Religion and the Imagination - Cue a John Lennon Song

According to an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, the very process that John Lennon suggested we use to put religion and other human institutions out our minds might very well be the reason we have religion to begin with.
Imagination, says Maurice Bloch [New Scientist], is what sets humans apart from other animal species. [...]

Man’s Best Friend

One of my most popular blog entries is actually an article I wrote on Anthropology.net called Man’s Best Friends: Part I – The Dog. I had always intended to do at least three parts to that post and things just got hectic and I was distracted from Part II, which would have been about The Horse.
I’ve [...]

The Anthropology of Catastrophe: Volcanoes

Humans have always been afflicted by natural catastrophes ranging from tectonic to weather related and, possibly, even impacts from space! But none, perhaps, have found the significance both culturally and destructively, as the volcano. Throughout the history and prehistory of man, volcanoes have erupted, obliterating entire islands, destroying settlements and cities, ruining local crops and [...]

Carnival Time!

The 27th edition of the Four Stone Hearth is up at Sorting Out Science. Sam Wise has done a great job presenting some of the best in anthropological blogging in the last week or two.
I’ll be hosting this carnival here in a fortnight, so if you have posts you’d like to suggest from your own [...]

Cavemen Liked Big Butts and They Cannot Lie

Acouple of online editions of U.K. newspapers reported the recent finds of 30 carvings recovered at an archaeological site in Poland, dating to about 15,000 years ago. Most anthropologists and archaeologists would probably be immediately familiar with the Venus Figurine motif, but the recent media report was been picked up by a few blogs, each [...]

Anthropologists find evidence of earliest "Double-Dog Dare:" over 164,000 yrs ago!

One of my favorite movies during the holidays is the 1983 classic “A Christmas Story” depicting the schemes of Ralphie Parker as he tries to convince Santa Clause (and his parents) to bring him a Red Ryder BB gun, which every adult (including the department store Santa) warns, “you’ll put your eye out.” In this [...]

The Last Foragers of Tanzania - A Farewell to the Hadza?

Chris O’Brien at Northstate Science has a gut-wrenching post on the plight of the Hadza of northern Tanzania. Their very existence is threatened by wealth, ignorance, and a complete lack of compassion by the government that should be responsible stewards of the cultural diversity of its citizens.
Instead, the Tanzanian government is coming to an [...]