four stone hearth 8

Four Stone Hearth 8

Welcome to Northstate Science and the 8th Edition of Four Stone

Hearth, the anthropology blog carnival. We have a range of topics for

this edition, all of which have been ordered chronologically (more or

less) from our earliest ancestors to computer applications in

anthropology. So, let's get started...

Yann Klimentidis starts us off with an article in the current edition

of Natural History discussing the reconstruction of hominin faces from

the bone structure of the skull. We know that specialists have been

able to accomplish this for some time, but new fossils within the last

two decades demonstrate the rich array of hominin faces within the

last four million years. As Yann points out, the path to modern humans

was a well-worn one - it is easy to see something of ourselves in each

of the reconstructions (Ken Ham will of course ignore any human

characteristics and call every one an "ape", while Bill Dembski will

ignore any ape characteristics and use the human characteristics as an

example of intelligently designed specified complexity). This

particular issue of Natural History is sitting on my desk at the

moment so I'll have to take a look!

Afarensis (whose reconstructed face actually appears on page one of

the Natural History article cited above) shows us that anatomical

structures of the Dikika child have implications for the transmission

of cultural knowledge. With the later advent of stone tool production

this problem of cultural transmission becomes even more interesting

and following John Shea, Afarensis asks what children's activities

look like in the archaeological record? An important question given

that archaeologists often find tool examples of poor craftsmanship

(which further begs the question, are all those imperfect designs we

see in nature simply a product of an "immature" intelligent designer

still learning the ropes?).

Greg Laden's Evolution...Not "Just A Theory" Anymore asks whether

hunting might not serve purposes other than simply caloric intake.

Specifically, he questions the possibility that hunting functions

prominently in male bonding. And I love this:

When a 19th or 20th century guy archaeologist holds a beautifully

made, often phallic-shaped obsidian spearhead in his hands, feeling

it's heft and running his fingers along the still sharp edge, he is

bonding with another guy, of a much earlier time period, who could

probably have killed his quarry just as effectively with a sharp

stick, but opted instead to produce, carry around, display, and use

this really cool piece of gear. So it's a guy thing, and it's a gear

thing. It's sort of a guys-with-gear thing.

Yep...speaking as a 20th century guy archaeologist, I can pretty much

buy that...(wonder if Behe feels the same way about the bacterial

flagellum?). Like Greg, I've participated in hunting events with both

modern hunters using firearms and aboriginal hunters (Hadza) using

bows and arrows. I can certainly understand hunting's social

connections.

Tim at Remote Central asks "Who Really Discovered America?".Tim takes

up the issue of whether Clovis, pre-Clovis people or European

Solutreans were the first to enter North America. This is a hot-button

issue as the sudden appearance of Clovis technology in North America

without any known lithic pre-cursors has always raised questions (and

hackles) amongst North American archaeologists. The hypothesis that

European Solutreans got here first also has substantial political

implications for Native American land claims. While I don't

necessarily agree with the Solutrean hypothesis, I see arguments

against it as more political, rather than archaeological, in nature.

We chew on Christian creationists and intelligent design activists a

lot, but Native American creationism is also a science stopper (and

the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk

about!). In any case, Tim does a great job of laying out some of the

issues with regard to peopling of the New World.

Aardvarchaeology introduces us to those Gothenburg Nastys. You know,

those grave-like structures containing "...a handful of cremated bones

looking a lot like muesli" (and what the hell is muesli?...second

thought, I probably don't want to know...). Apparently, these are not

the most exciting features to excavate and after reading Martin's

post, I can understand why. Geez, and I thought excavating isolated

historic refuse dumps was bad...of course neither could be as painful

as wading through No Free Lunch.

A.J. Cann at MicrobiologyBytes introduces us to a superb topic that's

going make me think twice before picking up that dead chipmunk for my

comparative collection: the ancient occurrences of bubonic plague. We

all know about the Black Death in the 14th century, but plague has

been around for quite a while and can be identified in the

archaeological record. More to the point, plague is still with us, and

as Cann notes, it would be a good idea if we knew something about its

history. (You suppose plague was intelligently designed?). Give this

one a careful read...and be afraid...be very afraid!

Bridging the gap between our evolutionary ancestry and modern

conservation problems, Primatology.org raises ethical concerns about

the U.S. maintaining chimpanzee populations for biomedical research.

Apparently we are the last nation to do so. Of course the issue is

where we draw the line between the potential for saving human lives

and the ethics of medical experimentation on another animal - our

closest living relative.

Several post submittals explore that interesting area between cultural

transmission and psychology. Ideas And How They Spread offers us two

discussions on the topics of behavior and cultural transmission. In

Behavior Trademark Tyrants we find the suggestion that at least three

factors contribute to whether or not individuals adopt a certain

behavior as a "trademark". The concept of having personal behavioral

"trademarks" has implications for cultural continuity and

transmission. In a second post you can find of the background for

defining a meme. I remember Dawkins posing an interesting discussion

of meme transmittal in the PBS Evolution series. Wise Bread posts a

discussion on the relationship between food security and generosity.

It appears that my willingness to throw change in the Salvation Army

Christmas bucket might be closely linked to how satiated I feel at the

time. But there are some interesting twists in this connection so take

a look. Pick The Brain discusses the distinction between cognition and

metacognition and proposes some interesting implications for how we

define intelligence and measure success. (I was trying to draw a

connection between cognition and intelligent design, but couldn't come

up with anything).

Carl at Hot Cup Of Joe has a fabulous discussion (and the only

linguistics submittal) of the perceived threat of linguistic

diversity. In the concern over illegal immigration and the rising use

of the Spanish language in the U.S. there plenty of concerns over the

potential loss of "American" culture. Of course, Carl points out that

the cultural door swings both ways and the perceived loss of culture

to immigration seems unfounded. We may also be ignoring a great

opportunity if Americans fail to consider linguistic diversity as a

positive force:

In the United States, we appear to be slow to figure out what

Europeans have long understood: speaking and writing in only one

language is a limiting factor in economics, academia, and politics.

I remember hooking up with a number of students from the U.K. as I was

traveling across Tanzania and simply marveling at their ability to

collectively strike up a conversation with fellow European travels in

about seven different languages. I wish I had spent more time studying

French in college.

Kambiz from Anthropology.net gives us an introduction to new software

for the Mac OS X system that has some significant application

anthropological organization and research. Read Kambiz's post to

understand more of the connection to anthropology. All I can say is I

wish they had a version of this for the Windows operating system!

Finally, many of you are no doubt familiar with discussions taking

place on the subject of open access, i.e. the extent to which journal

publications should be publicly available as opposed to costing small

fortunes to have regular access. At the request of Afarensis and

Kambiz, I am also including some recent posts on the subject of open

access, in something of a "mini-carnival". Kambiz was gracious enough

to supply the general summaries, so I can't claim much credit for

working on anything that follows:

The Open Access Issue: Some Recent Comments From the Blogosphere

Joshua Rosenau at Thoughts From Kansas comments on this issue. Here

are some snippets from his post on the topic:

Scientists give those publishers their research, typically signing

over copyright for that work to the publisher. In many cases those

scientists also pay page charges to those same publishers, so that

those publishers can have the privilege of taking those scientists'

work from them.

Scientists are beginning to feel that this situation is not equitable,

and that the restrictions on accessing those publications online hurt

not only authors, but researchers in the field. Congress has heard

those complaints, and is pushing for NIH funded research to be made

available free of charge on some schedule...

...Whether they are stupid is a harder question. Right now, a chunk of

most federal grants winds up going to pay fees to publishers. Those

publishers also sell advertising, and charge truly astounding

subscription fees. They hire professional editors, and can afford

various sorts of specialists. They do not pay their peer reviewers,

they don't pay the authors, and they give relatively little back to

the scientific community. The exorbitant subscription fees mean that

academic libraries are forced to cut subscriptions for interesting but

lower profile journals in order to maintain subscriptions to the

really essential journals.

The publishers walk away from that system as winners. Society loses.

Researchers have a harder time finding existing research, and the

public at large has no way to access most original research. This

means that even the scientifically literate public could not evaluate

new research that could help them make medical decisions, or be more

active participants in policy discussions.

Rex of Savage Minds outlines why Big Content has an issue with this:

The problem, of course, is that Big Content's business model faces a

strategic challenge in the digital age. Suddenly we can distribute our

creative work across the Internet and make it available to everyone,

solving many of the problems associated with distribution.

Afarensis also outlines the problem, and gives us some relevance to

what's happening within anthropology itself:

The big publishers argue that Open Access threatens their livelihood.

Open Access advocates argue that since most of this research is funded

through taxpayer efforts the results of that access should be freely

available to the public. A group of anthropologists, for example, is

working hard to force the American Association of Anthropologists to

adopt an open access model.

Lexis2praxis shows how this movement is uniting anthropology together:

...sometimes cultural anthropology seems, by nature of the discipline,

prone to elitism and inaccessibility...

....It seems like anthropologists would be at the forefront of the

movement to "share knowledge", but this is certainly not the case

among all of the ranks. Recent actions by the AAA have set

anthropology that much farther back when it comes to making our

presence, and contributions, known to the public and, well, more

useful rather than holed up in universities to filter down through

other disciplines, and even then so gradually because in many ways we

are isolated even in the academic universe.

The web and Open Access Publishing could be a way out of this, and

also a way for anthropology to be at the forefront of a movement that

could change academia's attachment to elitism and cater to its more

"humanistic" foundations. Yet, we have a fragile presence in these

areas and therefore are left unrepresented.

One thing the AAA did well, however, is to spawn a movement. I doubt

there has ever been this much discussion among anthropologists

regarding the goal of the discipline and whether we should embrace

Open Access Publishing.

And Kambiz criticizes some of the approaches the PR consultant is

taking:

This is pretty pitiful, it is actually despicable for publishers to be

doing that. Peer-review can still flourish, if not be more critical

and constructed under an open access model. More people can read it,

more people can comment on it, more people can know about! They have

lost focus of what they are in the business of, to document and

disseminate knowledge. Not keep it locked away! Don't they understand

the more they keep this information from the public, the more

misconception will brew about?

Again, my thanks to Kambiz for providing the information. I have found

this all to be an interesting discussion on the issues surrounding

Open Access and I am sure there will be more to come.

Thanks for stopping by to read the current edition of Four Stone

Hearth! The next edition will be February 14th at Boas Blog. Don't

forget to stop by and see what's new and exciting in the world of

anthropology...