DOCSLIB.ORG

Radical Anthropology

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Radical Anthropology Issue 5 November 2011 Radical Anthropology Zanna Clay Bonobo ‘girl power’ Sheila Coulson and Sigrid Staurset Ritual at Rhino Cave Camilla Power Lunarchy in the Kingdom of England Graham Purchase on ‘The Art of not being Governed’ £4 www.radicalanthropologygroup.org ISSN 1756-0896 (Print) /ISSN 1756-090X (Online) Who we are and what we do Editor Radical: about the inherent, fundamental roots of an issue. Anthropology: the study of what it means to be human. Camilla Power Email: [email protected] Radical Anthropology is the journal of the Radical Anthropology Group. Anthropology asks one big question: what does it mean to be human? Editorial Board To answer this, we cannot rely on common sense or on philosophical arguments. We must study how humans actually live – and the Chris Knight, anthropologist, activist. 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 Neanderthals come from and why did they become extinct? How, The journal’s logo represents the when and why did human art, religion, language and culture first evolve? emergence of culture (dragons feature in myths and legends from The Radical Anthropology Group started in 1984 when Chris Knight’s around the world) from nature (the popular ‘Introduction to Anthropology’ course at Morley College, DNA double-helix, or selfish gene). London, was closed down, supposedly for budgetary reasons. Within The dragon is a symbol of solidarity, a few weeks, the students got organised, electing a treasurer, secretary especially the blood solidarity that and other officers. They booked a library in Camden – and was a necessary precondition for the invited Chris to continue teaching next year. In this way, the social revolution that made us human. Radical Anthropology Group was born. For more on this, see our website at www.radicalanthropologygroup.org Later, Lionel Sims, who since the 1960s had been lecturing in sociology at the University of East London, came across Chris’s PhD The cover picture was taken at Lola on human origins and – excited by the backing it provided for the Ya Bonobo Sanctuary in DR Congo, anthropology of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, particularly on which rescues orphan bonobos who the subject of ‘primitive communism’ – invited Chris to help set up are typically victims of the bush- Anthropology at UEL. During the 1990s several other RAG members meat trade. These juvenile orphan including Ian Watts, Camilla Power, Isabel Cardigos and Charles females are currently being cared for Whitehead completed PhDs at University College London and Kings in a nursery group at the sanctuary. College London, before going onto further research and teaching. See Zanna Clay’s article on p.5. For almost two decades, Anthropology at UEL retained close Back cover: images courtesy ties with the Radical Anthropology Group, Chris becoming of Zanna Clay, Sheila Coulson Professor of Anthropology in 2001. He was sacked by UEL’s and Wikicommons. corporate management in July 2009 for his role in organising and publicising demonstrations against the G20 in April. RA is designed by While RAG has never defined itself as a political organization, the Kypros Kyprianou & Ana Lopes implications of some forms of science are intrinsically radical, and this applies in particular to the theory that humanity was born in a social revolution. Many RAG members choose to be active in Survival 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. Anti-copyright: all material may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes, For more, see www.radicalanthropologygroup.org but please mention Radical Anthropology 2 Radical Anthropology Contents Editorial 3 No sex please, we’re scientists! Girl Power: the roots of female dominance and bonding in bonobos 5 Zanna Clay looks into bonobo female behaviour Middle Stone Age ritual at Rhino Cave, Botswana 12 Sheila Coulson and Sigrid Staurset interpret ancient African ritual activity Lunarchy in the Kingdom of England 18 Camilla Power strips away the layers of the mysterious figure of Falstaff The Art of not being Governed, by James C Scott 27 Feature review by Graham Purchase Debt: the first five thousand years, by David Graeber 36 Review by Chris Knight The Origin of our Species, by Chris Stringer 39 Review by Simon Wells Meat Market: Female flesh under capitalism, by Laurie Penny 42 Review by Anna Heath Sigmund 43 Poem by Chris Gray No sex please, we’re scientists! The world authority on sperm monkeys’. But moral pressure human primate female sexuality, competition, Tim Birkhead, wrote a exerted by members of his own with a take-home message for fascinating piece on how Victorian family, particularly daughter Etty hominin evolution. values affected Charles Darwin’s who corrected his proofs, made him wilder explorations into animal nervous. He ended up emphasizing In this issue, Zanna Clay, working sex lives.1 Darwin was bold and female tendencies to monogamy, in DR Congo, investigates sexual unflinching in observation and neglecting the implications of his politics among bonobos, our ‘other’ research into female strategies of sexual selection theory of female closest living relative alongside promiscuity – especially when it choice. chimpanzees. So, let’s focus on came to barnacles. But the closer bonobo bottoms. They take us he got to consideration of monkey In pioneering and controversial closer than ever to key questions sexual behaviour in relation to experiments on variability in about our evolution. Today, surely, human evolution, in The Descent ejaculate volume among Manchester we can boldly go where Darwin of Man (1871) – for instance, University Ph.D students, Robin feared to tread. male monkeys being able to detect Baker and Mark Bellis3 found that a women by odour – the more he man would top up extra (lots extra!) Female bonobos use pronounced resorted to Latin circumlocutions.2 when ‘his’ woman had been out of and extended oestrous swellings to sight and potentially able to sneak forge coalitionary bonds with other This ensured his comments on off with someone else. Are women females, especially junior incomers ‘monkeys’ bottoms’ would not well-designed for cuckoldry? Had to a group targeting senior residents. offend the ladies. He could jokingly this capacity evolved in response to And if a relatively low-ranked or write to John Ruskin man to man female ancestors’ tactics of double- newcomer female scores with a (although the art critic is now mating? Female primatologists, high-ranked female, she will make famous for his issues with mature primarily Sarah Blaffer Hrdy with a lot of noise about it. Because there women’s bodies) of his ‘deep The Woman that Never Evolved are so many female bottoms so and tender interest in the brightly (1981), led the way in looking at close together – female bonobos, coloured hinder parts of certain the social strategic nature of non- unlike female chimps have enough 3 Radical Anthropology food all year round to aggregate in ‘Lately it has become fashionable Most importantly in this edition, larger parties – and because they to deny the existence of this we have interviewed two women are so active and energetic, the initial stage in human sexual life,’ archaeologists, Sheila Coulson and males give up trying to keep track wrote Friedrich Engels in 1884, Sigrid Staurset, who are excavating of any particular female bottom, or ‘Humanity must be spared this some of the earliest evidence for to monopolise them. Instead, they “shame”’.4 He was referring to the what looks like male-centred ritual relax and join in the fun. Bachofen thesis, advanced also by in Botswana. Excitingly, they are Lewis Henry Morgan, of a stage using one of the key behavioural The fact that bonobo female sexual of sexual promiscuity, from which ecology theories of signal evolution, signals are so protracted, making it costly signalling, for their analysis difficult for a male to pinpoint actual of the Rhino Cave site. This is time of peak fertility, undermines surely a big step forward for the reproductive advantage in male interdisciplinary understanding competition for rank. This is a crucial of the emergence of the African difference between bonobos and Middle Stone Age symbolic record. chimps. Female chimps’ bottoms They have the assistance of local also produce magnificent periodic expert, Xontae Xhao, with insight sexual swellings, but the top males into the way the giant ‘snake’ can garner information about their head panel was utilised in recent timing of maximum swelling, and historic ritual. Snake lore among the get in on the act at exactly the right Khoisan has many links to trance moment. This means there is huge medicine but equally to the potency reproductive advantage for a male of menarcheal maidens. chimpanzee to fight for dominance to claim this privilege. Macaca nigra with booty. Radical Anthropology may be guilty of lèse majesté, but it appears that a So.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Dark Age Church Period of Barbarian Invasions
    Scholars Crossing History of Global Missions Center for Global Ministries 2009 The Dark Age Church Period of Barbarian Invasions Don Fanning Liberty University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgm_hist Recommended Citation Fanning, Don, "The Dark Age Church Period of Barbarian Invasions" (2009). History of Global Missions. 3. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgm_hist/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for Global Ministries at Scholars Crossing. It has been accepted for inclusion in History of Global Missions by an authorized administrator of Scholars Crossing. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Middle Ages 500-1000 1 3 The Dark Age Church Period of Barbarian Invasions AD 500—1000 Introduction With the endorsement of the Emperor and obligatory church membership for all Roman citizens across the empire, Roman Christianity continued to change the nature of the Church, in stead of visa versa. The humble beginnings were soon forgotten in the luxurious halls and civil power of the highest courts and assemblies of the known world. Who needs spiritual power when you can have civil power? The transition from being the persecuted to the persecutor, from the powerless to the powerful with Imperial and divine authority brought with it the inevitable seeds of corruption. Some say that Christianity won the known world in the first five centuries, but a closer look may reveal that the world had won Christianity as well, and that, in much less time. The year 476 usually marks the end of the Christian Roman Empire in the West.
    [Show full text]
  • In Search of the Indiana Lenape
    IN SEARCH OF THE INDIANA LENAPE: A PREDICTIVE SUMMARY OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMPACT OF THE LENAPE LIVING ALONG THE WHITE RIVER IN INDIANA FROM 1790 - 1821 A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS BY JESSICA L. YANN DR. RONALD HICKS, CHAIR BALL STATE UNIVERSITY MUNCIE, INDIANA DECEMBER 2009 Table of Contents Figures and Tables ........................................................................................................................ iii Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 Research Goals ............................................................................................................................ 1 Background .................................................................................................................................. 2 Chapter 2: Theory and Methods ................................................................................................. 6 Explaining Contact and Its Material Remains ............................................................................. 6 Predicting the Intensity of Change and its Effects on Identity................................................... 14 Change and the Lenape .............................................................................................................. 16 Methods ....................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Rosaria Munson April 4Th, 1992 Half a Man's Worth": Popular Ideology
    ������������������������������ Half a Man's Worth": Popular Ideology about Slavery in Democratic Athens We see slavery as incompatible with democracy; the Athenians did not. What was their justification? Since slaves were not part of the polis, there is little coverage in our sources, but we can at least see what Athenians of the 5th and 4th centuries said about the institution of slavery and slaves. Homer's comment (via Odysseus' faithful slave Eumaeus) that "Zeus takes away half of a man's ����� (worth or excellence) once the day of slavery comes upon him" is the first explicit statement of the moral inferiority of a slave, though it is striking that the speaker is himself a slave who embodies ������ (nobleness, bravery). There was a universal acceptance of slavery as existing from the very beginning, but chattel slavery in Athens was relatively recent. As the rights of aristocrats spread in Athens to the middle and even lower classes, slaves increasingly filled the menial tasks, including public services, such as police, bookkeeping, cleaning the city. There were three or four private slaves per household, as domestics, farm laborers, or industrial laborers (used by the owner himself or rented out). A few rich men owned numerous slaves. Most rich men would have owned about fifty, but even the most modest household would have at least one. An Athenian without a slave (or the money to buy a slave - about the same price as a mule) argues in one text that he ought to get public assistance. Manumission was infrequent and slaves were treated much differently than free: a slave witness can give evidence only under torture since a slave cannot be trusted to tell the truth - especially against his master - except through torture.
    [Show full text]
  • Working Against Racism from White Subject Positions: White Anti-Racism, New Abolitionism & Intersectional Anti-White Irish Diasporic Nationalism
    Working Against Racism from White Subject Positions: White Anti-Racism, New Abolitionism & Intersectional Anti-White Irish Diasporic Nationalism By Matthew W. Horton A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education and the Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Dr. Na’ilah Nasir, Chair Dr. Daniel Perlstein Dr. Keith Feldman Summer 2019 Working Against Racism from White Subject Positions Matthew W. Horton 2019 ABSTRACT Working Against Racism from White Subject Positions: White Anti-Racism, New Abolitionism & Intersectional Anti-White Irish Diasporic Nationalism by Matthew W. Horton Doctor of Philosophy in Education and the Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory University of California, Berkeley Professor Na’ilah Nasir, Chair This dissertation is an intervention into Critical Whiteness Studies, an ‘additional movement’ to Ethnic Studies and Critical Race Theory. It systematically analyzes key contradictions in working against racism from a white subject positions under post-Civil Rights Movement liberal color-blind white hegemony and "Black Power" counter-hegemony through a critical assessment of two major competing projects in theory and practice: white anti-racism [Part 1] and New Abolitionism [Part 2]. I argue that while white anti-racism is eminently practical, its efforts to hegemonically rearticulate white are overly optimistic, tend toward renaturalizing whiteness, and are problematically dependent on collaboration with people of color. I further argue that while New Abolitionism has popularized and advanced an alternative approach to whiteness which understands whiteness as ‘nothing but oppressive and false’ and seeks to ‘abolish the white race’, its ultimately class-centered conceptualization of race and idealization of militant nonconformity has failed to realize effective practice.
    [Show full text]
  • Bibliography
    Bibliography Many books were read and researched in the compilation of Binford, L. R, 1983, Working at Archaeology. Academic Press, The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology: New York. Binford, L. R, and Binford, S. R (eds.), 1968, New Perspectives in American Museum of Natural History, 1993, The First Humans. Archaeology. Aldine, Chicago. HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco. Braidwood, R 1.,1960, Archaeologists and What They Do. Franklin American Museum of Natural History, 1993, People of the Stone Watts, New York. Age. HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco. Branigan, Keith (ed.), 1982, The Atlas ofArchaeology. St. Martin's, American Museum of Natural History, 1994, New World and Pacific New York. Civilizations. HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco. Bray, w., and Tump, D., 1972, Penguin Dictionary ofArchaeology. American Museum of Natural History, 1994, Old World Civiliza­ Penguin, New York. tions. HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco. Brennan, L., 1973, Beginner's Guide to Archaeology. Stackpole Ashmore, w., and Sharer, R. J., 1988, Discovering Our Past: A Brief Books, Harrisburg, PA. Introduction to Archaeology. Mayfield, Mountain View, CA. Broderick, M., and Morton, A. A., 1924, A Concise Dictionary of Atkinson, R J. C., 1985, Field Archaeology, 2d ed. Hyperion, New Egyptian Archaeology. Ares Publishers, Chicago. York. Brothwell, D., 1963, Digging Up Bones: The Excavation, Treatment Bacon, E. (ed.), 1976, The Great Archaeologists. Bobbs-Merrill, and Study ofHuman Skeletal Remains. British Museum, London. New York. Brothwell, D., and Higgs, E. (eds.), 1969, Science in Archaeology, Bahn, P., 1993, Collins Dictionary of Archaeology. ABC-CLIO, 2d ed. Thames and Hudson, London. Santa Barbara, CA. Budge, E. A. Wallis, 1929, The Rosetta Stone. Dover, New York. Bahn, P.
    [Show full text]
  • Deepening Histories and the Deep Past
    12. Lives and Lines Integrating molecular genetics, the ‘origins of modern humans’ and Indigenous knowledge Martin Porr Introduction Within Palaeolithic archaeology and palaeoanthropology a general consensus seems to have formed over the last decades that modern humans – people like us – originated in Africa around 150,000 to 200,000 years ago and subsequently migrated into the remaining parts of the Old and New World to reach Australia by about 50,000 years ago and Patagonia by about 13,000 years ago.1 This view is encapsulated in describing Africa as ‘the cradle of humankind’. This usually refers to the origins of the genus Homo between two and three million years ago, but it is readily extended to the processes leading to the origins of our species Homo sapiens sapiens.2 A narrative is created that consequently imagines the repeated origins of species of human beings in Sub-Saharan Africa and their subsequent colonisation of different parts of the world. In the course of these conquests other human species are replaced, such as the Neanderthals in western and central Eurasia.3 These processes are described with the terms ‘Out-of-Africa I’ (connected to Homo ergaster/erectus around two million years ago) and ‘Out-of-Africa II’ (connected to Homo sapiens sapiens about 100,000 years ago). It is probably fair to say that this description relates to the most widely accepted view of ‘human origins’ both in academia as well as the public sphere.4 Analysis of ancient DNA, historical DNA samples and samples from living human populations molecular genetics increasingly contributes to our understanding of the deep past and generally, and seems to support this ‘standard model of human origins’, beginning with the establishment of the mitochondrial ‘Eve’ hypothesis from the 1980s onwards.5 In 2011 an Australian Indigenous genome was for the first time analysed – a 100-year-old hair sample from the Western Australian 1 Oppenheimer 2004, 2009.
    [Show full text]
  • Ancient Skulls May Belong to Elusive Humans Called Denisovans by Ann Gibbons Mar
    Ancient skulls may belong to elusive humans called Denisovans By Ann Gibbons Mar. 2, 2017. Since their discovery in 2010, the extinct ice age humans called Denisovans have been known only from bits of DNA, taken from a sliver of bone in the Denisova Cave in Siberia, Russia. Now, two partial skulls from eastern China are emerging as prime candidates for showing what these shadowy people may have looked like. In a paper published this week in Science, a Chinese-U.S. team presents 105,000- to 125,000-year-old fossils they call “archaic Homo.” They note that the bones could be a new type of human or an eastern variant of Neandertals. But although the team avoids the word, “everyone else would wonder whether these might be Denisovans,” which are close cousins to Neandertals, says paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London. The new skulls “definitely” fit what you’d expect from a Denisovan, adds paleoanthropologist María Martinón-Torres of the University College London —“something with an Asian flavor but closely related to Neandertals.” But because the investigators have not extracted DNA from the skulls, “the possibility remains a speculation.” Back in December 2007, archaeologist Zhan-Yang Li of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing was wrapping up his field season in the town of Lingjing, near the city of Xuchang in the Henan province in China (about 4000 kilometers from the Denisova Cave), when he spotted some beautiful quartz stone tools eroding out of the sediments. He extended the field season for two more days to extract them.
    [Show full text]
  • A Rhetorical Study of Edward Abbey's Picaresque Novel the Fool's Progress
    California State University, San Bernardino CSUSB ScholarWorks Theses Digitization Project John M. Pfau Library 2001 A rhetorical study of Edward Abbey's picaresque novel The fool's progress Kent Murray Rogers Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project Part of the Rhetoric Commons Recommended Citation Rogers, Kent Murray, "A rhetorical study of Edward Abbey's picaresque novel The fool's progress" (2001). Theses Digitization Project. 2079. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/2079 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the John M. Pfau Library at CSUSB ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses Digitization Project by an authorized administrator of CSUSB ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A RHETORICAL STUDY OF EDWARD ABBEY'S PICARESQUE NOVEL THE FOOL'S PROGRESS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, San Bernardino In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English Composition by Kent Murray Rogers June 2001 A RHETORICAL STUDY OF EDWARD ABBEY'S PICARESQUE NOVEL THE FOOL,'S PROGRESS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, San Bernardino by Kent Murray Rogers June 2001 Approved by: Elinore Partridge, Chair, English Peter Schroeder ABSTRACT The rhetoric of Edward Paul Abbey has long created controversy. Many readers have embraced his works while many others have reacted with dislike or even hostility. Some readers have expressed a mixture of reactions, often citing one book, essay or passage in a positive manner while excusing or completely .ignoring another that is deemed offensive.
    [Show full text]
  • December 2010
    International I F L A Preservation PP AA CC o A Newsletter of the IFLA Core Activity N . 52 News on Preservation and Conservation December 2010 Tourism and Preservation: Some Challenges INTERNATIONAL PRESERVATION Tourism and Preservation: No 52 NEWS December 2010 Some Challenges ISSN 0890 - 4960 International Preservation News is a publication of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Core 6 Activity on Preservation and Conservation (PAC) The Economy of Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Conservation that reports on the preservation Valéry Patin activities and events that support efforts to preserve materials in the world’s libraries and archives. 12 IFLA-PAC Bibliothèque nationale de France Risks Generated by Tourism in an Environment Quai François-Mauriac with Cultural Heritage Assets 75706 Paris cedex 13 France Miloš Drdácký and Tomáš Drdácký Director: Christiane Baryla 18 Tel: ++ 33 (0) 1 53 79 59 70 Fax: ++ 33 (0) 1 53 79 59 80 Cultural Heritage and Tourism: E-mail: [email protected] A Complex Management Combination Editor / Translator Flore Izart The Example of Mauritania Tel: ++ 33 (0) 1 53 79 59 71 Jean-Marie Arnoult E-mail: fl [email protected] Spanish Translator: Solange Hernandez Layout and printing: STIPA, Montreuil 24 PAC Newsletter is published free of charge three times a year. Orders, address changes and all The Challenge of Exhibiting Dead Sea Scrolls: other inquiries should be sent to the Regional Story of the BnF Exhibition on Qumrân Manuscripts Centre that covers your area. 3 See
    [Show full text]
  • What Makes a Modern Human We Probably All Carry Genes from Archaic Species Such As Neanderthals
    COMMENT NATURAL HISTORY Edward EARTH SCIENCE How rocks and MUSIC Philip Glass on Einstein EMPLOYMENT The skills gained Lear’s forgotten work life evolved together on our and the unpredictability of in PhD training make it on ornithology p.36 planet p.39 opera composition p.40 worth the money p.41 ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTIAN DARKIN CHRISTIAN BY ILLUSTRATION What makes a modern human We probably all carry genes from archaic species such as Neanderthals. Chris Stringer explains why the DNA we have in common is more important than any differences. n many ways, what makes a modern we were trying to set up strict criteria, based non-modern (or, in palaeontological human is obvious. Compared with our on cranial measurements, to test whether terms, archaic). What I did not foresee evolutionary forebears, Homo sapiens is controversial fossils from Omo Kibish in was that some researchers who were not Icharacterized by a lightly built skeleton and Ethiopia were within the range of human impressed with our test would reverse it, several novel skull features. But attempts to skeletal variation today — anatomically applying it back onto the skeletal range of distinguish the traits of modern humans modern humans. all modern humans to claim that our diag- from those of our ancestors can be fraught Our results suggested that one skull nosis wrongly excluded some skulls of with problems. was modern, whereas the other was recent populations from being modern2. Decades ago, a colleague and I got into This, they suggested, implied that some difficulties over an attempt to define (or, as PEOPLING THE PLANET people today were more ‘modern’ than oth- I prefer, diagnose) modern humans using Interactive map of migrations: ers.
    [Show full text]
  • World Karst Science Reviews
    REVIEWS AND REPORTS / POROčILA world karst science reviews International Journal of Speleology ISSN 0392-6672 October 2008 Volume 37, Number 3 Contact: Jo De Waele [email protected] Website: �ttp://www.ijs.speleo.it/ Special issue on Palaeoclimate, guest editor: Dominique Genty TABLE OF CONTENTS Report of a t�ree-year monitoring programme at Hes�ang Cave, Central C�ina. Hu C., Henderson G.M., Huang J., C�en Z. and Jo�nson K.R., pp. 143 -151. The environmental features of t�e Monte Corc�ia cave system (Apuan Alps, Central Italy) and t�eir effects on spele- ot�em growt�. Piccini L., Zanc�etta G., Drysdale R.N., Hellstrom J., Isola I., Fallick A.E., Leone G., Doveri M., Mussi M., Mantelli F., Molli G., Lotti L., Roncioni A., Regattieri E., Mecc�eri M. and Vaselli L., pp. 153-172. Palaeoclimate Researc� in Villars Cave (Dordogne, SW-France). Genty D., pp. 173-191. Annually Laminated Speleot�ems: a Review. Baker A., Smit� C.L., Jex C., Fairc�ild I.J., Genty D. and Fuller L., pp. 193-206. Environmental Monitoring in t�e Mec�ara caves, Sout�eastern Et�iopia: Implications for Speleot�em Palaeoclimate Studies. Asrat A., Baker A., Leng M.J., Gunn J. and Umer M., pp. 207-220. Monitoring climatological, �ydrological and geoc�emical parameters in t�e Père Noël cave (Belgium): implication for t�e interpretation of speleot�em isotopic and geoc�emical time-series. Ver�eyden S., Genty D., Deflandre G., Quinif Y. and Keppens E., pp. 221-234. BOOK REVIEWS Jo De Waele Inside mot�er Eart� (Max Wiss�ak, Edition Reuss, 152 pages, 2008 - ISBN 978-3-934020-67-2) Arrigo A.
    [Show full text]
  • Belief, Ritual, and the Evolution of Religion
    Belief, Ritual, and the Evolution of Religion Oxford Handbooks Online Belief, Ritual, and the Evolution of Religion Matt J. Rossano and Benjamin Vandewalle The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology and Religion Edited by James R. Liddle and Todd K. Shackelford Subject: Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Online Publication Date: Oct 2016 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199397747.013.8 Abstract and Keywords This chapter outlines an evolutionary scenario for the emergence of religion. From cognitive science, four mental prerequisites of religious cognition are discussed: (1) hyperactive agency detection, (2) theory of mind, (3) imagination, and (4) altered states of consciousness. Evidence for these prerequisites in nonhuman primates suggests their presence in our early hominin ancestors. From comparative psychology, evidence of ritual behavior in nonhuman primates and other species is reviewed. Archeological evidence of ritual behavior is also discussed. Collectively, these data indicate that the first step toward religion was an elaboration of primate social rituals to include group synchronized activities such as dancing, chanting, and singing. Control of fire, pigment use, and increasing brain size would have intensified group synchronized rituals over time, which, in the context of increased intergroup interactions, eventually led to the first evidence of supernatural ritual at about 70,000 years before present. Keywords: agency detection, burial, cave art, costly signals, evolution, religion, ritual, synchronized movement, theory of mind Anyone interested in probing the evolutionary origins of religion faces a formidable challenge: Belief is central to religion, and belief does not fossilize in the archeological record. Looking at a half-million-year-old Acheulean hand axe may tell us something about the maker’s technical skills, diet, hunting practices, and lifestyle, but very little about his or her beliefs—let alone the supernatural beliefs inherent to most religions.
    [Show full text]