bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cognitive and Geographic Maps: Study of Individual Variation Among Tojolabal Mayans
Authors: Furbee Louanna , Benfer Robert A.
Published: November 2004

Disease and geography are related domains for Tojolabal‐Maya. Using multidimensional methods, we compare two domains: (1) individual cognitive “maps” from disease terms and (2) hand‐drawn maps, both with one another and with an official topographic map. Multivariate study of individual informant data demonstrates correspondence of the axes of maps. Least squares fitting of dimensional representations using a method specifically modified for ethnosemantic data allows meaningful comparisons both among and within informants, and with an aggregate from a related survey of 33 informants as well. These multivariate operations help integrate individual data, sampled simultaneously for several domains, tasks, and occasions, with aggregate data. For semantic domains, we achieved rapprochement between psychological and anthropological approaches. [disease, folk theories, ethnosemantics, cognition, multivariate, Tojolabal‐Maya]
The Good Old DaysWereBetter: Agrarian Collapse and Tectonics
Authors: Moseley Michael E.
Published: November 2004

The theory of plate tectonics contends that the continental plates occupied by humanity are in motion. The hypothesis of agrarian collapse (HAC) holds that gradual, as well as seismic, earth movement can induce ground slope change and modify land‐to‐sea level relationships, thereby altering the distribution of surface and subsurface runoff, which can lead to abandonment of agricultural land. Mechanical principles underlying ongoing abandonment are detailed for large‐scale irrigation systems of the Andean Cordillera Negra. These principles are compatible with a historical scenario integrating urban development at pre‐Hispaic Chan Chan, capital of the Chimor polity, with expansion, reform, and collapse of the city's agricultural hinterland. The applicability of the mechanics of agrarian collapse to two other centers of past civilization is briefly considered.
Economic Custom in a Competitive Marketplace
Authors: Plattner Stuart
Published: November 2004

Dyadic, reciprocal equilibrating relationships, such as trading partnerships in agrarian markets, have been reported from many societies. Data from a competitive marketplace in St. Louis, Missouri is analyzed in a multiple regression to test for the existence of such relationships between merchants and consumers. The interpretation of variables representing each firm's price level and consistency of stock reveals that economic custom is important even in this competitive marketplace.
Serpents and Styles in Peten Postclassic Pottery
Authors: RICE PRUDENCE M.
Published: November 2004

The snake is a symbol of nearly all Mayan buildings. That is astonishing, for one would have expected a people surrounded by luxuriant rampant flora to leave flower motifs behind on their stone reliefs as well. Yet loathsome snake confronts us everywhere.… How could anyone worship this repulsive creature as a god, and why could it fly as well? [VonDaniken 1974:103–104]

If symbols …are strategies for encompassing situations, then we need to give more attention to how people define situations and how they go about coming to terms with them. [Geertz 1973:141]
“Brother” and “Uncle“: An Analysis of Rules, Structural Contradictions, and Meaning in Vietnamese Kinship
Authors: VAN LUONG HY
Published: November 2004

This paper analyzes the meanings of Vietnamese kinship terms on the basis of the rules that regulate their referential and nonreferential uses. These rules are not completely consistent with one another. They constitute contradictory models of and for sociocultural reality at a certain level. The structural contradictions among these models render “fuzzy” even the definitions of the prototypical uses of Vietnamese kin terms. The coexistence of alternative models makes the use of a linguistic form both a goal‐directed action and the representation of an order.
The Tchambuli View of Persons: A Critique of Individualism in the Works of Mead and Chodorow
Authors: Gewertz Deborah
Published: November 2004

In Sex and Temperament and Male and Female, Margaret Mead demonstrated that significant differences exist in the dispositions of males and females in particular cultures. In her unpublished field notes she also provided a partial explanation of why such differences should exist. In this paper I evaluate her explanation of the basis of gender differences in the particular culture of the Tchambuli, and place it within the context of more recent social psychology, particularly Nancy Chodorow's psychoanalytic study of female personality. Prompted by the recent reconsideration of Mead's work — a reconsideration I believe to be as inaccurately focused on Western categories of understanding as Mead herself was — I argue that both Mead and Chodorow fail to consider adequately non‐Western views of the self in explaining gender differences.

DEBORAH GEWERTZ is Associate Professor, Amherst College, and Research Fellow. Department of Anthropology. P.O. Box 4. Australian National University. Canberra ACT 2600. Australia.
Revising Evolutionary Narratives: A Consideration of Alternative Assumptions About Sexual Selection and Competition for Mates
Authors: Hamilton M. E.
Published: November 2004

Evolutionary narratives about the adaptive significance of human sexuality often assume that human female sexual traits evolved because females had to compete for mates and depended on male‐provisioned food. In contrast, biological theory predicts that males are more likely to compete for females. While competition among both sexes is clearly a feature of modern social life, the factors that created female dependency and competition are relatively recent developments.

M. E. HAMILTON is Regional Representative, National Audubon Society. Central Midwest Regional Office. Michigan City. IN 46360.
The Impact of Subsistence Change on Mobility and Settlement Pattern in a Tropical Forest Foraging Economy: Some Implications for Archeology
Authors: Eder James F.
Published: November 2004

I critically examine archeological presumptions that a continuum from “mobility” to “sedentism” underlies the evolutionary transition from hunting‐gathering to agriculture. An ethnographic case from the Philippines shows that some foraging societies undergoing subsistence change may become more mobile as they near or cross the threshold to sedentary life. A distinction between residential and logistical mobility does not account for this finding, because the increased mobility in question has both residential and logistical demensions.
Navajo Attitudes Toward Development and Change: A Unified Ethnographic and Survey Approach to an Understanding of Their Future
Authors: Schoepfle Mark , Burton Michael , Begishe Kenneth
Published: November 2004

We use a systematically integrated combination of ethnoscience ethnography and survey research to provide a description of what Navajos have been taking into account when deciding how to cope with accelerating energy extraction and other industrial development. Beginning with a decision model of the adaptation process, we validate that model with a reservationwide survey. Perceptions of the most likely outcomes from development are relatively uniform across different socioeconomic groups. Three factors appear to be important in accounting for variation in attitudes toward development: degree of integration into the external economy, degree of marginality to the Navajo kinship system, and degree of marginality to the subsistence livestock economy.
Kwaio Women Speak: The Micropolitics of Autobiography in a Solomon Island Society
Authors: Keesing Roger M.
Published: November 2004

Attempts to elicit women's autobiographies among the Kwaio (Malaita, Solomon Islands) yielded little, seemingly confirming views that women's voices in tribal societies are “muted,” women's views perspectival and partial. Further efforts yielded rich, insightful, self‐accounts from 15 Kwaio women. The historical, ethnographic, and sexual‐political contexts of these self‐accounts are examined. What women can and will say about themselves and their society can never, I conclude, be taken as direct evidence of what they know and don't know, or of “women's status.”
Moving Houses: Residential Mobility and the Mobility of Residences in Longana, Vanuatu
Authors: Rodman Margaret C.
Published: November 2004

A key to understanding the mobility of residence patterns in Oceania can be found in the movement of houses themselves. In this article I explore the processual dynamic of residence over a 12‐year period in Longana and document the high frequency with which people moved houses and households while maintaining a strong preference for virilocality. For example, more than 80% of the buildings changed households, underwent major physical changes, or both between 1978 and 1982. The reasons why houses change hands and move about relate to the domestic cycle and highlight competition between the requirements of renovation and plans to construct new buildings. Further, the impermanence of local building materials gives rise to a contradiction between rootedness and transience that defines the meaning of place. Finally, houses serve as symbols of kinship that articulate land and people and that express a link between matrilineal and patrifilial groups.
Scavenging or Hunting in Early Hominids: Theoretical Framework and Tests
Authors: Shipman Pat
Published: November 2004

Evidence from Bed I, Olduvai, supports the hypothesis that scavenging, not hunting, was the major meat‐procurement strategy of hominids between 2 and 1.7 million years ago. Data used to evaluate the hunting and scavenging hypotheses are derived from studying cut marks on Bed I bovids, comparing adaptations necessary for scavenging with those of early hominids, and a pa‐leoecological reconstruction of Bed I carcass biotnass, carnivore guild, and hominidforaging area.
Universal Aspects of Symbolic Healing: A Theoretical Synthesis
Authors: Dow James
Published: November 2004

In this article I propose that symbolic healing has a universal structure in which the healer helps the patient particularize a general cultural mythic world and manipulate healing symbols in it. Problems currently existing in the explanation of symbolic healing are examined. The relationship between Western psychotherapy and magical healing is explained, the Junction qfshamanic ecstasy is discussed, and symbolic healing is explained in terms of a theory of living systems.
The Role of Social Stratification in the Aztec Empire: A View from the Provinces
Authors: Smith Michael E.
Published: November 2004

This paper explores the role of social stratification in the regional organization of the Triple Alliance, or Aztec empire. Unlike previous interpretations that see military coercion as the main force integrating the empire, I argue that the primary integrative factor was collusion between rulers of the core states and the nobility of the provinces, who gained economic rewards for their participation in the tribute empire. The common interest of the Mesoamerican nobility transcended political boundaries. The fundamental social and economic cleavage in Postclassic Mesoamerica was not between the Triple Alliance states and the provinces, as many have argued, but rather between the nobles and the commoners. The proposed model is supported through examination of the provincial polity of Cuauhnahuac in western Morelos, Mexico.
The Descent of Rights and the Descent of Persons
Authors: Scheffler Harold
Published: November 2004

Explication and evaluation of the relative ethnographic and theoretical merits of several constructions of “descent” and “descent groups” (by W. H. R. Rivers, M. Fortes, and W. Goodenough, among others) reveals that relations of descent can have right and duty values only where patri‐ or matrifiliation is the necessary and sufficient condition for inclusion in a social group. Therefore, only unilineally constituted groups should be described as descent groups.
Ceremonial Dialogues in South America
Authors: Urban Greg
Published: November 2004

In native South America, ceremonial dialogue is a widespread and prominent, yet simultaneously enigmatic, form of ritualized language use. This paper examines the ceremonial dialogic complex through the interpretive lens of a semiotic hypothesis, namely, that ritualized dialogic form is a sign vehicle, a “model of and for” linguistic and more generally social solidarity. A comparative correlational study confirms this semiotic interpretation, showing that the ceremonial dialogue is used in situations of potential conflict—the maximally distant social relations within a given society. This paper also raises a broader theoretical issue concerning the role of metacommunicative devices in social action, suggesting that it is the “meta‐signal” itself that enables actors to formulate an image of action—thereby regulating it—simultaneously as it occurs.
Book Reviews
Authors: Fagan John L.
Published: November 2004

Book reviewed in this article:

Archeology: Lithic Resource Procurement: Proceedings from the Second Conference on Prehistoric Chert Exploitation. Susan C. Vehik

Archeology: Prehistoric Quarries and Lithic Production. Jonathon E. Ericson and Barbara A. Purdy
Film Reviews
Authors: Stearman Allyn MacLean
Published: November 2004

Book reviewed in this article:

The Panare—Scenes from the Frontier. 1982. Produced by Melissa Llewelyn‐Davies

Nomads of the Rain Forest. 1984. A film by Adrian Warren.
Film Reviews
Authors: Whelehan Patricia
Published: November 2004

Abuelitas de Ombligo (Granny Midwives). 1983. A video by Rachel Field and Jackie Reiter.

Labor More than Once. 1983. A video by Liz Mursky.
Film Reviews
Authors: Erdman Joan L.
Published: November 2004

Ahmedabad: Life of a City in India. 1984. Produced and directed by Howard Spodek.

Benares: Steps to Heaven. 1984. Produced and directed by Richard Riddiford.

Bombay: Our City. 1985. Produced and directed by Anand Patwardhan.
Statistical Analysis in Iconographic Interpretation: The Function of Mudras at Tapho, A Tibetan Buddhist Monastery
Authors: Reedy Chandra L. , Reedy Terry J.
Published: November 2004

A Statistical analysis of iconographic elements can help elucidate the syntax rules within a complex iconographic system. We tested this hypothesis by analyzing the mudras (hand gestures) found on a group of 11th‐century clay sculptures at the Tibetan Buddhist monastery of Tapho in Himachal Pradesh, India. The mudras were found to have significant associations with other iconographic elements—in particular, deity type. They could have been used to communicate; a likely semantic unit is hand gesture plus arm position. These results can serve as hypotheses to be tested with other mandalas to determine whether they are specific to Tapho or more generalizable within Tibetan Buddhist art. The statistical techniques are applicable to any iconographic system.
Book Reviews
Authors: Watson‐Gegeo Karen Ann
Published: November 2004

Book reviewed in this article:

The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Volume 1: The Data. Dan Isaac Slobin, ed.

The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Volume 2: Theoretical Issues. Dan Isaac Slobin, ed.
Film Reviews
Authors: Hays Terence E.
Published: November 2004

Book reviewed in this article:

Songs from Papua New Guinea. 1983. A film by Robert Charlton.

Songs of a Distant Jungle. 1984. A film by Robert Charlton.
Nonmarket Labor Processes in an Advanced Capitalist Economy
Authors: Griffith David C.
Published: November 2004

In advanced capitalist economies, the treatment of labor as a commodity suggests that labor's cost and availability depend on market mechanisms. Although neoclassical economic thought recognizes the influence of collective bargaining and labor legislation on the cost and availability of labor, economists generally pay scant attention to the ways informal and formal relations of power, along with myths of sexuality, ethnicity, and nationality, combine within labor processes in advanced capitalist economies to influence the cost and availability of labor. This article presents data on the labor processes in the North Carolina seafood processing industry and compares them to the labor processes accompanying the annual, seasonal importation of legal alien farm labor by U.S. agricultural producers. The labor processes of the former rest on kinship and informal social relations while those of the latter rest on formal political authority. The analysis suggests that, even in advanced capitalist economies, employers faced with labor supply problems do not rely on market mechanisms but instead tap formal and informal systems of authority to assure supplies of labor, and support their behaviors with myths of sexuality, ethnicity, and nationality. The article concludes with a discussion of these behaviors in the context of post‐World War II international divisions of labor.
Well‐Being: A Theoretical Program
Authors: Colby Benjamin N.
Published: November 2004

A theoretical program of anthropological well‐being is described and a special theory linking adaptive potential to biocultural success, longevity, and physical health is tested with a multicultural sample of 133 college students born outside, the United States. Those students who scored high in adaptive potential reported fewer symptoms of physical illness. The implications of the theory for a better understanding of cultural dynamics are discussed.
Informal Exchange Networks in Formal Systems: A Theoretical Model
Authors: Lomnitz Larissa Adler
Published: November 2004

Studies of the informal economy in the Third World have evolved toward defining the informal sector in relationship to the state. This article analyzes some activities that escape the control of the state, with special attention to centrally planned economies. Informal exchanges include bureaucratic favors (“connections”), clientelism, different forms of corruption, and the “parallel” system of production and marketing. I show that economic laws are not sufficient to understand the logic of these economies.
Faunal Remains from Paloma, An Archaic Site in Peru
Authors: Reitz Elizabeth J.
Published: November 2004

The Archaic village of Paloma is located in the Chilca valley on the coast of Peru. Study of probability samples collected with fine‐meshed screens from six units has produced a sample containing 6,152 bones and shells weighing 574.54 gm, and included the remains of at least 132 vertebrate and 295 invertebrate individuals. Marine vertebrates and invertebrates comprised 98% of the individuals and contributed 90% of the biomass. Analysis of these remains suggests that marine resources were a major source of food.
Addressing Prehistoric Hunting Practices Through Stone Tool Analysis
Authors: Odell George H.
Published: November 2004

Although archeologists have approached prehistoric hunting practices by studying “projectile points,” use‐wear analyses of nine components spanning 7,500 years of prehistory in the Lower Illinois Valley have shown that this approach is not accurate. The projectile point type is only one of several kinds of lithic artifacts, including other retouched types and debitage, employed in antiquity to tip projectiles. Assemblage comparisons indicate an earlier adoption of bow and arrow technology than most prehistorians have been willing to accept.
Ritual Wailing in Amerindian Brazil
Authors: Urban Greg
Published: November 2004

As a means of charting the complicated semiotic pathway leading from ceremonialized expressions of emotion to their underlying social motivations, this article undertakes a comparative investigation of the “ritual wailing” complex of Amerindian central Brazil. Based upon fine‐grained analyses of tape‐recorded instances of wailing, coupled with ethnographic descriptions of their social contexts, the article argues that ceremonialized affect is itself a sign vehicle, a form of “meta‐affect,” designed to communicate a desire for sociability.
Kingship in the Late Preclassic Maya Lowlands: The Instruments and Places of Ritual Power
Authors: Freidel David A. , Schele Linda
Published: November 2004

The Maya of Central America constitute the only truly literate pre‐Columbian civilization. Analysis of ancient Maya hieroglyphic texts and accompanying images dating from the Classic period (A.D. 200–900) documents the presence of a central and pervasive institution of governance: ahaw. The material symbol systems of the Lowland Maya of the protoliterate Late Preclassic period (350 B.C.‐A.D. 100), as evinced in monumental decorated buildings and in portable art, suggest that these Maya innovated ahaw, the institution of kingship. The authority of ahaw rested upon direct descent and spiritual communion with the ancestors of all Maya, the Ancestral Heroes. Along with noble lineage, ahaw claimed charismatic power through the performance of shamanistic ritual. The Late Preclassic antecedents of the shamanistic parameters of ahaw are discussed in light of Classic and Postclassic ritual expressions.
Does Biology Constrain Culture?
Authors: Rogers Alan R.
Published: November 2004

Most social scientists would agree that the capacity for human culture was probably fashioned by natural selection, but they disagree about the implications of this supposition. Some believe that natural selection imposes important constraints on the ways in which culture can vary, while others believe that any such constraints must be negligible. This article employs a “thought experiment” to demonstrate that neither of these positions can be justified by appeal to general properties of culture or of evolution. Natural selection can produce mechanisms of cultural transmission that are neither adaptive nor consistent with the predictions of acultural evolutionary models (those ignoring cultural evolution). On the other hand, natural selection can also produce mechanisms of cultural transmission that are highly consistent with acultural models. Thus, neither side of the sociobiology debate is justified in dismissing the arguments of the other. Natural selection may impose significant constraints on some human behaviors, but negligible constraints on others. Models of simultaneous genetic/cultural evolution will be useful in identifying domains in which acultural evolutionary models are, and are not, likely to be useful.
Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship, and Warfare
Authors: White Douglas R. , Burton Michael L.
Published: November 2004

We discuss and test competing explanations for polygyny based on household economics, malecentered kin groups, warfare, and environmental characteristics. Data consist of codes for 142 societies from the Standard Cross‐Cultural Sample, including new codes for polygyny and environmental characteristics. An explanatory model is tested for the worldwide sample using regression analysis, and then replicated with regional samples. We obtain convergent results with two different measures of polygyny, cultural rules for men's marriages and the percentage of women married polygynously. We conclude that the best predictors of polygyny are fraternal interest groups, warfare for capture of women, absence of constraints on expansion into new lands, and environmental quality and homogeneity.
A Provisional Theory of Ceramic Abrasion
Authors: SCHIFFER MICHAEL B. , SKIBO JAMES M.
Published: November 2004

This article calls attention to ceramic abrasion as a class of traces that can be employed by the archeologist in a variety of behavioral studies. Basic principles of ceramic abrasion are set forth, built upon the engineering literature and on experiments undertaken in the Laboratory of Traditional Technology. Abrasion mechanisms are discussed, but the limitations of current knowledge are underscored. The major factors pertaining to ceramic, abrader, and contact situations that influence the rate and nature of abrasion are identified.
Anthropology As Empirical Science
Authors: O'MEARA J. TIM
Published: November 2004

Many anthropologists argue that human affairs are subjective and therefore outside the realm of empirical science. While this position is based on important observations about the process of understanding human affairs, the arguments employed do not imply that the application of empirical science to the explanation of human affairs is either impossible or inappropriate, as some critics maintain.
On the Irrelevance of the Segmentary Lineage Model in the Moroccan Rif
Authors: MUNSON HENRY
Published: November 2004

In attempting to analyze the precolonial Moroccan Rif in terms of the segmentary lineage model, David Hart overlooked the fact that violence in this region typically involved brothers and the sons of brothers in competition for inherited land, which was a commodity controlled by individuals, not lineages. What Hart depicted as a segmentary lineage system was actually a network of factions that cut across genealogical lines. Moreover, the political impact of the Moroccan state on the precolonial Rif was far more important than Hart suggested.
Developmental Stage Age Groups and African Population Structure: The Kusasi of the West African Savanna
Authors: CLEVELAND DAVID A.
Published: November 2004

African population structures based on censuses exhibit a distinctive pattern of distortion. It is often assumed that the cause for this distortion is systematic biases in age estimates by census enumerators and respondents influenced by perceptions of social and biological development. African developmental stage age groups are the cultural codification of such perceptions. I describe developmental stage age groups among the Kusasi of Bawku District in northeast Ghana, and analyze their age and sex structure for a sample of 1,132 individuals from the village of Zorse. I show that differences between men and women reflect differences in biological and social development, and that cultural concepts of developmental stages could influence age estimates to produce the pattern of distortions typical of those found in African population structures based on censuses. This is supported by a comparison of Bawku District population structure based on the Ghana census and an ethnographic sample census in Zorse which eliminated most age estimate biases.
Habits of the Home: Spatial Hegemony and the Structuration of House and Society in Brazil
Authors: Robben Antonius C. G. M.
Published: November 2004

This article examines the relation between spatial structure and social practice in a Brazilian fishing town. The sociospatial division of the Brazilian house into rooms with distinct social functions and role relationships helps to define the domestic practices of the family members and socializes them into a conception of social interaction that influences their economic and public practices outside the home. However, the hegemony of this domestic sociospatial structure is not autonomous, but rather stands in dynamic interaction with the public and economic dimensions of the household's reproduction in society. A comparison between canoe fishermen and boat fishermen demonstrates that their different involvement in the economic and public domains of the town affects their interpretation of the architectural structure of the house and differentiates their domestic practices.
Ecology, Resource Redistribution, and Mormon Settlement in Northeastern Arizona
Authors: Abruzzi William S.
Published: November 2004

Successful Mormon colonization of the American West has largely been attributed to the adaptive advantage of cooperative Mormon values. This article shows that successful Mormon colonization of the Little Colorado River Basin had an ultimate ecological basis: the redistribution of surplus resources among settlements situated in dispersed and functionally independent local environments. Two systems of resource redistribution among 19th‐century Little Colorado Mormon settlements are examined, showing that ecological considerations explain their differential success as adaptive mechanisms contributing to the success of this local colonization effort. The article concludes by suggesting that general ecology provides a useful theoretical framework for explaining successful Mormon colonization in this region and elsewhere.
Anthropological Advocacy in the Hopi‐Navajo Land Dispute
Authors: Washburn Wilcomb E.
Published: November 2004

The text of this commentary is derived from a talk given at the 86th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, November 1987.
Film Reviews
Authors: Brettell Caroline B.
Published: November 2004

Vision of Juazeiro. 1970. Directed by Eduardo Escorel

Chichicastenango. 1987. A video by Claudia Feldmar

Comalapa: Traditions and Textures. 1987. A video by Claudia Feldmar

Holy Week in Antigua, Guatemala. 1987. A video by Claudia Feldmar

Sacred Games: Ritual Warfare in a Maya Village. 1988. A film by Thor Anderson

Peru—When the World Turned Dark. 1988. Produced by Maria Luisa Lobo and directed by Gianfranco Annichini
Distinguished Lecture: The Hotel Kwilu—A Model of Models
Authors: Douglas Mary
Published: November 2004

This essay was delivered as the Distinguished Lecture at the 87th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 20, 1988, in Phoenix, Arizona.
Ambivalence and Compromise in Human Nature
Authors: Boehm Christopher
Published: November 2004

Triangulating to human nature generally is accomplished by finding analogies with nonhuman primates, by searching for overt behaviors that are universal, by identification of emotions that can be correlated with physiological responses or brain rewards, or by use of appropriate selection scenarios. An additional method is proposed, which focuses on universally occurring psychological ambivalences as manifestations of competing tendencies in human nature. Ethnographic exemplification concentrates on subsistence crises relevant to reproductive success, and dilemmas associated with feuding assassinations. It is argued that universal psychological ambivalences and the universal decision dilemmas these produce may be a better key to human nature than are universal patterns of observed behavior. It is suggested also that an ambivalence approach can assist us in arriving at a more specific treatment of human behavioral lability, one that can be usefully tied to the decision approaches employed by anthropologists.
Ecological and Technological Knowledge of Fire: Aborigines Versus Park Rangers in Northern Australia
Authors: Lewis Henry T.
Published: November 2004

The attitudes held by Euro‐Australians about “bush fires” are markedly different from those of Aborigines. These contrasting perspectives confront each other in different practices of prescribed burning employed by Aborigines and Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service (ANPWS) rangers at Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory. A large part of the problem that ANPWS personnel have in understanding Aboriginal knowledge and practice involves the perceptions that Euro‐Australians have about “simple technologies,” “aboriginality,” and what is or is not “traditional.”
Book Reviews: Applied Anthropology
Authors: Tooker Elisabeth
Published: November 2004

Book reviewed in this article:

Iroquois Land Claims. Christopher Vecsey and William A. Starna, eds.

Formulating American Indian Policy in New York State, 1970–1986. Laurence M. Hauptman
Book Reviews: General/Theoretical Anthropology
Authors: Smith M. Estellie
Published: November 2004

Book reviewed in this article:

Strong Societies and Weak States: State‐Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World. Joel S. Migdal

Ethnicities and Nations: Processes of Interethnic Relations in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. Remo Guidieri, Francesco Pellizzi, and Stanley J. Tambiah, eds.
Book Reviews: Archeology
Authors: Myers Emlen
Published: November 2004

Book reviewed in this article:

The Collapse of Complex Societies. Joseph A. Tainter

The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations. Norman Yoffee and George L. Cowgill, eds.
Friendship Patterns and Culture: The Control of Organizational Diversity
Authors: Krackhardt David , Kilduff Martin
Published: November 2004

Organizational culture is often described as a management control device, but this view obscures the importance of informal social interactions for the emergence and modification of culture. We elicited seven cultural dimensions used by employees to predict and make sense of the behavior patterns of others in an entrepreneurial firm. Forty‐seven key employees rated each other on these dimensions. Consistent with predictions, friends, relative to nonfriends, made similar attributions about fellow employees across the seven dimensions. The pattern of results remained significant even controlling for demographic and positional similarities. Further, the more people disagreed with their friends, the more they tended to be dissatisfied with their jobs. The control of organizational diversity may be as much an interpersonal initiative as it is a prerogative of management manipulation.
Dental Health Diet and Social Status among Central African Foragers and Farmers
Authors: Walker Phillip L. , Hewlett Barry S.
Published: November 2004

An oral health survey of African pygmies and Bantu revealed significant contrasts that can be explained by differences in diet, social status, and oral hygiene. Pygmy men have fewer carious lesions and less tooth loss than pygmy women. Ethnographic data suggest that this results from sex differences in eating habits and access to cariogenic foods. Pygmy “leaders” have much better dental health than “nonleaders.” This status difference appears to be explained by social and dietary variables.
Exchange, Time, and Person in Mayotte: The Structure and Destructuring of a Cultural System
Authors: Lambek Michael
Published: November 2004

This article describes an unusual system of ceremonial exchange found among Malagasy speakers on the island of Mayotte (Comoro Archipelago) and demonstrates the manner in which the person as citizen, the experience of aging, and ultimately society itself were constituted through it. The forces leading to the demise of the system and the manner in which the disarticulation of exchange obligations L being managed are described. The article portrays the holistic social world and experience created through participation in the exchange system, providing an implicit contrast with the more fragmented world that follows its dismantling.
Co‐Opting the Elders: The Political Economy of State Incorporation in Africa
Authors: Ensminger Jean
Published: November 2004

The new institutional economics provides the basis for a theory of institutional change that helps to explain economic and political change among the East African pastoral Orma. A restudy of the Orma in 1987, following a six‐year absence, revealed many changes in property rights over common grazing. The need for change in property rights led the elders to yield considerable authority to the state in return for enforcement of new property rights. The lessons from this case study of state incorporation relate also to the issue of state formation, and more generally to the process of change in institutions such as marriage, lineage, clan, gerontocracy, and patron‐client relations.
Origins of Specialized Pastoral Production in East Africa
Authors: Marshall Fiona
Published: November 2004

The results of recent archeological research in the Loita‐Mara area of Kenya offer new information on the timing and process of the development of pastoralism in East Africa. They suggest that a pattern of specialized pastoral production, similar to that of contemporary East African pastoralists such as the Maasai, was present in parts of East Africa 2,000 years ago. It may have developed as a result of new opportunities for increased pastoral production. A bimodal pattern of rainfall with a short dry season, similar to the modern climatic regime, appeared about 3,000 years ago, which allowed year‐round milk production from cattle herds. The development of pastoralism in East Africa preceded agriculture and took place in a social and economic context of relationships between hunter‐gatherers and pastoralists. Environmental opportunity, combined with cultural competition, may have provided the impetus toward pastoral specialization.
Book Reviews
Authors: Wade Bonnie C.
Published: November 2004

Book reviewed in this article:

The Tabla of Lucknow: A Cultural Analysis of a Musical Tradition. James Kippen.

Powerhouse for God: Speech, Chant, and Song in an Appalachian Baptist Church. Jeff Todd Titon.
Book Reviews
Authors: Tringham Ruth
Published: November 2004

Book reviewed in this article:

Foragers and Farmers: Population Interaction and Agricultural Expansion in Prehistoric Europe. Susan Alling Gregg.

Forest Farmers and Stockherders: Early Agriculture and Its Consequences in North‐Central Europe. Peter Bogucki.
Literacy and the Notion of Person on Nukulaelae Atoll
Authors: BESNIER NIKO
Published: November 2004

Written discourse produced on Nukulaelae atoll of Western Polynesia falls principally in two categories: personal letters and religious sermons. Personal‐letter writing is a highly affective communicative context, in which the vulnerable aspects of the person are highlighted. Sermons, in contrast, elaborate authoritarianism and directness. The divergent characteristics of Nukulaelae literacy practices are best understood in terms of their relationship to contexts of use, particularly to the notion of person articulated through them.
Language, Ideology, and the Press in Catalonia
Authors: Laitin David D. , Gómez Guadalupe Rodriguez
Published: November 2004

This article, relying on Bakhtin's approach to canonization, demonstrates an empirical link between language and ideology. The authors employ content and discourse analysis to examine political discourse exemplified in editorial writing as a particular speech genre. They scrutinize editorials in four newspapers published in Catalonia, two of them in Castilian and two in Catalan. Despite political differences between the papers in each language, the authors discern a Catalan‐language discourse style that differs significantly from the Caslilian‐language discourse style. They conclude that the historically canonized discourse styles, different in Catalonia's Castilian and Catalan press, reflect the intimate relationship between language of use and ideology.
Book Reviews
Authors: Moerman Daniel E.
Published: November 2004

Book reviewed in this article:

Herbal Medicine Past and Present, Volume 1: Trying to Give Ease. John K. Crellin and Jane Philpott.

Herbal Medicine Past and Present, Volume 2: A Reference Guide to Medicinal Plants. John K. Crellin and Jane Philpott.
Book Reviews
Authors: Panoho Rangihiroa
Published: November 2004

Book reviewed in this article:

Applied Anthropology: The Aboriginal Arts and Crafts Industry. Jon Altman

Marketing Aboriginal Art in the 1990s. Jon Altman and Luke Taylor
Distinguished Lecture in Archeology: Breaking and Entering the Ecosystem—Gender, Class, and Faction Steal the Show
Authors: Brumfiel Elizabeth M.
Published: November 2004

This article was presented as the third annual Distinguished Lecture in Archeology at the 90th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 22, 1991, in Chicago, Illinois.
Pre‐Hispanic Political Change and the Role of Maize in the Central Andes of Peru
Authors: Hastorf Christine A. , Johannessen Sissel
Published: November 2004

While archeologists have the capacity to track changing food use in the archeological record, they have not tended to use food systems in the study of social and political change. To do so, an awareness must be gained of the meanings of foods, which then can illuminate the strategic use of a particular food in the creation of relationships of dependence and prestige. Archeological evidence from the central Andes of Peru indicates that the role of maize changed between A.D. 500 and 1500, shifting from a culinary item, simply prepared by boiling, to a more complex symbolic food, transformed through grinding and brewing into beer, with elaborated political meanings. This change in maize processing and consumption occurred at a time of heightened political and social tensions. We propose that the shift in maize use reflected and participated in new political dynamics, demonstrating how foodways can inform archeologists about past social and political systems.
Land Use in an Urban Hinterland: Ethnography and Remote Sensing in the Study of African Intensification
Authors: Guyer Jane I. , Lambin Eric F.
Published: November 2004

In the study of African agricultural intensification, stronger inferences may be drawn by combining ethnographic study of small samples with the comprehensive coverage afforded by remote sensing than would be possible with either method alone. Study in the hinterland of Ibadan, Nigeria, suggests that land use by small‐scale farmers is tending to diverge into two different patterns of cropping, land use and labor intensity. Remote sensing analysis allows us to suggest that, largely due to market response, agricultural practice is developing in a dynamic fashion in advance of population pressure on Ruthenberg's threshold for humid savanna agriculture of four years of cultivation to eight years of fallow.
Demand Sharing: Reciprocity and the Pressure for Generosity among Foragers
Authors: Peterson Nicolas
Published: November 2004

Despite the prevalence of an ethic of generosity among foragers, much sharing is by demand rather than by unsolicited giving. Although a behavioristic model of demand sharing can be seen as matching sociobiological expectations, the emphasis here is on the social and symbolic significance of the practice. It is argued that demand sharing involves testing, assertive, and/or substantiating behavior and is important in the constitution of social relations in egalitarian societies.
Transgressions and Transformations: Initiation Rites among Urban Portuguese Boys
Authors: Alves Julio
Published: November 2004

In the absence of institutionalized, adult‐guided initiation rites in the community of Ajuda in Lisbon, Portugal, nine‐and ten‐year old boys constructed their own rites in the peer group. These rites consisted of a combination of rampages throughout the community and narrative performances about those experiences in the peer group. Both the rampages and the narratives exhibit features traditionally associated with rites of passage. This article applies traditional concepts in novel ways that may prove promising in studying initiation rites in other contemporary, Western, urban societies.
Infant Killing in Primates: A Review of Observed Cases with Specific Reference to the Sexual Selection Hypothesis
Authors: Bartlett Thad Q. , Sussman Robert W. , Cheverud James M.
Published: November 2004

Discussion of infant killing in free‐ranging primates has focused on the sexual selection hypothesis developed by Hrdy during the mid‐1970s. This hypothesis suggests that infant killing is a form of sexual competition whereby an infanticidal male gains a reproductive advantage by selectively killing the offspring of his male rivals. Despite criticisms that the evidence in support of the hypothesis is distorted by misinterpretation of data and observer bias, the sexual selection hypothesis, bolstered in part by additional reports of infanticide in a variety of specks, has become entrenched as the primary explanatory hypothesis for primate infanticide. However, the majority of reliably documented instances of infanticide in primates come from a very small number of species, and a careful examination of the specific context of each of these episodes fails to support the interpretation of infanticide as a primatewide adaptive complex. Most importantly, the atmosphere of generalized inter‐ and intrasexual aggression that surrounds the majority of infant killings obscures the evolutionary significance of this behavior.
Global Integration and Subsistence Insecurity
Authors: Nash June
Published: November 2004

Global integration heightens the cyclical crises of capitalism by incorporating the subsistence sectors of advanced and peripheral economies. World trends show a contraction in industrial production; the rise of unemployment, an increase in military spending and decline in social welfare, a reversal of capital flows from developing countries to developed economies, and a worldwide drop in real wages. The impact of these trends on communities in Mexico, Bolivia, and the United States where the author has done fieldwork is assessed in relation to current economic crises and the social movements that respond to them. The author shows that collective action to oppose the devastating effect on subsistence is more prevalent in marginal economies that are just beginning to experience the effect of capital penetration than in the industrial wastelands of developed countries. Theories of the crisis neglect those arenas where resistance and protest are most active: the urban barrios struggling for food and water, the rural laborers forced off of their land base, and the hunters and cultivators of the jungle. Luxemburg's thesis asserting the importance of the subsistence sector in capital accumulation acquires increasing significance at a time when those economies are threatened with extinction. Expanding the notion of subsistence production to include nonwage work allows us to theorize the significance of social reproduction in crisis conditions.
Economic Mediation and the Power of Associations: Toward a Concept of Encompassment
Authors: LiPuma Edward , Meltzoff Sarah Keene
Published: November 2004

Examining the incorporation of the Galician fishing sector into the European Community, this analysis seeks to articulate a concept of encompassment. We argue that a European anthropology must develop the theoretical resources and methods to explore the dialectical relationship between structures that are both hierarchically linked and of different magnitudes. In particular, it is necessary to grasp the emergence of new forms of social organization that mediate this relationship. This study seeks to provide an ethnography of such a socially meaningful link.
After the Revolution: Post‐Neolithic Subsistence in Northern Mesopotamia
Authors: Zeder Melinda A.
Published: November 2004

Over the past two decades there has been a proliferation of studies that reveal a far greater diversity in the pathways to food production worldwide than would have been predicted by traditional models of the Neolithic Revolution. It would now appear that, while there are certain universal elements in the origins of food production, each instance of the incorporation of domestic resources into the subsistence economy is shaped by highly localized social and natural forces. It is perhaps not surprising, then, to find that the times after the Neolithic Revolution do not conform to earlier uniformitarian conceptions of the origin of food production as either a technological blessing or an environmental blight that locked people into an economy based solely on domestic resources. This examination of subsistence at Umm Qseir, one small post‐Neolithic community in the Khabur Draïnage of Northern Mesopotamia, highlights the remarkable degree of flexibility and individualized response in post‐Neolithic economies in the Near East, especially in marginal areas. The incorporation of both domestic and wild resources into the economy of inhabitants of this site is further shown not to be just an isolated curiosity. Rather, Umm Qseir joins a number of other post‐Neolithic communities situated in marginal areas, persisting several millennia after the first introduction of domestic crops and animals, that also fashioned highly individualized subsistence economies based on both wild and damestic resources. In the Khabur Drainage, the blending of domestic and wild resources in the subsistence of people situated in more arid areas is replaced by a more “conventional” agropastoral economy only with development of urbanism and the imposition of an agricultural economy of scale on this fragile environment.