2005 Annual Report 2005 Annual Report Chairman’s Introduction Richard C. Hackney, Jr. Chairman of the Board of Trustees 2005 was a year of transition and also of achievement for the Foundation. Transition came with the re- tirement of Richard G. Fox after six years as Foundation President and the arrival of Leslie Aiello the new President. Achievement came in the many ways we have been able to forward the mission of the Foundation to foster significant and innovative anthropological research and to support international scholarly networks. For example, we received the largest number of applications for our Individual Re- search Grant Programs (Dissertation Fieldwork and Post-Ph.D. Research Grants and the Richard Carley Hunt Memorial Fellowship) in the history of the Foundation and made 146 awards. We also sup- ported 24 conferences and workshops, enabled 38 international scholars to train at world-class institu- tions and organized the largest number of Wenner-Gren sponsored events in the recent history of the Foundation, all but one being held in the new meeting facilities at the Foundation offices in New York. This success is due to the hard work and leadership of Richard G. Fox (Dick) and to the first-rate work and support provided by the Wenner-Gren staff. Dick's leadership over the past six years has placed the Foundation in a strong position to continue to grow and provide much-needed support to the broad- based field of anthropology. Dick was particularly concerned with the problems faced by young anthro- pologists in gaining a foothold in the profession. He considerably increased the stipend for the Richard Carley Hunt Memorial Fellowship to allow young scholars to take time off to prepare a monograph or collection of journal articles on previously completed research. It has been one of our most successful recent programs and has helped a number of young colleagues to gain their first academic position or, for those a bit more advanced, to gain promotion or tenure. Among Dick's other accomplishments is our current panel system that insures every research applica- tion a fair and thorough peer review. He continually sought ways in which the Foundation could extend its reach outside of the US and also inaugurated the Wenner-Gren International Symposium Publication Series in collaboration with Berg Publishers. This book series insures rapid publication and worldwide dissemination of the outcomes of our international symposia. He also continued his close involvement with the Foundation's journal, Current Anthropology, through the development of its online facilities and managed the move of the Foundation offices to our new premises. For all of this the Foundation offers Dick our sincerest thanks and best wishes for his retirement. Richard C. Hackney Jr. Chairman, Board of Trustees Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research 2 2005 Annual Report President’s Report Leslie C. Aiello, President I arrived at the Foundation in May 2005 with plans to build on the strengths and prior successes of the Foundation. My first major initiative was to review the Foundation's website with the aims of increasing our profile in the field, clarifying our funding programs, improving our application guidelines and provid- ing more information on the history of the Foundation and the impact it has had on the development of international anthropology. Together with the redesign of the website we are introducing online applica- tion and review systems. Online reviewing will permit us to give feedback to both the successful and un- successful applicants in a timely fashion and online applications should facilitate the application process for grant-seekers irrespective of where they might be located internationally. Both systems will also help to streamline internal procedures at the Foundation and free-up staff time to provide better service to the community. Both the website and the online application and review system will be fully launched in 2006. Together with the web-based initiatives we also undertook a major review of all of the Foundation's pro- grams to improve and clarify our grant-making and other activities, insure the continued success of Cur- rent Anthropology, and reinvigorate the Wenner-Gren/University of Pennsylvania casting program. Par- ticular attention has been given to assessing the ways in which our funding programs meet the needs of the international community of anthropologists through the Professional Development International Fel- lowship (PDIF), the International Collaborative Research Grant (ICRG) and the Post-Ph.D. Research Grant programs. There has also been concern over the effect of electronic journal access on the viability of Current Anthropology and discussions are underway with University of Chicago Press to insure its future as are discussions with the University of Pennsylvania to bring the Wenner-Gren hominid casting program back into full production. In the midst of this review, I have also endeavored to solicit the input of the widest number of anthro- pologists to help inform the future direction of the Foundation's programs and activities. The Wenner- Gren Foundation is a unique resource for international anthropology and I encourage anthropologists everywhere to interact with the Foundation, offer your ideas and help determine the Foundation's direc- tion for the future. I look forward to working with our Board of Trustees and our Academic Advisory Council to insure that the Foundation helps the field continue to grow, develop and meet the challenges of the modern world; but I can only do this successfully with the help and involvement of the entire field. Leslie C. Aiello President Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research 3 2005 Annual Report Program Highlights: Research Grants and the Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship The Foundation provides support to individual research and writing at the Ph.D. and Post. Ph.D. level through the Dissertation Research grant, the Post-Ph.D. Research grant and the Hunt Postdoctoral Fel- lowship. 146 grants were given across these categories during 2005 to scholars whose work reflected a range of interests and themes across the discipline. Without being able to reflect the full diversity of the field, the following section highlights some of the themes and notable topics across the four fields (archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural/social anthropology and linguistic anthropology) to give an indication of the variety of research the Foundation supported in 2005. Archaeology A number of archaeology projects were funded in 2005 that apply a practice-based approach to explore the impact of state formation and colonial processes on material culture and daily life in local communi- ties. Three of these projects target culinary activities and foodways to examine the relationship between cuisine and social change as they explore the ways in which state political and economic demands im- pacted local domestic practices in prehistoric societies. On the north coast of Peru, Robyn E. Cutright addresses the kinds of change that non-elite households experienced during Chimu state expansion by evaluating if and how patterns of food preparation and consumption differ in domestic contexts prior to and after conquest in A.D. 1200. Focusing on food remains, culinary assemblages and their spatial or- ganization, she assesses the effects of state expansion on domestic activities by examining the extent to which daily practice related to household economic and political strategies and the gendered organiza- tion of labor was reorganized. In the Jinan region of China, Min Li's analysis of patterned variation in faunal remains recovered from domestic contexts focuses on the role that ethnicity played in the differ- ential access to and use of animals for culinary and ritual purposes during the mid 2nd millennium B.C. His inquiry into socioeconomic strategies used by distinct ethnic groups with multiple and overlap- ping identities produces insights into the varied ways multiethnic communities responded to and negoti- ated Shang state expansion. Working at Tiwanaku sites in Bolivia, Carrie Anne Berryman applies an innovative bioarchaeological approach to her investigation of the degree to which state formation proc- esses altered the diet and nutrition of individuals of distinct status and ethnic affiliation residing at core and periphery communities. By combining isotopic analysis, phytolith analysis from dental calculus and standard dental observations of human skeletal remains, she compares patterns of consumption before and after the rise of the state to assess the nature of Tiwanaku's political authority and its effects on lo- cal domestic economy. Focusing on historic period colonial encounters, two projects adopt a dialectical perspective of social change instead of a more conventional framework based on simple oppositions between domination and resistance. Working in the Volta region of Ghana, Ray Wazi Apoh draws on oral history, archival sources and archaeology to decipher the ways in which mid 19th century foodways and culinary prac- tices reflect the maintenance and blurring of social distinctions among elite and commoner colonizers and colonized. His study of long-term patterns of change and continuity in ceramic technology and sub- sistence practices at socially differentiated households at four sites addresses mutually influential changes in taste and economic and social organization brought about by the importation of European domestic technologies