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Issue 4 November 2010 Issue 4 November 2010 £3 www.radicalanthropologygroup.org www.radicalanthropologygroup.org ISSN 1756-0896 (Print) /ISSN 1756-090X (Online) ISSN 1756-0896 (Print) /ISSN 1756-090X (Online) Editor Who we are and what we do Camilla Power Email: [email protected] Radical: about the inherent, fundamental roots of an issue. Anthropology: the study of what it means to be human. Editorial Board Kevin Brown, political activist. Radical Anthropology is the journal of the Radical Anthropology Group. Elena Fejdiova, social anthropologist. Anthropology asks one big question: what does it mean to be human? Chris Knight, anthropologist, activist. To answer this, we cannot rely on common sense or on philosophical Eleanor Leone, student at arguments. We must study how humans actually live – and the Goldsmiths College. many different ways in which they have lived. This means learning, Jerome Lewis, anthropologist for example, how people in non-capitalist societies live, how they at University College London. organise themselves and resolve conflict in the absence of a state, Ana Lopes, anthropologist. the different ways in which a ‘family’ can be run, and so on. Brian Morris, emeritus professor of anthropology at Goldsmiths Additionally, it means studying other species and other times. College,University of London. What might it mean to be almost – but not quite –human? Lionel Sims, anthropologist at How socially self-aware, for example, is a chimpanzee? the University of East London. Do nonhuman primates have a sense of morality? Do they have language? And what about distant times? Who were the On the cover: Australopithecines and why had they begun walking upright? Where did The journal’s logo represents the the Neanderthals come from and why did they become extinct? How, emergence of culture (dragons when and why did human art, religion, language and culture first evolve? feature in myths and legends from around the world) from nature (the The Radical Anthropology Group started in 1984 when Chris Knight’s DNA double-helix, or selfish gene). popular ‘Introduction to Anthropology’ course at Morley College, The dragon is a symbol of solidarity, London, was closed down, supposedly for budgetary reasons. Within especially the blood solidarity that a few weeks, the students got organised, electing a treasurer, secretary was a necessary precondition for the and other officers. They booked a library in Camden – and social revolution that made us human. invited Chris to continue teaching next year. In this way, the For more on this, see our website at Radical Anthropology Group was born. www.radicalanthropologygroup.org Later, Lionel Sims, who since the 1960s had been lecturing in The cover picture features Mayday sociology at the University of East London, came across Chris’s PhD 2010 frolics beneath Big Ben, which on human origins and – excited by the backing it provided for the inaugurated Democracy Village. anthropology of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, particularly on See Raga Woods’ article, page the subject of ‘primitive communism’ – invited Chris to help set up 42. Photo: Chris Knight. Anthropology at UEL. During the 1990s several other RAG members including Ian Watts, Camilla Power, Isabel Cardigos and Charles Back cover: Images courtesy of Whitehead completed PhDs at University College London and Kings Survival International, João Zilhão, College London, before going onto further research and teaching. Ian Watts, Ifi Amadiume, Felix Padel For almost two decades, Anthropology at UEL retained close RA is designed by Kypros ties with the Radical Anthropology Group, Chris becoming Kyprianou and Ana Lopes Professor of Anthropology in 2001. He was sacked by UEL’s corporate management in July 2009 for his role in organising and publicising demonstrations against the G20 in April. While RAG has never defined itself as a political organization, the implications of some forms of science are intrinsically radical, and this applies in particular to the theory that humanity was born in a Anti-copyright: all material may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes, social revolution. Many RAG members choose to be active in Survival but please mention Radical Anthropology International and/or other indigenous rights movements to defend the land rights and cultural survival of hunter-gatherers. Additionally, some RAG members combine academic research with activist involvement in environmentalist, anti-capitalist and other campaigns. For more, see www.radicalanthropologygroup.org 2 Radical Anthropology Contents Editorial 3 To see ourselves as others see us Neanderthals are us: genes and culture 5 João Zilhão discusses the latest news from the Middle Palaeolithic Was there a human revolution? 16 Ian Watts responds to recent challenges in archaeology The Enigma of Noam Chomsky 22 Why the divorce between activism and science? asks Chris Knight Deconstructing War on Terror 31 Felix Padel investigates how the ‘War on Terror’ affects India’s indigenous groups Avatar: A call to save the future 35 Does Avatar deserve the criticism, or can it ‘open our eyes’? wonders Rupert Read Premenstrual stress and the human revolution 41 Viky Sousa-Mayer introduces her research blog on PMS An open confession from a member of Democracy Village 42 Raga Woods enters a ‘world turned upside down’ on Parliament Square Re-placing gender and the Goddess 44 Ifi Amadiume hears from Igbo voices what ‘development’ has done to the Goddess Direct Action, by David Graeber 54 Review by Simon Wells 55 Review by Davide Torri To see ourselves as others see us eanderthal-modern human differ. In trying to understand the early modern human fossils are interrelations dominate process of how we became human, generally distinguishable. But Radical Anthropology Neanderthals stand for the ultimate the flesh-and-blood beings whose thisN year, given developments ‘other’ – so close to us, yet not remnants they are could have met, within archaeology early in quite us. Now, we discover, those fallen in love, and had babies. And 2010. In our interview with top of us who descend from lineages did! palaeolithic archaeologist João which emigrated from Africa some Zilhão, he modestly disclaims 80-60,000 years ago may indeed Even more exciting for leading political relevance for studying have mixed it up with Eurasian pigment specialist Ian Watts is the Neanderthals. Neanderthals. People alive today evidence attesting to the symbolic carry smidgins of archaic DNA. trajectory of each lineage. Pigments, Radical Anthropology begs to 40,000-year-old Neanderthal and cosmetics, make-up compacts 3 Radical Anthropology with bone applicators… Zilhão’s wider impact. In a stylish essay, religion. This fascinating article Murcian excavations reveal beyond Rupert Read rebuffs the criticisms is of special interest to women serious doubt that Neanderthals and analyses why Avatar has who want to know what Goddess owned their traditions of self- inspired numerous indigenous and materially means when her decoration well before ‘modern’ civil rights actions, been denounced worship and celebration are humans arrived on the European by the Pope and banned by the inextricably entwined with women’s scene. Chinese state. Remarkably for a socioeconomic and cultural status. film which is about the experience In an era of Christian-missionised As ever in anthropology, we can seek of doing anthropology, it forces the village capitalist ‘development’, that out differences or analyse what’s issue: either you sneer at it, or you particular Goddess – Idemili – has strikingly similar. In this case, it’s can’t ignore the call – you have to come under savage attack, and with healthy to do both. This past decade, act. her, women in their marketplace. palaeolithic archaeology has found that in both Africa and Eurasia, In Radical Anthropology pigments followed by shell two issues ago, when asked jewellery long precede any if scientists should get other art. We have to restore themselves ‘collectively self- in imagination the dance and organised and consciously rituals such cosmetics would activist’, Noam Chomsky have adorned. Those rituals, of responded that if they did, both Neanderthals and African ‘they would probably devote moderns, were the revolutionary Felix Padel echoes Avatar’s call for themselves to service to state cutting edge of symbolic culture. ‘reverse anthropology’: learning and private power’. Why would how to see ourselves afresh by Chomsky, inspiration of anarchists The fundamental human quality understanding how those ‘others’ the world over, say such a thing? these cosmetics prove is the ability subject to our ‘science’ see us. The Chris Knight claims Chomsky- to ‘see ourselves as others see us’. latest export of faltering global the-activist’s target here is his With no mirrors, palaeolithic women capital has been its War on Terror own professional and institutional – European or African – fixed model, enabling state security forces milieu, as represented by Chomsky- each other’s make-up. Men might to label inconveniently situated the-linguist. Knight is clearing the have, too. The intimate bonding civilians – in this case, Adivasi way towards an anthropology of experiences of mutual grooming tribal groups – as ‘terrorists’ in the US military-industrial complex, and beautification lie at the root of order to eradicate them. So the path treating Chomsky as shaman language, art and religion. When is cleared to raw materials, thirsty spinning the tribal myth. Ian Watts writes about the social new industrial plant and a compliant strategies underlying the human workforce. But late capitalism is Chomsky’s agenda, says Knight, revolution engendering trust, he has riddled with contradictions: India’s has been to quarantine the natural this in mind. Only given such trust proudest export to the world has sciences from any ideological could we begin to share and explore been its history of civil rights contamination by social science, each other’s dreams. resistance. In the week after Padel’s and above all to denigrate human article was submitted, India’s origins narratives as mere fairytales.