all anthropology stories

Oldest-known fibers to be used by humans discovered

404132862 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:00:18 -0400

A team of archaeologists and paleobiologists has discovered flax fibers that are more than 34,000 years old, making them the oldest fibers known to have been used by humans. The fibers, discovered during systematic excavations in a cave in the Republic of Georgia, are described in today's edition of Science.

Study: Women more likely than men to reject unattractive babies

50443248 — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:58:01 -0400

Women are more likely than men to reject unattractive-looking babies, according to a study by researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, possibly reflecting an evolutionary-derived need for diverting limited resources towards the nurturing of healthy offspring. The findings also challenge the idea of unconditional maternal love.

Invention of cooking drove evolution of the human species, new book argues

50443248 — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:33:34 -0400

“You are what you eat.” Can these pithy words explain the evolution of the human species?

Yes, says Richard Wrangham of Harvard University, who argues in a new book that the invention of cooking — even more than agriculture, the eating of meat, or the advent of tools — is what led to the rise of humanity.

New department reflects the evolution of human evolution

50443248 — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:17:07 -0400

Earlier this month, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) made official what scientists worldwide have known for years: Harvard is a hotbed of research and teaching in the field of human evolutionary biology — the study of why we’re the way we are.

Fijian girls succumb to Western dysmorphia

50443248 — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:55:00 -0400

In 1982, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Anne E. Becker was still an undergraduate at Radcliffe when she traveled to Fiji for a summer of anthropology fieldwork.

Culture skews human evolution

50443248 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:32:21 -0400

The rise of agriculture 10,000 years ago meant the end of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for which human beings had been optimized by millions of years of evolution and the beginning of an era where culture encourages habits unhealthy for us and for the world around, with uncertain evolutionary outcomes.

“Our bodies are not that well designed for the world we have created,” said anthropology professor Daniel Lieberman.

Chimps in wild appear not to regularly experience menopause

404132862 — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:05:03 -0500

A pioneering study of wild chimpanzees has found that these close human relatives do not routinely experience menopause, rebutting previous studies of captive individuals which had postulated that female chimpanzees reach reproductive senescence at 35 to 40 years of age.

Together with recent data from wild gorillas and orangutans, the finding -- described this week in the journal Current Biology -- suggests that human females are rare or even unique among primates in experiencing a lengthy post-reproductive lifespan.

Redheaded strangers

404132862 — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:10:48 -0400

Ancient DNA retrieved from the bones of two Neanderthals suggests that at least some of them had red hair and pale skin, scientists report this week in the journal Science. The international team says that Neanderthals' pigmentation may even have been as varied as that of modern humans, and that at least 1 percent of Neanderthals were likely redheads.

Yale honors E. O. Wilson with Verrill Medal

404132862 — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:58:23 -0400

Yale honors Wilson with Verrill Medal

Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus E.O. Wilson received the Addison Emery Verrill Medal from Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History on Wednesday (Oct. 17) in New Haven, Conn. Awarded by the curators and trustees of the museum, the medal was established in 1959 to honor “some signal practitioner in the arts of natural history and natural science.” Wilson was given the award for his career-spanning efforts to educate the public about the ecological consequences of human behavior.

Maya, Aztec monument casts get the shake-out, dust-off

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:29:30 -0400

Plaster reproductions of Maya and Aztec carvings, which preserve precious details now lost on the originals, are leaving dusty, haphazard storage for cleaning, cataloging, and crating that will prepare them for a new era of usefulness and relevance.

Made more than a century ago, the plaster casts, housed at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, re-create the elaborate stone carvings that adorned Maya and Aztec cities that once buzzed with life across Central America.

The original carvings held images of rulers and rituals as well as examples of script that have proven key to deciphering the Maya’s written language, a process ongoing today.

American Indians bless search for Harvard roots

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:40:24 -0400

With a ceremonial blessing and a cautionary reminder of native peoples’ historic oppression, a group of American Indian leaders joined an assemblage of experienced and budding archaeologists Wednesday (Sept. 26) to begin the search for Harvard’s Indian College roots.

Buried somewhere under Harvard Yard’s well-manicured lawn lie the remnants of both the Old College and the Indian College, which more than 350 years ago combined to make up Harvard.

For 10 years, beginning in 1655, Harvard’s fourth building and first brick structure housed five students from New England tribes who studied side by side with English students.

Only one of those, an Aquinnah Wampanoag named Caleb Cheeshahteamuck, would go on to graduate, becoming Harvard’s first Indian alumnus in 1665.

Farmer, Magaziner: Get involved!

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:25:36 -0400

Physician and medical anthropologist Paul Farmer and Ira Magaziner, a one-time policy adviser in the Clinton White House, brought humor, counsel, and cautions to a public conversation on student engagement Sept. 20.

Greeting them was a packed-to-the-ceiling John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, where the crowd was noisy, young, and ready to laugh — egged on by Farmer’s explosive wit. Magaziner, measured and lugubrious, happily played the young doctor’s straight man.

Not that the panel was a laughing matter. With audience questions included, it was a 90-minute look at global health challenges and related avenues for student activism.

Male voice pitch predicts reproductive success in hunter-gatherers

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:17:39 -0400

Deeper voice pitch predicts reproductive success in male hunter-gatherers, according to a new study from researchers with Harvard University, McMaster University, and Florida State University.

This is the first study to examine the correlation between voice pitch and child-bearing success, and the results point to a role for voice pitch in Darwinian fitness in humans.

The study, published online this week in the journal Biology Letters, was led by Coren Apicella, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) at Harvard University, with David Feinberg of McMaster University and Frank Marlowe of Florida State University.

Archaeological bookends in Copan Valley

90581724 — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:15:07 -0400

COPAN RUINAS, Honduras - A short drive from the main Maya ruins at Copan, a forested hillside holds a cluster of mounds that Peabody Museum archaeologists believe date from near the end of the great Maya civilization that once dominated the region.

On April 17, 2007, Peabody Museum director and Bowditch Professor of Central American and Mexican Archaeology and Ethnology William Fash, along with director of the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions Program Barbara Fash and two Harvard graduate students, walked the site with Honduran government officials charged with regulating and overseeing archaeological activity in the Central American nation.

Seeing the forest, from the trees

50443248 — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 09:17:48 -0400

It was Valentine’s Day 2000 and Alain Houle was not quite sure what to do. He was alone in a fruit tree and the chimps were coming back.

“I thought I’d be killed,” Houle said later. “They climbed up, looked at me, barked at me, and then settled down to eat.”

After Houle climbed down that day, he returned to the research station in Uganda’s Kibale National Park and met Richard Wrangham, Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology, who has studied the park’s chimpanzees since 1987.

Though Houle was in the park studying the diets of monkeys for his doctoral work at the University of Quebec at Montreal, Wrangham expressed interest in Houle’s experience and said that chimpanzees had never been studied at eye-level in the treetops before.