Color is funny. Anthropologists have long known that different cultures have different relationships, linguistically and in day to day practice, to the color spectrum. For example, the Efe Pygmy Hunter-Gatherers of the Ituri Forest describe things as white, black, or red, and that’s it. They live in a world of green. […]

Efe people
Ituri Forest
Anthrophoto is an
excellent source for
anthropology stock
photos

There have been many studies of what impresses us about members of the opposite sex, but to my knowledge these studies are largely centered on Western societies, and never of foragers. There has been consideration of this issue, but no large scale surveys. One of the […]

Ever wonder why lions can sit around all day doing nothing, spend about 30 minutes or less hunting down an antelope (less time than most people who go to the gym spend on the treadmill) then spend the rest of the day laying around, yet they don’t get fat?
The simple, yet lofty, answer to […]

Efe people
Ituri Forest
Anthrophoto is an
excellent source for
anthropology stock
photos

One of the biggest differences between our nearest living relatives (The common chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes) and humans is our unique sense of the importance of a social contract. We have a concept of ownership, possession, exclusivity of access, etc. when it comes to material goods such as […]

Efe people
Ituri Forest
Anthrophoto is an
excellent source for
anthropology stock
photos

How good are you at remembering names? If you are really good … if you can hear someone’s name once and always remember it … you have a calling as a politician. If you would otherwise suck as a politician, but are good at explaining things, […]

Efe people
Ituri Forest
Anthrophoto is an
excellent source for
anthropology stock
photos

There has been much recent discussion on sleep in the blogosphere, and everyone, especially those who sometimes have trouble sleeping, is interested in so called “sleep disorders.”
My understanding of modern sleep disorder theory is the following (very oversimplified): Each person has a “normal” amount of […]

Efe people
Ituri Forest
Anthrophoto is an
excellent source for
anthropology stock
photos

Humans have been indistinguishable as far as the fossil record shows from today’s Homo sapiens for a minimum of about 120,000 years. Bones of Homo sapiens from back this far fit into the range of modern humans. But the archaeological record suggests that our species – […]

Over on the Thinking Blog there is a post about how to make a bow and arrow (an a link).

The instructions are based on a US Army survival manual. I’m not sure how this survival manual specifically was written, but I do know this: Some very important ethnography was actually funded by the […]

I’m hoping to switch topics a bit from the very interesting one of religion and politics (two things one should never blog about, I suppose) back to the more mundane issue of human evolution. To to this I would like to talk a little about hunting I’ve never been that big of a fan of hunting as the human practice that explains everything, and I’ve tended to explore other areas of human ecology and it’s evolution. This has led some to believe that I’m simply against acknowledging any role of hunting in human prehistory and evolution. This of course is not true at all, but I do think the issue needs to be addressed in a more complex and subtle way than it usually is. The present comments are a tiny contribution towards a much larger requirement of thought and discussion.
Why is hunting thought to be a key factor in human evolution? Partly because it was once widely believed that…