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Current
Anthropology
Clark,
Desmond J. Human Ecology During the Pleistocene and
Later Times in Africa South of the Comments Many of the comments
received on CLARITY: 3 RIKKI
CASTLES Southern .gif){kind=small} Giddings, J.
L. The Archeology of Giddings presents
evidence to settle the argument over the Comments As Giddings admits,
there are several gaps in the archaeological timeline of this area. Arctic
archaeology was still in its infancy in 1960. Not
very much is known about this region, as several of the sites are undoubtedly
underwater. The recent geological
projections of the receding of the last ice age refer to most of his
three areas being hundreds of miles inland. The
sea-side dwellings of the “land-bridge era” have been now
covered over with both the Chukchi and Reply Giddings admits to their being a problem with the Radio-Carbon dating in this area. Sites often contain few or no uncontaminated samples. He believes that samples that have been continuously frozen would offer the best results, as they would be free of root disturbances and seepage. But, how is it known that these samples have indeed been continuously frozen since their deposition? Since that question is impossible to answer, the dating of this area should be given a higher +- rating on the Radio-Carbon analysis. By increasing the +- rating of the Radio-Carbon dating, one would be aware of the possible errors in determining an exact date from this locale. CLARITY: 5 JOEL G. AUD Southern Henry,
Jules. A Cross-Cultural Outline of Education. Current Anthropology July,
1960 Vol.1(4): 267-305 ‘A Cross-Cultural Outline of Education' by Jules Henry is mainly concerned with how learning and teaching takes place cross-culturally, from the simplest societies to the most complex ones. He presents an outline with twelve main sections, each divided into many subsections. For each section he attempts to answer one question pertaining to specific topics. These include: what is the educational process? How is information communicated to the learners? Who educates, as a means of understanding the effect of it on the learners? How do learners and educators participate? These questions are analyzed cross-culturally with examples of different cultures across the globe to make a point about the nature of education and learning of our species. Henry starts by stating that humans must learn much more than other animals, and that learning is dominated by symbolic processes, where the motivational organizers of learning are variable, as opposed to being innate instinctual behavior in action. Pavlov stated that polyphasic learning is much more extensive in humans, where the need and ability to learn more than one thing at a time is much higher than in animals. Henry says that human education is a paradox in nature, where human societies have tried 'repeatedly to accomplish in their members a completely predictable response system'(p. 268). For that reason there is a tendency for Americans to rise whenever one hears the national anthem. One other issue
Henry seems concerned about is the use of education to society. He
compares societies where women and men have different roles and learn
different things as a result. In
the society described by Henry--the Henry's main point of all of this cross-cultural study of education is that humans learned a long time ago that 'natural maturation' in a social sense does not exist, and the main problem for humans is for each generation to adapt to their culture. A big effort has been put forth by humans to conquer the barriers of learning and by using ridicule, praise, torture, admonition and many other artifacts, we have fulfilled many purposes. Maybe not in a perfect sense, but results and progress were definitely acquired. Culture has been a big achiever of that purpose but at the same time it limits and bounds how and what stimuli are accepted to be learned--maybe a natural response to an overwhelming amount of information, possibly impossible to be acquired poliphasically. CLARITY 4 EDWARD
PABLO DE SA SAUERBRUNN Southern Howell,
F. Clark. European and Northwest African Middle Pleistocene
Hominids. Current Anthropology, May, 1960. Vol.1(3):195-232. Howell suggests
that the few human Middle Pleistocene skeletal remains discovered in Comments Several learned reviewers find no fault with Howell’s methods or conclusions. The scope of his analysis is lengthy but would be considered necessary by some for the presentation of such a theory. The samples under comparison were necessarily small due to the apparent absence of burial practices for these primitive peoples. Future European hominid discoveries will be needed to substantiate his claim. CLARITY: 3 Hymes, D. H. Lexicostatistics So Far Current Anthropology, Jan 1960. Vol. 1(1):3-44 This article provides an extensive and comprehensive survey of the field of lexicostatistics as of 1960. Hymes goes into a lot of detail explaining the methods involved, analyzing issues and problems, foreshadowing developments, and suggesting ideas and solutions. As a result, this article is very technical in nature and requires a background in lexicostatistics or glottochronology in order to grasp a firm understanding of what the author is trying to communicate. He begins by introducing the field of glottochronology, which he claims is one of several lexicostatistical methods. Glottochronology uses mathematical methods to analyze the differentiation between lists of basic words from different languages but of similar meanings. The aim is to track the rates of change in languages and aid in deducing the actual dating of common ancestral languages. Hymes discusses the use of the terms “glottochronology” and “lexicostatistics”. He states that glottochronology examines the rate of change in languages which may be used to infer historical timeframes and provide an analysis of relationships in a language family. Lexicostatistics involves the statistical study of vocabulary for historical implications. Obviously, these two fields are distinctive but closely related. Hymes continues by explaining the foundations of glottochronology: the use of basic vocabulary for the test list; the ongoing development of test lists; the examination of control cases which involve languages at different stages in a single line of development; and the retention rates of words in languages as they change. In the next section, Hymes goes into extensive detail explaining the application of the glottochronological methods. Using numerous examples and references from other published works, the author demonstrates the uses of glottochronology in examining test lists, evaluating cognates, deducing time depths, inferring relationships between languages, and comparing deductions with other historical evidence. The article’s final section describes some uses of lexicostatistics. Apart from glottochronology, lexicostatistics may be further developed to examine sub-groupings in language families, determine genetic relationships among languages, and analyze rates of lexical change. In conclusion, Hymes defends the developing character of lexicostatistics with its short history, but recognizes its potential in anthropology. He calls for further research and development in lexicostatistics. Comments Driver suggests the use of meanings shared by a dozen or more reconstructed protolanguages to choose glosses for basic word test lists. He also cautions against mistaking the accuracy of time depths inferred from samples of control languages because the selection of control languages is non-random. Since standard error for a variable rate of change is also subject to change, Driver calls for a formula that accounts for this standard error. He stresses that the correlation between language, culture, and biological characteristics should not be casually dismissed since it is of historical significance. Dyen discusses the use of lexicostatistics in quantitative analysis of the classification of languages and change. This is followed by a detailed explanation of applying lexicostatistics in determining relationships between languages. Dyen then discusses cognate boundaries between word lists and conditions under which defective lists may be used. He continues with explaining word meanings and changes in meanings. He stresses two criteria for a word’s inclusion in a list: the universality of meaning and frequency. The frequency of a word, according to Dyen, can be culture-free or culture-bound. He also advocates the use of lists with varying degrees of persistence depending on the analysis or the inference drawn. Gudschinsky suggests the use of series of word lists for an initial classification framework from which future research can be based upon. She also stresses the use of probable cognates in formulating hypotheses rather than actually measuring time. Gudschinsky then argues for considering mesh relationships between languages because of the useful information that can provide. In light of the subjective interpretation and use of meanings of words, Gudschinsky calls for researchers to be aware of the biases. Lastly, she brings to attention the variation in definitions of time depths and the problem of determining absolute time depths. Hattori proposes, based on drift and dregs, the use of the value of 1.4 rather than 2 in the formulae used for time depth. He attempted to improve on Swadesh’s list by enlarging it for statistical reliability and increasing its effectiveness in exploring proofs of genetic relationship between languages. CLARITY: 2 JOHN
LI Southern Illinois University Imanishi, Kinji Social Organization of Subhuman Primates in Their Natural Habitat. Current Anthropology, Vol. 1, No.5/6 (Sep.-Nov.,1960), 393-407 In this article I feel the author does not properly represent all realms of social organization. In the introduction he is prompt to mention that he is not taking into consideration “such topics as food habits, nesting habits, mating habits, territoriality, nomadism, and vocal communication, when it does not concern those problems in social organization that are of interest here.” I believe this is a huge flaw in his research it is through his own opinion that these characteristics do not matter, but he does not give reasoning behind this. The author focuses the paper in on “the question of a breeding season, the declination of the minimal social unit, and some features of the internal organization of such units.” The author tells about past examples of how information has been gathered about the same topic and how in some cases it has been flawed. He also gives a brief history of the field of observation and research relying heavily on the work of S. Zuckerman. The article was very interesting read however I still believe that the author was too narrow in his studies and should have considered factors behind his reasoning, none the less I would still recommend it to all people with an interst in social organization or primate behaviors. ERICA KNOLLENBERG Southern Kurath, Gertrude Prokosch. Panorama of Dance Ethnology. Current Anthropology May, 1960 Vol.1(3):233-254. Kurath addresses
the issue of dance as an emerging discipline of ethnology. She
explains the objectives of choreology (the study of dance), which is
difficult, because of the disagreement among researchers as to the
term’s definition and its need within the general area of ethnology. Previously, Kurath defined dance ethnology as “the scientific
study of ethnic dances in all their cultural significance, religious
function or symbolism, or social place”. In
this article, she agrees to a distinction between folk and ethnic dances. However, she cites researchers who express
the study of dance as all encompassing and including all forms of dance. Kurath has organized
a correlation of dance and its significance to anthropology. In the realm of social relations, she lists
the importance of individual and group creativity, male and female
roles and organization as to ritual, but not secular dances, which
are usually formed according to the objectives of the group. The dynamic
processes of dance are explained as continuity, diffusion, transculturation (borrowing),
acculturation (blending), enrichment, decline, resurgence, and rebound,
which is the recovery of a dance into its homeland after its acculturation
into another country. Kurath suggests other fields of research that could benefit
from choreologic findings. In psychology, dance as mental therapy should
be explored. The study of kinetic
patterns can be used to improve the efficiency of industrial techniques
as motions of work have the same components as those of dance. Other
disciplines that are promising avenues for the integration of dance
are linguistics, mythology, theater science, archaeology and art history,
musicology and symbolics. Kurath gives a thorough explanation of the analysis of
dance using symbols, which are required to fully describe dance constituents. The
most complete symbol system,“Labanotation”,
created by Rudolf Laban, is the one in widest
use in the Comments Overall, commentators are in agreement as to the validity of this paper and the importance of dance ethnology as a subdiscipline of anthropology. Criticisms are of the definition of ethno-choreography, which one reviewer believes should be a definition of dance ethnology rather than “choreography”. The relationship between the dance, costumes, and the place of performance are of considerable interest. However, they are missing from this survey. One commentator believes that Kurath does not give full credit to some of the people who have done a lifetime of research on dance. CLARITY: 4 DEBORAH
A REARDANZ Southern La Barre, Weston. Twenty Years of Peyote Studies. Current Anthropology, Jan., 1960 Vol.1(1):45-60 Weston La Barre’s Twenty Years of Peyote Studies focuses on the peyote research conducted by other authors, who are mainly anthropologists. La Barre uses other anthropologists’ works in order to summarize the different studies on peyote. For example, he delves into others research to see how peyotism is used and if peyote is a narcotic. Overall, La Barre bases this article “upon the extensive published literature on peyote and peyotism, on the [once] unpublished field notes by many persons, and on [his] own field trips during several years [of studies]…" (1960: 45). La Barre’s article is a study "for the general ethnologist…to attempt a perspective on the past as well as a prospect for future studies" (45). La Barre breaks
up the article into nine sections: general works, legal status of peyotism,
psychiatric research, special problems, new substantive
data on the peyote rite, problems of diffusion, scholarly controversies
over interpretations, peyote music and art, popular accounts of peyote
and peyotism, and future studies. While each section focuses on its designated
topic, the primary focus remains with the chosen anthropologists’ perspective
on that area of peyotism. One exception is in the section on future
studies, La Barre looks at authors other
than anthropologists. He offers
some criticism about a few of the other researchers, such as James
S. Slotkin, who has a different perspective
on the "early diffusion of peyote to Reply Overall, La Barre clearly makes his viewpoint and purpose known to the reader. When he stated one author's viewpoint or work, La Barre would normally put down other sources to demonstrate another focus on the topic. More importantly, La Barre’s viewpoint never became clear to the reader. This would have taken the reader away from research material, and allowed the focus to remain on the more pertinent material. Yet, in doing this, La Barre put his own bias about which authors are considered significant. Overall, La Barre’s article relayed the many different kind of information relating to peyote and peyotism. CLARITY: 4 CHARLES GAIN Southern Movius, Jr., Hallam L. Radiocarbon
Dates and Upper Paleolithic Archaeology in Central and Movius emphasizes
the crucial role that accurate dating plays in archaeology. The
much-needed tool for obtaining a time frame for a particular sample
is integral with solving chronological problems, which Movius states
is of utmost importance with reference to Late Pleistocene materials
in Central and Western Europe. Movius mentions that although radiocarbon dating is an
effective method in the investigation of Upper Paleolithic evidence,
there has been relatively little dating in the scope of the sixty millennia
covered by the Upper Paleolithic. In
Central and Comments Many of the commentators commend Movius’s achievements made on Upper Paleolithic archaeology through the use of the radiocarbon dating method. However, suggestions are proposed along with the disagreements over the general chronology that Movius has presented. Blanc suggests dropping the term “Fourth Glacial” to avoid confusion, since the Wurm/Weichsel Glaciation appears to be the fifth major cold phase. Bordes also suggests the revision of the terms that Movius employs with reference to the specific phases of the Wurm/Weichsel Glaciation. Reply Movius appreciates his colleagues’ comments and states that the comments have been useful and that the majority of the comments helped to support his views. Movius agrees with Blanc’s suggestion, and states that his comment only reinforces the need for a standard terminology. In response to Bordes’s suggestions, Movius explains that there is no standard universal terminology, so the use of individual preference is accepted. CLARITY: 3 JESSICA
ZACCAGNINI Southern Oppenheim, A. Leo. Assyriology- Why and How? Current Anthropology Sept-Nov., 1960 Vol.1(5-6):409-423. Assyriology, the study of the Assyrian and Babylonian dialects of Akkadian, as a discipline is reviewed and critiqued by A. Leo Oppenhiem, the editor-in-chief of the Assyrian Dictionary. He summarizes the objects of study, some tens of thousand of clay tablets that paint “a strangely distorted picture of the more than two thousand years of Mesopotamian civilizations.” Oppenheim describes the two categories that make up this history, a standardized body of literature and personal letters and records. First, “the stream of tradition,” the scholarly and literary texts recorded by well-trained scribes, who, as a part of their training, copied and recopied important standardized texts, a tradition kept alive for more than two thousand years. The second category consists of reports of day-to-day activities of individuals and authorities. He goes on to describe the size and characteristics of these texts before he gets to the crux of his argument. He asserts that the assyriologists are misrepresenting the meaning and the importance of literary epics (like the Epic of Gilgamesh, which make up a minute percentage of tablets) to somehow fit Western standards of what is expected in “the study of man.” He states the because of this search, Assyriology is stagnating in its current place within the Humanities, which does not have the correct conceptual tools, so long have they been geared for assimilation along Western standards. Stagnation has resulted in the shrinkage of research topics for fear that new excavations will result in new conclusions that “endanger and overthrow” ones already reached. What he calls for as a possible solution is a multidisciplinary approach, in which historians of technology and medicine, scholars within economics and, “above all, in cultural anthropology” can interpret the findings of assyriologists, using their own unique expertise to better understand the “history” of Mesopotamian culture. Oppenheim also adds a bibliographical note to help the reader become better acquainted with the subject. CLARITY: 4 COMMENTS Both Pritchard and
Adams agree with Oppenheim’s argument,
urging scholars from other disciplines to react to the call. ERIN BILYEU Southern This article focuses
on the distribution and adaptation of African monkeys. Tappen discuss
some of the general problems that African monkeys exhibit
and their environmental relationships and shows the significance in
anthropology. The author believes
that little is known about the behavior of non-human primates in their
natural habitat. By knowing
the distribution, fundamental ecologies and adaptations of African
monkeys to their environment, anthropologists will be able to use this
information to better understand the evolution and order of man. Tappen implies
that the first step in understanding the evolution and order of man
is to study primate species within their natural habitat, observing
behavior and basic adaptations. This
information would not be just beneficial to anthropologists but for
behavioral studies and medical research as well. Tappen believes
that adaptation is a key factor in evolution and that the evolution
of man from a primate ancestor shows a parallel with that of African
monkeys. He uses the divergence
and speciation of African monkeys along with the history of the continent
to support his theory. He also
suggests that by investigating possible origins in other primates it
will help us to better understand and learn about human behavior. The
value of studying living primates is to be able to apply those theories
and findings to enhance our knowledge about ourselves. Throughout his
discussions, he listed several topics for primatologists to
investigate in future research. This article is structured by listing
the different types of ecological conditions of Comments Many commentators agree with Tappen. They state that his insight of general problems possessed by the living African primates and his guiding principle of habitat segregation and differentiation are well supported. Many have found the article to be very informational and think that it has made a major contribution to the taxonomy and geographical distribution of the African monkeys. Reply Tappen replied by listing who has made his African experience possible and giving thanks to Warren G. Kinzey for pointing out imprecise initial information in one of his statements. He also made reference to a comment made by Kinji Imanishi who suggests that Tappen come to a hasty conclusion about the sexual activity of Japanese monkeys. CLARITY: 4 NASHEED SMITH Southern
University at
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