Anthropology

Alcohol And Drugs: An Anthropological History Of Intoxication

In 2014, drugs and alcohol are used primarily for pleasure and not to commune with nature or contact the spirit world. In ancient times, opium poppies and hallucinogenic mushrooms were for gifted elites and their use went hand-in-hand with shamanistic bel ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 25 2019 - 10:40am

Neanderthal M.D.?

Neanderthals- Cave Men, in colloquial terms (as if Cro-Magnon emerged in a medieval castle; they all lived in caves if they could)- don't get a lot of respect for being smart.  But they probably had a few things going for them, since they survived unt ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 6 2019 - 10:48am

Jamming 'Health' Food Stores Into So-Called Food Deserts Doesn't Change Buying Habits

A joke in nutrition circles is that while you once needed to be rich to be fat, now you need to be rich to be thin. Scientific progress has given us cheap food, anyone can afford to eat well, and after an existence of worrying about food availability it ta ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Dec 11 2019 - 1:17pm

The Historical Evolution Of Christmas Decorations

The idea of hanging up decorations in the middle of winter is older than Christmas itself. Decorations are mentioned in ancient descriptions of the Roman feast of Saturnalia, which is thought to have originated in the 5th century BC. Some 900 years later, ...

Article - The Conversation - Dec 21 2019 - 7:00am

Disaster Tourism Can Aid In Recovery

If you intended to holiday at a place that underwent a disaster it might be a good idea to keep your plans, especially if you are civic-minded and are willing to help. Such "volunteer tourism" can actually help communities recover from natural di ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 6 2020 - 12:05pm

Raiders Of The Lost Arawaks: Columbus Was Not Exaggerating About Caribbean Cannibalism

When Christopher Columbus discovered a continent unknown to Europeans, his accounts included harrowing descriptions of native pirates who cannibalized men and kept women as sex slaves, but more recent humanities scholars, even ones who readily accept oral ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 10 2020 - 12:20pm

The War On Baby Formula Goes Global- And It Will Keep Women Out Of The Work Force

Infant formula was the great liberator for working moms who wanted to have careers but in the last decade there has been a backlash against it, often adopting the veil of scientific legitimacy. ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 14 2020 - 6:41pm

Why There Are Seven Days In A Week

Waiting for the weekend can often seem unbearable, a whole seven days between Saturdays. Having seven days in a week has been the case for a very long time, and so people don’t often stop to ask why. Most of our time reckoning is due to the movements of t ...

Article - The Conversation - Jan 18 2020 - 7:30am

War-Mongers Get The Girls: The Biological Spoils Of Battle

About 10 percent of Asia can claim to be descended from Genghis Khan and they are absolutely correct, genetic studies show; the reason is that part of the benefit to rampaging across Asia, the mid-East and into Europe was a lot of sex. But it isn't j ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 27 2020 - 3:01pm

Cultural Group Selection Theory: Cooperation As An Outcome Of Competition?

It doesn't seem like it if you watch political news but humans are unusually cooperative. We are unique in that we often cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers. Nurses, firefighters, helping someone who dropped a package, standing in line, the ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 4 2020 - 5:25pm