HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rjsalvad@iastate.edu (Ricardo J Salvador)
Subject: Southwestern Agriculture Symposium
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 23:31:49 GMT

ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND AGRICULTURAL SYMPOSIUM IN THE SOUTHWEST

Recent Work, New Findings, and Traditional Practices
in the Agriculture of the Northern Southwest

BLM State Office
Rodeo Road
Santa Fe, New Mexico
2 - 4 October, 1992

Sponsored by the New Mexico Archaeological Council

The New Mexico Archaeological Council is pleased to announce a
symposium on agriculture.  The study of crops and their production
is an ongoing and exciting aspect of the archaeology and anthropology
of the greater Southwest.  These topics are, of course, inextricable
from any understanding of how people have lived for the last two or
three millennia in this large area.  Because of the dynamic nature
of this field of inquiry, there are always new techniques and results
that have not yet become widely known.  The purpose of this symposium
is to allow interested professionals and practitioners to be informed
about new work in the study of managed plant use.  The symposium is
organized into four broad topics:

Agricultural Fields and Systems
Organizer: Mr. Tim Maxwell, Office of Archaeological Studies
           505-827-6343

Water Control Management
Organizer: Mr. Wolky Toll, Office of Archaeological Studies
           505-827-6343

Anasazi Agriculture and Diet
Organizer: Ms. Cherie Scheick, Southwest Archaeological Consultants
           505 984-1151

Featured speaker:  Deborah A. Muenchrath
                   Iowa State University
                   "Maize Productivity and Agroecology:
                   Effects of Environment and Agricultural
                   Practices on the Biology of Maize."

Traditional Agricultural Practices
Organizer: Mr. Charles Haecker, Nat'l. Park Service
           505-827-6347

We have invited a number of people practicing traditional crop
production to share their results as well as to offer their
perspective on archaeological findings about field and irrigation
systems and prehistoric crops.  We also will take advantage of the
presence of a variety of visible remains of prehistoric and 
protohistoric agricultural features in the Santa Fe area by
following the two day symposium with a guided field trip to visit
a number of these features.

If you would like more information, please contact one of the
symposium organizers.
From: zeitlyn@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Progs for teaching kinship?
Date: 3 Sep 92 14:10:24 GMT
Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620

I am writing on behalf of some of the teching staff at the Inst. of social 
and cultural anthroplogy, Univeristy of Oxford.
We would like to know what programmes, hypercard stacks and the like have
been developed to facilitate the teaching of kinshiop systems,
patterns of marriage alliance and the like. Details of the producers,
distributors and licensing arrangements would be appreciated if that
information is to hand.
Many thanks for all your help
Yours sincerely
David Zeitlyn
Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:809 talk.origins:10621
From: revpk@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Homosexuality & Evolution
Date: 2 Sep 92 02:12:39 GMT
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system

dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:

> 
> Does homosexuality have a useful significance within the theory of
> evolution?
> 
> Are there any good references that discuss this area?

        Well, E.O. Wilson postulated that tribes with homosexual members 
might be more evolutionarily successful because the homosexual members would 
function as 'shared parents,' as they wouldn't have children of their own to 
care for and compete over. I don't completely subscribe to this theory, but 
it's not a bad guess, and as good as any.

        One might also consider the possibility that it's just a bit of 
variance among humans that just wasn't harmful enough to get 'bred out.' It 
might not serve any purpose as far as evolution and natural selection are 
concerned.

        As far as a direct answer to your question goes, the best I can offer 
is "Well, we can offer a few guesses as to how it _might_ be significant."

        (I can see one good use for it already; the more it ticks off 
homophobes, the more often the homophobes will die of brain aneurysms, thus 
ridding humanity of another species of bigot.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian "Rev. P-K" Siano                                  revpk@cellar.org
Servo: "Dianetics, by L. Ron Hubbard."
Joel:  "Why is my life messed up? Page 74."
Servo: "When will this movie end? Page 155."
Crow:  "How much money can we get out of Tom Cruise? Page 85."

                                       "Mystery Science Theater 3000,"
                                       during a volcano scene in
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: lmannine@jyu.fi (Laura Manninen)
Subject: home
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 13:00:31 GMT


William Smith:  Thanks for the hint.  I know the book by
Rybczynski (Home. A Short History of an Idea) and found it very
fascinating.  I didn't pay much attention to "comfort" as an
attribute of home because I was looking after attributes
supporting my views or previews, if you like.  Thanks for this
hint, too.

I think it's quite amusing that many everyday (banal) sayings
are true regarding the idea of home.  "The home is my castle",
"My home is where my heart is" etc.  One of my points is to show
the "truth" of these sayings.  That is, there is something
behind this stereotype picture of home.  (It is more usual to
try to show that stereotypes are wrong or don't match the
reality.)

According to my (interview and other) materials home is, among
other things, a place which brings security and peace (vs. the
chaos of the outworld), and where one is free to be oneself (vs.
the role-playing in the outworld).  But there are also many old
Finnish proverbs who look at the issue ironically, e.g. "the dog
is handsome at home", "many a man has died at his home", and
"the home is not on the back of a rabbit". - This irony (or any)
I didn't however found in the attitudes of my informants.

Connected with the idea of home is the idea of home district
which is the word I think is closest to the Finnish word
'kotiseutu', in German 'die Heimat' or 'der Heimatort' (anyhow,
a smaller unit than the fatherland). 

So, what I want to discuss in this list is what you think is
your stereotype of home, and how you define the borders of your
home district and what attachments you have to it as a locality. 
I'm pleased to have any kind of discussions, theoretical and
historical included.

"You could walk out of the house, but you always returned home."
(Rybczynski 1986, 62, of Dutch 'home house'.)

Laura Manninen
lmannine@jyu.fi
lmannine@finjyu.bitnet
University of Jyvaskyla
Department of Ethnology
PL 35
SF-40351 Jyvaskyla
Finland
















Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: SJOSEPHS@130.187.183.14 (STEVEN JOSEPHSON)
Subject: Re: Pliestocene extinctions
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp.
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 19:24:16 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.11


> 
> 	     Only we Old World newcomers were/are stupid enough to commit
> 	     extinctions of valuable animals and plants.
> 	
> 	--danny
> 
> 
> The idea that early populations lived in harmony with their environment
> is a modern myth, the current version of the "noble savage".  There is
> extensive evidence that native populations caused the extinction of
> many plants and animals when they moved into an area. 
> 
> William Smith
>

Amen to that.  Human groups have a long history of eating themselves out of
house and home, from impressive examples like the many disappearances of large
animals, to amazing ecological suicides like Easter Island and the Aztec
civilizations.  One of the better documented of these is Julio Bettincourt's
study of pack-rat middens around Chaco canyon.  If you visit Chaco, you are
struck by several things: it took alot of logs to build the place, there aren't
any suitable trees for 50 miles, and it is an awfully dry place to farming.  
Betticourt's study showed that it didn't used to be like this; awhile back the 
area was forested and better watered.  The conclusion is that these folks made 
their land unliveable by over-exploitation, and the area has yet to recover 
after 800 years.  

Jared Diamond wrote more about this theme in his latest book "The Third
Chimpanzee", and he came to the conclusion that the answer was education - if 
you inform people that they are irrevocably distroying their environment, they
will cut it out.  I strongly disagree.  Every human group of which I am aware
wipes things out to the extent that they are able to, with the only exception
being if *individuals* benefit from preserving something.  I'm not talking about
Greenpeace and tree-huggers here; that is something else entirely, and I find it
no coincidence that people who participate in these movements are very wealthy 
by world standards and well able to afford the luxury of meddling.
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: home
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 17:02:30 GMT

Laura Manninen writes:
	
	I think it's quite amusing that many everyday (banal) sayings
	are true regarding the idea of home.  "The home is my castle",
	"My home is where my heart is" etc.  One of my points is to show
	the "truth" of these sayings.  That is, there is something
	behind this stereotype picture of home.  
	
	But there are also many old
	Finnish proverbs who look at the issue ironically, e.g. "the dog
	is handsome at home", "many a man has died at his home", and
	"the home is not on the back of a rabbit". - This irony (or any)
	I didn't however found in the attitudes of my informants.



It would be fascinating to see a comparison of folk sayings from different
cultures reguarding "home".  Is it the same accross cultures in Eruope,
the Americas, Africa, etc?  Similarities would be interesting and 
differences even more so.

As an aside, I heard that the word "Canada" is from a native American
word meaning "home".  This was told as one of those explorers ask
"what is this" question and gets and answer that doesn't match the
expected but language differences keep the meaning hidden for a while.
"Kangaroo" meaning "I don't know what you said" is another example.
Both of these may be in the urban legand category.



William Smith
Intel, SSD
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: dfp@cs.mu.OZ.AU (Doug Palmer)
Subject: Re: How 'bout breasts (I HAVE two)
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Australia
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 09:11:44 GMT

conib@peri.gvg.tek.com (Coni Britten) writes:

>From this "logic" we would also conclude that the pot bellies that most men
>form must be for display as well, since they are *clearly* larger than they need
>to be.

  Well, as an example, have a look at pre-20th century Europeans,
where fat was regarded as a sign of wealth and health. Try an 18th C.
toby for size. The 'display' characteristics of this kind of thing
are fairly obvious. Of course, this line of reasoning
doesn't just apply to men; Emma Hamilton wasn't exactly petite.

>Can't say I've ever met anyone who would actually *select* for this, though.
>;-)

  Clearly not in the marriage market :-)

					- Dug
From: rspear@sookit (Richard Spear)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Pliestocene extinctions
Date: 4 Sep 92 15:00:49 GMT
Organization: Image Analysis Systems Group, JPL
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

..mastodons...

the pleistocene creature was a mammoth...mastodons became extinct in the
oligocene...

--
richard
rspear@sookit.jpl.nasa.gov
all disclaimers apply
Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:788 sci.skeptic:15121 soc.men:15542
From: arsmith@nyx.cs.du.edu (Alan Smith)
Subject: Re: Sex Change
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 15:25:41 GMT


"Why change sex?  Last I heard, it was pretty good."
                      --Barney Gerber, _Soap_

Big Al.  Comic relief.
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: conib@peri.gvg.tek.com (Coni Britten)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: BREASTS AND EVOLUTION
Date: 26 Aug 92 21:24:24 GMT
Article-I.D.: gold.5087
Organization: Grass Valley Group, Grass Valley, CA

In article <1992Aug25.195736.7136@ac.dal.ca> barkow@ac.dal.ca writes:
>It is rather embarrassing to cite one's own work but I don't
>have anyone else's stuff on disk.  The debate over the evolution

Hey -- everybody else get's their two-cent's worth, why not you?


->     But even after we no longer mated communally, why should large breasts
->have evolved? Smith believes they were selected for  as a means of confusing
->males about a female's lactatory and  therefore ovulatory status, in order to
->circumvent male control  over female sexual activities. To the extent large
->breasts are  now a sexual attractant, he argues, this development would have 
->occurred only after they had already become firmly established.  Smith does
->not, however, explain why the swollen abdomen of  pregnancy, like the enlarged
->breasts, did not also become a  permanent female secondary sexual
->characteristic.

There you go!  We now have The Answer: The *males* developed the "swollen
abdomen of pregnancy".  Talk about "confusing males about ovulatory status"!


Coni Britten
conib@peri.gvg.tek.com
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: marshall@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca (Jim Marshall - DCS)
Subject: Re: Pliestocene extinctions
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 18:10:48 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.150049.4724@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>, rspear@sookit (Richard Spear) writes:
> ..mastodons...
> 
> the pleistocene creature was a mammoth...mastodons became extinct in the
> oligocene...
> 
> --
> richard
> rspear@sookit.jpl.nasa.gov
> all disclaimers apply



*************************************************

Could someone explain the difference between the mammoth
and teh mastodons??

Jim M.

**************************************************

Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,alt.mythology,sci.lang,sci.archaeology,soc.history,talk.politics.theory
From: packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer)
Subject: Re: Social "Nature"?
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Organization: Dept. of Independence
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 11:29:00 GMT

In article <BtsvIK.Du@acsu.buffalo.edu>, dmark@acsu.buffalo.edu (David Mark) writes...
>I am a AAAS member and get SCIENCE every week.  SCIENCE covers social sciences
>as well as 'natural' and also laboratory sciences.  There are almost 


Yes, there are social science articles in Science, but they tend
to be =review= articles, and their topics tend to be those that
would interest policy makers, not researchers. For example, they
frequently have articles about tradeoffs in environmental
policy. They seem to publish social sciences articles that bring
together a lot of existing research (originally published
elsewhere) to bear on some practical problem. 

Both Nature and Science do include a few experimental studies
that are on the border between psychology and neuroscience. The
study of arithmetic capabilities of 5-month-old babies that made
news last week is being published in Nature. 

The news section of Science is more wide-ranging, however, but
this is journalistic material, not formal research reports. 
One interesting article of this kind was a recent story about
the conflict in the U.S. over plans to conduct surveys of sexual
behavior incidentally reported the results of a huge survey
study in France (that agreed with an earlier large study in
England) that showed that homosexuality is far less prevalent
than the Kinsey report has led people to belive.
From: rspear@sookit (Richard Spear)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: How 'bout breasts (I HAVE two)
Date: 26 Aug 92 21:53:01 GMT
Organization: Image Analysis Systems Group, JPL
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

...pot bellies...selected for...

i sure hope so...hate to think mine was the result of something i did
(or didnt) do...i'm beginning to wonder what the actual variability of
breast size is cross-culturally...maybe theres a normal distribution
and the variations we are talking about are the result of child-rearing,
age, etc., etc.

--
richard
rspear@sookit.jpl.nasa.gov
all disclaimers apply
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: vincent@reg.triumf.ca (pete)
Subject: Re: Pliestocene extinctions
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: dept. of theophysics and cosmogyny
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 12:04:00 GMT

In article <118792@muvms3.bitnet>, rcbi27@muvms3.bitnet (DBRUM) writes...
>A couple of questions:
> 
>1)  If Mastadon extinctions in North America were due to over-predation
>    by humans, how come their other, later sources of animal food were
>    not exhausted by them also (i.e., Buffalo, etc.)? The North American
>    natives of historic times had/have a very strong feeling for the 
>    land and the creatures upon it for which they depended/depend on their
>    livelyhood. In all the "Indian theory" I have ever heard, the wild
>    land itself was looked upon and looked after as a sort of vast and
>    all-encompassing farm which it was man's responsibility to husband
>    and cause to continually prosper. To kill off all of an obviously
>    very important staple species seems utterly anti-thematic and foolhardy.
>    If they were totally against such activity in historic times, why
>    would they have been any different in pre-historic times? It just
>    doesn't add up. The North American natives of historic times realized
>    that when the Buffalo died off, so would they--wouldn't they have felt
>    the same about the Mastadon in pre-historic times? Only we Old World
>    newcomers were/are stupid enough to commit extinctions of valuable 
>    animals and plants.
> 

   I can only speculate, but 2 things immediately occur to me:
first, if one's ancestors had exterminated a valuable food source,
the memory of this might be strongly retained and find its way
into folklore and myth, as a cautionary tale, finally becoming a
point of wisdom informing the whole culture. And this leads into
the second point, namely that while north americans didn't leave
an archaeological record of successive fundamental revolutions
in material technology, like the eurasians, this doesn't mean
that their culture couldn't have changed radically. I don't
have any trouble imagining the harmony-with-nature ethos evolving
from an earlier exploitive culture. I just don't think we
have enough information to say much one way or the other.
One might well ask why didn't the eurasians stick to a similar
ethos. The answer may be simply that an exploitive culture
is more successful, at least in the short term, and will swamp
others. 
    I should also note that I believe there was a megafauna
version of the bison, which disappeared from north america
maybe what? 15k years ago?  
===========================================================================
When I awoke, the dire wolf                            Pete Vincent
six hundred pounds of sin,
was grinning at my window,
all I said was "come on in"

Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,alt.mythology,sci.lang,sci.archaeology,soc.history,talk.politics.theory
From: packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer)
Subject: Re: Social "Nature"?
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Organization: Dept. of Independence
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 12:03:00 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.052346.27858@cs.su.oz.au>, danny@cs.su.oz.au (Danny) writes...
>sciences.  I'm very impressed and am wondering if there is an equivalent 
>journal (or journals) for the social sciences?

No general social sciences journal exists with scope equivalent
to the natural science journals Nature in Britain or Science in
the U.S. There was some discussion of this recently in
sci.psychology. Nature and Science, having been around a century
or so, are themselves anachronisms -- but what enjoyable
anachronisms! 
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: imj@phadfa.ph.adfa.oz.au (Ian Jamie)
Subject: >How 'bout breasts
Organization: Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 02:51:40 GMT


I would like to present my theory as to the cause of breast shape.
While I say "my", it is really a conglomeration of bits and pieces
picked up from different sources.  As I am not an anthropologist, it is
very superficial, and for that I apologise, but I present it in the hope
that it may contain some truth, and at least provoke some discussion.

It seems, from previous postings, that breasts should be pendulous for
efficient child rearing.  I believe that hemispherical breasts are
disadvantagous for suckling as the baby has difficulty finding the
nipple and can have difficulty in breathing because its nose needs to 
be pressed against the breast.

However, hemispherical breasts seem to be associated with youthfulness
and hence attractiveness to a mate.  The extra fat in the breasts, and
hips, are a sign that the woman has the capability of surviving in lean
times, or that she has the capability of coping with the extra demands
of child raising.

Hence, breasts should be large and round to attract a mate, and then
become long and pendulous to raise children.  Once a mate is attracted
and child bearing and raising capabilities are established, attractive
signals should not be necessary, except that it is desirable for the
female to retain the services of the male for help in child raising and
so some of the attractive qualities should be retained.  This is taken
to extreme in some societies where the child raising function of breasts
are virtually ignored, and the youth/survival aspects of them are
emphasised, i.e. by retaining their adolescent features of roundness.

My disclaimer is that I don't know anything about what I discuss, but
that never stops me.
Another disclaimer is that I do not have breasts, and if I develop them
it means that I should start doing some exercise.

Regards,
Ian
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ian Jamie - imj@phadfa.ph.adfa.oz.au - ph (06) 268 8764, fax (06) 268 8786
    Physics, A.D.F.A., Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 2600
From: loftis@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Kirk Loftis)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Human navel depression
Date: 25 Aug 92 18:41:59 GMT
Organization: the HP Corporate notes server

|I posted this elsewhere once, but no replies were given,
|let me try here.  I know that humans have navels that 
|are innies/outies, but all mammals I have seen (dogs, cats,
|horses, etc.) have no such navels.  My dogs all have
|flat skin (albeit hairy), where the umbilical cord attached,
|but none have the deep dent that I have.  I am curious
|whether this is a result of the way humans treat the
|umbilical cord.  The obvious next question (which is why I
|posted here), are there cultures whose treatment of the
|umbilical cord results in the people not having the pronounce
|umbilicus I am used to seeing?
|
|Thanks.
|
|-- 
|Bruce W. Morlan, Major, USAF             Air Force Institute of Technology

	This is strange, my dogs have a naval and I have to clean them.
They are "innies".  Their navals are elongated, not as circular as
humans.  I'll agree that their navals are not as deep and it is perhaps
the way humans cut the umbilical cord.

	Kirk

	
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,talk.origins