Anthropology

Real 'Geographic Ancestry' Using DNA Coming Soon

One day soon, you may be able to pinpoint the geographic origins of your ancestors based on analysis of your DNA. A study published online this week in Nature by an international team that included Cornell University researchers describes the use of DNA to ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 2 2008 - 12:46pm

A New Approach To The Anthropology Of Religion

COLUMBIA, Mo.-Without a way to measure religious beliefs, anthropologists have had difficulty studying religion. Now, two anthropologists from the University of Missouri and Arizona State University have developed a new approach to study religion by focus ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 9 2008 - 11:53am

This Week: World's Largest-Ever Study Of Near-Death Experiences

The University of Southampton is launching the world's largest-ever study of near-death experiences this week. The AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) study is to be launched by the Human Consciousness Project of the University of Southampton- an i ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 10 2008 - 11:54pm

Crop Cultivation Began 10,000 Years Earlier Than Thought, According To New Computer Model

Researchers say they have found evidence that supports the idea that the emergence of agriculture in prehistory took much longer than originally thought. Until recently researchers say the story of the origin of agriculture was one of a relatively sudden ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 19 2008 - 9:55am

Polite Societies Foster Violent Drinking Cultures, Says Anthropologist

Countries with strict social rules and behavioral etiquette may foster unruly drinking cultures and characteristic bad behavior, according to a new report on alcohol and violence released today by International Center for Alcohol Policies (ICAP). The repor ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Oct 1 2008 - 1:18pm

Religion Makes People Helpful, Honest And Generous- But Atheists Can Be Nice Too

Belief in God encourages people to be helpful, honest and generous, but only under certain psychological conditions, according to University of British Columbia researchers who analyzed the past three decades of social science research. Religious people a ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 2 2008 - 4:21pm

Survivor: Pleistocene? Alliances And Coalitions May Have Begun Long Ago

Want to cause a fight between anthropologists and evolutionary biologists? Throw out an opinion on whether early societies were heirarchical or egalitarian. Great apes societies are very heirarchical despite the presence of alliances and 'political� ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 3 2008 - 1:06pm

The Cultural Evolution Of Religion

As promised in my previous post, I would like to bring to people’s attention one of the best reviews of scientific investigations of religion as a social phenomenon, a paper published in Science (3 October 2008) by Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff of the U ...

Article - Massimo Pigliucci - Oct 10 2008 - 12:20pm

Man's Mastery Of Fire 500,000 Years Earlier Than Believed

The ability to make fire millennia ago was likely a key factor in the migration of prehistoric hominids from Africa into Eurasia, a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Archaeology believes on the basis of findings at the Ge ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 27 2008 - 8:30pm

Lost Architecture Of The Shakers Goes Digital- And A Shaker 'Online' Community Is Coming

A 19th-century historian traveling in southern Ohio later wrote about his first glimpse of Union Village, a Shaker community located near Harrison, Ohio: "When I caught sight of the first house, my opinion was confirmed that I was on the lands of the ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 6 2008 - 11:59am