Aspects of human life history and cognition, such as our long childhoods and extensive use of teaching, theoretically evolved to facilitate the acquisition of complex tasks. The present paper empirically examines the relationship between subsistence task difficulty and age of acquisition, rates of teaching, and rates of oblique transmission among Hadza and BaYaka foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo. We further examine cross-cultural variation in how and from whom learning occurred. Learning patterns and community perceptions of task difficulty were assessed through interviews. We found no relationship between task difficulty, age of acquisition, and oblique transmission, and a weak but positive relationship between task difficulty and rates of teaching. While same-sex transmission was normative in both societies, tasks ranked as more difficult were more likely to be transmitted by men among the BaYaka, but not among the Hadza, potentially reflecting cross-cultural differences in the sexual division of subsistence and teaching labor. Further, the BaYaka were more likely to report learning via teaching, and less likely to report learning via observation, than the Hadza, possibly owing to differences in socialization practices.
The study of ornament in Greek and Roman art has been the focus of increasing scholarly interest over the last decade, with many publications shedding new light on the dynamics of ornatus in antiquity, and the discourses that shaped and situated it. Through an analysis of the depiction of gemstones in Roman wall painting, this article demonstrates the importance of ornamental details both to the mechanics of two-dimensional representation and to the interpretation of the images they adorned. I argue that by evoking the material qualities and sensual pleasures of real precious stones, painted gems served on the one hand to enhance the illusory reality of wall painting, and on the other to extol the delights of luxury and refinement—that is, of ornamentation itself.
Background
Food insecurity not only affects physical growth and health of children but also their intellectual development, school attendance and academic performance. However, most evidences are based on studies in high income countries. Although food insecurity is common in Ethiopia, to what extent it affects school attendance and educational attainment of adolescents is not explored. We hypothesized that food insecure adolescents would be more likely to be absent from school and have lower grades attained after 1 year compared to their food secure peers.
Methods
We used data from 2009 adolescents in the age group of 13-17 years from two consecutive surveys of a five year longitudinal family study in Southwest Ethiopia. A stratified random sampling was used to select participants. Regression analyses were used to compare school absenteeism and the highest grade attained after 1 year of follow-up in food secure and insecure adolescents. The analysis was adjusted for demographic factors, reported illness and workload.
Results
Significantly more (33.0%) food insecure adolescents were absent from school compared with their food secure peers (17.8%, P < 0.001). Multivariable logistic regression analyses showed that after adjusting for gender, place of residence and gender of the household head, adolescent food insecurity [OR 1.77 (1.34-2.33)], severe household food insecurity [OR 1.62 (1.27-2.06)], illness during the past one month before the survey [OR 2.26 (1.68-3.06)], the highest grade aspired to be completed by the adolescent [OR 0.92 (0.88-0.96)], and the number of days that the adolescent had to work per week [OR 1.16 (1.07-1.26)] were independent predictors of school absenteeism. Similarly after controlling for household income and gender of the household head, adolescent food insecurity(P < 0.001), severe household food insecurity(P < 0.001), illness during the last month(P < 0.001) and rural residence(P < 0.001) were inversely associated with highest grade attained, while age of the adolescent(P < 0.001), the highest grade intended to be completed(P < 0.001) and residence in semi urban area(P < 0.001) were positively associated with the highest grade attained.
Conclusions
Adolescent and household food insecurity are positively associated with school absenteeism and a lower educational attainment. Programs aiming to achieve universal access to primary education in food insecure environments should integrate interventions to ensure food security of adolescents.
This interview with Professor Anna Grimshaw was carried out during my time as a visiting scholar at the Anthropology department at Emory University (Georgia, United States) during the fall semester (2021-2022), through public funding from CAPES in the Institutional Program of Internationalization (CAPES/PRINT). We dialogued about her biographical trajectory, her experience outside academia, the relationship between theory, description, experimentation and visuality in anthropology among other subjects. I highlight that it is important to understand Anna Grimshaw's role as an intellectual engaged in training new researchers to be open to visual production and ways of experimenting and creating in their research.
by
Benjamin C Trumble;
Jonathan Stieglitz;
Adrian Jaeggi;
Bret Beheim;
Matthew Schwartz;
Edmond Seabright;
Daniel Cummings;
Hillard Kaplan;
Michael Gurven
The physiology of fatherhood is a growing field of study, and variability in hormonal mediators of reproductive effort (e.g. testosterone, cortisol) can predict variability in paternal investment. Studies often find that lower testosterone levels are associated with increased paternal investment, though most studies are conducted under relatively stable ecological conditions. In this paper, we examine parental physiological correlates of crop loss and family health problems among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists following a catastrophic flood in lowland Bolivia. Immediately after a devastating 2014 flood that impacted >75% of Tsimane communities, we conducted structured interviews examining crop losses and morbidity, and collected saliva specimens from 421 parents (n = 292 households) to analyze cortisol and testosterone. Over 98% of interviewees reported horticultural losses, with the average family losing 88% of their crops, while 80% of families reported flood-induced injuries or illnesses. Controlling for age, body mass index, and time of specimen collection, men's testosterone was negatively associated with both absolute cropland losses (Std. β = −0.16, p = 0.037), and percent of cropland lost (Std. β = −0.16, p = 0.040). Female testosterone was not associated with crop losses. Using the same control variables, both male and female cortisol was negatively associated with a composite measure of child health burden (fathers: Std. β = −0.34, p < 0.001; mothers: Std. β = −0.23, p = 0.037). These results are discussed in the cultural context of a strong sexual division of labor among Tsimane; we highlight the physiological and psychosocial costs of experiencing a natural disaster, especially for paternal caregivers in a nutritionally and pathogenically stressed subsistence population where cultigens provide the majority of calories in the diet.
In 1940 a group of villagers from the Oaxaca town of Zapotitlán Lagunas wrote to the president to protest that the local authorities were forcing them to build a new road for free. Every day, local policemen stormed into their houses, pulled them out of bed, and marched them to the site of the new route. Here, they were forced at gunpoint to work for twelve hours without food, rest, or remuneration. They had never agreed to the project and as “proletarians” they deserved at least the minimum salary for such labor. In reply, the local mayor claimed that these villagers formed a small minority. They were longtime refuseniks, who had repeatedly disobeyed the authorities and simply wanted to “interrupt works of public utility” and “hamper a village that wants to progress.” As the mayor explained, “Tomorrow Zapotitlán will be a town of great improvements, an air field, a road, and other improvements . . . from which we will obtain happiness.” Most had accepted his claims and “offered their labor with good will.”
The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) plays a critical role in modulating social behavior across a wide range of vertebrate species. In humans, intranasal oxytocin (INOT) has been shown to modulate various aspects of social behavior, such as empathy, trust, in-group preference, and memory of socially relevant cues. Most INOT studies employ cross-sectional designs despite the enhanced statistical power and reduction in error variance associated with individual differences characteristic of within-subject designs. Using the Prisoner Dilemma task, which models a real-life dyadic social interaction, our group has systematically explored the effect of INOT on social cooperation and non-cooperation using a cross-sectional design. In the current study, we investigated if the main findings from our cross-sectional study could be replicated in a within-subject design using the same paradigm and whether new findings would emerge. We found OT to attenuate the ventral tegmental area response to reciprocated cooperation in women, an effect that is also present in our cross-sectional sample. However, other cross-sectional findings, especially those found in men, were not observed in this within-subject study. We hypothesize that the discrepancy can be explained by differing OT effects based on the degree of stimulus novelty/familiarity. Our within-subject study also revealed new effects not found previously in our cross-sectional study. Most importantly, OT treatment on scan 2 blocked amygdala habituation to unreciprocated cooperation found in a group that received placebo on both scans among men. Our results suggest that exogenous OT reduces the salience of positive social interactions among women and prevents habituation to negative social interactions among men. These findings may have implications for the potential clinical utility of OT as a treatment for psychiatric disorders.
Social status motivates much of human behavior. However, status may have been a relatively weak target of selection for much of human evolution if ancestral foragers tended to be more egalitarian. We test the "egalitarianism hypothesis" that status has a significantly smaller effect on reproductive success (RS) in foragers compared with nonforagers. We also test between alternative male reproductive strategies, in particular whether reproductive benefits of status are due to lower offspring mortality (parental investment) or increased fertility (mating effort). We performed a phylogenetic multilevel metaanalysis of 288 statistical associations between measures of male status (physical formidability, hunting ability, material wealth, political influence) and RS (mating success, wife quality, fertility, offspring mortality, and number of surviving offspring) from 46 studies in 33 nonindustrial societies. We found a significant overall effect of status on RS (r = 0.19), though this effect was significantly lower than for nonhuman primates (r = 0.80). There was substantial variation due to marriage system and measure of RS, in particular status associated with offspring mortality only in polygynous societies (r = -0.08), and with wife quality only in monogamous societies (r = 0.15). However, the effects of status on RS did not differ significantly by status measure or subsistence type: foraging, horticulture, pastoralism, and agriculture. These results suggest that traits that facilitate status acquisition were not subject to substantially greater selection with domestication of plants and animals, and are part of reproductive strategies that enhance fertility more than offspring well-being.
The problem of boundaries The problem of cultural boundaries arises for any philosophical view that tries to ground meaning or normativity in what "we" do. The particular version of the problem to be discussed here arises out of Ludwig Wittgenstein's writing, but very similar problems arise out of the work of W.V. O. Quine and Wilfrid Sellars. Each of these philosophers was arguing against views that reified word meaning into an abstract or psychological object. While their accounts were different, all held that the meaning of words is determined by what members of a community say and do. It follows that the content of a given word will vary as the community boundaries are drawn differently.