Anthropology Issues in the News

Archive of Previous Notices and Links

Archived October 2007

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. the Department of Defense is sending 40,000 decks of new playing cards to the troops - this time focusing on archaeological sites. This has been reported in a few news sources through the week (6/18/07), but this link takes you to a photo of each card. The story is also reported in the current issue of Archaeology Magazine. (posted June 22, 2007)

VIET NAM. Biogas cooking. Who needs fossil fuels? Alternative technology is readily available. “Viet Nam's national horticultural association, Vacvina, is marketing $40 household biodigestors that turn animal waste - typically from the one or two pigs owned by small farmers - into enough methane gas to cook family meals. Funded by E+Co - an independent company that is one of UNEP's main partners in REED - the project has sold and installed more than 3,000 biogas systems in villages throughout the country, freeing up time spent collecting fuel wood, reducing indoor air-pollution and improving health.” This device also reduces deforestation. From TUNZA, published by the United Nations Environment Programme. (posted December 21, 2006).

CLIFFORD GEERTZ 1926-2006 PRINCETON, N.J., October 31, 2006 -- [excerpt] "Clifford Geertz, an eminent scholar in the field of cultural anthropology known for his extensive research in Indonesia and Morocco, died at the age of 80 early yesterday morning of complications following heart surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Geertz was Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he has served on the Faculty since 1970. ... Dr. Geertz's landmark contributions to social and cultural theory have been influential not only among anthropologists, but also among geographers, ecologists, political scientists, humanists, and historians. He worked on religion, especially Islam; on bazaar trade; on economic development; on traditional political structures; and on village and family life. A prolific author since the 1950s, Dr. Geertz's many books include The Religion of Java (1960); Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (1968); The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (1973, 2000); Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali (1980); and The Politics of Culture, Asian Identities in a Splintered World (2002)."

ROMANIA. New finds dating to 30,000 years ago add to the debate over potential mating of Neanderthals and anatomically modern Homo sapiens. Reported by National Geographic News (posted November 1, 2006).

Archived December 2006

WASHINGTON, DC. Team from the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz believes that it has found a gene that actually aided the brains of our hominid ancestors to evolve at a rate of approximately 70 times greater than normal. This astonishing rate of change linked to the gene called HAR1F might account for the vast difference in cognitive ability between early apes and modern humans. Reported through AP. (posted August 24, 2006)

Archived November 2006

CHINA. "China's one child per family policy has cut the country's birth rate and means men clearly outnumber women in the population." Although China's overall birth rate has now dropped below the replacement level, as the government desires, the Chinese cultural preference for boys has resulted in a boy:girl ratio of 1.23:1 as of 2001, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal and reported by Reuters. (posted August 19, 2006)

JAMESTOWN, Virginia. Scientists were unsuccessful in matching DNA from the remains of a 17th-century captain discovered in Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America with a woman buried in Shelley Church in Suffolk, England, believed to be his sister. Since other data argue for the identification, they suspect that the Suffolk burial was misidentified. Reported in a press release from the Assn. for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. Article by MSNBC. (posted Nov. 21, 2005)

Archived in August 2006

GLOBAL WARMING in the North American ARCTIC. The INUIT (population ca. 155,000) are leading the fight against global warming in the arctic because it is seriously threatening their way of life. They have already approached the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to seek a ruling against the United States (reported in The New York Times on Dec. 15, 2004). In August, several U.S. Senators visited the Inuit in Barrow to discuss their environmental conditions (article in the Seattle Times). A more recent report on arctic climate has appeared in the London Daily Telegraph, Oct. 17, 2005. (posted Oct. 27, 2005)

GOMA, Congo. Scientists Study Gorilla Who Uses Tools, by ANJAN SUNDARAM, Associated Press Writer. "A young gorilla in a Congo sanctuary is smashing palm nuts between two rocks to extract oil, surprising and intriguing scientists who say they have much to learn about what gorillas can do — and about what it says about evolution." (posted October 2005)

Archived in March 2006

THE CONGO. Nations focus on great ape crisis. Scientists at a conference in the Democratic Republic of the Congo warn that wild populations of the six species of great apes could disappear in a generation without urgent action. Approximately 100 sites are identified where chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans could survive with help, including stricter controls on poaching and deforestation. From BBC News, World Edition. (posted Sept. 6, 2005)

LONDON. Art by Congo the Chimpanzee (painted in the late 1950s) is being auctioned by Bonham's next month. Congo's work was produced for animal behaviorist Desmond Morris who was interested in the creative abilities of apes. Although this is not the first public exhibition of chimpanzee art, it is believed to be the first sale. Prices range from $1,130 and $1,500 (US).  Reported by CNN with images of Congo's paintings. (posted May 12, 2005)

Archived in October 2005.

BOTSWANA. The U.S. State Department's 2004 report on human rights worldwide condemned Botswana's treatment of the !Kung San Bushmen, especially remarking on the poor sites, lacking game and other resources, to which this indigenous people have been relocated. 

CAIRO. The Telegraph reports on amazing finds made in the basement of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo. I mentioned "excavating" museum basements just today, and my students were amazed at the idea. It's true and here's a news story about it. The first in a series of new exhibitions is called "Masterpieces of the Egyptian Museum Basement."

Archived in May 2005.

GEORGIA. "A federal judge in Georgia has ruled that schools in Cobb County must remove from science textbooks stickers that say 'evolution is a theory, not a fact' ..." The judge added that the original sticker conveyed a message of "endorsing religion." Reported in The New York Times, Jan. 14, 2005. The decision (2.5 MB in .pdf format) is available from the ACLU.

Archived in April 2005.

ETHIOPIA. New find of Ardipithecus ramidus: "Fossil hunters working in Ethiopia have unearthed the remains of at least nine primitive hominids that are between 4.5 million and 4.3 million years old." This find pushes back the date for the earliest confirmed evidence of habitual bipedalism. Reported by the BBC News Online.

ARLINGTON, VA. My students should understand the significance of the following: on Dec. 17, 2004, the American Anthropological Association removed the censure it laid on Professor Franz Boas, former president of the AAA and one of America's preeminent anthropologists, on Dec. 30, 1919. Boas was censured for his opinion published that December in The Nation where he wrote, under the title "Scientists as Spies," "that it was immoral for scientists to use their professional identity as a cover for governmental spying activities."

Archived in January 2005.

INDONESIA. “In the confusion following the December 26 tsunami that washed away thousands of lives along the coast of the Indian Ocean, non-governmental organizations, activist networks, and reporters have spent the past week struggling with mixed reports about the survival of the indigenous peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar islands….” The survival of the culture of the Great Andamanese depends on a population estimated at less than 40 people. Reported by CulturalSurvival.Org. (Jan. 7, 2005)

WEST PAPUA. Indonesian security forces operations since August 17 in Puncak Jaya, West Papua, have forced the region’s indigenous people into the frozen foothills 5,000 meters above their homes, and reports say that thousands of refugees have taken hiding in caves or make-shift shelters. Reported by CulturalSurvival.Org. Background by West Papuans on this long-term struggle is given by Solidarity South Pacific.

MINNESOTA. Some ethnic tensions are rising according to this report from the Minnesota Community Project. "Pollsters for the Minnesota Community Project found a lot of frustration among the more than 1,200 likely Minnesota voters they interviewed for the study. They complained about clogged highways, expensive health care and immigrants. Some respondents said immigrants get too much help from the government and are a drain on the public schools." (Dec. 10, 2004)

Archived in December 2004.

KENYA. Nobel Peace Prize for 2004 awarded to Wangari Maathai for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace. Maathai has redefined promoting peace as a human ecology issue. (Press Release dated: Oslo, 8 October 2004).

EGYPT. (NAPSI)-World-renowned Egyptologist Kent Weeks has found a skull that may be that of Rameses II's first-born son, who many believe was killed during the 10th plague described in Exodus. (Also reported in the Boston Globe)

NIGERIA. On November 16, Nigeria’s Senate President Chief Adolphus Wabara demanded that Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) pay $1.5 billion in compensation to the Ijaw. Information on ChevronTexaco lawsuit here.

INDONESIA. New Hominid Species Found with Amazingly Recent Dates. Reported variously as 18,000 to 13,000 years ago, Homo floresiensis survived in isolation on Flores Island, Indonesia. See the National Public Radio site for good coverage and links to the report in Nature. (Nov. 19, 2004)