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- Volume 24, 1995
Annual Review of Anthropology - Volume 24, 1995
Volume 24, 1995
- Preface
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- Review Articles
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The Life of an Academic: A Personal Record of a Teacher, Administrator, and Anthropologist
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 1–20More LessAn account, spanning 50 years, of how I became an anthropologist, my graduate education at Columbia University, and my academic positions at Brooklyn and Queens College and at Duke University. I discuss my fieldwork among the Chippewa of Wisconsin and among modern Greeks in Boetia and Athens. I comment on the new ethnography as it applies to modern Greek studies and discuss how and why I turned to gender studies. I comment on teaching, university administration, and trends in contemporary anthropology and make a recommendation for a future thrust of the field. Reconnecting biology and cultural anthropology is, I believe, a necessary step if anthropology is to continue to be useful for ameliorating the human condition.
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Clocking the First Americans
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 21–45More LessThe antiquity of the first Americans is one of the most controversial issues in American archaeology, and it must be resolved to understand fully the adaptive radiation of Homo sapiens into the New World. Humans were in the Americas at least by Clovis times 11,200 years ago. Accepting that these were the first Americans, however, is complicated by claims of an even earlier presence, by the absence of a Clovis source (i.e. an Alaskan predecessor is lacking), and by the theoretical demands of explaining how or why Clovis groups apparently migrated rapidly through the hemisphere. New models from evolutionary ecology, along with possible changes in the Clovis chronology (resulting from improved radiocarbon calibration), may address some of these anomalies. But there still remains the possibility of an earlier (pre-Clovis) entry, supported by some mtDNA and archaeological evidence. The mtDNA evidence, however, is complicated by questions about the viability of the presumed founder effect (on which the mtDNA clock is based). Also, the several possible pre-Clovis archaeological sites have not yet been accepted. Resolution of the timing of the peopling of the Americas, on which several theoretical and methodological issues hinge, remains a question of developing archaeological evidence, resolving ambiguity in analytical techniques and dating methods (and rejecting ones that now appear critically flawed), and expanding search strategies. The Monte Verde site in Chile is the most viable pre-Clovis candidate, although for now neither it nor any other site resolves when and by which route humans first came to the Americas.
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The Persistent Power of "Race" in the Cultural and Political Economy of Racism
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 47–74More LessHistorically, anthropology has occupied a central place in the construction and reconstruction of race as both an intellectual device and a social reality. Critiques of the biological concept of race have led many anthropologists to adopt a “no-race” posture and an approach to intergroup difference highlighting ethnicity-based principles of classification and organization. Often, however, the singular focus on ethnicity has left unaddressed the persistence of racism and its invidious impact on local communities, nation-states, and the global system. Within the past decade, anthropologists have revitalized their interest in the complex and often covert structures and dynamics of racial inequality. Recent studies shed light on race’s heightened volatility on contemporary sociocultural landscapes, the racialization of ethno-nationalist conflicts, anthropology’s multiple traditions of antiracism, and intranational as well as international variations in racial constructions, including the conventionally neglected configurations of whiteness.
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Literacy and Literacies
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 75–93More LessThis review explores questions of power, epistemology, cultural form, and historical process, as they are raised by and developed in studies of literacy. It begins by reviewing arguments for universalist vs situated accounts of literacy and literacies. Having discussed universalist claims and evidence, and having shown that they cannot withstand criticism, the review develops generalizations about the implications of plural literacies. It explores the relationship among modern state formation, educational systems, and official vs popular literacies, by drawingo n poststructuralist argumentsa bout the role of writing in social formations and on recent historical and ethnographic research on literacy. It analyzes the role of literacies in the formation of class, gender, and racial-ethnic identities, by focusing on the role of education in class stratification, the debate about public vs private in gender dynamics, and the volatile relations between oppressed nationalities and official literacies.
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Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 95–117More LessThis review surveys an emergent methodological trend in anthropological research that concerns the adaptation of long-standing modes of ethnographic practices to more complex objects of study. Ethnography moves from its conventional single-site location, contextualized by macro-constructions of a larger social order, such as the capitalist world system, to multiple sites of observation and participation that cross-cut dichotomies such as the “local” and the “global,” the “lifeworld” and the “system.” Resulting ethnographies are therefore both in and out of the world system. The anxieties to which this methodological shift gives rise are considered in terms of testing the limits of ethnography, attenuating the power of fieldwork, and losing the perspective of the subaltern. The emergence of multi-sited ethnography is located within new spheres of interdisciplinary work, including media studies, science and technology studies, and cultural studies broadly. Several “tracking” strategies that shape multi-sited ethnographic research are considered. The review concludes with observations about the reflexive persona of the ethnographer as “circumstantial activist” in which methodological discussions about multi-sited research in anthropology are now being developed.
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The Archaeology of Slavery in North America
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 119–140More LessArchaeologists began to study slavery more than two decades ago, and since that time this interest has rapidly grown to become one of the most popular research specialties in the archaeology of the post-Columbian period. This essay reviews the interpretation of the archaeological record of slavery directed toward the analysis of four themes: living conditions under slavery, status differences within the plantation community, relationships of planter dominance and slave resistance, and formation of African-American cultural identity. It also discusses the sociopolitical context within which this study has operated and strongly recommends that greater efforts be taken to include African-American perspectives to inform this research.
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Consumption and Commodities
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 141–161More LessThis review contends that the study of consumption and commodities represents a major transformation in the discipline of anthropology. It documents this metamorphosis by examining how the debate on gifts and commodities transcended its original formulation as good versus evil. It then examines the recent growth and maturity of material culture studies and nascent developments that may give rise to a political economy of consumption. It notes, however, that there is still a paucity of ethnographic research specifically devoted to these topics. The review concludes by arguing that the study of consumptiona nd commoditiesis particularly close to traditions established in the study of kinship and it may come to replace kinship as the core of anthropology, even though the two topics often have been viewed as antithetical.
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Science as Culture, Cultures of Science
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 163–184More LessAlthough controversial, science studies has emerged in the 1990s as a significant culture area within anthropology. Various histories inform the cultural analysis of science, both outside and within anthropology. A shift from the study of gender to the study of science, the influence of postcolonial critiques of the discipline, and the impact of cultural studies are discussed in terms of their influence upon the cultural analysis of science. New ethnographic methods, the question of “ethnosciences” and multiculturalism, and the implosion of informatics and biomedicine all comprise fields of recent scholarship in the anthropology of science. Debates over modernism and postmodernism, globalization and environment, and the status of the natural inform many of these discussions. The work of Escobar, Hess, Haraway, Martin, Rabinow, Rapp, and Strathern are used to highlight new directions within anthropology concerning both cultures of science and science as culture.
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Biological Changes in Human Populations with Agriculture
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 185–213More LessAgriculture has long been regarded as an improvement in the human condition: Once Homo sapiens made the transition from foraging to farming in the Neolithic, health and nutrition improved, longevity increased, and work load declined. Recent study of archaeological human remains worldwide by biological anthropologists has shown this characterization of the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture to be incorrect. Contrary to earlier models, the adoption of agriculture involved an overall decline in oral and general health. This decline is indicated by elevated prevalence of various skeletal and dental pathological conditions and alterations in skeletal and dental growth patterns in prehistoric farmers compared with foragers. In addition, changes in food composition and preparation technology contributed to craniofacial and dental alterations, and activity levels and mobility decline resulted in a general decrease in skeletal robusticity. These findings indicate that the shift from food collection to food production occasioned significant and widespread biological changes in human populations during the last 10,000 years.
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Advances in Maya Epigraphy
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 215–235More LessDuring the past twenty years, significant progress has been made in determining the nature of the Maya script, the subjects covered in the monumental inscriptions, the grammatical structure of Maya writing, and the astronomical content of hieroglyphic texts on the monuments and in the codices. The script is unequivocally logosyllabic in nature, consisting of a mixture of logographic, syllabic, and semantic signs. The monumental texts are primarily concerned with dynastic history, including references to the births, marriages, military exploits, accessions to office, and deaths of rulers and their families, as well as the rituals that they performed. The grammar of hieroglyphic texts corresponds closely in structure to that of the Cholan and Yucatecan languages that were spoken in the region where hieroglyphs occur. And the pre-Columbian Maya were accomplished astronomers who produced complex tables for predicting solar and lunar eclipses, the stations of Venus and Mars, and solstices and equinoxes.
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Miocene Hominoids and Hominid Origins
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 237–256More LessRecent discoveries have greatly clarified the family tree relationships of Miocene apes to modern apes and humans. Contrary to most previous interpretations, new fossil evidence indicates that well-known middle-late Miocene large-bodied apes such as Kenyapithecus, Sivapithecus, and Dryopithecus branched off before the ancestor that gave rise to all living hominoids; therefore, these extinct genera are not members of the great ape and human grouping. Jaw and tooth features that Miocene large-bodied apes share with great apes and humans can now be regarded as conservative retentions from the ancestral condition for living apes, including gibbons. The first appearance of these great ape-like features in the African middle Miocene is correlated with an adaptive shift to consumption of hard fruit and nuts. Although the transition from life in the trees to life on the ground is deeply embedded in models of human evolution as a primary motive force in human origins, among African large-bodied apes this change occurred approximately 15 million years ago and is not directly linked with the advent of bipedalism or colonization of grassland environments 3-4 million years ago.
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Toward A Life History of the Hominidae
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 257–279More LessTwo new developments promise to greatly improve our ability to reconstruct the evolution of the human life cycle: 1. the introduction of the comparative methodology of life history into anthropology and 2. research on bone and dental development that reveals a world of life history preserved in the fossil record. Comparative study suggests that the human strategy depends on rich energy sources and low mortality and that our general rate of growth and aging evolved in parallel with brain size. It now appears that the australopithecines were a substantially primitive grade of hominid with life histories more like apes than humans. The life cycle of early Homo erectus was probably unlike any living hominoid: Evidence suggests that it grew up somewhat faster than living humans, it lacked an adolescent growth spurt, and H. erectus infants were more helpless than those of chimpanzees (but conceivably of more mature body proportion and motor advancement than our own). The appearance of fully modern life histories is still not fully resolved: Early Pleistocene Homo probably did not share them, and late Pleistocene hominids probably did, but life history is still little documented in the intervening million years. Although many details remain to be uncovered, the combination of advancing method and theory should soon lead to more robust models of human origins.
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Political Economy in Early Mesopotamian States
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 281–311More LessAn enormous amount of work has been done in recent years on what can be called the political economy of the earliest states in ancient Mesopotamia. These investigations appraise the organization of the great manorial estates of temples and palaces and show that local systems of power and authority coexisted with and often resisted centralized governments. It is also apparent that social institutions were permeable and that individuals played multiple and varied roles, reducing risks, cooperating, and competing as political fortunes changed over time. The interaction of autonomous city-states within a Mesopotamian cultural sphere has been foregrounded in certain work. Studies of production, trade, and consumption are reviewed from ca 3200-1600 B.C.
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Metrical Phonology
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 313–342More LessMetrical theory is a branch of phonology that posits a hierarchical structure to represent stress patterns in the minds of speakers. This review examines the basic arguments for this theory and surveys the central issues of the field over the past 18 years. These issues include questions about whether the foot typology is symmetric, whether there is a strict binarity requirement, and how to treat ternary iteration. The review concludes with a brief overview of the impact of constraint-based phonology on metrical theory.
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Kinship Studies in Late Twentieth-Century Anthropology
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 343–372More LessThis review examines the state of play of kinship studies in late twentieth-century anthropology, paying close attention to theoretical advances and shifts in methodology and intent that have occurred since the 1970s. It highlights developments in Marxist, feminist, and historical approaches, the repatriation of kinship studies, various aspects of lesbian/gay kinship, and issues bearing on the new reproductive technologies. Contemporary kinship studies tend to be historically grounded; tend to focus on everyday experiences, understandings, and representations of gender, power, and difference; and tend to devote considerable analytic attention to themes of contradiction, paradox, and ambivalence.
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Language Acquisition in Crosslinguistic Perspective
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 373–396More LessThis review examines crosslinguistic research that has increased our understanding of the acquisition process over the past 15 years. It begins by outlining different aspects of the study of first language acquisition, for example, infants’ preverbal attention to language and strategies in segmenting language input. A major section of the review stresses the importance of ethnographic studies because acquisition must be considered in relation to language socialization patterns in the particular culture in which the language is acquired. Another section examines crosslinguistic research and the impact of Slobin’s work, as well as factors that seem to influence the child’s mastery of formfunction mappings in spatial, temporal, and gender domains. Examples from diverse languages are used to illustrate that children use different clues, depending on the system being acquired. The final section of the review examines findings of a crosslinguistic research project designed to collect and analyze narrative data; only through an examination of a particular language’s discourse data can we study the full range of its structure’s functions. The review concludes by stressing the need to consider the interaction between linguistic factors and the cultural context of acquisition.
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Osteoporosis in Biocultural Perspective
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 397–421More LessOsteoporosis is a condition in which loss of bone density leads to increased risk of fracture. This condition is increasing in frequency in most parts of the world and has become a major cause of medical expenditures in the United States, where it is estimated to cost nearly $10 billion per year. European countries report similar increases in the proportion of their medical costs attributable to osteoporosis. In most cases, osteoporosis, which occurs earlier and more frequently in women, is associated with age-related endocrine changes, especially the decline in estrogen production occurring at menopause. However, earlier occurrence resulting from factors such as inactivity, low bone peak density in early adulthood, low calcium intake, and a variety of dietary and lifestyle factors can lead to high risk of fracture before menopause. This is because bone is in a continual state of turnover, and the balance between bone formation and resorption can be upset by a number of endogenous and exogenous factors. Relatively inefficient intestinal absorption of calcium, which can increase the risk of osteoporosis, is probably an adaptation that avoids the necessity of excessive kidney excretion of calcium. Modern lifestyles and increased life expectancies are exposing the biological cost of this adaptation.
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Tasmanian Archaeology: Establishing the Sequences
Vol. 24 (1995), pp. 423–446More LessThe past thirty years have seen a transformation of Tasmanian prehistoric research. Analysis of shell middens established a sequence documenting coastal adaptation over the past 8 kyr. Fishing ceased in mid-Holocene times, and explanations for this as being due either to the effects of isolation on Tasmanian Aboriginal society or to a structural reorganization of coastal economic strategies have caused considerable debate. From the early 1980s excavations in limestone caves within wilderness valleys in the southwest have shown that this region was occupied throughout the Last Glacial Maximum, back to 35 kyr B.P. The technological, subsistence, and symbolic systems of these southern Ice Age hunters is linked to paleoenvironmental conditions when Tasmania was joined to the mainland by the low-sea Bassian landbridge. The Aborigines of Tasmania, long constructed as an abstract frozen metaphor for Paleolithic man, are now seen as the inheritors of a deep real past.
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Previous Volumes
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Volume 53 (2024)
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Volume 52 (2023)
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Volume 51 (2022)
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Volume 50 (2021)
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Volume 49 (2020)
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Volume 48 (2019)
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Volume 47 (2018)
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Volume 46 (2017)
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Volume 45 (2016)
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Volume 44 (2015)
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Volume 43 (2014)
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Volume 42 (2013)
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Volume 41 (2012)
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Volume 40 (2011)
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Volume 39 (2010)
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Volume 38 (2009)
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Volume 37 (2008)
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Volume 36 (2007)
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Volume 35 (2006)
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Volume 34 (2005)
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Volume 33 (2004)
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Volume 32 (2003)
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Volume 31 (2002)
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Volume 30 (2001)
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Volume 29 (2000)
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Volume 28 (1999)
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Volume 27 (1998)
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Volume 26 (1997)
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Volume 25 (1996)
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Volume 24 (1995)
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Volume 23 (1994)
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Volume 22 (1993)
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Volume 21 (1992)
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Volume 20 (1991)
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Volume 19 (1990)
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Volume 18 (1989)
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Volume 17 (1988)
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Volume 16 (1987)
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Volume 15 (1986)
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Volume 14 (1985)
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Volume 13 (1984)
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Volume 12 (1983)
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Volume 11 (1982)
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Volume 10 (1981)
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Volume 9 (1980)
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Volume 8 (1979)
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Volume 7 (1978)
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Volume 6 (1977)
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Volume 5 (1976)
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Volume 4 (1975)
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Volume 3 (1974)
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Volume 2 (1973)
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Volume 1 (1972)
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Volume 0 (1932)