewing our beliefs through the lens of cross-cultural comparison helps us appreciate that kinship and biology don’t always converge, nor do they need to.

The societies anthropologists traditionally have studied have stimulated a strong in- terest in families, along with larger systems of kinship and marriage. The wide web of kinship—as vital in daily life in nonindustrial societies as work outside the home is in our own—has become an essential part of anthropology because of its importance to the people we study. We are ready to take a closer look at the systems of kinship and mar- riage that have organized human life for much of our history.

Families

One kind of kin group that is widespread is the nuclear family, consisting of parents and children, who typically live together in the same household. Other families are extended, including three or more generations. Members of an extended family get together from time to time, but they don’t necessarily live together. 

The term family is basic, familiar (so much so that it even shares its root with familiar), and difficult to define in a way that applies to all cultures. A family is a group of people (e.g., parents, children, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, spouses, siblings-in-law, parents-in-law, children-in-law) who are con- sidered to be related in some way, for example, by “blood” (common ancestry or descent) or marriage. Some families, such as the nuclear family, are residentially based; its mem- bers live together. Others are not; they live apart but come together for family reunions of various sorts from time to time.

Nuclear and Extended Families Most people belong to at least two nuclear families at different times in their lives. They are born into a family consisting of their parents and siblings. Reaching adulthood, they may establish a nuclear family that includes their spouse (or domestic partner) and

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eventually their children. Some people establish more than one family through succes- sive marriages or domestic partnerships.

Anthropologists distinguish between the family of orientation (the family in which one is born and grows up) and the family of procreation (formed when one marries and has children). From the individual’s point of view, the critical relationships are with parents and siblings in the family of orientation and with spouse and children in the fam- ily of procreation. 

In most societies, relations with nuclear family members (parents, siblings, and chil- dren) take precedence over relations with other kin. Nuclear family organization is widespread but not universal, and its significance varies from one place to another. In a few societies, such as the classic Nayar case described later in this section, nuclear families are rare or nonexistent. In others, the nuclear family plays no special role in social life. Other social units, such as extended families and descent groups, can assume many of the functions otherwise associated with the nuclear family.

The following example from Bosnia illustrates how an extended family—known as the zadruga—can be the most important kinship unit, overshadowing the nuclear family. Among the Muslims of western Bosnia (Lockwood 1975), nuclear families did not exist as independent units. People customarily resided in a household called a zadruga. Living in this household was an extended family headed by a senior man and his wife, the se- nior woman. Also living in the zadruga were their married sons and their wives and children, as well as unmarried sons and daughters. Each married couple had a sleeping room, decorated and partly furnished from the bride’s trousseau. However, possessions— even clothing items—were shared freely by zadruga members. Even trousseau items could be used by other zadruga members.

Within the zadruga, social interaction was more usual among its women, its men, or its children than between spouses, or between parents and children. When the zadruga was particularly large, its members ate at three successive sittings: for men, women, and children, respectively. Traditionally, all children over 12 slept together in boys’ or girls’ rooms. When a woman wanted to visit another village, she asked permission not from her husband, but from the male zadruga head. Although men may have felt closer to their own children than to those of their brothers, they were obliged to treat all of the zadruga’s children equally. Any adult in the household could discipline a child. When a marriage broke up, children under 7 went with the mother. Older children could choose between their parents. Children were consid- ered part of the household where they were born even if their mother left. One widow who remarried had to leave her five children, all over 7, in their father’s zadruga, headed by his brother.

Another example of an alternative to the nuclear family is provided by the Nayars (or Nair), a large and powerful caste on the Malabar Coast of southern India (Gough 1959; Shivaram 1996). Their traditional kinship system was matrilineal (descent traced only through females). Nayar lived in matrilineal extended family compounds called tarawads. Headed by a senior woman, assisted by her brother, the tarawad housed her siblings, sisters’ children, and other matrikin—matrilineal relatives.

Traditional Nayar marriage was barely more than a formality: a kind of coming-of- age ritual. A young woman would go through a marriage ceremony with a man, after

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which they might spend a few days together at her tarawad. Then the man would return to his own tarawad, where he lived with his mother, aunts, uncles, siblings, and other matrikin. Nayar men belonged to a warrior class, who left home regularly for military expeditions, returning permanently to their tarawad on retirement. Nayar women could have multiple sexual partners. Children became members of the mother’s tarawad; they were not considered to be relatives of their biological father. Indeed, many Nayar chil- dren didn’t even know who their biological father was.

Industrialism and Family Organization The geographic mobility associated with industrialism works to fragment kinship groups larger than the nuclear family. As people move, often for economic reasons, they are separated from their parents and other kin. Eventually, most North Americans will enter a marriage or domestic partnership and establish a family of procreation. With only about 2 percent of the U.S. population now working in farming, relatively few Americans are tied to the land—to a family farm or estate. A nonfarming nation can be a mobile nation. Americans can move to places where jobs are available, even if they have to leave home to do so. Individuals and married couples often live hundreds of miles from their parents. This pattern of postmarital residence, in which married cou- ples establish a new place of residence away from their parents, is called neolocality. The prefix neo means new; the couple establishes a new residence, a “home of their own.” For middle-class North Americans, neolocality is both a cultural preference and a statistical norm. That is, they both want to, and eventually do, establish homes and nuclear families of their own.

A matrilineal extended family of the Khasi ethnic group in India’s northeastern city of Shillong. The Khasis trace descent through women, taking their maternal ancestors’ surnames. Women choose their husbands, family incomes are pooled, and extended family households are managed by older women. ©DINODIA/ Dinodia Photo/age fotostock

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It should be noted, however, that there are significant differences involving kinship between middle-class and poorer North Americans. One example is the association be- tween poverty and single-parent households. Another example is the higher incidence of expanded family households among Americans who are less well off. An expanded family household is one that includes a group of relatives other than, or in addition to, a married couple and their children. Expanded family households take various forms. When the expanded household includes three or more generations, it is an extended family household, like the Bosnian zadruga. Another type of expanded family house- hold is the collateral household, which includes siblings and their spouses and children. Yet another form is a matrifocal household, which is headed by a woman and includes other adult relatives and children. The higher proportion of expanded family households among poorer Americans has been explained as an adaptation to poverty (Stack 1975). Unable to survive economically as independent nuclear family units, relatives band to- gether and pool their resources (see Hansen 2005).

Changes in North American Kinship Although the nuclear family remains a cultural ideal for many Americans, we see in Table 13.1 that nuclear families now account for less than 20 percent of American households. Other domestic arrangements outnumber the “traditional” American house- hold more than five to one. There are several reasons for this changing household com- position. Women increasingly have joined men in the cash workforce. This allows them to leave their family of orientation while making it economically feasible to delay (or even forgo) marriage. Often, job demands compete with romantic attachments. More than a third (35 percent) of American men and 30 percent of American women had never married as of 2015. The median age at first marriage for American women in 2015 was 27 years, compared with 21 years in 1970. For men the comparable ages were

TABLE 13.1 Changes in Family and Household Organization in the United States, 1970 versus 2016

Source: Vespa, Jonathan, Jamie M. Lewis, and Rose M. Kreider, 2013, “America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2012,” Current Population Reports, P20–570. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, 2013; United States Census Bureau, America’s Families and Living Arrangements, 2016, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2016/demo/families/cps-2016.html.

1970 2016 Numbers: Total number of households 63 million 126 million Number of people per household 3.1 2.5 Percentages: Married couples living with children 40% 19% Married couples living without children 30% 29% Family households 81% 65% Households with five or more people 21% 10% People living alone 17% 28% Percentage of single-mother families 5% 12% Percentage of single-father families 0% 5% Households with own children under 18 45% 27%

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29 and 23. Fewer than half (47 percent) of American women lived with a husband in 2015, compared with 65 percent in 1950.

Another important trend is the increasing number of single-parent families, which has tripled from fewer than 4 million in 1970 to over 12 million in 2015. (The overall American population in 2015 was about 1.6 times its size in 1970.) Most of those single- parent families (83 percent) are single-mother families, leaving 17 percent as single- father families.

Household size in both the United States and Canada has declined from 2.9 in 1980 to 2.5 today. The typical American family now has 3.1 members versus 3.3 in 1980. The trend toward smaller families and living units also is detectable in Western Europe and other industrial nations. To be sure, contemporary Americans maintain social lives through school, work, friendship, sports, clubs, religion, and organized social activities. However, the growing isolation from kin that these figures suggest may well be unprec- edented in human history.

What does “family” mean in different cultures? Consider a striking contrast between the United States and Brazil, the two most populous nations of the Western Hemisphere, in the meaning of “family.” Contemporary North American adults usually define their families as consisting of their spouse (or domestic partner) and their children. However, when Brazilians talk about their families, they mean their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. Later they add their children, but rarely the spouse, who has his or her own family. The children are shared by the two families. Because middle-class Americans lack an extended family support system, marriage assumes more importance. The spousal relationship is supposed to take precedence over either spouse’s relationship with his or her own parents. This places a significant strain on American marriages.

One among many kinds of American family. This single mother, seen here baking with her daughter, used donor insemination to become pregnant. What do you see as the main differences between nuclear families and single-parent families? ©Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images

Descent 307

Living in a less mobile society, Brazilians stay in closer contact with their relatives, including members of the extended family, than North Americans do. Residents of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, two of South America’s largest cities, are reluctant to leave those urban centers to live away from family and friends. Brazilians find it hard to imag- ine, and unpleasant to live in, social worlds without relatives. Contrast this with a char- acteristic American theme: learning to live with strangers.

The Family among Foragers Foraging societies are far removed from industrial nations in terms of population size and social complexity, but they do feature geographic mobility, which is associated with nomadic or seminomadic hunting and gathering. Here again, a mobile lifestyle favors the nuclear family as the most significant kin group, although in no foraging society is the nuclear family the only group based on kinship. The two basic social units of traditional foraging societies are the nuclear family and the band. Both are based on kinship ties.

Unlike middle-class couples in industrial nations, foragers don’t usually reside neolo- cally. Instead, they join a band in which either the husband or the wife has relatives. However, couples and families may move from one band to another several times. Al- though nuclear families are ultimately as impermanent among foragers as they are in any other society, they usually are more stable than bands are.

Many foraging societies lacked year-round band organization. The Native American Shoshone of Utah and Nevada provide an example. The resources available to the Sho- shone were so meager that for most of the year families traveled alone through the countryside, hunting and gathering. In certain seasons, families assembled to hunt co- operatively as a band, but after just a few months together they dispersed.

In neither industrial nor foraging economies are people permanently tied to the land. The mobility and the emphasis on small, economically self-sufficient family units pro- mote the nuclear family as a basic kin group in both types of societies.

Descent

We’ve seen that the nuclear family is important in industrial nations and among forag- ers. The descent group, by contrast, is the key kinship group among nonindustrial farm- ers and herders. A descent group includes people who share common ancestry—they descend from the same ancestor(s). Descent groups typically are spread out among several villages, so that all their members do not reside together; only some of them do—those who live in a given village.  

Unlike nuclear families, descent groups are permanent. They last for generations. The group endures even as its membership changes. Individual members are born and die, move in and move out. Descent groups may take their names from an ancestor, or from a familiar animal, plant, or natural feature. If a descent group is known as “Chil- dren of Abraham,” there will be “Children of Abraham” generation after generation. Ditto for “Wolves,” “Willow Trees,” or “People of the Bamboo Houses.” All of these are actual descent group names.

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Attributes of Descent Groups Descent groups frequently are exogamous: Exogamy means to marry outside one’s own group. Members of a descent group must marry someone from another descent group. Often, descent group membership is determined at birth and is lifelong. Two common rules admit certain people as descent-group members while excluding others. With a rule of patrilineal descent, people automatically have lifetime membership in their fa- ther’s group. The children of the group’s men join the group, but the children of the group’s women are excluded. With matrilineal descent, people join the mother’s group automatically at birth and stay members throughout life. Matrilineal descent groups therefore include only the children of the group’s women. (In Figures 13.1 and 13.2, which show patrilineal and matrilineal descent groups, respectively, the triangles stand for males and the circles for females.) Matrilineal and patrilineal descent are types of unilineal descent. That means they use only one line of descent, either the male or the female line. Patrilineal descent is much more common than matrilineal descent is. In a sample of 564 societies (Murdock 1957), patrilineal descent outnumbered matrilineal descent three to one (247 patrilineal to 84 matrilineal).

Members of any descent group, whether patrilineal or matrilineal, believe that they descend from the same apical ancestor. That person stands at the apex, or top, of their common genealogy. For example, Adam and Eve, according to the Bible, are the apical

FIGURE 13.1 A Patrilineage Five Generations Deep Lineages are based on demonstrated descent from an apical ancestor. With patrilineal descent, children of the group’s men (shaded) are included as descent-group members. Children of the group’s women are excluded; they belong to their father’s patrilineage. Note: In this and other kin charts, triangles represent males; circles are females; an equals sign indicates marriage; a vertical line shows descent; and a horizontal line denotes a sibling relationship.

Apical ancestor (male)

Male

Female

Is married to Is descended from

Is the sibling of

Descent 309

ancestors of all humanity. Since Eve is said to have come from Adam’s rib, Adam stands as the original apical ancestor for the patrilineal genealogies laid out in the Bible.

Lineages and clans are two types of descent group. Clans tend to be larger than lin- eages and can include lineages. A lineage is a descent group based on demonstrated descent. Members can demonstrate how they descend from their common ancestor, by naming their forebears in each generation from the apical ancestor through the present. (This doesn’t mean the genealogy is accurate, only that lineage members think it is.) In the Bible the litany of men who “begat” other men is a demonstration of descent for a large patrilineage that ultimately includes Jews and Arabs (who share Abraham as their last common apical ancestor).

Unlike lineages, members of a clan do not demonstrate how they descend from their common ancestor; they merely claim, assert, or stipulate their common ances- try and descent. They don’t try to specify actual genealogical links generation by generation, as members of a lineage do. A clan, then, is a descent group based on stiplulated descent.

The Betsileo of Madagascar have both lineages and clans. They can demonstrate descent for the most recent 8 to 10 generations. Going further back than that, however, they can only stipulate their descent from particular ancestors. The stipulated founders of Betsileo clans can include vaguely defined foreign royalty or even mythical crea- tures, such as mermaids (Kottak 1980). Like the Betsileo, many societies have both lineages and clans. When this is true, the clan will have more members and cover a larger geographic area than its component lineages do. Sometimes a clan’s apical ancestor is not a human at all but an animal or a plant (called a totem). Whether human

FIGURE 13.2 A Matrilineage Five Generations Deep Matrilineages are based on demonstrated descent from a female ancestor. Only the children of the group’s women (shaded) belong to the matrilineage. The children of the group’s men are excluded; they belong to their mother’s matrilineage.

Apical ancestor (female)

Is married to Is descended from

Is the sibling of

Male

Female

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or not, the ancestor symbolizes the social unity and identity of the members, distin- guishing them from other groups.

The economic types that usually have descent-group organization are horticulture, pastoralism, and agriculture. A given society usually has multiple descent groups. Any one of them may be confined to a single village, but they usually span more than one village. Any branch of a descent group that lives in one place is a local descent group. Two (or more) local branches of different descent groups may live in the same village.

Lineages, Clans, and Residence Rules As we’ve seen, descent groups, unlike families, are permanent and enduring units, with new members added in every generation. Members have access to the lineage estate, where some of them must live, in order to benefit from and manage that estate across the generations. An easy way to keep members at home is to have a rule about who belongs to the descent group and where they should live after they get married. Patrilineal and matrilineal descent, and the postmarital residence rules that usually accompany them, ensure that about half the people born in each generation will spend their lives on the ancestral estate. 

With patrilineal descent, the typical postmarital residence rule is patrilocality: Mar- ried couples reside in the husband’s father’s community, so that the children will grow up in their father’s village. It makes sense for patrilineal societies to require patrilocal postmarital residence. If the group’s male members are expected to exercise their rights in the ancestral estate, it’s a good idea to raise them on that estate and to keep them there after they marry.

A less common postmarital residence rule, associated with matrilineal descent, is matrilocality: Married couples live in the wife’s mother’s community, and their chil- dren grow up in their mother’s village. Together, patrilocality and matrilocality are known as unilocal rules of postmarital residence. Regardless of where one resides after marriage, one remains a member of one’s original unilineal descent group for life. This means that a man residing in his wife’s village in a matrilineal society keeps his mem- bership in his own matrilineal descent group, and a woman residing in her husband’s village is still a member of her own patrilineal descent group.

Defining Marriage

“Love and marriage,” “marriage and the family”: These familiar phrases show how we link the romantic love of two individuals to marriage, and how we link marriage to re- production and family creation. But marriage is an institution with significant roles and functions in addition to reproduction. What is marriage, anyway?

Marriage is notoriously difficult to define because of the varied forms it can take in different societies. Consider the following definition from Notes and Queries on Anthropology:

Marriage is a union between a man and a woman such that the children born to the woman are recognized as legitimate offspring of both partners. (Royal Anthropological Institute 1951, p. 111)

Defining Marriage 311

This definition isn’t universally valid for several reasons. First, in many societies, marriage unites more than two spouses. Here we speak of plural marriages, as when a man weds two (or more) women, or a woman weds a group of brothers—an arrangement called fraternal polyandry that is characteristic of certain Himalayan cultures.

Second, some societies recognize various kinds of same-sex marriages. In South Sudan, for example, a Nuer woman could take a wife if her father had no sons, who were necessary for the survival of his patrilineage. That father could ask his daughter to stand as a fictive son in order to take a bride. This daughter would become the socially recognized husband of another woman (her wife). This was a symbolic and social relationship rather than a sexual one. The “wife” had sex with a man or men (whom her female “husband” approved) until she became pregnant. The children born to the wife were accepted as the offspring of both the female husband and the wife. Although the female husband was not the actual genitor, the biological father of the children, she was their pater, or socially recognized father. What’s important in this Nuer case is social rather than biological paternity. Kinship is socially con- structed. The bride’s children were considered the legitimate offspring of her female “husband,” who was biologically a woman but socially a man, and the patrilineal descent line continued.

A third objection to the definition of marriage offered earlier is that it focuses exclu- sively on the role of marriage in establishing the legitimacy of children. Does this mean that people who marry after childbearing age, or who do not plan to have children, are not actually married (see also this chapter’s “Anthropology Today”)?

In fact, marriage has several roles in society besides legitimating children. The British anthropologist Edmund Leach (1955) observed that, depending on the society,

This “I love you” wall is on display in an open area of Monmartre, Paris, France. It shows how to say “I love you” in various languages. Is romantic love a cultural universal? ©Conrad P. Kottak

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several different kinds of rights are allocated by marriage. According to Leach, mar- riage can, but doesn’t always, accomplish the following:

1. Establish legal parentage. 2. Give either or both spouses a monopoly on the sexuality of the other. 3. Give either or both spouses rights to the labor of the other. 4. Give either or both spouses rights over the other’s property. 5. Establish a joint fund of property—a partnership—for the benefit of the children. 6. Establish a socially significant “relationship of affinity” between spouses and their

relatives.

Exogamy and Incest

In nonindustrial societies, a person’s social world includes two main categories—friends and strangers. Strangers are potential or actual enemies. Marriage is one of the primary ways of converting strangers into friends, of creating and maintaining personal and po- litical alliances. Exogamy—the custom and practice of seeking a mate outside one’s own group, has adaptive value, because it links people into a wider social network that nurtures, helps, and protects them in times of need. Incest restrictions (prohibitions on sex with relatives) reinforce exogamy by pushing people to seek their mates outside the local group. Most societies discourage sexual contact involving close relatives, espe- cially members of the same nuclear family.

Incest refers to sexual contact with a relative, but cultures define their kin, and thus incest, differently. In other words, incest, like kinship, is socially constructed. Some U.S. states, for example, permit marriage, and therefore sex, with first cousins, while others ban it. The social construction of kinship, and of incest, is far from simple.

For example, when unilineal descent is very strongly developed, the parent who be- longs to a different descent group from your own isn’t considered a relative. Thus, with strict patrilineality, the mother is not a relative but a kind of in-law who has married a member of your own group—your father. With strict matrilineality, the father isn’t a relative because he belongs to a different descent group.

The Lakher of Southeast Asia are strictly patrilineal (Leach 1961). Using the male ego (the reference point, the person in question) in Figure 13.3, let’s suppose that ego’s father and mother get divorced. Each remarries and has a daughter by a second mar- riage. A Lakher always belongs to his or her father’s group, all of whose members (one’s agnates, or patrikin) are considered relatives, because they belong to the same descent group. Ego cannot have sex with or marry his father’s daughter by the second marriage, just as in contemporary North America it’s illegal for half siblings to have sex and marry. However, unlike our society, where all half siblings are restricted, sex between our Lakher ego and his maternal half sister would be nonincestuous. She isn’t ego’s relative because she belongs to her own father’s descent group rather than ego’s. The Lakher illustrate very well that definitions of relatives, and therefore of incest, vary from culture to culture.

Incest and Its Avoidance 313

Incest and Its Avoidance

A century ago, early anthropologists speculated that incest restrictions reflect an in- stinctive horror of mating with close relatives (Hobhouse 1915; Lowie 1920/1961). But why, one wonders, if humans really do have an instinctive aversion to incest, would formal restrictions be necessary? No one would want to have sexual contact with a rela- tive. Yet as social workers, judges, psychiatrists, and psychologists are well aware, in- cest is more common than we might suppose.

A cross-cultural study of 87 societies (Meigs and Barlow 2002) suggested that incest occurred in several of them. It’s not clear, however, whether the authors of the study controlled for the social construction of incest. They report, for example, that incest oc- curs among the Yanomami, but they may be considering cross-cousin marriage to be in- cestuous, when it is not so considered by the Yanomami. Indeed, it is the preferred form of marriage, not just for the Yanomami but in many tribal societies. Another society in their sample is the Ashanti, for whom the ethnographer Meyer Fortes (1950) reports, “In the old days it [incest] was punished by death. Nowadays the culprits are heavily fined” (p. 257). This suggests that there really were violations of Ashanti incest restrictions and that such violations were punished. More strikingly, among 24 Ojibwa individuals from

Ego Incestuous

union Nonincestuous

union

,, : Ego’s patrilineage : Ego’s mother’s

second husband’s patrilineage

: Ego’s father’s second wife’s patrilineage

: Ego’s mother’s patrilineage

: Separation or divorce. FD by second marriage is a comember of ego’s descent group and is included within incest restrictions. MD by second marriage is not a comember of ego’s descent group and is not included in incest restrictions.

≠

FIGURE 13.3 Patrilineal Descent-Group Identity and Incest among the Lakher

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whom he obtained information about incest, A. Irving Hallowell (1955) found 8 cases of parent–child incest and 10 cases of brother–sister incest. Because reported cases of ac- tual parent–child and sibling incest are rare in the ethnographic literature, questions about the possibility of social construction arise here again. In many cultures, including the Ojibwa, people use the same terms for their mother and their aunt, their father and their uncle, and their cousins and siblings. Could the siblings in the Ojibwa case actually have been cousins, and the parents and children uncles and nieces?

In ancient Egypt, sibling marriage apparently was allowed both for royalty and for commoners, in some districts at least. Based on official census records from Roman Egypt (first to third centuries C.E.), 24 percent of all documented marriages in the Ar- sinoites district were between “brothers” and “sisters.” The rates were 37 percent for the city of Arsinoe and 19 percent for the surrounding villages. These figures are much higher than any other documented levels of inbreeding among humans (Scheidel 1997). Again one wonders if the relatives involved were as close biologically as the kin terms would imply.

According to Anna Meigs and Kathleen Barlow (2002), for Western societies with nuclear family organization, “father–daughter incest” is much more common with step- fathers than with biological fathers. But is it really incest if they aren’t biological rela- tives? American culture is unclear on this matter. Incest also happens with biological fathers, especially those who were absent or did little caretaking of their daughters in childhood (Williams and Finkelhor 1995). In a carefully designed study, Linda M. Williams and David Finkelhor (1995) found father–daughter incest to be least likely when there was substantial paternal parenting of daughters. This experience enhanced the father’s parenting skills and his feelings of nurturance, protectiveness, and identification with his daughter, thus reducing the chance of incest.

Endogamy

The practice of exogamy pushes social organization outward, establishing and preserv- ing alliances among groups. In contrast, rules of endogamy dictate mating or marriage within a group to which one belongs. Endogamic rules are less common but are still familiar to anthropologists. Indeed, most cultures are endogamous units, although they usually do not need a formal rule requiring people to marry someone from their own society. In our society, classes and ethnic groups are quasi-endogamous groups. Mem- bers of an ethnic or religious group often want their children to marry within that group, although many of them do not do so. The outmarriage rate varies among such groups, with some more committed to endogamy than others.

An extreme example of endogamy is India’s caste system, which was formally abol- ished in 1949, although its structure and effects linger. Castes are stratified groups in which lifelong membership is set at birth. Indian castes are grouped into five major categories, or varna. Each is ranked relative to the other four, and these categories ex- tend throughout India. Each varna includes a large number of minor castes (jati), each of which includes people within a region who may intermarry. All the jati in a single varna in a given region are ranked, just as the varna themselves are ranked.

Same-Sex Marriage 315

Occupational specialization often sets off one caste from another. A community may include castes of agricultural workers, merchants, artisans, priests, and sweepers. The untouchable varna, found throughout India, includes castes whose ancestry, ritual sta- tus, and occupations are considered so impure that higher-caste people consider even casual contact with untouchables to be defiling.

The belief that intercaste sex leads to ritual impurity for the higher-caste partner has been important in maintaining endogamy. A man who has sex with a lower-caste woman can restore his purity with a bath and a prayer. However, a woman who has intercourse with a man of a lower caste has no such recourse. Her defilement cannot be undone. Because women have the babies, these differences ensure the pure ancestry of high- caste children. Although Indian castes are endogamous groups, many of them are inter- nally subdivided into exogamous lineages. Traditionally this meant that Indians had to marry a member of another descent group from the same caste. This shows that rules of exogamy and endogamy can coexist in the same society.

Same-Sex Marriage

What about same-sex marriage? Such unions, of various sorts, have been recognized in many different historical and cultural settings. We saw earlier that the Nuer of South Sudan allowed a woman whose father lacked sons to take a wife and be socially recog- nized as her husband and as the father (pater, although not genitor) of her children. In situations in which women, such as prominent market women in West Africa, are able to amass property and other forms of wealth, they may take a wife. Such marriages al- low the prominent woman to strengthen her social status and the economic importance of her household (Amadiume 1987).

Sometimes, when same-sex marriage is allowed, one of the partners is of the same biological sex as the spouse but is considered to belong to a different, socially con- structed gender. Several Native American groups had figures known as “Two-Spirit,” representing a gender in addition to male or female (Murray and Roscoe 1998). Some- times, the Two-Spirit was a biological man who assumed many of the mannerisms, be- havior patterns, and tasks of women. Such a Two-Spirit might marry a man and fulfill the traditional wifely role. Also, in some Native American cultures, a marriage of a “manly hearted woman” (a third or fourth gender) to another woman brought the tradi- tional male–female division of labor to their household. The manly woman hunted and did other male tasks, while the wife played the traditional female role.

As of this writing, same-sex marriage is legal in 23 countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Denmark, England and Wales, Finland, France, Greenland, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United States, and Uruguay. Twenty-first- century North America has witnessed a rapid and dramatic shift in public and legal opinions about same-sex marriage. 

The legalization of same-sex marriage throughout the United States in June 2015 was achieved despite considerable opposition. In 1996, the U.S. Congress approved the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which denied federal recognition and benefits to

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same-sex couples. Voters in at least 29 U.S. states passed measures defining marriage as an exclusively heterosexual union. On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key part of DOMA and granted to legally married same-sex couples the same federal rights and benefits received by any legally married couple. In June 2015, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of same-sex marriage throughout the United States. Although opposition continues (often on religious grounds), public opinion has fol- lowed the judicial shift toward approval of same-sex marriage. (This chapter’s “Anthro- pology Today” discusses how anthropological knowledge could have informed the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.)

Marriage: A Group Affair

Outside industrial societies, marriage often is more a relationship between groups than one between individuals. In our society, we think of marriage as an individual matter. Although the bride and groom usually seek their parents’ approval, the final choice (to

A same-sex couple “just married” in Scotland, where, on February 4, 2014, the law was changed to allow same-sex couples to marry legally. ©Mark Runnacles/ Getty Images News/Getty Images

Marriage: A Group Affair 317

live together, to marry, to divorce) lies with the couple. The idea of romantic love sym- bolizes this individual relationship.

In nonindustrial societies, although there can be romantic love (Goleman 1992), mar- riage is a group concern. People don’t just take a spouse; they assume obligations to a group of in-laws. When residence is patrilocal, for example, a woman must leave the community where she was born. She faces the prospect of spending the rest of her life in her husband’s village, with his relatives.

Gifts at Marriage Gifts at marriage are widespread among the world’s cultures. A marital gift known as dowry occurs when the bride’s family or kin group provides substantial gifts when their daughter marries. Ernestine Friedl (1962) describes a form of dowry in rural Greece, in which the bride gets a wealth transfer from her mother, to serve as a kind of trust fund during her marriage. More commonly, however, the dowry goes to the husband’s family, and the custom is correlated with low female status. In this form of dowry, best known from India, women are perceived as burdens. When a man and his family take a wife, they expect to be compensated for the added responsibility.

In many societies with patrilineal descent, it is customary for the husband’s group to present a substantial gift—before, at, or soon after the wedding—to his bride’s group. The BaThonga of Mozambique call such a gift lobola, and the custom of giving some- thing like lobola is widespread in patrilineal societies (Radcliffe-Brown 1924/1952). This gift compensates the bride’s group for the loss of her companionship and labor. More important, it makes the children born to the woman full members of her husband’s descent group. In matrilineal societies, children are members of the mother’s group, and there is no reason for a lobola-like gift.

Lobola-like gifts exist in many more cultures than dowry does, but the nature and quantity of transferred items differ. Among the BaThonga of Mozambique, whose name— lobola—I will extend for this widespread custom, the gift consists of cattle. Use of livestock (usually cattle in Africa, pigs in Papua New Guinea) for lobola is com- mon, but the number of animals given varies from society to society. We can general- ize, however, that the larger the gift, the more stable the marriage. Lobola is insurance against divorce.

Imagine a patrilineal society in which a marriage requires the transfer of about 25 cattle from the groom’s descent group to the bride’s. Michael, a member of descent group A, marries Sarah from group B. His relatives help him assemble the lobola. He gets the most help from his close patrikin—his older brother, father, father’s brother, and closest patrilineal cousins. The distribution of the cattle once they reach Sarah’s group mirrors the manner in which they were assembled. Sarah’s father, or her oldest brother if the father is dead, receives her lobola. He keeps most of the cattle to use as lobola for his sons’ marriages. However, a share also goes to everyone who will be expected to help when Sarah’s brothers marry.

When Sarah’s brother David gets married, many of the cattle go to a third group—C, which is David’s wife’s group. Thereafter, they may serve as lobola to still other groups. Men constantly use their sisters’ lobola cattle to acquire their own wives. In a decade, the cattle given when Michael married Sarah will have been exchanged widely.

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In such societies, marriage entails an agreement between descent groups. If Sarah and Michael try to make their marriage succeed but fail to do so, both groups may con- clude that the marriage can’t last. Here it becomes especially obvious that marriages are relationships between groups as well as between individuals. If Sarah has a younger sister or niece (her older brother’s daughter, for example), the concerned parties may agree to Sarah’s replacement by a kinswoman.

However, incompatibility isn’t the main problem that threatens marriage in societies with lobola customs. Infertility is a more important concern. If Sarah has no children, she and her group have not fulfilled their part of the marriage agreement. If the relation- ship is to endure, Sarah’s group must furnish another woman, perhaps her younger sis- ter, who can have children. If this happens, Sarah may choose to stay in her husband’s village as his wife. Perhaps she will someday have a child. If she does stay on, her hus- band will have established a plural marriage, with more than one wife.

Durable Alliances It is possible to exemplify the group-alliance nature of marriage by examining still an- other common practice—continuation of marital alliances when one spouse dies.

Sororate What happens if Sarah dies young? Michael’s group will ask Sarah’s group for a substitute, often her sister. This custom is known as the sororate (see Figure 13.4). If Sarah has no sister, or if all her sisters already are married, another woman from her group may be avail- able. Michael marries her, there is no need to return the lobola, and the alliance continues.

The sororate exists in both matrilineal and patrilineal societies. In a matrilineal society with matrilocal postmarital residence, a widower may remain with his wife’s group by marrying her sister or another female member of her matrilineage (see Figure 13.4).

FIGURE 13.4 Sororate and Levirate Sororate

Sarah

Sarah

Michael

Michael

Levirate

: Sarah’s descent group

: Michael’s descent group

Divorce 319

Levirate What happens if the husband dies? In many societies, the widow may marry his brother. This custom is known as the levirate (see Figure 13.4). Like the sororate, it is a con- tinuation marriage that maintains the alliance between descent groups, in this case by replacing the husband with another member of his group. The implications of the levi- rate vary with age. One study found that in African societies the levirate, although widely permitted, rarely involves cohabitation of the widow and her new husband. Fur- thermore, widows don’t automatically marry the husband’s brother just because they are allowed to. Often they prefer to make other arrangements.

Divorce

What factors work for and against divorce cross-culturally? As we’ve seen, marriages that are political alliances between groups are more difficult to dissolve than are mar- riages that are more individual affairs. We’ve seen that a substantial lobola gift may reduce the divorce rate for individuals; replacement marriages (levirate and sororate) also work to preserve group alliances. Divorce tends to be more common in matrilineal than in patrilineal societies. When residence is matrilocal (in the wife’s home village), the wife may simply send off a man with whom she’s incompatible, or he may choose to leave.

Among the Hopi of the American Southwest, houses were owned by matrilineal clans, with matrilocal postmarital residence. The household head was the senior woman of that household, which also included her daughters and their husbands and children. A son-in-law had no important role there; he returned to his own mother’s home for his clan’s social and religious activities. In this matrilineal society, women were socially and economically secure and the divorce rate was high.

In a study of the marital histories of 423 Hopi women in Oraibi (Orayvi) pueblo, Mischa Titiev (1992) found that 35 percent had been divorced at least once. For com- parison, of all ever-married women in the United States, only 4 percent had been di- vorced in 1960, 10.7 percent in 1980, and 15 percent in 2013. The instability of the Hopi marital bond was due, at least partially, to conflicting loyalties to matrikin versus spouse. Jerome Levy (1992) generalizes that, cross-culturally, high divorce rates are correlated with a secure female economic position. In Hopi society, women were secure in their home and land ownership and in the custody of their children. In addition, there were no formal barriers to divorce.

Divorce is more difficult in a patrilineal society, especially when a substantial lobola gift would have to be reassembled and repaid if the marriage failed. A woman residing patrilocally (in her husband’s household and community) might be reluctant to leave him. In patrilineal, patrilocal societies, the children of divorce would be expected to remain with their father, as members of his patrilineage. From the women’s perspective, this is a strong impediment to divorce.

Divorce is fairly common among foragers. Among the Kalahari San, for example, between 25 and 40 percent of all marriages end in divorce (Blurton-Jones et al. 2000). Facilitating divorce is the fact that the group alliance functions of marriage are less

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important, because descent groups are less common among foragers than among food producers. Also facilitating divorce is the fact that marriages tend to last longer when a couple shares—and would have trouble dissolving—a significant joint fund of property. This usually is not the case among foragers, who have minimal material possessions. Marital stability is favored, however, when the nuclear family is a fairly autonomous year-round unit with a gender-based division of labor, particularly when the population is sparse, so that few alternative spouses are available.

In contemporary Western societies, we have the idea that romantic love is necessary for a good marriage (see Ingraham 2008). When romance fails, so may the marriage. Or it may not fail, if other benefits associated with marriage are compelling. Economic ties and obligations to children, along with other factors, such as concern about public opin- ion, or simple inertia, may keep marriages intact after sex, romance, or companionship fades. Also, even in modern societies, leaders and other elites may want to maintain politically strategic marriages at all costs.

Plural Marriages

Most nonindustrial food-producing societies, unlike most industrial nations, allow plural marriages, or polygamy. There are two varieties; one is common, and the other is very rare. The more common variant is polygyny, in which a man has more than one wife. The rare variant is polyandry, in which a woman has more than one husband. Polyandry is practiced in only a few societies, notably among certain groups in Tibet, Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka. In contemporary North America, where divorce is fairly easy and common, polygamy is against the law. North Americans are allowed, however, to practice serial monogamy: Individuals may have more than one spouse but never, legally, more than one at the same time. 

Polygyny We must distinguish between the social approval of plural marriage and its actual fre- quency. Many cultures approve of a man’s having more than one wife. However, even when polygyny is allowed or encouraged, most men are monogamous, and polygyny characterizes only a fraction of the marriages.

What factors promote, and discourage, polygyny? Polygyny is much more common in patrilineal than in matrilineal societies. The relatively high status that women enjoy in matrilineal societies tends to grant them a degree of independence from men that makes polygyny less likely. Nor is polygyny characteristic of most foraging societies, where a married couple and nuclear family often function as an economically viable team. Most industrial nations have outlawed polygyny.

An equal sex ratio tends to work against polygyny if marriage is an expectation for both men and women. In the United States, about 105 males are born for every 100 females. In adulthood the ratio of men to women equalizes, and eventually it reverses. The average North American woman outlives the average man. In many nonindustrial societies as well, the male-biased sex ratio among children reverses in adulthood.

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The custom of men marrying later than women promotes polygyny. Among Nigeria’s Kanuri people (Cohen 1967), for example, men married between the ages of 18 and 30; women, between 12 and 14. The age difference between spouses meant there were more widows than widowers. Most of the widows remarried, some in polygynous unions. Among the Kanuri and in other polygynous societies, such as the Tiwi of northern Australia, widows made up a large number of the women involved in plural marriages (Hart, Pilling, and Goodale 1988). Polygyny is favored in situations in which having plural wives is an indicator of a man’s household productivity, prestige, and social posi- tion. The more wives, the more workers. Increased productivity means more wealth. This wealth in turn attracts additional wives to the household. Wealth and wives bring greater prestige to the household and its head.

Polygyny also is supported when the existing spouses agree that another one should be added, especially if they are to share the same household. Sometimes, the first wife re- quests a second one to help with household chores. The second wife’s status is lower than that of the first; they are senior and junior wives. The senior wife sometimes chooses the junior one from among her close kinswomen. Polygyny also can work when the cowives live apart. Among the Betsileo of Madagascar, the different wives always lived in different villages. A man’s first (senior) wife, called “Big Wife,” lived in the village where he culti- vated his best rice field and spent most of his time. High-status Betsileo men with multiple rice fields could have a wife and households near each field. Those men spent most of their time with the senior wife, but they visited the others throughout the year.

Polygyny also can be politically advantageous. Plural wives can play important po- litical roles in nonindustrial states. The king of the Merina, a populous society in the highlands of Madagascar, had palaces for each of his 12 wives in different provinces. He stayed with them when he traveled through the kingdom, and they acted as his local agents, overseeing and reporting on provincial matters. The king of Buganda, the major precolonial state of Uganda, took hundreds of wives, representing all the clans in his nation. Everyone in the kingdom became the king’s in-law, and all the clans had a chance to provide the next ruler. This was a way of giving the common people a stake in the government.

Modern-day polygyny is illustrated by this photo (left) of South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma and his three wives. In the United States as in South Africa, powerful men often have multiple wives, but legally not at the same time. U.S. President Donald Trump and his (third) wife Melania march in his inaugural day parade (right). (left): ©Mike Hutchings/AP Images; (right): ©Evan Vucci - Pool/ Getty Images News/Getty Images

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We see that there is no single explanation for polygyny. Its context and function vary from society to society and even within the same society. Some men are polygynous because they have inherited a widow from a brother. Others have plural wives because they seek prestige or want to increase their household productivity. Men and women with political and economic ambitions cultivate marital alliances that serve their aims. In many societies, including the Betsileo of Madagascar and the Igbo of Nigeria, women arrange the marriages.

Polyandry Polyandry is rare and is practiced under very specific conditions. Most of the world’s polyandrous peoples live in South Asia—Tibet, Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka. In some of these areas, polyandry seems to be a cultural adaptation to mobility associated with customary male travel for trade, commerce, and military operations. Polyandry ensures there will be at least one man at home to accomplish male activities within a gender- based division of labor. Fraternal polyandry is also an effective strategy when resources are scarce. Brothers with limited resources (in land) pool their resources in expanded (polyandrous) households. They take just one wife. Polyandry restricts the number of wives and heirs. Less competition among heirs means that land can be transmitted with minimal fragmentation.

The Online Marriage Market

People today shop for everything online, including romantic relationships, in what has been labeled the online “marriage market.” There are huge differences in the marriage markets of industrial versus nonindustrial societies. In some of the latter, potential spouses may be limited to certain cousins or members of a specific descent group. Often, marriages are arranged by relatives. In almost all cases, however, there is some kind of preexisting social relationship between any two individuals who marry and their kin groups.

Potential mates still meet in person in modern nations. Sometimes, friends or relatives help arrange such meetings. Besides friends of friends, the marriage mar- ket also includes the workplace, bars, clubs, parties, churches, and hobby groups. Add the Internet, which has become a new place to seek out and develop “virtual” relationships, including romantic ones. As part of the “Me, My Spouse, and the In- ternet” project at the University of Oxford in England, Bernie Hogan, Nai Li, and William Dutton (2011) surveyed cohabiting couples in 18 countries (Table 13.2 lists those countries and the sample size for each). This study (conducted online) sam- pled 12,600 couples (25,200 individuals aged 18 and older), all with home Internet access. Respondents were asked about how they met their partners, their dating strategies, how they maintain their current relationships and social networks, and how they use the Internet.

The Oxford study found that people still seek and find partners in the old, familiar places, even as they look online as well. One-third of the respondents in the study had some experience with online dating, and about 15 percent were in a relationship that had

The Online Marriage Market 323

started online. People who know someone who dates online are themselves more likely to date online and to approve of online dating. Like online banking and online shopping, Internet dating is an “experience technology” (Hogan et al. 2011): One’s attitudes about that technology reflect one’s experiences with it. People don’t even need to have been successful at online dating to feel positive about it. Simply trying it enhances their view of the experience.

Who benefits most from the new technology? Is it young, tech-savvy people, who go online for virtually everything? Or might it be people who are socially isolated in the offline world, including divorced, older, and widowed people? Interestingly, the Oxford researchers found that older people were more likely than younger ones to use online dating to find their current partners. About 36 percent of people over 40 had done so, versus 23 percent of younger adults.

In Europe, the media-saturated nations of northern Europe were most likely to use online dating, which benefits from a critical mass of Internet connectivity (the more people online, the larger the pool of potential contacts). On the other hand, online Brazilians (who tend to be gregarious both on- and offline) were most likely to know someone who either began a relationship online or married someone first met online. Personal knowledge of an online romantic relationship was reported by 81 percent of the Brazilians in the study, versus only 40 percent of Germans.

TABLE 13.2 Countries Sampled in the Oxford Internet Institute Project “Me, My Spouse, and the Internet”

Source: Hogan, Bernie, Nai Li, and William H. Dutton, A Global Shift in the Social Relationships of Networked Individuals: Meeting and Dating Online Comes of Age. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. 2011, Table 1.1, p. 5. Copyright ©2011.

Country Sample Size Percentage of Sample

Italy 3,515 13.9 France 2,970 11.8 Spain 2,673 10.6 Germany 2,638 10.5 United Kingdom 2,552 10.1 Brazil 2,438 9.7 Japan 2,084 8.3 Netherlands 1,491 5.9 Belgium 1,124 4.5 Sweden 794 3.1 Portugal 603 2.4 Finland 508 2.0 Ireland 368 1.5 Norway 317 1.3 Austria 309 1.2 Greece 297 1.2 Switzerland 278 1.1 Denmark 241 1.0

Total 25,200 100.0

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Anthropology Today What Anthropologists Could Teach the Supreme Court about the Definition of Marriage

A majority of Americans today, especially the younger ones, have no trouble accept- ing the practice and legalization of same- sex marriage. However, opinions on this issue have evolved rapidly. As recently as 2004, then-president George W. Bush was calling for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Eleven years later, on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of its most socially significant rulings—legalizing same- sex marriage throughout the United States. In the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges, the Court ruled, in a 5–4 decision, that the right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the due process clause and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In his strong dissent to that ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts asked, “Just who do we think we are?”—to so enlarge the defi- nition of marriage. Roberts faulted the court for endorsing “the transformation of a social institution that has formed the ba- sis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs.” If Roberts knew more about anthropol- ogy, he would realize that these four soci- eties don’t really support his claim that marriage has universally been a union be- tween one man and one woman. Although the “Kalahari Bushmen” (San peoples) do have exclusively heterosexual marriages, they also divorce and remarry at will. Nor, in Han period China, was marriage a life- time union between one man and one woman. Han men were allowed to divorce, remarry, and consort with concubines. Within the Roman Empire, Carthaginian women who were Roman citizens were allowed to marry and divorce freely. Many

members of the final society cited by Rob- erts—the Aztecs—were polygamists. The Aztecs used matchmakers to arrange mar- riages and asked widows to marry a brother of their deceased husband (Joyce 2015). I doubt that Chief Justice Roberts intended to endorse frequent divorce, consorting with mistresses and concu- bines, and polygamy as aspects of “a so- cial institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia.” Roberts went on to argue that marriage “arose in the nature of things to meet a vital need: ensuring that children are con- ceived by a mother and father committed to raising them in the stable conditions of a lifetime relationship.” Here the focus is on the role of marriage in procreation and raising children. As we have seen, how- ever, marriage confers socially significant rights and obligations other than raising children. Nor is procreation necessary for or within marriage. Is a childless marriage any less legitimate than one with children? Is legal adoption of a child less legitimate than conception of the child by a married heterosexual couple? Every day in con- temporary societies, men and women marry without expecting to conceive and raise children. As John Borneman and Laurie Kain Hart (2015) observe, marriage is an elastic institution whose meaning and value vary from culture to culture and evolve over time. Consider the many examples of families, kinship groups, and marriage types considered in this chapter. From the Bosnian zadruga to the Nayar tarawad to matrilineal and patrilineal clans, lineages, local descent groups and extended families, children have been raised in, and have managed to survive and even

Summary 325

this chapter: woman-marriage-to-a-woman among the Nuer, cousin marriage, Lakher marriage to a half sibling, serial monog- amy, and other forms that violate the idea that marriage is a lifetime union of one man and one woman. I would hope, therefore, that the next time a member of the Supreme Court attempts to justify a practice using terms like “for millennia,” “ages-old,” “universal,” or “basic human,” he or she will first consult an anthropologist.

flourish in, all kinds of kin groups. If we go back millennia, as Chief Justice Roberts would like to trace marriage, we would find “love, marriage, and the baby carriage” to be the exception rather than the rule. That is, the combination of romantic love, mar- riage, procreation, and raising children mainly, or even exclusively, within a nuclear family is a relatively recent—rather than a universal or ages-old—development. Finally, consider the different forms of marriage that have been considered in

The Internet reconfigures access to people in general. More of the respondents in the Oxford study reported making online friends or work connections than romantic liaisons. More than half (55 percent) of respondents (considering all 18 countries) had met someone new online (Hogan et al. 2011). The 2,438 Brazilians in the sample were the most likely to move from an online to a face-to-face contact. Fully 83 percent of Internet-enabled Brazilians reported meeting someone face-to-face after first meeting him or her online. Japanese respondents were least likely to meet in person after an online acquaintance. They also were least likely to engage in online dating.

The Internet may enhance opportunities to meet people and to form personal rela- tionships. but this accessibility also can be disruptive. It can spur jealousy, for example, when a partner makes new friends or reconnects to old ones—and with good reason. The Oxford researchers found that many people disclosed intimate personal details in online settings with someone other than their spouse or partner (Hogan et al. 2011; Oxford 2013). A future study might investigate whether the Internet plays a role in divorce as well as in dating and marriage.

Summary 1. Kinship and marriage organize social and political life in nonindustrial societies.

One widespread kin group is the nuclear family, consisting of a married couple and their children. Other groups, such as extended families and descent groups, may assume functions usually associated with the nuclear family. Nuclear families tend to be especially important in foraging and industrial societies.

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2. In contemporary North America, the nuclear family is the characteristic kin group for the middle class. Expanded households and sharing with extended family kin occur more frequently among the poor, who may pool their resources in dealing with poverty. Today, however, even in the American middle class, nuclear family households are declining as single-person households and other domestic arrange- ments increase.

3. The descent group is a basic kin group among nonindustrial food producers (farmers and herders). Unlike families, descent groups have perpetuity, lasting for genera- tions. Descent-group members share and manage an estate. Lineages are based on demonstrated descent; clans, on stipulated descent. Unilineal (patrilineal and matri- lineal) descent is associated with unilocal (patrilocal and matrilocal, respectively) postmarital residence.

4. Marriage, which usually is a form of domestic partnership, is difficult to define. Marriage conveys various rights. It establishes legal parentage, and it gives each spouse rights to the sexuality, labor, and property of the other. Marriage also estab- lishes a “relationship of affinity” between each spouse and the other spouse’s relatives.

5. Most societies have incest restrictions. Because kinship is socially constructed, such restrictions apply to different relatives in different societies. Exogamy extends social and political ties outward; endogamy does the reverse. Endogamic rules are common in stratified societies. One extreme example is India, where castes are the endogamous units.

6. In societies with descent groups, marriages are relationships between groups as well as between spouses. With lobola, the groom and his relatives transfer wealth to the bride and her relatives. As the value of the lobola gift increases, the divorce rate declines. Lobola customs show that marriages among nonindustrial food pro- ducers create and maintain group alliances. So does the sororate, by which a man marries the sister of his deceased wife, and the levirate, by which a woman marries the brother of her deceased husband.

7. The ease and frequency of divorce vary across cultures. When marriage is a matter of intergroup alliance, as is typically true in societies with descent groups, divorce is less common. A large fund of joint property also complicates divorce.

8. Many societies permit plural marriages. The two kinds of polygamy are polygyny and polyandry. The former involves multiple wives; the latter, multiple husbands. Polygyny is much more common than polyandry.

9. The Internet, which reconfigures social relations and networks more generally, is an important addition to the marriage market in contemporary nations.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. Although the nuclear family may remain a cultural ideal for many Americans, other

domestic arrangements now outnumber the “traditional” American household by more than five to one. What are some reasons for this shift? How do the media, including TV sitcoms, reflect changing ideas about family form and function?

Key Terms 327

2. Depending on the society, several different kinds of rights are allocated by mar- riage. What are those rights? Which among those rights do you consider more fundamental than others in your definition of marriage? Which ones can you do without? Why?

Key Terms caste system, 314 clan, 309 descent group, 307 dowry, 317 endogamy, 314 exogamy, 312 expanded family

household, 305 extended family

household, 305 family, 302

neolocality, 304 patrilineal

descent, 308 patrilocality, 310 plural marriages

(polygamy), 320 polyandry, 320 polygyny, 320 sororate, 318 unilineal

descent, 308

family of orientation, 303

family of procreation, 303

incest, 312 levirate, 319 lineage, 309 lobola, 317 matrilineal

descent, 308 matrilocality, 310

328

Chapter 14 Gender Sex and Gender

Recurrent Gender Patterns

Gender Roles and Gender Stratification Reduced Gender Stratification: Matrilineal–Matrilocal Societies Matriarchy Increased Gender Stratification: Patrilineal–Patrilocal Societies Patriarchy and Violence

Gender in Industrial Societies Changes in Gendered Work Work and Family: Reality and Stereotypes The Feminization of Poverty Work and Happiness

Beyond Male and Female

Sexual Orientation

Anthropology Today: Gender, Ethnicity, and a Gold Medal for Fiji

Sex and Gender

Because anthropologists study biology, society, and culture, they are in a unique posi- tion to comment on nature (biological predispositions) and nurture (environment) as determinants of human behavior. Human attitudes, values, and behavior are limited not only by our genetic predispositions—which often are difficult to identify—but also by our experiences during enculturation. Our attributes as adults are determined both by our genes and by our environment during growth and development.

Questions about nature and nurture emerge in the discussion of human sex– gender roles and sexuality. Men and women differ genetically. Women have two X chromosomes, and men have an X and a Y. The father determines a baby’s sex because only he has the Y chromosome to transmit. The mother always provides an X chromosome.

The chromosomal difference is expressed in hormonal and physiological contrasts. Humans are sexually dimorphic, more so than some primates, such as gibbons (small, tree-living Asiatic apes) and less so than others, such as gorillas and orangutans. Sexual dimorphism refers to differences in male and female biology besides the contrasts in breasts and genitals. Women and men differ not just in primary (genitalia and reproductive organs) and secondary (breasts, voice, hair distribution) sexual characteristics, but also in average weight, height, strength, and longevity. Women

Sex and Gender 329

tend to live longer than men and have excellent endurance capabilities. In a given population, men tend to be taller and to weigh more than women do. Of course, there is a considerable overlap between the sexes in terms of height, weight, and physical strength, and there has been a pronounced reduction in sexual dimorphism during human biological evolution.

Just how far, however, do such genetically and physiologically determined differ- ences go? What effects do they have on the way men and women act and are treated in different societies? Anthropologists have discovered both similarities and differences in the roles of men and women in different cultures. The predominant anthropological position on sex–gender roles and biology may be stated as follows:

The biological nature of men and women [should be seen] not as a narrow enclosure limiting the human organism, but rather as a broad base upon which a variety of structures can be built. (Friedl 1975, p. 6)

Sex differences are biological, but gender encompasses all the traits that a culture as- signs to and inculcates in males and females. Gender, in other words, refers to the cultural construction of whether one is female, male, or something else. Given the “rich and various constructions of gender” within the realm of cultural diversity, Susan Bourque and Kay Warren (1987) note that the same images of masculinity and femininity do not always apply. Margaret Mead did an early ethnographic study of variation in gender roles. Her book Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935/1950) was based on fieldwork in three societies in Papua New Guinea: the Arapesh, Mundugumor, and Tchambuli. The extent of personality variation in men and women in those three societies on the same island amazed Mead. She found that Arapesh men and women both acted as Americans have traditionally expected women to act: in a mild, parental, responsive way. Mundugumor men and women both, in contrast, acted as she believed we expect men to act: fiercely and aggressively. Finally, Tchambuli men were “catty,” wore curls, and went shopping, but Tchambuli women were energetic and managerial and placed less empha- sis on personal adornment than did the men. (Drawing on their case study of the Tcham- buli, whom they call the Chambri, Errington and Gewertz [1987], while recognizing gender malleability, have disputed the specifics of Mead’s account.)

There is a well-established field of feminist scholarship within anthropology (Lewin and Silverstein 2016; Rosaldo 1980b; Strathern 1988). Anthropologists have gathered systematic ethnographic data about similarities and differences involving gender in many cultural settings (Brettell and Sargent 2012; Burn 2011; Kimmel 2013; Mascia- Lees 2010; Ward and Edelstein 2013). Before we examine the cross-cultural data, some definitions are in order.

Gender roles are the tasks and activities a culture assigns by gender. Related to gen- der roles are gender stereotypes, which are oversimplified but strongly held ideas about the characteristics of males and females. Gender stratification describes an unequal distribution of rewards (socially valued resources, power, prestige, human rights, and personal freedom) between men and women, reflecting their different positions in a social hierarchy.

In stateless societies, gender stratification often is more obvious in regard to prestige than it is in regard to wealth. In her study of the Ilongots of northern Luzon in the

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Philippines, Michelle Rosaldo (1980a) described gender differences related to the posi- tive cultural value placed on adventure, travel, and knowledge of the external world. More often than women, Ilongot men, as headhunters, visited distant places. They ac- quired knowledge of the external world, amassed experiences there, and returned to express their knowledge, adventures, and feelings in public oratory. They received ac- claim as a result. Ilongot women had inferior prestige because they lacked external ex- periences on which to base knowledge and dramatic expression. We must distinguish between prestige systems and actual power in a given society (Ong 1989). High male prestige does not necessarily entail economic or political power held by men over their families. (For more on Rosaldo’s contributions to gender studies, see Lugo and Maurer 2000.)

Recurrent Gender Patterns

You probably had chores when you were growing up. Was there any gender bias in what you were asked to do, compared with your brother or sister? If you were raised by two parents, did any tension arise over your parents’ division of labor? Based on cross- cultural data from 185 societies worldwide, Table 14.1 lists activities that are generally male, generally female, or swing (either male or female). Before you look at that table, see if you can assign the following to one gender or the other (M or F): hunting large

The realm of cultural diversity contains richly varied expressions of gender roles. In Niger, this Wodaabe man prepares for the annual Gerewol celebration, in which young bachelors paint their faces, dress elaborately, and gather in lines to dance and sing, vying for the attentions of marriageable young women. ©Robert Harding World Imagery/Alamy Stock Photo

Recurrent Gender Patterns 331

animals ( ), gathering wild vegetable foods ( ), tending crops ( ), fishing ( ), cooking ( ), fetching water ( ), making baskets ( ), making drinks ( ). Now consult Table 14.1 and see how you did. Reflect on your results. Is what’s true cross-culturally still true of the divi- sion of labor by gender in today’s world, including the United States?

The data in Table 14.1 on the division of labor by gender illustrate cross-cultural generali- ties rather than universals. For example, the table reports a general tendency for men to build boats, but there are societies that contradict the rule. One was the Hidatsa, a Native American group in which the women made the boats used to cross the Missouri River. ( Traditionally, the Hidatsa were village farmers and bison hunters on the North American Plains; they now

TABLE 14.1 Generalities in the Division of Labor by Gender, Based on Data from 185 Societies

Source: Murdock, G.P. and C. Provost, “Factors in the Division of Labor by Sex: A Cross-Cultural Analysis,” Ethnology vol. 12, no., p. 202–225. ©1973.

Generally Male Activities Swing (Male or Female) Activities

Generally Female Activities

Hunting large aquatic animals (e.g., whales, walrus) Smelting ores Metalworking Lumbering Hunting large land animals Working wood Hunting fowl Making musical instruments Trapping Building boats Working stone Working bone, horn, and shell Mining and quarrying Setting bones Butchering* Collecting wild honey Clearing land Fishing Tending large herd animals Building houses Preparing the soil Making nets Making rope

Making fire Body mutilation Preparing skins Gathering small land animals Planting crops Making leather products Harvesting Tending crops Milking Making baskets Carrying burdens Making mats Caring for small animals Preserving meat and fish Loom weaving Gathering small aquatic animals Manufacturing clothing Making pottery

Gathering fuel (e.g., firewood) Making drinks Gathering wild vegetal foods Dairy production (e.g., churning) Spinning Doing the laundry Fetching water Cooking Preparing vegetal food (e.g., processing cereal grains)

*All the activities above “butchering” are almost always done by men; those from “butchering” through “making rope” are usually done by men.

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live in North Dakota.) Another exception is that Pawnee women worked wood; this is the only Native American group that assigned this activity to women. (The Pawnee, also traditionally Plains farmers and bison hunters, originally lived in what is now central Nebraska and central Kansas; they now live on a reservation in north central Oklahoma.)

Exceptions to cross-cultural generalizations may involve societies or individuals. That is, a society like the Hidatsa can contradict the cross-cultural generalization that men build boats by assigning that task to women. Or, in a society where men usually build boats, a particular woman or women can contradict that expectation by doing the male activity. Table 14.1 shows that in a sample of 185 societies, certain activities (“swing activities”) are assigned to either or both men and women. Among the most important of these swing activities are planting, tending, and harvesting crops. Some societies customarily assign more farming chores to women, whereas others make men the primary farmers. Among the tasks almost always assigned to men, some (e.g., hunt- ing large animals on land and sea) seem clearly related to the greater average size and strength of males. Others, such as working wood and making musical instruments, seem more arbitrary. Women, of course, are not exempt from arduous and time-consuming physical labor, such as gathering firewood and fetching water. In Arembepe, Bahia, Brazil, women routinely transported water in 5-gallon tins, balanced on their heads, from wells and lagoons located long distances from their homes.

The original coding of the data in Table 14.1 probably illustrates a male bias in that extradomestic activities received much more prominence than domestic activities did. Think about how female domestic activities could have been specified in greater detail. One wonders whether collecting wild honey (listed in Table 14.1) is more necessary or time- consuming than nursing a baby (absent from the table). Also, notice that the table does not mention trade and market activity, in which either or both men and women are active.

Both women and men have to fit their activities into 24-hour days. Turn now to Table 14.2, which shows that the time and effort spent in subsistence activities by men and women tend to be about equal. If anything, women do slightly more subsistence work than men do. In domestic activities and child care, however, female labor pre- dominates. In about half the societies studied, men did virtually no domestic work. Even in societies where men did domestic chores, the bulk of such work was done by women. Adding together their subsistence activities and their domestic work, women tend to work more hours than men do. Furthermore, women had primary responsibility for young children in two-thirds of the societies studied. 

TABLE 14.2 Time and Effort Expended on Subsistence Activities by Men and Women (percent)*

Source: Whyte, M.F. “Cross-Cultural Codes Dealing with the Relative Status of Women,” Ethnology, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 211–239. Copyright ©1978.

More by men 16 Roughly equal 61 More by women 23

*Percentage of 88 randomly selected societies for which information was available on this variable.

Gender Roles and Gender Stratification 333

What about access to mates? Table 14.3 shows that polygyny (multiple wives) is much more common than polyandry (multiple husbands). Furthermore, concerning premarital and extramarital sex, men tend to be less restricted than women are, although the restrictions were equal in about half the societies studied (Whyte 1978). Double standards that limit women more than men are one illustration of gender stratification, which we now examine more systematically.

Gender Roles and Gender Stratification

Economic roles affect gender stratification (the unequal distribution of social value by gender). In one cross-cultural study, Sanday (1974) found that gender stratification de- creased when men and women made roughly equal contributions to subsistence. She found that gender stratification was greatest when the women contributed either much more or much less than the men did.

In foraging societies, gender stratification was most marked when men contributed much more to the diet than women did. This was true among the Inuit and other northern hunters and fishers. Among tropical and semitropical foragers, by contrast, gathering usually supplies more food than hunting and fishing do. Gathering is generally women’s work. Men usually hunt and fish, but women also do some fishing and may hunt small animals, as is true among the Agta of the Philippines (Griffin and Estioko-Griffin 1985). Gender status tends to be more equal when gathering is prominent than it is when hunting and fishing are the main subsistence activities.

Gender status also is more equal when the domestic and public spheres aren’t sharply separated. (Domestic means within or pertaining to the home.) Strong differentiation between the home and the outside world is called the domestic–public dichotomy, or the private–public contrast. The outside world can include politics, trade, warfare, or work. Often when domestic and public spheres are clearly separated, public activities have greater prestige than domestic ones do. This can promote gender stratification, because men are more likely to be active in the public domain than women are.

Reduced Gender Stratification: Matrilineal–Matrilocal Societies Cross-cultural variation in gender status also is related to rules of descent and post- marital residence. With matrilineal descent and matrilocality (residence after marriage with the wife’s relatives), female status tends to be high. Matriliny and matrilocality disperse related males, rather than consolidating them. By contrast, patriliny and

TABLE 14.3 Does the Society Allow Multiple Spouses? (percent)*

Source: Whyte, M.F. “Cross-Cultural Codes Dealing with the Relative Status of Women,” Ethnology, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 211–239. Copyright ©1978.

For males only (polygyny) 77 For both, but more commonly for males 4 For neither (monogamy) 16 For both, but more commonly for females (polyandry) 2

*Percentage of 92 randomly selected societies for which information was available on this variable.

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patrilocality (residence after marriage with the husband’s kin) keep male relatives to- gether. Matrilineal–matrilocal systems tend to occur in societies where population pres- sure on strategic resources is minimal and warfare is infrequent.

Women tend to have high status in matrilineal–matrilocal societies for several reasons. Descent-group membership, succession to political positions, allocation of land, and over- all social identity all come through female links. Among the matrilineal Malays of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia (Peletz 1988), matriliny gave women sole inheritance of ancestral rice fields. Matrilocality created solidary clusters of female kin. These Malay women had considerable influence beyond the household. In such matrilineal contexts, women are the basis of the entire social structure. Although public authority may be assigned nominally to the men, much of the power and decision making may belong to the senior women.

Matriarchy If a patriarchy is a political system ruled by men, is a matriarchy necessarily a political system ruled by women? Or might we apply the term matriarchy, as anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday (2002) does, to a political system in which women play a much more prominent role than men do in social and political organization? One example would be the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, Indonesia, whom Sanday (2002) has stud- ied for decades. Sanday considers the Minangkabau a matriarchy because women are

A Minangkabau bride and groom in West Sumatra, Indonesia, where anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday has conducted several years of ethnographic fieldwork. ©Lindsay Hebberd/ Corbis

Gender Roles and Gender Stratification 335

the center, origin, and foundation of the social order. The oldest village in a cluster is called the “mother village.” In ceremonies, women are addressed by the term used for their mythical Queen Mother. Women control land inheritance, and couples reside matrilocally. In the wedding ceremony, the wife collects her husband from his house- hold and, with her female kin, escorts him to hers. If there is a divorce, the husband simply takes his things and leaves. Yet despite the special position of women, the Minangkabau matriarchy is not the equivalent of female rule, given the Minangkabau belief that all decision making should be by consensus.

Increased Gender Stratification: Patrilineal–Patrilocal Societies Martin and Voorhies (1975) link the decline of matriliny and the spread of the patrilineal–patrilocal complex (consisting of patrilineality, patrilocality, warfare, and male supremacy) to pressure on resources. Faced with scarce resources, patrilineal– patrilocal cultivators such as the Yanomami often raid other villages. This warfare favors patrilocality and patriliny, customs that keep related men together in the same village, where they make strong allies in battle.

The patrilineal–patrilocal complex also characterizes many societies in highland Papua New Guinea. Women work hard growing and processing subsistence crops, rais- ing and tending pigs (the main domesticated animal and a favorite food), and doing domestic cooking, but they are isolated from the public domain, which men control. Men grow and distribute prestige crops, prepare food for feasts, and arrange marriages. The men even get to trade the pigs and control their use in ritual.

In densely populated areas of the Papua New Guinea highlands, male–female avoid- ance is associated with strong pressure on resources (Lindenbaum 1972). Men fear all

In some parts of Papua New Guinea, the patrilineal–patrilocal complex has extreme social repercussions. Regarding females as dangerous and polluting, men may segregate themselves in men’s houses (such as this one, located near the Sepik River), where they hide their precious ritual objects from women. Are there places like this in your society? ©George Holton/ Science Source

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female contact, including sexual acts. They think that sexual contact with women will weaken them. Indeed, men see everything female as dangerous and polluting. They segregate themselves in men’s houses and hide their precious ritual objects from women. They delay marriage, and some never marry. By contrast, the sparsely populated areas of Papua New Guinea, such as recently settled areas, lack taboos on male–female con- tacts. The image of woman as polluter fades, men and women mingle together, and re- productive rates are high.

Patriarchy and Violence Patriarchy describes a political system ruled by men in which women have inferior so- cial and political status, including basic human rights. Barbara Miller (1997), in a study of systematic neglect of females, describes women in rural northern India as “the endan- gered sex.” Societies that feature a full-fledged patrilineal–patrilocal complex, replete with warfare and intervillage raiding, also typify patriarchy. Such practices as dowry murders, female infanticide, and clitoridectomy exemplify patriarchy, which extends from tribal societies such as the Yanomami to state societies such as India and Pakistan.

The gender inequality spawned by patriarchy and violence, which continues into the 21st century, can be deadly. Anyone who follows current events will have heard of re- cent cases of blatant abuse of women and girls, particularly in the context of warfare and terrorism, for example, in Bosnia, Syria, and Nigeria. In all of these places, rape has been used as a weapon of war or as punishment for transgressions committed by the victim’s male relatives. In Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, girls have been pre- vented from, or punished for, attending school. In 2014, Boko Haram, a jihadist rebel group in northern Nigeria, which also opposes female education, kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls, whom they subjected to abuse and forced marriages.

Sometimes, thankfully, such abuse fails in its attempt to silence female voices. Consider Malala Yousafzai (born in 1997 in northern Pakistan), who at the early age of 9 years embarked on her ongoing career as a forceful and persuasive advocate for female education. Her courageous early work, including public speaking and a blog for the BBC (started when she was 11), criticized the Taliban for its efforts to block girls’ education and prompted the Taliban to issue a death threat against her. In October 2012, a gunman shot Malala (then age 14) three times on a school bus as she was traveling home from school. She survived and has continued to speak out about the importance of education for girls. In 2014 she became the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Family violence and domestic abuse of women are also widespread problems. Do- mestic violence occurs in nuclear family settings, such as Canada and the United States, as well as in more blatantly patriarchal contexts. Cities, with their impersonality and isolation from extended kin networks, are breeding grounds for domestic violence, as may be certain rural areas where women lead isolated lives.

When a woman lives in her own birth village, she has kin nearby to protect her interests. Even in patrilocal polygynous settings, women often count on the support of their cowives and sons in disputes with potentially abusive husbands. Unfortunately, settings in which women have a readily available support network

Gender in Industrial Societies 337

are disappearing from today’s world. Patrilineal social forms and isolated families have spread at the expense of matriliny. Many nations have declared polygyny ille- gal. More and more women, and men, find themselves cut off from their families and extended kin.

With the spread of the women’s rights and human rights movements, attention to abuse of women has increased. Laws have been passed, and mediating institutions established. Brazil’s female-run police stations for battered women provide an example, as do shelters for victims of domestic abuse in the United States and Canada. A series of “Ladies Only” facilities, including trains and entry lines, can be found throughout India. But patriarchal institutions do persist in what should be a more enlightened world.

Gender in Industrial Societies

The economic roles of men and women have changed and changed again over the course of American history. Nineteenth-century pioneer women worked productively in farming and home industry. As production shifted from home to factory, some women, particularly those who were poor or unmarried, turned to factory employment. Young White women typically worked outside the home only for a time, until they married and had children. The experience was different for African American

In many societies, especially patriarchal ones, women experience, and fear, intimidation as they increasingly enter the public sphere, especially in impersonal, urban settings. “Ladies Only” lines like this one at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, India, are designed to help women feel safer and more comfortable in public areas. ©Conrad P. Kottak

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women, many of whom, after abolition, continued working as field hands and domestic workers.

Changes in Gendered Work Changing attitudes about women’s work have reflected economic condi- tions and world events. In the United States, for example, the “traditional” idea that “a woman’s place is in the home” developed as industrialism spread after 1900. One reason for this change was an influx of European im- migrants, providing a male workforce willing to accept low wages for jobs, including factory work, that women previously might have held. Eventually, machine tools and mass production further reduced the need for female labor.

Anthropologist Maxine Margolis (2000) describes how gendered work, attitudes, and beliefs have varied in re- sponse to American economic needs. For example, when men are off fight- ing wars, work outside the home has

been presented as women’s patriotic duty, and the notion that women are biologically unfit for hard physical labor has faded.

The rapid population growth and business expansion that followed World War II created a demand for women to fill jobs in clerical work, public school teaching, and nursing (traditionally defined as female occupations). Inflation and the culture of con- sumption also have spurred female employment. When demand and/or prices rise, mul- tiple paychecks help maintain family living standards.

Economic changes after World War II also set the stage for the contemporary women’s movement, marked by the publication of Betty Friedan’s influential book The Feminine Mystique in 1963 and the founding of NOW, the National Organization for Women, in 1966. Among other things, the movement promoted expanded work opportunities for women, including the goal (as yet unrealized) of equal pay for equal work. Between 1970 and 2015, the female percentage of the American workforce rose from 38 to 47 percent. About 77 million women now have paid employment, com- pared with about 86 million men. Women fill more than half (52 percent) of all man- agement and professional jobs (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2014). And it’s not mainly single women working, as once was the case. Table 14.4 presents figures on the gener- ally increasing extradomestic labor of American wives and mothers, including those with young children.

During the world wars the notion that women were biologically unfit for hard physical labor faded. Shown here is World War II’s famous Rosie the Riveter. Is there a comparable poster woman today? What does her image say about modern gender roles? Source: National Archives and Records Administration

Gender in Industrial Societies 339

Note in Table 14.4  that the cash employment of American married men has been falling while that of American married women has been rising. In 1960, 89 percent of all married men worked, compared with just 32 percent of married women—a gap of 57 percent. That gap had narrowed to 13 percent by 2015, as cash employment of hus- bands declined to 74 percent, while that of wives rose to 61 percent. The median income of American women working full time in 2015 was 80 percent that of a comparably employed male, up from 68 percent in 1989 (Entmacher et al. 2013; Proctor, Semega, and Kollar 2016).

As women increasingly work outside the home, ideas about the gender roles of males and females have changed. Compare your grandparents and your parents. Chances are you have an employed mother, but your grandmother is more likely to have been a stay- at-home mom. Your grandfather is more likely than your father to have worked in manufacturing and to have belonged to a union. Your father is more likely than your grandfather to have participated significantly in child care and housework.

Thanks to automation and robotics, jobs have become less demanding in terms of physical labor. With machines to do the heavy work, the smaller average body size and lesser average strength of women are no longer significant impediments to blue-collar employment. But the main reason we don’t see more modern-day Rosies working along- side male riveters is that the U.S. workforce itself has been abandoning heavy-goods manufacture. In the 1950s, two-thirds of American jobs were blue-collar, compared with fewer than 15 percent today. The location of those jobs has shifted within the world capitalist economy. Third World countries, with their cheaper labor costs, produce steel, automobiles, and other heavy goods less expensively than the United States can, but the United States excels at services. The American mass education system has many defi- ciencies, but it does train millions of people for service and information-oriented jobs.

Another important change since the 1960s is the increasing levels of education and professional employment among women. In the United States today, more women than

TABLE 14.4 Workforce Participation Rates of American Mothers, Wives, and Husbands, 1960–2015*

Source: Proctor, B. D., J. L. Semega, and M. A. Kollar, 2016, “Income and Poverty in the United States: 2015.” U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60–256. p. 11, 2016.

Percentage of Married Women, Husband Present with Percentage of All Percentage of All Year Children under 6 Married Women† Married Men‡

1960 19 32 89 1970 30 40 86 1980 45 50 81 1990 59 58 79 2010 62 61 76 2015 60 61 74

*Civilian population 16 years of age and older. †Husband present. ‡Wife present.

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men attend and graduate from college. Women will soon comprise the majority of col- lege-educated workers in the U.S. labor force. Back in 1968, women made up less than 10 percent of the entering classes of MD (medicine), JD (law), and MBA (business) programs. The proportion of female students in those programs has risen to about 50 percent. Nowadays, female college graduates aged 30 to 34 are just as likely to be doctors, dentists, lawyers, professors, managers, and scientists as they are to be working in traditionally female professions as teachers, nurses, librarians, secretaries, or social workers. In the 1960s, women were seven times more likely to be in the latter than in the former series of professions.

Despite the many gains, female employment continues to lag noticeably in certain highly paid professions. In computer science and engineering, the percentage of female graduates has declined, to about 20 percent from 37 percent in 1980. By midcareer, twice the number of women as men leave their jobs in computer science, often because they perceive an uncomfortable and unsupportive workplace environment. Nearly 40 percent of women who left science, engineering, and technology jobs cited a “hostile macho culture” as their primary reason for doing so, versus only 27 percent who cited compensation (Council of Economic Advisers Report 2014).

Work and Family: Reality and Stereotypes People everywhere have work and family obligations, but ideas about how to balance those responsibilities have changed considerably in recent years. Both men and women increasingly question the cultural assumption that the man should be the breadwinner while the woman assumes domestic and child-care responsibilities. Over 40 percent of American mothers are their household’s primary or sole breadwinner. This includes both single mothers and married mothers. Fathers increasingly are assuming caregiving activities traditionally done by mothers. Seven percent of American families with chil- dren are father-only families. In general, American fathers spend significantly more time on child care and housework today than they did in the past. American fathers now do 4.6 more hours of child care, and 4.4 more hours of housework, per week than they did in 1965. 

However, just as barriers remain to women’s progress in the workplace, there are lingering obstacles—both material and cultural—to men’s success at home. Women still do much more domestic work than men do, and the average man still works longer hours outside the home and earns more money than the average woman does. There is a cul- tural lag as well. A persistent stereotype is that of the incompetent male homemaker. For decades, clueless husbands and inept fathers have been a staple of television sitcoms— especially those produced after large numbers of women began to enter the workforce. Women still tend to think of themselves as better homemakers than their husbands are. Former Princeton professor Anne-Marie Slaughter (2013, 2015) cites examples of American women who maintain deeply entrenched stereotypes about men’s (lack of) domestic capabilities—from kids to kitchens (Slaughter 2013). 

Slaughter discusses how, even when men want to play a prominent domestic role, women may resist. The same woman who says she wants her husband to do more at home may then criticize him for not “doing things right” when he does pitch in. As Slaughter points out, “Doing things right” means doing things the woman’s way.

Gender in Industrial Societies 341

Practice, of course, does make perfect, and women still do a disproportionate share of housework and child care in 21st-century America. If the woman is the one who usually does the domestic work, and if she assumes she can do it better and faster than her hus- band, she probably will do so. A stereotype can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, often reinforced by material reality.

When women ask their husbands for “help” around the house or with the kids, they are affirming the feminine role as primary homemaker and child-care provider. The husband is viewed as merely a helper rather than as an equal partner. Slaughter (2013, 2015) argues that men and women need to commit to and value a larger male domestic role, and employers need to make it easier for their employees to balance work and fam- ily responsibilities.

Both fathers and mothers increasingly are seeking jobs that offer flexibility, require less travel, and include paid parental leave (including paternity leave). The United States lags behind other developed nations in providing such benefits, which help workers build long-term careers as they also fulfill family responsibilities. Although a few states and local governments do offer paid parental leave to their employees, only about 11 percent of American private-sector employers offer paid leave specifically for family reasons. Americans, both men and women, increasingly report that work interferes with family—not the other way around. Some 46 percent of working men and women report that job demands sometimes or often interfere with their family lives, up from 41 per- cent 15 years ago (Parker and Livingston 2016).

A quarter of American workers report actual or threatened job loss because of an illness- or family-related absence. The work–family balancing act is particularly challenging for low-wage workers. They tend to have the least workplace flexibility, the most uncertain work hours, and the fewest benefits, and they can least afford to take unpaid leave. The toll is especially hard on single mothers.

The Feminization of Poverty Alongside the economic gains of many American women, especially the college edu- cated, stands an opposite extreme: the feminization of poverty. This refers to the increas- ing representation of women (and their children) among America’s poorest people. The 2015 median income of married-couple families ($84,626) was substantially more than twice that of families maintained by a single woman ($37,797) (Proctor et al. 2016).

The feminization of poverty isn’t just a North American phenomenon. The percent- age of single-parent (usually female-headed) households has been increasing world- wide. The figure ranges from about 10 percent in Japan, to between 10 and 20 percent in certain South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, to almost 50 percent in certain African countries and the Caribbean. Among the developed Western nations, the United States maintains the largest percentage of single-parent households (around 30 percent), followed by the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, and Denmark (over 20 percent in each). Globally, households headed by women tend to be poorer than those headed by men. In the United States in 2015, the poverty rate for female-headed families with no husband present was 28.2 percent, compared with 5.4 percent for married-couple fami- lies (Proctor et al. 2016). More than half the poor children in the United States live in families headed by women (Entmacher et al. 2013).

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One way to improve the situation of poor women is to encourage them to organize. Membership in a group can help women gain confidence and mobilize resources ( Dunham 2009). New women’s groups can in some cases revive or replace traditional forms of social organization that have been disrupted (Buvinic 1995; Gunewardena and Kingsolver 2007).

Work and Happiness Table 14.5 lists the 13 countries in which female labor-force participation was greatest in 2015. The highest rate, 86 percent, was in Iceland; the lowest rate among the 13 was in the United States, at 67 percent. Turkey is also included in the table as an example of a low-participation country, with a rate of 35 percent.

A relationship appears to exist between a country’s rate of female labor-force par- ticipation and its citizens’ feelings of well-being. The World Happiness Report, which has been published annually since 2012, is an attempt to measure well-being and happi- ness in 155 countries. Its measurements are based on a set of six key variables, and a series of lesser ones. The six variables that are related most strongly to a country’s sense of well-being are its per-capita gross domestic product (GDP, an indicator of its economic strength), social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity in giving, and perceptions of corruption. The first five are positive variables: As they increase, so does the sense of well-being. The last one, perceptions of corruption, is a negative variable. That is, the less people perceive corruption, the hap- pier they are. The 2017 World Happiness Report is issued by the Sustainable Develop- ment Solutions Network at Columbia University.

TABLE 14.5  Female Labor Force Participation and Well-Being by Country, 2015–2017

Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2016; Helliwell, John, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs, 2016.

Rank among World’s Percentage of Women “Happiest Countries” Country in Labor Force (2015) (2017)

Iceland 86 3 Switzerland 80 4 Sweden 80 10 Norway 76 1 Denmark 75 2 Netherlands 75 6 New Zealand 74 8 Canada 74 7 Finland 74 5 Germany 73 16 United Kingdom 73 19 Australia 71 9 United States 67 14 Turkey (lowest in table) 35 69

Beyond Male and Female 343

Norway was the world’s happiest country in 2017, followed by Denmark, Iceland, and Switzerland. Canada came in seventh; and the United States, 14th. All but two of the countries with the highest female employment (Germany and the United Kingdom) also were among the world’s 14 happiest. Correlations, of course, are not causes, and one wonders exactly why, as more women work outside the home, citizens might feel a greater sense of well-being. The greater financial security associated with dual-earner households may be part of the explanation. The world’s happiest countries not only have more employed women, but they also have a higher living standard and a more secure government safety net. Can you think of other factors that might explain a relationship between happiness and work outside the home?

Beyond Male and Female

Gender is socially constructed, and societies may recognize more than two genders (see Nanda 2014). The contemporary United States, for example, includes individuals who may self-identify using such labels as “transgender,” “intersex,” “gender fluid,” and “transsexual.” Such persons contradict dominant male/female gender distinctions by being part male and female, or neither male nor female. Because people who self- identify as transgender are increasingly visible, we must be careful about seeing mascu- line and feminine as absolute and binary categories.

Sex, we have seen, is biological, whereas gender is socially constructed. Transgender is a social category that includes individuals who may or may not contrast biologically with ordinary males and females. Within the transgender category, intersex people usu- ally contrast biologically with ordinary males and females, but transgender also in- cludes people whose gender identity has no apparent biological roots. The distinction between the terms intersex and transgender is like the distinction between sex and gen- der. Intersex refers to biology, while transgender refers to an identity that is socially constructed and individually performed (Butler 1988, 1990, 2015). 

The term intersex encompasses a variety of conditions involving a discrepancy be- tween the external genitals (penis, vagina, etc.) and the internal genitals (testes, ovaries, etc.). The causes of intersex are varied and complex (Kaneshiro 2009): (1) An XX inter- sex person has the chromosomes of a woman (XX) and normal ovaries, uterus, and fallopian tubes, but the external genitals appear male. Usually this results from a female fetus having been exposed to an excess of male hormones before birth. (2) An XY inter- sex person has the chromosomes of a man (XY), but the external genitals are incom- pletely formed, ambiguous, or female. The testes may be normal, malformed, or absent. (3) A true gonadal intersex person has both ovarian and testicular tissue. The external genitals may be ambiguous or may appear to be female or male. (4) Intersex also can result from an unusual chromosome combination, such as X0 (only one X chromosome, and no Y chromosome), XXY, XYY, and XXX. In the last three cases there is an extra sex chromosome, either an X or a Y. 

These chromosomal combinations don’t typically produce a discrepancy between internal and external genitalia, but there may be problems with sex hormone levels and overall sexual development. The XXY configuration, known as Klinefelter syndrome,

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is the most common of these chromosomal combinations and the second most common condition (after Down syndrome) caused by the presence of extra chromosomes in humans. Effects of Klinefelter occur in about 1 of every 1,000 males. One in every 500 males has an extra X chromosome but lacks the main symptoms—small testicles and reduced fertility. With XXX, or triple X syndrome, there is an extra X chromosome in each cell of a human female. Triple X occurs in about 1 of every 1,000 female births. There usually is no physically distinguishable difference between triple X women and other women. The same is true of XYY compared with other males.

Turner syndrome encompasses several conditions, of which X0 (absence of one sex chromosome) is most common. In this case, all or part of one of the sex chromosomes is absent. Girls with Turner syndrome typically are sterile because of nonworking ova- ries and amenorrhea (absence of a menstrual cycle).

Biology isn’t destiny; people construct their identities in society. Many individuals affected by one of the biological conditions just described see themselves simply as male or female, rather than transgender. Individuals may become transgender when their gender identity contradicts their biological sex at birth and the gender identity that society assigned to them in infancy. Feeling that their previous gender assignment was incorrect, they assert or seek to achieve a new one. The transgender category is diverse. Some transgender individuals lean toward male; some, female; some, toward neither of the dominant genders.

The anthropological record attests that gender diversity beyond male and female ex- ists in many societies and has taken many forms across societies and cultures (see Nanda 2014; Peletz 2009). Consider, for example, the eunuch, or “perfect servant” (a castrated man who served as a safe attendant to harems in Byzantium [Tougher 2008]). Hijras, who live mainly in northern India, are culturally defined as “neither men nor women,” or as men who become women by undergoing castration and adopting women’s dress and behavior. Hijras identify with the Indian mother goddess and are believed to channel her power. They are known for their ritualized performances at births and marriages, where they dance and sing, conferring the mother goddess’s blessing on the child or the married couple. Although culturally defined as celibate, some hijras now engage in prostitution, in which their role is as women with men (Nanda 1996, 1998). Hijra social movements have campaigned for recognition as a third gender, and in 2005, Indian pass- port application forms were updated with three gender options: M, F, and E (for male, female, and eunuch [i.e, hijra], respectively) (Telegraph 2005).

Several Native American tribes, including the Zuni of the American Southwest, in- cluded gender-variant individuals, described by the term “Two-Spirit.” Depending on the society, as many as four genders might be recognized: feminine women, masculine women, feminine men, and masculine men. The Zuni Two-Spirit was a male who adopted social roles traditionally assigned to women and, through performance of a third gender, contrib- uted to the social and spiritual well-being of the community (Roscoe 1991, 1998). Some Balkan societies included “sworn virgins,” born females who assumed male gender roles and activities to meet societal needs when there was a shortage of men (Gremaux 1993).

Among the Gheg tribes of North Albania, “virginal transvestites” were biologically female, but locals considered them “honorary men” (Shryock 1988). Some Albanian adolescent girls have chosen to become men, remain celibate, and live among men, with

Beyond Male and Female 345

the support of their families and villagers (Young 2000). And consider Polynesia. In Tonga the term fakaleitis describes males who behave as women do, thereby contrasting with mainstream Tongan men. Similar to Tonga’s fakaleitis, Samoan fa’afafine and Hawaiian mahu are men who adopt feminine attributes, behaviors, and visual markers.

Transgender individuals are increasingly visible in the media and our everyday lives. The Amazon television series Transparent, whose principal character is a transgender woman, has received several awards. The emergence of Caitlyn Jenner as a transgender woman received considerable media attention in 2015. Facebook now offers more than 50 gender options (Miller 2015). There have been various recent attempts to estimate the transgender population of the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau attempted such an estimate based on census records of people whose name change suggested a gender switch (Miller 2015). Of Americans who participated in the 2010 census, about 90,000 had changed their names to one of the opposite gender. Another estimate examined survey data and estimated that 0.3 percent of the American population, or 700,000 adults, were likely transgender (see Miller 2015).

In the contemporary West, the category transgender encompasses varied individuals whose gender performance and identity enlarge an otherwise binary gender structure. The lesbian and gay rights movement has expanded to include bisexual and transgender individuals. This lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community works to pro- mote government policies and social practices that protect its members’ civil and human rights. In recent years, the LGBT movement and its supporters have achieved many successes,

Neither men nor women, hijras constitute India’s third gender. Many hijras get their income from performing at ceremonies, begging, or prostitution. The beauty contest shown here was organized by an AIDS prevention and relief organization that works with the local hijra community. ©Maciej Dakowicz/Alamy Stock Photo

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including the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy of the U.S. armed services and, most notably, legalization of same-sex marriage throughout the United States. With reference specifically to transgender rights, states that legally prohibit discrimination based on sexual identity (e.g., Washington, Oregon, and Vermont) have larger shares of transgen- der people than do states without such laws (Miller 2015). As of this writing, one unresolved issue affecting the rights of transgender Americans is whether public restroom and locker room access should be based on gender at birth or current gender identity.

Sexual Orientation

Gender identity refers to whether a person feels, acts, and is regarded as male, female, or something else. One’s gender identity does not dictate one’s sexual orientation. Men who have no doubt about their masculinity can be sexually attracted to women or to other men, as can women with regard to female gender identity and variable sexual attraction. Sexual orientation, to which we now turn, refers to a person’s sexual attraction to, and habitual sexual activities with, persons of the opposite sex (heterosexuality), the same sex (homosexuality), or both sexes (bisexuality). Asexuality, indifference toward or lack of attraction to either sex, also is a sexual orientation. All four of these forms are found throughout the world. But each type of desire and experience holds different meanings for individuals and groups. For example, male–male sexual activity may be a private af- fair in Mexico, rather than public, socially sanctioned, and encouraged, as it is among the Etoro and several other groups in Papua New Guinea (see also Blackwood 2010; Herdt and Polen 2013; Hyde and DeLamater 2016; Lyons and Lyons 2011; Nanda 2014). 

Recently in the United States there has been a tendency to see sexual orientation as fixed and biologically based. There is not enough information at this time to determine the extent to which sexual orientation is based on biology. What we can say is that all human activities and preferences, including erotic expression, are at least partially con- structed and influenced by culture.

In any society, individuals will differ in the nature, range, and intensity of their sexual interests and urges. No one knows for sure why such individual sexual differences exist. Part of the answer probably is biological, reflecting genes or hormones. Another part may have to do with experiences during growth and development. But whatever the rea- sons for individual variation, culture always plays a role in molding individual sexual urges toward a collective norm. And such sexual norms vary from culture to culture.

What do we know about variation in sexual norms from society to society and over time? A classic cross-cultural study of 76 societies (Ford and Beach 1951) found wide variation in attitudes about forms of sexual activity. In a single society, such as the United States, attitudes about sex differ over time and with socioeconomic status, re- gion, and rural versus urban residence. However, even in the 1950s, prior to the “age of sexual permissiveness” (the pre-HIV period from the mid-1960s through the 1970s), research showed that almost all American men (92 percent) and more than half of American women (54 percent) admitted to masturbation. In the famous Kinsey report (Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin 1948), 37 percent of the men surveyed admitted having had at least one sexual experience leading to orgasm with another male. In a later study of 1,200 unmarried women, 26 percent reported same-sex sexual activities. (Because

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Kinsey’s research relied on nonrandom samples, it should be considered merely illustra- tive, rather than a statistically accurate representation, of sexual behavior at the time.)

In almost two-thirds (63 percent) of the 76 societies in the Ford and Beach study, various forms of same-sex sexual activity were acceptable. Occasionally sexual rela- tions between people of the same sex involved transvestism on the part of one of the partners (see Kulick 1998). Transvestism did not characterize male–male sex among the Sudanese Azande, who valued the warrior role (Evans-Pritchard 1970). Prospective warriors—young men aged 12 to 20—left their families and shared quarters with adult fighting men, who paid lobola for, and had sex with, them. During this apprenticeship, the young men did the domestic duties of women. Upon reaching warrior status, these young men took their own younger male brides. Later, retiring from the warrior role, Azande men married women. Flexible in their sexual expression, Azande males had no difficulty shifting from sex with older men (as male brides) to sex with younger men (as warriors) to sex with women (as husbands) (see Murray and Roscoe 1998).

Consider also the Etoro (Kelly 1976), a group of 400 people who subsisted by hunting and horticulture in the Trans-Fly region of Papua New Guinea. The Etoro illustrate the power of culture in molding human sexuality. The following account, based on ethno- graphic fieldwork by Raymond C. Kelly in the late 1960s, applies only to Etoro males and their beliefs. Etoro cultural norms prevented the male anthropologist who studied them from gathering comparable information about female attitudes and behavior. Note also that the activities described have been discouraged by missionaries. Because there has been no restudy of the Etoro specifically focusing on these activities, the extent to which these prac- tices continue today is unknown. For this reason, I’ll use the past tense in describing them.

Etoro opinions about sexuality were linked to their beliefs about the cycle of birth, physical growth, maturity, old age, and death. Etoro men believed that semen was necessary to give life force to a fetus, which was, they believed, implanted in a woman by an ancestral spirit. A man was required to have sexual intercourse with his wife during her pregnancy to nourish the growing fetus. The Etoro believed, however, that men had a limited lifetime supply of semen. Any sex act leading to ejaculation was seen as draining that supply, and as sapping a man’s virility and vitality. The birth of children, nurtured by semen, symbolized a necessary sacrifice that would lead to the husband’s eventual death. Male–female sexual intercourse, required for reproduction, was otherwise discouraged. Women who wanted too much sex were viewed as witches, hazardous to their husbands’ health. Furthermore, Etoro culture allowed male–female intercourse only about 100 days a year. The rest of the time it was tabooed. Seasonal birth clustering shows that the taboo was respected.

So objectionable was male–female sex that it was removed from community life. It could occur neither in sleeping quarters nor in the fields. Coitus could happen only in the woods, where it was risky because poisonous snakes, the Etoro believed, were at- tracted by the sounds and smells of male–female sex.

Although coitus was discouraged, sex acts between males were viewed as essential. Etoro believed that boys would not produce semen on their own. To grow into men and eventually give life force to their children, boys had to acquire semen orally from older men. From the age of 10 until adulthood, boys were inseminated by older men. No taboos were attached to this. This oral insemination could proceed in the sleeping area or garden. Every three years, a group of boys around the age of 20 were formally initiated into manhood. They went to a secluded mountain lodge, where they were visited and inseminated by several older men.

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Anthropology Today Gender, Ethnicity, and a Gold Medal for Fiji

On August 11, 2016, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the island nation of Fiji won its first-ever Olympic medal. That gold medal, in men’s rugby sevens, was awarded after Fiji trounced Great Britain, its former colonial master, by a score of 43 to 7. In Fiji, a Southwest Pacific nation of some 900,000 people, rugby is im- mensely popular. Specifically, Fijians ex- cel at rugby sevens, a rapid game played by seven participants per side in just 14 minutes. The addition of rugby to the roster of Olympic sports for the Rio summer games offered Fijians an opportunity to excel in a venue where previously Fiji had been woefully unrepresented. Only two Fijian athletes had qualified to participate in the games between 1956, when Fiji officially entered the Olympics, and 2016, when it won its gold medal. Rugby is the national sport of Fiji, where its fans include men, women, and Fijians of all ethnic backgrounds. There are, however, dramatic differences in rugby participation between men and women, and between Fiji’s two main eth- nic groups: indigenous Fijians and Indo- Fijians. The latter are the descendants of Indian immigrants who came to the is- land as indentured servants or free mi- grants during the 19th and 20th centuries, when both Fiji and India were British colonies. As anthropologist Niko Besnier, who has conducted fieldwork in Fiji since 1980, notes, participation in rugby is mainly by men who are indigenous Fijians. In contrast to the success of the men’s rugby team, the Fijian women’s team—the Fijiana—managed only an eighth place finish out of 11 teams par- ticipating. This less-than-stellar result is

not surprising given Fijian attitudes to- ward female players. Besnier and Brownell (2016) report that many Fijians view female rugby players as “tom- boys”—women who act too masculine by being independent, aggressive, and loud, and who often are assumed to be lesbians. Besnier heard stories of female players who had been beaten by their fathers or expelled from their family homes—an especially unhappy fate in a kin-based society. The Fijiana also re- ceive little official support, with few cor- porate sponsors, unlike the men’s team, which enjoys the sponsorship of the country’s major companies. When Besnier visited the Fijiana at their training camp in March 2016, he found the women put up in a Christian camp, five people to a room, while the men’s team was lodged at a luxury resort. Prior to the Olympic Games, there was even an attempt to r eplace some of the actual Fijiana national team with women from netball, who were more “feminine acting” even though they knew little about rugby (Besnier and Brownell 2016). Women aren’t the only Fijians who are discouraged from rugby. Indo-Fijians also face multiple barriers to participation in the sport. Indigenous Fijians contend that Indo-Fijians have slight physiques that make them unsuitable for rugby’s rough- ness. Even Indo-Fijian parents discour- age their sons from playing, fearing injury by the larger and rougher indigenous Fiji- ans. In this ostensibly multicultural soci- ety, it is not uncommon for indigenous Fijians (57 percent of the population) to resent the Indian-derived minority (38 percent) because of its business success. Indo-Fijians fear physical expressions of this resentment on the playing field. Can

Sexual Orientation 349

A code of propriety governed male–male sex among the Etoro. Although sexual rela- tions between older and younger males were considered culturally essential, those be- tween boys of the same age were discouraged. A boy who took semen from other youths was believed to be sapping their life force and stunting their growth. A boy’s rapid physical development could suggest he was getting semen from other boys. Like a sex- hungry wife, he could be shunned as a witch.

The sexual practices described in this section rested not on hormones or genes but on cultural beliefs and traditions. The Etoro shared a cultural pattern, which Gilbert Herdt (1984, 2006) calls “ritualized homosexuality,” with some 50 other tribes in a particular region of Papua New Guinea. These societies illustrate one extreme of a male–female avoidance pattern that has been widespread in Papua New Guinea, and in patrilineal– patrilocal societies more generally.

Flexibility in sexual expression seems to be an aspect of our primate heritage. Both mas- turbation and same-sex sexual activity exist among chimpanzees and other primates. Male bonobos (pygmy chimps) regularly engage in a form of mutual masturbation that has been called “penis fencing.” Females get sexual pleasure from rubbing their genitals against those of other females (De Waal 1997). Our primate sexual potential is molded by culture, the

societies, including your own? Are these barriers physical, cultural, or a combina- tion of the two?

you think of comparable barriers to sports participation and success based on gender and ethnic differences in other

Fijiana player Rusila Nagasau rushes to score against Colombia during a wom- en’s rugby match on Day 2 (August 7) of the 2016 summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. ©David Rogers/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

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environment, and reproductive necessity. Male–female coitus is practiced in all human societies—which, after all, must reproduce themselves—but alternatives also are widespread (Lyons and Lyons 2011; Rathus, Nevid, and Fichner-Rathus 2014). Like our gender roles, the sexual component of human personality and identity—the ways in which we express our “natural,” or biological, sexual urges—is a matter that culture and environment influence and limit.

Summary 1. Gender roles are the tasks and activities that a culture assigns to each sex. Gender

stereotypes are oversimplified ideas about attributes of males and females. Gender stratification describes an unequal distribution of rewards by gender, reflecting dif- ferent positions in a social hierarchy. Cross-cultural comparison reveals some re- current patterns involving the division of labor by gender. Gender roles and gender stratification also vary with environment, economy, adaptive strategy, level of so- cial complexity, and degree of participation in the world economy.

2. When gathering is prominent, gender status is more equal than when hunting or fishing dominates a foraging economy. Gender status also is more equal when the domestic and public spheres aren’t sharply separated.

3. Gender stratification also is linked to descent and residence. Women’s status in matrilineal societies tends to be high because overall social identity comes through female links. Women in many societies, especially matrilineal ones, wield power and make decisions. Scarcity of resources promotes intervillage warfare, patriliny, and patrilocality. The localization of related males is adaptive for military solidar- ity. Men may use their warrior role to symbolize and reinforce the social devalua- tion and oppression of women. Patriarchy describes a political system ruled by men in which women have inferior social and political status, including basic human rights.

4. Americans’ attitudes toward gender vary with class and region. When the need for female labor declines, the idea that women are unfit for many jobs increases, and vice versa. Factors such as war, falling wages, and inflation help explain female cash employment and Americans’ attitudes toward it. The need for flexible em- ployment, permitting a proper balance of work and family responsibilities, is in- creasingly important to both male and female workers. Despite the increased participation by women in the labor force and higher education, and by men in the domestic realm, including child care, barriers to full equality remain. Countering the economic gains of many American women is the feminization of poverty. This has become a global phenomenon, as impoverished female-headed households have increased worldwide.

5. Societies may recognize more than two genders. The term intersex describes a group of conditions, including chromosomal configurations, that may produce a discrepancy between external and internal genitals. Transgender individuals may or may not contrast biologically with ordinary males and females. Self-identified transgender people tend to be individuals whose gender identity contradicts their

Think Like an Anthropologist 351

biological sex at birth and the gender identity that society assigned to them in infancy.

6. Gender identity refers to whether a person feels, and is regarded as, male, female, or something else. One’s gender identity does not dictate one’s sexual orienta- tion. Sexual orientation stands for a person’s habitual sexual attraction to, and activities with, persons of the opposite sex (heterosexuality), the same sex ( homosexuality), or both sexes (bisexuality). Sexual norms and practices vary widely from culture to culture.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. How are sex, gender, and sexual orientation related to one another? What are the

differences among these three concepts? Provide an argument about why anthro- pologists are uniquely positioned to study the relationships among the three.

2. Using your own society, give an example of a gender role, a gender stereotype, and gender stratification. Are these examples likely to apply cross-culturally?

Key Terms domestic, 333 domestic–public

dichotomy, 333 gender identity, 346 gender roles, 329 gender

stereotypes, 329

sexual dimorphism, 328

sexual orientation, 346

transgender, 344

gender stratification, 329

intersex, 343 patriarchy, 336 patrilineal–

patrilocal complex, 335

352

Chapter 15 Religion What Is Religion?

Expressions of Religion Spiritual Beings Powers and Forces Magic and Religion Uncertainty, Anxiety, Solace Rituals Rites of Passage Totemism

Social Control

Kinds of Religion

Protestant Values and Capitalism

World Religions

Religion and Change Revitalization Movements and Cargo Cults New and Alternative Religious Movements

Religion and Cultural Globalization Evangelical Protestantism and Pentecostalism Homogenization, Indigenization, or Hybridization? The Spread of Islam Antimodernism and Fundamentalism Religious Radicalization Today

Secular Rituals

Anthropology Today: Newtime Religion

What Is Religion?

In his book Religion: An Anthropological View, Anthony F. C. Wallace (1966) de- fined religion as “belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces” (p. 5). By “supernatural,” Wallace was referring to a nonmaterial realm beyond (but believed to impinge on) the observable world. The supernatural cannot be verified or falsified empirically and is inexplicable in ordinary terms. It must be accepted “on faith.” Supernatural beings (e.g., deities, ghosts, demons, souls, spirits) dwell outside our material world, which they may visit from time to time. There also are supernatural or sacred forces, some of them wielded by deities and spirits, others that simply exist. In many societies, people believe they can benefit from, become imbued with, or manipu- late such forces (see Bielo 2015; Bowen 2014; Hicks 2010; Lambek 2008; Stein and Stein 2011; Warms, Garber, and McGee 2009).

Wallace’s definition of religion focuses on beings, powers, and forces within the su- pernatural realm. Émile Durkheim (1912/2001), one of the founders of the anthropol- ogy of religion, focused on the distinction between the sacred (the domain of religion)

What Is Religion? 353

and the profane (the everyday world). Like the supernatural for Wallace, Durkheim’s “sacred” was a domain set off from the ordinary, or the mundane (he preferred the word profane). For Durkheim, although every society recognized a sacred domain, the specif- ics of that domain varied from society to society. In other words, he saw religion as a cultural universal, while recognizing that specific religious beliefs and practices would vary from society to society. Durkheim believed that Native Australian societies had retained the most elementary, or basic, forms of religion. He noted that their most sacred objects, including plants and animals that served as totems, were not supernatural at all. Rather, they were “real-world” entities (e.g., kangaroos, grubs) that had acquired reli- gious meaning and became sacred objects for the social groups that “worshipped” them. Durkheim saw totemism as the most elementary or basic form of religion.

Durkheim (1912/2001) focused on groups of people—congregants—who gather to- gether for worship, such as a group of Native Australians worshiping a particular totem. He stressed the collective, social, and shared nature of religion; the meanings it embod- ies; and the emotions it generates. He highlighted religious effervescence, the bubbling up of collective emotional intensity generated by worship. As Michael Lambek (2008) remarks, “good anthropology understands that religious worlds are real, vivid, and sig- nificant to those who construct and inhabit them” (p. 5).

Congregants who worship together share certain beliefs; they have accepted a par- ticular set of doctrines concerning the sacred and its relationship to human beings. The word religion derives from the Latin religare—“to tie, to bind”—but it is not necessary for all members of a given religion to meet together as a common body. Subgroups meet regularly at local congregation sites. They may attend occasional meetings with adher- ents representing a wider region. And they may form an imagined community with people of similar faith throughout the world.

Verbal manifestations of religious beliefs include prayers, chants, myths, texts, and statements about ethics and morality (see Hicks 2010; Moro and Meyers 2012; Stein and Stein 2011; Winzeler 2012). Other aspects of religion include notions about purity and pollution (including taboos involving diet and physical contact), sacrifice, initiation, rites of passage, vision quests, pilgrimages, spirit possession, prophecy, study, devotion, and moral actions (Lambek 2008, p. 9).

Like ethnicity and language, religion is associated with social divisions within and between societies and nations. Religion both unites and divides. Participation in com- mon rites may affirm, and thus maintain, the solidarity of a group of adherents. As we know from daily headlines, however, religious difference also may be associated with bitter enmity. Contacts and confrontations have increased between so-called world reli- gions, such as Christianity and Islam, and the more localized forms of religion that mis- sionaries typically lump together under the disparaging term “paganism.” Increasingly, ethnic, regional, and class conflicts come to be framed in religious terms. Contemporary examples of religion as a social and political force include the rise of the religious right in the United States, the worldwide spread of Pentecostalism, and various Islamic move- ments (see Lindquist and Handelman 2013).

Long ago, Edward Sapir (1928/1956) argued for a distinction between “a religion” and “religion.” The former term would apply only to a formally organized religion, such as the world religions just mentioned. The latter—“religion”—is universal; it refers to

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religious beliefs and behavior, which exist in all societies, even if they don’t stand out as a separate and clearly demarcated sphere. Anthropologists agree that religion exists in all human societies; it is a cultural universal. However, we’ll see that it isn’t always easy to distinguish the sacred from the profane and that different societies conceptualize divinity, the sacred, the supernatural, and ultimate realities very differently.

Expressions of Religion

How and when did religion begin? No one knows for sure. There are suggestions of re- ligion in Neandertal burials and on European cave walls, where painted stick figures may represent shamans, early religious specialists. Nevertheless, any statement about when, where, why, and how religion arose, or any description of its original nature, can only be speculative. Although such speculations are inconclusive, many have revealed important functions and effects of religious behavior. Several theories will be examined in this section.

Spiritual Beings Another founder (along with Durkheim) of the anthropology of religion was the Eng- lishman Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1871/1958). Religion arose, Tylor thought, as people tried to understand phenomena they could not explain by reference to daily experience. Tylor believed that ancient humans—and contemporary nonindustrial peoples—were particularly intrigued with death, dreaming, and trance. People see images they may remember when they wake up or come out of a trance state. Tylor concluded that at- tempts to explain dreams and trances led early humans to believe that two entities in- habit the body. One is active during the day, and the other—a double, or soul—is active

Participation in a collective religious act, such as singing in this choir, can strengthen social bonds among congregants, while promoting feelings of spiritual effervescence. ©Radius Images/Alamy Stock Photo RF

Expressions of Religion 355

during sleep and in trance states. When the double leaves the body permanently, the person dies. Death is departure of the soul. From the Latin for soul, anima, Tylor named this belief animism. The soul was one sort of spiritual entity; people remembered vari- ous other entities from their dreams and trances—other spirits. For Tylor, animism, the earliest form of religion, was a belief in spiritual beings.

Tylor proposed that religion evolved through stages, beginning with animism. Polytheism (the belief in multiple gods) and then monotheism (the belief in a single, all-powerful deity) developed later. Because religion originated to explain things, Tylor thought it would decline as science offered better explanations. To an extent, he was right. We now have scientific explanations for many things that religion once elucidated (see Salazar and Bestard 2015). Of course, many of the “faithful” reject such secular explanations, preferring the nonscientific, religious ones instead. Nevertheless, because religion persists even among those who accept science, it must do something more than explain. It must, and does, have other functions and meanings.

Powers and Forces In addition to animism—and sometimes coexisting with it in the same society—is a view of the supernatural as a domain of impersonal power, or force, which people can control under certain conditions. (You’d be right to think of Star Wars.) Such a concep- tion has been particularly prominent in Melanesia, the area of the South Pacific that includes Papua New Guinea and adjacent islands. Melanesians traditionally believed in mana, a sacred impersonal force existing in the universe. Mana could reside in people, animals, plants, and objects.

Melanesian mana was similar to our notion of luck. Objects with mana could change someone’s luck. For example, a charm or an amulet belonging to a successful hunter could transmit that hunter’s mana to the next person who held or wore it. A woman could put a rock in her garden, see her yields improve, and attribute the change to the force contained in the rock.

Beliefs in manalike forces have been widespread, although the specifics of the reli- gious doctrines have varied. Consider the contrast between mana in Melanesia and Polynesia (the islands included in a triangular area marked by Hawaii to the north, Eas- ter Island to the east, and New Zealand to the southwest). In Melanesia, anyone could acquire mana by chance, or by working hard to get it. In Polynesia, however, mana wasn’t potentially available to everyone but was attached to political offices. Chiefs and nobles had more mana than ordinary people did.

So charged with mana were the highest chiefs that contact with them was dangerous to commoners. The mana of chiefs flowed out of their bodies. It could infect the ground, making it dangerous for others to walk in the chief’s footsteps. It could permeate the containers and utensils chiefs used in eating. Because high chiefs had so much mana, their bodies and possessions were taboo (set apart as sacred and off-limits to ordinary people). Because ordinary people couldn’t bear as much sacred current as royalty could, when commoners were accidentally exposed, purification rites were necessary.

As Horton (1993) and Lambek (2008) point out, there are universals in human thought and experience, common conditions and situations that call out for explanation. One of these universal questions is what happens in sleep and trance, and with death.

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Another is the question of why some people prosper, while others fail. A religious ex- planation might blame unequal success or fortune on such nonmaterial factors as luck, mana, sorcery, or being one of “God’s chosen.”

The beliefs in spiritual beings (e.g., animism) and supernatural forces (e.g., mana) fit within Wallace’s definition of religion given at the beginning of this chapter. Most reli- gions include both spirits and forces. Likewise, the supernatural beliefs of contemporary North Americans include beings (gods, saints, souls, demons) and forces (charms, talis- mans, crystals, and sacred objects).

Magic and Religion Magic refers to supernatural techniques intended to accomplish specific goals. Those techniques include actions, offerings, spells, formulas, and incantations used with dei- ties or with impersonal forces. Magicians might employ imitative magic to produce a desired effect by imitating it. For example, if magicians wish to harm someone, they may imitate that effect on an image of the victim. Sticking pins in “voodoo dolls” is an example. With contagious magic, whatever is done to an object is believed to affect a person who has, or once had, contact with it. Sometimes practitioners of contagious magic use body products from prospective victims—their nails or hair, for example. The spell performed on the body product is believed eventually to reach the person. Magic exists in societies with diverse religious beliefs, including animism, mana, polytheism, and monotheism.

Uncertainty, Anxiety, Solace Religion and magic serve emotional needs as well as cognitive (e.g., explanatory) ones. Religion can help people face death and endure life crises. Magical techniques can be used when outcomes are beyond human control. According to Malinowski, when people face uncertainty and danger, they often turn to magic. The Trobriand Islanders, whom Malinowski studied, used magic during sailing—a hazardous activity in which people lacked control over wind and weather (Malinowski 1931/1978). Only in situations they could not control did Trobrianders, out of psychological stress, turn to magic.

Despite our improving technical skills, we still cannot control every outcome, so magic persists in contemporary societies. Most of us still draw on magic and ritual in situations of uncertainty, such as before a test or perhaps a plane ride. To enhance their success magically, athletes use personal rituals in many sports, with baseball magic particularly noteworthy. The anthropologist George Gmelch (1978, 2006) describes a series of rituals, taboos, and sacred objects used in the sport. Like Trobriand sailing magic, these behaviors reduce psychological stress, creating an illusion of magical con- trol when real control is lacking. Baseball magic is especially prevalent in pitching and batting.

Rituals Several features distinguish rituals from other kinds of behavior (Rappaport 1974, 1999). Rituals are formal—stylized, repetitive, and stereotyped. People perform them in special places and at set times. Rituals include liturgical orders—sequences of words and actions invented prior to the current performance of the ritual in which they occur.

Expressions of Religion 357

These features link rituals to plays, but there are important differences. Actors merely portray something, but ritual performers—who make up congregations—are in earnest. Rituals convey information about the participants and their traditions. Repeated year after year, generation after generation, rituals translate enduring messages, values, and sentiments into action.

Rituals are social acts. Inevitably, some participants are more committed than others are to the beliefs that lie behind the rites. However, just by taking part in a joint public act, the performers signal that they accept a common social and moral order, one that transcends their status as individuals.

Rites of Passage Magic and religion, as Malinowski noted, can reduce anxiety, allay fears, and help people deal with life crises. Ironically, beliefs and rituals also can create anxiety and a sense of insecurity and danger (Radcliffe-Brown 1952/1965). Anxiety may arise be- cause a ritual exists. Indeed, participation in a collective ritual (e.g., circumcision of early teen boys, common among East African pastoralists) can produce considerable stress, whose common relief, once the ritual is completed, enhances the solidarity of the participants. Collective circumcision is an example of a ritual, or rite, of passage, as participants transition from one stage of life to another. 

Rites of passage (rituals associated with the transition from one place, or stage of life, to another) can be individual or collective. The traditional vision quests of Native Americans, particularly the Plains Indians, illustrate individual rites of passage. To move from boyhood to manhood, a youth would temporarily separate from his commu- nity. After a period of isolation in the wilderness, often featuring fasting and drug con- sumption, the young man would see a vision, which would become his guardian spirit. He would return then to his community as an adult.

Contemporary rituals or rites of passage include confirmations, baptisms, bar and bat mitzvahs, initiations, weddings, and application for Medicare. Passage rites involve changes in social status, such as from boyhood to manhood, or from nonmember to so- rority sister. More generally, a rite of passage may mark any change in place, condition, social position, or age.

All rites of passage have three phases: separation, liminality, and incorporation. In the first phase, people withdraw from ordinary society. In the third phase, they reenter society, having completed a ritual that changes their status. The second, or liminal, phase is the most interesting. It is the limbo, or “time-out,” during which people have left one status but haven’t yet entered or joined the next (Turner 1967/1974).

Liminality always has certain characteristics. Liminal people exist apart from ordi- nary distinctions and expectations; they are living in a time out of time. A series of contrasts set liminality apart from normal social life. For example, among the Ndembu of Zambia, a new chief underwent a rite of passage before taking office. During the liminal period, his past and future positions in society were ignored, even reversed. He was subjected to a variety of insults, orders, and humiliations.

Often, rites of passage are collective. Several individuals—boys being circumcised, fraternity or sorority initiates, men at military boot camps, football players in summer training camps, women becoming nuns—pass through the rites together as a group.

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Table 15.1 summarizes the contrasts, or oppositions, between liminality and normal social life. Most notable is the social aspect of collective liminality called communitas (Turner 1967/1974), an intense community spirit, a feeling of great social solidarity, equality, and togetherness. Liminal people experience the same treatment and condi- tions and must act alike. Liminality may be marked ritually and symbolically by rever- sals of ordinary behavior. For example, sexual taboos may be intensified; conversely, sexual excess may be encouraged. Liminal symbols, such as special clothing or body paint, mark the condition as extraordinary—beyond ordinary society and everyday life.

Liminality is basic to all rites of passage. Furthermore, in certain societies, including our own, liminal symbols may be used to set off one (religious) group from another and from society as a whole. Such “permanent liminal groups” (e.g., sects, brotherhoods, and cults) are found most characteristically in nation-states. Such liminal features as humility, poverty, equality, obedience, sexual abstinence, and silence (see Table 15.1) may be required for all sect or cult members. Those who join such a group agree to its rules. As if they were undergoing a passage rite—but in this case a never-ending one— they may have to abandon their previous possessions and social ties, including those with family members. Is liminality compatible with Facebook?

Members of a sect or cult often wear uniform clothing. They may adopt a common hairstyle (shaved head, short hair, or long hair). Liminal groups submerge the individual in the collective. This may be one reason Americans, whose core values include indi- viduality and individualism, are so fearful and suspicious of “cults.”

TABLE 15.1 Oppositions between Liminality and Normal Social Life

Source: Turner, Victor, The Ritual Process. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. Copyright ©1969.

Liminality Normal Social Structure

transition state homogeneity heterogeneity communitas structure equality inequality anonymity names absence of property property absence of status status nakedness or uniform dress dress distinctions sexual continence or excess sexuality minimization of sex distinctions maximization of sex distinctions absence of rank rank humility pride disregard of personal appearance care for personal appearance unselfishness selfishness total obedience obedience only to superior rank sacredness secularity sacred instruction technical knowledge silence speech simplicity complexity acceptance of pain and suffering avoidance of pain and suffering

Expressions of Religion 359

Passage rites are often collective. A group—such as these Maasai initiates in Kenya or these navy trainees in San Diego—passes through the rites as a unit. Such liminal people experience the same treatment and conditions and must act alike. They share communitas, an intense community spirit, a feeling of great social solidarity or togetherness. (top): ©John Warburton-Lee Photography/Alamy Stock Photo; (bottom): ©Joe McNally/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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Not all collective rituals are rites of passage. Most societies observe occasions on which people come together to worship or celebrate and, in doing so, affirm and rein- force their solidarity. Rituals such as the totemic ceremonies described in the next sec- tion are rites of intensification: They intensify social solidarity. The ritual creates communitas and produces emotions—the collective spiritual effervescence described by Durkheim (1912/2001)—that enhance social solidarity.

Totemism Totemism was a key ingredient in the religions of the Native Australians. Totems could be animals, plants, or geographic features. In each tribe, groups of people had particular totems. Members of each totemic group believed themselves to be descendants of their totem, which they customarily neither killed nor ate. However, this taboo was suspended once a year, when people assembled for ceremonies dedicated to the totem. Only on that occasion were they allowed to kill and eat their totem. These annual rites were believed to be necessary for the totem’s survival and reproduction.

Totemism uses nature as a model for society. The totems usually are animals and plants, which are part of nature. People relate to nature through their totemic association with natural species. Because each group has a different totem, social differences mirror natural contrasts. Diversity in the natural order becomes a model for diversity in the social order. However, although totemic plants and animals occupy different niches in nature, on another level they are united because they all are part of nature. The unity of the human social order is enhanced by symbolic association with and imitation of the natural order (Durkheim 1912/2001; Lévi-Strauss 1963; Radcliffe-Brown 1952/1965).

Totems are sacred emblems symbolizing common identity. This is true not just among Native Australians but also among Native American groups of the North Pacific Coast of North America, whose totem poles are well known. Their totemic carvings, which com- memorated and told visual stories about ancestors, animals, and spirits, were also associ- ated with ceremonies. In totemic rituals, people gather together to honor their totem. In so doing, they use ritual to maintain the social oneness that the totem symbolizes.

Totemic principles continue to demarcate groups, including clubs, teams, and univer- sities, in modern societies. Think of familiar team mascots and symbols. Badgers, wol- verines, and gators are animals, and buckeye nuts come from the buckeye tree. Differences between natural species (e.g., lions, tigers, and bears) distinguish sports teams and even political parties (donkeys and elephants). Although the modern context is more secular, one can still witness, in intense college football rivalries, some of the effervescence Durkheim noted in Australian totemic religion and other rites of intensification.

Social Control

Religion means a lot to people. It helps them cope with uncertainty, adversity, fear, and tragedy. It offers hope that things will get better. Lives can be transformed through spiritual healing. Sinners can repent and be saved—or they can go on sinning and be damned. If the faithful truly internalize a system of religious rewards and punishments,

Social Control 361

their religion becomes a powerful influence on their attitudes and behavior, as well as on what they teach their children.

Many people engage in religious activity because it works for them. Prayers get an- swered. Faith healers heal. Many Native American people in southwestern Oklahoma use faith healers at high monetary cost, not just because it makes them feel better but also because they believe it works (Lassiter 1998). Each year legions of Brazilians visit a church, Nosso Senhor do Bonfim, in the city of Salvador, Bahia. They vow to repay “Our Lord” (Nosso Senhor) if healing happens. Showing that the vows work, and are repaid, are the thousands of ex votos, plastic impressions of every conceivable body part, that adorn the church, along with photos of people who have been cured.

Religion can work by getting inside people and mobilizing their emotions—their joy, their wrath, their certainty, their righteousness. People can feel a deep sense of shared joy, meaning, experience, communion, belonging, and commitment to their re- ligion. The power of religion affects action. When religions meet, they can coexist peacefully, or their differences can be a basis for enmity and disharmony, even battle. Throughout history, political leaders have used religion to promote and justify their views and policies.

How may leaders mobilize communities and, in so doing, gain support for their own policies? One way is by persuasion; another is by fomenting hatred or fear. Con- sider witchcraft accusations. Witch hunts can be powerful means of social control by creating a climate of danger and insecurity that affects everyone. No one wants to seem deviant, to be accused of being a witch. Witch hunts often take aim at socially

Witchcraft accusations persist in today's world, with women disproportionately targeted. Hundreds of alleged witches, including these women, are confined to five isolated “witch camps” in northern Ghana. Witchcraft accusations there tend to follow disputes over inheritance rights, or a husband's death that leaves a widow perceived to be a burden on her husband’s family or her own. ©Markus Matzel/ ullstein bild via Getty Images

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marginal people who can be accused and punished with the least chance of retalia- tion. During the great European witch craze of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries (Harris 1974), most accusations and convictions were against poor women with little social support.

Accusations of witchcraft are ethnographic as well as historical facts. Witchcraft beliefs are common in village and peasant societies, where people live close together and have limited mobility. Such societies often have what anthropologist George Foster (1965) called an “image of limited good”—the idea that resources are limited, so that one person can profit disproportionately only at the expense of others. In this context, the threat of witchcraft accusations can serve as a leveling mechanism if it motivates wealthier villagers to be especially generous or else face shunning and social ostracism. Similarly, in the chapter “Gender,” we saw that Etoro women who wanted too much sex, as well as boys who grew too rapidly, could be shunned as witches who were depleting a man’s limited lifetime supply of semen. 

To ensure proper behavior, religions offer rewards (e.g., the fellowship of the reli- gious community) and punishments (e.g., the threat of being cast out or excommuni- cated). Religions, especially the formal, organized ones typically found in state societies, often prescribe a code of ethics and morality to guide behavior. Moral codes are ways of maintaining order and stability that are reinforced continually in religious sermons, catechisms, and the like. They become internalized psychologically. They guide behav- ior and produce regret, guilt, shame, and the need for forgiveness, expiation, and absolu- tion when they are not followed.

Kinds of Religion

Although religion is a cultural universal, religions exist in particular societies, and cul- tural differences show up systematically in religious beliefs and practices. For example, the religions of stratified, state societies differ from those of societies with less marked social contrasts—societies without kings, lords, and subjects. Churches, temples, and other full-time religious establishments, with their monumental structures and hierar- chies of officials, must be supported in some consistent way, such as by tithes and taxes. What kinds of societies can support such hierarchies and architecture?

All societies have religious figures—those believed capable of mediating between humans and the supernatural. More generally, all societies have medico-magico- religious specialists. Modern societies can support both priesthoods and health care professionals. Lacking the resources for such specialization, foraging societies typically have only part-time specialists, who often have both religious and healing roles. Shaman is a general term that encompasses curers, mediums, spiritualists, astrologers, palm readers, and other independent diviners. In foraging societies, shamans are usually part-time; that is, they also hunt or gather.

Societies with productive economies (based on agriculture and trade) and large, dense populations (nation-states) can support full-time religious specialists—profes- sional priesthoods. Like the state itself, priesthoods are hierarchically and bureaucrati- cally organized. Anthony Wallace (1966) describes the religions of such stratified

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societies as “ecclesiastical” (pertaining to an established church and its hierarchy of officials) and “Olympian,” after Mount Olympus, home of the classical Greek gods. In such religions, powerful anthropomorphic gods have specialized functions, for example, gods of love, war, the sea, and death. Such pantheons (collections of deities) were prominent in the religions of many nonindustrial nation-states, including the Aztecs of Mexico, several African and Asian kingdoms, and classical Greece and Rome. Greco- Roman religions were polytheistic, featuring many deities. In monotheism, all super- natural phenomena are believed to be manifestations of, or under the control of, a single eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent being. In the ecclesiastical monothe- istic religion known as Christianity, a single supreme being is manifest in a trinity (see Bellah 2011).

Protestant Values and Capitalism

Notions of salvation and the afterlife dominate Christian ideologies. However, most varieties of Protestantism lack the hierarchical structure of earlier monotheistic reli- gions, including Roman Catholicism. With a diminished role for the priest (minister), salvation is directly available to individuals, who have unmediated access to the supernatural.

In his influential book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904/1958), the social theorist Max Weber linked the spread of capitalism to the values preached by early Protestant leaders. He saw Protestants as more successful financially than Catho- lics and attributed this difference to the values stressed by their religions. Weber viewed Protestants as more entrepreneurial and future-oriented than Catholics. Protestantism placed a premium on hard work, an ascetic life, and profit seeking. Early Protestants saw success on Earth as a sign of divine favor and probable salvation.

Weber also argued that rational business organization required the removal of pro- duction from the home. Protestantism made such a separation possible by emphasizing individualism: Individuals, not families or households, would be saved or not. Today, of course, in North America as throughout the world, people of many religions and with diverse worldviews are successful capitalists. Furthermore, traditional Protestant values often have little to do with today’s economic maneuvering. Still, there is no denying that the individualistic focus of Protestantism was compatible with the severance of ties to land and kin that industrialism demanded.

World Religions

Information on the world’s major religions in 2010 and projected for 2050 is provided in Figure 15.1, based on recent comprehensive studies by the Pew Research Center (2012a, 2015b). Considering data from more than 230 countries, researchers estimated that the world contained about 5.8 billion religiously affiliated people—84 percent of its population of 6.9 billion in 2010.

There were approximately 2.2 billion Christians (31.4 percent of the world’s popula- tion), 1.6 billion Muslims (23.2 percent), 1 billion Hindus (15 percent), nearly 500 million

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0.8% Other Religions**

2010 2050

0.2% Jews

5.9% Folk Religionists*

7.1% Buddhists

15.0% Hindus

16.4% Unaffiliated23.2%

Muslims

31.4% Christians

* Includes followers of African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American religions, and Australian aboriginal religions. ** Includes Bahai’s, Jains, Sikhs, Shintoists, Taoists, followers of Tenrikyo, Wiccans, Zoroastrians, and many other faiths. Percentages may not add to 100 due to rounding.

0.7% Other Religions** 0.2% Jews

4.7% Folk Religionists*

5.2% Buddhists

14.9% Hindus

13.2% Unaffiliated

29.7% Muslims

31.4% Christians

* Includes followers of African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American religions, and Australian aboriginal religions. ** Includes Bahai’s, Jains, Sikhs, Shintoists, Taoists, followers of Tenrikyo, Wiccans, Zoroastrians, and many other faiths. Percentages may not add to 100 due to rounding.

Buddhists (7.1 percent), and 14 million Jews (0.2 percent). In addition, more than 400 million people (5.9 percent) practiced folk or traditional religions of various sorts. Some 58 million people, a bit less than 1 percent of the world’s population, belonged to other religions, including Baha’i, Jainism, Sikhism, Shintoism, Taoism, Tenrikyo, Wicca, and Zoroastrianism.

About 1.1 billion people—16.4 percent of the world’s population—lacked any reli- gious affiliation. The unaffiliated therefore constitute the third-largest group worldwide with respect to religious affiliation, behind Christians and Muslims. There are about as many unaffiliated people as Roman Catholics in the world. Many of the unaffiliated actually hold some religious or spiritual beliefs, even if they don’t identify with a par- ticular religion (Pew Research Center 2012b, 2015b).

Worldwide, Islam is growing at a rate of about 2.9 percent annually, compared with 2.3 percent for Christianity. Within Christianity, the growth rate for “born-again” Chris- tians (e.g., Evangelicals/Pentecostals) is much higher than for either Catholics or main- line Protestants. Recent demographic projections by the Pew Research Center (2015b) suggest that by 2050 there will be almost as many Muslims (29.7 percent) as Christians (31.4 percent) in the world (see Figure 15.1). In Europe, Muslims will constitute about 10 percent of the population, compared with about 6 percent today. This chapter’s “ Anthropology Today” documents recent religious changes in the United States, includ- ing the growth of non-Christian religions and of the unaffiliated—religious “nones.”

FIGURE 15.1 Major World Religions by Percentage of World Population, 2010, and Projected for 2050

Source: The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2050. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, April 2, 2015. Copyright ©2015.

Religion and Change 365

Religion and Change

Like political organization, religion helps maintain social order. And like political mo- bilization, religious energy can be harnessed not just for change but also for revolution. Reacting to conquest or to actual or perceived foreign domination, for instance, religious leaders may seek to alter or revitalize their society.

Revitalization Movements and Cargo Cults Revitalization movements are social movements that occur in times of change, in which religious leaders emerge and undertake to alter or revitalize a society. Christianity originated as a revitalization movement. Jesus was one of several prophets who preached new religious doctrines while the Middle East was under Roman rule. It was a time of social unrest, when a foreign power ruled the land. Jesus inspired a new, enduring, and major religion. His contemporaries were not so successful.

Revitalization movements known as cargo cults have arisen in colonial situations in which local people have regular contact with outsiders but lack their wealth, technology, and living standards. Cargo cults attempt to explain European domination and wealth and to achieve similar success magically by mimicking European behavior and manipu- lating symbols of the desired lifestyle. The cargo cults of Melanesia and Papua New Guinea are hybrid creations that weave Christian doctrine with indigenous beliefs. They take their name from their focus on cargo—European goods of the sort natives have seen unloaded from the cargo holds of ships and airplanes.

In one early cult, members believed that the spirits of the dead would arrive in a ship. Those ghosts would bring manufactured goods for the natives and would kill all the Whites. Later cargo cults replaced ships with airplanes (Worsley 1959/1985). Many cults have used elements of European culture as sacred objects. The rationale is that Europeans use these objects, have wealth, and therefore must know the “secret of cargo.” By mimicking how Europeans use or treat objects, natives hope to come upon the secret knowledge needed to get cargo for themselves.

For example, having seen Europeans’ reverent treatment of flags and flagpoles, the members of one cult began to worship flagpoles. They believed the flagpoles were sa- cred towers that could transmit messages between the living and the dead. Other natives built airstrips to entice planes bearing canned goods, portable radios, clothing, wrist- watches, and motorcycles. Some cargo cult prophets proclaimed that success would come through a reversal of European domination and native subjugation. The day was near, they preached, when natives—aided by God, Jesus, or native ancestors—would turn the tables. Native skins would turn white, and those of Europeans would turn brown; Europeans would die or be killed.

Cargo cults blend Aboriginal and Christian beliefs. Melanesian myths told of ancestors shedding their skins and changing into powerful beings and of dead people returning to life. Christian missionaries also preached resurrection. The cults’ preoccupation with cargo is related to traditional Melanesian big-man systems. In the chapter “Political Systems,” we saw that a Melanesian big man had to be generous. People worked for the big man, helping him amass wealth, but eventually he had to give a feast and give away all that wealth.

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Because of their experience with big-man systems, Melanesians believed that all wealthy people eventually had to give away their wealth. For decades they had attended Christian missions and worked on plantations. All the while they expected Europeans to return the fruits of their labor as their own big men did. When the Europeans refused to distribute the wealth or even to let natives know the secret of its production and distribu- tion, cargo cults developed.

Like arrogant big men, Europeans would be leveled, by death if necessary. However, natives lacked the physical means of doing what their traditions said they should do. Thwarted by well-armed colonial forces, natives resorted to magical leveling. They called on supernatural beings to intercede, to kill or otherwise deflate the European big men and redistribute their wealth.

Cargo cults are religious responses to the expansion of the world capitalist economy. However, this religious mobilization had political and economic results. Cult participa- tion gave Melanesians a basis for common interests and activities and thus helped pave the way for political parties and economic interest organizations. Previously separated by geography, language, and customs, Melanesians started forming larger groups as members of the same cults and followers of the same prophets. The cargo cults paved the way for political action through which the indigenous peoples eventually regained their autonomy.

New and Alternative Religious Movements This chapter’s “Anthropology Today” describes changing patterns of religious affilia- tion in the United States, including significant growth in the number of Americans who affiliate with no organized religion. This trend toward nonaffiliation, whether as atheist,

On the island of Tanna, in Vanuatu, Melanesia, members of the John Frum cargo cult stage a military parade. The young men, who carry fake guns and have “USA” painted on their bodies, see themselves as an elite force within the American army. ©Thierry Falise/LightRocket via Getty Images

Religion and Cultural Globalization 367

agnostic, or “nothing in particular” can also be detected in Canada, Western Europe, China, and Japan. In addition to increasing nonaffiliation, contemporary industrial soci- eties also feature new religious trends and forms of spiritualism. The New Age move- ment, which emerged in the 1980s, draws on and blends cultural elements from multiple traditions. It advocates change through individual personal transformation. In the United States and Australia, respectively, some people who are not Native Americans or Native Australians have appropriated the symbols, settings, and purported religious practices of Native Americans and Native Australians for New Age religions. Native American activists decry the appropriation and commercialization of their spiritual beliefs and rituals, as when “sweat lodge” ceremonies are held on cruise ships, with wine and cheese served. They see the appropriation of their ceremonies and traditions as theft. Some Hindus feel similarly about the popularization of yoga.

Many contemporary nations contain unofficial religions. One example is “Yoruba religion,” a term applied to perhaps 15 million adherents in Africa as well as to millions of practitioners of syncretic, or blended, religions (with elements of Catholicism and spiritism) in the Western Hemisphere . Forms of Yoruba religion include santería (in the Spanish Caribbean and the United States), candomblé (in Brazil), and vodoun (in the French Caribbean). Yoruba religion, with roots in precolonial nation-states of West Africa, has spread far beyond its region of origin, as part of the African diaspora. It re- mains an influential, identifiable religion today, despite suppression, such as by Cuba’s communist government. There are perhaps 3 million practitioners of santería in Cuba, plus another 800,000 in the United States (Ontario Consultants 2007). Between 5 and 10  million Brazilians participate in candomblé, also known as macumba (Garcia- Navarro 2013). Voodoo (vodoun) has between 2.8 and 3.2 million practitioners (Ontario Consultants 2011), many (perhaps most) of whom would name something else, such as Catholicism, as their religion.

Religion and Cultural Globalization

Evangelical Protestantism and Pentecostalism The rapid and ongoing spread of Evangelical Protestantism represents a highly success- ful form of contemporary cultural globalization. A century ago, more than 90 percent of the 80 million Evangelicals in the world at that time lived in Europe and North America (Pew Research Center 2011). Today, there are as many as 1 billion Evangelicals world- wide. Most now live in Latin America, Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East and North Africa.

The growth of Evangelical Protestantism has been particularly explosive in Brazil— traditionally (and still) the world’s most Catholic nation. In 1980, when Pope John Paul  II visited the country, 89 percent of Brazilians claimed to be Roman Catholics. Since then, the growth rate of Evangelical Protestantism has skyrocketed. Protestants accounted for less than 5 percent of Brazil’s population through the 1960s. By 2000, Evangelicals comprised more than 15 percent of Brazilians affiliated with a church. The current estimate of the Evangelical share of Brazil’s population is between 20 and 25 percent and growing—mainly at the expense of Catholicism. Among the factors that

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have worked against Catholicism are these: a declining and mainly foreign priesthood, sharply contrasting political agendas of many of its clerics, and its reputation as mainly a women’s religion.

Evangelical Protestantism stresses conservative morality, biblical authority, and a personal (“born-again”) conversion experience. Most Brazilian Evangelicals are Pente- costals, who also embrace glossolalia (speaking in tongues) and beliefs in faith healing, spirits, exorcism, and miracles. In its focus on ecstatic and exuberant worship, Pentecos- talism has been heavily influenced by—and shares features with—African American Protestantism. In Brazil it shares features with candomblé, which also features chanting and spirit possession (Casanova 2001; Meyer 1999).

Peter Berger (2010) suggests that modern Pentecostalism may be the fastest-growing religion in human history and focuses on its social dimensions to explain why. Accord- ing to Berger, Pentecostalism promotes strong communities while offering practical and psychological support to people whose circumstances are changing. My own experience in Brazil supports Berger’s hypothesis; most new Pentecostals I encountered came from underprivileged, poor, and otherwise marginalized groups in areas undergoing rapid social change.

The British sociologist David Martin (1990) argues that Pentecostalism is spreading so rapidly because its adherents embody Max Weber’s Protestant ethic—valuing self- discipline, hard work, and thrift. Others see Pentecostalism as a kind of cargo cult, built on the belief that magic and ritual activity can promote material success (Freston 2008; Meyer 1999). Berger (2010) thinks that today’s Pentecostals probably include both types—Weberian Protestants working to produce material wealth as a sign of their salva- tion, along with people who believe that magic and ritual will bring them good fortune.

In São Paulo, Brazil, evangelicals pray inside the Bola de Neve Church. Popular with youths, this church sponsors activities such as surfing, skating, and rock ’n’ roll and reggae music with religious lyrics. ©REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo

Religion and Cultural Globalization 369

Converts to Pentecostalism are expected to separate themselves both from their pasts and from the secular social world that surrounds them. In Arembepe, Brazil, for exam- ple, the crentes (“true believers,” as members of the local Pentecostal community are called) set themselves apart by their beliefs, behavior, and lifestyle (Kottak 2006). They worship, chant, and pray. They dress simply and forgo such worldly temptations (seen as vices) as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and extramarital sexuality, along with dancing, movies, and other forms of popular culture.

Pentecostalism strengthens family and household through a moral code that respects marriage and prohibits adultery, gambling, drinking, and fighting. These activities were valued mainly by men in preconversion culture. Pentecostalism has appeal for men, however, because it solidifies their authority within the household. Although Pentecos- tal ideology is strongly patriarchal, with women expected to subordinate themselves to men, women tend to be more active church members than are men. Pentecostalism promotes services and prayer groups by and for women. In such settings women develop leadership skills, as they also extend their social-support network beyond family and kin (Burdick 1998).

Homogenization, Indigenization, or Hybridization? Any cultural form that spreads from one society to another—be it a Starbucks, a Mc- Donald’s, or a form of religion—has to fit into the country and culture it enters. We can use the rapid spread of Pentecostalism as a case study of the process of adaptation of foreign cultural forms to local settings.

Joel Robbins (2004) has examined the extent to which what he calls Pentecostal/ charismatic Christianity preserves its basic form and core beliefs as it spreads and adapts to various national and local cultures. Pentecostalism is a Western invention: Its beliefs, doctrines, organizational features, and rituals originated in the United States, following the European rise and spread of Protestantism. The core doctrines of accep- tance of Jesus as one’s savior, baptism with the Holy Spirit, faith healing, and belief in the second coming of Jesus have spread across nations and cultures without losing their basic shape.

Scholars have argued about whether the global spread of Pentecostalism is best understood as (1) a process of Western cultural domination and homogenization (per- haps supported by a right-wing political agenda) or (2) one in which imported cultural forms respond to local needs and are differentiated and indigenized. Robbins (2004) takes a middle-ground position, viewing the spread of Pentecostalism as a form of cultural hybridization. He argues that global and local features appear with equal in- tensity within these Pentecostal cultures. Churches retain certain core Pentecostal beliefs and behaviors while also responding to the local culture and being organized at the local level.

Reviewing the literature, Robbins (2004) finds little evidence that a Western political agenda is propelling the global spread of Pentecostalism. It is true that foreigners (in- cluding American pastors and televangelists) have helped introduce Pentecostalism to countries outside North America. There is little evidence, however, that overseas churches are largely funded and ideologically shaped from North America. Pentecostal

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churches typically are staffed with locals, who run them as organizations that are atten- tive and responsive to local situations. Conversion is typically a key feature of that agenda. Once converted, a Pentecostal is expected to be an active evangelist, seeking to bring in new members. This evangelization is one of the most important activities in Pentecostal culture and certainly aids its expansion.

Pentecostalism spreads as other forces of globalization displace people and disrupt local lives. To people who feel socially adrift, Pentecostal evangelists offer tightly knit communities and a weblike structure of personal connections within and between Pen- tecostal communities. Such networks can facilitate access to health care, job placement, educational services, and other resources.

Unlike Catholicism, which is hierarchical, Pentecostalism is egalitarian. Adherents need no special education—only spiritual inspiration—to preach or to run a church. Based on his research in Brazil, John Burdick (1993) notes that many Afro-Brazilians are drawn to the Pentecostal community because others who are socially and racially like them are in the congregation, some serving as preachers. Opportunities for partici- pation and leadership are abundant, for example, as lay preachers, deacons, and leaders of various men’s, women’s, and youth groups. The churches fund outreach to the needy and other locally relevant social services.

The Spread of Islam Islam—whose 1.6 billion followers constitute over a fifth of the world’s population— is another rapidly spreading global religion that can be used to illustrate cultural globalization. The globalization of Islam also illustrates cultural hybridization. Islam has adapted successfully to the many nations and cultures it has entered, adopt- ing architectural styles, linguistic practices, and even religious beliefs from host cultures.

For example, although mosques (Islamic houses of worship) all share certain char- acteristics (e.g., they face Mecca and have some common architectural features), they also incorporate architectural and decorative elements from their national settings. Arabic is Islam’s liturgical language, used for prayer, but most Muslims’ discussion of their faith occurs in their local language. In China, Islamic concepts have been influ- enced by Confucianism. In India and Bangladesh, the Islamic idea of the prophet has blended with the Hindu notion of the avatar, a deity who takes mortal form and de- scends to Earth to fight evil and guide the righteous. Islam entered Indonesia by means of Muslim merchants who devised devotional exercises that fit in with preexisting reli- gions—Hinduism and Buddhism in Java and Sumatra and animism in the eastern is- lands, which eventually became Christian. In Bali, Hinduism survived as the dominant religion.

Both Pentecostalism and Islam, we have learned, hybridize and become locally relevant as they spread globally. Although certain core features endure, local people always assign their own meanings to the messages and social forms they receive from outside, including religion. Such meanings reflect their cultural backgrounds, expe- riences, and prior belief systems. We must consider the processes of hybridization and indigenization in examining and understanding any form of cultural diffusion or globalization.

Religion and Cultural Globalization 371

Antimodernism and Fundamentalism Antimodernism is the rejection of the modern in favor of what is perceived as an earlier, purer, and better way of life. This viewpoint first arose out of disillusionment with the Industrial Revolution and with subsequent developments in science, technology, and consumption patterns. Antimodernists  consider the use of modern technology to be misguided or think that technology should have a lower priority than religious and cul- tural values.

Religious fundamentalism describes antimodernist movements in various religions, including Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Not only do fundamentalists feel strongly alienated from modern secular culture, but they also have separated from a larger reli- gious group, whose founding principles, they believe, have been corrupted or aban- doned. Fundamentalists advocate return and strict fidelity to the “true” (fundamental) religious principles of the larger religion.

Exemplifying their antimodernism, fundamentalists also seek to rescue religion from absorption into modern, Western culture. In Christianity, fundamentalists are “born- again Christians” as opposed to “mainline Protestants.” In Islam, they are jamaat (in Arabic, communities based on close fellowship) engaged in jihad (struggle) against a Western culture hostile to Islam and the God-given (shariah) way of life. In Judaism, they are Haredi, “Torah-true” Jews. All these fundamentalists see a sharp divide be- tween themselves and other religions, as well as between their own “sacred” view of life and the modern “secular” world (see Antoun 2008).

Both Pentecostalism and Christian fundamentalism preach ascetic morality, the duty to convert others, and respect for the Bible. Fundamentalists, however, tend to cite their

Outside the French embassy in London, a group known as “Muslims against Crusades” protests France’s introduction of a burka ban. What role have such bans played, either in reducing or in increasing, recent religious radicalization? ©Cliff Hide News/Alamy Stock Photo

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success in living a moral life as proof of their salvation, whereas Pentecostals find assur- ance of their salvation in exuberant, ecstatic experience. Fundamentalists also seek to remake the political sphere along religious lines, whereas Pentecostals tend to have less interest in politics (Robbins 2004).

Religious Radicalization Today What radicalizes people today? What motivates them to join militant groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State (also known as IS, ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh)? The growth of such extremist groups is part of a process of political globalization that has accompa- nied economic globalization. Political globalization reflects the need, in a fragmented world, for some form of attachment to a larger community. Among those most likely to feel this need are displaced and alienated people. Among them are refugees, migrants, and marginalized groups—individuals who feel adrift and apart from, perhaps even despised by, the society or nation-state that surrounds them. One French militant whom anthropologist Scott Atran interviewed traced his radicalization to a childhood incident in which a Frenchman spat at his sister and called her a “dirty Arab” (Atran quoted in Reardon 2015).

Atran is the foremost anthropologist working on the topic of religious radicalization. He and his multinational team of researchers have interviewed members of radical movements in several countries, including members of ISIS in Kirkuk, Iraq, and poten- tial members in Barcelona, Spain, and Paris, France. Atran’s team also worked in Mo- rocco, in two neighborhoods in Casablanca sympathetic to militant jihad. One of those neighborhoods had produced five of the seven 2004 Madrid train bombers. The other had sent dozens of volunteers, including suicide bombers, to Iraq and Syria. The re- searchers got to know the families and friends of the militants, learning how they lived and gaining insight into their beliefs.

Atran argues that militants and terrorists are “devoted actors” (Atran 2016; Atran et al. 2014)—individuals who are willing to kill and die for values and beliefs they con- sider to be sacred and unquestionable. One key value of ISIS is the need to establish a caliphate ruled by sharia law and led by a successor to the prophet Mohammed. Devoted actors will sacrifice themselves, their families, and all else for their cause. Commitment will be strongest when sacred values are shared, cementing a group identity (Atran 2016). The researchers found that militants, almost always young men, tend to form groups of three to four like-minded friends who forge themselves into a family-like unit, becoming a “band of brothers” in arms, devoted to one another. Like members of a cult, they share a collective sense of righteousness and special destiny. As potential martyrs, they require strong inspiration. Their commitment to a common cause, combined with family-like relationships, provides that inspiration.

Although most recruits to ISIS and al Qaeda are Muslims, many have little prior knowl- edge of the religious teachings of Islam. What inspires them is not so much religious doc- trine as the wish to pursue a thrilling cause—one that promises glory, esteem, respect, and remembrance. In the minds of some youth, ISIS has become “cool.” It even attracts “jihad tourists”—people who visit Syria over school breaks or holidays seeking a brief adventure and then return to their routine jobs in the West. These militants are not part of an organized global network based on top-down control. Rather, their groups remain decentralized and

Secular Rituals 373

self-organizing. These locally dispersed groups can, however, connect via the Internet to form a more global community of alienated youth seeking heroic sacrifice.

Atran suggests that attempts to defeat ISIS militarily or by trying to buy off its members will probably fail (Atran et al. 2014). He argues that sacred values are fought most success- fully with other sacred values, or by undermining the social networks that are held together by those values. He also suggests that the armed forces and sacred ideals needed to defeat ISIS will probably have to come from the Muslim communities threatened by ISIS.

Secular Rituals

In concluding this chapter on religion, we may recognize some problems with the defi- nitions of religion given at the beginning of this chapter. The first problem: If we define religion with reference to the sacred and/or supernatural beings, powers, and forces, how do we classify ritual-like behaviors that occur in secular contexts? Some anthro- pologists believe there are both sacred and secular rituals. Secular rituals include for- mal, invariant, stereotyped, earnest, repetitive behavior and rites of passage that take place in nonreligious settings.

A second problem: If the distinction between the supernatural and the natural is not consistently made in a society, how can we tell what is religion and what isn’t? The Betsileo of Madagascar, for example, view witches and dead ancestors as real people who play roles in ordinary life. However, their occult powers are not empirically demon- strable.

A third problem: The behavior considered appropriate for religious occasions varies tremendously from culture to culture. One society may consider drunken frenzy the sur- est sign of faith, whereas another may inculcate quiet reverence. Who is to say which is “more religious”?

Apparently secular settings, things, and events can acquire intense meaning for indi- viduals who have grown up in their presence. Identities and loyalties based on fandom can be powerful indeed. Italians, Brazilians, and several other nationalities are rarely, if ever, as nationally focused and emotionally unified as they are when their teams are playing soccer in the World Cup. The collective effervescence that Durkheim (1912/2001) found so characteristic of religion can equally well describe what Brazilians experience when their country wins a World Cup.

In the context of comparative religion, the idea that the secular can become sacred isn’t surprising. Long ago, Durkheim (1912/2001) pointed out that the distinction be- tween sacred and profane doesn’t depend on the intrinsic qualities of the sacred symbol. In Australian totemic religion, for example, sacred beings include such humble creatures as ducks, frogs, rabbits, and grubs, whose inherent qualities could hardly have given rise to the religious sentiment they inspire.

Madagascar’s tomb-centered ceremonies are times when the living and the dead are joyously reunited, when people get drunk, gorge themselves, and have sexual license. Perhaps the gray, sober, ascetic, and moralistic aspects of many official religious events, in taking the fun out of religion, force some, indeed many, people to find religion (i.e., truth, beauty, meaning, passionate involvement) in fun.

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Anthropology Today Newtime Religion

Because the U.S. Census doesn’t gather information about religion, there are no of- ficial government statistics on Americans’ religious affiliations. To help fill this gap, the Pew Research Center, based in Wash- ington, D.C., carried out “Religious Land- scape Studies” in 2007 and 2014. These comprehensive surveys of more than 35,000 adults provide a basis for system- atic comparison, enabling us to assess changes in the religious affiliations of Americans between 2007 and 2014 (see Pew Research Center 2015a). Although the United States continues to have the world’s largest Christian popula- tion, the number and percentage of Amer- icans affiliated with a Christian church have been declining. Between 2007 and 2014, the Christian share of the U.S. popu- lation fell almost 8 points, from 78.4 per- cent to 70.6 percent. This change was due primarily to declines among Catholics and mainline Protestants, each of which shrank by about three percentage points. Table 15.2 provides percentages of change between 2007 and 2014 for all re- ligious categories. Of the 85 percent of Americans who were raised as Christians, nearly a quarter no longer follow that faith. Former Chris- tians now represent about 19 percent of all U.S. adults. Catholicism has experienced a particularly steep decline. Of the 32 per- cent of Americans who were raised Catho- lic, 41 percent no longer practice. Catholics are declining in terms of both percentages and absolute numbers. There were 51 mil- lion American Catholics in 2014, 3 million fewer than in 2007. The absolute number of mainline Protestants—Methodists, Baptists, Lu- therans, Presbyterians, and Episcopa- lians—also fell, from 41 million in 2007 to

36 million in 2014. However, the number of Americans participating in historically Black Protestant churches has remained fairly stable in recent years, at around 16 million people. Evangelicals represent the only group of Protestants whose numbers have been increasing, even as their share of the U.S. population has de- clined by a percentage point. Evangeli- cals now number around 62 million American adults, an increase of about 2 million since 2007. As the Christian share of the popula- tion has been declining, the percentage of Americans belonging to non-Christian faiths has been rising. Between 2007 and 2014, this percentage rose from 4.7 per- cent to 5.9 percent, with growth especially strong for Muslims and Hindus. The most notable increase, however— from 16.1 percent to 22.8 percent—has been in the unaffiliated category—Ameri- cans with no religious affiliation. These religious “nones” include people who identify as atheists, agnostics, or “nothing in particular.” Almost a third (31 percent) of them admit to being atheists or agnostics; they represent 7 percent of the American population overall. Religious nones, at 56 million, now outnumber both Catholics and mainline Protestants. These unaffili- ated Americans tend to be young, with a median age of 36 years, compared with 46 years for the U.S. population as a whole, and 52 years for mainline Protes- tants. The unaffiliated percentage is high- est in the West, followed (in order) by the Northeast, Midwest, and South. In the West, the unaffiliated, at 28 percent, out- number all religious groups. Among eth- nic groups, non-Hispanic Whites are most likely to be unaffiliated: 24 percent, ver- sus 20 percent for Latinos and 18 percent

Secular Rituals 375

continued

TABLE 15.2 Religious Affiliations of Americans, 2007 and 2014

Affiliation 2007 2014 Change (Percentage Points)

Christian 78.4% 70.6% −7.8

Protestant 51.3% 46.5% −4.8

Evangelical 26.3% 25.4% −0.9

Mainline 18.1% 14.7% −3.4

Historically Black 6.9% 6.5% −0.4

Catholic 23.9% 20.8% −3.1

Orthodox Christian 0.6% 0.5% −0.1

Mormon 1.7% 1.6% −0.1

Jehovah’s Witness 0.7% 0.8% 0.1

Other Christian 0.3% 0.4% 0.1

Non-Christian faiths 4.7% 5.9% 1.2

Jewish 1.7% 1.9% 0.2

Muslim 0.4% 0.9% 0.5

Buddhist 0.7% 0.7% 0.0

Hindu 0.4% 0.7% 0.3

Other world religions* 0.3% 0.3% 0.0

Other faiths** 1.2% 1.5% 0.3

Unaffiliated 16.1% 22.8% 6.7

Atheist 1.6% 3.1% 1.5

Agnostic 2.4% 4.0% 1.6

Nothing in particular 12.1% 15.8% 3.7

Don’t know/refused 0.8% 0.6% −0.2

All percentages are of total sample. *Includes Sikhs, Baha’is, Taoists, Jains, etc. **Includes Unitarians, New Age religions, Native American religions, etc. Source: “Religion and Public Life.” America’s Changing Religious Landscape. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. May 12, 2015, p. 3. Copyright ©2015.

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Summary 1. Given the varied and worldwide scope of beliefs and behavior labeled “religious,”

anthropologists recognize the difficulty of defining religion. Religion, a cultural universal, consists of beliefs and behavior concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces. Religion also encompasses the feelings, meanings, and congre- gations associated with such beliefs and behavior. Religious worlds are real, vivid, and significant to those who construct and inhabit them. Anthropological studies have revealed many forms, expressions, and functions of religion.

2. Tylor considered animism—the belief in spirits or souls—to be religion’s earliest and most basic form. He focused on religion’s explanatory role, arguing that religion would eventually disappear as science provided better explanations. Besides animism, an- other view of the supernatural also occurs in nonindustrial societies, seeing the super- natural as a domain of raw, impersonal power or force (called mana in Polynesia and Melanesia). People can manipulate and control mana under certain conditions.

3. When ordinary technical and rational means of doing things fail, people may turn to magic. Often they use magic when they lack control over outcomes. Religion offers comfort and psychological security at times of crisis. On the other hand, rites can also create anxiety. Rituals are formal, invariant, stylized, earnest acts in which people subordinate their beliefs to a social collectivity. Rites of passage have three stages: separation, liminality, and incorporation. Such rites can mark any change in

Anthropology Today continued

for African Americans. Men are much more likely than women to be unaffili- ated—27 percent to 19 percent. How might we explain the growth of the unaffiliated category? One factor may be the decrease in religious in-marriage or en- dogamy. Of the Americans who have wed since 2010, 39 percent were in a religiously mixed marriage, compared with just 19 per- cent of Americans who married before 1960. When parents have different religions, or when one is affiliated while the other is not, it may be easier to raise children unaf- filiated than to choose between faiths. It has also becoming increasingly com- mon—and accepted—for people to switch between religions, or to no religion at all. Just over one-third (34 percent) of Ameri- cans have a religious identity (or lack thereof) different from the one in which they

were raised. If switching from one Protestant church to another, for example, from main- line to Evangelical, is also included, this fig- ure rises to 42 percent. Those raised without any religious affiliations as children are even more likely to switch to a new category in adulthood. About half of the 9 percent of Americans raised in a nonreligious house- hold claim a religious affiliation as adults. We see that diversity in religious beliefs and practices is on the rise in the United States. Furthermore, the established reli- gions themselves are becoming more ra- cially and ethnically diverse in membership. Minorities now constitute 41 percent of American Catholics, 24 percent of Evangeli- cals, and 14 percent of mainline Protestants. There is every reason to believe that these trends involving religious affiliation, or lack thereof, will continue in the United States.

Think Like an Anthropologist 377

social status, age, place, or social condition. Collective rites are often cemented by communitas, a feeling of intense solidarity.

4. Religion establishes and maintains social control through a series of moral and ethical beliefs and real and imagined rewards and punishments, internalized in individuals. Religion also achieves social control by mobilizing its members for collective action.

5. Religions exist in particular societies, and cultural differences show up systemati- cally in religious beliefs and practices. The ecclesiastical and monotheistic reli- gions of stratified, state societies, for example, differ from those of societies that lack hierarchies and specialized officials. The world’s major religions vary in their growth rates, with Islam expanding more rapidly than Christianity.

6. Religion helps maintain social order, but it also can promote change. Cargo cults are revitalization movements that hybridize beliefs and that have helped people adapt to changing conditions. Among contemporary “new” religious movements, some have been influenced by Christianity, others by Eastern (Asian) religions, still others by mysticism and spiritualism or by science and technology.

7. The spread of Evangelical/Pentecostal Protestantism worldwide illustrates contem- porary cultural globalization. Evangelical Protestantism stresses conservative mo- rality, the authority of the Bible, and a personal (“born-again”) conversion experience. To people who feel socially adrift, Pentecostalism offers tightly knit communities and a weblike structure of personal connections. The rapid spread of Islam also illustrates cultural globalization and hybridization. Although certain core features endure, local people always assign their own meanings to the messages and social forms they receive from outside, including religion. Antimodernism is the rejection of the modern, including globalization, in favor of what is perceived as an earlier, purer, and better way of life. Religious fundamentalism describes antimod- ernist movements in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Militant extremism in the name of religion also appeals to people, primarily young men, who feel alienated from, or despised by, the society that surrounds them. These radicals form “bands of brothers” united by common values and willing to kill and die for a cause. 

8. There are secular as well as religious rituals. It is possible for apparently secular settings, things, and events to acquire intense meaning for individuals who have grown up in their presence.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. Describe a rite of passage you (or a friend) have been through. How did it fit the

three-phase model given in the text? Now consider a move you have made, such as going away to college. Did it fit the three-phase model? In both cases, describe your experiences with liminality.

2. This chapter notes that many Americans see recreation (e.g., sports) and religion as separate domains. Based on my fieldwork in Brazil and Madagascar and my read- ing about other societies, I believe that this separation is both ethnocentric and false. Do you agree with me about this? What has been your own experience?

378 Chapter 15 Religion

Key Terms animism, 355 cargo cults, 365 communitas, 358 liminality, 357 magic, 356 mana, 355

rituals, 356 shaman, 354 taboo, 355 totem, 360

monotheism, 355 polytheism, 355 religion, 352 revitalization

movements, 365 rites of passage, 357

379

Chapter 16 Ethnicity and Race Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity

Status and Identity Minority Groups and Stratification

Race and Ethnicity

The Social Construction of Race Hypodescent: Race in the United States Race in the Census Not Us: Race in Japan Phenotype and Fluidity: Race in Brazil

Ethnic Groups, Nations, and Nationalities Ethnic Diversity by Region Nationalities without Nations

Ethnic Tolerance and Accommodation Assimilation The Plural Society Multiculturalism

Changing Demographics in the United States The Gray and the Brown The Backlash to Multiculturalism

Ethnic Conflict Sectarian Violence Prejudice and Discrimination Black Live Matter Anti-Ethnic Discrimination

Anthropology Today: Why Are the Greens So White? Race and Ethnicity in Golf

Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity

Ethnicity is based on cultural similarities (with members of the same ethnic group) and differences (between that group and others). Ethnic groups must deal with other such groups in the nation or region they inhabit. Interethnic relations are important in the study of any nation or region—especially so because of the ongoing transnational move- ment of migrants and refugees (see Marger 2015; Parrillo 2016). (Table 16.1 lists American ethnic groups, based on the most recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates available as of this writing.)

Members of an ethnic group share certain beliefs, values, habits, customs, and norms because of their common background. They define themselves as different and special because of cultural features. This distinction may arise from language, religion, historical experience, geographic placement, kinship, or “race” (see Spickard 2012).

380 Chapter 16 Ethnicity and Race

Markers of an ethnic group may include a collective name, belief in common descent, a sense of solidarity, and an association with a specific territory, which the group may or may not hold.

Ethnicity means identification with, and feeling part of, an ethnic group and exclu- sion from certain other groups because of this affiliation. Ethnic feelings and associated behavior vary in intensity within ethnic groups and countries and over time. A change in the degree of importance attached to an ethnic identity may reflect political changes (Soviet rule ends—ethnic feeling rises) or individual life-cycle changes (old people re- linquish, or young people reclaim, an ethnic background).

Status and Identity Ethnicity is only one basis for group identity. Cultural differences also are associated with class, region, religion, and other social variables (see Warne 2015). Individuals often have more than one group identity. In a complex society such as the United States or Canada, people negotiate their social identities continually. All of us “wear different hats,” presenting ourselves sometimes as one thing, sometimes as another.

These different social identities are known as statuses. In daily conversation, we hear the term status used as a synonym for prestige. In this context, “She’s got a lot of status” means she’s got a lot of prestige; people look up to her. Among social scientists, that’s not the only meaning of status. Social scientists use status more neutrally—for any position, no matter what the prestige, that someone occupies in society. Parent is a social status. So are professor, student, factory worker, Republican, salesperson, homeless person, labor leader, ethnic-group member, and thousands of others. People always oc- cupy multiple statuses (e.g., Hispanic, Catholic, infant, brother). Among the statuses we occupy, particular ones dominate in particular settings, such as son or daughter at home and student in the classroom.

Some statuses are ascribed: People have limited choice about occupying them. Age is an ascribed status. We can’t choose not to age, although many people, especially wealthy ones, use cultural means, such as plastic surgery, to try to disguise the biologi- cal aging process. Race and gender usually are ascribed; most people are born members of a given race or gender and remain so all their lives. Achieved statuses, by contrast,

* Includes American Indian, Alaska Native, and Two or More Races.

TABLE 16.1 Racial/Ethnic Identification in the United States, 2015

Source: Henry W. Kaiser Foundation, “Population Distribution by Race/Ethnicity, 2015.” Based on an analysis of the Census Bureau’s March 2016 Current Population Survey (Annual Social and Economic Supplement). http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution- by-raceethnicity/.

Claimed Identity Number (millions) Percentage

White (non-Hispanic) 195.9 61.4 Hispanic 57.1 17.9 Black 39.2 12.3 Asian 17.8 5.6 Other* 8.9 2.8 Total population 318.9 100.0

Ethnic Groups and Ethnicity 381

aren’t automatic; they come through choices, actions, efforts, talents, or accomplish- ments and may be positive or negative. Examples of achieved statuses include physi- cian, senator, convicted felon, salesperson, union member, father, and college student.

From the media, you will be familiar with recent cases in which gender and race have become achieved rather than ascribed statuses. Transgender individuals, including the media figure Caitlyn Jenner, modify the gender status they were assigned at birth or during childhood. People who were born members of one race have chosen to adopt another. In some cases, individuals who were born African American have passed as White, Hispanic, or Native American. In a case widely reported in 2015, a woman known as Rachel Dolezal, who was born White, changed her racial identity to Black or African American as an adult. In doing this, she modified her phenotype by changing her hairstyle to better fit her new identity. Given what culture can do to biology, few statuses are absolutely ascribed.

Often status is contextual: One identity is used in certain settings, another in different ones. We call this the situational negotiation of social identity (Leman 2001; Spickard 2013; Warne 2015). Members of an ethnic group may shift their ethnic identities. His- panics, for example, may use different ethnic labels (e.g., Cuban or Latino) to describe themselves depending on context. In a recent study, half (51 percent) of American His- panics surveyed preferred to identify using their family’s country of origin (as in Mexican, Cuban,  or Dominican) rather than Hispanic  or Latino.  Just one-quarter (24 percent) chose one of those two pan-ethnic terms, while 21 percent said they use the term American most often (Taylor et al. 2012).

Latinos who have different national origins may mobilize around issues of general interest to Hispanics, such as a path to citizenship for, or the possible deportation of, undocumented immigrants, while acting as separate interest groups in other con- texts. Among Hispanics, Cuban Americans are older and richer on average than Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans, and their class interests and voting patterns differ. Cuban  Americans are more likely to vote Republican than are Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans. Some Mexican Americans whose families have lived in the United States for generations have little in common with new Hispanic immigrants, such as those from Central America.

Hispanics are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, increasing by 62 percent between 2000 and 2015—from 35.3 million to 57.1 million. Hispanic is a category based mainly on language. It includes Whites, Blacks, and “racially” mixed Spanish speakers and their ethnically conscious descendants. (There also are  Native American and even Asian Hispanics.) The label Hispanic lumps together people of di- verse geographic origin—Mexico, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Cuba, the Dominican Re- public, Guatemala, and other Spanish-speaking countries of Central and South America and the Caribbean. Latino is a broader category, which also can include Brazilians (who speak Portuguese). Mexicans constitute about two-thirds of American Hispanics. Next come Puerto Ricans, at around 9 percent. Salvadorans, Cubans, Dominicans, and Gua- temalans living in the United States all number more than 1 million people per national- ity. Of the major racial and ethnic groups in the United States, Hispanics are by far the youngest. At 27 years, their median age is a decade younger than that of the U.S. popu- lation overall (Krogstad 2014).

382 Chapter 16 Ethnicity and Race

Minority Groups and Stratification Minority groups are so called because they occupy subordinate (lower) positions within a social hierarchy. They have inferior power and less secure access to resources than do majority groups. Minority groups are obvious features of stratification in the United States. The 2015 poverty rate was 9 percent for non-Hispanic Whites, 11 percent for Asian Americans, 21 percent for Hispanics, and 24 percent for African Americans (Proctor et al. 2016). Inequality shows up consistently in unemployment figures as well as in income and wealth. Median household incomes in 2015 were as follows: $77,166 for Asian Americans, $62,950 for non-Hispanic Whites, $45,148 for Hispanics, and $36,898 for African Americans (Proctor et al. 2016). The median wealth of White households in 2013 was 13 times that of Black households—its highest point since 1989, when Whites had 17 times the wealth of Black households (Kochhar and Fry 2014).

Race and Ethnicity

When an ethnic group is assumed to have a biological basis (distinctively shared “blood” or genes), it is called a race (see Mukhopadhyay, Henzie, and Moses 2014; Wade 2015). Discrimination against such a group is called racism (Gotkowitz 2011; Scupin 2012). Race, like ethnicity in general, is a cultural category rather than a biological reality. That is, ethnic groups, including “races,” derive from contrasts perceived and perpetuated in particular societies, rather than from scientific classifications based on common genes.

Hispanic and Latino are ethnic categories that cross-cut “racial” contrasts such as between Black and White. Note the physical diversity among these children in Trinidad, Cuba. ©Paul Bucknall/Alamy Stock Photo

The Social Construction of Race 383

In American culture, we hear the words ethnicity and race frequently, without clear distinctions made between them. For example, the term race often is used inappropriately to refer to Hispanics, who, in fact, can be of any race. The following example provides one illustration of the popular confusion about ethnicity and race in American culture. Eight years prior to her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, then an appeals court judge, gave a talk titled “A Latina Judge’s Voice,” at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. As part of a much longer speech, Sotomayor declared:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life. (Sotomayor 2001/2009)

On hearing about that speech, conservatives, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, seized on this declaration as evi- dence that Sotomayor was a “racist” or a “reverse racist.” Her critics ignored the fact that Latina is an ethnic (and gendered-female) rather than a racial category. I suspect that Sotomayor also was using “white male” as an ethnic-gender category, to refer to nonminority men. Our popular culture does not consistently distinguish between ethnic- ity and race (see Ansell 2013; Banton 2015).

The Social Construction of Race

Most Americans believe (incorrectly) that their population includes biologically based races to which various labels are applied. Such racial terms include White, Black, Yellow, Red, Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, Amerindian, Euro-American, African American, Asian American, and Native American.

We have seen that races, while assumed to have a biological basis, actually are so- cially constructed in particular societies. Let’s consider now several examples of the social construction of race, beginning with the United States.

Hypodescent: Race in the United States Most Americans acquire their racial identity at birth, but race isn’t based on biology or on simple ancestry. Take the case of the child of a “racially mixed” marriage involving one Black and one White parent. We know that 50 percent of the child’s genes come from one parent and 50 percent from the other. Still, American culture overlooks hered- ity and classifies this child as Black. This rule is arbitrary. On the basis of genotype (genetic composition), it would be just as logical to classify the child as White.

American rules for assigning racial status can be even more arbitrary. In some states, anyone known to have any Black ancestor, no matter how remote, is classified as a mem- ber of the Black race. This is a rule of descent (it assigns social identity on the basis of ancestry), but of a sort that is rare outside the contemporary United States. It is called hypodescent (Harris and Kottak 1963), because it automatically places the children of a union between members of different groups in the minority group (hypo means “lower”). Hypodescent divides American society into groups that have been unequal in their access to wealth, power, and prestige.

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The rule of hypodescent affects Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, and Hispanics differently (see Hunter 2005). It’s easier to negotiate Native American or Hispanic identity than Black identity. The ascription rule isn’t as definite, and the assumption of a biological basis isn’t as strong. To be considered Native American, one ancestor out of eight (great-grandparents) or out of four (grandparents) may suffice. This depends on whether the assignment is by federal or state law or by a Native American tribal council. The child of a Hispanic may (or may not, depending on context) claim Hispanic identity. Many Americans with a Native American or Latino grandparent consider themselves White and lay no claim to minority group status.

Race in the Census The U.S. Census Bureau has gathered data by race since 1790. Figure 16.1 shows that the most recent (2010) census asked about both race and Hispanic origin. What do you think of the racial categories included?

Attempts to add a “multiracial” category to the U.S. Census have been opposed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Council of La Raza (a Hispanic advocacy group). Racial classification is a political issue involving access to resources, including jobs, voting districts, and federal funding of programs aimed at minorities. The hypodescent rule results in all the popula- tion growth being attributed to the minority category. Minorities fear their political clout will decline if their numbers go down.

But things are changing. Choice of “some other race” in the U.S. Census tripled from 1980 (6.8 million) to 2010 (over 19 million)—suggesting imprecision in and dis- satisfaction with the existing categories. In the 2000 census, 2.4 percent of Americans— almost 7 million people—chose a first-ever option of identifying themselves as belonging to two or more races. This figure rose to 2.9 percent in the 2010 census. The number of interracial marriages and children is increasing, with implications for the traditional system of American racial classification. “Interracial,” “biracial,” or “multiracial” children who grow up with both parents undoubtedly identify with

An international and multiethnic American family. Joakim Noah, center, is an All-Star professional basketball player, who played in college for the Florida Gators. Also shown are his mother, a former Miss Sweden, and father, a French singer and tennis player who won the French Open in 1983. Joakim’s grandfather, Zacharie Noah, was a professional soccer player from the African nation of Cameroon. What is Joakim Noah’s race? ©Matt Marton/AP Images

The Social Construction of Race 385

particular qualities of either parent. It is troubling for many of them to have so im- portant an identity as race dictated by the arbitrary rule of hypodescent. It may be especially discordant when racial identity doesn’t parallel gender identity, for in- stance, a boy with a White father and a Black mother or a girl with a White mother and a Black father.

Rather than race, the Canadian census asks about “visible minorities.” That country’s Employment Equity Act defines such groups as “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples [First Nations in Canada], who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour” ( Statistics Canada 2001). “South Asian” and “Chinese” are Canada’s largest visible

FIGURE 16.1 Questions on Race and Hispanic Origin from U.S. Census 2010 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2010 questionnaire.

6. What is this person’s race? Mark one or more boxes. White Black, African Am., or Negro American Indian or Alaska Native — Print name of enrolled or principal tribe.

Asian Indian Chinese Filipino Other Asian — Print race, for example, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian, and so on.

Japanese Korean Vietnamese

Native Hawaiian Guamanian or Chamorro Samoan Other Pacific Islander — Print race, for example, Fijian, Tongan, and so on.

Some other race — Print race.

X

5. Is this person of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin? No, not of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin Yes, Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano Yes, Puerto Rican Yes, Cuban Yes, another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin — Print origin, for example, Argentinean, Colombian, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, Spaniard, and so on.

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minorities (see Figure 16.2). Canada’s visible minority population of 19 percent in 2011 (up from 11 percent in 1996) contrasts with a figure of about 39 percent for the United States in 2015 (up from 25 percent in 2000).

As in the United States, Canada’s visible minority population has been growing much faster than the country’s overall population. In 1981, visible minorities accounted for just 4.7 percent of the Canadian population, versus 19.1 percent in 2011 (the most recent data available as of this writing). Between 2006 and 2011, Canada’s total popula- tion increased 5 percent, while visible minorities rose 24 percent. If recent immigration trends continue, visible minorities will comprise almost one-third (31 percent) of the Canadian population by 2031 (Statistics Canada 2010).

Not Us: Race in Japan Japan presents itself and is commonly viewed as a nation that is homogeneous in race, ethnicity, language, and culture. Although Japan’s population really is less diverse than those of most nations, it does contain significant minority groups (see Graburn 2008; Weiner 2009). Constituting about 10 percent of Japan’s total population, those groups include aboriginal Ainu, annexed Okinawans, outcast burakumin, children of mixed marriages, and immigrant nationalities, especially Koreans, who number more than 700,000 (Lie 2001; Ryang and Lie 2009). The (majority) Japanese define themselves by opposition to others, whether minority groups in their own nation or outsiders—anyone who is “not us.” The “not us” should stay that way; assimilation generally is discour- aged. Cultural mechanisms, especially residential segregation and taboos on “interracial” marriage, work to keep minorities “in their place.”

Percent 100.0% Total population: 32,852,320

4.8% South Asian

4.0% Chinese

2.9% Black

1.9% Filipino

1.8% Arab/West Asian

1.2% Latin American

0.9% Southeast Asian

0.5% Multiple visible minority

0.5% Korean

0.3% Other visible minority

0.3% Japanese

19.1% Total visible minority population:

80.9% Not visible minority (i.e. majority): 26,587,575

1,567,400

1,324,745

945,665

619,310

587,460

381,280

312,080

171,935

161,130

106,475

87,265

6,264,750

FIGURE 16.2 Visible Minority Population of Canada, 2011 National Household Survey

Source: Statistics Canada, 2011 National Household Survey. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs- enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-010- x2011001-eng.cfm#a4.

The Social Construction of Race 387

To describe racial attitudes in Japan, Jennifer Robertson (1992) used Kwame Anthony Appiah’s (1990) term “intrinsic racism”—the belief that a (perceived) racial difference is a sufficient reason to value one person less than another. In Japan the valued group is majority (“pure”) Japanese, who are believed to share “the same blood.” Thus, the cap- tion to a printed photo of a Japanese American model reads: “She was born in Japan but raised in Hawaii. Her nationality is American but no foreign blood flows in her veins” (Robertson 1992, p. 5). Something like hypodescent also operates in Japan, but less precisely than in the United States, where mixed offspring automatically become mem- bers of the minority group. The children of mixed marriages between majority Japanese and others (including Euro-Americans) may not get the same “racial” label as their mi- nority parent, but they are still stigmatized for their non-Japanese ancestry (De Vos and Wagatsuma 1966).

In its construction of race, Japanese culture regards certain ethnic groups as having a biological basis, when there is no evidence that they do. The best example is the burakumin, a stigmatized group of some 3 million outcasts, sometimes compared to India’s untouchables. The burakumin are physically and genetically indistinguishable from other Japanese. Many of them “pass” as (and marry) majority Japanese, but a de- ceptive marriage can end in divorce if burakumin identity is discovered (Amos 2011).

Burakumin are perceived as standing apart from majority Japanese. Based on their ancestry (and thus, it is assumed, their “blood,” or genetics), burakumin are considered “not us.” Majority Japanese try to keep their lineage pure by discouraging mixing. The burakumin are residentially segregated in neighborhoods (rural or urban) called buraku, from which the racial label is derived. Compared with majority Japanese, the burakumin are less likely to attend high school and college. When burakumin attend the same schools as majority Japanese, they face discrimination. Majority children and teachers may refuse to eat with them because burakumin are considered unclean.

In applying for university admission or a job and in dealing with the government, Japanese must list their address, which becomes part of a household or family registry. This list makes residence in a buraku, and likely burakumin social status, evident. Schools and companies use this information to discriminate. (The best way to pass is to move so often that the buraku address eventually disappears from the registry.) Majority Japanese also limit “race” mixture by hiring marriage mediators to check out the family histories of prospective spouses. They are especially careful to check for burakumin ancestry (Amos 2011).

The origin of the burakumin lies in a historical tiered system of stratification (from the Tokugawa period, 1603–1868). The top four ranked categories were warrior- administrators (samurai), farmers, artisans, and merchants. The ancestors of the buraku- min were below this hierarchy. They did “unclean” jobs such as animal slaughter and disposal of the dead. Burakumin still do similar jobs, including work with leather and other animal products. They are more likely than majority Japanese to do manual labor (including farm work) and to belong to the national lower class. Burakumin and other Japanese minorities also are more likely to have careers in crime, prostitution, entertain- ment, and sports.

Like African Americans, the burakumin are internally stratified. In other words, there are class contrasts within the group. Because certain jobs are reserved for the

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burakumin, people who are successful in those occupations (e.g., shoe factory owners) can be wealthy. Burakumin also have found jobs as government bureaucrats. Successful burakumin can temporarily escape their stigmatized status by travel, including foreign travel.

Discrimination against the burakumin is similar to the discrimination that Blacks have experienced in the United States. The burakumin often live in villages and neigh- borhoods with poor housing and sanitation. They have limited access to education, jobs, amenities, and health facilities. In response to burakumin political mobilization, Japan has dismantled the legal structure of discrimination against burakumin and has worked to improve conditions in the buraku. (The Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute provides the most recent information about the burakumin liberation movement.) However, discrimination against nonmajority Japanese is still the rule in companies. Some employers say that hiring burakumin would give their company an unclean image and thus create a disadvantage in competing with other businesses.

Phenotype and Fluidity: Race in Brazil There are more flexible, less exclusionary ways of socially constructing race than those used in the United States and Japan. Along with the rest of Latin America, Brazil has less exclusionary categories, which permit individuals to change their racial

Ariana Miyamoto, the daughter of a Japanese woman and an African American man, was crowned Miss Universe Japan in March 2015. Soon thereafter, complaints emerged on Japanese social media that she did not look “Japanese enough” to represent that country. ©Kyodo via AP Images

The Social Construction of Race 389

classification. Brazil shares a history of slavery with the United States, but it lacks the hypodescent rule.

Brazilians use many more racial labels—over 500 were once reported (Harris 1970)—than Americans or Japanese do. In northeastern Brazil, I found 40 different ra- cial terms in use in Arembepe, then a village of only 750 people (Kottak 2006). Through their traditional classification system, Brazilians recognize and attempt to describe the physical variation that exists in their population. The system used in the United States, by recognizing only a few races, blinds Americans to an equivalent range of evident physical contrasts. The system Brazilians use to construct social race has other special features. In the United States, one’s race is assigned automatically by hypodescent and usually doesn’t change. In Brazil, racial identity is more flexible, more of an achieved status. Brazilian racial classification pays attention to phenotype. Phenotype refers to an organism’s evident traits, its “manifest biology”—physiology and anatomy, including skin color, hair form, facial features, and eye color. A Brazilian’s phenotype and racial label may change because of environmental factors, such as the tanning rays of the sun or the effects of humidity on the hair.

A Brazilian can change his or her “race” (say from “Indian” to “mixed”) by changing his or her manner of dress, language, location (e.g., rural to urban), and even attitude (e.g., by adopting urban behavior). Two racial/ethnic labels used in Brazil are indio (indigenous, Native American) and cabôclo (someone who “looks indio” but wears modern clothing and participates in Brazilian culture, rather than living in an indigenous community). Similar shifts in racial/ethnic classification occur in other parts of Latin America, for example, Guatemala (see Wade 2010). The perception of biological race is influenced not just by the physical phenotype but also by how one dresses and behaves.

Furthermore, racial differences in Brazil may be so insignificant in structuring com- munity life that people may forget the terms they have applied to others. Sometimes they even forget the ones they’ve used for themselves. In Arembepe, I made it a habit to ask the same person on different days to tell me the races of others in the village (and my own). In the United States, I am always “White” or “Euro-American,” but in Arembepe, I got lots of terms besides branco (“White”). I could be claro (“light”), louro (“blond”), sarará (“light-skinned redhead”), mulato claro (“light mulatto”), or mulato (“mulatto”). The racial term used to describe me or anyone else varied from person to person, week to week, even day to day. My best informant, a man with very dark skin color, changed the term he used for himself all the time—from escuro (“dark”) to preto (“Black”) to moreno escuro (“dark brunet”).

For centuries the United States and Brazil have had mixed populations, with ances- tors from Native America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Although races have mixed in both countries, Brazilian and American cultures have constructed the results differently. The historical reasons for this contrast lie mainly in the different characteristics of the set- tlers of the two countries. The mainly English early settlers of the United States came as women, men, and families, but Brazil’s Portuguese colonizers were mainly men— merchants and adventurers. Many of these Portuguese men married Native American women and recognized their racially mixed children as their heirs. Like their North American counterparts, Brazilian plantation owners had sexual relations with their slaves. But the Brazilian landlords more often freed the children that resulted—for

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These photos, taken by the author in Brazil, give just a glimpse of the spectrum of phenotypical diversity encountered among contemporary Brazilians. ©Conrad P. Kottak

Ethnic Groups, Nations, and Nationalities 391

demographic and economic reasons. (Sometimes these were their only children.) Freed offspring of master and slave became plantation overseers and foremen and filled many intermediate positions in the emerging Brazilian economy. They were not classed with the slaves but were allowed to join a new intermediate category. No hypodescent rule developed in Brazil to ensure that Whites and Blacks remained separate (see Degler 1970; Harris 1964).

In today’s world system, Brazil’s system of racial classification is changing in the context of international identity politics and rights movements. Just as more and more Brazilians claim indigenous (Native Brazilian) identities, an increasing number now assert their Blackness and self-conscious membership in the African diaspora. Particu- larly in such northeastern Brazilian states as Bahia, where African demographic and cultural influence is strong, public universities have instituted affirmative action pro- grams aimed at indigenous peoples and especially at Blacks. Racial identities firm up in the context of international (e.g., pan-African and pan-Indian) mobilization and access to strategic resources based on race.

Ethnic Groups, Nations, and Nationalities

The term nation once was synonymous with tribe or ethnic group. All three of these terms have been used to refer to a single culture sharing a single language, religion, his- tory, territory, ancestry, and kinship. Thus, one could speak interchangeably of the Seneca (Native American) nation, tribe, or ethnic group. Now nation has come to mean state—an independent, centrally organized political unit, or a government. Nation and state have become synonymous. Combined in nation-state, they refer to an autonomous political entity, a country.

Because of migration, conquest, and colonialism, most nation-states are not ethnically homogeneous. James Fearon (2003) found that about 70 percent of all countries have an ethnic group that forms an absolute majority of the population. The average population share of such groups is 65 percent. The average size of the second largest group, or largest ethnic minority, is 17 percent. Only 18 percent of all countries, including Brazil and Japan, have a single ethnic group that accounts for 90 percent or more of its population.

Ethnic Diversity by Region There is substantial regional variation in countries’ ethnic structures. Strong states, par- ticularly in Europe (e.g., France), have deliberately and actively worked to homoge- nize  their diverse premodern populations to a common national identity and culture. Although countries with no ethnic majority are fairly rare in the rest of the world, this is the norm in Africa. The average African country has a plurality group of about 22  percent, with the second largest slightly less than this. Rwanda, Burundi, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe are exceptions; each has a large majority group and a minor- ity that makes up almost all the rest of the population. Botswana has a large majority (the Tswana) and a set of smaller minorities (Fearon 2003).

Most Latin American and Caribbean countries contain a majority group (speaking a European language, such as Portuguese in Brazil, Spanish in Argentina) and a single

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minority group—indigenous peoples. “Indigenous peoples” is a catch-all category en- compassing several small Native American tribes or remnants. Exceptions are Guatemala and the Andean countries of Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador, with large indigenous popula- tions (see Gotkowitz 2011; Wade 2010).

Most countries in Asia and the Middle East/North Africa have ethnic majorities. The Asian countries of Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand contain a large lowland ma- jority edged by more fragmented mountain folk. Several oil-producing countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Kuwait, contain an ethnically homogeneous group of citizens who form either a plurality or a bare majority; the rest of the population consists of ethnically diverse noncitizen workers. Several countries in the Middle East/North Africa contain two principal ethnic or ethnoreligious groups: Arabs and Berbers in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia; Muslims and Copts in Egypt; Turks and Kurds in Turkey; Greeks and Turks in Cyprus; and Palestinians and Transjordan Arabs in Jordan (Fearon 2003).

Nationalities without Nations Benedict Anderson (1991/2006) traces Western European nationalism (the feeling of belonging to a nation), back to the 18th century. He stresses the crucial role of the printed word in the growth of national consciousness in England, France, and Spain. The novel and the newspaper were “two forms of imagining” communities (consisting of all the people who read the same sources and thus witnessed the same events) that flowered in the 18th century (Anderson 1991/2006, pp. 24–25). Groups that have, once had, or wish to have or regain, political autonomy (their own country) are called nationalities. As a result of political upheavals, wars, and migration, many nationalities have been split and placed in separate nation-states. For example, the German and Korean homelands were artificially divided after wars, according to communist and capitalist ideologies. World War I dispersed the Kurds, who form a majority in no state but exist as minority groups in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

Colonialism—the foreign domination of a territory—established a series of multi- tribal and multiethnic states. The new national boundaries that were created under colo- nialism often corresponded poorly with preexisting cultural divisions. However, colonial institutions also helped forge new identities that extended beyond nations and nationali- ties. A good example is the idea of négritude (“Black identity”) developed by African intellectuals in Francophone (French-speaking) West Africa. Négritude can be traced to the association and common experience in colonial times of youths from Guinea, Mali, the Ivory Coast, and Senegal at the William Ponty School in Dakar, Senegal (Anderson 1991/2006, pp. 123–124).

Ethnic Tolerance and Accommodation

Ethnic diversity may be associated either with positive group interaction and coexis- tence, or with conflict (see the section “Ethnic Conflict”). There are nation-states, in- cluding some “less-developed countries,” in which multiple cultural groups live together in reasonable harmony.

Ethnic Tolerance and Accommodation 393

Assimilation Assimilation describes the process of change that members of an ethnic group may experience when they move to a country where another culture dominates. In assimilat- ing, the ethnic group members adopt the patterns and norms of the host culture. They are incorporated into the dominant culture to the point that their ethnic group no longer exists as a separate cultural unit. Some countries, such as Brazil, are more assimilationist than others. Germans, Italians, Japanese, Middle Easterners, and East Europeans started migrating to Brazil late in the 19th century. These immigrants have assimilated to a common Brazilian culture, which has Portuguese, African, and Native American roots. The descendants of these immigrants speak the national language (Portuguese) and participate in the national culture. (During World War II, Brazil, which was on the Allied side, forced assimilation by banning instruction in any language other than Portuguese—especially in German.) The United States was much more assimilationist during the early 20th century than it is today, as the multicultural model has become more prominent (see the section “Multiculturalism”).

The Plural Society Assimilation isn’t inevitable, and there can be ethnic harmony without it. Ethnic distinc- tions can persist despite generations of interethnic contact. Through a study of three ethnic groups in Swat, Pakistan, Fredrik Barth (1958/1968) challenged an old idea that interaction always leads to assimilation. He showed that ethnic groups can be in contact for generations without assimilating. Barth (1958/1968, p. 324) defines plural society as a society combining ethnic contrasts, ecological specialization (i.e., use of different environmental resources by each ethnic group), and the economic interdependence of those groups.

In Barth’s view, ethnic boundaries are most stable and enduring when the groups oc- cupy different ecological niches. That is, they make their living in different ways and don’t compete. Ideally, they should depend on each other’s activities and exchange with one another. When different ethnic groups exploit the same ecological niche, the mili- tarily more powerful group will typically replace the weaker one. If they exploit more or less the same niche, but the weaker group is better able to use marginal environments, they also may coexist (Barth 1958/1968, p. 331). Given such niche specialization, ethnic boundaries and interdependence can be maintained, although the specific cultural fea- tures of each group may change. By shifting the analytic focus from individual cultures or ethnic groups to relationships between cultures or ethnic groups, Barth (1958/1968, 1969) made important contributions to ethnic studies (see also Kamrava 2013).

Multiculturalism The view of cultural diversity in a country as something good and desirable is called multiculturalism (see Kottak and Kozaitis 2012). The multicultural model is the op- posite of the assimilationist model, in which minorities are expected to abandon their cultural traditions and values, replacing them with those of the majority population. The multicultural view encourages the practice of cultural–ethnic traditions. A multicultural society socializes individuals not only into the dominant (national) culture but also into an ethnic culture. Thus, in the United States today millions of people speak both English

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and another language, eat both “American” foods (apple pie, steak, hamburgers) and “ethnic” dishes, and celebrate both national (July 4, Thanksgiving) and ethnic–religious holidays.

Multiculturalism seeks ways for people to understand and interact that don’t depend on sameness but rather on respect for differences. Multiculturalism stresses the interac- tion of ethnic groups and their contribution to the country. It assumes that each group has something to offer to and learn from the others. The United States and Canada have become increasingly multicultural, focusing on their internal diversity. Rather than as “melting pots,” they are better described as ethnic “salads” (each ingredient remains distinct, although in the same bowl and with the same dressing).

Several forces have propelled North America away from the assimilationist model toward multiculturalism. First, multiculturalism reflects the fact of recent large-scale migration, particularly from the less-developed countries. The global scale of modern migration introduces unparalleled ethnic variety to host nations (see Marger 2015; Parrillo 2016). Multiculturalism is related to globalization. People use modern means of transportation to migrate to nations whose lifestyles they learn about through the media and from tourists who increasingly visit their own countries.

Migration also is fueled by rapid population growth, coupled with insufficient jobs (for both educated and uneducated people), in the less-developed countries. As tradi- tional rural economies decline or mechanize, displaced farmers move to cities, where they and their children often are unable to find jobs. As people in the less-developed countries get better educations, they seek more skilled employment. They hope to par- take of an international culture of consumption that includes such modern amenities as refrigerators, televisions, and automobiles.

Changing Demographics in the United States

In October 2006 the population of the United States reached 300 million people, just 39 years after reaching 200 million and 91 years after reaching the 100 million mark (in 1915). Consider how much the country’s ethnic composition has changed in the past 50 or so years. The 1970 census, the first to attempt an official count of Hispanics, found they represented no more than 4.7 percent of the U.S. population. By 2015 this figure had risen to 17.9 percent—over 57 million Hispanics. The number of African Americans grew from 11.1 percent in 1967 to 12.3 percent in 2015, while (non-Hispanic) Whites (“Anglos”) declined from 83 percent to 61.4 percent. In 1967 fewer than 10 million people in the United States (5 percent of the population) had been born elsewhere, com- pared with more than 41 million foreign born today (13 percent) (all data from the U.S. Census Bureau). In 2011, for the first time in American history, minorities (including Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, and those of mixed race) accounted for more than half (50.4 percent) of all births in the United States (Tavernise 2012).

In 1973, 78 percent of the students in American public schools were White, and 22  percent were minorities. By 2004, only 57 percent of public school students were White. In fall 2014, for the first time, the overall number of Latino, African American, and Asian students in public K–12 classrooms surpassed the number of non-Hispanic Whites.

Changing Demographics in the United States 395

The Gray and the Brown Drawing on a Brookings Institution (2010) report titled State of Metropolitan America: On the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation, Ronald Brownstein (2010) analyzes an intensifying confrontation between groups he describes as “the gray and the brown.” Brownstein and demographer William Frey, an author of the Brookings report, focus on two key U.S. demographic trends:

1. Ethnic/racial diversity is increasing, especially among the young. 2. The country is aging, and most of the senior population is White.

Frey (in Brookings Institution 2010, pp. 26, 63) sees these trends as creating a “cul- tural generation gap”—a sharp contrast in the attitudes, priorities, and political leanings of younger and older Americans. Whites now constitute 80 percent of older Americans but less than 55 percent of children.

Politically the two groups—the gray (older) and the brown (younger)—are poles apart. The aging White population appears increasingly resistant to taxes and public spending, while younger people and minorities value government support of education, health, and social welfare. In recent presidential elections, young people, especially minorities, have strongly supported the Democratic candidates, Barack Obama (2008 and 2012) and Hillary Clinton (2016), while White seniors voted solidly for Republi- cans John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Donald Trump.

The gray and the brown are more interdependent economically than either usually realizes. Minority children may benefit disproportionately from public education today,

In this recent American photo, contrast the visible ethnic diversity in the line of children with the racially more uniform line of older people. ©James Marshall/Corbis

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but minority workers will pay a growing share of the payroll taxes needed to sustain Social Security and Medicare in the future. These are government programs that most directly benefit old White people.

The history of U.S. national immigration policy helps us understand how the gap between the gray and the brown arose. Federal policies established in the 1920s severely curtailed immigration from areas other than northern Europe. In 1965, Congress loos- ened restrictions—resulting in an eventual influx of immigrants from southern Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America (see Vigil 2012).

Non-Hispanic Whites constituted the overwhelming majority of Americans through the mid-20th century, including the post–World War II baby boom (1946–1964). Most baby boomers grew up and have lived much of their lives in White suburbs, residentially isolated from minorities (Brownstein 2010). As they age and retire, many older White Americans are reconstituting such communities in racially homogeneous enclaves in the Southeast and Southwest.

In such communities, except for their yard and construction workers and house clean- ers, older White people live apart from multicultural America and the minorities who represent a growing share of the national population. Since 1965, expanded immigration and higher fertility rates among minorities have transformed American society. As re- cently as 1980, minorities made up only 20 percent of the total population (versus almost 40 percent today). If recent demographic trends continue, the ethnic composition of the United States will change even more dramatically (see Figure 16.3). Similar trends are evident in western Europe and are everyday expressions of globalization.

The Backlash to Multiculturalism When Barack Obama was first elected president of the United States in 2008, it seemed to many commentators that the United States had entered a postracial era. It was taken as a sign of progress in racial and ethnic relations that an African American man could be elected to the highest office in the land. The backlash began soon after Obama’s elec- tion, culminating in Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016. The period between 2008 and 2010 saw the growth of the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party and a dramatic reduction in the power of Democrats after the 2010 election. A similar coali- tion of young people, women, and minorities that backed Obama in 2008 and 2012 en- abled Hillary Clinton to win the popular vote in 2016 but was insufficient to propel her to an Electoral College victory and the presidency.

One of the rallying cries of Tea Party voters has been to “take our country back.” A similar sentiment was prominent in the 2016 presidential campaign. Businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump rose to prominence as a Republican presidential candi- date by promising to “make America great again.” Prominent in his campaign was open ethno-nationalism, the idea of an association between ethnicity—traditionally and pre- dominantly European derived and Christian—and the right to rule the United States. Trump advocated deportation of undocumented immigrants, focusing on Mexicans. He also proposed a temporary ban on admission of Muslims to the United States, initially in response to a shooting by jihadist terrorists in San Bernardino, California, and per- ceived threats from the Islamic State and Syrian refugees. Trump was promising to purge the United States of ethnic groups here illegally and to protect the country from members of what is in the United States a minority religion.

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Most of Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination joined him in urging deportation but did not support his call for a ban on Muslims. All, however, faulted President Obama, like President George W. Bush before him, for avoiding the term radical Islam when he spoke of terrorists and enemies. Trump and other Republican candidates also railed against “political correctness,” which they saw as excessive caution about using language and la- bels that might offend particular groups. Trump, in particular, used the claim of hyper- sensitive political correctness to justify his stereotyping of Mexicans, Muslims, and Syrian refugees. Anyone who complained about insults was “overreacting”—just being hyper- sensitive. Trump’s successful candidacy harnessed and expressed the backlash against the multicultural model of ethnic relations that has been gaining ground in the United States for the past few decades. Rarely, if ever, does cultural change occur without opposition.

Ethnic Conflict

Ethnic differences can exist harmoniously, for example, in plural societies or through multiculturalism. However, ethnic differences can also lead to interethnic confrontation and discrimination. The perception of cultural differences can have disastrous effects on social interaction. Why are ethnic differences often associated with conflict and

FIGURE 16.3 Ethnic Composition of the United States, 2015 and Projected for 2050 The proportion of the American population that is White and non-Hispanic is declining. The projection for 2050 assumes a dramatic rise in the Hispanic portion of the U.S. population. Source: 2015 data from the Henry W. Kaiser Family Foundation, http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/distribution-by-raceethnicity/; 2050 projection from a 2008 projection by the U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/analytical- document09.pdf, Table 1, p. 17.

2050

U.S. Population by Race/Ethnicity (includes those claiming two or more races in 2015)

Black Asian Other races Hispanics Non-Hispanic White

14.6%

8.0%

5.3%

24.4%

50.1%

2015

61.4%

12.3%

5.6 %

2.8%

17.9%

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violence? Ethnic groups may compete economically and/or politically. An ethnic group may react if it perceives prejudice or discrimination by another group or society as a whole, or if it feels otherwise devalued or disadvantaged (see the section “Black Lives Matter”). An ethnic group can resent the actual or perceived privileges of other groups (see Donham 2011; Friedman 2003).

Sectarian Violence The roots of ethnic differentiation can be linguistic, cultural, religious, or racial. Much of the ethnic unrest in today’s world has a religious component—whether between Christians and Muslims, Muslims and Jews, or different sects within one of the major religions. The Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who was deposed in 2003, favored his own Sunni Muslim sect while fostering discrimination against others (Shiites and Kurds). Under Saddam, Sunnis, although a numeric minority within Iraq’s population, enjoyed privileged access to power, prestige, and position. After the elections of 2005, which many Sunnis chose to boycott, Shiites gained political control over Iraq and retaliated quickly against prior Sunni favoritism. A civil war soon developed out of sectarian violence (conflicts among sects of the same religion) as Sunnis (and their foreign sup- porters) fueled an insurgency against the new government and its foreign supporters, including the United States. Shiites then retaliated further against Sunni attacks and a history of Sunni privilege. The Sunnis, lacking power in the new Iraqi government, eventually helped form the so-called Islamic State (IS), also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh, which, as of this writing, controls portions of Iraq and adjacent areas of Syria.

Iraq and Syria each contain substantial Muslim populations of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds (along with various ethno-religious minorities). Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, like his father and predecessor in office, Hafez al-Assad (who ruled from 1971 to 2000), has favored his own minority Muslim group (Alawites—allied with the Shiites) over his country’s Sunni majority. Syria has witnessed escalating internal warfare since 2011, when, as in other parts of the Middle East, a series of uprisings known collectively as the Arab Spring occurred in opposition to authoritarian governments. The Assad regime fanned the flames of civil war by its violent repression of the protesters and eventual rebels.

The parties to the ongoing conflict in Syria include (among others) the Assad gov- ernment and its foreign allies, including Russia, Shiite Iran, and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Sunni-led ISIS maintains a significant presence in northern and eastern Syria, adjacent to and extending into Iraq. A third group consists of “moderate” rebels, presumably including Sunnis opposed to both Assad and ISIS. These rebels, whose numbers and effectiveness are currently unclear, have been supported by the United States and other Sunni-majority countries of the Middle East. Finally, the Kurds, also supported by the United States, are assisting in the war against ISIS.

The conflict in Syria has displaced about half of that nation’s population of 23 mil- lion. Some 6.6 million people have been displaced internally, while about 4.6 million others have fled Syria as refugees. The latter have sought refuge primarily in other Middle Eastern countries, including Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt. Others have traveled by boat across the Aegean Sea to the Greek islands and mainland, and from there into Europe via the Balkans. Others have crossed the Mediterranean into

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Italy, and some have crossed from North Africa to Spain. Sweden and, particularly, Germany have been the most welcoming European countries, with Germany pledging to accept up to 800,000 Syrian refugees. In Syria itself, if Assad eventually vacates the presidency, Sunni reprisals are likely against Alawites and other religious minorities, including Christians and Shiite Muslims (see Adams 2012).

Prejudice and Discrimination Members of an ethnic group may be the targets of prejudice (negative attitudes and judgments) or discrimination (punitive action). Prejudice means devaluing (looking down on) a group because of its assumed behavior, values, capabilities, or attributes. People are prejudiced when they hold stereotypes about groups and apply them to indi- viduals. (Stereotypes are fixed ideas—often unfavorable—about what the members of a group are like.) Prejudiced people assume that members of the group will act as they are “supposed to act” (according to the stereotype) and interpret a wide range of indi- vidual behaviors as evidence of the stereotype. They use this behavior to confirm their stereotype (and low opinion) of the group.

Discrimination refers to policies and practices that harm a group and its members. Discrimination may be legally sanctioned (de jure, or part of the law), or it may be prac- ticed but not legally sanctioned (de facto). An example of de facto discrimination is the harsher treatment that American minorities (compared with other Americans) tend to receive from the police and the judicial system. This unequal treatment isn’t legal, but it happens, anyway, as the following section documents.

On December 19, 2016, Syrians wait to be evacuated from the eastern part of the war-ravaged city of Aleppo, as buses and ambulances await them. ©Mohammed Seyh/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

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Black Lives Matter Anyone who follows the news regularly will be familiar with a series of cases in which young African American men have been shot dead by White police officers. The “Black Lives Matter” movement has arisen in the United States in response to these and other incidents in which Black lives have not seemed to matter much to local officials. As described by Elizabeth Day (2015), the movement originated in July 2013, when an African American woman named Alicia Garza reacted to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager, in Sanford, Florida. Stunned by Zimmerman’s acquittal on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter, Garza posted the following mes- sage on Facebook: “Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter.”

Garza’s friend, Patrisse Cullors, adopted Garza’s words and began to post them online using the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. The two women wanted to raise public awareness about the apparent devaluation of Black lives in the American judicial and enforcement systems. Using Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, Garza and Cullors encouraged users to share stories of why #blacklivesmatter. In August 2014, another unarmed African American teenager, 18-year-old Michael Brown, was killed by 12 rounds of ammunition from the gun of a White police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Garza helped organize a “Freedom Ride” to Ferguson that brought some 500 people to the St. Louis suburb. On arrival, she was as- tonished to see her own phrase being shouted by protesters and written on their banners. There were additional protests in Ferguson after a grand jury failed to indict the police of- ficer. Thereafter, with a series of additional cases in which unarmed Black men were shot by White police officers, the slogan “Black Lives Matter” rose to national prominence. The American Dialect Society even named #blacklivesmatter as their word of the year for 2015. By 2016, Black Lives Matter chapters had opened throughout the country (Day 2015).

The movement has grown not only in response to police shootings and brutality but also following the mass murder on June 17, 2015, of nine African American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, by a White supremacist domestic terrorist. That tragic event prompted the governor to call for and achieve the removal of a contentious and racially charged symbol, the Confederate battle flag, from prominent display in the state capital, Columbia.

Social media continue to be prominent in linking and organizing the #blacklivesmatter movement. Activists have been able to respond quickly to an ongoing series of widely

The third day of protests against police brutality, which followed the release of security camera footage contradicting the NYPD account of the death of Delrawn Small, a young African-American man. ©Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

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reported incidents (e.g., in Cleveland, Baltimore, North Charleston, and Chicago) in which Black people have been killed by police or died in police custody. Critics of the movement contend that not only “Black lives” but “all lives” should matter, as indeed they should. However, this criticism ignores, and would diminish needed attention to, the disproportionate likelihood of arrest, incarceration, and mistreatment by police that African Americans, in particular, face. Americans have not heard in recent years a series of reports about unarmed White men being shot to death by police officers. Discrimination against American minorities may no longer be de jure, but it certainly remains de facto.

Anti-Ethnic Discrimination This section considers some of the more extreme forms of anti-ethnic discrimination, in- cluding genocide, forced assimilation, ethnocide, ethnic expulsion, and cultural colonial- ism. The most extreme form is genocide, the deliberate elimination of a group (such as Jews in Nazi Germany, Muslims in Bosnia, or Tutsi in Rwanda) through mass murder (see Hinton and O’Neill 2009). More recently, in the Darfur region of western Sudan, govern- ment-supported Arab militias, called the Janjaweed, have forced Black Africans off their land. The militias are accused of genocide, of killing up to 30,000 darker-skinned Africans.

Ethnocide is the deliberate suppression or destruction of an ethnic culture by a domi- nant group. One way of implementing a policy of ethnocide is through forced assimilation, in which the dominant group forces an ethnic group to adopt the dominant culture. Many countries have penalized or banned the language and customs of an ethnic group (including its religious observances). One example of forced assimilation is the anti-Basque campaign that the dictator Francisco Franco (who ruled between 1939 and 1975) waged in Spain. Franco banned Basque books, journals, newspapers, signs, sermons, and tombstones and imposed fines for using the Basque language in schools. In reaction to his policies, national- ist sentiment strengthened in the Basque region, and a Basque terrorist group took shape.

A policy of ethnic expulsion aims at removing groups that are culturally different from a country. There are many examples, including Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s. Uganda expelled 74,000 Asians in 1972. The neofascist parties of contemporary Western Europe advocate repatriation (expulsion) of immigrant workers, such as Algerians in France and Turks in Germany. As of this writing, the United States contains approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants. They are here without documents because they overstayed their visas or work permits, entered unofficially, or were smuggled in. Millions of them work, pay taxes, and have children born in the United States who are American citizens. What are their prospects? The future of undocumented immigrants became a particularly contentious political issue during the 2016 presidential election, with multiple Republican presidential candidates advocating their mass deportation. Such deportation would be a form of forced expulsion, although America’s undocumented immigrants come from many countries and lack legal documents granting them the right to remain in the United States.

When members of an ethnic group are expelled, they often become refugees— people who have been forced (involuntary refugees) or who have chosen (voluntary refugees) to flee a country, to escape persecution or war. A government policy of ethnic expulsion is only one source of refugees. The Syrian refugees who have been prominent in recent news reports were driven from their homes by civil war and reprisals by vari- ous factions and their foreign allies. They were not, by and large, voluntary refugees, but they were not forced out by a government policy of ethnic expulsion.

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Anthropology Today Why Are the Greens So White? Race and Ethnicity in Golf

How do race and ethnicity figure in the world of golf, a sport whose popularity has been growing not only in the United States but also in Europe, Asia, and Australia? More than 20 million Americans play golf, an in- dustry that also supports about 400,000 workers. For decades, golf has been the preferred sport of business tycoons and politicians—mainly White. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1960), whose love for golf was well known, etched a lasting (and accurate) image of golf as a Republican sport (despite the fact that former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama also play the game). A recent survey found that only 2 of the top 125 PGA touring pros identified as Democrats. The most recent Republican President, Donald Trump, is both a business tycoon and an avid golfer. A glance at golfers in any televised game reveals a remarkable lack of variation in skin color. American golf was the nation’s last major sport to desegregate, and minorities traditionally have been relegated to support- ing roles. Latinos maintain golf’s greens and physical infrastructure. Until the motorized golf cart replaced them, African Americans had significant opportunities to observe and learn the game by caddying. Indeed, there once was a tradition of African American caddies becoming excellent golfers. The best example of this trajectory is Dr. Charlie Sifford (1922–2015), who, in 1961, broke the color barrier in American professional golf. Sifford began his golf ca- reer as a caddie for White golfers. He went on to dominate the all-Black United Golf- ers Association, winning five straight na- tional titles, but he wanted to play with the world’s best golfers. At the age of 39, Sifford successfully challenged—and ended—the White-only policy of the Pro- fessional Golfers’ Association (PGA), be- coming its first African American member.

Sifford, who had to endure phone threats, racial slurs, and other indignities at the beginning of his PGA career, went on to win the Greater Hartford Open in 1967, the Los Angeles Open in 1969, and the 1975 Senior PGA Championship. In 2004 he be- came the first African American inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. His major regret was that he never got to play in a Masters Tournament. That event, held an- nually in Augusta, Georgia, did not invite its first Black player until Lee Elder in 1975. Sifford’s bitterness about his own exclusion from the Masters was tempered somewhat by his pleasure when Tiger Woods, another African American golfer, won the first of his four green Masters jackets in 1997. In terms of diversity, golf has actually re- gressed since the 1970s, when 11 African Americans played on the PGA Tour. If we consider multiracial players to be African American, there currently is only 1 African American (Tiger Woods) among the 125 top players on the PGA Tour. In Britain, only 2 percent of an estimated 850,000 regular golfers are non-White. Economic factors continue to limit minority access to golf. Pro- spective golfers need money for instruction, equipment, access to top-notch courses, and travel to tournaments. Asian Americans, who enjoy a relatively high socioeconomic status, are the only minority group in the United States with a growing representation in golf, for both men and women. Tiger Woods is currently the single ex- ceptional non-White individual in this mainly White, affluent, Republican sport. Woods became one of America’s most celebrated and popular athletes by combining golfing success with a carefully cultivated reputa- tion as a family man. He presented himself as the hard-working and achievement- oriented son of an Asian mother and an African American father, and as a devoted

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Cultural colonialism refers to the internal domination by one group and its culture or ideology over others. One example is how the Russian people, language, and culture and the communist ideology dominated the former Soviet empire. In cultural colonial- ism, the dominant culture makes itself the official culture. This is reflected in schools, the media, and public interaction. Under Soviet rule, ethnic minorities had very limited self-rule in republics and regions controlled by Moscow. All the republics and their peoples were to be united by the oneness of “socialist internationalism.” A common technique in cultural colonialism is to flood ethnic areas with members of the dominant ethnic group. In the former Soviet Union, ethnic Russian colonists were sent to many areas, to diminish the cohesion and clout of the local people.

For example, when Ukraine belonged to the Soviet Union, Moscow promoted a policy of Russian in-migration and Ukrainian out-migration, so that ethnic Ukrainians’ share of the population of Ukraine declined from 77 percent in 1959 to 73 percent in 1991. That trend reversed after Ukraine gained independence, so that, by the turn of the 21st century, ethnic Ukrainians made up more than three-fourths of their country’s population. Russians still constitute Ukraine’s largest minority, but they now represent less than one-fifth of the population. They are concentrated in eastern Ukraine, where ethnic Russians have rebelled against Ukraine’s pro-Western government. Eastern Ukraine, especially those provinces dominated by the Russian language and ethnicity, is considered a potential target of Russian annexation. In 2014, Russia did annex Crimea, where ethnic Russians (compos- ing over 60 percent of the Crimean population) and the Russian language dominate.

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 was accompanied by a resurgence of ethnic feeling among formerly dominated groups. The ethnic groups and nationalities once controlled by Moscow have sought, and continue to seek, to forge their own separate and viable nation-states. This celebration of ethnic autonomy is part of an ethnic florescence that—as surely as global- ization and transnationalism—is a trend of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The new assertiveness of long-resident ethnic groups extends to the Welsh and Scots in the United Kingdom, Bretons and Corsicans in France, and Basques and Catalans in Spain.

sidelined with back injuries and surgeries in 2015–2017. His 79 PGA Tour victories and 14 major titles rank him second to the all-time records held by Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus, respectively. Although no longer the untarnished hero of yesteryear, Tiger Woods remains the world’s most prominent and celebrated African American golfer. What role, if any, do you think race, ethnicity, racism, and racial stereotyping have played in the rise, fall, and reintegration of Tiger Woods?

Source: Ferguson (2015); Riach (2013); Starn (2011).

husband and father (with a Scandinavian wife and two photogenic children). Woods’s fall from grace began late in 2009, as a flood of media reports converted his image from family man into serial philanderer. Al- though his marriage did not survive his transgressions, his golfing career did. Woods gradually reintegrated into the world of golf, even receiving the 2013 PGA Tour Player of the Year Award. He had won 5 of the 16 tournaments he played that year and placed in the top 10 in 3 others. Woods plans to return to competition after being

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Summary 1. An ethnic group consists of members of a particular culture in a nation or region

that contains others. Ethnicity is based on actual, perceived, or assumed cultural similarities (among members of the same ethnic group) and differences (between that group and others). Ethnic distinctions can be based on language, religion, his- tory, geography, kinship, or race. A race is an ethnic group assumed to have a bio- logical basis. Usually, race and ethnicity are ascribed statuses; people are born members of a group and remain so all their lives.

2. Human races are cultural rather than biological categories. Such races derive from contrasts perceived in particular societies, rather than from scientific classifications based on common genes. In the United States, racial labels such as White  and Black  designate socially constructed categories defined by American culture. American racial classification, governed by the rule of hypodescent, is based nei- ther on phenotype nor on genes. Children of mixed unions, no matter what their appearance, are classified with the minority group parent.

3. Racial attitudes in Japan illustrate intrinsic racism—the belief that a perceived ra- cial difference is a sufficient reason to value one person less than another. The valued group is majority (pure) Japanese, who are believed to share the same blood. Majority Japanese define themselves by opposition to others, such as Koreans and burakumin. These may be minority groups in Japan or outsiders—anyone who is “not us.”

4. Such exclusionary racial systems are not inevitable. Although Brazil shares a his- tory of slavery with the United States, it lacks the hypodescent rule. Brazilian racial identity is more of an achieved status. It can change during someone’s lifetime, re- flecting phenotypical changes.

5. The term nation once was synonymous with ethnic group. Now nation has come to mean a state—a centrally organized political unit. Because of migration, conquest, and colonialism, most nation-states are not ethnically homogeneous. Ethnic groups that seek autonomous political status (their own country) are nationalities. Political upheavals, wars, and migrations have divided many imagined national communities.

6. Assimilation is the process of change members of an ethnic group may experience when they move to a country where another culture dominates. By assimilating, the minority adopts the patterns and norms of the host culture. Assimilation isn’t in- evitable, and there can be ethnic harmony without it. A plural society combines ethnic contrasts and economic interdependence between ethnic groups. The view of cultural diversity in a nation-state as good and desirable is multiculturalism. A multicultural society socializes individuals not only into the dominant (national) culture but also into an ethnic one.

7. In the United States, ethnic/racial diversity is increasing, especially among the young. Simultaneously, the country is aging, and most of the senior population is White. These trends are associated with contrasting attitudes, priorities, and political leanings of younger and older Americans. Minorities constitute a growing percentage of the total U.S. population, especially among children under age 18.

Key Terms 405

8. Ethnicity can be expressed either in peaceful multiculturalism or in discrimination or violent confrontation. Ethnic conflict often arises in reaction to prejudice (atti- tudes and judgments) or discrimination (action). The most extreme form of ethnic discrimination is genocide, the deliberate elimination of a group through mass murder. A dominant group may try to destroy certain ethnic practices (ethnocide) or to force ethnic group members to adopt the dominant culture (forced assimila- tion). A policy of ethnic expulsion may create refugees. Cultural colonialism is internal domination—by one group and its culture or ideology over others.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. What’s the difference between a culture and an ethnic group? In what culture(s) do

you participate? To what ethnic group(s) do you belong? What is the basis of your primary cultural identity? Do others readily recognize this basis and identity? Why or why not?

2. Name five social statuses you currently occupy. To what extent are these statuses achieved? Are any of them mutually exclusive? Which are contextual?

Key Terms achieved status, 380 ascribed status, 380 assimilation, 393 colonialism, 392 cultural

colonialism, 403 descent, 383 discrimination, 399

nationalities, 392 plural society, 393 prejudice, 399 race, 382 racism, 382 refugees, 401 status, 380 stereotypes, 399

ethnic group, 379 ethnicity, 380 ethnocide, 401 genocide, 401 hypodescent, 383 multiculturalism, 393 nation, 391 nation-state, 391

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Chapter 17 Applying Anthropology What Is Applied Anthropology?

The Role of the Applied Anthropologist Early Applications Academic and Applied Anthropology Applied Anthropology Today

Development Anthropology Equity Negative Equity Impact

Strategies for Innovation Overinnovation Indigenous Models

Anthropology and Education

Urban Anthropology

Medical Anthropology Disease Theory Systems Scientific Medicine versus Western Medicine Industrialization, Globalization, and Health

Anthropology and Business

Public and Applied Anthropology

Careers and Anthropology

Anthropology Today: Culturally Appropriate Marketing

What Is Applied Anthropology?

Applied anthropology is the use of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and meth- ods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary problems (see Ervin 2005; Nolan 2013; Wasson, Butler, and Copeland-Carson 2012). Applied anthropologists help make an- thropology relevant and useful to the world beyond anthropology. Medical anthropolo- gists, for instance, have worked as cultural interpreters in public health programs, helping such programs fit into local culture. Development anthropologists work for or with international development agencies, such as the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The findings of garbology, the archaeological study of waste, are relevant to the Environmental Protection Agency, the paper industry, and packaging and trade associations. Archaeology also is applied in cultural resource management and historic preservation. Biological anthropologists apply their expertise in programs aimed at public health, nutrition, genetic counseling, aging, substance abuse, and mental health. Forensic anthropologists work with the police, medical exam- iners, the courts, and international organizations to identify victims of crimes, accidents,

The Role of the Applied Anthropologist 407

wars, and terrorism. Linguistic anthropologists study physician–patient communication and show how speech differences influence classroom learning. Most applied anthro- pologists seek humane and effective ways of helping people.

The ethnographic method is a particularly valuable tool in applying anthropology. Remember that ethnographers study societies firsthand, living with, observing, and learning from ordinary people. Nonanthropologists working in social-change programs often are content to converse with officials, read reports, and copy statistics. However, the applied anthropologist’s likely early request is some variant of “take me to the local people.” Anthropologists know that people must play an active role in the changes that affect them and that “the people” have information that “the experts” lack (see Field and Fox 2009).

The Role of the Applied Anthropologist

Early Applications Anthropology is, and has long been, the primary academic discipline that focuses on non-Western cultures. One example is the role that anthropologists played as advisers to, and even agents of, colonial regimes during the first half of the 20th century. Under colonialism, some anthropologists worked as administrators in the colonies or held lower-level positions as government agents, researchers, or advisers. The main European colonial powers at that time—Britain, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands—all em- ployed anthropologists. When those colonial empires began to collapse after World War II, as the former colonies gained independence, many anthropologists continued to offer advice to government agencies about the areas and cultures they knew the best.

In the United States, American anthropologists have worked extensively with the subjugated Native American populations within its borders. The 19th-century American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan studied the Seneca Iroquois tribe, Native Americans living in New York state, not far from his home in Rochester. Morgan was also  a lawyer who represented the Iroquois in their disputes with a company that wanted to seize some of their land. Just as Morgan worked on behalf of the Seneca, there are anthropologists today who work on behalf of the non-Western groups they have studied. Other anthropologists, working as government employees and agents, have helped to establish and enforce policies developed by ruling classes and aimed at local populations.

Bronislaw Malinowski, a Polish-born scholar who spent most of his career teaching in England, was one of the most prominent cultural anthropologists of the early 20th  century. Malinowski is well known for his ethnographic fieldwork with the Trobriand Islanders of the South Pacific and for his role in establishing ethnographic field methods. He also is recognized as one of the founders of applied anthropology, which he called “practical anthropology” (Malinowski 1929). Like many other anthro- pologists of his time, Malinowski worked with colonial regimes, rather than opposing the European subjugation of non-Western peoples.

Malinowski, who focused on Britain’s African colonies, intended his “practical anthropology” to support and facilitate colonial rule. He believed that anthropologists

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could help European colonial officials to effectively administer non-Western societies. Anthropologists could help answer questions like the following: How much taxation and forced labor could “the natives” tolerate without resisting? How was contact with European settlers and colonial officials affecting tribal societies? Anthropologists could study local land ownership and use in order to determine how much of their own land “natives” could keep and how much Europeans could take from them. Ma- linowski did not question the right of Europeans to rule the societies they had con- quered. For him, the anthropologist’s job was not to question colonial rule, but to make it work as harmoniously as possible. Other colonial-era anthropologists offered similar advice to the French, Portuguese, and Dutch regimes (see also Duffield and Hewitt 2009; Lange 2009).

During World War II, American anthropologists applied anthropology by trying to gain insights about the motivations and behavior of the enemies of the United States— principally Germany and Japan. Margaret Mead (1977) estimated that during the 1940s, 95 percent of U.S. anthropologists were involved in the war effort. For example, Ruth Benedict (1946) wrote an influential study of Japanese national culture not by doing fieldwork in Japan, but by studying Japanese literature, movies, and other cultural prod- ucts and by interviewing Japanese in the United States. She called her approach “the study of culture at a distance.” After World War II, American anthropologists worked to promote local-level cooperation with American policies on several Pacific islands that had been under Japanese control and were now administered by the United States.

Many of the early applications of anthropology described in this section were problematic because they aided and abetted the subjugation and control of non- Western cultures by militarily stronger societies. Most applied anthropologists today see their work as radically removed from colonial-era applied anthropology. Applied anthropologists today usually see their work as a helping profession, designed to assist local people.

Academic and Applied Anthropology The U.S. baby boom, which began in 1946 and peaked in 1957, fueled a tremendous expansion of the American educational system. New junior, community, and four-year colleges opened, and anthropology became a standard part of the curriculum. During the 1950s and 1960s, most American anthropologists were college professors, although some still worked in agencies and museums.

The growth of academic anthropology continued through the early 1970s. Especially during the Vietnam War, undergraduates flocked to anthropology classes to learn about other cultures. Students were especially interested in Southeast Asia, whose indigenous societies were being disrupted by war. Many anthropologists protested the superpowers’ apparent disregard for non-Western lives, values, customs, and social systems.

Most anthropologists still worked in colleges and museums during the 1970s and 1980s. However, an increasing number of anthropologists were finding jobs in interna- tional organizations, governments, businesses, hospitals, and schools. The AAA esti- mates that nowadays more than half of anthropology PhDs seek nonacademic employment. This shift toward application has benefited the profession. It has forced anthropologists to consider the wider social value and implications of their research.

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Applied Anthropology Today According to Barbara Rylko-Bauer, Merrill Singer, and John van Willigen (2006), modern applied anthropology uses theories, concepts, and methods from anthropology to confront human problems, such as poverty, that often contribute to profound social suffering.

However, applied anthropologists also have clients who are neither poor nor power- less. An applied anthropologist working as a market researcher may be concerned with discovering how to increase sales of a particular product. Such commercial goals can pose ethical dilemmas, which also may arise in cultural resource management (CRM). The CRM anthropologist helps decide how to preserve significant remains when devel- opment threatens sites. The client that hires a CRM firm may be seeking to build a road or a factory. That client may have a strong interest in a CRM finding that no sites need protection, and the client may pressure the CRM firm in that direction. Among the ethical questions that arise in applied anthropology are these: To whom does the researcher owe loyalty? What problems are involved in sticking to the truth? What happens when applied anthropologists don’t make the policies they have to implement? How does one criticize programs in which one has participated? Anthropology’s professional organizations have addressed such questions by establishing codes of ethics and ethics committees.

Anthropologists study, understand, and respect diverse cultural values. Because of this knowledge of human problems and social change, anthropologists are highly quali- fied to suggest, plan, and implement policies affecting people. Proper roles for applied

Archaeologists Tim Griffith, left, and Ginny Hatfield of Fort Hood’s (Texas) Cultural Resources Management Program, sift through sediment collected from an archaeological site. This CRM program manages resources representing more than 10,000 years of occupation of the land around Fort Hood. ©Scott Gaulin/Temple Daily Telegram/AP Images

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anthropologists include (1) identifying needs for change that local people perceive, (2) collaborating with those people to design culturally appropriate and socially sensi- tive change, and (3) working to protect local people from harmful policies and projects that may threaten them.

For decades, applied anthropologists have collaborated directly with communities to achieve community-directed change. Applied anthropologists not only work collabora- tively with local people, but they may even be hired by such communities to advocate on their behalf. One example is Barbara Rose Johnston’s (2005) research on behalf of Guatemalan communities that were adversely affected by the construction of a dam. Johnston’s reports document the dam’s long-term impact on these communities. She also offered recommendations and a plan for reparations.

Development Anthropology

Development anthropology is the branch of applied anthropology that focuses on social issues in, and the cultural dimension of, economic development (see Crewe and Axelby 2013). Development anthropologists don’t just carry out development policies planned by others; they also plan and guide policy. (For more detailed discussions of issues in development anthropology, see Edelman and Haugerud 2005; Escobar 2012; Nolan 2002.)

Still, ethical dilemmas often confront development anthropologists (Escobar 2012; Venkatesan and Yarrow 2014). Foreign aid, including funds for economic development, usually does not go where need and suffering are greatest. Rather, such aid tends to sup- port political, economic, and strategic priorities that are set by international donors, political leaders, and powerful interest groups. The goals and interests of the planners may ignore or conflict with the best interests of the local people. Although the stated aim of most development projects is to enhance the quality of life, living standards often decline in the affected area.

Equity An important stated goal of recent development projects has been to promote equity.  Increased equity entails (1) reducing poverty and (2) evening out the distribu- tion of wealth. Projects should not benefit only the “haves,” but also the “have nots.” If people who are already doing well get most of the benefits of a project, then it has not increased equity.

If projects are to increase equity, they must have the support of reform-minded gov- ernments. Wealthy and powerful people typically resist projects that offer more to the “have nots” than to the “haves.” Often, they will actively oppose a project that threatens the status quo.

Negative Equity Impact Some projects not only fail to increase equity; they actually widen the gap between the  “haves” and “have nots.” When this happens, we say they have had a negative

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equity impact. I observed firsthand an example of negative equity impact in Arembepe, Bahia, Brazil, a fishing community on the Atlantic Ocean (see Kottak 2006). A devel- opment initiative there offered loans to buy motors for fishing boats, but only people who already owned boats (“haves”) could get these loans. Nonowners (“have nots”) did not qualify. After getting the loans, the boat owners, in order to repay them, increased the percentage of the catch they took from the men who fished in their boats. Their rising profits allowed them to eventually buy larger and more expensive boats. They cited their increased capital expense as a reason to pay their workers less. Over the years, the gap between “haves” and “have nots” widened substantially. The eventual result was socioeconomic stratification—the creation of social classes in a community that had been egalitarian. In the past, Arembepe’s fishing boats had been simple sail- boats, relying only on wind power, and any enterprising young fisher could hope even- tually to own one of his own. In the new economy, a fishing boat became so expensive that ambitious young men, who once would have sought careers in fishing, no longer could afford to buy a boat of their own. They sought wage labor on land instead. To avoid this kind of negative equity impact, credit-granting agencies must seek out and invest in enterprising young fishers, rather than giving loans only to owners and estab- lished businesspeople. A lesson here is that the stated goal of increased equity is easier said than done. Because the “haves” tend to have better connections than the “have nots,” they are more likely to find out about and take advantage of new programs. They also tend to have more clout with government officials, who often decide who will benefit from a particular program.

A mix of boats harbored in Pucusana, a fishing village in Peru. A boat owner gets a loan to buy a motor. To repay it, he increases the share of the catch he takes from his crew. Later, he uses his rising profits to buy a more expensive boat and takes even more from his crew. Can a more equitable solution be found? ©Sean Sprague/The Image Works

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Strategies for Innovation

Development anthropologists should work collaboratively and proactively with local people, especially the “have nots,” to assess, and help them realize, their own wishes and needs for change. Too many true local needs cry out for a solution to waste money fund- ing projects in area A that are inappropriate there but needed in area B, or that are un- necessary anywhere. Development anthropology can help sort out the needs of the As and Bs and fit projects accordingly. Projects that put people first by consulting with them and responding to their expressed needs must be identified (Cernea 1991). To maximize social and economic benefits, projects must (1) be culturally compatible, (2) respond to locally perceived needs, (3) involve men and women in planning and car- rying out the changes that affect them, (4) harness traditional organizations, and (5) be flexible (see Kottak 1990b, 1991).

Consider a recent example of a development initiative that failed because it ignored local culture. Working in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, ethnographer Noah Coburn (2011) studied Istalif, a village of potters. During his fieldwork there, Coburn discovered that an NGO had spent $20,000 on an electric kiln that could have greatly enhanced the productivity of local potters. The only problem was that the kiln was donated to a women’s center that men could not enter. The misguided donors ignored the fact that Istalif’s men did the work—pot-making and firing—that a kiln could facilitate. Women’s role in pottery came later—in glazing and decorating.

Overinnovation Development projects are most likely to succeed when they avoid the fallacy of overin- novation (too much change). People usually are willing to change just enough to main- tain, or slightly improve on, what they already have. Motivation to change comes from the traditional culture and the small concerns of ordinary life. Peasants’ values are not such abstract ones as “learning a better way,” “progressing,” “increasing technical know-how,” “improving efficiency,” or “adopting modern techniques.” People want to grow and harvest their crops, amass resources for a ceremony, get a child through school, or have enough cash to pay bills. The goals and values of people who farm and fish for their own subsistence differ from those of people who work for cash, just as they differ from those of development planners.

Development projects that fail usually do so because they are either economically or culturally incompatible (or both). For example, one South Asian project tried to get farmers to start growing onions and peppers, expecting those cash crops to fit into the existing system of rice cultivation—the main local subsistence crop. It turned out, how- ever, that the labor peaks for the new cash crops coincided with those for rice, to which the farmers naturally gave priority. This project failed because it promoted too much change, introducing unfamiliar crops that conflicted with, rather than building on and complementing, an existing system. The planners should have realized that cultivation of the new crops would conflict with that of the main subsistence crop in the area. A good anthropologist could have told them as much.

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Recent development efforts in Afghanistan also illustrate the problematic nature of overinnovation. Reporting on social change efforts in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, anthropologists Noah Coburn (2011) and Thomas Barfield (2010) criticize various top-down initiatives that proved incompatible with local culture. Coburn sug- gests that the best strategy to maintain peace in the Afghan countryside is to work with existing resources, drawing on local beliefs and social organization. To be avoided are overinnovative plans from outside, whether from the national government or foreign donors. Destined for failure, according to Coburn, are attempts to create impersonal bureaucracies based on merit. Also doomed are attempts to impose liberal beliefs about gender at the village level. These are Western ideas that are particularly incompatible in rural areas. Barfield also cites the futility of direct attempts to change rural Afghans’ beliefs about such entrenched matters as religion and gender equality. A better strategy, he suggests, is for change agents to work first in urban areas, where innovation is more welcome, and then let those changes spread gradually to the countryside.

Barfield also faults Western powers for trying to impose an autocratic system (the Karzai regime, which ended in 2014) on a country where autocracy is politically unsus- tainable. In 2014, Afghanistan elected an anthropologist as its president. Ashraf Ghani, who received his doctorate in anthropology from Columbia University in New York, had worked for the World Bank as a development anthropologist. Let us hope that Ghani’s background in anthropology and development will eventually lead to more ef- fective development strategies in the conflict-ridden nation he now leads.

Indigenous Models Many governments are not genuinely, or realistically, committed to improving the lives of their citizens. Interference by major powers also has kept governments from enacting needed reforms. Occasionally, however, a government does act as an agent of and for its people. One historic example is Madagascar, whose people, the Malagasy, were organized into descent groups prior to indigenous state formation in the 18th century. The Merina, creators of the major precolonial state of Madagascar, wove descent groups into its struc- ture, making members of important groups advisers to rulers—thus giving them authority in government. The Merina state collected taxes and organized labor for public works projects. In return, it redistributed resources to peasants in need. It also granted them some protection against war and slave raids and allowed them to cultivate their rice fields in peace. The government maintained the water works for rice cultivation. It opened to ambi- tious peasant boys the chance of becoming state bureaucrats, through hard work and study.

Throughout the history of the Merina state—and continuing to some extent in post- colonial Madagascar—there have been strong relationships between the individual, the descent group, and the state. Local Malagasy communities, where residence is based on descent, are more cohesive and homogeneous than are communities in Latin America or North America. Madagascar gained political independence from France in 1960. Its new government had an economic development policy aimed at increasing the ability of the Malagasy to feed themselves. Government policy emphasized increased production of rice, a subsistence crop, rather than cash crops. Furthermore, local communities, with their traditional cooperative patterns and solidarity based on kinship and descent, were treated as partners in, not obstacles to, the development process.

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In a sense, the descent group is preadapted to equitable national development. In Madagascar, descent groups pooled their resources to educate their most ambitious and talented members. Once educated, those men and women gained economically secure positions in the nation. They then shared the advantages of their new positions with their kin. For example, they gave room and board to rural cousins attending school and helped them find jobs.

This Madagascar example suggests that when government officials are of “the peo- ple” (rather than the elites) and have strong personal ties to common folk, they are more likely to promote democratic reform. In Latin America, by contrast, leaders and follow- ers too often have been from different social classes, with no connections based on kin- ship, descent, marriage, or common background. When elites rule, elites usually prosper. Recently, however, Latin America has elected some nonelite leaders. Brazil’s lower class (indeed the entire nation) benefited socioeconomically when one of its own was elected president. Luiz Inácio da Silva, or Lula, a former factory worker with only a fourth-grade education, served two terms (ending in 2011) as one of the Western Hemi- sphere’s most popular leaders.

Anthropology and Education

Attention to culture also is fundamental to anthropology and education, a field whose research extends from classrooms into homes, neighborhoods, and communities (see Anderson-Levitt 2012; Levinson and Pollock 2011; Spindler and Hammond 2006). In classrooms, anthropologists have observed interactions among teachers, students, par- ents, and visitors. Anthropologists view children as total, cultural creatures whose en- culturation and attitudes toward education belong to a context that includes family and peers (see also Kontopodis et al. 2011; Reyhner et al. 2013).

Sociolinguists and cultural anthropologists have worked side by side in education research. In one classic study of Puerto Rican seventh-graders in the urban Midwest, anthropologists uncovered some key misconceptions held by teachers (Hill-Burnett 1978). The teachers mistakenly had assumed that Puerto Rican parents valued edu- cation less than did non-Hispanics, but in-depth interviews revealed that the Puerto Rican parents valued it more. The anthropologists also identified certain practices that were preventing Hispanics from being adequately educated. For example, the teachers’ union and the board of education had agreed to teach “English as a foreign language.” However, they had provided no bilingual teachers to work with Spanish-speaking students. The school was assigning all students (including non- Hispanics) with low reading scores and behavior problems to the English-as-a- foreign- language classroom. This educational disaster brought together in the classroom a teacher who spoke no Spanish, children who barely spoke English, and a group of English-speaking students with reading and behavior problems. The Spanish speakers were falling behind not just in reading but in all subjects. They could at least have kept up in the other subjects if a Spanish speaker had been teach- ing them science, social studies, and math until they were ready for English- language instruction in those areas.

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Urban Anthropology

In today’s world, media-transmitted images and information play an important role in attracting people to cities. Often, people move to cities for economic reasons, because jobs are scarce at home. Cities also attract people who want to be where the action is. Rural Brazilians routinely cite movimento, urban activity and excitement, as something to be valued. International migrants tend to settle in large cities, where a lot is going on and where they can feel at home in ethnic enclaves. Consider Canada, which, after Australia, is the country with the highest percentage of foreign-born population. Three- quarters of immigrants to Canada settle in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal. It is estimated that by 2031 nearly one-half (46 percent) of Canadians aged 15 and over will be foreign born or will have at least one foreign-born parent, up from 39 percent in 2006 (Statistics Canada 2010).

More than half of Earth’s people live in cities—53 percent in 2014. That figure first surpassed 50 percent in 2008, and it is projected to rise to 70 percent by 2050 (Handwerk 2008). Only about 3 percent of people were city dwellers in 1800, compared with 13 per- cent in 1900, 40 percent in 1980, and 53 percent today. The degree of urbanization (about 30 percent) in the less-developed countries (LDCs) is well below the world average (50  percent). Even in the LDCs, however, the urban growth rate now exceeds the rural

The NGO Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha operates a multi-vessel fleet of floating one-room elementary schools in flood-prone areas of Bangladesh. Here we see a teacher and students in one of those classrooms. Each schoolboat docks each day to pick-up and let off about 30 students. The boats have solar panels that power an internet-linked laptop, library, and electronic resources. ©Jonas Gratzer/LightRocket via Getty Images

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growth rate. By 2030, the percentage of city dwellers in the LDCs is projected to rise to 41 percent. In Africa and Asia alone, a million people a week migrate to cities. The world had only 16 cities with more than a million people in 1900, versus over 400 such cities today.

Over 1 billion people now live in urban slums, mostly without reliable water, sanita- tion, public services, and legal security. If current trends continue, urban population increase and the concentration of people in slums will continue to be accompanied by rising rates of crime, along with water, air, and noise pollution (see Dürr and Jaffe 2010). These problems will be most severe in the LDCs.

For centuries, cities have been influenced by global forces, including world capital- ism and colonialism (Zukin et al. 2015). However, the roles of cities in the world system have changed recently because of the time–space compression made possible by mod- ern transportation and communication systems. That is, everything appears closer today because contact and movement are so much easier.

As industrialization and urbanization spread globally, anthropologists increasingly study these processes and the social problems they create. Urban anthropology, which has theoretical (basic research) and applied dimensions, is the cross-cultural and ethno- graphic study of urbanization and life in cities (see Nononi 2014; Pardo and Prato 2012; Zukin et al. 2015). The United States and Canada have become popular arenas for urban anthropological research on topics such as immigration, ethnicity, poverty, class, and urban violence (Vigil 2010).

One-sixth of the Earth’s population lives in urban slums. Roçinha (shown here) is a populous shantytown city within the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. How might anthropologists study slums? ©Caio Leal/AFP/Getty Images

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An early student of urbanization, the anthropologist Robert Redfield, contrasted rural communities, where social relations are on a face-to-face basis, with cities, where impersonality reigns. Redfield (1941) proposed that urbanization be studied along a rural–urban continuum. He described differences in values and social relations in four sites that spanned such a continuum. In Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, Redfield compared an isolated Mayan-speaking Indian community, a rural peasant village, a small provincial city, and a large capital. Several studies in Africa (Little 1971) and Asia were influenced by Redfield’s view that cities are centers through which cultural innovations spread to rural and tribal areas.

In any nation, urban and rural represent different social systems. However, cultural diffusion or borrowing occurs as people, products, images, and messages move from one to the other. Migrants take rural practices and beliefs to cities and bring urban pat- terns back home. The experiences and social forms of the rural area affect adaptation to city life. City folk also develop new institutions to meet specific urban needs.

An applied anthropology approach to urban planning starts by identifying key social groups in specific urban contexts. After identifying those groups, the anthropologist tries to elicit their wishes for change, convey those needs to funding agencies, and work with agencies and local people to realize those goals. In Africa, relevant groups might include ethnic associations, occupational groups, social clubs, religious groups, and burial socie- ties. The groups provide cash support and lodging for their rural relatives. Sometimes such groups think of themselves as a gigantic kin group that includes urban and rural members. Members may call one another “brother” and “sister.” As in an extended family, richer members help their poorer relatives. A member’s improper behavior, however, can lead to expulsion—an unhappy fate for a migrant in a large, ethnically heterogeneous city.

Medical Anthropology

Medical anthropology is a biocultural field that studies variation in health care sys- tems, including disease, illness, health standards, and disease theories. All societies have health care systems consisting of beliefs, customs, specialists, and techniques aimed at ensuring health and diagnosing and curing illness. Medical anthropology is both academic and applied and includes anthropologists from all four subfields (see Brown and Barrett 2010; Joralemon 2010; Singer 2012; Wiley and Allen 2012). Medi- cal anthropologists examine such questions as which diseases and health conditions af- fect particular populations (and why) and how illness is socially constructed, diagnosed, managed, and treated in various societies.

Disease refers to a scientifically identified health threat caused by genetics or a bac- terium, virus, fungus, parasite, or other pathogen. Illness is a condition of poor health perceived or felt by an individual (Inhorn and Brown 1990). Perceptions of good and bad health are culturally constructed. Particular cultures and ethnic groups recognize different illnesses, symptoms, and causes and have developed different health care sys- tems and treatment strategies (Womack 2010).

The incidence and severity of disease vary as well (see Baer, Singer, and Susser 2013). Group differences are evident in the United States. Consider, for example, health status

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indicators in relation to U.S. census categories: White, Black, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Asian or Pacific Islander. African Americans’ rates for six indicators (total mortality, heart disease, lung cancer, breast cancer, stroke, and homicide) range from 2.5 to 10 times greater than those of the other groups. Other ethnic groups have higher rates for suicide (White Americans) and motor vehicle accidents (American Indians and Alaskan Natives). Overall, Asians have the longest lifespans (see Dressler, Oths, and Gravlee 2005).

Reviewing the health conditions of the world’s surviving indigenous populations (about 400 million people), anthropologists Claudia Vallegia and Josh Snodgrass (2015) found their health risks to be uniformly high. Compared with nonindigenous people, indigenous groups tend to have shorter and riskier lives. Mothers are more likely to die in childbirth; infants and children have lower survival chances. Malnutrition stunts their growth, and they suffer more from infectious diseases. Reflecting their increasing expo- sure to global forces, they have rising rates of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases, as well as depression and substance abuse. They also have limited access to medical care. An increasing number of anthropologists are working in global health programs at academic and research institutions. This presence, no doubt, will increase understanding of the health concerns of indigenous peoples—but more is needed. Vallegia and Snodgrass (2015) urge medical anthropologists to involve themselves more in commu- nity outreach, which could help bring better health care to indigenous populations.

In many areas, the world system and colonialism worsened the health of indigenous peoples by spreading diseases, warfare, servitude, and other stressors. Traditionally and in ancient times, hunter-gatherers, because of their small numbers, mobility, and relative isolation from other groups, lacked most of the epidemic infectious diseases that affect agrarian and urban societies (Cohen and Armelagos 2013; Singer 2015). Epidemic dis- eases such as cholera, typhoid, and bubonic plague thrive in dense populations, and thus among farmers and city dwellers. The spread of malaria has been linked to population growth and deforestation associated with food production.

Disease Theory Systems The kinds and incidence of disease vary among human populations, and cultures per- ceive and treat illness differently (see Lupton 2012). Still, all societies have what George Foster and Barbara Anderson (1978) call “disease theory systems” to identify, classify, and explain illness. Foster and Anderson identified three basic theories about the causes of illness: personalistic, naturalistic, and emotionalistic. Personalistic disease theories blame illness on agents, such as sorcerers, witches, ghosts, or ancestral spirits.

Naturalistic disease theories explain illness in impersonal terms. One example is Western medicine, or biomedicine, which aims to link illness to scientifically demon- strated agents that bear no personal malice toward their victims. Thus, Western medi- cine attributes illness to organisms (e.g., bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites), accidents, toxic materials, or genes. Other naturalistic systems blame poor health on unbalanced body fluids. Many Latin cultures classify food, drink, and environmental conditions as “hot” or “cold.” People believe their health suffers when they eat or drink hot or cold substances together or under inappropriate conditions. For example, one shouldn’t drink something cold after a hot bath or eat a pineapple (a “cold” fruit) when one is menstru- ating (a “hot” condition).

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Emotionalistic disease theories assume that emotional experiences cause illness. For example, Latin Americans may develop susto, an illness brought on by anxiety, fright, or tragic news. Its symptoms (lethargy, vagueness, distraction) are similar to those of “soul loss,” a diagnosis of similar symptoms made by people in Madagascar.

A society’s illness-causation theory is important for treatment. When illness has a personalistic cause, magicoreligious specialists may be effective curers. They draw on varied techniques (occult and practical), which constitute their special expertise. A sha- man may cure soul loss by enticing the spirit back into the body. Shamans may ease difficult childbirths by asking spirits to travel up the birth canal to guide the baby out (Lévi-Strauss 1967). A shaman may cure a cough by counteracting a curse or removing a substance introduced by a sorcerer.

If there is a “world’s oldest profession” besides hunter and gatherer, it is curer, often a shaman. The curer’s role has some universal features (Foster and Anderson 1978). Thus, a curer emerges through a culturally defined process of selection (parental prodding, inheri- tance of the role, visions, dream instructions) and training (apprentice shamanship, medical school). Eventually, the curer is certified by older practitioners and acquires a professional image. Patients believe in the skills of the curer, whom they consult and compensate. Health interventions always have to fit into local cultures. When Western medicine is introduced, people usually preserve many of their old methods while also accepting new ones. Native curers may go on treating certain conditions (e.g., spirit possession), while physicians deal with others. The native curer may get as much credit as the physician for a cure.

Scientific Medicine versus Western Medicine We should not lose sight, ethnocentrically, of the difference between scientific medicine and Western medicine per se. Scientific medicine  relies on advances in technology, genomics, molecular biology, pathology, surgery, diagnostics, and applications. Scien- tific medicine surpasses tribal treatment in many ways. Although medicines such as quinine, coca, opium, ephedrine, and rauwolfia were discovered in nonindustrial societ- ies, thousands of effective drugs are available today to treat myriad diseases. Today’s surgical procedures are much safer and more effective than those of traditional societies. These are strong benefits of scientific medicine.

Western medicine refers to the practice of medicine in a particular modern Western nation, such as the United States. Of course, the practice of medicine and the quality and availability of heath care vary among Western nations. Some make free or low-cost health care available to all citizens, while other countries are not so generous. Millions of Americans, for example, remain uninsured. Western medicine has both “pros” and “cons.” The strongest “pro” of Western medicine is that it incorporates scientific medi- cine and its many benefits. “Cons” associated with Western medicine include overpre- scription of drugs, unnecessary surgeries and procedures, and the impersonality and inequality of the physician–patient relationship. In addition, overuse of antibiotics seems to be triggering an explosion of resistant microorganisms. Another “con” associ- ated with Western medicine is that it tends to draw a rigid line between biomedical and psychological causation. Non-Western theories usually lack this sharp distinction, rec- ognizing that poor health has intertwined physical, emotional, and social causes (see also Brown and Barrett 2010; Joralemon 2010; Strathern and Stewart 2010).

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Treatment strategies that emulate the much more personal non-Western curer– patient–community relationship might benefit Western systems. Physician–patient en- counters too often are rushed and truncated. Those who perform a surgical procedure or diagnose a condition often include specialists (e.g., radiologists and lab technicians) that the patient will never see. Surgeons are not renowned for their “bedside manner.” Efforts are being made to improve physician–patient relationships. A recent trend in the United States is the rise of “concierge medicine,” in which a physician charges an annual fee to each patient, limits the practice to a certain number of patients, and has ample time to spend with each patient because of the reduced caseload. To an extent, the Internet has empowered patients, who now have access to all kinds of medical information that used to be the sole property of physicians. This access, however, has its drawbacks. Informa- tion can make patients more informed as health care consumers, but it also prompts more questions than a physician usually can answer during a brief appointment.

Industrialization, Globalization, and Health Despite the advances in scientific medicine, industrialization and globalization have spawned many significant health problems. Certain diseases, and physical conditions such as obesity, have spread with economic development and globalization (Inhorn and Wentzell 2012). Schistosomiasis, or bilharzia (liver flukes), is one of the fastest- spreading and most dangerous parasitic infections now known. People get schistosomia- sis from snails living in ponds, lakes, and waterways, usually ones created by irrigation projects. The applied anthropology approach to reducing such diseases is to see if local people perceive a connection between the vector (e.g., snails in the water) and the dis- ease. If not, local organizations, schools, and the media, including social media, can help spread the relevant information.

HIV/AIDS has been spread through international travel within the modern world system. The world’s highest rates of HIV infection and AIDS-related deaths are in Africa, especially southern Africa (Mazzeo, Rödlach, and Brenton 2011). Sexually

This tapestry by South African artist Jane Makhubele promotes condom use as a method of AIDS prevention Courtesy Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies, Northwestern University

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transmitted infections are spread through prostitution as young men from rural areas seek wage work in cities, labor camps, and mines, often across national borders. When the men return home, they infect their wives (see Baer et al. 2013). By killing productive adults, AIDS leaves behind dependent children and seniors. Cultural factors affect the spread of HIV, which is less likely to spread when men are circumcised.

Other problems associated with industrialization and globalization include the following: poor nutrition; dangerous machinery; impersonal work; isolation; poverty; homelessness; substance abuse; and noise, air, and water pollution (see McElroy and Townsend 2014). With industrialization and globalization, people turn from subsistence work, usually alongside family and neighbors, to cash employment in more impersonal settings such as factories. Rather than living in villages where everyone knows everyone else, people increasingly live in cities—and often in slums, where they tend to have poorer diets, more exposure to pathogens, poor sanitation, and polluted air. We all remember the scares caused by Ebola, H1N1, and other emergent viruses. Such pathogens, however, are not the only, or perhaps even the primary, cause of health problems associ- ated with industrialization and globalization. Other stressors that endanger our health are economic (e.g., poverty), social (e.g., crowding, homelessness), political (e.g., terror- ism), and cultural (e.g., ethnic conflict). Poverty contributes to many illnesses, including arthritis, heart conditions, back problems, and hearing and vision impairment.

In the United States and other developed countries, good health has become something of an ethical imperative (Foucault 1990). Individuals are expected to regulate their behavior so as to achieve bodies in keeping with new medical knowledge. Those who do so acquire the status of sanitary citizens—people with modern understanding of the body, health, and illness. Such citizens practice hygiene and look to health care professionals when they are sick. People who act differently (e.g., smokers, overeaters, those who avoid doctors) are stigmatized and blamed for their own health problems (Briggs 2005; Foucault 1990).

Nowadays, even getting an epidemic disease such as cholera may be viewed as a moral failure, because people did not take proper precautions. It’s assumed that people who act rationally can avoid “preventable” diseases. Individuals are expected to follow scientifically based imperatives (e.g., “boil water,” “don’t smoke”). People (e.g., gay men, smokers, veterans) can become objects of avoidance and discrimination simply by belonging to a group seen as having a greater risk of poor health.

Medical anthropology also studies the impact of new scientific and medical tech- niques on ideas about life, death, and personhood (what it means to be a person). For decades, disagreements about personhood—such as about when life begins and ends— have been part of political and religious discussions of contraception, abortion, and as- sisted suicide. Recent technological and scientific advances have raised new debates about personhood associated with stem cells, “harvested” embryos, assisted reproduc- tion, genetic screening, cloning, and life-prolonging medical treatments.

Kaufman and Morgan (2005) emphasize the contrast between what they call low- tech and high-tech births and deaths. A desperately poor young mother dies of AIDS in Africa, while half a world away an American child of privilege is born as the result of a $50,000 in-vitro fertilization procedure. Medical anthropologists increasingly are con- cerned with how the boundaries of life and death are being questioned and negotiated in our globalized world.

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Anthropology and Business

For decades, anthropologists have used ethnographic procedures to understand organi- zations and other business settings (Briody and Trotter 2008; Cefkin 2009; A. Jordan 2013; B. Jordan 2013). Ethnographic research in an automobile factory, for example, might view workers, managers, and executives as different social categories participat- ing in a common system. Each group has its own characteristic attitudes and behavior patterns. The free-ranging nature of ethnography allows the anthropologist to move across levels and microcultures—from worker through management and back. Having learned the entire system by crossing and recrossing its internal boundaries, the anthro- pologist can become an effective “cultural broker,” translating managers’ goals or work- ers’ concerns to the other group (see Ferraro and Briody 2013). A free-ranging ethnographer can be a perceptive oddball in settings where information and decisions typically move through a rigid hierarchy. When allowed to converse freely with, and observe, all types and levels of personnel, the anthropologist gains a unique perspective on organizational conditions and problems.

Business executives, like public policy makers, run organizations that provide goods and services for people. For people! The field of market research, which employs an increasing number of anthropologists, is based on the need to know what actual and potential customers do, think, and want. Smart planners study and listen to people to understand what they desire in a product or service and how they use it—the meaningful role it plays in their lives.

Ethnographers can help a business to rethink faulty preconceptions and assumptions about their clients’ purchasing habits or service needs, and to discover what those clients really are seeking (see Graber and Atkinson 2012). Ethnography relies on in-depth ob- servation of people as they lead their everyday lives. Applying ethnographic techniques, business anthropologists shadow people—actual and potential customers—at home and at work. Researchers observe how those people interact with other people and products. They take notes and video-record behavior and interactions. Eventually, they draw con- clusions and make recommendations (see Ha n.d.).

Let’s consider now a few case studies illustrating the value of anthropology to busi- ness. In advertising, we hear phrases like “all new” and “new and improved” a lot more often than “old reliable.” The new, however, isn’t always improved. The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) learned this painful lesson in 1985 when it changed the formula of its premier soft drink, Coca-Cola, and introduced “New Coke.” That change provoked a national brouhaha, as hordes of customers protested. TCCC soon brought back old, fa- miliar, reliable Coke under the name “Coca-Cola Classic,” which thrives today. New Coke, now history, offers a classic case of how not to treat consumers. TCCC tried a top-down change (a change initiated at the top of a hierarchy rather than inspired by the people most affected by the change). Customers didn’t ask TCCC to change its product; executives made that decision, and customers rebelled.

In an article titled “An Anthropologist Walks into a Bar,” Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel Rasmussen (2014) describe a study commissioned by a beer company, which they call BeerCo. A team of anthropologists studied a dozen bars in Finland and the

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United Kingdom. The researchers immersed themselves in the life of each bar or pub, observing and getting to know owners, staff, and regulars. The team analyzed 150 hours of video, thousands of still photographs, and massive field notes. Their findings con- vinced BeerCo to abandon its previous “one-size-fits-all” approach and to launch a more differentiated and targeted campaign. BeerCo started customizing its promotional materials for different types of bars and bar owners. It trained its salesforce to under- stand and treat each bar owner as an individual. It enhanced loyalty to the brand by of- fering taxi service for wait staff who had to work late. BeerCo’s pub and bar sales rebounded. This case illustrates once again the value of knowing the local culture, and for businesses, of targeting products and services accordingly. (This chapter’s “Anthro- pology Today” provides yet another example of the value of cultural understanding for business expansion.)

Paco Underhill (2009) is a retail anthropologist whose influential book Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping has been translated into 27 languages. His market research company, Envirosell, specializes in the study of shopping habits (see Green 1999). Re- searchers follow shoppers around stores, recording their interactions with merchandise. Underhill’s team noted that Americans, on entering a store, tend to gravitate to the right, replicating a pattern used in driving and walking. Australians and Britons, who drive on the left, do the opposite. Based on this observation, Underhill recommended that North American stores place their best merchandise on the right side of the store. He also rec- ommended that stores and departments that cater primarily to women need to give men a place to sit and something to do. (I would add the additional recommendation that Wi-Fi should be easily available, since nowadays “something to do” typically involves a smartphone.) Another Underhill recommendation is that products designed for older people should be placed above the bottom shelf, which gets harder to reach as customers age. Finally, he stresses the key role of the dressing room, as the place where most buy- ing decisions are finalized. Dressing rooms should be clean and well-lit, with places to sit and for children to play (see Green 1999).

One common approach in market research is to assemble a focus group (a small group of people guided by a researcher as they discuss a topic). A limitation of fo- cus groups, surveys, and other common market research techniques is that they elicit only what people say, report, or write down, rather than observing real-time, real-life behavior, as anthropologists do. Focus groups also face the danger of group think, when one or two very vocal members unduly influence the entire group. When answering a set of survey questions, people want to answer as quickly as pos- sible. They have limited patience and imperfect recall. Their answers will be more accurate and complete when they are interviewed in person and probed for addi- tional information.

The ethnographic market research firm Ethnographic Solutions provides qualita- tive research, including a variety of ethnographic approaches, that has benefited nu- merous pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies. The firm’s website describes the value of several techniques, including physician–patient dialogue re- search. The goal is to understand how physicians and patients decide together to initi- ate and navigate a course of treatment, including the products to be used. Conducted in physicians’ offices, physician–patient dialogue research combines on-site

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interviewing and observation with later analysis of field notes and video-recorded interactions. The resulting perspective goes beyond traditional market research, which typically takes place in an artificial setting, such as a research facility or via a survey, and which relies on imperfect recall.

Public and Applied Anthropology

Many academic anthropologists, myself included, have worked occasionally as applied anthropologists. Often our role is to advise and consult about the direction of change in places where we originally did “academic” research. In my case, this has meant policy- relevant work on environmental preservation in Madagascar and poverty reduction in northeastern Brazil.

Other academics, while not doing applied anthropology per se, have urged anthro- pologists to engage more in what they call public anthropology (Borofsky 2000; Beck and Maida 2015) or public interest anthropology (Sanday 2003). Suggested ways of making anthropology more visible and relevant to the public include nonacademic pub- lishing; testifying at government hearings; consulting; acting as an expert witness; and engaging in citizen activism, electoral campaigns, and political administrations (Sanjek 2004).  Public anthropologists work to oppose policies that promote injustice and to reframe discussions of key social issues in the media and by public officials. As Barbara

Business anthropology in action: At the Intel Corporation in Hillsboro, Oregon, anthropologist Alexandra Zafiroglu displays a blanket with a huge photograph of the contents of one automobile. Zafiroglu works on a team directed by anthropologist Genevieve Bell (Intel’s Director of User Experience Research) studying objects stored in cars. This research provides insights about how drivers use hand-held mobile devices in conjunction with technology built into their cars. ©Leah Nash/The New York Times/Redux

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Rylko-Bauer and her colleagues (2006) point out, there is also a long tradition of work guided by such goals in applied anthropology (see also Beck and Maida 2013).

New media are helping to disseminate anthropological knowledge to a wider public. The world of cyberspace, including the blogosphere, constantly grows richer in the re- sources and communication opportunities available to anthropologists. Some of the most widely read anthropological blogs include Savage Minds, a group blog; Living Anthropologically, by Jason Antrosio and Neuroanthropology, by Greg Downey and Daniel Lende. Also see this detailed list of anthropology blogs, as updated for 2016: http://anthropologyreport.com/anthropology-blogs-2016/. Anthropologists participate as well in various listservs and networking groups (e.g., on LinkedIn and Research Gate). A bit of googling on your part will take you to anthropologists’ personal web- sites, as well as research project websites.

Careers and Anthropology

Many college students find anthropology interesting and consider majoring in it. However, their parents or friends may discourage them by asking, “What kind of job are you going to get with an anthropology degree?” The first step in answering that question is to consider the more general question “What do you do with any college major?” The answer is “Not much, without a good bit of effort, thought, and planning.” One survey of graduates of the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LS&A) showed that few had jobs that were obviously linked to their majors. Most professions, including medi- cine and law, require advanced degrees. Although many colleges offer bachelor’s degrees in engineering, business, accounting, and social work, master’s degrees often are needed to get the best jobs in those fields. Anthropologists, too, need an advanced degree, almost al- ways a PhD, to find gainful employment in academic, museum, or applied anthropology.

A broad college education, and even a major in anthropology, can be an excellent foundation for success in many fields. One survey of women executives showed that most had not majored in business but in the social sciences or humanities. Only after graduating from college did they study business, leading to a master’s degree in business administration (MBA). Those executives felt that the breadth of their college educations had contributed to their business careers. Anthropology majors go on to medical, law, and business schools and find success in many professions that often have little explicit connection to anthropology.

Anthropology’s breadth provides knowledge and an outlook on the world that are useful in many kinds of work. For example, an anthropology major combined with a master’s degree in business is excellent preparation for work in international business. Breadth is anthropology’s hallmark. Anthropologists study people biologically, cultur- ally, socially, and linguistically, across time and space, in various countries, in simple and complex settings. Most colleges offer anthropology courses that compare cultures, along with others that focus on particular world areas, such as Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. The knowledge of foreign areas acquired in such courses can be useful in many jobs. Anthropology’s comparative outlook and its focus on diverse lifestyles combine to provide an excellent foundation for overseas em- ployment (see Ellick and Watkins 2011; Omohundro 2001).

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Anthropology Today Culturally Appropriate Marketing

Innovation succeeds best when it is culturally appropriate. This axiom of applied anthropol- ogy could guide the international spread not only of development projects but also of businesses, such as fast food. Each time McDonald’s or Burger King expands to a new nation, it must devise a culturally appro- priate strategy for fitting into the new setting. McDonald’s has been very successful internationally. Almost 70 percent of its cur- rent annual revenue comes from sales out- side the United States. As the world’s most successful restaurant chain, McDonald’s has more than 36,000 restaurants in some 120 countries. One place where McDonald’s has expanded successfully is Brazil, where 100 million middle-class people, most living in densely packed cities, provide a concen- trated market for a fast-food chain. Still, it took McDonald’s some time to find the right marketing strategy for Brazil. In 1980 when I visited Brazil after a seven-year absence, I first noticed, as a manifestation of Brazil’s growing participa- tion in the world economy, the appear- ance of two McDonald’s restaurants in Rio de Janeiro. There wasn’t much difference between the Brazilian McDonald’s and an American one. The restaurants looked alike. The menus were more or less the same, as was the taste of the quarter- pounders. I picked up an artifact, a white paper bag with yellow lettering, exactly like the take-out bags then used in American McDonald’s. An advertising device, it car- ried several messages about how Brazilians could bring McDonald’s into their lives. However, it seemed to me that McDonald’s Brazilian ad campaign was missing some important points about how fast food should be marketed in a culture that valued large, leisurely lunches. The bag proclaimed, “You’re going to enjoy the [McDonald’s] difference,” and listed several “favorite places where you can enjoy McDonald’s products.” This list

confirmed that the marketing people were trying to adapt to Brazilian middle-class cul- ture, but they were making some mistakes. “When you go out in the car with the kids” transferred the uniquely developed North American cultural combination of highways, affordable cars, and suburban living to the very different context of urban Brazil. A sim- ilar suggestion was “traveling to the country place.” Even Brazilians who owned country places could not find McDonald’s, still con- fined to the cities then, on the road. The ad creator had apparently never attempted to drive up to a fast-food restaurant in a neigh- borhood with no parking spaces. Several other suggestions pointed cus- tomers toward the beach, where cariocas (Rio natives) do spend much of their leisure time. One could eat McDonald’s products “after a dip in the ocean,” “at a picnic at the beach,” or “watching the surfers.” These sug- gestions ignored the Brazilian custom of con- suming cold things, such as beer, soft drinks, ice cream, and ham and cheese sandwiches, on the beach. Brazilians don’t consider a hot, greasy hamburger proper beach food. They view the sea as “cold” and hamburgers as “hot”; they avoid “hot” foods at the beach. Also culturally dubious was the sugges- tion to eat McDonald’s hamburgers “lunch- ing at the office.” Brazilians prefer their main meal at midday, often eating at a lei- surely pace with business associates. Many firms serve ample lunches to their employ- ees. Other workers take advantage of a two-hour lunch break to go home to eat with the spouse and children. Nor did it make sense to suggest that children should eat hamburgers for lunch, since most kids attend school for half-day sessions and have lunch at home. Two other sugges- tions—“waiting for the bus” and “in the beauty parlor”—did describe common as- pects of daily life in a Brazilian city. However, these settings have not proved especially inviting to hamburgers or fish fillets.

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For work in contemporary North America as well, anthropology’s focus on culture and diversity is increasingly relevant. Every day we hear about cultural differences and about problems whose solutions require an ability to recognize and reconcile differences related to social variables such as race, ethnicity, gender, and class. Government, schools, hospitals, and businesses constantly deal with people from different social classes, ethnic groups, and cultural backgrounds. Physicians, attorneys, social workers, police officers, judges, teachers, and students can all do a better job if they understand cultural differences in a nation that is one of the most ethnically diverse in history.

Knowledge of the traditions and beliefs of the groups that make up a modern nation is important in planning and carrying out programs that affect those groups. Experience in planned social change—whether community organization in North America or economic development overseas—shows that a proper social study should be done before a project or policy is implemented. When local people want the change and it fits their lifestyle and traditions, it has a better chance of being successful, beneficial, and cost effective.

People with anthropology backgrounds do well in many fields (see https://savageminds. org/2014/05/05/who-majors-in-anthropology/ for some famous people who have studied anthropology.) Even if one’s job has little or nothing to do with anthropology in a formal or obvious sense, a background in anthropology provides a useful orientation when we work with our fellow human beings. For most of us, this means every day of our lives.

McDonald’s has expanded rapidly in Brazil, where, as in North America, young appetites have fueled the fast-food explo- sion. McDonald’s outlets now dot urban neighborhoods throughout Brazil, and the cost of hiring in-home help has skyrock- eted. Given these changes, Brazilian teenagers increasingly use McDonald’s for after-school snacks, and whole fami- lies have evening meals there. As an an- thropologist could have predicted, the fast-food industry has not revolutionized Brazilian food and meal customs. Rather, McDonald’s is succeeding because it has adapted to preexisting Brazilian cultural patterns. Once McDonald’s realized that more money could be made by fitting in with, rather than trying to Americanize, Brazilian meal habits, it started aiming its advertising at that goal. As of this writing (2017), McDonald’s has about 900 outlets in Brazil.

The homes of Brazilians who can afford McDonald’s products often have cooks and maids to do many of the things that fast-food restaurants do in the United States. The suggestion that McDonald’s products be eaten “while watching your favorite television program” is culturally appropriate, because Brazilians watch TV a lot. However, Brazil’s consuming classes can ask the cook to make a snack when hunger strikes. Indeed, much televiewing occurs during the light dinner served when the husband gets home from the office. Most appropriate to the Brazilian life- style was the suggestion to enjoy McDonald’s “on the cook’s day off.” Throughout Brazil, Sunday is that day. The Sunday pattern for middle-class families who live on the coast is a trip to the beach, liters of beer, a full midday meal around 3:00 P.M., and a light evening snack. McDonald’s found its niche in the Sunday evening meal, when families flock to the fast-food restaurant.

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Summary 1. Applied anthropology uses anthropological perspectives, theory, methods, and data

to identify, assess, and solve problems. Applied anthropologists have a range of employers. Examples are government agencies; development organizations; NGOs; tribal, ethnic, and interest groups; businesses; hospitals; social services; and educa- tional agencies. Applied anthropologists come from all four subfields. Ethnogra- phy is one of applied anthropology’s most valuable research tools.

2. Development anthropology focuses on social issues in, and the cultural dimension of, economic development. Not all governments seek to increase equality and end poverty. Resistance by elites to reform is typical. At the same time, local people rarely cooperate with projects requiring major and risky changes in their daily lives. Many projects seek to impose inappropriate property notions and incompatible social units on their intended beneficiaries. The best strategy for change is to base the social design for innovation on traditional social forms in each target area.

3. Anthropology and education researchers work in classrooms, homes, and other set- tings relevant to education and make policy recommendations based on their find- ings. Both academic and applied anthropologists study migration from rural areas to cities and across national boundaries. North America has become a popular arena for urban anthropological research on migration, ethnicity, poverty, and re- lated topics. Although rural and urban are different social systems, there is cultural diffusion from one to the other.

4. Medical anthropology is a biocultural field that studies variation in health care systems, including disease, illness, health standards, and disease theories. In a given setting, the characteristic diseases reflect diet, population density, economy, and social complexity. Native theories of illness may be personalistic, naturalistic, or emotionalistic. In applying anthropology to business, the key features are (1)  ethnography and observation as ways of gathering data, (2) a focus on diversity, and (3) cross-cultural expertise. Public anthropology attempts to extend anthropo- logical knowledge of social problems and issues to a wider and more influential audience.

5. A broad college education, including anthropology and foreign-area courses, offers an excellent background for many fields. Anthropology’s comparative, cross- cultural outlook provides an excellent basis for overseas employment. Even for work in North America, a focus on culture and cultural diversity is valuable. An- thropology majors attend medical, law, and business schools and succeed in many fields, some of which have little explicit connection with anthropology.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. This chapter uses the association between early anthropology and colonialism to

illustrate some of the dangers of early applied anthropology. We also learn how American anthropologists studied Japanese “culture at a distance” to predict the behavior of the enemies of the United States during World War II. Political and

Key Terms 429

military conflicts continue today. What role, if any, could and/or should applied anthropologists play in these conflicts?

2. This chapter describes some of the applications of anthropology in educational set- tings. Think back to your grade school or high school classroom. Were there any social issues that might have interested an anthropologist? Were there any problems that an applied anthropologist might have been able to help solve? How so?

3. Indicate your career plans, if known, and describe how you might apply the knowl- edge learned through introductory anthropology in your future vocation. If you have not yet chosen a career, pick one of the following: economist, engineer, diplo- mat, architect, or elementary school teacher. Why is it important to understand the culture and social organization of the people who will be affected by your work?

Key Terms anthropology and education, 414

curer, 419 development

anthropology, 410

disease, 417 health care

systems, 417

public anthropology, 424

scientific medicine, 419

urban anthropology, 416

illness, 417 increased equity,

410 medical

anthropology, 417

overinnovation, 412

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Chapter 18 The World System, Colonialism, and Inequality

The World System World-System Theory The Emergence of the World System

Industrialization Causes of the Industrial Revolution Socioeconomic Changes Associated with the Industrial Revolution Industrial Stratification

The Persistence of Inequality Wealth Distribution in the United States Environmental Risks on the American Periphery

Colonialism and Imperialism The First Phase of European Colonialism: Spain and Portugal Commercial Expansion and European Imperialism

The British Colonial Empire French Colonialism Colonialism and Identity Postcolonial Studies

Development Neoliberalism  Neoliberalism and NAFTA’S Economic Refugees

Communism, Socialism, and Postsocialism Communism Postsocialist Transitions

The World System Today

Anthropology Today: Mining Giant Compatible with Sustainability Institute?

The World System

Although fieldwork in small communities has been anthropology’s hallmark, isolated groups are impossible to find today. Truly isolated human societies probably never have existed. For thousands of years, human groups have been in contact with one another. Local societies always have participated in a larger system, which today has global di- mensions. We call it the modern world system, by which we mean a world in which na- tions are economically and politically interdependent.

A huge increase in international trade during and after the 15th century led to the capitalist world economy (Wallerstein 1982, 2004), a single world system committed to

The World System 431

production for sale or exchange, with the object of maximizing profits rather than supply- ing domestic needs. The world system and the relations among the countries within it are shaped by the capitalist world economy. Capital refers to wealth or resources invested in business, with the intent of generating further wealth—making a profit.

World-System Theory World-system theory can be traced to the French social historian Fernand Braudel. In his three-volume work Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century (1981, 1982, 1992), Braudel argued that societies consist of interrelated parts assembled into a sys- tem. Societies themselves are subsystems of larger systems, with the world system the largest. The key claim of world-system theory is that all the countries of the world belong to a global system that is marked by differences in wealth and power. This world system, based on capitalism, has existed at least since the 16th century, when the Old World established regular contact with the Americas.

World-system theory assigns particular countries to one of three different positions, based on their economic and political clout: core, semiperiphery, and periphery. The core consists of the strongest and most powerful nations, which have the most produc- tive economies and the greatest concentration of capital. The core monopolizes the most profitable activities, especially the control of world finance (Arrighi 2010). The semiperiphery is intermediate between the core and the periphery. Contemporary nations of the semiperiphery are industrialized. Like core nations, they produce and export both industrial goods and commodities, but they lack the power and economic dominance of core nations. Thus, Brazil, a semiperiphery nation, exports automobiles to Nigeria (a periphery nation) and auto engines, orange juice extract, coffee, and shrimp to the United States (a core nation). The periphery includes the world’s poorest and

Illustrating the contemporary global spread of capitalism is this photo of Hong Kong’s perpetually crowded Sai Yeung Choi Street, where throngs of people shop, sightsee, and search for restaurants. What international brands (an important component of today’s world capitalist economy) can you identify in the photo? ©Alex Woo. All rights reserved./Getty Images RF

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least privileged countries. Economic activities there are less mechanized than in the semiperiphery, although some degree of industrialization has reached even periphery nations. The periphery produces mainly raw materials, agricultural commodities, and, increasingly, human labor for export to the core and the semiperiphery.

In the United States and Western Europe today, immigration—documented and un- documented—from the periphery and semiperiphery supplies cheap labor, especially for agriculture, construction, and paid domestic labor. U.S. states as distant as Califor- nia, Michigan, and South Carolina make significant use of farm labor from Mexico. The availability of relatively cheap workers from noncore nations such as Mexico (in the United States) and Turkey (in Germany) benefits farmers and business owners in core countries while supplying remittances to families in the semiperiphery and periphery. As a result of 21st-century telecommunications technology, cheap labor doesn’t even need to migrate to the United States. Thousands of families in India are being supported as American companies outsource jobs—from telephone assistance to software engineering—to nations outside the core (see Nadeem 2011).

The Emergence of the World System International trade is much older than the capitalist world economy. As early as 600 B.C.E., the Phoenicians/Carthaginians sailed around Britain on regular trade routes and circumnavigated Africa. Likewise, Indonesia, the Middle East, and Africa have been linked in Indian Ocean trade for at least 2,000 years. By the 15th century, advances in navigation, mapmaking, and shipbuilding fueled the geographic expansion of trading

Jobs continue to migrate from core nations to places in the semiperiphery, such as this call center in India. ©Fredrik Renander/Alamy Stock Photo

Industrialization 433

networks. Europe established regular contact with Asia, Africa, and eventually the New  World (the Caribbean and the Americas). Christopher Columbus’s first voyage from Spain to the Bahamas and the Caribbean in 1492 was soon followed by additional voyages. These journeys opened the way for a major exchange of people, resources, products, ideas, and diseases, as the Old and New Worlds were forever linked (Crosby 2003; Diamond 2005; Mann 2011; Marks 2015). The Columbian exchange is the term for the spread of people, resources, products, ideas, and diseases between Eastern and Western Hemispheres after contact.

Previously in Europe, as throughout the world, rural people had produced mainly for their own needs, growing their own food and making clothing, furniture, and tools from local products. People produced beyond their immediate needs in order to pay taxes and to purchase trade items such as salt and iron. As late as 1650, the English diet was based on locally grown starches. In the 200 years that followed, however, the English became extraordinary consumers of imported goods. One of the earliest and most popular of those goods was sugar (Mintz 1985).

Sugarcane, originally domesticated in Papua New Guinea, was first processed in India. Reaching Europe via the eastern Mediterranean, it was carried to the Americas by Columbus (Mintz 1985). The climate of Brazil and the Caribbean proved ideal for grow- ing sugarcane, and Europeans built plantations there to supply the growing demand for sugar. This led to the development in the 17th century of a plantation economy based on a single cash crop—a system known as monocrop production.

The demand for sugar spurred the development of the transatlantic slave trade and New World plantation economies based on slave labor. By the 18th century, an increased English demand for raw cotton led to rapid settlement of what is now the southeastern United States and the emergence there of another slave-based monocrop production sys- tem. Like sugar, cotton was a key trade item that fueled the growth of the world system.

Industrialization

By the 18th century the stage had been set for the Industrial Revolution—the historical transformation (in Europe after 1750) of “traditional” into “modern” societies through industrialization. The Industrial Revolution began, in Europe, around 1750. However, the seeds of industrial society had been planted well before then (Gimpel 1988). For example, a knitting machine invented in England in 1589 was so far ahead of its time that it played a profitable role in factories two and three centuries later.

The Industrial Revolution required capital for investment, and that capital came from the established system of transoceanic commerce, which generated enormous profits. Wealthy people invested in machines and engines to drive machines. New technology and techniques increased production in both farming and manufacturing.

European industrialization eventually replaced the domestic system of production, also known as the home-handicraft system. In this system, an organizer-entrepreneur supplied raw materials to workers in their homes and collected finished products from them. This entrepreneur, whose sphere of operations might span several villages, owned the materials, paid for the work, and arranged the distribution of the finished product.

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Causes of the Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution began with machines that manufactured cotton products, iron, and pottery. These were widely used items whose manufacture could be broken down into simple routine motions that machines could perform. When manufacturing moved from homes to factories, where machinery replaced handwork, agrarian societies evolved into industrial ones. As factories produced cheap staple goods, the Industrial Revolution led to a dramatic increase in production. Industrialization fueled urban growth and created a new kind of city, with factories crowded together in places where coal and labor were cheap.

The Industrial Revolution began in England, for several reasons. More than other nations, England needed to innovate in order to meet a demand for staples—at home and from its far-flung colonies. As industrialization proceeded, Britain’s population began to increase dramatically. It doubled during the 18th century (especially after 1750) and did so again between 1800 and 1850. This demographic explosion fueled consumption, but British entrepreneurs could not meet the increased demand with traditional produc- tion methods. This spurred experimentation, innovation, further industrialization, and rapid technological change.

Also supporting early English industrialization were Britain’s advantages in natural resources. Britain was rich in coal and iron ore and had navigable coasts and waterways. It was a seafaring island-nation located at the crossroads of international trade. These features gave Britain a favored position for importing raw materials and exporting man- ufactured goods. Another factor in England’s industrial growth was the fact that much of its 18th-century colonial empire was occupied by English settler families, who looked to the mother country as they tried to replicate European civilization abroad. These colonies bought large quantities of English staples.

It also has been argued that particular cultural and religious factors contributed to industrialization. Many members of the emerging English middle class were Protestants,

In the home-handicraft, or domestic, system of production, an organizer supplied raw materials to workers in their homes and collected their products. Family life and work were intertwined, as in this English scene. Is there a modern equivalent to the domestic system of production?

Source: Library of Congress prints and Photographs Division [LC- USZ62-4801]

Industrialization 435

whose beliefs and values encouraged industry, thrift, the dissemination of new knowl- edge, inventiveness, and willingness to accept change (Weber 1904/1958). These cul- tural values were eminently compatible with the spirit of entrepreneurial innovation that propelled the Industrial Revolution.

Socioeconomic Changes Associated with the Industrial Revolution The socioeconomic changes that accompanied industrialization were mixed. English national income tripled between 1700 and 1815 and increased 30 times more by 1939. Standards of comfort rose, but prosperity was uneven. Initially, factory workers got de- cent wages, until owners started recruiting workers in areas where labor (including that of women and children) was cheap. By the 19th century, cities were polluted by factory smoke, and housing was crowded and unsanitary. People faced disease outbreaks and rising death rates. This was the world of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim— and Karl Marx.

Industrial Stratification The Industrial Revolution created a new class system—a new form of socioeconomic stratification. Based on his observations of 19th-century industrial capitalism in Eng- land, Karl Marx saw this stratification as a sharp and simple division between two op- posed classes: the bourgeoisie (capitalists) and the proletariat (propertyless workers) (Marx and Engels 1848/1976). The bourgeoisie traced its origins to overseas commerce, which had created a wealthy commercial class (White 2009).

Industrialization had shifted production from farms and cottages to mills and facto- ries, where mechanical power was available and where workers could be assembled to operate heavy machinery. The bourgeoisie owned the factories, mines, estates, and other means of production. Members of the working class, or proletariat, had to sell their labor to survive.

By promoting rural-to-urban migration, industrialization hastened the process of proletarianization—the separation of workers from the means of production. The bour- geoisie controlled not only factories but also schools, the press, and other key institu- tions. Class consciousness (personal identification and solidarity with one’s economic group) was a vital part of Marx’s view of class. He saw bourgeoisie and proletariat as having radically opposed interests. Marx viewed classes as powerful collective forces that could mobilize human energies to influence the course of history. Based on their common experience and interests, workers, he thought, would develop class conscious- ness, which could lead to revolutionary change.

Although England never experienced a proletarian revolution, workers did organize to protect their interests and increase their share of industrial profits. During the 19th century, trade unions and socialist parties emerged, expressing a rising anticapitalist spirit. This early English labor movement worked to remove young children from facto- ries and limit the hours during which women and children could work. The profile of stratification in industrial core nations gradually took shape. Capitalists controlled pro- duction, but labor was organizing for better wages and working conditions. By 1900, many governments had factory regulation and social-welfare programs. Mass living standards in core nations rose as population grew.

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Today, the existence of publicly traded companies complicates the division between capitalists and workers. Through pension plans and personal investments, some workers have become part-owners rather than propertyless workers. Today’s key capitalist isn’t the factory owner, who may have been replaced by stockholders, but the CEO or the chair of the board of directors, neither of whom may actually own the corporation.

The social theorist Max Weber faulted Karl Marx for an overly simple and exclu- sively economic view of stratification. Weber (1922/1968) looked beyond class and identified three (separate but correlated) dimensions of social stratification: wealth, power, and prestige. Weber also believed that social identities based on nationality, eth- nicity, and religion could take priority over class (social identity based on economic status). In fact, the modern world system is cross-cut by collective identities based on nationality, ethnicity, and religion. Class conflicts tend to occur within nations, and na- tionalism has impeded global class solidarity, particularly of proletarians.

Although the capitalist class dominates politically in most countries, growing wealth has made it easier for core nations to benefit their workers. However, the improvement in core workers’ living standards wouldn’t have occurred without the world system. The wealth that flows from periphery and semiperiphery to core has helped core capitalists maintain their profits while satisfying the demands of core workers. In the periphery and semiperiphery, wages and living standards are lower. The current world stratifica- tion system features a substantial contrast between both capitalists and workers in the core nations, on the one hand, and workers on the periphery, on the other.

The Persistence of Inequality

Modern stratification systems aren’t simple and dichotomous. They include (particu- larly in core and semiperiphery nations) a middle class of skilled and professional work- ers. Gerhard Lenski (1966) argued that social equality tends to increase in advanced industrial societies. The masses improve their access to economic benefits and political power. In Lenski’s scheme, the shift of political power to the masses reflects the growth of the middle class, which reduces the polarization between owning and working classes. The proliferation of middle-class occupations creates opportunities for social mobility and a more complex stratification system (Giddens 1973; Kerbo 2012).

Wealth Distribution in the United States Most contemporary Americans claim to belong to the middle class, which they tend to perceive as a vast, undifferentiated group. There are, however, significant, and growing, socioeconomic contrasts within the middle class, and especially between the richest and the poorest Americans. Table 18.1 shows how income varied from the top to the bottom fifths (quintiles) of American households in 2015. In that table, we see that the top fifth earned more than half of all income generated in the United States, 16 times the share of the bottom fifth. This 2015 ratio of 16:1 compares with 14:1 in 2000 and 11:1 in 1970. Figure 18.1 examines changes in mean (average) income over time—from 1967 to 2014—for the five quintiles and top 5 percent of American households. Notice the much greater rise for the top quintile, and especially for the top 5 percent, compared with the bottom quintiles.

The Persistence of Inequality 437

The top 1 percent have been especially favored, receiving about 95 percent of the income gains since the Great Recession of 2007–2009 ended. Higher stock prices, home values, and corporate profits propelled the recovery among affluent Americans, while blue- and white-collar workers continued to feel the effects of high unemployment and stagnant wages (Lowrey 2013).

TABLE 18.1 U.S. National Income by Quintile, 2015

Source: Proctor, Bernadette D., Jessica L. Semega, and Melissa A. Kollar, 2016, “Income and Poverty in the United States: 2015”. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-256. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Copyright, 2016

Segment of % Share of Mean Population National Income Household Income

Top 5 percent 22.1 $350,870 Top 20 percent 51.1 202,366 Second 20 percent 23.2 92,031 Third 20 percent 14.3 56,832 Fourth 20 percent 8.2 32,631 Bottom 20 percent 3.1 12,457

1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Top 5%

Household Segment

$332,347 Top Quintile $194,053 2nd Quintile $87,834 Middle Quintile $54,041 4th Quintile $31,087 Bottom Quintile $11,676

2014 Mean Income

2010 2015 $0

$50,000

$100,000

$150,000

$200,000

$250,000

$300,000

$350,000

FIGURE 18.1 Mean (Average) Household Income by Quintile and Top 5 Percent, 1967–2014 Source: DeNavas-Walt, C., and B. D. Proctor, “Table H-3: Mean Household Income Received by Each Fifth and Top 5 Percent, All Races: 1967-2014.” Income and Poverty in the United States: 2014. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-252. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2015

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When we consider wealth (investments, property, possessions, and the like) rather than income, the contrast is even more striking. Figure 18.2 shows that the top 1 percent of American families hold 39.8 percent of the nation’s wealth (Coy 2014; Saez and Zucman 2014). The combined assets of the 16,000 ultra-rich families who comprise the top 0.01 percent hold assets equal to the total wealth of the bottom two-thirds of American families. Figure 18.2 also shows that the bottom 90 percent of American households hold barely a quarter (25.6 percent) of the nation’s total wealth. Recognition of such disparities, and that the rich have been getting richer and the poor, poorer, led to the Occupy movement of 2011 and fueled Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. Both the Occupy movement and the Sanders campaign drew attention to the lagging economic recovery for a majority of Americans.

Environmental Risks on the American Periphery The nations on the periphery of the world system have the least economic development and political clout. Furthermore, within any given nation, certain regions and communi- ties are similarly disadvantaged. One expression of this inequality is exposure to pollu- tion and environmental hazards. Communities that are poorer and predominantly minority are more likely to be the victims of toxic waste exposure than are more affluent or even average (middle-class) communities.

News reports in 2015 and 2016 highlighted the plight of Flint, Michigan, whose wa- ter supply was seriously contaminated following a 2014 cost-cutting switch in its water source. The state of Michigan, which had seized control of Flint’s city administration

The presidential candidacy of “Democratic Socialist” Bernie Sanders (shown here at a 2016 rally at Philadelphia’s Temple University) critiqued a system advantaging “millionaires and billionaires” and advocated a “political revolution.” Did that happen? What demographic groups made up Sanders’s constituency? ©Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images

The Persistence of Inequality 439

and budget from locally elected officials during a financial emergency, temporarily switched Flint’s water source from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the Flint River. The switch, which took place in April 2014, was to last until completion, in an estimated three years, of a new supply line from Lake Huron. The Flint River had a reputation for nastiness, and, soon after the switch, residents complained their water looked, smelled, and tasted funny (McLaughlin 2016).

Residents complained about myriad health problems, including skin rashes, hair loss, nausea, dizziness, and pain. A local pediatrician found that lead levels in Flint toddlers had doubled, and in some cases tripled, since the switch. After a research team confirmed the toxicity of Flint’s water supply, officials finally abandoned the Flint River (Kozlowski 2016), switching back to the Detroit River and Lake Huron in October 2015. By this time, however, irreparable damage had been done not only to public health but also to the lead water pipes. The state responded by handing out filters and bottled water (McLaughlin 2016). Arguments erupted about who should fund the replacement of Flint’s corroded water pipes. On January 5, 2016, Michigan governor Rick Snyder declared Flint to be in a state of emergency. Soon thereafter, President Barack Obama declared the city to be in a federal state of emergency, authorizing additional help from FEMA (the Federal Emer- gency Management Agency) and the Department of Homeland Security. As of this writ- ing, residents of Flint have filed more than a dozen lawsuits, faulting various agencies and individuals, including the city of Flint, the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, and Governor Snyder, for violating the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act.

That this story of toxic endangerment happened in one of Michigan’s least affluent cities is no accident. Throughout the United States (as in many other nations),

Bottom 90 percent of families

Top 0.01 percent of families

Th e

1 P er

ce nt

90–99 percent

99–99.9 percent

99.9–99.99 percent

25.6%

34.6%

18.3%

10.4%

11.1% 16,000 families possess $6 trillion in assets—equal to the total wealth of the bottom two-thirds of American families

The ultra-rich

FIGURE 18.2 U.S. Distribution of Wealth, with a Breakdown of the Top 1 Percent into Three Groups—Rich, Very Rich, and Ultra-Rich

See also Coy (2014) and Saez and Zucman (2014).

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environmental hazards disproportionately endanger poor and minority communities. Flint’s population is 57 percent African American. Over 40 percent of its residents live below the poverty line, compared with state and national rates of 17 percent and 15  percent, respectively. One doubts that similar events would have played out in one of Michigan’s affluent communities.

Research demonstrates that industries typically target minority and low-income neighborhoods when deciding where to locate polluting facilities (Erickson 2016). Environmental researchers Paul Mohai and Robin Saha (2015) analyzed 30 years of data on the placement of hazardous waste facilities in the United States. Their sample included 319 commercial hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities built between 1966 and 1995. Their analysis revealed a clear pattern of racial and so- cioeconomic bias in the location of environmental hazards. Polluting facilities and other locally unwanted land uses were, and still are, located disproportionately in non- White and poor neighborhoods. These communities have fewer resources and political clout to oppose the location of such facilities. Flint’s story has garnered headlines, but there are hundreds more stories waiting to be told about environmental threats on the American periphery.

Colonialism and Imperialism

The major forces influencing cultural interactions during the past 500 years have been commercial expansion, capitalism, and the dominance of colonial and core nations (Wallerstein 2004; Wolf 1982). Colonialism is the political, social, economic, and cul- tural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended time. The colonial power establishes and maintains a presence in the dominated territory, in the form of colonists and administrative personnel (see Stoler, McGranahan, and Perdue 2007). Imperialism refers to a conscious policy of extending the rule of a country or an empire over foreign nations and of taking and holding foreign colonies (see Burbank and Cooper 2010). Imperialism goes back to early states, including Egypt in the Old World and the Incas in the New. A Greek empire was forged by Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar and his successors spread the Roman empire. More recent examples in- clude the British, French, and Soviet empires (see Burbank and Cooper 2010).

If imperialism is almost as old as the state, then colonialism can be traced back to the Phoenicians, who established colonies along the eastern Mediterranean 3,000 years ago. The ancient Greeks and Romans were avid colonizers as well as empire builders (see Pagden 2015; Stearns 2016).

The First Phase of European Colonialism: Spain and Portugal The first phase of modern colonialism began with the European “Age of Discovery”— of the Americas and of a sea route to the Far East. During the 16th century, Spain, hav- ing conquered Mexico (the Aztec empire) and Peru-Bolivia (the Incas), explored and colonized widely in the Caribbean, the southern portions of what was to become the United States, and Central and South America. In the Pacific, Spain extended its rule to the Philippines and Guam. The Portuguese colonial empire included Brazil, South

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America’s largest colonial territory; Angola and Mozambique in Africa; and Goa in South Asia. Rebellions and wars aimed at independence ended the first phase of European colonialism by the early 19th century. Brazil declared independence from Portugal in 1822. By 1825 most of Spain’s colonies had gained their political indepen- dence. Spain held on to Cuba and the Philippines until 1898 but otherwise withdrew from the colonial field. During the first phase of colonialism, Spain and Portugal, along with Britain and France, were the major colonizing nations (see Herzog 2015). The last two (Britain and France) dominated the second phase of colonialism.

Commercial Expansion and European Imperialism At an accelerating pace during the 19th century, European business interests sought markets overseas. This drive for commercial expansion led to European imperialism in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. During the second half of the 19th century, European impe- rial expansion was aided by improved transportation, which facilitated the colonization of vast areas of sparsely settled lands in Australia and the interior of North and South America. The new colonies purchased goods from the industrial centers and shipped back wheat, cotton, wool, mutton, beef, and leather. The first phase of European colo- nialism had been the exploration and exploitation of the Americas and the Caribbean, after Columbus. A second phase began as European nations competed for colonies be- tween 1875 and 1914.

The British Colonial Empire Like several other European nations, Britain had two stages of colonialism (see Darwin 2013). The first began with the Elizabethan voyages of the 16th century. During the 17th century, Britain acquired most of the eastern coast of North America, Canada’s St. Lawrence basin, islands in the Caribbean, slave stations in Africa, and interests in India.

The British shared the exploration and early settlement of the New World with the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Dutch. The British by and large left Mexico, along with Central and South America, to the Spanish and the Portuguese. The end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763 forced a French retreat from most of Canada and India, where France previously had competed with Britain (Cody 1998). The American Revolution ended the first stage of British colonialism. India, Canada, and various Caribbean is- lands remained under British control.

The second stage of British colonialism—the British empire, on which the “sun never set,” rose from the ashes of the first (see Black 2015). Beginning in 1788, but in- tensifying after 1815, the British settled Australia. Britain had acquired Dutch South Africa by 1815. By 1819 Singapore anchored a British trade network that extended to much of South Asia and along the coast of China. By this time, the empires of Britain’s traditional rivals, particularly Spain, had been severely diminished in scope. Britain’s position as imperial power and the world’s leading industrial nation was unchallenged.

Britain’s colonial expansion continued during the Victorian Era (1837–1901). Queen Victoria’s prime minister Benjamin Disraeli guided a foreign policy justified by a view of imperialism as shouldering “the white man’s burden”—a phrase coined by the poet Rudyard Kipling. People in the empire were seen as incapable of governing, so British guidance was needed to civilize and Christianize them. This paternalistic and racist

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doctrine was used to legitimize Britain’s acquisition and control of parts of central Africa and Asia (Cooper 2014).

The British empire reached its maximum extent around 1914, when it covered a fifth of the world’s land surface and ruled a fourth of its population (see Figure 18.3). After World War II, the British empire began to fall apart, with the rise of nationalist move- ments for independence. India gained its independence in 1947, as did the Republic of Ireland in 1949. The independence movement accelerated in Africa and Asia during the late 1950s (see Buettner 2016). Today, the ties that remain between Britain and its former colonies are mainly linguistic or cultural rather than political (Cody 1998).

French Colonialism French colonialism also had two phases. The first began with the explorations of the early 1600s. Prior to the French revolution in 1789, missionaries, explorers, and traders carved out niches for France in Canada, the Louisiana territory, several Caribbean islands, and parts of India, which were lost along with Canada to Great Britain in 1763 (Harvey 1980).

The foundations of the second French empire were established between 1830 and 1870. In Great Britain the drive for profit led expansion, but French colonialism was spurred more by the state, church, and armed forces than by pure business interests. France acquired Algeria and part of what eventually became Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam). By 1914 the French empire covered 4 million square miles and included some 60 million people (see Figure 18.4). By 1893, French rule had been fully established in Indochina. Tunisia and Morocco became French protectorates in 1883 and 1912, respectively (see Conklin, Fishman, and Zaretsky 2015).

FIGURE 18.3 Map of the British Empire in 1765 and 1914

NORTH AMERICA

SOUTH AMERICA

AFRICA

INDIA

ASIA

AUSTRALIA

PACIFIC OCEAN

PACIFIC OCEAN

INDIAN OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

ARCTIC OCEAN

Empire 1765 Empire 1914

THE BRITISH EMPIRE

Colonialism and Imperialism 443

On January 1, 1900, a British officer in India receives a pedicure from a servant. What does this photo say to you about colonialism? Who gives pedicures in your society? ©Hulton Archive/Getty Images

FRENCH GUIANA

FRANCE

FRENCH NORTH AFRICA FRENCH

WEST AFRICA

FRENCH EQUATORIAL

AFRICA

MADAGASCAR

FRENCH INDOCHINA

FRENCH SOMALILAND

PACIFIC OCEAN

PACIFIC OCEAN

INDIAN OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

ARCTIC OCEAN

Empire 1914

THE FRENCH EMPIRE

FIGURE 18.4 Map of the French Empire at Its Height around 1914

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To be sure, the French, like the British, had substantial business interests in their colonies, but they also sought, again like the British, international glory and prestige. The French promulgated a mission civilisatrice, their equivalent of Britain’s “white man’s burden.” The goal was to implant French culture and language throughout the colonies.

The French used two forms of colonial rule: indirect rule, governing through native leaders and existing political structures, in areas with long histories of state organiza- tion, such as Morocco and Tunisia; and direct rule by French officials in many areas of Africa, where the French imposed new government structures to control diverse socie- ties, many of them previously stateless. Like the British empire, the French empire began to disintegrate after World War II. France fought long—and ultimately futile—wars to keep its empire intact in Indochina and Algeria.

Colonialism and Identity Many geopolitical labels in the news today had no equivalent meaning before colonial- ism. Whole countries, along with social groups and divisions within them, were colonial inventions. In West Africa, for example, by geographic logic, several adjacent countries could be one (Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia). Instead, they are separated by linguistic, political, and economic contrasts promoted under colonialism.

Hundreds of ethnic groups and “tribes” are colonial constructions (see Ranger 1996). The Sukuma of Tanzania, for instance, were first registered as a single tribe by the co- lonial administration. Then missionaries standardized a series of dialects into a single Sukuma language, into which they translated the Bible and other religious texts, and which they taught in missionary schools. Over time this standardized the Sukuma lan- guage and ethnicity (Finnstrom 1997).

In the East African countries of Rwanda and Burundi, farmers and herders live in the same areas and speak the same language. Historically they have shared the same social world, although their social organization is “extremely hierarchical,” almost “castelike” (Malkki 1995, p. 24). There has been a tendency to see the pastoral Tutsis as superior to the agricultural Hutus. Tutsis have been presented as nobles, Hutus as commoners. Yet when distributing identity cards in Rwanda, the Belgian colonizers simply identified all people with more than 10 head of cattle as Tutsi. Owners of fewer cattle were registered as Hutus (Bjuremalm 1997). Years later, these arbitrary colonial registers were used systematically for “ethnic” identification during the mass killings (genocide) that took place in Rwanda in 1994 (see Totten and Ubaldo 2011).

Postcolonial Studies In anthropology, history, and literature, the field of postcolonial studies has gained prominence since the 1970s (see Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 2013; Nayar 2016; Stoler, McGranahan, and Perdue 2013). Postcolonial studies focus on the past and pres- ent interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized (mainly after 1800). In 1914, European empires ruled more than 85 percent of the world (see Streets- Salter and Getz 2016). The term postcolonial also has been used to describe the second half of the 20th century in general, the period following colonialism. Even more

Development 445

generically, postcolonial may be used to signify a position against colonialism, imperi- alism, and Eurocentrism (Buettner 2016; Petraglia-Bahri 1996; Stoler et al. 2013).

The former colonies (postcolonies) can be divided into settler, nonsettler, and mixed (Petraglia-Bahri 1996). The settler countries, with large numbers of European colonists and sparser native populations, include Australia and Canada. Examples of nonsettler countries include India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Senegal, Madagascar, and Jamaica. All these had substantial native populations and relatively few European settlers. Mixed countries include South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Algeria. Such countries had significant European settlement despite having sizable native populations.

Given the varied experiences of such countries, postcolonial has to be a loose term. The United States, for instance, was colonized by Europeans and fought a war for inde- pendence from Britain. Is the United States a postcolony? It usually isn’t perceived as such, given its current world power position, its treatment of Native Americans (some- times called internal colonialism), and its annexation of other parts of the world. Re- search in postcolonial studies is growing, permitting a wide-ranging investigation of power relations in varied contexts. Broad topics in the field include the formation of empires, the impact of colonization, and the state of the postcolony today.

Development

During the Industrial Revolution, a strong current of thought viewed industrialization as a beneficial process of organic development and progress. Many economists still as- sume that industrialization increases production and income. They seek to create in to- day’s “developing” countries a process like the one that first occurred spontaneously in 18th-century Great Britain.

We have seen that Britain used the notion of “the white man’s burden” to justify its imperialist expansion and that France claimed to be engaged in a mission civilisatrice, a civilizing mission, in its colonies. Both these ideas illustrate an intervention philosophy, an ideological justification for outsiders to guide native peoples in specific directions. Economic development plans also have intervention philosophies. John Bodley (2012) argues that the basic belief behind interventions—whether by colonialists, missionaries, governments, or development planners—has been the same for more than one hundred years. This belief is that industrialization, Westernization, and individualism are desir- able evolutionary advances that will bring long-term benefits to local people.

Neoliberalism One currently influential intervention philosophy is neoliberalism. This term encom- passes a set of assumptions that have become widespread during the past 30 years. Neoliberal policies are being implemented in developing nations, including postsocial- ist societies (e.g., those of the former Soviet Union). Neoliberalism is the current form of the classic economic liberalism laid out in Adam Smith’s famous capitalist manifesto, The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, soon after the Industrial Revolution. Smith advocated laissez-faire (hands-off) economics as the basis of capitalism: The government

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should stay out of its nation’s economic affairs. Free, unregulated trade, Smith argued, is the best way for a nation’s economy to develop. There should be no restrictions on manufacturing, no barriers to commerce, and no tariffs. This philosophy is called “lib- eralism” because it aims at liberating, or freeing, the economy from government con- trols. Economic liberalism encouraged “free” enterprise and competition, with the goal of generating profits. (Ironically, Adam Smith’s liberalism is similar to today’s capitalist “conservatism.”)

Economic liberalism prevailed in the United States until President Franklin Roos- evelt’s New Deal during the 1930s. The Great Depression produced a turn to Keynesian economics, which challenged liberalism. John Maynard Keynes (1927, 1936) insisted that full employment was necessary for capitalism to grow, that governments and central banks should intervene to increase employment, and that government should promote the common good.

Especially since the fall of Communism (1989–1991), there has been a revival of neoliberalism, which has been spreading globally. Around the world, neoliberal policies have been imposed by powerful financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank (see Edelman and Haugerud 2005). Neoliberalism entails open (tariff- and barrier-free) international trade and investment. Profits are sought through the lowering of costs, whether through improving productivity, automating, laying off workers, or seeking workers who accept lower wages. In exchange for loans, the governments of postsocialist and developing nations have been required to accept the neoliberal premise that deregulation leads to economic growth, which will eventually benefit everyone through a process sometimes called “trickle down.” Accompanying the belief in free markets and the idea of cutting costs is a tendency to impose austerity measures that cut government expenses. This can entail reduced public spending on education, health care, and other social services.

Neoliberalism and NAFTA’s Economic Refugees Most Americans are aware that there has been large-scale Mexican migration to the United States since the 1990s. Most are unaware, however, that the migratory balance has shifted in recent years. Between 2009 and 2014, the number of Mexicans returning to Mexico actu- ally exceeded the number entering the United States (Gonzalez-Barrera 2015). Americans also are familiar with rhetoric (especially during and after the 2016 presidential campaigns) about negative effects of trade agreements on American workers. Much less common is knowledge about how the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been harmful to Mexico. Anthropologist Ana Aurelia López (2011) argues convincingly that international forces, including new technologies and NAFTA, have destroyed traditional Mexican farming systems, degraded agricultural land, and displaced Mexican farmers and small-business people—thereby fueling the migration of millions of undocumented Mexi- cans to the United States. The following account is a synopsis of her findings.

For thousands of years, Mexican farmers grew corn (maize) in a sustainable manner. Generation after generation, farmers selected diverse strains of corn well adapted to a huge variety of specific microclimates. Mexico became a repository of corn genetic diversity for the world. When corn grown elsewhere developed disease or pest susceptibility or was of poor quality, Mexico provided other countries with genetically superior plants.

Development 447

Before NAFTA, Mexico supported its farmers by buying a portion of their harvest each year at an elevated cost through price supports. This corn went to a countrywide chain of successful CONASUPO (Compañía Nacional de Subsistencias Populares) stores, which sold corn and other staple foodstuffs below market price to the urban and rural poor. Tariffs protected Mexican farmers from the entrance of foreign corn, such as that grown in the United States.

The first assault on Mexico’s sustainable farming culture began in the 1940s when “Green Revolution” technologies were introduced, including seeds that required chemi- cal inputs (e.g., fertilizers). The Mexican government encouraged farmers to replace their traditional, genetically diverse maíz crillo (“creole corn”) with the genetically ho- mogenized maíz mejorado (“improved corn”), a hybrid from the United States. Agro- chemical companies initially supplied the required chemical inputs free of charge.

Company representatives visited rural villages and offered free samples of seeds and agro- chemicals to a few farmers. As news of unusually large first-year crops spread, other farmers abandoned their traditional corn strains for the “improved,” chemically dependent corn. As the transition accelerated, the price of both the new seeds and the associated chemical inputs began to rise and kept on rising. Eventually farmers no longer could afford either the seeds or the required agrochemicals. When cash-strapped farmers tried to return to planting their for- mer maíz criollo seeds, the plants would grow but corn would not appear. Only the hybrid seeds from the United States would produce corn on the chemically altered soils. Today over 60 percent of Mexico’s farmland is degraded due to the spread of agrochemicals—chemical

Demonstrators in Mexico City protest NAFTA’s removal of import tariffs on farm goods entering Mexico from the United States and Canada. ©Eduardo Verdugo/AP Images

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fertilizers and pesticides. (This chapter’s “Anthropology Today” describes another case of environmental degradation due to chemical pollution, with mining as the culprit.)

NAFTA, the “free trade” agreement that went into effect in 1994, produced another major assault on traditional Mexican farming. Loan agreements needed to implement NAFTA forced Mexico to restructure its economy along neoliberal lines. The govern- ment had to end its price supports for corn grown by small-scale farmers. Also ended were Mexico’s CONASUPO food stores, which had benefited the rural and urban poor.

These terminations caused considerable harm to Mexico’s farmers and its urban and rural poor. American agricultural industries, by contrast, have benefited from NAFTA. The U.S. government continues to subsidize its own corn farmers, who otherwise would go out of business. Prior to NAFTA, Mexico’s tariffs made the sale of U.S. corn in Mexico unprofitable. Under NAFTA, Mexico’s corn tariffs were phased out, and corn from the United States began flooding the Mexican markets.

The NAFTA economy offers Mexico’s small-scale corn farmers few options: (1) stay in rural Mexico and suffer, (2) look for work in a Mexican city, or (3) migrate to the United States in search of work. NAFTA did not create a common labor market (i.e., the ability of Mexicans, Americans, and Canadians to move freely across each country’s borders and work legally anywhere in North America). Nor did NAFTA make provi- sions for the predicted 15 million Mexican corn farmers who would be forced off the land as a result of the trade agreement. As could have been expected (and planned for), millions of Mexicans migrated to the United States.

Because of NAFTA, Mexican corn farmers have fled the countryside, and U.S.-subsidized corn has flooded the Mexican market. A declining number of tradi- tional farmers remain to plant and conserve Mexico’s unique corn varieties. Between one-third and one-half of Mexico’s corn now is imported from the United States, much of it by U.S.-based Archer-Daniels-Midland, the world’s largest corporate corn exporter. NAFTA also has facilitated the entrance of other giant U.S. corporations into Mexico: Walmart, Dow Agribusiness, Monsanto, Marlboro, and Coca-Cola. These multinationals, in turn, have displaced many small Mexican businesses, creat- ing yet another wave of immigrants—former shopkeepers and their employees—to the United States.

We can summarize the impact of NAFTA on the Mexican economy: destroying tra- ditional small-scale farming, degrading farmland, displacing farmers and small-business people, and fueling massive migration to the United States. In migrating, these millions of economic refugees have faced daunting challenges, including separation from their families and homeland, dangerous border crossings, and the ever-present possibility of deportation from the United States. As of this writing, under American President, Donald J. Trump, their fate has become even more uncertain.

Within today’s world system, comparable effects of neoliberal policies extend well beyond Mexico. As contemporary forces of globalization transform rural land- scapes worldwide, rural–urban and transnational migration have become global phenomena. Over and over again, Green Revolution technologies have transformed subsistence into cash economies, fueling a need for money to acquire foreign inputs while hooking the land on chemicals, reducing genetic diversity and sustainability,

Communism, Socialism, and Postsocialism 449

and forcing the poorest farmers off the land. Few Americans are aware, specifically, of NAFTA’s role in ending a 7,000-year-old sustainable farming culture and displacing millions of Mexicans and, more generally, that comparable developments are happening all over the world.

Communism, Socialism, and Postsocialism

The labels First World, Second World, and Third World represent a common, although ethnocentric, way of categorizing nations. The First World refers to the “democratic West”—traditionally conceived in opposition to a Second World ruled by Communism. The Second World refers to the former Soviet Union and the socialist and once-socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Asia. Proceeding with this classification, the “less- developed countries,” or “developing nations,” make up the Third World.

Communism The two meanings of communism involve how it is written, whether with a lowercase (small) or an uppercase (large) c. Small-c communism describes a social system in which property is owned by the community and in which people work for the common good. Large-C Communism was a political movement and doctrine seeking to over- throw capitalism and to establish a form of communism such as that which prevailed in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1917 to 1991. The heyday of Communism was a 40-year period from 1949 to 1989, when more Communist regimes existed than at any time before or after. Today only 5 Communist states remain—China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam, compared with 23 in 1985.

Communism, which originated with Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and took its inspiration from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, was not uniform over time or among countries. All Communist systems were authoritarian (promoting obedience to authority rather than individual freedom). Many were totalitarian (banning rival parties and demanding total submission of the individual to the state). The Communist Party monopolized power in every Communist state, and relations within the party were highly centralized and strictly disciplined. Communist nations had state ownership, rather than private ownership, of the means of production. Finally, all Communist re- gimes, with the goal of advancing communism, cultivated a sense of belonging to an international movement (Brown 2001).

Postsocialist Transitions Socialism is a sociopolitical organization and economic system in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the government, rather than by individuals or corporations. Because of their state ownership, Communist nations were also social- ist, and their successors  are referred to as postsocialist.  Neoliberal economists as- sumed that dismantling and privatizing the Soviet Union’s planned economy would raise gross domestic product (GDP) and living standards. The goal was to enhance production by substituting a free market system and providing incentives through

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privatization. In October 1991, Boris Yeltsin, who had been elected president of Russia that June, announced a program of radical market-oriented reform, pursuing a postsocialist changeover to capitalism. Yeltsin’s program of “shock therapy” cut sub- sidies to farms and industries and ended price controls. During the 1990s, postsocial- ist Russia endured a series of disruptions, leading to declines in its GDP, average life expectancy, and birthrate, as well as increased poverty. In 2008–2009, Russia shared in the global recession after 10 years of economic growth, but its economy recuper- ated rapidly and was growing again by 2010, as were its birthrate and average life expectancy. The poverty rate has fallen substantially since the late 1990s but recently has been on the rise—even as Moscow is home to more billionaires than New York City or London (Rapoza 2012). The 2014 Russian poverty rate of 13.4 percent was a bit below the American rate of 14.8 percent the same year.

The World System Today

The spread of industrialization continues today, although nations have shifted their posi- tions within the world system. By 1900, the United States had become a core nation, having overtaken Great Britain in iron, coal, and cotton production. In a few decades (1868–1900), Japan changed from a medieval handicraft economy to an industrial one, joining the semiperiphery by 1900 and moving to the core between 1945 and 1970. In- dia and China have joined Brazil as leaders of the semiperiphery. The map in Figure 18.5 shows the world system today.

PACIFIC OCEAN

PACIFIC OCEAN

INDIAN OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

ARCTIC OCEAN

Core Semiperiphery Periphery Unclassified

FIGURE 18.5 The World System Today Source: Kottak, Conrad, Anthropology, 10th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education, 2004, fig 23.5, p. 660. Copyright © 2004. Used with permission of McGraw-Hill Education.

The World System Today 451

Twentieth-century industrialization added hundreds of new industries and millions of new jobs. Production increased, often beyond immediate demand, spurring strate- gies, such as advertising, to sell everything industry could churn out. Mass production gave rise to a culture of consumption, which valued acquisitiveness and conspicuous consumption.

How do things stand today? Worldwide, young people are abandoning traditional subsistence pursuits and seeking cash. A popular song once queried “How’re you gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?” Nowadays most people have seen Paree—Paris, that is—along with other world capitals, maybe not in person but in print or on-screen. Young people today are better educated and wiser in the ways of the world than ever before. Increasingly they are exposed to the material and cultural promises of a better life away from the farm. They seek paying jobs, but work is scarce, spurring migration within and across national boundaries. If they can’t get cash legally, they seek it illegally.

Recently, job opportunities have diminished in core nations, including the United States and Western Europe. As the United States struggled to emerge from the reces- sion of 2007–2009, its stock market tripled, from a low of 6,443 on March 6, 2009, to over 20,000 as of this writing. In what many observers saw as a “jobless recovery,” corporations held on to their profits, rather than using them to hire new workers. In a global economy, profitability doesn’t necessarily come from hiring workers who are fellow citizens. Jobs continue to be outsourced. Machines and information tech- nology continue to replace people. Corporations, from airlines to banks, offer their customers incentives to bypass humans. Even outside the industrial world, but espe- cially within it, the Internet allows an increasing number of people to buy plane tickets, print boarding passes, rent cars, reserve hotel rooms, move money, or pay bills online. Amazon has become a virtual department store that threatens to send not only “mom and pop” shops but even national chains such as Barnes and Noble, Of- fice Depot, Radio Shack, and Sears into oblivion. Nowadays, when one does manage to speak by phone to a human, that person is as likely to be in Mumbai or Manila as Minneapolis or Miami.

Companies claim, with some justification, that labor unions limit their flexibil- ity, adaptability, and profitability. American corporations (and the politicians who represent them) have become more ideologically opposed to unions and more ag- gressive in discouraging unionization. Unions still bring benefits to their workers. Median weekly earnings for union members—$1004 in 2016—remain higher than those of nonunion workers—$802 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2017). Still, union membership in the United States has fallen to its lowest point in more than 70 years. The unionized percentage of the American workforce fell to 10.7 percent in 2016, compared with 20.1 percent in 1983 and a high of 35 percent during the mid-1950s. The number of unionized private-sector workers increased from 7.1 million in 2010 to 7.4 million in 2016, while the number of public-sector union members declined from 7.6 million to 7.1 million. This mainly reflected growth in private-sector jobs, while jobs in the public sector were being reduced (U.S. Bu- reau of Labor Statistics 2017). What jobs do you know that are unionized? How likely is it that you will join a union?

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Anthropology Today Mining Giant Compatible with Sustainability Institute?

The spread of industrialization has con- tributed to the destruction of indigenous economies, ecologies, and populations. Riverine discharges from the Ok Tedi mine, described here, have severely harmed about 50,000 people living in more than 100 villages downstream. Today, multinational corporations, along with the governments of nations such as Papua New Guinea (PNG), are accelerat- ing the process of resource depletion that began with the Industrial Revolution. Fortunately, however, today’s world also contains environmental watchdogs, including concerned anthropologists, lawyers, and NGOs. Described here is a conundrum faced by a major public university. Are multinational corporations, whose operations have destroyed the landscapes and livelihoods of indigenous peoples, proper advisers for an institute devoted to ecological sustainability? In the 1990s, the giant mining company now known as BHP Billiton drew world- wide condemnation for the environmental damage caused by its copper and gold mine in Papua New Guinea. Its mining practices destroyed the way of life of thou- sands of farming and fishing families who lived along and subsisted on the rivers polluted by the mine, and it was only after being sued in a landmark class-action case that the company agreed to compen- sate them. Today several activists and academics who work on behalf of indigenous people around the world say the company contin- ues to dodge responsibility for the prob- lems its mines create. . . .  Yet at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, BHP Billiton . . . is one of 14 corpo- rate members of an External Advisory Board for the university’s new Graham En- vironmental Sustainability Institute.

Critics at and outside the university contend that Michigan’s decision to enlist BHP Billiton as an adviser to an institute devoted to sustainability reflects badly on the institution and allows the company to claim [an undeserved] mantle of environ- mental and social responsibility. . . .  The arguments echo the discussions about corporate “greenwashing” that have arisen at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley over major research grants from ExxonMobil and BP, respectively. . . .  For one BHP Billiton critic at Michigan, the issue is personal. Stuart Kirsch, a pro- fessor of anthropology, has spent most of his academic career documenting the damage caused by BHP Billiton’s Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea. . . .  Mr. Kirsch, who first visited some of the affected communities as a young ethnogra- pher in 1987, became involved in the class- action lawsuit brought against the company and helped villagers participate in the 1996 legal settlement. “I put my career on hold while being an activist,” he says. He subsequently published several pa- pers related to his work with the Yonggom people as they fought for recognition and compensation from mine operators— scholarship that helped him win tenure. . . . He remains involved with the network of activists and academics who follow mining and its impact on undeveloped communi- ties around the world. . . .  The company’s practices polluted the Ok Tedi and Fly Rivers and caused thou- sands of people to leave their homes be- cause the mining-induced flooding made it impossible for them to grow food to feed themselves, says Mr. Kirsch. BHP Billiton, based in Australia, later ac- knowledged that the mine was “not com- patible with our environmental values,” and

The World System Today 453

decide whether this is an appropriate company to advise the University of Michigan,” says Mr. Kirsch. “It would be an educational process for everyone involved.” Update: As of this writing (2017), BHP Billiton no longer is listed as a member of the advisory board of Michigan’s Graham Institute. And in Papua New Guinea, after BHP Billiton transferred its ownership of the mine to Ok Tedi Mining Limited, that independent company has spent more than a billion dollars on environmental re- mediation. The 1996 settlement decreed that BHP would be spared future legal claims in return for giving all its shares to the people of PNG. Those shares are now held in trust (valued at over $1 billion, and growing) in a Singapore-based entity, PNG Sustainable Development Program Limited. The mission of that trust is to pro- mote development in PNG’s Western Province, where the mine is located, and across PNG. Today, the provincial and na- tional governments of PNG and the PNG Sustainable Development Program are the only shareholders of Ok Tedi Mining Limited, which pays all its royalties to the PNG government. For hundreds of miles down the Fly River, fishers and farmers still complain about the destruction of their habitat, even as the Ok Tedi mine supplies about 16 percent of PNG’s na- tional revenue.

Sources: Blumenstyk, Goldie, “Mining Com- pany Involved in Environmental Disaster Now Advises Sustainability Institute at U. of Michigan,” Chronicle of Higher Education, December 7, 2007. Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

spun it off to an independent company that pays all of its mining royalties to the gov- ernment of Papua New Guinea. But Mr. Kirsch says that in doing so, the company skirted responsibility for amelio- rating the damage it caused. BHP Billiton says it would have preferred to close the mine, but the Papua New Guinea govern- ment, in need of the mine revenues, pressed to keep it open. The deal freed BHP Billiton from any future liabilities for environmental damage. . . .  Illtud Harri, a BHP Billiton spokesman, says the company regrets its past with Ok Tedi but considers its pullout from the mine “a responsible exit” that left in place a system that supports educational, agri- cultural, and social programs for the peo- ple of the community. . . .  BHP Billiton, a company formed from the 2001 merger of the Australian mining enterprise Broken Hill Proprietary Com- pany with London-based Billiton, is now the world’s largest mining company, with more than 100 operations in 25 countries. . . .  The BHP Billiton charter includes a statement that the company has “an over- riding commitment to health, safety, envi- ronmental responsibility, and sustainable development.” But its critics say the com- pany continues to play a key role in mining projects with questionable records on en- vironmental and human rights, even though in many of those cases, it is not di- rectly responsible. . . .  BHP Billiton has the resources to pres- ent itself as the “golden boy,” but, says Mr.  Kirsch, “it’s much harder to see the people on the Ok Tedi and Fly rivers.” A forum could help to right that imbal- ance, he says. “Let the students and faculty

454 Chapter 18 The World System, Colonialism, and Inequality

Summary 1. Local societies increasingly participate in wider systems—regional, national, and

global. The capitalist world economy depends on production for sale, with the goal of maximizing profits. The key claim of world-system theory is that an identifiable social system, based on wealth and power differentials, extends beyond individual countries. That system is formed by a set of economic and political relations that has characterized much of the globe since the 16th century. World capitalism has political and economic specialization at the core, semiperiphery, and periphery.

2. Columbus’s voyages opened the way for a major exchange between the Old and New Worlds. Seventeenth-century plantation economies in the Caribbean and Brazil were based on sugar. In the 18th century, plantation economies based on cotton arose in the southeastern United States.

3. The Industrial Revolution began in England around 1760. Transoceanic com- merce supplied capital for industrial investment. Industrialization hastened the separation of workers from the means of production. Marx saw a sharp division between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Class consciousness was a key feature of Marx’s view of this stratification. Weber believed that social solidarity based on ethnicity, religion, race, or nationality could take priority over class. Today’s capitalist world economy maintains the contrast between those who own the means of production and those who don’t, but the division is now worldwide. There is a substantial contrast between not only capitalists but workers in the core nations and workers on the periphery.

4. Inequality in measures of income and wealth has been increasing in the United States. Another aspect of inequality is in exposure to environmental risks such as pollution and hazardous waste facilities. Communities that are poorer and pre- dominantly minority, such as Flint, Michigan, are most likely to be the victims of toxic waste exposure.

5. Imperialism is the conscious policy of extending the rule of a nation or an empire over other nations and of taking and holding foreign colonies. Colonialism is the domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended time. European colonialism had two main phases. The first started in 1492 and lasted through 1825. For Britain this phase ended with the American Revolution. For France it ended when Britain won the Seven Years’ War, forcing the French to abandon Canada and India. For Spain, it ended with Latin American independence. The second phase of European colonialism extended approximately from 1850 to 1950. The British and French empires were at their height around 1914, when European empires controlled 85 percent of the world. Britain and France had colo- nies in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the New World.

6. Many geopolitical labels and identities were created under colonialism that had little or nothing to do with existing social demarcations. The new ethnic or national divisions were colonial inventions, sometimes aggravating conflicts.

7. Like colonialism, economic development has an intervention philosophy that pro- vides a justification for outsiders to guide native peoples toward particular goals.

Key Terms 455

Development usually is justified by the idea that industrialization and moderniza- tion are desirable evolutionary advances. Neoliberalism revives and extends classic economic liberalism: the idea that governments should not regulate private enter- prise and that free market forces should rule. This intervention philosophy cur- rently dominates aid agreements with postsocialist and developing nations.

8. Spelled with a lowercase c, communism describes a social system in which prop- erty is owned by the community and in which people work for the common good. Spelled with an uppercase C, Communism indicates a political movement and doc- trine seeking to overthrow capitalism and to establish a form of communism such as that which prevailed in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1991. The heyday of Communism was between 1949 and 1989. The fall of Communism can be traced to 1989–1990 in Eastern Europe and 1991 in the Soviet Union. Postsocialist states have followed the neoliberal agenda, through privatization, deregulation, and democratization.

9. By 1900 the United States had become a core nation. Mass production gave rise to a culture that valued acquisitiveness and conspicuous consumption. As subsistence economies yield increasingly to cash, job seeking and unemployment have become global problems. One effect of industrialization has been an accelerated rate of re- source depletion.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. According to world-system theory, societies are subsystems of bigger systems, with

the world system as the largest. What are the various systems, at different levels, in which you participate?

2. To what extent is the following statement still true: “The wealth that flows from periphery and semi-periphery to core has helped core capitalists maintain their profits while satisfying the demands of core workers.” Are core workers still satis- fied? What factors might diminish their level of satisfaction?

Key Terms bourgeoisie, 435 capital, 431 capitalist world

economy, 430 colonialism, 440 communism, 449 Communism, 449 core, 431

semiperiphery, 431 socialism, 449 working class, or

proletariat, 435 world-system

theory, 431

imperialism, 440 Industrial

Revolution, 433 intervention

philosophy, 445 neoliberalism, 445 periphery, 431 postcolonial, 444

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Chapter 19 Anthropology’s Role in a Globalizing World

Globalization: Its Meanings and Its Nature

Our Global Economy

Energy Consumption and Industrial Degradation

Global Climate Change

Environmental Anthropology

Global Assaults on Local Autonomy

Deforestation

Emerging Diseases

Interethnic Contact

Cultural Imperialism and Indigenization

A Global System of Images

A Global Culture of Consumption

People in Motion

Indigenous Peoples

Anthropology’s Lessons

Anthropology Today: Diversity under Siege: Global Forces and Indigenous Peoples

Globalization: Its Meanings and Its Nature

This chapter applies an anthropological perspective to contemporary global issues. Let’s begin by reviewing two different meanings of the term globalization. As used in this book, the primary meaning of globalization is worldwide connectedness. Modern sys- tems of production, distribution, consumption, finance, transportation, and communica- tion are global in scope. A second meaning of globalization is political; it has to do with ideology, policy, and neoliberalism (see Kotz 2015). In this more limited sense, global- ization refers to efforts by international financial powers to create a global free market for goods and services. This second, political meaning of globalization has generated

Our Global Economy 457

and continues to generate significant opposition. In this book, globalization is a neutral term for the fact of global connectedness and linkages, rather than any kind of political position (see also Eriksen 2014; Ervin 2014).

This connectedness generates policies, practices, and risks that have global implica- tions. After a discussion of today’s global economy, we turn to a discussion of energy consumption and environmental degradation, including climate change, or global warm- ing. Also considered in this chapter are the threats that deforestation and emerging dis- eases pose to global biodiversity and human life. The second half of this chapter turns from economy and ecology to the contemporary flows of people, technology, informa- tion, messages, images, and ideology that contribute to a global culture of consumption. Part of globalization is intercultural communication, through the media (including the Internet), travel, and migration, which increasingly bring people from different societies into direct contact. Finally, we’ll consider how such contacts and external linkages af- fect indigenous peoples, as well as how those groups have organized to confront and deal with national and global issues.

Our Global Economy

Economic systems (as we saw in the chapter “Making a Living,” are based on pro- duction, distribution, and consumption. All these processes now have global, and increasingly impersonal, dimensions. The products, images, and information we con- sume each day can come from anywhere. How likely is it that the item you last bought from a website, an outlet, or a retail store was made in the United States, rather than Canada, Mexico, Peru, or China? The national has become international. Consider just a few of the familiar “American” brands that now have foreign owner- ship: Budweiser, Good Humor, Ben and Jerry’s, Burger King, Caribou Coffee, Church’s Chicken, Holiday Inn, 7-Eleven, Gerber, Purina, Adidas, Frigidaire, and Firestone. Half of the U.S. national debt now belongs to outsiders, compared with a mere 5 percent in 1970 (Bartlett 2010).

The Internet is a vital organ in our 21st-century global economy. All kinds of products— music, movies, clothing, appliances, this book, you name it—are produced, distributed, and consumed via the Internet. Economic functions that are spatially dispersed (perhaps conti- nents apart) are coordinated online in real time. Activities that once involved face-to-face contact are now conducted impersonally, often across vast distances. When you order something via the Internet, the only human being you might speak to is the delivery driver. However, even that human contact may be replaced by a drone. The computers that take and process your order from Amazon can be on different continents. The products you order can come from a warehouse anywhere in the world (see Kennedy 2010).

Multinationals attempt to forge beneficial alliances with politicians and government officials, especially those who are most concerned with world trade. With the globaliza- tion of finance, nations have less control over their own economies. Institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the Euro- pean Central Bank routinely constrain and dictate national economic policies. Ask Greeks how they feel about austerity measures imposed by outsiders.

458 Chapter 19 Anthropology’s Role in a Globalizing World

As capitalism has spread globally, the gap between rich and poor has widened both within and between nations (see Hirai 2015). The difference in per-capita income be- tween the world’s richest nation (Qatar) and the poorest nation (Central African Repub- lic) was 233 to 1 in 2015, versus around 5 to 1 when the Industrial Revolution began (Pasquali 2016).

Energy Consumption and Industrial Degradation

Industrialization entailed a shift from reliance on renewable resources to the use of fos- sil fuels. Earth’s supply of oil, gas, and coal is being depleted to support a previously unknown level of consumption. Americans are the world’s foremost consumers of non- renewable energy. The average American consumes about 35 times more energy than the average forager or tribesperson (Bodley 2015).

Table 19.1 compares energy consumption, total and per-capita, in the United States and selected other countries—the top 10 consumers of energy. Overall the United States, which ranks second among the countries, represents about 16 percent of the world’s an- nual energy consumption. China ranks first, accounting for 23 percent of global energy consumption. However, North Americans—Canadians and Americans—rank first and second in per-capita consumption. The average American consumes three times the energy used by the average Chinese and nine times the energy used by the average

A scene from an Amazon warehouse on a Cyber Monday, the busiest day of the year for online shoppers. This warehouse could be in a lot of places, but it happens to be in Great Britain. ©Geoffrey Robinson/Alamy Stock Photo

Global Climate Change 459

inhabitant of India. Consumption has been rising in China and India, while declining a bit in the United States and Canada, and more dramatically in Europe.

Many contemporary nations are repeating—at an accelerated rate—the process of resource depletion that began in Europe and the United States during the Industrial Revolution. Fortunately, however, today’s world has some environmental watchdogs that did not exist during the Industrial Revolution. Given the appropriate political will, leading to national and international cooperation and sanctions, the modern world may benefit from the lessons of the past (see Hornborg, McNeill, and Martinez-Alier 2007).

There are, however, new dangers in today’s world, some of which have become world- wide in scope. Accompanying globalization are significant risks that can spread rapidly beyond individual countries. Thanks to modern transportation systems, diseases that break out in one part of the world can quickly become global threats. Who can forget the Ebola threat of 2014, or Zika in 2015–2016? Furthermore, along with the actual threat that a disease might go global is the heightened risk perception, augmented by the media, that makes people think that anyone anywhere might succumb to a disease that is con- fined almost entirely to a particular region. Another global threat, which can spread even faster than a disease, is a cyberattack. We should fear cyber viruses as well as real viruses. We have become so reliant on the Internet that anything that might seriously impede the flow of information in cyberspace would have worldwide repercussions. Dangers that can affect people anywhere and everywhere on the planet are part of a globalization of risk. Risks are no longer merely local, like the Flint, Michigan water crisis, or regional, like the California drought. They have become global in scope. People tend to worry more about short-term threats, such as toxic water or Ebola, and middle-term dangers, such as terrorism, than about long-term threats such as global climate change.

Global Climate Change

Each consumer of fossil fuels makes his or her individual contribution (that consumer’s “carbon footprint”) to global climate change. The fact that there are now about 7.5 billion of those “footprints” has major global significance. The year 2016 surpassed 2015 as the

  Total Per Capita

World 13,423 1.8 China 3,101 2.2 United States 2,196 6.7 India 882 .7 Russia  718 5.2 Japan 435 3.4 Germany 305 3.7 Brazil 299 1.4 South Korea 280 5.7 Canada 251 7.2 France 246 4.0

TABLE 19.1 Total Energy Consumption, 2015, Top Ten Countries (in MTOE—Million Tons of Oil Equivalent)

Source: Global Energy Statistical Yearbook. ©2016 Enerdata.

460 Chapter 19 Anthropology’s Role in a Globalizing World

world’s hottest year on record (Patel 2017). One reason for the heat was an unusually large El Niño weather pattern, which pumped a substantial amount of heat into the at- mosphere. Even more significant has been the long-term planetary warming caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases (Gillis 2016b).

The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon that keeps the Earth’s surface warm. The greenhouse gases include water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), halocarbons, and ozone (O3). Without those gases, life as we know it wouldn’t exist. Like a greenhouse window, those gases allow sunlight to enter the at- mosphere and then trap heat, preventing it from escaping.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has fluctuated naturally in the past. Every time it increases, the Earth heats up, ice melts, and sea levels rise. Since the Indus- trial Revolution, humans have been pumping carbon dioxide into the air faster than nature ever did (Gillis 2015). All greenhouse gases have increased since the Industrial Revolu- tion. In fact, the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases is now at its highest level in 400,000 years. It will continue to rise, as will global temperatures, without actions to slow it down (National Academy of Sciences 2008; National Research Council 2011).

Global temperatures have risen about 1.8°F since 1880 (Gillis 2016a). This increase is not due to increased solar radiation. The causes are mainly anthropogenic—caused by humans and their activities. Who can reasonably deny that over 7 billion people, along with their animals, crops, machines, and increasing use of fossil fuels, have a greater environmental impact than the 5 million or so pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers estimated to have lived on our planet 12,000 years ago?

Scientists prefer the term climate change to global warming. The former term points out that, beyond rising temperatures, there have been changes in storm patterns, ecosystem effects, and especially sea levels. The ocean is extremely sensitive to small fluctuations in the Earth’s temperature. During the 19th century, as industrialization proceeded, sea levels began to rise; they have climbed about 8 inches since 1880 (Gillis 2016a). The Intergov- ernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that reviews and summarizes climate research, has estimated that continued high emissions are likely to produce a rise in sea level of 1.7 to 3.2 feet during the 21st century (Gillis 2016a). One consequence of rising sea levels has been a worsening of tidal flooding in coastal communities, including the East coast of the United States. In the decade between 1955 and 1964, a tide gauge at Annapolis, Maryland, measured 32 days of flooding. Fifty years later, in the decade be- tween 2005 and 2014, that figure jumped to 394 days. In Charleston, South Carolina, flood days increased from 34 in the earlier decade to 219 between 2005 and 2014 (Gillis 2016a).

The precise effects of climate change on regional weather patterns have yet to be fully determined (see DiMento and Doughman 2014). Land areas are predicted to warm more than oceans, with the greatest warming in higher latitudes, such as Canada, the northern United States, northern Europe, and Russia. Climate change may benefit these areas, offering milder winters and extended growing seasons. However, many more people worldwide probably will be harmed (see Cribb 2010). Already we know that in the Arctic, temperatures have risen almost twice as much as the global average. Arctic landscapes and ecosystems are changing rapidly and perceptibly, creating hundreds of “climate refugees” in areas of Alaska where the permafrost is melting and indigenous villages are sinking below sea level (see Yardley 2007). Coastal communities worldwide

Global Climate Change 461

can anticipate increased flooding and more severe storms and surges. At risk are people, animals, plants, freshwater supplies, and such industries as tourism and farming.

Global energy demand is the single greatest obstacle to slowing down climate change. Worldwide, energy consumption continues to grow with economic and population ex- pansion. China and India, in particular, are rapidly increasing their use of energy, mainly from fossil fuels, and consequently their emissions. Their cities, most notably Beijing and New Delhi, are now among the most polluted in the world. China currently accounts for about 23 percent of world energy consumption, compared with 9 percent in 2000. The U.S. share has fallen from 25 percent in 2000 to about 16 percent today (see Table 19.1). Among the alternatives to fossil fuels are nuclear power and renewable energy technolo- gies such as solar, wind, and biomass generators.

In 2015 the American Anthropological Association (AAA) issued a “Statement on Humanity and Climate Change.” 

That statement makes several key points, including the following: ∙ Human cultures and actions are the most important causes of the dramatic environ-

mental changes that have taken place during the last 100 years. Two key factors in- fluencing climate change are (1) reliance on fossil fuels as the primary energy source, and (2) an ever-expanding culture of consumption.

In the global economy, India (shown here) and China in particular have increased their use of fossil fuels and, consequently, their emissions of CO2. This photo shows school children in New Delhi on November 3, 2016, when a blanket of heavy smog sent air pollution to dangerous levels. Some 16 million people had to breathe this toxic air. Experts warned of severe health problems for children forced to attend school. What’s the most polluted place you’ve ever been to? ©Arvind Yadav/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

462 Chapter 19 Anthropology’s Role in a Globalizing World

∙ Climate change will accelerate migration, destabilize communities, and exacerbate the spread of infectious diseases.

∙ Most affected will be people living on coasts, in island nations, and in high-latitude (e.g., far north) and high-altitude (e.g., very mountainous) areas.

∙ The tendency has been to address climate change at the international and national levels. We also need planning at the regional and local levels, because the impacts of climate change vary in specific locales. Affected communities, perhaps working with anthropologists, must be active participants in planning how to adapt to climate change—and in implementing those plans.

Environmental Anthropology

Anthropology always has been concerned with how environmental forces influence hu- mans and how human activities affect the environment. The 1950s–1970s witnessed the emergence of an area of study known as cultural ecology, or ecological anthropology (see Haenn, Wilk, and Harnish 2016). That field focused on how cultural beliefs and practices helped human populations adapt to their environments, as well as how people used elements of their culture to maintain their ecosystems. Ecological anthropologists showed that many indigenous groups did a reasonable job of managing their resources and preserving their ecosystems. Such groups had traditional ways of categorizing resources and using them sustainably (see Dagne 2015). The term ethnoecology describes a society’s set of environmental perceptions and practices (see Vinyeta and Lynn 2013).

Outside forces increasingly challenge indigenous ethnoecologies. Given national and international incentives to exploit and degrade, ethnoecological systems that once pre- served local and regional environments increasingly are ineffective or irrelevant (see Dove, Sajise, and Doolittle 2011). Anthropologists routinely witness threats to the people they study and their environments. Among such threats are commercial logging, mining, industrial pollution, and the imposition of external management systems on local ecosys- tems (see Johnston 2009). Today’s ecological anthropology, environmental anthropology, attempts not only to understand but also to find solutions to environmental problems. Such problems must be tackled at the national and international levels (e.g., global warming).

Local people and their landscapes, ideas, values, and traditional management sys- tems face attacks from all sides (see Hornborg, Clark, and Hermele 2011). Outsiders attempt to remake native landscapes and cultures in their own image. The aim of many agricultural development projects, for example, seems to be to make the world as much like a midwestern American agricultural state as possible. Often there is an attempt to impose mechanized farming and nuclear family ownership, even though these institu- tions may be inappropriate in areas far removed from the midwestern United States. Anthropologists know that development projects usually fail when they try to replace indigenous institutions with culturally alien concepts.

Global Assaults on Local Autonomy A clash of cultures related to environmental change may occur when development threatens indigenous peoples and their environments (see this chapter’s “Anthropology

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Today”). A second clash of cultures related to environmental change may occur when external regulation aimed at conservation confronts indigenous peoples and their ethnoecologies. Like development projects, conservation schemes may ask people to change their ways in order to satisfy planners’ goals rather than local goals. In places as different as Madagascar, Brazil, and the Pacific Northwest of the United States, people have been asked, told, or forced to abandon basic economic activities because to do so is good for “nature” or “the globe.” “Good for the globe” doesn’t play very well in Brazil, whose Amazon region has been a focus of international environmentalist atten- tion. Brazilians complain that outsiders (e.g., Europeans and North Americans) promote “global needs” and “saving the Amazon” after having destroyed their own primary for- ests for economic growth. Conservation efforts always face local opposition when they promote radical changes without involving local people in planning and carrying out the policies that affect them. When people are asked to give up the basis of their livelihood, they usually resist.

The spread of environmentalism may reveal radically different notions about the “rights” and value of plants and animals versus humans. In Madagascar, many intellec- tuals and officials complain that foreigners seem more concerned about lemurs and other endangered species than about the people of Madagascar (the Malagasy). As a geographer there remarked to me, “The next time you come to Madagascar, there’ll be no more Malagasy. All the people will have starved to death, and a lemur will have to meet you at the airport.” Most Malagasy perceive human poverty as a more pressing problem than animal and plant survival.

On the other hand, who can doubt that conservation, including the preservation of biodiversity, is a worthy goal? The challenge for applied ecological anthropology is to devise culturally appropriate strategies for achieving biodiversity conservation in the face of unrelenting population growth and commercial expansion. How does one get people to support conservation measures that may, in the short run at least, diminish their access to resources? Like development plans in general, the most effective conser- vation strategies pay attention to the needs and wishes of the local people.

Deforestation Generations of anthropologists have studied how human economic activities (ancient and modern) affect the environment. Anthropologists know that food producers (farm- ers and herders) typically do more to degrade the environment than foragers do. Popula- tion increase and the need to expand farming caused deforestation in many parts of the ancient Middle East and Mesoamerica (see Cairns 2015; Hornborg and Crumley, 2007). Even today, many farmers think of trees as giant weeds to be removed and replaced with productive fields.

Often, deforestation is demographically driven—caused by population pressure. For example, Madagascar’s population is growing at a rate of 3 percent annually, doubling every generation. Population pressure leads to migration, including rural–urban migra- tion. Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, had just 100,000 people in 1967. Its population today is over 2 million. Urban growth promotes deforestation if city dwellers rely on fuel- wood from the countryside, as is true in Madagascar. As forested watersheds disappear, crop productivity declines. Madagascar is known as the “great red island,” after the color

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of its soil. On that island, the effects of soil erosion and water runoff are visible to the naked eye. From the look of its rivers, Madagascar appears to be bleeding to death. In- creasing runoff of water no longer trapped by trees causes erosion of low-lying rice fields near swollen rivers as well as siltation in irrigation canals ( Kottak 2007).

Causes of deforestation include demographic pressure (from births or immigration) on subsistence economies, commercial logging, road building, cash cropping, fuelwood needs associated with urban expansion, and clearing and burning associated with live- stock and grazing. The fact that forest loss has several causes has a policy implication: Different deforestation scenarios require different conservation strategies.

What can be done? On this question, applied anthropology weighs in, spurring pol- icy makers to think about new conservation strategies. The traditional approach has been to restrict access to forested areas designated as parks, then employ park guards and punish violators. Modern strategies are more likely to consider the needs, wishes, and abilities of the people (often impoverished) living in and near the forest. Since effective conservation depends on the cooperation of the local people, their concerns must be addressed in devising conservation strategies.

Reasons to change behavior must make sense to local people (see Sillitoe 2007). In Madagascar, the economic value of the forest for agriculture (as an antierosion mecha- nism and reservoir of potential irrigation water) provides a much more powerful incen- tive against forest degradation than do such global goals as “preserving biodiversity.” Most Malagasy have no idea that lemurs and other endemic species exist only in

Applied anthropology uses anthropological perspectives to identify and solve contemporary problems that affect humans. Deforestation is one such problem. Here, women take part in a reforestation project in coastal Tanzania near Dar es Salaam. ©Ed Parker/Alamy Stock Photo

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Madagascar. Nor would such knowledge provide much of an incentive for them to con- serve the forests if doing so jeopardized their livelihoods.

To curb the global deforestation threat, we need conservation strategies that work. Laws and enforcement may help reduce commercially driven deforestation caused by burning and clear-cutting. But local people also use and abuse forested lands. A chal- lenge for the environmentally oriented applied anthropologist is to find ways to make forest preservation attractive to local people and ensure their cooperation. Applied anthropologists must work to make “good for the globe” good for the people.

Emerging Diseases A number of potentially lethal infectious diseases have emerged and spread in the past few decades. These emerging diseases include HIV/AIDS, Ebola, West Nile, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), Lyme disease, and Zika. All these diseases have emerged as a result of human activity. Driven by factors including population increase, changing settlement patterns, and commercial expansion, humans have been encroach- ing on wild lands, particularly forests, and creating conditions that favor the spread of disease pathogens. In the Amazon, for example, one study showed that an increase in deforestation of just 4 percent produced a 50 percent increase in the incidence of ma- laria. This is because the mosquitoes that transmit malaria thrive in the right mix of sunlight and water in recently deforested areas (Robbins 2012).

Some emerging diseases are zoonotic—they spread from animals to humans. The transmission of diseases from wild to domesticated animals and then to humans has been going on since the Neolithic, when animals first were domesticated. Zoonotic dis- eases pose a huge threat today because of human population increase and forces of globalization. Emerging diseases kill more than 2 million people annually, and 60 per- cent of those diseases originate in animals (Robbins 2012).

Among the diseases that have jumped from woods and wildlife to humans through their domesticated animals is the Nipah virus, which began its migration from fruit bats to humans in South Asia. Because fruit bats have co-evolved with the Nipah virus for millions of years, it does little damage to their health. When the virus moves from bats into other species, however, it can be lethal. Fruit bats eat the pulp of fruit and spit out the residue. In rural Malaysia in 1999, an infected bat appears to have dropped a piece of chewed fruit into the food supply of a swine herd (a scenario depicted in the movie Contagion). The virus then spread from those pigs to humans. Of 276 people infected in Malaysia, 106 died. Eleven more people died in Singapore, when the virus was exported there via live pigs. South Asia has experienced a dozen smaller Nipah outbreaks in recent years.

Spillovers from wildlife to humans have quadrupled in the past half-century, reflect- ing increasing  human encroachment on disease hotspots, especially in the tropics ( Robbins 2012). HIV/AIDS originally jumped from chimpanzees to humans through bush-meat hunters in Africa, who kill and butcher chimps. Modern air travel contributes to the potential for a transnational outbreak or even a pandemic. (A pandemic is an epidemic with global scope.) 

Biologists and doctors are acutely aware of the threat posed by zoonotic diseases. One international project, called PREDICT, funds teams of veterinarians, conservation

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biologists, medical doctors, and epidemiologists to identify disease-causing organisms in wildlife before they spread to humans (see http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/ohi/ predict/index.cfm). PREDICT, which is financed by the United States Agency for Inter- national Development (USAID), attempts to “predict,” spot, and prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases from world areas with high potential for disease transmission. Some 24 countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia participate in the program. PREDICT scientists monitor areas where deadly viruses are known to exist and where humans are encroaching. One such locale is a new highway being built to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in South America, traversing Brazil and the Peruvian Andes.

PREDICT scientists also gather blood, saliva, and other samples from wildlife spe- cies to create a “library” of viruses, to facilitate identification when a threat is imminent. This library focuses on the animals most likely to carry diseases to people, such as pri- mates, rats, and bats. PREDICT scientists also study ways of preventing disease trans- mission. Sometimes solutions can be remarkably simple. In Bangladesh, for example, outbreaks of the Nipah virus were contained by placing bamboo screens (which cost 8 cents each) over the containers used to collect date palm sap (Robbins 2012). Because humans, by modifying the environment, create the conditions that allow diseases to emerge and spread, anthropologists can contribute by studying the cultural (including economic) causes of environmental encroachment and by suggesting culturally appro- priate and workable solutions.

Interethnic Contact

Since at least the 1920s, anthropologists have been interested in changes that take place where there is sustained contact between industrial and nonindustrial societies. The term acculturation refers to the cultural changes that occur when different societies come into continuous firsthand contact (Redfield, Linton, and Herskovits 1936). Most acculturation studies have focused on contact between Western and non-Western cultures. Often, this contact reflects Western domination over a non-Western society. In that case, the cultural patterns of the dominant Western society are more likely to be forced upon or accepted by the non-Western society than vice versa. However, the westerners who take up residence in a non-Western setting will also be affected by the cultural practices of that setting. In postcolonial times, people have been migrating from the former colonies to the former colonial nations. Inevitably, these migrants bring along their own cultural practices. It is not uncommon for their foods, music, art, and clothing styles to influence the cultural practices of the former colonial nation. If con- tact is sustained long enough, acculturation will be reciprocal—influencing both groups, even if one is influenced more than the other.

Although acculturation can be applied to any case of cultural contact and change, the term most often described Westernization—the influence of Western expansion on indigenous peoples and their cultures. Thus, local people who wear store-bought clothes, learn Indo-European languages, and otherwise adopt Western customs are called “ac- culturated.” Acculturation may be voluntary or forced, and there may be considerable resistance to the process.

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Different degrees of destruction, domination, resistance, survival, adaptation, and modification of native cultures may follow interethnic contact. In the most destructive encounters, native and subordinate cultures face obliteration. When contact with power- ful outsiders seriously threatens an indigenous culture, a “shock phase” often follows the initial encounter (Bodley 2012). Outsiders may attack or exploit the native people. Such exploitation may increase mortality, disrupt subsistence, fragment kin groups, damage social support systems, and inspire new religious movements. During the shock phase, there may be civil repression backed by military force. Such factors may lead to the group’s cultural collapse (ethnocide) or physical extinction (genocide).

Cultural Imperialism and Indigenization Cultural imperialism refers to the spread or advance of one culture at the expense of others, or its imposition on other cultures, which it modifies, replaces, or destroys— usually because of differential economic or political influence. Thus, children in the French colonial empire learned French history, language, and culture from standard textbooks also used in France. Tahitians, Malagasy, Vietnamese, and Senegalese learned the French language by reciting from books about “our ancestors the Gauls.”

Some commentators think that modern technology and the mass media are erasing cultural differences, as a common set of products and brands spread globally. Others, however, see a role for modern technology in allowing social groups (local cultures) to express themselves and to survive (see Lule 2015; Mirrlees 2013). In today’s world,

Illustrating both globalization and indigenization, McDonalds’s now routinely tries to tailor its offerings to specific cultural appetites. Shown here in downtown Fort-de-France, Martinique (French West Indies), is a billboard advertising a hamburger topped with Italian cheese (Parmigiano-Reggiano). ©Guiziou Franck/hemis.fr/Getty Images

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radio, TV, film, digital media, and increasingly the Internet (e.g., YouTube) constantly bring local happenings to the attention of a larger public (see Fuchs and Sandoval 2014). For example, Susan Boyle’s rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” on a British TV show soon became an Internet sensation and made her a global star. YouTube similarly fueled the global spread of the hugely popular “Gangnam Style” by the South Korean singer Psy. Without YouTube, appreciation of these performances would be much more lim- ited. Contemporary media play a role in stimulating and organizing local and commu- nity activities of many sorts. Think of ways in which this is done by YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter—global networks all.

In Brazil, local practices, celebrations, and performances have changed in the context of outside forces, including the mass media and tourism. In the town of Arembepe ( Kottak 2006), TV coverage stimulated increased participation in a traditional annual performance, the Chegança. This is a danceplay that reenacts the Portuguese discovery of Brazil. Arembepeiros have traveled to the state capital to perform the Chegança be- fore television cameras, for a nationally televised program featuring traditional perfor- mances from many rural communities, and cameras have gone to Arembepe to record it.

A potter plies his trade for a group of observers (including the author) in Fez, Morocco, in February 2015. Increasingly, local communities perform “traditional” activities, especially ceremonies, celebrations, and arts and crafts for TV and tourists. ©Conrad P. Kottak

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In several towns along the Amazon River, annual folk ceremonies now are staged more lavishly for TV and video cameras. In the Amazon town of Parantíns, for example, boatloads of tourists arriving any time of year are shown a video recording of the town’s annual Bumba Meu Boi festival. This is a costumed performance mimicking bullfight- ing, parts of which have been shown on national TV. This pattern, in which local com- munities preserve, revive, and intensify the scale of traditional ceremonies to perform for the media and tourists, is expanding. To see whether I could, I just managed to watch snippets of these annual events in Arembepe and Parantíns on YouTube!

In the process of globalization, people continually make and remake culture as they assign their own meanings to the information, images, and products they receive from outside. One example of such a process of indigenization—how a globally spreading Evangelical Protestantism adapts to local circumstances—was discussed in Chapter 15. Indigenization occurs in cultural domains as different as fast food, music, housing styles, science, religion, terrorism, celebrations, and political ideas and institutions (Ellen, Lycett, and Johns 2013; Fiske 2011; Wilk 2006).

A Global System of Images With globalization, more people in many more places imagine “a wider set of ‘possible’ lives than they ever did before. One important source of this change is the mass media . . .” (Appadurai 1991, p. 197). The United States as a global media center has been joined by Canada, Japan, Western Europe, Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Egypt, India, and Hong Kong. Like print, the electronic mass media can diffuse the cultures of differ- ent countries within (and often beyond) their own boundaries, thus enhancing national cultural identity. For example, millions of Brazilians who once were cut off (by geo- graphic isolation or illiteracy) from urban, national, and international events and infor- mation now participate in a larger “mediascape” (Appadurai 1991) through mass media and the Internet (Kottak 2009).

Brazil’s most popular network (Rede Globo) relies heavily on its own productions, especially telenovelas (nightly serial programs often compared to American soap op- eras). Globo plays each night to the world’s largest and most devoted audience (perhaps 80 million viewers throughout the nation and beyond—via satellite TV). The programs that attract this horde are made by Brazilians, for Brazilians.

The mass media and the Internet also play a prominent role in maintaining ethnic and national identities among people who lead transnational lives. Arabic-speaking Mus- lims, including migrants in several countries, follow the TV network Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, which helps reinforce ethnic and religious identities. As groups move, they can stay linked to each other and to their homeland through global media. Diasporas ( people who have spread out from an original, ancestral homeland) have enlarged the markets for media, communication, brands, and travel services targeted at specific ethnic, national, or religious groups that now live in various parts of the world.

A Global Culture of Consumption Business and the media have fueled a global culture of consumption, based on a craving for certain lifestyles and the products that go along with them. People also crave and consume knowledge and information, available through the media and the gadgets that

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allow media access (see Kennedy 2015). The media also provide connectivity and a forum for expressing shared sentiments. 

In the Middle East, for example, social media use exploded during the Arab Spring of 2011. In cyberspace Middle Easterners found something missing from their ordinary, offline worlds: platforms permitting social connectivity and the collective airing of grievances. Since then, social media have entered the region commercially, in a big way. Over 40 percent of Middle Easterners have Internet access, and almost 90 percent of them use social media on a daily basis. Facebook is the most popular social network, with 94 percent of Middle Eastern social media users accessing that site. Arabic has become Twitter’s fastest-growing language. LinkedIn (a professional social networking and job search site) has almost 6 million Middle Eastern users (Jazra 2014). (This region has one of the world’s highest youth unemployment rates.) This rapidly rising Middle Eastern Internet presence is occurring in an area where 40 percent of the population (of 380 million) is younger than 30 years. The smartphone is another key element in the Middle Eastern marketing mediascape. Illustrating the spreading culture of consump- tion, a global survey by Google found that 93 percent of smartphone users notice mobile ads, and 39 percent of those follow up with an online purchase. Saudi Arabia’s mobile phone penetration rate is 190 percent, meaning that everyone has almost two cell phones (Hamdan 2013). Media and marketing are the new “It” couple.

Illustrating the global culture of consumption, few people have never seen a T-shirt advertising a Western product (see Gould 2016). American and English rock stars’ re- cordings blast through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, while taxi drivers from Toronto to Madagascar listen to Brazilian music. The popularity of Korean pop singers spreads internationally via the Internet. Peasants and tribal people participate in the modern world system not only because they have been hooked on cash but also because their products and images are appropriated by world capitalism. They are commercialized by others (like the Quileute nation in the Twilight series of books and movies). Further- more, indigenous peoples also market their own images and products, through outlets like Cultural Survival.

People in Motion

Globalization has both enlarged and erased old boundaries and distinctions. Arjun Appadurai (1990, p. 1) characterizes today’s world as a “translocal” “interactive sys- tem” that is “strikingly new.” Whether as refugees, migrants, tourists, pilgrims, prosely- tizers, laborers, businesspeople, development workers, politicians, terrorists, soldiers, sports figures, or media-borne images, people travel more than ever.

The scale of human movement has expanded dramatically. Most emigrants maintain their ties with their native land, however—by phoning, Skyping, Facetiming, texting, e-mailing, visiting, sending money, or watching home videos or “ethnic TV.” In a sense, they live multilocally—in different places at once. With so many people “in motion,” the unit of anthropological study expands from the local community to the diaspora. Anthropologists increasingly follow descendants of the villages they have studied as they move from rural to urban areas and across national boundaries.

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Postmodernity describes our time and situation: today’s world in flux, these people on the move who have learned to manage multiple identities depending on place and context. In its most general sense, postmodern refers to the blurring and breakdown of established canons (rules or standards), categories, distinctions, and boundaries. The word is taken from postmodernism—a style and movement in architecture that suc- ceeded modernism, beginning in the 1970s. Postmodern architecture rejected the rules, geometric order, and austerity of modernism. Modernist buildings were expected to have a clear and functional design. Postmodern design is “messier” and more playful. It draws on a diversity of styles from different times and places—including popular, eth- nic, and non-Western cultures. Postmodernism extends “value” globally—well beyond classic, elite, and Western cultural forms. Postmodern now is used to describe compa- rable developments beyond architecture—in music, literature, and visual art. From this origin, postmodernity describes a world in which traditional standards, contrasts, groups, boundaries, and identities are opening up, reaching out, and breaking down.

New kinds of political and ethnic units have emerged along with globalization. In some cases, cultures and ethnic groups have banded together in larger associations. There is a growing pan-Native-American identity as well as an international pantribal movement.

With so many people on the move, the unit of anthropological study has expanded from the local community to the diaspora. This refers to the offspring of an area who have spread to many lands, such as the owners of this falafel shop in Paris, France. ©Lionel Derimais/VISUM/The Image Works

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Thus, in June 1992, the World Conference of Indigenous Peoples met in Rio de Janeiro concurrently with UNCED (the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development). Along with diplomats, journalists, and environmentalists came 300 repre- sentatives of the tribal diversity that survives under globalization—from Lapland to Mali (Brooke 1992; see also Maybury-Lewis, Macdonald, and Maybury-Lewis 2009). 

Indigenous Peoples

All too often, conquest, annexation, and development have been associated with genocide— the deliberate extermination of a specific ethnic group. Examples of genocide include the Holocaust, Rwanda in 1994, and Bosnia in the early 1990s. Bodley (2015) estimates that an average of 250,000 indigenous people perished annually between 1800 and 1950. The causes included warfare, outright murder, introduced diseases, slavery, land grabbing, and other forms of dispossession and impoverishment.

Remaining in the world today are more than 5,000 distinct groups of indigenous peoples, located in some 90 countries. They comprise more than 5 percent of the world’s population, numbering about 370 million people. They remain among the world’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable populations. Many of them struggle to hold on to their lands and natural resources (see this chapter’s “Anthropology Today”).

All of the indigenous groups that have survived live today within nation-states. Of- ten, they maintain a distinct ethnic identity, despite having lost their ancestral languages and cultures to varying degrees. Many such groups aspire to autonomy. To describe these original inhabitants of their territories, the term indigenous people entered inter- national law in 1982 with the creation of the United Nations Working Group on Indig- enous Populations (WGIP). This group meets annually and has members from six continents. The UN General Assembly adopted its Declaration of Indigenous Rights in 2007. Convention 169, a document supporting cultural diversity and indigenous em- powerment, had been approved by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 1989. Such documents, along with the global work of the WGIP, have influenced govern- ments, NGOs, and international agencies to adopt policies favorable to indigenous peo- ples. In May 2012, the United Nations sponsored a high-level commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (see Doyle 2015; Drahos 2014). In September 2014, the United Nations hosted a World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, to reiterate the U.N.’s ongoing role in pro- moting and protecting the rights of indigenous peoples (see http://wcip2014.org). Social movements worldwide use indigenous people as a self-identifying label in their quests for social, cultural, and political rights (Brower and Johnston 2007; de la Peña 2005).

In Spanish-speaking Latin America, social scientists and politicians favor the term indígena (indigenous person) over indio (Indian), the colonial term that European con- querors used for Native Americans (de la Peña 2005). Until the mid- to late 1980s, Latin American public policy emphasized assimilation. During the past 30 years, the empha- sis has shifted from assimilation—mestizaje—to cultural difference. In Ecuador, for example, groups seen previously as Quichua-speaking peasants are classified now as indigenous communities with their own territories. Brazil has recognized 30 new

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indigenous communities in the northeast, a region previously seen as having lost its na- tive population. Guatemala, Nicaragua, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, and Venezuela now are officially multicultural (Jackson and Warren 2005). Several national constitutions recognize the rights of indigenous peoples to cultural distinctiveness and political representation (de la Peña 2005).

Ceuppens and Geschiere (2005) comment on a recent upsurge, in multiple world ar- eas, of the notion of autochthony (being native to, or formed in, the place where found), with an implicit call for excluding strangers. The terms autochthony and indigenous go back to classical Greek history, with similar implications. Autochthony refers to self and soil. Indigenous literally means born inside, with the connotation in classical Greek of being born “inside the house.” Both notions stress the rights of first-comers to privileged status and protection versus later immigrants—legal or illegal (Ceuppens and Geschiere 2005; Hornborg, Clark, and Hermele 2011).

During the 1990s, autochthony became an issue in many parts of Africa, inspiring violent efforts to exclude (European and Asian) “strangers.” Simultaneously, autoch- thony became a key notion in debates about immigration and multiculturalism in Europe. European majority groups have claimed the label autochthon. This term highlights the prominence that the exclusion of strangers has assumed in day-to-day politics world- wide (Ceuppens and Geschiere 2005). One familiar example is the United States, as represented in ongoing debates over undocumented immigration.

Essentialism describes the process of viewing an identity (e.g., an ethnic label) as established, real, and frozen, thus ignoring the historical processes within which that identity was forged. Identities, however, are not fixed. We saw in Chapter 16 that identi- ties can be fluid and multiple. People draw on particular, sometimes competing, self- labels and identities. Some Peruvian groups, for instance, self-identify as mestizos but still see themselves as indigenous. Identity is a fluid, dynamic process, and there are multiple ways of being indigenous. Neither speaking an indigenous language nor wearing “native” clothing is required (Jackson and Warren 2005).

Anthropology’s Lessons

Anthropology teaches us that the adaptive responses of humans are more flexible than those of other species because our main adaptive means are sociocultural. However, in the face of globalization, the cultural institutions of the past always influence subse- quent adaptation, producing continued diversity in the actions and reactions of different groups as they indigenize global inputs. In our globalizing world, anthropology offers a people-centered vision of social change. The existence of anthropology is itself a tribute to the continuing need to understand similarities and differences among human beings throughout the world.

Anthropology offers relevant, indeed powerful, ways of understanding how the world actually works. Lessons of the past can and should be applied to the present and future, hopefully to benefit humanity. Anthropologists know that civilizations and world powers rise and fall, and that social transformations typically follow major innovations, such as the Neolithic and the Industrial Revolution. There is little chance that the current world

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Anthropology Today Diversity under Siege: Global Forces and Indigenous Peoples

Around the globe, diversity is under siege. In Alaska, which has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the United States, displaced villagers have become climate change refugees—forced to move as ris- ing sea levels have eroded and flooded their settlements. In the South Pacific, Marshall Islanders also face rising seas, which render their villages increasingly uninhabitable and their land too salty for productive agriculture (Davenport and Haner 2015). In the Brazilian Amazon, out- side settlers, including farmers, cattle herders, gold prospectors, and commer- cial loggers, are illegally encroaching on areas reserved for indigenous groups. A combination of forces at work globally, in- cluding climate change and development, are threatening the lifestyles, livelihoods, and even the lives of indigenous peoples.

We focus now on the Norwegian Arctic, where a Sami (Lapp) population of about 100,000 traditional reindeer herders ex- tends over a vast territory—northern areas of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula. Sami nomads once moved their herds seasonally across this ex- panse, paying little attention to national borders. Today, a mere one-tenth of the total Sami population, Western Europe’s only indigenous Arctic group, continues to herd reindeer for a living (Wallace 2016). The Sami way of life is being destroyed incrementally rather than by a major proj- ect or event. The cumulative effects of a series of smaller constructions, including roads and pipelines, have reduced Norway’s undisturbed reindeer habitat by 70 percent in the past century. Like so many other indigenous peoples, the Sami

Sami herder Johann Anders Oskal and his brother tend their reindeer herd in Troms County, Norway (January 27, 2016). ©Scott Wallace/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Anthropology’s Lessons 475

must compete with powerful external inter- ests for use of their traditional (grazing) lands. For generations, the Sami have lived under state organization. The state allows the Sami to graze their herds, but the land belongs to the national government. The Sami must deal with decisions made at the national level by planners, legislators, and the courts. What is good for the nation and business interests often takes precedence over what may be best for local people. External inputs have been both posi- tive and negative. The group benefits from the use of GPS collars and smartphone apps to track their animals, and snowmo- biles and all-terrain vehicles to round them up. On the negative side, the steady en- croachment of industrial infrastructure has reduced their range and freedom of move- ment. Current threats include dams, roads, live-fire military drills, high-voltage power lines, wind farms, and a copper mine. Many Sami now have to move their herds by truck and boat between summer and winter pastures—a costly operation. When courts approved large-scale projects that negatively affected the Sami, the herders received only a one-time payment as com- pensation for their losses (Wallace 2016). Norway is proceeding with plans to extract more resources and build more industry in the Arctic. The Sami fear that their languages and culture, largely sustained by herding, will ultimately be sacrificed to benefit the larger society. The government has ambitious targets for renewable energy, including more

hydroelectric and wind power projects. These projects, although possibly “good for the globe,” negatively affect reindeer herding, as well as Arctic biodiversity, wil- derness landscapes, and traditional sub- sistence activities. A proposed wind farm (now under judicial review) and associated power lines would encroach substantially on the summer grazing lands of a group of herders who still speak South Sami, a lan- guage listed by UNESCO as endangered ( Wallace 2016). In addition to the threats from develop- ment, the Sami have an ongoing conflict with the military. Since the Cold War, Nor- wegian soldiers have been a regular pres- ence in Sami country, preparing for a possible Russian incursion across north- ern Scandinavia. These troops stage regu- lar, often daily, war exercises, including live gunfire. Herders must be vigilant to avoid flying bullets as they go about their activities. (The information about contem- porary Sami in this feature comes mainly from Wallace 2016.) Even the most enlightened govern- ments pursue policies that are incompati- ble with preserving the traditional activities and lifestyles of indigenous peoples. Like certain conservation schemes aimed at preserving biodiversity, efforts that are good for the globe, such as the develop- ment of green energy sources, may not be best for local people. Planners must be at- tentive to the need to seek a delicate bal- ance between what’s good for the globe and what’s good for the people.

system and the power relations within it will last forever. Whatever it may be, our social future will trace its origins to our social present. That is, future developments will need to build on, modify, and perhaps discard preexisting practices and institutions. What trends observable in the world today are most likely to transform society in the long run? Using your new knowledge of anthropology, try to imagine possible futures for humanity. 

476 Chapter 19 Anthropology’s Role in a Globalizing World

Summary 1. As used in this book, the primary meaning of globalization is worldwide connect-

edness,  through contemporary systems of production, distribution, consumption, finance, transportation, and communication (including the Internet and other me- dia). A second meaning of globalization is political, referring to efforts by interna- tional financial powers to create a global free market for goods and services. 

2. Fueling global climate change are human population growth and use of fossil fuels, which produce greenhouse gases. The atmospheric concentration of those gases has increased since the Industrial Revolution, and especially since 1978. Climate change encompasses global warming along with changing sea levels, precipitation, storms, and ecosystem effects.

3. Anthropology always has been concerned with how environmental forces influence humans and how human activities affect the biosphere. Many indigenous groups did a reasonable job of preserving their ecosystems. An ethnoecology is any society’s set of environmental practices and perceptions. Indigenous ethnoecologies increas- ingly are being challenged by global forces that work to exploit and degrade—and that sometimes aim to protect—the environment. The challenge for applied ecologi- cal anthropology is to devise culturally appropriate strategies for conservation in the face of unrelenting population growth and commercial expansion.

4. Deforestation is a major factor in the loss of global biodiversity. Causes of defores- tation include demographic pressure (from births or immigration) on subsistence economies; commercial logging; road building; cash cropping; fuelwood needs associated with urban expansion; and clearing and burning associated with live- stock and grazing. The fact that forest loss has several causes has a policy implica- tion: Different deforestation scenarios require different conservation strategies. Applied anthropologists must work to make “good for the globe” good for the people.

5. The recent emergence and spread of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, Ebola, West Nile, SARS, Zika, and Lyme disease are the result of things people have done to their environments. The spread of zoonotic diseases from wild to domesticated animals and then to humans has been going on since the Neolithic. Because human groups create the conditions that allow zoonotic pathogens to jump species and to spread, anthropologists have a key role to play in studying the causes of environ- mental encroachment and in suggesting culturally appropriate solutions.

6. Cultural imperialism is the spread of one culture and its imposition on other cul- tures, which it modifies, replaces, or destroys—usually because of differential eco- nomic and political power. Some observers worry that modern technology, including the mass media, is destroying traditional cultures. But others see an im- portant role for new technology in allowing local cultures to express themselves. As the forces of globalization spread, they are modified (indigenized) to fit local cultures. The mass media can help diffuse a national culture within and beyond its own boundaries. The media, including the Internet, also play a role in preserving ethnic and national identities among people who lead transnational lives.

Key Terms 477

7. People travel more than ever. But migrants also maintain ties with home, so they live multilocally. With so many people “in motion,” the unit of anthropological study expands from the local community to the diaspora. Postmodernity describes this world in flux, with people on the move who manage multiple social identities depending on place and context. With globalization, new kinds of political and ethnic units are emerging as others break down or disappear.

8. Governments, NGOs, and international agencies have adopted policies designed to recognize and benefit indigenous peoples. Social movements worldwide have ad- opted this term as a self-identifying and political label based on past oppression but now signaling a search for social, cultural, and political rights. In Latin America, several national constitutions now recognize the rights of indigenous peoples. Iden- tity is a fluid, dynamic process, and there are multiple ways of being indigenous.

Think Like an Anthropologist 1. What does it mean to apply an anthropological perspective to contemporary global

issues? Can you come up with an anthropological research question that investi- gates a global issue? Imagine you had a year (and the money!) to carry out this project. How would you spend your time and your resources?

2. The topic of global climate change has been hotly debated during the past few years. Why is there so much debate? Are you concerned about global climate change? Do you think everyone on the planet should be equally concerned and share the responsibility for doing something about it? Why or why not?

3. Consider majority and minority rights in the context of contemporary events in- volving religion, ethnicity, politics, and law. What kind of rights should be granted based on religious beliefs? What kinds of groups, if any, within a nation should have special rights? How about indigenous peoples?

Key Terms anthropogenic, 460 climate change, 460 cultural

imperialism, 467 diaspora, 469

indigenization, 469 postmodern, 471 postmodernism, 471 postmodernity, 471 Westernization, 466

ecological anthropology, 462

essentialism, 473 ethnoecology, 462 greenhouse

effect, 460

G-1

Glossary A Au. (Australopithecus) afarensis Early form of Australopithecus, found in Ethiopia at Hadar (“Lucy”) and in Tanzania at Laetoli; dating to the period between 3.8 and 3.0 m.y.a. Au. africanus First Australopithecus dis- covered, in South Africa; dating to 3.5–2.5 m.y.a. Au. anamensis Earliest form of Australo- pithecus yet discovered; found in Kenya and dating to 4.2 m.y.a. Au. garhi Found in Ethiopia in association with tools and dating to 2.6–2.5 m.y.a. absolute dating Dating techniques that es- tablish dates in numbers or ranges of numbers; examples include the radiometric methods of 14C, K/A, 238U, TL, and ESR dating. acculturation The exchange of cultural fea- tures that results when groups come into con- tinuous firsthand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct. Acheulean Derived from the French village of St. Acheul, where these tools were first identified; Lower Paleolithic tool tradition associated with H. erectus. achieved status Social status that comes through talents, actions, efforts, activities, and accomplishments, rather than ascription. adaptation The process by which organ- isms cope with environmental stresses. adaptive Favored by natural selection in a particular environment. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) A rule-governed dialect of American English spoken by some African Americans in their casual, intimate speech. age set Group uniting all men or women (usually men) born during a certain time span; this group controls property and often has po- litical and military functions.

agriculture Nonindustrial system of plant cultivation characterized by continuous and intensive use of land and labor. allele A biochemical difference involving a particular gene. analogies Similarities arising as a result of similar selective forces; traits produced by convergent evolution. anatomically modern humans (AMHs) Including the Cro-Magnons of Europe (31,000 B.P.) and the older fossils from Herto (160,000-154,000), Skhūl (100,000), and Qafzeh (92,000); continue through the present.  animism Belief in souls or doubles. anthropoids Monkeys, apes, and humans. anthropological archaeology  The branch of anthropology that reconstructs, describes, and interprets human behavior and cultural patterns through material remains; best known for the study of prehistory. anthropology The study of the human spe- cies and its immediate ancestors. anthropology and education Anthropolog- ical research in classrooms, homes, and neigh- borhoods, viewing students as total cultural creatures whose enculturation and attitudes to- ward education belong to a larger context that includes family, peers, and society. anthropometry The measurement of human body parts and dimensions, including skeletal parts (osteometry). applied anthropology The application of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contem- porary social problems. arboreal Tree-dwelling. Ardipithecus The earliest widely accepted hominin genus (5.8–4.4 m.y.a.); includes spe- cies kadabba (earlier) and ramidus (later). ascribed status Social status (e.g., race or gender) that people have little or no choice about occupying.

G-2 Glossary

bipedalism Upright two-legged locomotion, the key feature differentiating early hominins from the apes. blade tool The basic Upper Paleolithic tool type, hammered off a prepared core. bone biology The study of bone as a biolog- ical tissue, including its genetics; cell struc- ture; growth, development, and decay; and patterns of movement (biomechanics). bourgeoisie One of Karl Marx’s opposed classes; owners of the means of production (factories, mines, large farms, and other sources of subsistence). brachiation Swinging, hand-over-hand movement through trees, characteristic of arboreal apes and some New World monkeys. broad-spectrum revolution Period begin- ning around 20,000 B.P. in the Middle East and 12,000 B.P. in Europe, during which a wider range, or broader spectrum, of plant and animal life was hunted, gathered, collected, caught, and fished; revolutionary because it led to food production. bronze An alloy of arsenic and copper or of tin and copper.

C call systems Systems of communication among nonhuman primates, composed of a lim- ited number of sounds that vary in intensity and duration; tied to environmental stimuli. capital Wealth or resources invested in busi- ness, with the intent of producing a profit. capitalist world economy The single world system, which emerged in the 16th century, committed to production for sale, with the ob- ject of maximizing profits rather than supply- ing domestic needs. cargo cults Postcolonial, acculturative, reli- gious movements common in Melanesia that attempt to explain European domination and wealth and to achieve similar success magi- cally by mimicking European behavior. caste system Closed, hereditary system of stratification, often dictated by religion; hier- archical social status is ascribed at birth, so

assimilation The process of change that a minority group may experience when it moves to a country where another culture dominates; the minority is incorporated into the dominant culture to the point that it no longer exists as a separate cultural unit. australopiths Varied group of Pliocene– Pleistocene hominins that includes the genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus. authority The formal, socially approved use of power, e.g., by government officials. Aztec Last independent state in the Valley of Mexico; capital was Tenochtitlan. It thrived between 1325 C.E. and the Spanish conquest in 1520.

B balanced polymorphism Two or more forms, such as alleles of the same gene, that maintain a constant frequency in a population from generation to generation. balanced reciprocity See generalized reci- procity. band Basic unit of social organization among foragers. A band includes fewer than one hun- dred people; it often splits up seasonally. behavioral modernity The advent of mod- ern human behavioral capabilities based on symbolic thought and language, in addition to modern anatomy. big man Figure often found among tribal horticulturalists and pastoralists. The big man occupies no office but creates his reputation through entrepreneurship and generosity to others. Neither his wealth nor his position passes to his heirs. biocultural Referring to the inclusion and combination (to solve a common problem) of both biological and cultural approaches—one of anthropology’s hallmarks. biological anthropology The branch of anthropology that studies human biological diversity in time and space—for instance, hominid evolution, human genetics, human biological adaptation; also includes primatol- ogy (behavior and evolution of monkeys and apes). Also called physical anthropology.

Glossary G-3

found in all societies, but the resolution meth- ods tend to be more formal and effective in states than in nonstates. convergent evolution Independent opera- tion of similar selective forces; process by which analogies are produced. core Dominant structural position in the world system; consists of the strongest and most powerful states with advanced systems of production. core values Key, basic, or central values that integrate a culture and help distinguish it from others. correlation An association between two or more variables such that when one changes (varies), the other(s) also change(s) (covaries)— for example, temperature and sweating. creationism Explanation for the origin of species given in Genesis: God created the species during the original six days of Creation.  Cro-Magnon The first fossil find (1868) of an AMH, from France’s Dordogne Valley. cultivation continuum  Continuum of land and labor use, with horticulture at one end and agriculture at the other. cultural anthropology The study of human society and culture; describes, analyzes, inter- prets, and explains social and cultural simi- larities and differences. cultural colonialism Within a nation or an empire, domination by one ethnic group or nationality and its culture/ideology over others—e.g., the dominance of Russian people, language, and culture in the former Soviet Union. cultural consultant Someone the ethnogra- pher gets to know in the field, who teaches him or her about the consultant’s society and culture; also called an informant. cultural imperialism The rapid spread or advance of one culture at the expense of oth- ers, or its imposition on other cultures, which it modifies, replaces, or destroys—usually because of differential economic or political influence.

that people are locked into their parents’ social position. catastrophism View that extinct species were destroyed by fires, floods, and other catastrophes. After each destructive event, God created again, leading to contemporary species. chiefdom Form of sociopolitical organiza- tion intermediate between the tribe and the state; kin-based with differential access to re- sources and a permanent political structure. A ranked society in which relations among villages as well as among individuals are unequal, with smaller villages under the authority of leaders in larger villages; has a two-level settlement hierarchy. chromosomes Basic genetic units, occur- ring in matching (homologous) pairs; lengths of DNA made up of multiple genes. clan Unilineal descent group based on stipu- lated descent. climate change Global warming, plus changing sea levels, precipitation, storms, and ecosystem effects. Clovis tradition Stone technology based on a projectile point that was fastened to the end of a hunting spear; it flourished between 13,250 B.P. and 12,800 B.P. in North America. colonialism The political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended time. communism Spelled with a lowercase c, describes a social system in which property is owned by the community and in which people work for the common good. Communism Spelled with a capital C, a po- litical movement and doctrine seeking to over- throw capitalism and to establish a form of communism such as that which prevailed in the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1917 to 1991. communitas Intense community spirit, a feeling of great social solidarity, equality, and togetherness; characteristic of people experi- encing liminality together. conflict resolution The means by which disputes are socially regulated and settled;

G-4 Glossary

descriptive linguistics The scientific study of a spoken language, including its phonol- ogy, morphology, lexicon, and syntax. development anthropology The branch of applied anthropology that focuses on social issues in, and the cultural dimension of, economic development. diaspora The offspring of an area who have spread to many lands. differential access Unequal access to re- sources; basic attribute of chiefdoms and states. Superordinates have favored access to such resources, while the access of subordi- nates is limited by superordinates. diffusion Borrowing between cultures either directly or through intermediaries. diglossia The existence of “high” (formal) and “low” (familial) dialects of a single lan- guage, such as German. discrimination Policies and practices that harm a group and its members. disease A scientifically identified health threat caused by a bacterium, virus, fungus, parasite, or other pathogen. displacement A linguistic capacity that allows humans to speak of things and events that are not present. domestic Within or pertaining to the home. domestic–public dichotomy Contrast be- tween women’s role in the home and men’s role in public life, with a corresponding social devaluation of women’s work and worth. dominant Allele that masks another allele in a heterozygote. dowry A marital exchange in which the wife’s group provides substantial gifts to the husband’s family.

E ecological anthropology Study of cultural adaptations to environments. economy A population’s system of production, distribution, and consumption of resources.

cultural relativism The position that the values and standards of cultures differ and de- serve respect. Anthropology is characterized by methodological rather than moral relativ- ism: In order to understand another culture fully, anthropologists try to understand its members’ beliefs and motivations. Method- ological relativism does not preclude making moral judgments or taking action. cultural resource management (CRM) The branch of applied archaeology aimed at preserving sites threatened by dams, highways, and other projects. (CRM) cultural rights Doctrine that certain rights are vested not in individuals but in identifiable groups, such as religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous societies. cultural transmission A basic feature of language; transmission through learning. culture Traditions and customs that govern behavior and beliefs; distinctly human; trans- mitted through learning. cuneiform Early Mesopotamian writing that used a stylus (writing implement) to write wedge-shaped impressions on raw clay; from the Latin word for “wedge.” curer Specialized role acquired through a culturally appropriate process of selection, training, certification, and acquisition of a professional image; the curer is consulted by patients, who believe in his or her special powers, and receives some form of special consideration; a cultural universal.

D daughter languages Languages developing out of the same parent language; for example, French and Spanish are daughter languages of Latin. Denisovans Cousins of the Neandertals who lived in Asia from roughly 400,000 to 50,000 B.P. descent Rule assigning social identity on the basis of some aspect of one’s ancestry. descent group A permanent social unit whose members claim common ancestry; fundamental to tribal society.

Glossary G-5

ethnology The theoretical, comparative study of society and culture; compares cul- tures in time and space. etic The research strategy that emphasizes the observer’s rather than the natives’ explanations, categories, and criteria of significance. evolution Descent with modification; change in form over generations. excavation Digging through the layers of deposits that make up an archaeological site. exogamy Mating or marriage outside one’s kin group; a cultural universal. extended family household Expanded household including three or more generations.

F family A group of people (e.g., parents, children, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, spouses, siblings-in-law, parents-in-law, children-in-law) who are considered to be related in some way, for example, by “blood” (common ancestry or descent) or marriage. family of orientation Nuclear family in which one is born and grows up. family of procreation Nuclear family established when one marries and has children. fiscal Pertaining to finances and taxation. focal vocabulary A set of words and distinctions that are particularly important to certain groups (those with particular foci of experience or activity), such as types of snow to Eskimos or skiers. food production Cultivation of plants and domestication (stockbreeding) of animals; first developed in the Middle East 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. foraging  An economy and way of life based on hunting and gathering.   fossils Remains (e.g., bones), traces, or impressions (e.g., footprints) of ancient life.

egalitarian society A type of society, most typically found among foragers, that lacks sta- tus distinctions except for those based on age, gender, and individual qualities, talents, and achievements. emic The research strategy that focuses on native explanations and criteria of significance. empire  A mature state that is large, multi- ethnic, militaristic, and expansive. enculturation The social process by which culture is learned and transmitted across the generations. endogamy Marriage between people of the same social group. equity, increased A reduction in absolute poverty and a fairer (more even) distribution of wealth. essentialism The process of viewing an identity as established, real, and frozen, so as to hide the historical processes and politics within which that identity developed. estrus Period of maximum sexual receptiv- ity in female baboons, chimpanzees, and other primates, signaled by vaginal area swelling and coloration. ethnic group Group distinguished by cul- tural similarities (shared among members of that group) and differences (between that group and others); ethnic group members share beliefs, values, habits, customs, norms, and a common language, religion, history, geography, kinship, and/or race. ethnicity Identification with, and feeling part of, an ethnic group and exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation. ethnocentrism The tendency to view one’s own culture as best and to judge the behavior and beliefs of culturally different people by one’s own standards. ethnocide Destruction by a dominant group of the culture of an ethnic group. ethnoecology A culture’s set of environ- mental practices and perceptions. ethnography Fieldwork in a particular culture.

G-6 Glossary

genotype An organism’s hereditary makeup. glacials The four or five major advances of continental ice sheets in northern Europe and North America. globalization The accelerating interdepen- dence of nations in a world system linked economically and through mass media and modern transportation systems. gracile Small, slight; opposite of robust. greenhouse effect Warming from trapped atmospheric gases.

H H. (Homo) erectus Hominin type that lived from approximately 1.9 to 300,000 m.y.a.; widely distributed throughout the Old World; immediate predecessor of Homo sapiens. H. floresiensis: Diminutive small-brained hominins that inhabited the isolated Indone- sian island of Flores between at least 700,000 B.P. and 50,000 B.P. H. habilis Early hominin species (1.9–1.44 m.y.a.), first discovered by L.S.B. and Mary Leakey in 1960; named habilis, meaning “able,” for their presumed ability to make tools. H. heidelbergensis Hominin group that lived in Europe, Africa, and Asia from about 850,000 to about 200,000 B.P. Halafian An early (7500–6500 B.P.) and widespread pottery style, first found in northern Syria; refers to a delicate ceramic style and to the period when the first chiefdoms emerged. haplogroup Lineage or branch of a genetic tree marked by one or more specific genetic mutations. Haplorrhini The primate suborder that includes lemurs, lorises, and their ancestors. head, village See village head. health care systems Beliefs, customs, and specialists concerned with ensuring health and preventing and curing illness; a cultural universal.

G gender identity Identity based on whether a person feels, and is regarded as, male, female, or something else. gender roles The tasks and activities that a culture assigns to each sex. gender stereotypes Oversimplified but strongly held ideas about the characteristics of males and females. gender stratification Unequal distribution of rewards (socially valued resources, power, prestige, and personal freedom) between men and women, reflecting their different positions in a social hierarchy. gene Area in a chromosome pair that determines, wholly or partially, a particular biological trait, such as whether one’s blood type is A, B, AB, or O. gene flow Exchange of genetic material between populations of the same species through direct or indirect interbreeding. gene pool All the alleles and genotypes within a breeding population—the “pool” of genetic material available. genealogical method Procedures by which ethnographers discover and record connec- tions of kinship, descent, and marriage, using diagrams and symbols. general anthropology The field of anthro- pology as a whole, consisting of cultural, archaeological, biological, and linguistic anthropology. generality Culture pattern or trait that exists in some but not all societies. generalized reciprocity Principle that characterizes exchanges between closely related individuals: As social distance increases, reciprocity becomes balanced and finally negative. genetic evolution Change in gene frequency within a breeding population. genocide Policies aimed at, and/or resulting in, the physical extinction (through mass murder) of a people perceived as a racial group, that is, as sharing defining physical, genetic, or other biological characteristics.

Glossary G-7

hypodescent Rule that automatically places the children of a union or mating between members of different socioeconomic groups in the less privileged group.

I illness A condition of poor health perceived or felt by an individual. imperialism A policy of extending the rule of a nation or an empire over foreign nations and of taking and holding foreign colonies. incest Sexual relations with a close relative. increased equity See equity, increased. independent assortment (Mendel’s law of) Chromosomes are inherited independently of one another. independent invention Development of the same culture trait or pattern in separate cultures as a result of comparable needs and circumstances. indigenization Process by which cultural items introduced from outside are modified to fit the local culture. Industrial Revolution The historical transformation (in Europe, after 1750) of “traditional” into “modern” societies through industrialization of the economy. informed consent Agreement to take part in research, after the people being studied have been told about that research’s purpose, nature, procedures, and potential impact on them. intellectual property rights (IPR) Each society’s cultural base—its core beliefs and principles. IPR is claimed as a group right—a cultural right, allowing indigenous groups to control who may know and use their collective knowledge and its applications. (IPR) interglacials Extended warm periods between such major glacials as Riss and Würm. international culture Cultural traditions that extend beyond national boundaries. intersex Pertaining to a group of conditions reflecting a discrepancy between the external genitals (penis, vagina, etc.) and the internal genitals (testes, ovaries, etc.).

hegemony The internalization of a dominant ideology. Herto Very early (160,000–154,000 y.a.) AMH fossils, found in Ethiopia. heterozygous Having dissimilar alleles of a given gene. historical linguistics Subdivision of linguis- tics that studies languages over time. holistic Interested in the whole of the human condition: past, present, and future; biology, society, language, and culture. Holocene Geological epoch beginning around 11,700 B.P.; the transition from forag- ing to food production took place during the early Holocene. hominid A member of the taxonomic fam- ily that includes humans and the African apes and their immediate ancestors. hominin A member of the human lineage after its split from ancestral chimps; used to describe all the human species that ever have existed, including the extinct ones, but exclud- ing chimps and gorillas. hominoid Zoological superfamily that includes all fossil and living apes and hominins. Homo erectus See H. (Homo) erectus. Homo habilis Term coined by L. S. B. and Mary Leakey; ancestor or contemporary of H. erectus; lived from about 1.9 to 1.44 m.y.a. homologies Traits that organisms have jointly inherited from their common ancestor. homozygous Possessing identical alleles of a particular gene. horticulture Nonindustrial system of plant cultivation in which plots lie fallow for vary- ing lengths of time. human rights Doctrine that invokes a realm of justice and morality beyond and superior to particular countries, cultures, and religions. Human rights, usually seen as vested in indi- viduals, include the right to speak freely, to hold religious beliefs without persecution, and not to be enslaved.

G-8 Glossary

longitudinal research Long-term study of a community, society, culture, or other unit, usually based on repeated visits.

M magic Use of supernatural techniques to accomplish specific aims. maize Corn; domesticated in highland Mexico. majority groups Superordinate, dominant, or controlling groups in a social–political hierarchy. mana Sacred impersonal force in Melanesian and Polynesian religions. manioc Cassava; a tuber domesticated in the South American lowlands. market principle Profit-oriented principle of exchange that dominates in states, particu- larly industrial states. Goods and services are bought and sold, and values are determined by supply and demand. matrilineal descent Unilineal descent rule in which people join the mother’s group automatically at birth and stay members throughout life. matrilocality Customary residence with the wife’s relatives after marriage, so that children grow up in their mother’s community. means (or factors) of production Land, labor, technology, and capital—major produc- tive resources. (or factors) medical anthropology Unites biological and cultural anthropologists in the study of disease, health problems, health care systems, and theories about illness in different cultures and ethnic groups. meiosis Special process by which sex cells are produced; four cells are produced from one, each with half the genetic material of the original cell. melanin Substance manufactured in special- ized cells in the lower layers of the epidermis (outer skin layer); melanin cells in dark skin produce more melanin than do those in light skin. Mesoamerica “Middle America,” including Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize.

intervention philosophy Guiding principle of colonialism, conquest, missionization, or development; an ideological justification for outsiders to guide native peoples in specific directions. interview schedule Ethnographic tool for structuring a formal interview. A prepared form (usually printed) that guides interviews with households or individuals being compared systematically. Contrasts with a questionnaire because the researcher has personal contact and records people’s answers.

K key cultural consultant An expert on a particular aspect of local life who helps the ethnographer understand that aspect. Also called key informant. kinesics The study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures, and facial expressions.

L law A legal code, including trial and en- forcement; characteristic of state-organized societies. levirate Custom by which a widow marries the brother of her deceased husband. lexicon Vocabulary; a dictionary containing all the morphemes in a language and their meaning. life history Of a cultural consultant; pro- vides a personal cultural portrait of existence or change in a culture. liminality The critically important marginal or in-between phase of a rite of passage. lineage Unilineal descent group based on demonstrated descent. linguistic anthropology The branch of anthropology that studies linguistic variation in time and space, including interrelations between language and culture; includes historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. lobola A customary gift before, at, or after marriage from the husband and his kin to the wife and her kin.

Glossary G-9

N nation Once a synonym for ethnic group, designating a single culture sharing a lan- guage, religion, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship; now usually a synonym for state or nation-state. nation-state An autonomous political entity; a country like the United States or Canada. national culture Cultural experiences, beliefs, learned behavior patterns, and values shared by citizens of the same nation. nationalities Ethnic groups that once had, or wish to have or regain, autonomous political status (their own country). Natufians Widespread Middle Eastern culture, dated to between 12,500 and 10,500 B.P.; subsisted on intensive wild cereal collecting and gazelle hunting and had year-round villages. natural selection Originally formulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace; the process by which nature selects the forms most fit to survive and reproduce in a given environment, such as the tropics. Neandertals  Distinctive group of hominins that inhabited Europe (through Siberia) and the Middle East from 130,000 to 28,000 B.P. negative reciprocity See generalized reci- procity. neoliberalism Revival of Adam Smith’s classic economic liberalism, the idea that governments should not regulate private enterprise and that free market forces should rule; a currently dominant intervention philosophy. Neolithic “New Stone Age,” coined to de- scribe techniques of grinding and polishing stone tools; the first cultural period in a region in which the first signs of domestication are present. neolocality Postmarital residence pattern in which a couple establishes a new place of res- idence rather than living with or near either set of parents. norms Cultural standards or guidelines that enable individuals to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate behavior in a given society.

Mesolithic Tool-making tradition between Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic, based on very small stone tools—microliths. Mesopotamia The area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now southern Iraq and southwestern Iran; location of the first cities and states. metallurgy Knowledge of the properties of metals, including their extraction and processing and the manufacture of metal tools. minority groups Subordinate groups in a social–political hierarchy, with inferior power and less secure access to resources than majority groups have. mitosis Ordinary cell division; DNA mol- ecules copy themselves, creating two identical cells out of one. mode of production Way of organizing production—a set of social relations through which labor is deployed to wrest energy from nature by means of tools, skills, and knowledge. molecular anthropology Genetic analysis, involving comparison of DNA sequences, to determine evolutionary links and distances among species and among ancient and modern populations. monotheism Worship of an eternal, omni- scient, omnipotent, and omnipresent supreme being. morphology The study of form; used in linguistics (the study of morphemes and word construction) and for form in general—for example, biomorphology relates to physical form. Mousterian Middle Paleolithic tool-making tradition associated with Neandertals. multiculturalism The view of cultural diversity in a country as something good and desirable; a multicultural society socializes individuals not only into the dominant (national) culture but also into an ethnic culture. mutation Change in the DNA molecules of which genes and chromosomes are built. m.y.a. Million years ago.

G-10 Glossary

pastoralists People who use a food-producing strategy of adaptation based on care of herds of domesticated animals. patriarchy Political system ruled by men in which women have inferior social and politi- cal status, including basic human rights. patrilineal descent Unilineal descent rule in which people join the father’s group automatically at birth and stay members throughout life. patrilineal–patrilocal complex An inter- related constellation of patrilineality, patrilo- cality, warfare, and male supremacy. patrilocality Customary residence with the husband’s relatives after marriage, so that children grow up in their father’s community. peasant Small-scale agriculturist living in a state, with rent fund obligations. periphery Weakest structural position in the world system. phenotype An organism’s evident traits; its “manifest biology”—anatomy and physiol- ogy. phenotypical adaptation Adaptive biological changes that occur during the individual’s life- time, made possible by biological plasticity. phoneme Significant sound contrast in a language that serves to distinguish meaning, as in minimal pairs. phonemics The study of the sound contrasts (phonemes) of a particular language. phonetics The study of speech sounds in general; what people actually say in various languages. phonology The study of sounds used in speech. physical anthropology See biological anthropology. Pleistocene Epoch of Homo’s appearance and evolution; began 2 million years ago; di- vided into Lower, Middle, and Upper. plural marriage Marriage of a man to two or more women (polygyny) or marriage of a woman to two or more men (polyandry) at the same time; see also polygamy.

O office Permanent political position. Oldowan pebble tools Early (2.6–1.8 m.y.a.) stone tools; first discovered in 1931 by L. S. B. and Mary Leakey at Olduvai Gorge. opposable thumb A thumb that can touch all the other fingers. overinnovation Characteristic of development projects that require major changes in people’s daily lives, especially ones that interfere with customary subsis- tence pursuits.

P paleoanthropology The study of hominin evolution and human life as revealed by the fossil record. Paleolithic Old Stone Age (from Greek roots meaning “old” and “stone”); divided into Lower (early), Middle, and Upper (late). paleontology Study of ancient life through the fossil record. paleopathology Study of disease and injury in skeletons from archaeological sites. pantribal sodality A non-kin-based group that exists throughout a tribe, spanning several villages. Paranthropus boisei Hyperrobust form of Paranthropus, found in East Africa and dating to the period between 2.3 and 1.4 m.y.a. Paranthropus robustus Robust early hominin, found in South Africa and dating to the period between 1.9 and 1.0 m.y.a. participant observation A characteristic ethnographic technique; taking part in the events one is observing, describing, and analyzing. particularity Distinctive or unique culture trait, pattern, or integration. pastoral nomadism Movement throughout the year by the whole pastoral group (men, women, and children) with their animals; more generally, such constant movement in pursuit of strategic resources.

Glossary G-11

potlatch Competitive feast among Indians on the North Pacific Coast of North America. power The ability to exercise one’s will over others—to do what one wants; the basis of political status. prejudice Devaluing (looking down on) a group because of its assumed behavior, values, capabilities, or attributes. prestige Esteem, respect, or approval for acts, deeds, or qualities considered exemplary. primary states States that arise on their own (through competition among chief- doms), and not through contact with other state societies. primates  Apes, monkeys, tarsiers, lemurs, lorises; members of the zoological order that includes humans. primatology The study of the biology, be- havior, social life, and evolution of monkeys, apes, and other nonhuman primates. productivity The ability to use the rules of one’s language to create new expressions comprehensible to other speakers; a basic feature of language. protolanguage Language ancestral to several daughter languages. public anthropology Efforts to extend an- thropology’s visibility beyond academia and to demonstrate its public policy relevance.

R race An ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis. racial classification The attempt to assign humans to discrete categories (purportedly) based on common ancestry. racism Discrimination against an ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis. random genetic drift Change in gene frequency that results not from natural selection but from chance; most common in small populations. ranked society A type of society with hereditary inequality but lacking social stratification.

plural society A society that combines ethnic contrasts, ecological specialization (i.e., use of different environmental resources by each ethnic group), and the economic interdependence of those groups. polities  Political entities or systems. polyandry Variety of plural marriage in which a woman has more than one husband. polygamy Marriage with three or more spouses, at the same time; see also plural marriage. polygyny Variety of plural marriage in which a man has more than one wife. polytheism Belief in several deities who control aspects of nature. popular culture Aspects of culture that have meaning for many or most people within the same national culture, including media, fast-food restaurant chains, sports, and games. population genetics Field that studies causes of genetic variation, maintenance, and change in breeding populations. postcolonial Referring to interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized (mainly after 1800); more generally, postcolonial may be used to signify a position against imperialism and Eurocentrism. postmodern In its most general sense, de- scribes the blurring and breakdown of estab- lished canons (rules, standards), categories, distinctions, and boundaries. postmodernism A style and movement in architecture that succeeded modernism. Com- pared with modernism, postmodernism is less geometric, less functional, less austere, more playful, and more willing to include elements from diverse times and cultures; postmodern now describes comparable developments in music, literature, and visual art. postmodernity Condition of a world in flux, with people on-the-move, in which established groups, boundaries, identities, contrasts, and standards are reaching out and breaking down.

G-12 Glossary

science A systematic field of study or body of knowledge that aims, through experiment, observation, and deduction, to produce reli- able explanations of phenomena, with refer- ence to the material and physical world. scientific medicine As distinguished from Western medicine, a health care system based on scientific knowledge and procedures, en- compassing such fields as pathology, microbi- ology, biochemistry, surgery, diagnostic technology, and applications. sedentism Settled (sedentary) life; preceded food production in the Old World and followed it in the New World. semantics A language’s meaning system. semiperiphery Structural position in the world system intermediate between core and periphery. settlement hierarchy A ranked series of communities differing in size, function, and type of building; a three-level settlement hierarchy indicates state organization. sexual dimorphism Marked differences in male and female biology, besides the contrasts in breasts and genitals, and temperament. sexual orientation A person’s habitual sexual attraction to and activities with persons of the opposite sex (heterosexuality), the same sex (homosexuality), or both sexes (bisexuality). sexual selection Based on differential suc- cess in mating, the process in which certain traits of one sex (e.g., color in male birds) are selected because of advantages they confer in winning mates. shaman A part-time religious practitioner who mediates between ordinary people and supernatural beings and forces. smelting The high-temperature process by which pure metal is produced from an ore. social control Those fields of the social system (beliefs, practices, and institutions) that are most actively involved in the mainte- nance of any norms and the regulation of any conflict.

recessive Genetic trait masked by a domi- nant trait. reciprocity One of the three principles of exchange; governs exchange between social equals; major exchange mode in band and tribal societies. reciprocity continuum Regarding ex- changes, a range running from generalized reciprocity (closely related/deferred return) through balanced reciprocity to negative reciprocity (strangers/immediate return). redistribution Major exchange mode of chiefdoms, many archaic states, and some states with managed economies. refugees People who have been forced (involuntary refugees) or who have chosen (voluntary refugees) to flee a country, to escape persecution or war. relative dating Dating technique (e.g., stratigraphy) that establishes a time frame in relation to other strata or materials, rather than absolute dates in numbers. religion Beliefs and rituals concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces. revitalization movements Movements that occur in times of change, in which religious leaders emerge and undertake to alter or revitalize a society. rites of passage Culturally defined activities associated with the transition from one place or stage of life to another. ritual Behavior that is formal, stylized, repetitive, and stereotyped, performed earnestly as a social act; rituals are held at set times and places and have liturgical orders. robust Large, strong, sturdy; said of skull, skeleton, muscle, and teeth; opposite of gracile.

S sample A smaller study group chosen to represent a larger population. Sapir-Whorf hypothesis Theory that different languages produce different ways of thinking.

Glossary G-13

subgroups Languages within a taxonomy of related languages that are most closely related. subordinate The lower, or underprivileged, group in a stratified system. superordinate The upper, or privileged, group in a stratified system. survey research Characteristic research procedure among social scientists other than anthropologists. Studies society through sam- pling, statistical analysis, and impersonal data collection. symbol Something, verbal or nonverbal, that arbitrarily and by convention stands for something else, with which it has no neces- sary or natural connection. syntax The arrangement and order of words in phrases and sentences. systematic survey Information gathered on patterns of settlement over a large area; pro- vides a regional perspective on the archaeo- logical record.

T taboo Prohibition backed by supernatural sanctions. taphonomy The study of the processes— biological and geological—by which dead animals become fossils; from the Greek taphos, which means “tomb.” taxonomy Classification scheme; assignment to categories (taxa; singular, taxon). teosinte Wild grass; apparent ancestor of maize; also called teocentli. Teotihuacan First state in the Valley of Mexico and earliest major Mesoamerican empire, 100 to 700 C.E. terrestrial Ground-dwelling. theory An explanatory framework, containing a series of statements, that helps us understand why (something exists); theories suggest patterns, connections, and relationships that may be confirmed by new research. totem An animal, plant, or geographic feature associated with a specific social group,

society Organized life in groups; typical of humans and other animals. sociolinguistics Study of relationships between social and linguistic variation; study of language in its social context. sociopolitical typology Classification scheme based on the scale and complexity of social organization and the effectiveness of political regulation; includes band, tribe, chiefdom, and state. sodality See pantribal sodality. sororate Custom by which a widower marries the sister of the deceased wife. speciation Formation of new species; oc- curs when subgroups of the same species are separated for a sufficient length of time. species Population whose members can interbreed to produce offspring that can live and reproduce. state Complex sociopolitical system that administers a territory and populace with substantial contrasts in occupation, wealth, prestige, and power. An independent, centrally organized political unit; a government. A form of social and political organization with a formal, central government and a division of society into classes. status Any position that determines where someone fits in society; may be ascribed or achieved. stereotypes Fixed ideas—often unfavorable— about what members of a group are like. stratification Characteristic of a system with socioeconomic strata. stratigraphy Science that examines the ways in which earth sediments are deposited in demarcated layers known as strata (singu- lar, stratum). Strepsirrhini The primate suborder that includes tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans. style shifts Variations in speech in different contexts. subcultures Different cultural symbol- based traditions associated with subgroups in the same complex society.

G-14 Glossary

V variables Attributes (e.g., age, occupation, income) that differ from one person or case to the next. village head Leadership position in a village (as among the Yanomami, where the head is always a man); has limited authority; and leads by example and persuasion.

W wealth All a person’s material assets, including income, land, and other types of property; the basis of economic status. Westernization The acculturative influence of Western expansion on other cultures. working class (or proletariat) Those who must sell their labor to survive; the antithesis of the bourgeoisie in Marx’s class analysis. (or proletariat) world-system theory Argument for the historic and contemporary social, political, and economic significance of an identifiable global system, based on wealth and power differentials, that extends beyond individual countries.

Z Zapotec state Mesoamerica’s earliest state, which developed in Mexico’s Valley of Oaxaca from a chiefdom by about 100 B.C.E. and lasted until its overthrow by Spain in the 1500s.

to which that totem is sacred or symbolically important. transgender A category of varied individu- als whose gender identity contradicts their bi- ological sex at birth and the gender identity that society assigned to them in infancy. transhumance One of two variants of pas- toralism; part of the population moves season- ally with the herds while the other part remains in home villages. tribe Form of sociopolitical organization usually based on horticulture or pastoralism. Socioeconomic stratification and centralized rule are absent in tribes, and there is no means of enforcing political decisions. typology, sociopolitical See sociopolitical typology.

U uniformitarianism Belief that explanations for past events should be sought in ordinary forces that continue to work today. unilineal descent Matrilineal or patrilineal descent. universal Something that exists in every culture. Upper Paleolithic Blade tool-making tradi- tions associated with AMHs; named from their location in upper, or more recent, layers of sedimentary deposits. urban anthropology The anthropological study of life in and around world cities, in- cluding urban social problems, differences between urban and other environments, and adaptation to city life.

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I-1

Note: Tables, figures, and illustra- tions are indicated by t, f, and i.

A AAA. See American Anthropological

Association (AAA) AAVE. See African American

Vernacular English (AAVE) “Aba Women’s Riots of 1929,” 295 abbreviations, in written

communication, 227 ABO blood groups, resistance to

smallpox and, 88 Aboriginal elders, 278i absolute dating, 47–48, 48t Abu Hureyra site, in Syria, 178 academic anthropology, 408 acculturation, 35, 466 Acheulean tool-making tradition, 149 achieved status, 380–381 acquired characteristics,

inheritance of, 70 Adam and Eve, as apical

ancestors, 308–309 adaptation, 3–4, 17

biological means of, 23 cultural means of, 148 social and cultural means of, 3–4

adaptive strategies, 248–253 based on food production, 253–259 Cohen’s, 273

adaptive traits, 76 administrative buildings, state

bureaucracies occupying, 215 adopted children, seeking out birth

mothers or sperm donors, 302 affection, displays of, 227–228 affinity, wider relationships of, 312 Afghan girls, at a secondary school, 415i Afghanistan

autocratic system imposed on, 412 Buddhas in, 193–194 Taliban in, 193–194 village of potters, 412

African American Vernacular English (AAVE), 239–240

African Americans, 402 African country, plurality group of, 391 African great apes, 25 Afro-Brazilians, drawn to the

Pentecostal community, 370 age grades, 284 agency, 31 aging, of the U.S., 395 agnates, 312 agricultural development projects, 462 agricultural economies, 198, 256 agricultural intensification, 256–257,

271, 271i agricultural plots, reducing ecological

diversity, 256

expanding out of Africa into Eurasia, 162–163

Andean region, food production domestication, 186t

Anderson, Barbara, 418–419 Andersson, Ruben, 296–297 Andes, metalworking around 4000

B.P., 211 animal butchery, earliest traces of, 138 animal domestication, 187, 195, 249 animals

classification, or taxonomy, of, 68 no notion of private ownership of

among Inuit, 280 animism, 355, 376 Antananarivo, Madagascar’s

capital, 462–463 anthropogenic causes, 460 anthropoid suborder, infraorders, 102 anthropoids, 101 anthropological archaeology, 42 anthropological perspective, 7 anthropological research, 62 anthropologists

marriage and, 324–325 not bearing much resemblance to

Indiana Jones, 218 respecting human diversity, 35 terrorism and, 62 in war zones, 62

anthropology, 2 anthropology and education, 414–415,

428 anthropology of religion, founders

of, 354 anthropometry, 49–50 antibodies, 88 anti-globalization activists, 38 antimodernism, 371–372 apes, 105–110

capable of learning signs and of communicating, 117

evolutionary (phylogenetic) relationships with humans, 100f

physical similarities with humans, 96–99

similarities between humans and, 25

studies of, 50 vocal tract not suitable for

speech, 223 apical ancestor, 308 Appadurai, Arjun, 470 Appiah, Kwame Anthony, 387 applications, of early anthropology,

407–408 applied anthropologists

range of employers, 428 role of, 407–410

applied anthropology, 11–13 contemporary, 408–410 defined, 406

Agricultural Revolution, 175 agriculture, 253, 254–256

invention of in the Middle East and Mexico, 35

labor demands associated with, 255i agriculturists, attempting to reduce

risk, 257 Agta of the Philippines, 333 Aguas Calientes, flooded by the

Vilcanota River in Peru, 192i aim and throw, capacity to, 26 air travel, 465 Ali Kosh, 179 alienation in industrial

economies, 261–263 alleles, 94

change in frequency resulting from chance, 77

determining blood type, 72 known to favor adult lactose

tolerance, 91 spread through gene flow, 79 for tallness (T) and shortness (t), 73

alluvial desert, 176 alluvial plain, of southern

Mesopotamia, 201 al-Mahdi, Ahmad al-Faqi, 36 alpaca, bred for wool, 187 Alps, heat waves melting snow and

glaciers, 192 Altai Mountains, near Siberian

permafrost, 193 alternative ends, 264–265 Amazon (company), warehouse on a

Cyber Monday, 458i Amazon River, towns along, 469 amenorrhea, 344 American Anthropological Association

(AAA), 11–12, 461 Code of Ethics, 61–62, 65

American anthropology, unity of, 6 American companies, outsourcing

jobs, 432 American Sign Language (ASL),

223–224 Americas

humans in, 172 settlement of, 187 settling of, 167–168

AMH, 158f “An Anthropologist Walks into a

Bar” (Madsbjerg and Rasmussen), 424i

analogies, 99 Anasazi (Native American) site, in

Mesa Verde National Park, 9i anatomically modern humans (AMHs),

149, 154t, 160–163 achieved behavioral modernity, 164 ancestors of, 172 compared to Neandertals, 157, 171 drawing of, 158f

Index

I-2 Index

Beringia, continental glaciation exposed, 167

Bernstein, Paula, 75i beta strain (Hb), of human

hemoglobin, 77 Betsileo of Madagascar, 270

different wives lived in different villages, 321

having both clans and lineages, 309–310

marriage and funeral ceremonies, 30 stages of teamwork in rice

cultivation, 260 viewing witches and dead ancestors

as real people, 373 big man, 282–283

Melanesian, 365–366 persuading people to organize

feasts, 282i worked hard not to hoard

wealth, 283 big men, 298 “Big Wife,” 321 bigfoot (Sasquatch), 116 Bingham, Hiram, 60 bioarchaeologists, 43 biochemical genetics, 71 biocultural, 4 biocultural approach,

example of, 63–64 biodiversity conservation, 463 biological, or physical,

anthropology, 10–11 biological adaptation, to high altitude,

3–4, 3t biological anthropologists, 7, 42–43,

59, 406 biological anthropology, 10, 49–50 biological changes, increased hunting

efficiency, 150 biological fathers, incest with, 314 biological paternity, 311 biological plasticity, 91 biological race, 80 biological similarities, 84, 94 biological taxonomy, 93 biological tissue, bone as, 49 biological variation, causes of, 71 biologically based universals, 28–29 bipedal locomotion, 101, 122 bipedalism, 26

advantages of, 122 predated Au. afarensis, 132 reliance on, 121–122

birth canal, expansion of, 134 bisexuality, 346 bison, hunting of, 284 Black Lives Matter, 400–401 blade tools, 166 blade-core method, 166 Blombos Cave, 165 blood feud, 280 Boas, Franz, 7, 84 Bodley, John H., 472 body mass index (kg/m2), 50 body movements, communicating

social differences, 226

evolved into Homo, 123 reconstruction of, 122i species, 129

Australopithecus (Au.) afarensis, 131–135, 137i

cranial capacity, 122–123 dentition of, 131 teeth of, 132f

Australopithecus (Au.) africanus, 137i (gracile) skull

Australopithecus (Au.) anamensis, 129–130

Australopithecus (Au.) boisei, of East Africa having mammoth back teeth, 136

Australopithecus (Au.) garhi, early stone tools and, 138

Australopithecus (Au.) sediba, 11, 140 authority, defined, 275, 298 authority structure, Qashqai, 285 autochthon label, 473 autochthony, 473 awls, 166 axis, grains attached to the stalk by,

179–180 Azande males, flexible in sexual

expression, 347 Aztec period, 216 Aztecs, 324 Aztecs of Mexico, 211

B baboons, infants of experienced

mothers, 64 Baby Boom (1946-1964), 396 Bahia, Brazil, 411 balanced polymorphism, favoring, 76 balanced reciprocity, 266–267 bananas, 189 band societies, 252, 277 bands

described, 277 economic basis of and political

regulation in, 289t small social groups called, 27

Barfield, Thomas, 413 bargaining, 265 barley, 179f, 189 Barlow, Kathleen, 314 Barth, Fredrik, 392 Bar-Yosef, Ofer, 175 Basarwa San, of Botswana, 278–279 the Basseri, 258, 285 BaThonga of Mozambique, 317 “BBC English,” 236 beauty standards, Brazil’s, 5 behavioral modernity, advent of,

163–166 beliefs, creating anxiety and a sense of

insecurity and danger, 356 beliefs and perceptions, 55–56 Benedict, Ruth, 294, 410 berdaches, 315 Berger, Lee, 140, 140i, 169–170 Berger, Matthew, 140i Berger, Peter, 368

applying, 406–427 business and, 422–424 doing, 41–64 ethical issues, 59–62 four subfields and two dimensions

of, 13t lessons of, 473–475 other academic fields and, 13–17 subdisciplines of, 7–11

Arabic, as Twitter’s fastest-growing language, 470

Arago site, 155 Aran, Scott, 372 arbitrariness, seeming natural, 292 arboreal gibbon limb ratio, compared

to terrestrial Homo, 106f arboreal heritage, homologies

reflecting, 101 arboreal monkeys, 101 archaeological anthropology, 8–10 archaeological sites, remains

found at, 42–43 archaeologists, 6–7, 42, 45–46, 59 archaeology, 8, 45–46 Archaic H. sapiens (300,000? to

28,000 B.P.), 154t, 158f archaic states, 198, 286, 288 Archicebus achilles, 114 Ardipithecus

capacity for upright bipedal locomotion, 121

Ethiopia’s, 121–122 habitat of, 128 hominin status of more generally

accepted, 127 pelvis as transitional, 128

Ardipithecus kadabba (5.8-5.5 m.y.a) early hominins assigned to, 127 fossils found in Ethiopia, 127

Ardipithecus ramidus, 127i, 128 Arembepe, Brazil, 51, 332, 369, 468 argon-40, 47 Armelagos, George, 92 ascribed status, 380 asexuality, 346 Asfaw, Berhane, 127 Ashanti, incest among, 313 Asia, countries having ethnic

majorities, 392 Asian Americans, in golf, 402 asphalt, from the steppe, 178 assimilation, 393, 404 association, 283 Atapuerca Mountains, in northern

Spain, 154 Atkinson, Quentin, 241, 242 Australia, aborigines of, 251 Australopithecinae subfamily, 129 australopithecines

assigned to the genus Australopithecus (Au.), 129

cheekbones, 136 compared with chimps and

Homo, 133t varied, 129–137

Australopithecus (Au.) compared to Homo, 171

Index I-3

Carter, Jimmy, 239 cash, new addiction to, 272 Caspari, Rachel, 63–64 cassava (manioc), 187 caste system, India’s, 314 Çatalhöyük, in Turkey, 202–203 catarrhines (Old World monkeys, apes,

and humans), 102–103, 115 catastrophism, 68i, 69 Catholicism, factors working against in

Brazil, 367–368 cattle, 187, 271 Caucasoid people, 82 Cavalieri, Paola, 117 CCR5 receptor gene, 90–91 Cenozoic era, 112, 112f, 119 Cenozoic primates, early, 114 census, race in, 384–386 Central and South America, farming in

the tropical lowlands of, 188 central leadership, 215 ceremonial fund, 264 ceremonial observance, of universal

life-cycle events, 29–30 Chad, discovery of Sahelanthropus

in, 124 Chagnon, Napoleon, 281 Chambers, Erve, 12 Chandbali, Orissa, India, 182i Channel Islands, of California, 193 cheap workers, from noncore

nations, 432 Chegança danceplay, reenacting the

Portuguese discovery of Brazil, 468

Cherokee, redistribution by, 266 chewing apparatus

australopithecine trend toward, 142 burden on eased, 148

Chichen Itzá, 217 chiefdoms, 197, 221, 286–289

described, 277 detecting, 205–207 economic basis of and political

regulation in, 289t emerged in the Middle East, 205 ethnographic knowledge about from

Polynesia, 286 existed before first states

appeared, 276 having farming economies, 277 having permanent regional

regulation, 299 in Mesoamerica, 213–214 social status in, 287–288 as a transitional form of

organization, 286 chiefly authority, geographic range

of, 215 chiefly redistribution, 287 chiefs

exempt from ordinary work, 287 sponsored feasts, 287 status of ascribed, 287

child care, female labor predominating, 332

child rearing, experience counting in, 64

breeds, race referring to, 79 British colonialism, 441–442 brittle axis, as a problem for

people, 180 broad-spectrum foragers, 174 broad-spectrum revolution, 167, 173 “bromance,” 228 bronze, 208 Bronze Age, 208 Brooks, Alison, 165 Broom, Robert, 135i Brown, Michael F., 60 Brownstein, Ronald, 395 Brunet, Michel, 124, 126i Bryant, Vaughn, 43 Buddhas, in Afghanistan, 193–194 Buddhists, 363–364 Buganda, king took hundreds of

wives, 321 Bumba Meu Boi festival, 469 buraku, 387 burakumin, 386, 387, 388 Burdick, John, 370 bureaucracy, 214 burins, 166 Burundi, 444 Bush, George (the elder), 239 Bush, George W., 324, 397

C cabôclo (someone who “looks

indio”), 389 Calakmul, 217 California coast, island-hopping from

Siberia down to, 193 call systems, 223 calls, produced by other primates, 223 caloric staples, combined with

protein-rich pulses, 189 Campbell, Curtis, 243i Canada

happiness, 343 immigrants to settling in Toronto,

Vancouver, or Montreal, 415 visible minority population of, 386f

Canadian census, asking about “visible minorities,” 385–386

cancer, leaving evidence in the bone, 49

candomblé, 367 Cann, Rebecca, 83, 161 capital, 431 capitalism, spread of, linked to early

Protestant leaders, 363 capitalist mode of production, 259–260 capitalist world economy, 430–431 caprine, 176 carbon-14 technique, 48t 14C (carbon-14) technique, 47, 48t careers, in anthropology, 425–427 cargo cults, 365–366, 377 Caribbean countries, containing a

majority group, 391 Carnaval (Mardi Gras in New

Orleans), 294 Carneiro, Robert, 199, 286

body ornamentation, 164i body ornaments, part of a system of

communication, 165 Bola de Neve Church, 368i Bonampak, 217 bone biology, 49, 65, 92 bone preservation, good places for, 46 Bones, TV series, 42 bonobos, 109, 110 bonobos (pygmy chimps), males

engaging mutual masturbation, 349

Bora Bora, Polynesia, boy from, 81i Border Cave, in South Africa, 160 border control, 296–297, 297i “born-again Christians,” as opposed to

“mainline Protestants,” 371 Borneman, John, 324–325 Borneo island, Indonesia, 107i Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the 1990s, 472 Botswana, relocated Basarwa San

Bushmen, 252 Bourdieu, Pierre, 239, 292 bourgeoisie (capitalists), 435 Bourque, Susan, 329 bowing, in Japan, 227 Bowles, Samuel, 180–181 boy, from Bora Bora in Polynesia, 81i boy, from Rajasthan, India, 81i boys

American more likely to share nonromantic hugs, 228

having to acquire semen orally from older Etoro men, 349

brachiation, 105 Braidwood, Robert J., 178, 194 brains

complexity of, 101 of early hominins, 122–123

Braudel, Fernand, 431 Brazil

female swimmers in, 5 female-run police stations for

battered women, 337 growth of Evangelical Protestantism

in, 367 lacking the hypodescent rule, 404 local practices, celebrations, and

performances changed, 468 McDonald’s expanded successfully,

426–427 more assimilationist than

others, 393 most popular network (Rede

Globo), 469 race in, 388–391, 390i as a semiperiphery nation, 431–432

Brazilian gold rush, between 1987 and 1991, 281

Brazilians avoid “hot” foods at the beach, 426 most likely to know someone using

online dating, 323 phenotypical diversity encountered

among contemporary, 390i breeding population, competition for

mates in, 76

I-4 Index

corn (maize), 187 correlated variables, 252 correlations, between two or more

variables, 252–253 cosmic radiation, producing 14C, 47 Cosmopolitan magazine, cover of, 89i “the cradle of civilization,”

Mesopotamia as, 207 craft specialization, 261 cranial capacity, increase in, 150 cranial crests, reduced, 148 cranial sutures, fused earlier in

life, 134 creationism, 68, 68i “creative explosion,” theory of, 164 crentes (“true believers”), 369 creole languages, 230–231 crimes, 290 cross-cultural generalizations,

exceptions to, 332 cross-cultural perspective, of

anthropology, 1–2 Cuban Americans, 381 Cullors, Patrisse, 400 cultivation, beginning of, 179 cultivation continuum, 256 “cults,” Americans fearful and

suspicious of, 358 cultural adaptation

exemplifying, 67 to high altitude, 3–4, 3t

cultural anthropologists, “digging out” information, 42

cultural anthropology, 6, 7–8, 14, 17, 50 “cultural capital,” 288 cultural change, mechanisms of, 34–35 cultural colonialism, 403 cultural consultant, 54 cultural diversity, 42, 166 cultural ecology, 269, 462 cultural features, distribution of

language families and, 243 cultural features of, 28t

exhibiting dominance relationships, 110

as habitual hunters, 26–27 making and using stone tools, 25–26 making tools, 36 teeth of, 132f tool use by, 26i widely used in biomedical

research, 111 cultural forces, shaping human

biology, 4–6 “cultural generation gap,” 395 cultural globalization, religion and,

367–373 cultural heritage, 36–37 cultural hybridization, 369 cultural imperialism, 467–469 cultural learning, 20, 38 cultural relativism, 32–33, 39 cultural resource management (CRM),

12–13, 45, 409 cultural resource managers, 13 cultural rights, need to preserve, 34 cultural rules, providing guidance, 30

collective liminality, social aspect of, 357–358

collective passage rites, 357 collective rituals, producing stress, 357 colonial archaeologists, 46 colonial languages, expanding at the

expense of indigenous, 245 colonialism, 441–445, 454

defined, 440 erected boundaries, 392 identity and, 444 stages of, 440–445 worsened health of indigenous

peoples, 418 colonization, role of language in, 223 color terms, 232–233 Colson, Elizabeth, 56–57 Columbia-Cornell-Harvard-Illinois

Summer Field Studies Program in Anthropology, 57

Columbus, Christopher, 433, 454 communicate, 245 communication, nonverbal, 226–228 communism, 449 Communism (political movement), 449 communitas, 358, 359i community formation, 293 competitive interaction, 213 “complex chiefdoms,” 286 CONASUPO (Compañía Nacional de

Subsistencias Populares) stores, 447, 448

confinement, requiring jailers, 290 conflict resolution, in stateless

societies, 276 Congo chimpanzees, using call

systems, 224i conquest, expansion through, 215 consensus, 335 conservation plans, insensitive as

development schemes, 463 conservation schemes, 463 consumption

spurred female employment, 338 transnational culture of, 37–38

Contagion (movie), 465 contagious magic, 356 continental shelf, 167 continents

“drifted” to present locations, 113, 113f

major axes of, 190f continuation marriage, 319 contrasted with language, wild

primates using, 225t Convention Concerning the Protection

of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, 36–37

convergent evolution, 99 cooking, 150 Copán, 217 copper, 178, 208 coprolites (fossilized feces), 43, 168 core piece of rock, 137 core position, 431 core values, integrating each

culture, 23

children care of infant, 332t enculturation of, 20 having a long period of childhood

dependency, 122–123 chimpanzees, 25, 109–110, 109i China

developed farming, based on millet and rice, 185–186

increasing use of energy, 461 Chinese state, first, 221 chlorofluorocarbons, depleted the

ozone layer, 23 Choi, Jung-Kyoo, 180–181 cholera, type O people more likely

to get, 90 Chomsky, Noam, 230 chopper, 137 chopper tools, 138i Christian missionaries, preached

resurrection, 365 Christianity, 363, 364 Christians, 363 chromosomal difference, 328 chromosomal rearrangement, 78 chromosome combinations,

unusual, 343 chromosomes

arranged in matching (homologous) pairs, 73f

independent assortment of, 74 transmitting genes across

generations, 72 chronology, pseudo-archaeologists

having trouble with, 218 circum-Caribbean, 286 circumcision, 32 cities, breeding grounds for domestic

violence, 336 cities and states, attributes of

early, 200 citizens, versus noncitizens, 290 Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th

Century (Braudel), 431 civilizations, 4 clans, 309–310, 326 class structure, well-defined in

Mesopotamia, 209 classical archaeologists, 46 classrooms, ethnic diversity of

American, 394–395 climate change, 178, 459–462,

461, 476 Clinton, Bill, 238–239, 402 Clinton, Hillary, 395 clitoridectomy, 32 “close talker,” Americans retreating

from, 227 Clovis people, 168 Clovis spear point, 16f coastal Peru, 199 Coburn, Noah, 412, 413 Code of Ethics, 61–62 codominant types, 72 cognates, 241–242 Cohen, Yehudi, 249 collateral household, 305

Index I-5

domesticated plants, compared with wild plants, 179–180

domestication animal, 187, 195, 249 combination of conditions and

resources, 189 of the dog, 174, 186, 187 food production, 186t, 188, 195 genetic changes and, 179–180 New World, 188–189 in seven world areas, 182, 183f

domestic-public dichotomy, 333 dominant form, masking the other

form in hybrid, or mixed, individuals, 72

domination, “naturalness” of, 292 Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy,

repeal of, 345–346 double standards, restricting women

more than men, 333 dowry, 317 dreams, attempts to explain, 355 dry farming, 176 Dubois, Eugene, 152 Duncan, Christopher, 90–91 Dunn, Janet, 58i durable alliances, 318–319 Durkheim, Émile, 50, 352–353, 373 Dutton, William, 322

E e sound, pronunciation of, 233 early dry farming (of wheat and

barley) and caprine domestication, era of, 176

early Homo, two kinds of, 145i early primates, 113–115 Earth’s history, comparing to a

24-hour day, 124 East Africa, livestock (cattle)

raiding, 267 East African pastoralists, living in

symbiosis with their herds, 258 East Asians, living in northern areas of

the United Kingdom, 87 Easter Island, statues, 287i eastern lowland gorilla, 108 eastern United States

food plants domesticated, 187 food production domestication, 186t

east-west axis, in Eurasia, 190f Eaves, Lindsay, 169, 170i Ebola epidemic, in Liberia and Sierra

Leone, 465 ecclesiastical monotheistic religion,

known as Christianity, 362–363 Eckert, Penelope, 237 ecological anthropology, 269, 462 ecology, 9 economic anthropologists, 263–264,

273 economic anthropology, 259, 273 economic causes, 249 economic changes, paved way for the

contemporary women’s movement, 338

Denmark, as the world’s happiest nation, 343

dental formula, of 2.1.2.3, 115, 119 dental reduction, pattern of

overall, 123 dentition

comparison of in ape, human, and Au. afarensis palates, 132f

of hominin fossils, 131 Depression-era migrants, mark on

California speech, 237 descent, rule of, 383 descent groups, 280, 303, 307–310

basic kin group among nonindustrial food producers, 326

common among nonindustrial food producers, 261

descriptive linguistics, 228 development anthropologists, 406 development anthropology,

410–411, 428 dialects, 236, 239, 242 Diamond, Jared, 190 diaspora, 469 dietary differences, between chimps

and gorillas, 109 diets, variety in, 193 differential access, to resources, 277 differential reproductive success, 70 diffusion, 29, 34 diglossia, 236 direct diffusion, 34 directional selection, 76 discrimination, 388, 398, 399, 405 disease

defined, 417 evolution of, 92–93 incidence and severity of, 417

diseases easier to transmit and maintain, 193 emerging, 465–466 global spread of, 92–93 people genetically more

susceptible to, 88 “disease-theory systems,” 418–419 displacement, apes demonstrated, 225 Disraeli, Benjamin, 441 division of labor, by gender, 331t divorce, 319–320, 326 Djimdoumalbaye, Ahounta, 124, 126i Dmanisi fossils, 151 Dmanisi site, 151 DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)

molecules, 71–72 Dobe Ju/’hoansi San, 279 Dobe Ju/’hoansi San area, 250 dog, domestication of, 174, 186, 187 Dolezal, Rachel, 381 domestic abuse, of women, 336 domestic activities, female labor

predominating, 332 domestic work, 332t domesticated animals, 254–255 domesticated crops, providing a bigger

harvest, 180 domesticated foods, becoming

dependent on, 175

cultural traditions, 2–3, 7, 38 cultural transformations, inferring, 9 cultural transmission, of a

communication system, 224 cultural-ethnic traditions, encouraging

the practice of, 393 culture

all-encompassing and integrated, 22–23

changes in producing changes in language, 232

concept of, 19 contested, 30 defined anthropologically, 22 described, 19–20, 38 evolutionary basis of, 25–28 human, 25 individual and, 30–31 instrumental, adaptive, and

maladaptive, 23 learned, 20 levels of, 31–32, 39 nature and, 22 role in shaping “natural”

communication, 227 seen as social glue, 31 shaping bodies, personalities, and

personal health, 4–6 shared, 21 symbolic, 20–21 Tylor’s definition of, 19

cultures, 2–3 dynamic and constantly changing, 30 as integrated systems, 24i marriage across, 316–319

cuneiform writing, 207, 209i curer, as “world’s oldest profession,” 419 Curry, Andrew, 192 Cuzco, in the high Andes, 199 Cyprus, in the early Neolithic, 184 cytoplasm, 161

D da Silva, Luis Inácio (Lula), 414 Dakota Access Pipeline,

influencing, 276i Dart, Raymond, 135 Darwin, Charles, 10–11, 69, 71, 93–94 Darwin, Erasmus, 69 dating, the past, 46–49 daughter languages, 240 Day, Elizabeth, 400 Declaration on the Rights of

Indigenous Peoples, 36–37 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA),

315–316 deforestation, 463–465

bringing loss of environmental diversity, 257

posing a special risk for the primates, 111

Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), bonobos living in, 109

demographics, changing, 394–397 demonstrated descent, 309, 326 Denisovans, 158–159, 171

I-6 Index

results of, 7 with small groups, 42

ethnology, 7–8 ethnomedicine, 34 ethnomusicology, 14 etic (scientist-oriented) approach,

55–56, 65 Etoro tribe, 347 eunuch (“perfect servant”), 344 Euphrates River, Ubaid communities

along, 207 Eurasia, much broader east-west

expanse, 190 European Association of

Archaeologists, 219 European Union (EU), 35 Evangelical Protestantism,

367–369, 377 evangelization, in Pentecostal

culture, 370 Eve, lived in sub-Saharan Africa

around 200,000 years ago, 161 evolution, 69, 70 evolutionary basis

of culture, 25–28 of human capacity for culture, 39

evolutionary theory, providing explanations, 71

ex votos, adorning the church, 361 excavation, 44–45, 910 exchange

establishing friendly relations, 267 principles guiding, 265–267 principles of, 267–268, 273

exogamous descent groups, 281, 308 exogamy, 27, 312, 326 expanded family households, lower

class incidence of, 05 experience, benefiting from, 25 “experience technology,” Internet

dating as, 323 experimental archaeologists, 45 explanations, relying on associations

and theories, 71 expulsion, policy of, 401 extended families, 302 external genitals, 343 external threats, guarding against,

290–291 extralinguistic forces, using and

evaluating speech in the context of, 238

extraterrestrials, 218, 219

F F1 generation, 72, 73 F2 generation, 72 Face with Tears of Joy emoji, 244, 244i factories, manufacturing moved from

homes to, 434 factors, of production, 260–261 fallow period, 273 families, 302–307

American international and multiethnic, 384i

defined, 302

enthusiasm, conveying, 226 environment, determining biological

features, 11 environmental anthropology, 462–463 environmental barriers, to

diffusion, 190 environmental change, clash of

cultures related to, 462 environmental circumscription,

producing state formation, 199–200

environmental differences, creating contrasts among world’s foragers, 249

environmental effects, of intensive agriculture, 256

environmental factors, implicated in Copán’s demise, 217

environmental zones, for Middle Eastern food production, 177

environments available for cultivation, 256 degradation of, 195

Eocene epoch (54-34 m.y.a.), 112, 112f

Eocene prosimians, ancestors of the anthropoids, 114

equal pay for equal work, 338 Eskimos (Inuit), 87, 231, 251 essentialism, 473 estrus, 27 ethical dilemmas, confronting

development anthropologists, 410 ethical issues, in anthropology, 59–62 ethnic areas, flooding with members of

the dominant ethnic group, 403 ethnic boundaries, 393 ethnic composition, in the U.S., 394,

397f ethnic conflict, 397–403, 405 ethnic differentiation, roots of, 398 ethnic discrimination, 405 ethnic distinctions, 404 ethnic diversity, 385i, 391–392 ethnic expulsion, policy of, 401 ethnic groups, 379, 391, 404 ethnic structures, regional variation in

countries’, 391 ethnicity, 379, 380, 404 ethnic/racial diversity, increasing,

394, 404 ethnocentrism, 32, 39 ethnocide, 401 ethnoecology, 462 ethnographers, 14, 50–51, 56 ethnographic methods, 65 ethnographic reports, 56 ethnographic research

in an auto factory, 422 traditional, 57

ethnographic survey, 52 ethnographic techniques, 50–58 ethnography, 2, 7

anthropology’s distinctive strategy, 50–58

blending with survey research, 57 multitimed and multisited, 57

economic diversity, increasing, 166 economic factors, limiting minority

access to golf, 402 economic globalization, 108 economic liberalism, encouraged

“free” enterprise and competition, 446

economic roles, affecting gender stratification, 333

economic systems, 259–260 economic types, having descent group

organization, 310 economic typology, 277 economic unions, new, 35 economics, 259, 273 economies, managed by central

leadership, 207 economizing, 263 economy, 259 ecosystem, 9 Efe, 251 egalitarian, foraging societies tending

to be, 252–253 egalitarian society, 205, 206t, 220, 279 Egypt

agricultural economy, 182–183 recent uprisings in, 298 sibling marriage allowed, 314

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 402 El Niño, 193 Elam, 201 el-Assad, Khaled, 37 Elder, Lee, 402 electron spin resonance (ESR), 48, 48t electronics assembly workers, study

of, 262–263 electronics components, assembling,

262–263 Elgin, Lord, 36 Elgin Marbles, 36, 37 elites

discouraging public gatherings, 293 reveled in consumption of

sumptuary goods, 292 Eliza Doolittle, 239i Elliott, Marina, 169 emic approaches, 55–56, 65 emojis, 244–245, 244i emoticons, 245 emoticons, in written

communication, 227 enculturation, 3, 20 endangered primates, 111 “the endangered sex,” 336 endogamic rules, common in stratified

societies, 326 endogamy, 314–315, 326 Enduring Voices Project, 245 energy consumption, 2015 by

Country, 459t enforcement subsystem, of a state,

289, 290–291 English, contrasted with Hopi, 231 English jawbone, representing an early

dispersal of AMHs, 163 English language, reflecting colonial

history, 29

Index I-7

fossilized teeth, extent of wear on, 63 fossils, 44, 46, 63 Foster, George, 362, 418–419 Foucault, Michel, 292 “four-field” anthropology, 6 Fouts, Roger, 224 FOXP2 gene, 226 Franco, Francisco, 401 fraternal polyandry, 311, 322 Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science

and Pseudoscience in Archaeology (Feder), 219

Frauds and Fantastic Claims in Archaeology, 219

French colonialism, phases of, 442–444 French empire, at its height around

1914, 443f Frey, William, 395–396 Fried, Morton, 205–206, 275 Friedan, Betty, 338 Friedl, Ernestine, 317 fruit bats, co-evolved with the Nipah

virus, 465 functional differentiation, of tools, 148 functional specialization, 166 fundamentalism, in various

religions, 371

G Galdikas, Biruté Mary, 107, 107i Ganges River, in India/Pakistan, 210f garbology, 10, 406 Gardner, Beatrice, 223 Gardner, R. Allen, 223 Garza, Alicia, 400 gathering, 333 Geertz, Clifford, 20 Gell-Mann, Murray, 242 gender, 328–350

cross-cultural study of, 331–332 diversity in many societies, 344 encompassing traits that a culture

assigns, 329 in industrial societies, 337–343 socially constructed, 343 speech contrasts, 237 stereotypes, 329

gender identity, 344, 346 gender patterns, recurrent, 330–333 gender roles, 329, 339 gender stratification, 329

in foraging societies, 333–334 of horticulturalists, 281 increased in patrilineal-patrilocal

societies, 335–336 in industrial societies, 337 reduced in matrilineal-matrilocal

societies, 333–334 in regard to prestige, 329–330

gender-based division of labor, 142 genders, recognizing more than

two, 343–346 gene, in a chromosome, 72 gene flow, 79–80, 79f gene pool, 74 genealogical information, 65

working many more hours than foragers, 191

food production, 248–249, 273 adaptive strategies based on, 253–259 advantages and disadvantages, 195 economies based on, 176 era of increased specialization in, 176 existed less than 1 percent of the

time Homo has spent on Earth, 253

favoring infection, 88 independently invented in three

areas of the Americas, 187 lifestyles based on, 175 in the Middle East, 167 replacing foraging, 4 in seven different world areas, 186f,

186t, 187–188, 195 spread into the hilly flanks, 195 the state and, 181

food stress and malnutrition, present at Copán, 217

food vocabularies, upscale restaurants compared to cheaper establishments, 234–235

footprints, of hominins walking to a water hole, 133

foragers contemporary living in

nation-states, 250 family among, 307 geographic distribution of, 250–252 having band organization, 277 relatively disease free, 193 ties between people and land, 261

foraging, 4, 249–253, 273 mode of production, 260–261 transition from, 175

foraging bands, 278–280 foraging societies, 252, 362 foramen magnum, placement of in

Sahelanthropus, 126 forced assimilation, 401 forced diffusion, 34 forces, supernatural as a domain of,

355–356 Ford, Gerald, 239 foreign cultural forms, adaptation to

local settings, 369 foreigners, introduced Pentecostalism

to countries outside North America, 369

forensic anthropologists, 406 forensic anthropology, 49 formal support, people seeking, 23 Fortes, Meyer, 313 Fortier, Jana, 251 Fossey, Dian, 107, 108, 108i fossil and archaeological evidence,

supporting the African origin of AMHs, 160–161

fossil child, world’s oldest, 131 fossil discoveries, raised doubts about

creationism, 69 fossil fuels, 461 fossil record, 65, 148 fossilization, chances of, 46

family affairs, intervention in states and nonstates, 290

family of orientation, 303 family of procreation, 303 family types, contemporary American,

301–302 family violence, 336 Far Right parties, of contemporary

Western Europe, 401 farmers, first American, 187–189 farming, evolution of, 180–181 “father-daughter incest,” more

common with stepfathers, 314 faunal (animal) remains, preservation

of, 44 Fayum deposits, Egypt’s, 114–115 Fearon, James, 391 feasts, 266 Feder, Kenneth L., 219 female activities, generally, 331t female factory workers, 262–263 female genital modification (FGM), 32 female labor force, participation by

country, 2011, 342i female percentage, of the American

workforce, 338 female status, dowry correlated with

low, 317 females

getting sexual pleasure, 349–350 systematic neglect of, 336

The Feminine Mystique (Friedan), 338 feminist scholarship, within

anthropology, 329 feminization of poverty, 341–342 Feuerriegel, Elen, 169 field language, learning, 52 field techniques, of the ethnographer,

50–58 fieldwork method, 50 Fingerprints of the Gods (Hancock), 218 Finkelhor, David, 314 fire, controlled by H. erectus, 150 first cousins, marriage and sex with, 312 first wife, requesting a second wife, 321 first-comers, rights of, 473 first-generation states, 198 fiscal mechanisms (taxation), 289,

291–292 fiscal support subsystem, of a state,

289, 291–292 fixation, due to drift, 78 flagpoles, worship of, 365 flakes, 137 Flannery, Kent, 167, 173, 176, 205–206 Flores, in Indonesia, 172 focal vocabulary, 231–233 folate, 87 folklore, 14 followers, attracting, 213 food producers

rights to means of production, 261 systematically selecting and

breeding, 248–249 tending to be sedentary, 193 tending to have more children than

foragers, 191

I-8 Index

split into separate groups, 157 used front teeth to pull, twist, and

grip objects, 148–149 WT15,000, 147i

H. (Homo) floresiensis, 159–160, 172 H. (Homo) habilis (1.9-1.44 m.y.a.),

154t, 171 OH7-Olduvai Hominid 7, 146 OH24 dating to 1.9 m.y.a., 148 overlapped with H. erectus, 146 skull, more marked brow ridge, 145 skull with a significant amount of

skeletal material, 146 small size and primitive

proportions of, 146 H. heidelbergensis, 158f H. (Homo) heidelbergensis, 153–155 H. naledi, 169–170 H. (Homo) rudolfensis (2.03-1.78

m.y.a.), 144–146, 148, 154t H. (Homo) sapiens

became fully modern, 63 human long before 40,000 years

ago, 165 in Middle Pleistocene and Upper

Pleistocene, 155 subspecies of, 97

H. (Homo) sapiens neanderthalensis. See Neandertals (H. sapiens neanderthalensis—130,000 to perhaps as late as 28,000 B.P.)

Hadar fossils, 131 Haida village of Klinkwan, Alaska,

potlatch dancers at, 268i Halafian culture, of northern Iraq,

204–205 Halafian pottery style, 205, 220 half siblings, having sex and

marrying, 312 half-life, of 14C, 47 Hallowell, A. Irving, 314 halocarbons, 460 hammerstone, used to make blade

tools, 138f Hancock, Graham, 218, 219 hand ax, 157f haplogroup, 83 Haplorrhini suborder, 102 happiest countries, survey of the

world’s, 342–343 Harper, Kristin, 92 Harris, Marvin, 55 Harrison, K. David, 243, 245 Harrison, Rex, 239i Hart, Laurie Kain, 324–325 Ha-sa-no-an-da, 6i Hatfield, Ginny, 409i Hawaiian, mahu, 345 HbA, 77 HbS, 77, 78 health care systems, variation in, 417 hearths, dating back about 400,000

years, 150 hegemony, 292–293, 299 “Heidelberg man,” 154 hemoglobin, 77 Henshilwood, Christopher, 165

“Good for the globe,” not playing well in Brazil, 463

Goodall, Jane, 25–26, 41–42, 107, 109i Gorilla gorilla species, 107 gorillas, 25, 108 gossip, leading to shame, 294–295 government officials, of “the people”

(rather than the elites), 414 gracile (Au. africanus), 135 grammar-based IE tree, computer

simulation on, 242 Gramsci, Antonio, 292 Gran Dolina site, 154 “granddaughter” languages, 242 grasping, 101 “the gray and the brown,” 395–396 The Great Ape Project, 117 great apes, 96, 107, 117, 119 Great Apes Conservation Act, 117 Great Depression, produced a turn to

Keynesian economics, 446 Great Rift Valley, Africa’s, 47–48 Greco-Roman religions,

polytheistic, 363 greenhouse effect, 460 greenhouse gases, 460, 476 Greenland, wave action destroying

early coastal sites, 193 Griffith, Tim, 409i groups, individuals as members of, 21 guilt, as an internal sanction, 294 Gullah, 231 Gurtov, Alia, 169 Gwembe study, 56–57

H H. (Homo)

our genus, 3 summary of data on fossil

groups, 154t H. (Homo) antecessor, 154 H. erectus, 158f H. (Homo) erectus (1.9-.5? m.y.a.),

148, 154t, 164, 172 adaptive strategies of, 150 cranial capacity, 171 descendant of, 172 distinguished from modern

humans, 150 drawing of, 158f evolution and expansion of, 150–153 face pulled forward by the nose, 156 fossil (WT15,000), 146–149 influenced by evolutionary

forces, 159 in Middle Pleistocene, 155 occupying cave sites, 150 out of Africa, 149–153 reconstruction of a skull from

Zhoukoudian, China, 152i sexual dimorphism in, 148 sites, 151f skeleton closer in size to H.

sapiens, 150 skulls found in Kenya and

Georgia, 171

genealogical method, 54 general anthropology, 6–7, 17 generalities, 28–29 generalized reciprocity, 266 generations, consistent association of

three, 63–64 generosity, Yanomami village

headman leading in, 281 genes, disease and, 88–91 Genesis, Creation story, 68 genetic adaptation, 3–4 genetic analysis, of DNA

sequences, 48 “genetic clocks,” estimating divergence

time, 48 genetic evolution, mechanisms

of, 74–80 genetic markers, not correlating with

phenotype, 83–84 genetic material, race reflecting

shared, 80 genetic relationships, among

humans, 83 genetic traits, passing on as units, 94 genetics, 71–74 genitor, biological father, 311 genocide, 401, 472 genome, 48 genomics, contemporary work in, 83 genotype, 73, 74, 75 genus, 97 genus Homo, 154f, 154t geographic areas, where chiefdoms

existed, 286 geographic mobility, of foragers, 307 geological processes, distorting fossil

remains, 124 geology, father of, 69 Gerewol male beauty contest, 330i gestures, for emphasis, 226 Ghani, Ashraf, 413 Gheg tribes of North Albania,

“virginal transvestites,” 344–345 gibbons, 105–106, 119 gifts, at marriage, 317–318 Gigantopithecus, 116, 116i, 118, 120 Gingrich, Newt, 383 giraffes, neck length of, 70–71 glacial retreat, consequences of, 167 glacials, 153 global climate change (GCC),

192–194, 459–462 global energy demand, meeting, 461 global warming, 460, 476 globalization, 35, 38

of Islam, 372 meanings of, 456 multiculturalism related to, 394 role of language in, 223

glossolalia (speaking in tongues), 368 Gmelch, George, 356 Göbekli Tepe, 203–204, 204i God-given (shariah) way of life, 371 Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab,

India, 337i golf, race and ethnicity in, 402–403 gonadal intersex person, 343

Index I-9

human skin color, variation in, 88 human social systems, acceleration in

the growth of, 249 Human Terrain System (HTS)

project, 62 humanistic science, anthropology as,

13–14 humanities, anthropology’s links to, 14 humans (homo sapiens)

becoming agents of selection, 194 cultural features compared to

chimpanzees, 28t genetically uniform overall, 83 lifelong ties with sons and

daughters, 27 linguistic abilities and thought

processes, 230 more alike genetically than are any

of the living apes, 83 place in zoological taxonomy, 98t as sexually dimorphic, 328 teeth of, 132f

Hunter, Rick, 169 hunter-gatherers

locations of recent, 250f sharing features with other foragers

worldwide, 251 way of life, 27–28

hunting, by primates, 25 husk, of wild cereals, 180 Hussein, Saddam, 398 hydraulic agriculture, spurring state

formation, 198 hydroelectric dam, impact of a

large, 56–57 hyperrobust australopithecines,

135, 142 hyperventilation, 4 hypodescent rule, 383–384,

388–389, 391, 404

I “I love you,” in various languages, 311i ice age, end of, 173 ice ages, in Pleistocene, 153 ideal culture, 30 ideal types, 286 Identical Strangers (Bernstein and

Schein), 75i identical twins, 75i identities, in society, 344 Ifugao village, of Banaue on

Philippines, 255, 255i Igbo of Nigeria, permitted women to

marry other women, 315 Igbo Women’s War, 295, 298, 299 il-khan, 285 Illegality, Inc. (Andersson), 296 illness, defined, 417 ILO (International Labor

Organization), 472 Ilongots of northern Luzon, in the

Philippines, 329–330 il-rah, 285 images, global system of, 469 imagined national communities, 392

earliest, 124–129, 141 early, 121–141 migrated out of Africa, 149 types of early, 137i

hominoid fossil groups, 125t hominoid fossils, earliest from the

Miocene (23-5 m.y.a.), 120 Hominoidea (hominoids) superfamily,

97, 105 Homo. See H. (Homo) Homo floresiensis, 159–160 Homo sapiens. See H. (Homo)

sapiens; humans (homo sapiens) homologies, 97, 99, 119 homonyms, 240 homophobia, cultural, 228 homosexuality, 346 homozygous cross, 73f homozygous parents, 73 Hopi of the American Southwest

houses owned by matrilineal clans, 319

language, 231, 232i restricting historic photos of

religious ceremonies, 60 horse thievery, by North American

Plains Indians, 267 horses, spread of, 284 horticultural plot, mirroring botanical

diversity, 256 horticultural societies, gender roles, 261 horticultural villages, having

headmen, 281 horticulturalists, lived in tribes, 277 horticulture, 253–254, 254i, 256, 273 Huang He (Yellow) River area, of

northern China, 186 hugging, migrated online, 228 Huli (or Haroli) tribe, of the

southern highlands of Papua New Guinea, 282i

human adaptability, 2–6 human ancestors, traits of, 121–123 human biological adaptation, 88–91 human biological and cultural features,

reconstructing ancient, 43 human biological diversity, 71, 81i human biology, change in, 63–64 human ecology, studying ecosystems, 9 human encroachment, on disease

hotspots, 465 human evolution, fossil record of, 44 human females, lacking a visible estrus

cycle, 27 human hunting, for bush meat, 111 human language, compared to primate

call systems, 225t human meiosis, 74 human movement, scale of, 470 “human nature,” 7, 22 human races, as cultural, 404 human rights

for apes, 117–118 described, 33–34 movement, 336

human sex-gender roles, sexuality and, 328

Hepburn, Audrey, 239i herd animals, converting prey

animals into, 180 herd management, archaeological

evidence for, 180 hereditary rulers, early states

having, 201i heredity, determined by discrete

particles or units, 72 heritage, 36 herto skulls, anatomically modern, 160 heterosexual union, marriage as an

exclusively, 316 heterosexuality, 346 heterozygote, 77 heterozygous cross, 73f heterozygous offspring, 73 Heyerdahl, Thor, 218 Hidatsa, Native American group,

331–332 “hidden transcript,” 293–294, 299 Higgins, Henry, 239i high altitudes, 3–4, 3t High German dialect, 240 high-caste children, pure ancestry

of, 315 hijras, 344–346, 345i Hill Kharias, 251 hilly flanks zone, 177, 178–179, 194 Hindus, 111, 363 Hinshiranan, Naruman, 53i Hispanic portion of the American

population, dramatic rise, 397f Hispanics, 381, 382i historical archaeologists, 45–46 historical linguistics, 11, 240–245 HIV, using the CCR5 gene’s

receptor, 90 HIV/AIDS, 420–421, 465 Hlaing Tharyar, Myanmar, Burma,

garment factory, 262i Hoebel, E.A., 279 Hogan, Bernie, 322 holism, 2, 13 Holocaust, 472 Holocene, 176 Holocene epoch, 112f holy water, as a symbol, 21 hominid family, placing gorillas and

chimps in, 99 hominid fossil groups, 125t Hominidae zoological family, 25, 99 hominids, 25, 123–124 hominin evolution, chronology

of, 123–124 hominin footprints, ancient trail of, 134i hominin fossil groups, 125t hominin groups

occupied different ecological niches in Africa, 145

two distinct, 139 hominin traces, search for, 44 hominin traits, foreshadowed in other

primates, 39 hominini tribe, 99 hominins, 25

developed pair bonding, 139

I-10 Index

Islamic idea of prophet blended with Hindu avatar, 371 mother goddess, 344

Islamic movements, various, 353 Islamic State, 36 Islamic tithe (religious tax), 293–294 Istalif, Afghanistan, 412 Ivory Coast, chimpanzee populations

fallen, 110

J Jablonski, Nina, 87 Japan

race in, 386–388 racial attitudes illustrating intrinsic

racism, 404 Japanese, least likely to meet in person

after an online acquaintance, 325 Japanese macaques, washing sweet

potatoes, 25 Jarmo, early food production at,

178–179 jati, in a single varna, 314 “Java man,” 152 Jelderks, John, 61 Jenner, Caitlyn, 381 Jericho, 202 Jesus, preached new religious

doctrines, 365 Jews, 364 Jiangxi Province, in China, 175 job demands, competing with romantic

attachments, 305 Johanson, D.C., 131 Johanson, Donald, 141 John Frum cargo cult, 366i Johnston, Barbara Rose, 410 Jomon culture, 174 Judaism, Haredi, “Torah-true”

Jews, 371 judiciary subsystem, of a state, 289, 290 Jurafsky, Dan, 234–235

K 40K, radioactive isotope of

potassium, 47 K/A dating, used only for inorganic

substances, 47 Kabwe skull, from Zambia (130,000

B.P.), 155 Kalahari Desert, of southern Africa,

250–251 Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences

(KISS), 15–16t Kanjera South (KJS) site, 139 Kanuri people of Nigeria, marriage

age of men, 321 Kaobawa, particularly effective

headman, 281 Kapauku Papuans, 282 Karzai regime, 413 Kelly, Raymond C., 347 “Kennewick Man,” 37, 61 Kent, Susan, 279

infibulation, 32 inflation, spurred female

employment, 338 “informal” social control, importance

of, 294 informal support, people seeking, 23 information transfer, between

generations, 63 informed consent, 60 initial impressions, value of, 51 innovation, strategies for, 412–414 Institute for Primate Studies, 223 instrumental use, of culture, 23 intellectual property rights

(IPR), 34, 39 Inter-American Development

Bank, 446 interbreeding, between Neandertals

and moderns, 162 intercaste sexual unions, leading to

ritual impurity, 315 interethnic contact, 466–470 interglacials, 153 internal conflict, attempting to

curb, 290 internal disorder, government

attempting to suppress, 290 internal genitals, 343 international culture, 31 International Labor Organization

(ILO), 472 International Monetary Fund (IMF),

35, 446 Internet

addition to the marriage market, 326 connectivity, critical mass of, 323 meeting people and forming

personal relationships, 322 reconfiguring access to people in

general, 322 role in divorce, 322 role in globalization, 35 shopping for virtually everything,

322–325 interracial marriages, increasing, 384 intersex, 343 interstadials, 153 intervention philosophy, 445 interview schedule, 53, 65 intervillage raiding, 280 intervocalic r’s, omitting, 240 Inuit, 279–280 Iranian pastoral nomadic tribes, 285 Iraq, discrimination by one Muslim

group (Sunnis), 398 Irian Jaya, Indonesia, 282 Iron Age, 208–209 iron ore, distributed more widely than

copper ore, 208–209 irrigated fields, 191, 209, 255 irrigation, 207, 255 irrigation systems, development of,

181, 182i Islam

growth of, 364 jama’at engaged in jihad, 371 spread of, 370–371

IMF (International Monetary Fund), 35, 446

imitative magic, magicians employing, 356

immigration, supplying cheap labor, 432 immigration policy, history of U.S

national, 396 imperialism, 440, 454 imponderabilia, of native life and of

typical behavior, 51 inalienable rights, 34 Inca of Peru, 199, 211 incest, 312, 326 incestuous unions, frequency of, 313–314 incorporation phase, 357 increased equity, 410 increasing population, producing state

formation, 199–200 independent assortment, law of, 74, 94 independent invention, as a mechanism

of cultural change, 35 India, increasing use of energy, 461 indígena (indigenous person), 472–473 indigenization, 469 indigenous groups, 61 indigenous models, 413–414 indigenous peoples, 36, 391–392,

472–473 indigenous social models, 413–414 indio (indigenous, Native American), 389 indirect diffusion, 34 individualism, in American culture, 21 individuals

internalizing the meanings of public messages, 30–31

motivations of, 263 participating in systems, 263 value American culture placing on, 21

Indo-European (IE) language family, 241

Indus River, 210f Indus River Valley (or Harappan) state

in northwestern India and Pakistan, 221

in Pakistan, 210–211 in western Pakistan, 185

industrial alienation, a case of, 262–263 industrial economies, alienation in,

261–263 industrial production, spread of, 4 Industrial Revolution, 433

began in England, 435, 454 causes of, 434–435

industrial societies gender in, 337–343 seeds of, 433

industrialism, family organization and, 304–305

industrialization, 433–436 inequality, in chiefdoms, 206–207 infectious diseases

differential resistance to, 94 as foremost cause of human

mortality, 88 marking bone, 49

infertility, in societies with lobola customs, 318

Index I-11

lexicon (vocabulary), 228, 231 Li, Nai, 322 life histories, 54–55, 65 lifespan, 63–64 light skin color, 84–85, 86t, 87 Lightfoot, John, 68 Limbaugh, Rush, 383 liminality, 357, 358, 358t lineages, 310, 326 linguistic anthropologists, 7, 42,

246, 407 linguistic anthropology, 11, 17, 222 linguistic clues, suggesting past

contacts between cultures, 246 linguistic diversity

decreasing, 245 within nations, 235–236

linguistic features, correlating with social diversity and stratification, 234

linguistic fillers, cheaper restaurants more apt to use, 235

“linguistic market,” 239 linguistic traits, of a low-status

group, 246 LinkedIn, Middle Eastern users, 470 Linnaeus, Carolus, 68, 93 literacy, facilitating flow and storage

of information, 208 Little Tibet, three-generation

families, 64i living, making a, 248–273 llama, domestication of, 187, 195 llamas and alpacas, for food and

wool, 258 lobola, 317, 318, 319, 326 local autonomy, global assaults on,

462–463 local life, participating in, 52 local (excavation) perspective, 64–65 local populations, gene flow

between, 79f longitudinal research, 56–58, 65, 279 long-term physiological adaptation, 3–4 Loomis, W.F., 85 López, Ana Aurelia, 446 lorises, 102, 119 lottery, winning conferring wealth,

but not prestige or power, 289i lower, or early, Miocene (23-16

m.y.a.), 115–116 Lower Paleolithic, associated with

H. erectus, 149 Lower Pleistocene (2 to 1 m.y.a.), 153 lower spine (lumbar) curve,

characteristic of Homo, 134 lowland Amazonia, 286 Lucy

bones much more robust than ours, 133

tiny hominin female, 131 Lucy (chimpanzee), 223–224 “Lucy’s Baby,” 131 luxury goods, manufacture of for

export, 217 Lyell, Charles, 69 Lyme disease, 465

Lamayuru Monastery, in India, 211i Lambek, Michael, 353 land, as a means of production, 261 land areas, predicted to warm more

than oceans, 460 landforms, 3 landlords, joined the urban elite, 209 language

changing over time, 242 contrasted with call systems, 225t as a distinctive possession of Homo

sapiens, 20–21 in its social and cultural

context, 222 origin of, 226 permitting sharing experiences, 63 rules for organizing, 230–231 spoken and written, 222 structure of, 228–230

language hot spots, endangerment rate, 245

language loss, 243–245, 246 The Language of Food (Jurafsky),

234–235 Lascaux, Chauvet Cave, paintings, 164 Latin America, countries containing a

majority group, 391 “Latina,” as an ethnic category, 383 “A Latina Judge’s Voice,” 383 “Latino,” as a category, 381, 382i Latinos, maintaining golf’s greens and

physical infrastructure, 402 law, foragers lacked formal, 279 law of supply and demand, 265 lawsuits, against museums common, 60 Leach, Edmund, 311–312 Leakey, L. S. B. and Mary, 137, 146 Leakey, Louis B., 107 Leakey, Maeve, 129, 145, 148 Leakey, Mary, 131, 134i, 135i Leakey, Richard, 144–145, 147, 160 learning, language transmitted

through, 222 leather quiver, left by a Neolithic

hunter, 192 Lee, Richard, 250 Lee, Richard B., 279 Lee, Sang-Hee, 63–64 legalization, of same-sex marriage,

315–316 lemurs, 102, 114, 119

in Madagascar, 102, 114 studies of, 50

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community, 345–346

lesbian and gay rights movement, expanded to include bisexual and transgender individuals, 345

less-developed countries (LDCs), urban population growth greatest in, 415

Levallois spearhead, 156 levels, of culture, 31–32, 39 levirate, 318f, 319, 326 Levy, Jerome, 319 lexical contrasts, as meaningful or

significant, 233

Kents Cavern in Devon, jawbone from, 163

Kershaw, Sarah, 228 key consultants, 54, 65 key informants, 54 Keynes, John Maynard, 446 Keynesian economics, 446 khan, 285 Khasis, extended family of, 304i Kimeu, Kimoya, 147 kin groups, kinds of, 302 kin-based mode of production,

259–260, 273 kin-based societies, 54 kinesics, 226–227 kingdom, 97 Kinsey report, same-sex sexual

activities, 346 kinship

American emphasis on biology for, 302

changes in North American, 305–307

wide web of, 302 kinswoman, replacement by, 318 kissing, in different cultures, 227 Klinefelter syndrome, 343–344 Kluckhohn, Clyde, 13 KNM-ER 1470, 144–145, 145i KNM-ER 1813, 145i KNM-ER 42700, 148 KNM-ER 42703, 148 knuckle-walking, 105 Koko female gorilla

capacity for displacement, 225 vocabulary, 225

Komodo dragons, 159 Koobi Fora site, 145 Kottak, Isabel Wagley, 57 Kottak, Nicholas, 295 Kuhn, Steven, 165 Kuikuru, of the South American

tropical forest, 254 Kurds, remaining an imagined

community, 392 kurgans, 193 Kuria tribe, 267 Kutse San, retained hunter-gatherer

lifestyle, 279 Kwakiutl tribe, 268–269

L La Chapelle fossil, 157f labor

becoming a commodity, 261 as a means of production, 261

labor-intensive factories, moved to, developing countries, 262

Labov, William, 238 lactase enzyme, 91 lactose, in milk, 91 lactose tolerance, 91 “Ladies Only” lines, 337i Laetoli finds, 131 Lakher of Southeast Asia, 312, 313f Lakoff, Robin, 237

I-12 Index

media role in globalization, 35 stimulating and organizing local and

community activities, 466 median household incomes, for

minority groups, 382 median wealth (net worth), of White

households versus Black households, 382

medical anthropologists, 406 medical anthropology, 417–421, 428 medico-magico-religious specialists,

of all societies, 362 Mediterranean basin, diaspora of

Neolithic people, 184 Meigs, Anna, 314 meiosis, 74 Melanesia

belief in mana, 355 cargo cults of, 365

melanin, 84, 85 memories, sharing orally, 63 men

hunting and fishing by Inuit, 280 marrying later than women, 321 seeing everything female as

dangerous and polluting, 336 X and a Y, 328

men and women, communication styles of American, 226

Mende of Sierra Leone, 284–285 Mendel, Gregor, 72–73, 94 mendelian genetics, 72–73 menu words, upscale versus cheaper

restaurants, 235 Merina state, 321, 413 Meroe, 193 Mesoamerica, 187

competitive interaction among chiefdoms in, 221

food production domestication, 186t shift from teosinte to maize, 189 sites in the emergence of food

production and the state, 212f state formation in, 212–217

Mesolithic, 173–174 Mesolithic foragers, sought out new

foods, 194 Mesolithic sites, important, 174 Mesopotamia, 198, 201, 220 Mesopotamian economy, 209 Mesozoic (245-65 m.y.a.) era, 112, 113f metallurgy, 208, 211 methane (CH4), 460 Mexico, around 3000 B.P., 213 microlith tool type, 173–174 microliths, 174 microscopic evidence, 43, 188 Middle East

broad-spectrum revolution, 173 environmental zones tied together

through trade, 178 farmers colonizing Europe, 183–184 first farmers and herders

in, 176–182 first pottery, 175 food production domestication, 186t

manure, collecting from animals, 255 Marean, Curtis, 165 marginal areas, food production

began in, 179 Margolis, Maxine, 338 marine life, conditions more

encouraging to, 167 marital alliances, continuation of,

318–319 marital stability, of immigrants, 320 market principle, 265 marketing, culturally appropriate,

426–427 marriage, anthropologists and, 324–325 marriage market, 322–325 marriage(s), 310–312

across cultures, 316–319 as an institution with significant

roles, 310 crucial in organizing nonindustrial

societies, 54 definitions of, 310–311 entailing an agreement between

descent groups, 318 gifts at, 317–318 giving mating a reliable basis, 27 rights allocated by, 311–312

Martin, David, 368 Martin, Trayvon, 400 Marx, Karl, 263, 435 Masai of Kenya, age sets, 284 mass hysteria, 263, form of mass media. See media massacre victims, skeletons of, 211 masturbation, 346, 349 mating, humans compared to other

primates, 27 matriarchy, 334–335 matrifocal household, 305 matrilineage, five generations deep, 309f matrilineal descent, 308, 333 matrilineal kinship system, 303 matrilineal societies, 319 matrilineality, father isn’t a

relative, 312 matrilineal-matrilocal systems,

occurrence of, 334–335 matrilocality, 310, 333 Maya, decline of, 217–220, 219–220 Maya state, fell in the face of increased

warfare, 221 Mbuti pygmy foragers, 251, 267 McBrearty, Sally, 165 McCain, John, 395 McDonald’s, successful

internationally, 426 “Me, My Spouse, and the Internet”

project, at the University of Oxford in England, 322–323, 323t

Mead, Margaret, 42, 294, 329, 408 means of production, 260–261 meat

preservation of, 174 reliance on within the hominin

diet, 139 meat-rich diets, provided higher-

quality protein, 151

M Maasai initiates, in Kenya, 359i macaques, raiding crops, 111 Machu Picchu, 192–193, 192i macumba, 367 Madagascar

descent groups pooled resources, 413

foreigners more concerned about endangered species, 463

lemurs isolated in, 114 planting mountain rice in, 254i population pressure, 271

Madsbjerg, Christian, 422 magic

religion and, 356 serving emotional needs, 356

maize (corn), 187, 188, 189 majority groups, 382 Makhubele, Jane, 420i Makua villagers, in northern

Mozambique, 295 Malabar Coast, of southern India, 303 maladaptive cultural traits, 23 maladaptive recessives, removing, 76 Malagasy, organized into descent

groups, 413 malaria, 77, 465 Malay peasants, 293 Malays of Negeri, 334 Malaysia, export-oriented industry,

262–263 male activities, generally, 331t male bias, in extradomestic

activities, 332 male travel, polyandry a cultural

adaptation to, 322 male-female avoidance, associated with

strong pressure on resources, 335 male-female coitus, in all human

societies, 350 male-female sex, as objectionable to

Etoro, 347 male-male sex, among the Etoro, 347 male-male sexual activity, different

meanings, 346 males, behaving as women do, 346 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 51, 52i, 57,

295, 356, 407–408 mammalian orders, 97–98 mammals, traits of, 97 “man crush,” 228 mana, 355 mandrill, mature male, 104i mandrills and baboons, raiding

crops, 111 Manggarai people, of West Flores, 160 manioc (cassava), 187 Manis site, in Washington State, 168 “manly hearted woman,” marriage of

a, 315 Manot 1, more similar to early

European AMHs, 162 Manot 1 site, in Israel, 162, 163i manual dexterity, essential to tool

making, 25

Index I-13

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 384

National Council of La Raza, 384 national culture, 31 nationalities, 392 nations, 235–236, 391 nation-states, 391, 472 Native American, being

considered, 384 Native American Graves Protection

and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), 37, 60–61

Native American Shoshone of Utah and Nevada, band organization, 307

Native Americans berdaches representing a third

gender, 315 faith healers, 361 fishing, hunting, and gathering

remaining important, 251 interest in the origins and diversity

of, 6 occupied a variety of

environments, 187 preserving endangered indigenous

language, 243i race of, 82 vision quests of, 357

Native Australian man, from Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia, 81i

Native Australian societies, most sacred objects “real-world” entities, 353

Native Australians, 251 by skin colour, 82 totemism in the religions of, 360

native speakers, varying pronunciation of certain phonemes, 230

native theories of illness, 428 Natufian culture, based on broad-

spectrum foraging, 178 Natufian foragers, Jericho settled

by, 202 Natufian settlements, 178–179 Natufians, adopted sedentism prior to

farming, 189 natural biological urges, expressing, 21 “natural” limitations, cultural advances

overcoming, 22 natural resources, temptation to

exploit, 107 natural selection, 75–77

explaining origin of species, 90 operating against genes causing

large teeth, 149 operating only on phenotype, 75 as powerful evolutionary

mechanism, 69–71 process of, 70

natural sunlight, destroying folate in the human body, 87

nature (biological predispositions), as determinants of human behavior, 321

monkeys and apes, traits humans sharing with, 39

monotheism, 355, 363 montaña (Andean foothills), of Peru, 254 Monte Alban, Oaxaca, Mexico, 221

carved stones depicting slain war captives, 214i

city of, 215 Monte Verde, Chile, northern

Patagonia settlement of, 168 monumental architecture, of early

states, 203 monumental buildings

distinguished cities from villages, 212

in the Western Hemisphere, 212 Morgan, Lewis Henry, 407 morphemes, 228 morphology, 228 Morris, Hannah, 169 “mosaic nature,” of the

Australopithecus sediba specimens, 140

mosquitoes, thriving in recently deforested areas, 465

mother, contributing mitochondrial DNA, 161–162

“mother village,” 335 motivations, 263, 265 mountain gorillas, 108i, 111 mountainous terrains, challenges of, 4 Mousterian flake tools, 166 Mousterian tools, 157f Mousterian tradition, 156 mpakafo, fear of, 270 mtDNA. See mitochondrial DNA

(mtDNA) multiculturalism, 393–394, 405 multidisciplinary approaches, 43–44 multilingual nations, 235–236 multilocally, living, 38 Mundugumor men and women,

both acting as we expect men to act, 329

muriqui, 103i Musawwarat es-Sufra, desert sands

threatening historic artwork at, 193

museum collections, increasingly dealing with nations wishing to repatriate remains collected, 194

Muslims, 363, 364 avoiding monkey meat, 111 of western Bosnia, 303

mutations, 77–78 My Fair Lady, 239i

N Nabta Playa site, in Egypt, 182–183 NAFTA (North American Free Trade

Agreement), 446, 448 Nagle, Robin, 12i naming phase, 52 Nariokotome boy, 147, 147i natal group, humans choosing mates

from outside, 27

largest Mediterranean climate with the highest species diversity, 189

oil-producing countries containing an ethnically homogeneous group of citizens, 392

social media in, 470 state formation, archaeological

periods in, 208t state formation in, 201–209, 202f transition to food production in

the, 176t vertical economy of the ancient, 177f

Middle East/North Africa, countries having ethnic majorities, 392

Middle English, 11 Middle Paleolithic, associated with

archaic H. sapiens, 156 Middle Pleistocene (1 m.y.a. to

130,000 B.P.), 153–155 Middle Stone Age tools, Klasies River

mouth cave sites in South Africa, 160–161

mid-sex body weight, 133 midwesterners, 233, exhibiting

linguistic diversity migrating farmers, spreading crops and

technology across Europe, 184 migration, 394 military, early states having, 201i military judiciary, coexisting alongside

the civil system, 289 milk tolerance, varying among human

groups, 91 Miller, Barbara, 336 millet, domestication of, 186 Minangkabau of West Sumatra,

Indonesia, 335 Mindel (second) glacial, 154 minimal pairs, comparing, 229 mining, 452–453 mining company, world’s largest,

452–453 minorities, keeping “in their place” in

Japan, 386 minority groups, 382 Miocene apes, later, 116 Miocene epoch (23-5 m.y.a.), 112,

112f, 115 Miocene hominoids, 115–116 mission civilisatrice, 444, 445 mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA),

83, 161–162 mitosis, 74 Miyamoto, Ariana, 388i mode of production, 259–260 modern behavior, 164 modern humans, 160–163 modern people, Neandertals and, 156 modern world system, 430–431 molecular anthropology, 48–49, 66 monarchs, buried with soldiers,

charioteers, and ladies in waiting, 209

Mongoloid people, 82 monkeys, 102–105

learning throughout their lives, 25 studies of, 50

I-14 Index

obesity, spread with economic, development and globalization, 420–421

objects (O), arranged in phrases and sentences, 242, 242f

obsidian, trade of, 202 occupational specialization, setting off

one caste from another, 315 Occupy movement of 2011, 38 ochre, Blombos people collected, 165 office, as a permanent position, 287 OH62, 146–147 Ojibwa, incest among, 313–314 Ok Tedi mine, 452–453 “Old Stone Age,” divisions of, 149 Old World

early river valley states of, 210f geography of, 190

Old World monkeys, 104–105, 119 older people

increase in the number of, 62 more likely to use online dating, 323

older White Americans, reconstituting in racially homogeneous enclaves, 396

Oldowan choppers, 139 Oldowan hominins, at the Kanjera

site, 139 Oldowan tools, 137–139, 138i Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, 146 Olduvai Hominid (OH) 5, 135i Oligocene anthropoids, 114–115 Oligocene epoch, 112f Oligocene epoch (34-23 m.y.a.), 112,

119 Olmec, 213–214 Omo 1 site (Omo Kibish), 160 “one-male groups,” 109 Ong, Aihwa, 262–263 online marriage market, 322–323,

322–325 opposable thumbs, 101 oppressed, drawing courage from

common sentiments, 293 Oraibi (Orayvi) pueblo, Hopi women

in, 319 orangutans, 99, 106–107 origin of species, 68–71 Orrorin tugenensis, 126–127 orthograde posture, of apes and

humans, 103 Osmanagich, Sam Semir, 218i, 219 osteology, 10 osteometry, 49 osteoporosis, bone affected by, 49i other farmers, 182–186 overinnovation, fallacy of, 412–413 ozone (O3), 460

P Pääbo, Svante, 162 “paganism,” 353 “paint-pot” theory, 72 pair bonding, chimps and bonobos

lacking, 139 Paisley Caves, Oregon’s, 168

Nigeria, massive revolt by women, 295, 298

Nile River, in Egypt, 210f Nilotes, compared to Scandinavians,

82–83 Nipah virus, 465, 466 nitrogen (14N), 47 nitrous oxide (N2O), 460 Nittano site, in Japan, 174 Noah, Joakim, 384i nomadic pastoralists, trading with

cultivators, 273 nomadic politics, 285–286 non-Clovis tools, at sites in Wisconsin,

167–168 non-Hispanic Whites, overwhelming

majority of Americans through the mid-20th century, 396

“nonhuman person,” 117 nonhuman primate communication,

223–226 nonhuman primates, becoming

endangered, 111 nonhuman species, tool use among, 25 nonindustrial societies

production in, 261 studying, 1

nonindustrial states, 286 nonverbal communication, 226–228, 246 nonverbal symbols, 21 norms, 279, 292 North American Free Trade

Agreement (NAFTA), 446, 448 North Americans, supernatural beliefs

of contemporary, 356 North Pacific Coast of North America,

Native American groups, totem poles, 360

Northern China (Yellow River), food production domestication, 186t

Nosso Senhor do Bomfim, in the city of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 361

notebook, kept separate from more formal field notes, 51

NOW (National Organization for Women), 338

nuclear family, 29, 302–303, 326 as a basic kin group, 307 best represented among recent

immigrants, 320 in foraging societies, 307 as impermanent, 302

nuclear family characteristic kin, 326 Nuer of South Sudan, elaborate

vocabulary to describe cattle, 232 nurture (environment), as determinants

of human behavior, 321 nut cracking, as a learned

skill, 25–26 nutritional status, in living

people, 49

O Oaxaca Valley, Mexico’s, 213–214 Obama, Barack, 395, 396, 402 Obergefell v. Hodges, 324

Navajo, developed a pastoral economy based on sheep, 258

navy trainees, in San Diego, 359i Nayar marriage, traditional,

303–304 Nayar men, belonged to a warrior

class, 304 Nayar women, having multiple sexual

partners, 304 Nayars, in female-headed

households, 29 Ndembu of Zambia, rite of passage for

a chief, 357 Neander Valley, 155 Neandertal, 158f

cranial capacity exceeded the modern average, 157

drawing of, 158f Neandertal genome, complete, 162 Neandertals (H. sapiens

neanderthalensis—130,000 to perhaps as late as 28,000 B.P.), 97, 154t, 155–158

adapted to bitter cold, 162 among first hominin fossils

found, 171 characteristics of, 156 cold-adapted, 156 first discovered in western

Europe, 155–156 managed to survive extreme cold in

Europe, 156 negative differentiation, 235 negative equity impact, 410–411 negative reciprocity, 266, 267 négritude (“Black identity”), 392 Negroid people, 82 neoliberal economists, 446–449 neoliberalism

NAFTA’s economic refugees and, 446–449

revival of, 445 Neolithic

explaining, 189–190 new techniques of grinding and

polishing stone tools, 176 Neolithic colonists, 184 Neolithic economies and lifestyles,

costs and benefits, 191 Neolithic economy, 189, 242 Neolithic period, 195 Neolithic Revolution, 175–176 neolocality, 304 neural tube defects (NTDs), 87 New Age movement, 367 New World

crops domesticated, 18 farming, 195 most important domesticates, 195

New World domestication, tropical origins of, 188–189

New World monkeys, 103–104, 119 Ngadha people, of central

Flores, 160 Ngeneo, Bernard, 144–145 “nibbling” strategy, resisting the

tithe, 293

Index I-15

pidgins, 230–231 PIE (Proto-Indo-European), 241, 241f piedmont steppe region, hunting in, 177 Pierolapithecus catalaunicus,

118–119, 120 Piperno, Dolores, 188 Plains Indians, horses served as “tools

of the trade,” 258 Planet of the Apes movies, 117 plant cultivation, began 12,000 to

10,000 years ago in the Middle East, 249

plant species, 14, 189 plants, classification, or taxonomy, of, 68 plants and animals

“rights” and value of versus humans, 463

seasonal appearance of, 174 plasticity, of human biology, 75 Plattdeusch (Low German), 240 platyrrhines (New World monkeys), 102 Pleistocene epoch, 112f, 153 Pliocene epoch (5-2 m.y.a.), 112, 112f plural marriages, 311, 318,

320–322, 326 plural society, 393 point, 157f Polanyi, Karl, 265 political candidates, claiming to

belong to a mainstream religion, 283

political events, posing risks to archaeological sites and research, 193–194

political mobilization, against globalization, 38

political organization definition of, 275 types, or levels, of, 276–277

political races, polling done to predict, 59

political regulation, 276 political scientists, focusing on

contemporary nations, 275 political success, inheritance and kin

connections playing a role in, 283 political systems, 275–299 politicians, successful American, 283 politics, importance of verbal skill and

oratory in, 238 polities, 197 polyandry, 320, 322, 326 polygamy, 320, 326 polygyny, 320–322, 321, 321i, 326 Polynesia, 286, 345

mana attached to political offices, 355

race of, 82 Polynesian chiefs, as full-time

specialists, 287–288 polytheism, 355 popular clture, 22 popular culture, consumption patterns

reflecting and fueling, 22 population concentrations, as breeding

grounds for epidemic diseases, 191

patriliny, 333–334 patrilocal polygynous settings, women

counting on the support of their cowives and sons, 336

patrilocality, 310, 333–334 Patterson, Francine Penny, 224–225 Pawnee women, worked wood, 332 pea plants, inheritance of contrasting

traits in, 73 Pearsall, Deborah, 188 peasants, 264–265 Peixotto, Becca, 169 “Peking”—now Beijing—“man”

site, 152 “penis fencing,” 349 Pentecostalism

converts to, 369 not publicly question authority of

men, 369 ritual engagement with spirits, 369 strengthening family and household

through a moral code, 369 understanding the global spread

of, 370 worldwide spread of, 353

Pentecostals, compared to fundamentalists, 371–372

people in motion, 58, 470–472 peppered moth, as an example of

natural selection, 70–71, 71i periphery position, in the world

system, 431–432 “permanent liminal groups,” 358 personal diary, kept separate from

more formal field notes, 51 personal space, 227–228 personal space, displays of affection

and, 227–228 perspectives, emic versus etic, 55–56 Peru

coastal, 192–193, 192i, 199 sued Yale University to recover

objects, 60 PGA Professional Golfers’ Association

(PGA), White-only policy of, 402 phenotypes (blood groups), 73, 74,

74f, 388–391 phenotypic ratios, generating, 73f phenotypical adaptation, 91, 94 phenotypical traits, for racial

classification, 80 phonemes, 229, 229f phonemic difference, 230 phonemics, 229–230 phonetics, 230 phonological changes, 236 phonological rules, leading AAVE

speakers to omit-ed and-s as a marker of plurality, 240

phonology, 228, 246 “phraselator,” 243i phylogenetic tree, for African apes,

hominids, and hominins, 130f phylogeny, 97 phytoliths (plant crystals), 43, 188 Pickford, Martin, 126 pidgin, 35

Paisley coprolites, DNA from, 168 Palenque, 217 paleoanthropologists, 10, 42 paleoanthropology, 44 Paleocene epoch (65-54 m.y.a.),

112, 112f paleoecology, 9 Paleoindians, 168, 168f Paleolithic tools, 149–150 paleontologist, 10 paleontology, 43 paleopathology, 49, 66 Paleozoic (544-245 m.y.a.—million

years ago) era, 112 palynology, 43 Pan paniscus, 109, 110 Pan troglodytes, 109, 154t pandemic, 465 pantheons, 363 pantribal sodalities, 283–285, 298 Papua New Guinea (PNG)

cargo cults of, 365 no states emerged, 200 taboos on male-female contacts, 336 women isolated from the public

domain, 335 Paranthropus boisei, 137i Paranthropus robustus, 137i Parantíns, annual Bumba Meu Boi

festival, 469 parentage, establishing legal, 312 parental investment, of most

primates, 101 Parker, Ely S., 6i Parthenon Sculptures, 36 participant observation, 51 particles, forming future and past

tenses and multiple negation to deny or negate, 231

particularity, cultural, 29–30 passage rites, collective, 359i past

dating, 46–49 studying, 44

pastoral nomadism, 258, 259i pastoral tribes, constantly pitted

against other ethnic groups, 286 pastoralism, 257–259 pastoralists

gender roles, 260 using herds for food, 258

pasture land, use of the same, 285 Patagonia, coastal foragers, 251 pater, socially recognized father, 311 paternal division, of labor,

330–331, 331t patriarchy, 335–337 patrikin, 312 patrilineage, five generations deep, 308f patrilineal descent, 30, 308f, 310 patrilineal descent groups, 281 patrilineal society, divorce harder

in, 319 patrilineality, mother not a relative, 312 patrilineal-patrilocal complex, 335, 335i patrilineal-patrilocal cultivators, waging

warfare against other villages, 335

I-16 Index

Quaternary period, 112, 112f Queen Mother, mythical, 335 questions, forming, 231

R r less speech, American, 238 r pronunciation, clearly associated

with prestige, 238 The Ra Expeditions (Heyerdahl), 218 Rabe, Joseph, 302 race, 404

as a cultural category, 382 discredited concept in biology,

80–84 social construction of, 383–391 in the United States, 384–386

races, not biologically distinct, 82–83 racial classifications

based on phenotype, 80, 82–83 as a political issue, 384

racial labels, Brazilians using many more, 389

racial/ethnic classification, shifts in, 389 racial/ethnic labels, used in Brazil, 389 racism, 382 radioactive uranium (238U), 48 radiometric technique, 47 raiding, shift to warfare aimed at

territorial conquest, 214 ramidus (4.4 m.y.a.), 141–142 random genetic drift, 78–79 ranked societies, 205, 206t, 220 rapport

ethnographers striving to establish, 51

women building, 237 Rasmussen, Mikkel, 422 Rathje, William, 10 Reagan, Ronald, 238 real culture, 30 recessive trait, not destroyed, 72 reciprocity, 266–267, 268–269 record-keeping system, early states

developed, 200 Redfield, Robert, 417 redistribution, 265–266, 291 Reese, David, 165 reforestation project, in coastal

Tanzania, 464i refugees, creating, 401 regional patterns, affecting speech, 234 regional (systematic survey)

perspective, 64 regional political integration, age and

gender used for, 298 regional political organization, big

man a regulator of, 282 regional trade, as a key factor in

primary state formation, 198–199 reindeer, 174, 258 reintegrated traits, 29 “relationship of affinity,” establishing

a socially significant, 312, 326 relative dating, 46–47 relatives, sexual contact with, 312 relativism, methodological and moral, 32

private-public contrast, 333 problem-oriented ethnography, 56 Proconsul group, 115, 120 production

means of, 260–261 in nonindustrial societies, 261

productivity, as linguistic ability, 225 professional priesthoods, of societies

with productive economies, 362 profits, maximizing, 263 Program on the Evolution of Human

Languages, at the Sante Fe Institute, 242

Project Minerva, 62 proletariat (propertyless workers), 435 “proper language,” as a strategic

resource, 238 property, establishing a joint fund

of, 312 property rights, evolution of, 180–181 prosimians, 102

ensuing Eocene epoch age of, 114 as the older of the two primate

suborders, 119 prostitution, hijras engaging in, 344 Protestant ethic, Pentecostalism

adherents embodying Max Weber’s, 369

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Weber), 363

Protestant values, capitalism and, 363 Protestantism, 363 protoapes, 120 proto-Germanic, 240–241 Proto-Indo-European (PIE), 241, 241f protolanguage, 240–242, 246 pseudo-archaeology, fantastic claims

of, 218–219 public activities, having greater

prestige, 333 public anthropology, 424–425 public archaeologists, 17 public archaeology, 12–13 public buildings, of early states, 207 public messages, 30–31 public policy, 276i public school students, White fell

below 50 percent, 395 “public transcript,” 293, 299 public universities, affirmative action

programs in Brazil, 391 Pucasana, Peru, boats harbored in, 411i purity and pollution, notions about, 353 “pygmies,” 251 “pygmy” chimpanzee, 109, 349 “pygmy” hunters, discarded their

ancestral languages, 243 Pyramid of the Sun, at center of

Teotihuacan, 216

Q Qafzeh site, in Israel, 161 the Qashqai, 285–286 quadrupedalism, 122 quasi-endogamous groups, classes and

ethnic groups as, 314

population control subsystem, of a state, 289, 290

population genetics, 74, 94 population pressure, 463 Poro, 285 Portuguese, employing a future

subjunctive verb form, 231 Portuguese colonizers, of Brazil as

mainly men, 389 Pospisil, Leopold, 282 postmodern, 471 postmodernism, 471 postmodernity, 471 potassium-argon technique, 48t potassium-argon (K/A) technique, 47–48 potatoes, 189 potential mates, meeting in person, 322 potlatching, 268–269, 272–273 potsherds, studying, 8–9 pottery

earliest in Egypt, 183 Jomon, 174 Middle Eastern, 204–205 world’s oldest known, 175

pottery making, in China, 175 poverty

adaptation to, 305 feminization of, 341–342

poverty rate, for minority groups, 382 power, 275, 288, 298 powers, supernatural as a domain

of, 355–356 practice theory, 31 PREDICT, 465–466 predictor variables, influencing

behavior and opinions, 59 prehensile tails, 103 prejudice, 398, 399 present, as the key to the past, 69 prestige, 268–269, 280, 282, 288 prestige dialect, SE as, 240 prestige systems, compared to actual

power, 329–330 priesthoods, as hierarchically and

bureaucratically organized, 362 primary groups, 106 primary states, 198 primate ancestors, lived in trees, 25–26 primate evolution, 111 primate fossil record, 111 primate order, subdivisions of, 119 primates, 10

early, 113–115 endangered, 111 how we differ from other, 27–28 kinds of, 96 our place among, 96–99 protecting, 60 tendencies of, 96 what we share with other, 26–27

primates, classification of, 98f primatology, 10–11, 50, 96 Primitive Culture (Tylor), 19 Princess Madeleine, of Sweden, 85i Principles of Geology (Lyell), 69 Prisoner Gallery, of Monte Alban’s

Building L, 214i

Index I-17

Scott, James C., 292–293 Scott, Susan, 90–91 scraper, 157f scrapers, 166 Scudder, Thayer, 56–57 Scythian tombs, 193 SE. See Standard (American)

English (SE) sea levels, started rising, 167 second wife, status lower than that of

the first, 321 secret societies, pantribal sodalities

as, 284–285 “sectarian violence,” civil war

developed out of, 398–399 secular authority, replaced temple

rule, 209 secular rituals, 373–376 sedentism, 178, 189 seeds, carried into new habitats, 180 Selassie, Johannes-Haile, 128i Semai, expressing gratitude suggesting

surprise, 266 semantics, 233 Semaw, Sileshi, 138 seminomadic hunting and gathering,

era of, 176 semiperiphery, 431, 432i senior population, White in the U.S., 395 seniority, concern for, 287–288 Senut, Brigitte, 126 separation phase, 357 Sequoia (chimpanzee), 224 serial monogamy, 320 Service, Elman, 276 settled (sedentary), versus nomadic

groups, 279 settlement hierarchy, emergence of, 216 settlement levels in, 9 settlement pattern, 44 settlements, hierarchy of in states, 207 sex, gender and, 328–330 sex acts, between males as essential to

Etoro, 347 Sex and Temperament in Three

Primitive Societies (Mead), 329 sex ratios, equal, 320 sex-gender roles and biology,

anthropological position on, 329 sexual dimorphism, 328–329

among orangutans, 119 in Au. afarensis, 132–133 in Au. africanus, 136 in H. erectus, 148 less among chimps, 109110 marked in orangs, 106 marked in terrestrial species, 104 of Neandertals, 157

sexual expression, flexibility in, 349 sexual norms, varying from culture to

culture, 346 sexual orientation, 346–350 sexual potency, restoring, 22 sexual practices, rested on cultural

beliefs and traditions, 349 sexual selection, 76 sexuality, of bonobos, 110

robust (Au. robustus), 135 robust australopithecines, chewing

apparatus of, 145 romance languages, as daughter

languages of Latin, 240–241 romantic love, 317, 320 Romney, Mitt, 395 root crops (potatoes and manioc), 187 Rosaldo, Michelle, 329–330 Rosie the Riveter, 338i Ruhlen, Merritt, 242 rural communities, contrasted with

cities, 417 Russian people, domination over the

former Soviet empire, 403 Rwanda, 472 Rylko-Bauer, Barbara, 409, 424–425

S sacred, versus the profane, 352–353 sacred symbol, intrinsic qualities of, 373 sagittal crest, producing a, 136 Sahelanthropus tchadensis,

124–126, 141 Salish tribe, 268–269 Samburu woman, from Kenya, 85i same-sex marriages, 315–316, 316i same-sex sexual activities, 346 Samis (Lapps or Laplanders), of

Norway, Sweden, and Finland, 258

Samoan, fa’afafine, 345 sample, choosing, 52 San (“Bushmen”), 82, 252, 278–279 San José Mogote, site of, 214 San life, changed considerably since

the 1950s and 1960s, 279 San speakers (“Bushmen”), influenced

by Bantu speakers, 278 sanctions, social as well as

governmental, 299 Sanday, Peggy Reeves, 333 Sanders, Bernie, 38 Santa Rosa Island, human bones

found on, 193 santeria, in the Spanish Caribbean and

the United States, 367 São Paulo, Brazil, 368, 368i Sapir, Edward, 231, 353 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, 231 SARS (severe acute respiratory

syndrome), 465 satellite images, finding ancient

footpaths, roads, canals, and irrigation systems, 43–44

Savage Minds group blog, 425 Scandinavian shell mounds, 174 scarcity, 272, 273 Schein, Elyse, 75i schistosomiasis, or bilharzia (liver

flukes), 420 “Schwellkoepp” (“Swollen

Heads”), 294i science, 13 scientific medicine, 419–420 scientific statement, truth of a, 71

“a religion,” distinguished from “religion,” 353–354

Religion: An Anthropological View (Wallace), 352

religion(s), 352–376 associated with social divisions

within and between societies and nations, 353

change and, 365–367 cultural globalization and, 367–373 defining, 352 expressions of, 354–360 function to explain, 356 kinds of, 362–363 offering rewards and

punishments, 362 serving emotional needs, 356 stages of, 355 of the world, 363–364

religious act, participation in a collective, 354i

religious effervescence, 353 religious energy, harnessed for

revolution, 365 religious fundamentalism, 371 religious movements, new and

alternative, 366–367 remote sensing, 43, 64 Renfrew, Colin, 241–242 rent, obligation to pay in states, 273 rent fund, 264–265 reny, kin term for mother, mother’s

sister, and father’s sister, 302 repatriation (expulsion), of immigrant

workers, 401 replacement fund, 264 replacement marriages, working to

preserve group alliances, 319 reports, men making, 237 Republican sport, image of golf as, 402 research methods, in archaeology and

biological anthropology, 42–45 resistance, ways of curbing, 292–293 resources, pressure on, 335 respondents, 58 revitalization movements, 365–366 rice, 185i, 189 rice cultivation, teamwork in, 260 rice farmers, using cattle to trample

pre-tilled flooded fields, 254 rickets, 87 Rift Valley, East Africa’s, 126 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, McDonald’s

restaurants in, 426 Rising Star cave, 169–171, 170i Riss (third) glacial, 154–155 rites, of intensification, 360 rites of passage, 357–360, 359i, 376 ritual center, 203–204, 204i ritual-like behaviors, in secular

contexts, 373 rituals, 356–357 river valley states, of the Old World, 210 Robbins, Joel, 369–370 Roberts, John, 324–325 Robertson, Jennifer, 387 Robinson, J. T., 135i

I-18 Index

spermatogenesis, 87 spina bifida, 87 spirit possession, by factory

women, 263 spiritual beings, 354–355 sports, cultural standards

influencing, 5 spouses, 315 stabilizing selection, 76–77 Stafford, Thomas, 168 Standard (American) English (SE),

229f, 230, 240 Star Trek theme, 42 Star Wars (movie), 355 starch grains, analysis of, 43 state formation

key ingredients in, 200 in Mesoamerica, 212–217 in the Middle East, 201–209, 202f process of in at least six areas, 201

“State of Metropolitan America: On the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation,” 395

state systems, 289–292 “Statement on Humanity and Climate

Change,” 461–462 state(s)

as an autonomous political unit, 298–299

attributes of, 200 carrying out long-distance

conquests, 215 collapse of, 217–220 defined, 277, 286 demarcating boundaries, 290 described, 220 development of, 220 economic basis of and political

regulation in, 289t levels of decision making, 214 origin of, 197–198 other early, 210–211, 211i rise of, 207–209

statistical analysis, supporting and rounding out an ethnographic account, 59

statistical training, less common in anthropology, 50

status distinctions, 205 status systems, in chiefdoms, 287–288 statuses, systems, and subsystems,

found in all, 289 stereoscopic and color vision, 101 stereotypes, 399

about regional speech, 233 gender, 329

Stiner, Mary, 165 stipulated descent, 309, 326 stone bladelets, at Pinnacle Point,

South Africa, 165 stone picks, used for digging, 149 stone tools

made from rocks, 149 techniques of grinding and

polishing, 175i Stoneking, Mark, 83, 161 Stothert, Karen, 188

social repercussions, of economic change, 23

social sanctions, existing alongside governmental ones, 295

social status, evidence for, 43 social stratification

dimensions of, 288 elaborate systems of, 197

social system, based on kinship, reciprocity, and sharing, 279

social universals, 28 socialism, 449–450 “socialist internationalism,” oneness

of, 403 sociality, of primates, 101 societies, 2

divided into three types, 205–206 primate, 25

sociocultural anthropology, 6 socioeconomic effects, of

industrialization, 435 socioeconomic stratum, 299 sociolinguistic discrimination, using

linguistic features, 238 sociolinguistics, 11, 233–240, 246 sociology, 14, 17 sociology, compared to

anthropology, 50 sociopolitical, political part of, 292 sociopolitical organization, 276 sociopolitical typology, 277

classifying, 298 types of, 220, 277

sodalities, in tribes, 283 song, role in social control, 295 song battle, challenging a rival to a, 280 sorghum, 189 sororate, 318, 318f, 326 Sotomayor, Sonia, 383 soul, death as departure of, 355 South African australopithecines, 136 South American Kuikuru, growing two

or three crops before abandoning plots, 256

South Asia (SA), key attributes of foragers in, 251

South Indian foragers, focusing on wild plant resources, 251

South Sudan, Nuer woman marrying a woman, 311

Southern China (Yangtze River corridor), food production domestication, 186t

Soviet Union (USSR), 403 soybeans, 189 Spanish conquest, in

Mesoamerica, 211 Spanish-like vowels, influencing the

way English is spoken by Hispanics, 237

speciation, 78, 80 species, 80, 94, 97–98 speech differences, importance of, 234 speech habits, determining access to

employment, 238 speech sounds, 229–230, 246 Spencer, Charles, 215

shamans, 354, 362 shame, 294–295 Shang dynasty, 186, 211, 221 sharp stone flakes, 137, 138i shifting cultivation, 254 Shillong, in India, 304i “shock phase,” 467 short-term physiological adaptation, 3–4 siamangs, 105, 119 sickle-cell allele, 77, 94 sickle-cell anemia, 77, 94 Sifford, Charlie, 402 sign language, 223–225 “silent trade,” engaging in, 267 Singer, Merrill, 409 Singer, Peter, 117 single mother, 306i single parent households, increasing

worldwide, 341 single-parent households, 305 sites, excavating, 45–46 skeletal biology, 49 Skhül fossils, 161, 161f Skhül site, on Mount Carmel in

Israel, 161 skin color

explaining, 84 light as advantageous, 85–86, 86t light maximizing absorption of

ultraviolet radiation, 85i skull, of Au. afarensis, 132 slash-and-burn cultivation, 253, 254i slavery

freed offspring of in Brazil, 389 invented, 191 religion, 293

smallpox, 88, 89i smallpox epidemics, 88 smallpox virus, 90 smell to sight, shift from, 101 smelting, 208, 220 Snodgrass, Josh, 418 social and linguistic variation, 233–234 social animals, learning, 20 social bonds, strengthening, 354i social circumscription, 200 social classes, states stratified into, 200 social construction

of incest, 312 of kinship and of incest, 314 of race, 383–391

social control, 360–362 broader than political, 299 forms of, 292–298 nonphysical forms of, 292 religion achieving, 377

social differentiation, in burials, 207 social equals, exchange between, 266 social evaluation, governing linguistic

change, 238 social fund, 264 social groups, gorillas living in, 108 social part, of sociopolitical, 292 social paternity, 311 social power, subverting formal

authority structure, 298 social predictors, 59

Index I-19

Tishkoff, Sarah, 91 Titiev, Mischa, 319 Tiwi of northern Australia, widows

involved in plural marriages, 321 Toltec capital, of Tula, 216 Tonga, fakaleitis, 345 tool making, associated with

AMHs, 165 tool manufacture, standardization

in, 166 tools, use by early hominins, 123 topography, or terrains, 3 total sample, 53 totemism, 360 totems, 309–310, 360 Toumai, 124–125, 126i, 141 tourism, as the world’s number one

industry, 38 tourmalines, selling, 272 towns, predating pottery in the Middle

East, 220 traditional societies, strategies to deal

with threats to their autonomy, 38 traditions, 149 traits

inherited independently of one another, 74

shared by apes and humans, 105 trampling, fields, 260 trances, attempts to explain, 355 transformism, 69 transgender category, 344 transgender people, self-identified, 344 transhumance, 258, 259i “translocal” “interactive system,” 470 transvestism, 347 traumatized people, seeking comfort in

groups, 235 tribal cultivators, 280 tribal diversity, surviving under

globalization, 472 tribal societies, no sure means of

enforcing political decisions, 280 tribes, 391

described, 277 economic basis of and political

regulation in, 289t existed before first states

appeared, 276 lacking socioeconomic

stratification, 280 tribute

early Peruvians forced to pay, 199 of early states, 200

triple X syndrome (XXX), 344 Triump, Melania, 321i Trobriand Islanders, 295, 356 troop, common unit of primate social

organization, 108 tropical foragers, 249, 278i tropical foragers and horticulturalists,

attempting to reduce risk, 257 tropics, dark-skinned peoples living

in, 84 Trump, Donald, 321i, 395, 396–397 Tucker, Steve, 169 Tulum, 217

syncretic, or blended, religions, in the Western Hemisphere, 367

syntax, 228, 242 syphilis, 90, 92–93, 92i Syria

off limits because of political unrest, 194

recent political chaos in, 205 system, referring to various

concepts, 30–31 systematic survey, 44

T T. pallidum, 92–93 taboo, 355 tactile organs, sense of touch,

conveyed by, 101 Taieb, M., 131 Taliban, in Afghanistan, 193–194 Tanna, in Vanuatu, Melanesia, 366i Tannen, Deborah, 226, 237 taphonomy, 46 tarawad, 324–325 tarawads, 303–304 tarsiers, 102, 119 taxation, of early states, 200 taxonomy, 96–97 Tchambuli men, 329 team research, 56 technology, advances in, 166–167 teeth, of early hominins, 123 telenovelas (nightly serial

programs), 469 Tell el-Ubaid, in southern Iraq, 205 Tell es-Sawwan, village of, 207 Tell Halaf, in mountains of northern

Syria, 205 Tell Zeidan site, 205 tells (mounds), 201 Temple of Bel, 37i Temple of the Lion God, 193 Tenakhongva, Clark, 232i Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec

state, 221 teosinte (teocentli), 188–189 Teotihuacan, 215–217, 216i, 221 “termiting,” chimps making tools to

probe termite hills, 26 terracing, 254–256 terrestrial monkeys, 104, 105 terrestrial monkeys and apes, 96 territory, no notion of private

ownership of among Inuit, 280 Tertiary period, 112, 112f thefts, uncommon among foragers, 280 theory, 69, 72 Theory of the Leisure Class, 269 thermoluminescence (TL), 48, 48t threats, to environments, 466 Thule culture, sites associated with, 193 Tigris and Euphrates Rivers alluvial

plain of, 177, 181 in Mesopotamia, 210f

Tikal, 217 Timbuktu, Islamic manuscripts in

Mali’s historic city of, 194

strata, 44, 47 stratification, 206, 206t, 238–239

emergence of, 288–289 minority groups as features of in

U.S., 382 Weber’s three dimensions of,

288t, 299 stratification systems, 435–436 stratified societies, 220 stratigraphy, geological study of, 47 stratum, 288 stratum endogamy, 288 strepsirrhini suborder, 102 Stringer, Chris, 116i style shifts, for speech, 236 stylus, 207, 209i subcultures, 31–32 subdisciplines

of anthropology, 7–11 of general anthropology, 6

subgroups, of language, 242 subject (S), arranged in phrases and

sentences, 242, 242f suborders, of the primate order, 102 subordinate stratum, 289 Sub-Saharan Africa, food production

domestication, 186t subsistence activities, 332, 332t subsistence fund, building up, 264 subsistence strategy, transitioning to a

new, 179 subspecies, 80, 94, 108 Sudan desertification, 193 Sudanese Azande, male-male sex

among, 347 Suffolk seacoast, England’s, 155 sugar beets, 189 sugarcane, 189 Sumer, 201 Sumerian cities, 209 summer bison hunt, managing, 284 Sunnis, enjoyed privileged access in

Iraq, 398 superordinate stratum, 288–289 superposition, principle of, 44 Supreme Court, 324–325. See also

U.S. Supreme Court survey and excavation, 44–45 survey research, 58–59 Susa, 201 Suttles, Wayne, 269 Suwa, Gen, 127 “sweat lodge” ceremonies, held on