Anthropology Times

Ritual As Communication: Order, Meaning, and Secrecy in Melanesian Initiation Rites
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 13: 143-155 (Volume publication date October 1984)
Roy Wagner
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dear, sweet Simone,

This article wasn’t what I expected from the title — it was more and better. In a few pages Wagner touches upon a wide ranges of issues, concerns and questions — various theoretical perspectives, problems with definitions, concerns about information from informants, sufficiency of fieldwork, science in anthropology, and on and on. He introduces a lot of players and their critiques of one another and those who came before. I will have to return to this article and take written notes. I found it difficult to keep the players and ideas straight with just a read.

One of the more exciting things that came out of reading this article was discovering a series of interviews, many of them of anthropologists, on YouTube by user Ayabaya.

I’ve listened to the first part of an interview with Roy Wagner.
Here the link to the second part of that interview.
I also noticed that there is an interview with Fredrik Barth, whom Wagner mentions prominently in his discussion of ritual as communication.

I enjoy hearing stories of how people made their way to the study of anthropology, and I’m excited to view more of these interviews and get a feel for how anthropologists talk and use words and the the types of things they talk about. Wagner asserts that anthropologists love to hear themselves talk. Look at him, he says.

The thing that stuck out to me most in the first half of the interview was Wagner saying that the fact that his high school English teacher required students to stand up and explain what was being communicated in various Shakespearean passages really helped his development in the “art of explanation in anthropology.” He says that explanation is much more important than theory.

I enjoy theory and have some understanding of the usefulness and necessity of it, but I don’t see the necessity for a belief that theory represents some definite and real underlying truth such that it is the be all, end all… particularly in a field such as anthropology.

Warm thoughts,

S.

Mayan Linguistics: Where Are We Now?
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 14: 187-198 (Volume publication date October 1985)
L Campbell, and T Kaufman
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Over the weekend I met someone whose response to his encounters with linguistics was to start work on creating his own language. On the other hand, my encounters generally leave me unendingly hopeless as to being able to say anything to anybody about anything. I once met someone of like mind with whom I had vocal interactions that consisted of primal, emotion-filled sound utterances back and forth and overlapping; this seemed as genuinely communicative as any formal language. I wonder sometimes about primal interactions using a very unfamiliar language with sounds not normally encountered in the native language in which the interlocutors choose words based on sound, shape and feel — and then looking at the translations as an exercise in making real and imagined connections.

All that was to say that I had language thoughts on my mind when choosing a review this week. Reading articles published before the internet explosion makes me wonder whether the availability of information on the internet has impacted the way scholarly articles are written. Knowing that I can turn to the internet certainly widens the spectrum of articles that I choose to read. My eyes glazed over during parts of this article. Some of the vocabulary wasn’t familiar and being a relatively short article the in-text explanations were mostly bare. When the authors wrote that Proto-Mayan was an ergative language, there was enough of an explanation to get the gist, but it’s nice to be able to turn to the internet to fill in the holes.

I was happy to be reminded of how linguistics can help create a fuller picture of prehistory. The authors write of how reconstructed vocabulary can show speakers of a language to have been highly skilled in an area like agriculture. We talk about what we know and we create finely tuned and specialized vocabulary for the things we know well. Neat.

Yours always,
S.

The Pattern of Human Evolution: Studies on Bipedalism, Mastication, and Encephalization
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 11: 151-173 (Volume publication date October 1982)
H M McHenry
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I can see why students love Henry McHenry. He strikes a good balance with the subject matter in that his writing is not too dense, and yet it’s not dumbed down either (well, at least as far as I can tell); and the summary was quite helpful.

During his discussion of bipedalism, McHenry writes that critical evaluation is necessary concerning the most influential ideas in evolution of hominid bipedalism because they are the ones that get into textbooks and influence general theories on human evolution. Seeing that this review was published in 1982, I was curious as to how discussions of this topic in the article compared with discussion in some of my more recent textbooks. McHerny spends a relatively large amount of ink (almost a whole page of just a 14-page review) putting forth the view that Owen Lovejoy’s theory that bipedalism arose as a result of monogamous males provisioning for their home-bound mates and dependent infants would be rejected by most anthropologists, ecologist, or primatologists familiar with mammalian and human mating systems. In a couple textbooks published more than 20 years later, there is a similar coverage and attitude about Lovejoy’s theory in this area… there is the notion that it has to be discussed especially and despite being mostly rejected according to the writers. What keeps such theories alive such that they require special treatment despite being mostly rejected and not seemingly useful? (Are there other parts of Lovejoy’s writing on the subject that are considered more helpful? Is it only anthropologists, ecologists and primatologists who reject Lovejoy, but other disciplines embrace him?)

Wikipedia page on Bipedalism
Henry McHenry’s Wikipedia page
A page at UC Davis with links to published works by McHenry

Yours truly,
S.

Anthropology and Alcohol Studies: Current Issues
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 16: 99-120 (Volume publication date October 1987)
Dwight B. Heath
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Dwight Heath writes that unlike many fields that only study alcohol use in the context of alcoholism, anthropologists tend to “deal with alcohol as it is used in the normal course of workaday affairs integral communities.” He also writes that “… alcohol use – like kinship, religion, or sexual division of labor – can provide a useful window on the linkages among many kinds of belief and behavior.”

I often feel left out of conversations as well as some sense of shared cultural experience because I’ve never been much of a drinker and I’ve never been drunk. Since leaving my little Mississippi hamlet, I haven’t found myself in the company of as many non-drinkers (who never drank). The fact that I’ve never built up much of a tolerance for alcohol and that I don’t have even one funny, drunken story to share has left me feeling on the outs many times. When I was studying law in England it seemed many of the larger firms had a pub on the premises and there was an expectation that employees would spend time there. Although Heath writes with high praise regarding Alcoholics Anonymous, the organization was not considered so positively in England. The idea that the answer to excessively drinking was to stop drinking altogether seemed heretical in that culture which meant that in a work situation, feigning alcoholism as an explanation of not joining in on a round of drinks was not going to work. I’ve never used that tactic, but sometimes in the States it seems that people would find it much easier swallow alcoholism as a reason for not drinking than they do that I just never took to it.

Growing up in the Mississippi Delta, there seemed to be an expectation that white teenagers would go through a period of drinking to excess with their friends (male and female). Heath writes that some field studies reveal that kin and others treat short-term excessive drinking as an integral part of the developmental cycle in the lives of young men. There wasn’t that same sense that excessive drinking was a rite of passage in the black community although some black teens did drink. Also, it may have been that excessive drinking as a rite of passage occurred at a later age in the black community in there. I encountered a lot more young, black drinkers in college than in high school.

I wonder whether I should just manufacture one wild, drinking story. I was designated driver enough times to be able to flesh out some realistic scenarios. Would people be able to tell there was something off about my story or my tone in telling it? I’ll have to pay closer attention when people talk about drinking.

With sweet affection,

S.

Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 14: 77-102 (Volume publication date October 1985)
Carol Kramer
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Reading this article I began to think of how pottery is used, reused and discarded in my household. I’ve used pottery sherds to level surfaces, as incense burners, as components of artwork, as keepsakes from unfortunately broken prized pieces… roughed up kitchen pottery as planters, pencil holders, and paperweights. Kramer gives a tidy discussion of how studying living cultures can provide clues as to how to interpret pottery as found in the archaeological record. Kramer explains that ethnographic accounts of pottery-producing groups may aid archaeologists by providing information about “… learning routines, aspects of division of labor and social organization of production, scalar and spatial aspects of production and/or distribution (e.g. numbers of vessels manufactured, distances to resources and markets, workshop locations, sizes, and layouts), scheduling problems, secondary uses of pottery, potters’ expenditures and income, vessel prices, and the like.”

Kramer recounted a possible psychological profile of a potter … “psychologically and technologically conservative, unwilling to take risks and engage in innovative experiments, with conforming personalities and a low sense of self-esteem.” This isn’t the picture of the artist that I imagine when looking at beautiful pieces of pottery. Of course, when I look at my numerous stacks of hand-painted 1950s California dishware, I tend to romanticize the manner and method by which that was produced, too. I’ve often looked at colorfully planted flowers and vines and wondered about the lives of the (usually) ladies making those brush strokes day-in and day-out. Kramer notes that looking at brush strokes might be key to identifying the work of a particular ceramic artists because the decoration of a piece of pottery might involve the handiwork of many artisans.

Lately I’ve fallen into a pattern of ignoring the colors and strokes on my hand-painted dishware. This is a pattern I would like to break. I want to renew the sense of connection to the women who created the artwork and to the people who owned and used and admired the dishware before it came to me.

Here’s a short bio and list of papers by Carol Kramer. She worked to improve the working lives and academic opportunities for women in anthropology and archaeology.

My warmest regards,

S.

The Study of Language Use in Oceania
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 15: 149-162 (Volume publication date October 1986)
K A Watson-Gegeo
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

This was a relatively short review (around 10 pages). It’s more of a bare bone directory of where to go for more. I would be interested in the studies that examined “the communicative aspects of music and chant, where songs and chants are carefully coded messages, have important functional relationships to spoken language, are significant instantiations of social hierarchy, or provide a forum for dispute.” Using song and chant in these ways resonates with my experience growing up in the Mississippi Delta and recent experiences in Southern California. I think specifically of women singing in unison or back and forth or in sequence. In the Delta my experience was with black women; in Southern California my experience has been mostly with women with Mexican heritage. The experience feels the same. Sometimes the singing works as a secret communication in that the song may have an in-group defined meaning that fits the current situation. It can be a way of complaining and commiserating about a bad or unfair work environment though the lyrics might not offer an immediate clue. It can be a communication between the women as to their feelings about the current task, about the day, about relationships, or about a particular life period. It can be a way of gossiping openly as, again, the group members understand the song to be indicative of a certain type of person or behavior. Down South, the songs were often religious in nature and also often call and response songs… sometimes reduced to humming or nonverbal chanting. I’ve never actively participated in this type of singing in a significant way (too young at one point and too shy at later points), but I do find it comforting. Perhaps I will one day look for studies on communication through song in the United States; it’s not high on the list at the moment.

I will try this week to return to the practice of choosing the next articles in groups of five as I have found myself more and more leaving the decision until later in the week than is comfortable. Generally speaking I’m looking for ways to rededicate myself to perhaps have a stronger finish to my year of self-study.

With sweetness from all the ages,
S.

The Problem of Informant Accuracy: The Validity of Retrospective Data
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 13: 495-517 (Volume publication date October 1984)
H R Bernard, P Killworth, D Kronenfeld, and L Sailer
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

In thinking more about interviewing people this review jumped out at me. I’d like to interview people who work and study in anthropology, people who work on helping people and the planet. I’d also just like to talk to people about their lives and experiences and thoughts about the world. I know from past experiences observing and talking to people, that their can be tons of descrepancies between what people say and what they mean and how they behave and what they believe. This review confirms this casual observation. What I had hoped for and what seems to be here in this review are resources that could help me phrase and shape and present inquiries such that I’m more likely to get the information that I want, particularly when it comes to interviewing people about their lives generally. The authors here note that “minute rewording or restaging of situations radically affects the way people will respond.” People have a long chain of internal mechanisms shaped by culture and experience and they use to evaluate an interviewers questions and frame their responses such that their answers are a result of a “large number of subconscious decisions,” as noted by the authors here.

Previously I had read a review on anthropology and creationism. At that time I can across a poll with a result that 41% of Southern Americans believed the Bible to be literally true. Anecdotally speaking from my experience growing up in the South, I knew very few people who actually believed the Bible to be literally true, but I knew quite a few who would say that they did when asked. Threaded in the culture is a belief and admonition that when people asked questions such as that one, they were really asking you about your faith, and that it was important to give the most hardlined answers lest scholarly sorts might go back to some place like New York City and somehow report that people down South don’t really believe in God or some such. As a teenager I used to talk to people quite a bit about their religious and spiritual beliefs. I think the fact that I was young and had grown up locally made a huge difference in the openness with which people spoke. In my Bible Belt town, there was just a whole different mindset when it came to talking to outsiders about religious topics … the answers skewed conservative.

With sweetness and warm thoughts,

S.

Concepts of Time in Quaternary Prehistory
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 12: 165-192 (Volume publication date October 1983)
Geoff N. Bailey
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Reading this article I was most drawn to wanting to read more on the thinking concerning the relationship between study of the past and the study of present. Bailey writes that “on the one hand is the view that the past should be explained in terms of the present … and made relevant to present-day social concerns. On the other hand is the view that the present should be explained in terms of the past, that the study of the past should be in terms of large-scale historical processes not obviously visible to the individual observer in a contemporary setting, processes which to some extent determine the present situation.” The history professor who most influenced my thinking was partial to the latter view. I feel partial to Bailey’s statement that the two views do not have to be seen as mutually exclusive, but rather they can be seen as based on interrelated concepts of time.

In a most casual search on the subject matter of this article, I quickly came upon at least three other articles I would like to read. They seemed like that would further enhance my understanding of the discussion of time as it relates to archaeology and give additional guidance as to further reading:

“Time Perspectivism, Temporal Dynamics, and Battlefield Archaeology: A Case Study from the Santiago Campaign of 1898” by William E. Altizer

“Temporal Insanity: Woodland Archaeology and the Construction of Valid Chronologies” by Erin C. Dempsey

“Rethinking the great divide: long-term structural history and the temporality of event” by Jan Harding (opens a download window)

So far I’ve only given a cursory glance at them and I partly want to link to them here so that I will remember to go back to them.

Today I’ve been thinking again about how confronting death affects thinking about time.  Do Americans become more deterministic in their thinking about time when confronted with death … do we lean toward a thinking that there are processes at work that explain why a death occurred at a particular time?   A police officer acquaintance and former classmate of mine was shot and killed on the job over the weekend.  In more recent times I had reconnected with him on Facebook and we had chatted a couple times.   Chatting with him was such a special comfort to me in that his style of speaking and use of language brought a welcomed familiarity.  I was reminded that flowery romanticism in everyday conversation was just more commonplace in the Mississippi Delta (and the South in general) than other parts of the U.S.  Upon hearing of his death, I still had browser windows opened for articles he had linked to on Facebook and thoughts of speaking with him again were heavy in my mind.  When someone posted a picture of him on Facebook yesterday, I thought it was to show his recent fitness results.  But today there were messages of condolence from mutual friends.  I still don’t feel comfortable leaving Facebook condolences, but I’ve wondered how Facebook may be influencing the way we grieve and communicate with each other about death.

Many warm thoughts of you,

S.

The Neandertals and Modern Human Origins
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 15: 193-218 (Volume publication date October 1986)
Eric Trinkaus
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I read this article based on the title after having come across a rather fluffy piece in the Guardian titled “Should We Clone Neanderthals?”An article of the same title, but with a more serious discussion can be found at Archaeology (“Should We Clone Neanderthals?”).

The New York Times has an article discussing the analysis of the Neanderthal gene sequence and the extent to which Neanderthals may have interbred with humans, Signs of Neanderthals Mating With Humans, with some scientists saying that interbreding was relatively insignificant and others saying that it may have had noticeable impact on the evolution of modern non-African humans. Writing in 1986, Trinkaus mentions this same discussion. From reading the NYT article, it seems the introduction of genetic evidence has heightened this discussion, but hasn’t interjected the clarity one might expect.

I was most interested in Trinkaus’ discussion of some of the details of the origins of modern humans such as possible connections between changes in upper limb morphology and advantageous changes in tool use and tool development. Further reading of this type would probably make my B-List of things to read.

Eric Trinkaus’ has a wikipedia page. When googling Trinkaus, his page on Rate My Professor came up in the results. It seems that the vast majority of the review articles are written by people who teach somewhere. Before now, I had never thought of looking them up at Rate My Professor.

That’s it for now.

Kind thoughts,

S.

Analysis of Style in Artifacts
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 12: 125-142 (Volume publication date October 1983)
Stephen Plog
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I never got around to looking at the content of this review and the last side-by-side (making a note to go back and do that.) Still …

The question of what can be said about the depth and type of interaction between groups that share similar styles seemed to taunt the imagination. Plog and Hegmon mention studies involving analysis of how styles are produced and distributed in living cultures and what could be gleaned from those studies to help the understanding of style variation and distribution in prehistoric cultures. They both also discussed what could be said about the level of exchange between groups based on the level of style they shared, whether whole patterns or parts of patterns or similarities in the thickness of lines for example. I started to wonder whether analyses of the relationship between shared language traits and level of interaction between cultures might be instructive with respect to variation and exchange in artifacts. It’s one of those weeks where I haven’t poked around on the net as much. Next week will likely be the same.

In reading these reviews on style, I kept thinking about the styles of being human. What are my human styles? What style of human am I? Particularly I thought of one of the habits of my recently deceased friend. He was quite good about going toward people in distress. He didn’t avert his eyes or avoid contact. He offered to listen, to interact, to hug, to share information. He was so beautiful in this way.

Several times this week I saw this mother who appeared to be in general distress. I wanted to talk to her, but I was so worried about being a bother or having nothing useful to say or share that I felt paralyzed in her presence. (What a thing it is to feel at once disconnected from my own existence while being so obsessed with the particular and small details of it.) Her children were lovely and sweet to each other. Her daughter looked eight or nine, but being the oldest of four she was quite focused on being a big girl and a strong girl for her mother and her siblings. In the time it took me to set aside my own angst, they were gone.

Kind thoughts,

S.