Welcome back to another edition of Four Stone Hearth here on The Prancing Papio. I have here a compilation of some of the best Anthropology blog posts on the web last fortnight. Let's begin ...
Krystal from Anthropology in Practice has a blog post that I find very interesting for history buffs, urban archaeologists and fans of old architecture. Her post, In Search of Penn Station, is a guided treasure hunt for the remnant of old Penn Station.
Thank you everyone for contributing to this edition of Four Stone Hearth. The next edition of Four Stone Heart still needs a host. Please email Afarensis if you would like to host.
The Prancing Papio will be hosting the #111 edition of Four Stone Hearth next Wednesday, January 19th.
The Four Stone Hearth is a blog carnival that specializes in Anthropology in the widest (American) sense of that word. Here, Anthropology is the study of humankind, throughout all times and places, focussing primarily on four lines of research:
Archaeology
Socio-cultural anthropology
Bio-physical anthropology
Linguistic anthropology
Each one of these subfields is a stone in our hearth. Four Stone Hearth is published bi-weekly, on Wednesdays in odd-number weeks.
If you would like to submit content to the next issue of the carnival, please write to the keeper of the blog in question or to Afarensis (afarensis1 AT sbcglobal DOT net). You are encouraged to submit other bloggers' work as well as your own.
If you would like to host the carnival, please write to Afarensis. Please email me on PrancingPapio AT gmail DOT com for this edition's entries.
I realized I have not updated my blog for almost a month now, so first and foremost, apologies to my avid readers. I know I have left you high and dry without any post! Since my last post, I have started volunteering at Prospect Park Zoo. The zoo has a special place in my heart (especially the hamadryas baboons) because it is there that I did my research for my Honors Thesis. I never thought I would enjoy working with kids but they DO ask the darndest things. Of all the kids that had asked me questions or talked to me, one really stood out. The kid asked if I know who Steve Irwin is and that he (the kid) enjoys his (Irwin's) work. Can you believe it? The kid even recited how primates are different than other mammals. I think he's gonna grow up to be me. I'm cereal.
Have you seen the new ASP website? It's quite spiffy. I actually contributed some photos to the site ... can you spot them?
The annual Monkey Day is fast approaching. Celebrated annually on December 14th, Monkey Day not only celebrates the simian that lend its name to the festival, it also celebrates anything primate (prosimians, monkeys and apes). Over at Serious Monkey Business, Ashlee is starting a Monkey Day Blog Carnival. If you are interested in contributing to the carnival, please contact her.
A friend of mine started a new blog, The Primate Chronicles. Kayley is a graduate student at University of Calgary and does her fieldwork in Belize. Check it out.
Call for submissions: The next edition of Four Stone Hearth will be hosted by Archive Fire on December 8th. If you have wrote or saw interesting Anthropology posts around the web, please send it to ambientdisorder at gmail dot com. Afarensis, current host of the blog carnival, needs hosts for future editions. If you are interested, please email Afarensis, afarensis1 at sbcglobal dot net.
All over the blogosphere and Twitter-land, Anthropological primates are choosing sides. Are you "Team Jacob" or "Team Edward"? Errr .... I mean, are you "for" or "against" removing the word "science" from American Anthropological Association (AAA)'s mission statement. The controversy with removing the word "science" from mission statement even reached CNN. Some of the interesting blog posts on this subject matter includes:
American Anthropological Association's Long-Range Plan, a rebuttal to the brouhaha.
What's your stand? I don't really have a strong reaction to this, probably because I am not an AAA member. I understand the initial shock of disbelieve or just a general WTF to the decision. But seriously, are they just fishing for publicity? Those damn non-science Anthropologist!
Last but not least, to my Jewish readers, Happy Hanukkah. Chag Sameach!
The Four Stone Hearth is back for yet another exciting edition. Before we begin, I would like to thank Afarensis once more for taking on the ownership of Four Stone Hearth. Thanks for keeping the blog carnival momentum going. I'm happy to host Four Stone Hearth for the third time. It gets better every time I host it! Thanks to those that submitted their entries early, you totally made my life easier.
Our first submission comes from Somatosphere, whose blog post is a book review about Claude Levi-Strauss (1908 - 2009). In the post, Leo reviewed the book "Claude Levi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory", an autobiography by author Patrick Wilcken. This is the first English-language biography of Levi-Strauss, the French anthropologist and ethnologist who's sometimes referred to as the "father of modern anthropology".
Bonn submitted an interesting post on the anthropology of animal superstition in his blog, Time Travelling. I must say that after reading his post, it reminded me of my own childhood in Malaysia where animal myths are the central theme for disasters and good luck. Read Bonvito's post, "Animal Lores: Myths, Disasters, and Animals".
Before I end this edition of Four Stone Hearth, I'd like to share a video with you of Betty White (the last surviving Golden Girls) as an Anthropology professor on the NBC sitcom "Community". Those that know me knows I love Betty White but her playing an Anthropologist is this gay boy's dream come true! White plays Prof. Bauer and the clip below is her explaining the movie "Inception" to two indigenous men. Be aware that she is dropping spoiler bombs (which is why she is speaking English instead of the tribe's language).
Thank you everyone for contributing to this edition of Four Stone Hearth. The next edition of Four Stone Heart will be hosted over at Sorting Out Science on October 27th. Please send your submissions to Sam or Afarensis.
NOTE: Unless otherwise stated, photos are from blogs cited.
The Prancing Papio will be hosting the next edition of Four Stone Hearth next Wednesday (October 13th, 2010). The Four Stone Hearth focus on four subfields: archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, bio-physical anthropology and linguistic anthropology.
The Four Stone Hearth is a blog carnival that specializes in anthropology in the widest (American) sense of that word. Here, anthropology is the study of humankind, throughout all times and places, focussing primarily on four lines of research:
Archaeology
Socio-cultural anthropology
Bio-physical anthropology
Linguistic anthropology
Each one of these subfields is a stone in our hearth. Four Stone Hearth is published bi-weekly, Wednesdays in odd-number weeks.
If you would like to submit content to the next issue of the carnival, please write to the keeper of the blog in question or to Afarensis. You are encouraged to submit other bloggers' work as well as your own. If you would like to host the carnival, please write to Afarensis. Please email me on PrancingPapio at gmail dot com for entries.
Nick at Sapien Games hosted Four Stone Hearth #101 this Wednesday. This is the first edition since Martin Rundkvist handed down Four Stone Hearth to fellow blogger, Afarensis. I had totally forgotten about this week's edition and I'm totally gonna blame it on my cold medication. I'm cereal. Aptly named "The Phoenix Edition", Nick gathered up an impressive collection of Anthro reads for this edition of Four Stone Hearth. So, head over to Sapien Games and get reading!
It's that time again! Welcome to another edition of Four Stone Hearth, hosted here at The Prancing Papio. Submissions for this edition poured in as early as two weeks ago so I wasn't worried about the lack of materials to cover. This is a good sign for Four Stone Hearth as it nears its 100th edition. A big thank you to Judith from Zenobia: Empress of the East for sending me blog posts that had missed her deadline a fortnight ago. I don't have to unleash my prancing baboons to fetch me articles this time! Without further ado, here's this edition of Four Stone Hearth.
Krystal from Anthropology in Practiceexplores the idea of public spaces and what can be considered as social norms inside these public spaces in her post, Hail Marys on the Subway. Are public spaces really public? What are acceptable behaviors in these public spaces. Why do loud cellphone users receive different treatment than loud religious preachers on the subway? Why is the former met with disapproval while the latter is tolerated?
Over at A Primate of Modern Aspect, Zinjanthropus wrote about orangutans and their metabolic adaptation. Apparently, orangutans burn fewer calories than almost any animals that have been studied according to a recent PNAS study. The authors of the study suggest that orangutans might burn fewer calories as an ecological adaptation due to food scarcity, but Zinjanthropus thinks there might be alternative explanations. Read about it at Slow-burning Orangs. (Photo from DavidandBecky on Flickr.)
On Aardvarchaeology, Martin wrote about discarded mahjong tiles, soon-to-be artifacts, on a burnt and demolished house site in his post Future Archaeology of Gaming. What would archaeologists think of these tiles when they dig them up thousands of years from now?
Also on Aardvarchaeology, Martin ponders if this phallus artifact found in Motala, Östergötlandis is actually what we think it is. Is it a dildo, a pressure-flaker or is it both? Could it be something totally different? What do you think? Check out the post, Stone Age Dildo Found in Sweden.
Magnus from Testimony of the Spade blogged about (almost) permanently abandoned buildings, aptly named Tomorrow’s historic remains. He encountered these buildings while he was out on archaeological surveys for ancient monuments and historic remains. It's interesting to see abandoned houses with belongings left behind.
Recently, Hugo Chavez ordered the remains of Simón Bolivar to be exhumed in order to put an end to the speculation of Bolivar's death. Did Bolivar actually die from tuberculosis, or unintentional arsenic poisoning? While one ponders the real reason to Bolivar's death, one cannot resist to wonder if Chavez has an ulterior motive. Is this really all for science or is it really just a political move? Read about the post, Hugo Chavez and the Skeleton of Bolivar, by Bonn on his blog Time Travelling.
When put into perspective, games that children play prepare them for complex social skills when they grow up. This is the same in great apes. Eric blogs about great apes and the understanding of inequality in his post For Great Apes, Addressing Inequality is Child’s Play. (NOTE: Much like Superman's self-imposed exile, Eric is now guest blogging as part of his Primate Diaries in Exile blog tour. The above post can be found at David's blog, Neuron Culture.)
Read about the Amis culture from Taiwan, at Savage Minds. The post, Kapah (Young Men): Alternative Cultural Activism in Taiwan, is about an Amis artist, Suming, who is bringing his culture into the popular music market by combining Amis melodies with techno-trance, hip-hop, and Taiwanese folk music.
Here is one of the music videos by the Amis artist, Suming. The name of the song is "Kapah", which means "young men" in the Amis language.
From his self-titled blog Mick Morrison, Mick wrote about similarities between recent approaches to the idea of heritage and notions of country by Indigenous Australians. His post, Heritage and the Aboriginal philosophy of country, questions what "heritage" and "country" mean to the Aboriginal.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this issue of Four Stone Hearth. The next Four Stone Hearth will be hosted by A Very Remote Period Indeed on August 18th. Please send your submissions to Julien or Martin.
NOTE: Unless otherwise stated, photos are from blogs cited.
Four Stone Hearth #97 is currently being hosted over at Zenobia: Empress of the East. Head over to the blog and check out some of the best Anthropological blog posts and hopefully you'll bookmark/RSS feed these blogs!
After you are done reading Four Stone Hearth #97, please email your submission to me for the next edition. The next Four Stone Hearth (#98) will be held on Wednesday, August 4th here at The Prancing Papio.
Four Stone Hearth #100 will be held at Aardvarchaeology. (September 1st)
The Fourth Stone Hearth is a blog carnival that specializes in anthropology in the widest (American) sense of that word. Here, anthropology is the study of humankind, throughout all times and places, focussing primarily on four lines of research:
archaeology
socio-cultural anthropology
bio-physical anthropology
linguistic anthropology
Each one of these subfields is a stone in our hearth.
Four Stone Hearth is published bi-weekly, Wednesdays in odd-number weeks. If you would like to host the carnival, please write to Martin Rundkvist.
If you would like to submit content to the next issue of the carnival, please write to the keeper of the blog in question or to Martin. You are encouraged to submit other bloggers' work as well as your own.
The Four Stone Hearth is here again! Welcome to the 93rd edition, hosted by yours truly. There wasn't many submissions for this edition so I had to deploy my baboons to prance around the blogosphere in hopes that they will fetch me more blog posts. I am happy to tell you that my baboons did well and came back with lots of goodies. Don't worry, they are just prancing baboons not those terrifying flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. Anyway, without further ado, here's Four Stone Hearth #93:
Archeology
Martin Rundkvist from Aardvarchaeology writes about an interesting field work method by Swedish rock art surveyor, Einar Kjellén (1903 - 2000). Do you know that it is good field method to crawl around with a blanket in your head? Read about Kjellén's technique in "Kjellén's Blanket: Methods of a Rock-Art Master Surveyor".
Bio-physical
On A Primate of Modern Aspect, Zinjanthropus's blog post "Of Brains and Faces" talks about the relationship between brain size and facial size on the basicranium, and also the relationship between brain size and facial size on the position of foramen magnum in humans and non-human primates.
"Monkey Stress" is about male Barbary macaques's strategy in coalition building among group members by carrying infants of other males. Infant carriers were observed to have significantly stronger relationships with other macaques than non-carriers. However, infant carriers had higher stress hormone outputs than non-carriers. Read more about this blog post on Barbara J. King's self titled blog.
Eric Michael Johnson wrote "Punishing Cheaters Promotes the Evolution of Cooperation" on his blog, The Primate Diaries. While William Hamilton's theory of kin selection and Robert Trivers's theory of reciprocal altruism explains the evolution of cooperation between kin and individuals in close knit communities (low level of immigration and emigration), these theories do not explain the evolution of cooperation between societies of unrelated individuals (with high level of immigration and emigration). So, a new model proposed by Boyd et al. posit that fitness is enhanced if individuals come together to punish those that don't cooperate (cheaters) thus these coordinated punishments leads to cooperation. Take that Tiger Woods and Jesse James!
Linguistic
On Language Log, David Bamman guest blogged an interesting post about Twitter and language analysis. In Bamman's "Mapping the Demographics of American English with Twitter", he analyzed words used in tweets by geographical location and age demographics. He did so by using Lexicalist, a program he developed himself.
Ewelina Gonera on Ewelina Gonera's Blog wrote How baby words are made, not "goo-goo-ga-ga" but how new words in modern English came to be. Sorta like the birds and bees of modern English, as told by linguistic geeks.
Well I guess that's it. Thank you for reading this edition of Four Stone Hearth and I hope you enjoyed your visit. A big THANK YOU to all the contributors. The next Four Stone Hearth will be hosted by Anthropology In Practice on June 9th. Please send your submissions to the blog owner or to Martin Rundkvist.
The Prancing Papio will be hosting the Four Stone Hearth #93 next Wednesday. The Four Stone Hearth focus on four subfields: archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, bio-physical anthropology and linguistic anthropology. You are encourage to submit your own work as well as others. Please email me on PrancingPapio at gmail dot com.
Four Stone Hearth #92 is now live on Sorting Out Science. So hurry to the website and check out the latest blog posts on this Anthropology carnival.
The next Four Stone Heart edition (#93) will be hosted here at The Prancing Papio on May 26th. Please submit your content to the next issue by emailing me (click Contact Me on top). You are encouraged to submit other bloggers' work as well as your own. If you would like to host the carnival, please write to Martin Rundkvist. As of now, June 9th is still vacant.
The Four Stone Hearth is a blog carnival that specializes in anthropology in the widest (American) sense of that word. Here, anthropology is the study of humankind, throughout all times and places, focussing primarily on four lines of research:
archaeology
socio-cultural anthropology
bio-physical anthropology
linguistic anthropology
Each one of these subfields is a stone in our hearth. Four Stone Hearth is published bi-weekly, Wednesdays in odd-number weeks.
If you would like to submit content to the next issue of the carnival, please write to the keeper of the blog in question or to Martin Rundkvist. You are encouraged to submit other bloggers' work as well as your own. If you would like to host the carnival, please write to Martin Rundkvist.
The 90th edition of Four Stone Hearth is currently being hosted by Cfeagans on A Hot Cup of Joe. Be sure to check it out! In it, he also share with us his concerns with the dwindling response to participate. Poor chap only got 4 submissions! In his own words:
Unfortunately, participation has waxed and waned a bit over these few years. I only received four submissions and one of these wasn’t, strictly speaking, a post on anthropology. But I’m including it anyway. I’m willing to accept the responsibility for the low turn-out, and here’s why: The Four Stone Hearth blog carnival depends on us, the writers and bloggers to keep it going. The readers will be there. Some of us that host routinely get a thousand or more blog hits a day and have hundreds of unique subscribers (not me… but I’m working on it. some).
We anthro-bloggers need to rally up if we want to keep the Four Stone Hearth going. I propose using the comments section here to brainstorm ideas. Side-bar badges? Advertising? Link-Love? Get PZ Myers to submit?…
The next Four Stone Hearth edition will be hosted by Sexy Archaeology on April 28th.
I've been meaning to start blogging about Four Stone Hearth but I kept forgetting! Four Stone Hearth is published biweekly on Wednesdays. Interested blogger should write to Martin Rundkvist. Here's what Four Stone Hearth (The Fourth Stone Hearth) is according to its website:
The Fourth Stone Hearth is a blog carnival that specializes in anthropology in the widest (American) sense of that word. Here, anthropology is the study of humankind, throughout all times and places, focussing primarily on four lines of research:
archaeology
socio-cultural anthropology
bio-physical anthropology
linguistic anthropology
Each one of these subfields is a stone in our hearth.
Four Stone Hearth #88, St. Patrick's Day special edition, was just published yesterday on Ad Hominin. Blog owner Ciarán was nice enough to include my article on the shift of mating system of Sichuan snub-nosed monkeys from polygyny to polygamy. Thanks Ciarán! So readers, go on to Ad Hominin and check out the new issue of Four Stone Hearth.
.JPG)
.JPG){kind=link}