tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-188730382024-03-06T23:41:21.544-07:00The Ancestress HypothesisThe evolution of modern humans and their complex behavior.The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.comBlogger85125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-21271809927467535732021-04-20T15:36:00.000-07:002021-04-20T15:36:17.498-07:00<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0in;"><u><span style="font-family: arial;">An Empirical Working Definition<o:p></o:p></span></u></p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I
have attempted to show that the characteristics cited by art scholars as being
either necessary or sufficient elements of art (i.e., the aesthetic emotion,
symbols, creativity) are problematic for various reasons. The elements common
to all examples of animal “art” may be a good guide to a working definition.
The modification of a body or object by using color, line, and pattern is
consistent with the characteristics implicit or explicit in definitions of art
used by some of the influential thinkers in aesthetics. Plato, who gave us one
of the earliest implicit definitions of art, implied that color and form were
crucial to art when he wrote,</span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">I think that you must know, for you have often seen
what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colors
which music puts upon them...they are like faces which were never really
beautiful, but only blooming; and now the bloom of youth has passed from them.
(1977: 14)</span></i></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In the 17<sup>th</sup> century, Nicolas Poussin (ca.
1647) defined visual art as “an imitation of anything that is to be seen under
the sun, done with lines and colors upon a surface” (cited in Goldwater &
Treves 1945: 151). Tolstoy's 19<sup>th</sup> century definition is similar:
"To evoke in oneself a feeling one has experienced and having evoked it in
oneself, then by means of movements, lines and colors, sounds or forms,
expressed in words, so to transmit that..." (1977/1897: 65-66).</span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-indent: 27pt;">Early in the 20</span><sup style="text-indent: 27pt;">th</sup><span style="text-indent: 27pt;"> century,
Clive Bell (1958, first published in 1911: 389), a writer associated with the
famous art critic, Roger Fry, defined visual art as "significant form."</span><span style="text-indent: 27pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 27pt;">He claimed that significant form, which
included "combinations of lines and color," was the "one quality
common to all works of visual art" (p. 18-19; see also Beardsley 1958;
Langer 1957). Twelve years after Bell (1923), Boas defined visual art similarly,
as significant form. Almost seventy years after Boas, Dissanayake (1992: 59)
argued that art (“making special”) involves, among a vast number of other
things, bright colors; appealing shapes…and </span>Thus, the following definition is proposed </span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>Visual Art</b>: the modification of an object or body through color, line, pattern and form that is done solely to attract attention to that object or body. Visual art is a mechanism to attract attention to things. As it is used in association with something, it thereby attracts attention to that something. That "something" may be a message. The art draws attention to that message. The proximate aim of visual art is to attract attention, perhaps by provoking emotions. To the extent that visual art is an adaptation then is ultimate function is to influence behavior in ways that promote success in leaving descendants. </i></span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Attract comes from the Latin word<i> attractus</i>, meaning to draw or cause to approach or adhere to. While attract and attractive are often used in the sense of attracting only favorable attention , they also may refer to the fact that visual art pulls or drawn our attention. The sine qua non of visual art is that it is noticeable. The first requirement of influence is to be noticed. </span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Color, scientifically, refers to the characteristic ways object have of reflecting various wavelengths of ambient art. For species that discriminate color, what seems significant is that color makes it possible to identify subtle differences in objects. A functio of color is to aid in the categorization and comparison and in the identification and re-identification of objects (Hilbert 1987). This suggests that colors are attractive to humans because they aided our ancestors in identifying and re-identifying objects and they helped influence appropriate choices. \\</span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 27pt;">Form refers to the
shape and structure of something, often considered in three dimensions</span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 27pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 27pt;">(</span><i style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 27pt;">Webster's
New World Dictionary</i><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 27pt;"> 1964). Humans seem to find some forms more attractive
than others. Form aids in the identification of objects, as, for example fecund
females or healthy and strong males (Low 1979; Thornhill 1998). Form also may
have been important in such things as landscape classification, evaluation, and
orientation for mapping.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 27.35pt;">Pattern, Bateson
(1972: 131) wrote, refers to "any aggregate of events or objects [that]
can be divided in any way by a slash mark, such that an observer perceiving
only what is on one side of the slash mark can guess with better than random
success, what is on the other side of the slash mark." We refer to
aggregates as patterns when that aggregate's extension can be predicted with
greater than chance success. Pattern’s importance may lie in the advantages it
confers in identifying and re-identifying objects, and thus in making choices
(Hilbert 1987; Coe 1992).</span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In sum, visual art is a behavior that involves making art; the behavior of viewing art is implied. Art objects imply the behavior of making art. One necessary condition of visual art seems to be that humans make it. A second necessary condition is that it involves the use of color, line, pattern, and/or form. A third necessary condition is that the color, line, form and pattern have no function other than to attract attention, perhaps by provoking emotion. They were not done to add structural support to a pottery vessel, prevent dental cares (in the case of tooth staining, or act as a preservative, such as in tanning of pelts. Humans have evolved the ability to respond to color, line, pattern and/or form. I argue that artists, and those who encouraged them, exploit this tendency in order to influence social behavior</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A limitation of this definition is that it refers
only to that art involving color, patterns, and/or form: the visual arts. It
does not refer to poetry, storytelling, dance, or music, although they clearly
involve patterns of sound or of movement that attract attention. Further, some
will also feel that another limitation of this definition is that it assumes,
but does not focus on, the large human brain, or any cognitive processes, or on
any emotions associated with making and viewing visual art. While I assume
these are involved in the production and appreciation of art, I have attempted
to make my concerns about emotions and mental processes clear.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The primary value of this definition is that it is
not only in agreement with the usage of the term visual art by a number of
artists, philosophers, and social scientists, but that it also focuses on behavior,
an objective phenomenon that is potentially measurable. By avoiding creativity,
this definition facilitates the cross‑cultural study of art, making a dichotomy
between contemporary and traditional art, or fine art and craft, unnecessary.
Further, as artifacts imply behavior, we can use the term art when we refer to
objects found in prehistoric sites, ethnographic societies, or in New York
galleries. Finally, this definition has the advantage of making explicit an
inheritable or replicable unit, which once was a central issue in evolutionary biology. </span><o:p></o:p></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-20485477002146115112021-04-20T15:11:00.003-07:002021-04-20T15:12:57.824-07:00<p> </p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Creativity and Individualism</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 200%;">Creativity, most art
scholars have argued, is a necessary element of art (Alexander 1990; Joyce
1976); some even argue it is a "human need" or "biological
predisposition" (Dissanayake 1992: 82). The dictionary defines creativity
as “resulting from originality of thought, expression” (p. 341). Creativity,
objectively, refers to "deviating from the expected order"
(Dissanayake 1991:82), or, in a word, innovation, identifiable change. While
many people today see creativity as a necessary characteristic of visual art, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 200%;">Gombrich (1992:119), the art historian, argued that<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoHeader" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 27pt; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.35pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial; line-height: 200%;"><i>our modern notion that an
artist must be ‘original,’ was by no means shared by most people in the past.
An Egyptian, a Chinese, or a Byzantine master would have been greatly puzzled
by such a demand. Nor would a medieval artist of Western Europe have understood
why he should invent new ways of planning a church, a designing a chalice, or
of representing the sacred story when the old ones served the purpose so well.</i></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 27pt; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.35pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 27pt; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.35pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;">“The lust for otherness, for
newness,’ </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;">Bernard
Berenson (1848: 155) wrote in his book <i>Aesthetics
and </i></span><span style="text-indent: 27pt;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 200%;"><i>History,
</i>may </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;">seem to be the most natural
and matter-of-course thing in the world; however, this lust for newness is
neither ancient nor universal. In fact, he wrote,</span></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 27pt; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.35pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoHeader" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.5in 0in 27pt; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.35pt;"><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Prehistoric
races are credited with having had so little of it that a change in artifacts
is assumed to be a change in populations, one following another. The same holds
for the peoples of relatively recent or quite recent date like the Peruvians
and the Mayas and Aztecs as well as the African and Oceanic tribes. Even people
so civilized as the Egyptians changed so little in three thousand years that it
</span><span style="font-family: arial;">takes training to distinguish a Saitic
sculpture from one of the early dynasties. In Mesopotamia also change was slow.
But for Alexander’s conquest, there might have been almost no newness in India,
and but for the Buddhist missionaries as little in China. Why was there so
little craving for novelty everywhere on earth?</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoHeader" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><span>It is important to take a moment here to explain that the
words like traditional art, or conservative style, or ethnographic art, \</span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="line-height: 200%;"> when used to refer to visual
art, do not imply that the visual art will be simple or plain. The visual arts
of China and Egypt, along with thos</span><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">e produced in many parts of the world, were
traditional; most would agree that they are attractive (some might prefer the
words aesthetically pleasing). This visual art, however, was not creative in
the sense of constantly changing or being highly innovative. Magnificent works
of art have been produced without creativity and the artistic freedom that
creativity implies. According to Hauser (1959: 29), “some of the most
magnificent works of art originated…in the Ancient Orient under the most dire
pressure imaginable [this proves] that there is no direct relationship between
personal freedom of the artists and the aesthetic quality of his works.”
Artists in traditiona</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"><span>l societies, in one important sense, are not merely
individuals, they are links in a chain going back into the distant past and
leading on into the future. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoHeader" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: .5in; text-align: left; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">What creativity seems to imply is individualism, or behavior focused on oneself. This practice of using visual art to attract
attention to oneself, as I have pointed out earlier, is fairly rare. Among
traditional people, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Hauser (1959:74)
writes, one cannot find </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 27.0pt; margin-right: .25in; margin-top: 0in; margin: 0in 0.25in 0in 27pt; tab-stops: 27.0pt .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 5.75in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><i>an individual style or personal
ideals or ambitions -- at any rate, there is no sign whatsoever that the artist
cherished any feelings of this sort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Soliloquies such as the poems of Archilochus or Sappho…the claim to be
distinguished from all other artists</i></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i>
which is advanced by Aristonothos, attempts to say something already said in a
different, though not necessarily better fashion -- all this is quite new and
heralds a development which now proceeds without a setback (apart from the
early Middle Ages) to the present day. </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 0.25in; tab-stops: 27.0pt .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 5.75in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;">In Africa, after many
traditions had been lost, the Luba carvers referred to as the Buli Master and
the Master of the Cascade Hairdo appeared (Vogel 1993). These carvers were
recognized by the uniqueness of their art. </span></span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 0.25in; tab-stops: 27.0pt .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 5.75in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Anthropologists recognized long ago that technical mastery
was recognized and appreciated. “Even in the rudest societies,” Lowie (1940:
107) insisted, “some individuals greatly excel the rest in manual skill so that the most
difficult tasks are entrusted to them.” Technical mastery, while not ignored,
was not in any obvious way capitalized upon by the technical master. The great
painters in China, Kriz & Kurz (1979: 114) explained, “do not seek honors
and wealth, they avoid the climate of the court, and they give away their
pictures.” Skill, rather than freeing a talented person, seems to present him
or her with more obligations. Those who have mastered techniques not only have
to make their own visual art objects, but they also have to help others make
theirs. Further, technically well-made objects, as Weissner (1984: 204) has
pointed out, communicate not only skill, but also the diligence, caring, and
hard work of the artist. As techniques are a gift from ancestors to
descendants, as well as a gift given to ancestors by descendants, diligence is
a sign of respect for ancestors. To produce carelessly-made art is to
disrespect the ancestors.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 0.25in; tab-stops: 27.0pt .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 5.75in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Our interest in and appreciation of the exotic
behavior of many contemporary artists, who are artistic iconoclasts and seem to
use their lifestyle to sell their work, does not mean that artists who are not
exotic are not interesting, or without passion, or that they produce art that
is not attractive. Tonkinson (1978), when discussing the individual behavior of
the Mardujara, writes that while most adults were interesting and agreeable
people of pleasant disposition, both sexes had a capacity for rapid and
passionate arousal of emotions to a violent pitch. The emotions seen most often
were anger or sorrow.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 0.25in; tab-stops: 27.0pt .5in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 5.75in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">“Antisocial and excessive behaviors,” Tonkinson
writes, are rare. They occur, he claims, “for a variety of possible underlying
reasons: imperfect socialization, excessive egotism, madness, loss of control,
quirks of personality, poorly controlled temper, and so on” (p. 121). For the Madujara, emotions
that are likely to lead people into breaking ancestral law (e.g., strong
dislike, egotism, covetousness, unbridled sexuality, malicious
gossip) must be kept under control. Individuals who break ancestral law, Tonkinson writes, are held fully responsible for such acts. It is ironic perhaps, that
characteristics seen as antisocial by the Aborigines (e.g., excessive egotism,
poorly controlled temper, madness, quirks of personality), have been seen, on
and off at least since the Renaissance, as evidence of artistic genius. In such a case, the artist him or herself becomes that art - that which attracts and holds attention. </span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><o:p></o:p></p><b><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></b><p></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-49561575395961225942021-04-20T15:00:00.000-07:002021-04-20T15:00:24.308-07:00<p> </p><h3 align="center" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></span><u><span style="font-family: arial;">Symbol and Meaning</span><o:p></o:p></u></span></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 19.85pt; text-indent: 36.4667px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A widespread
scholarly notion specifies that symbols are if not a sufficient
condition of art, are a necessary condition. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span>Today, in common usage, the term symbol refers to an object associated with and serving to identify something (Roget's II 1988).</span></span><b> </b><span>A symbol, for example, can consist of colors, sounds, gestures, or visual images<b>.</b></span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px;"><b> </b>Sy</span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">mbols are similar to signs in that both serve to communicate a message. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="text-indent: 36.4667px;">Signs, however, serve as a marker for something specific and often simple - such as a road sign indicating that the drive should stop,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span>A symbol, on the other hand, is said to represent something more complex and open to interpretation.</span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 19.85pt; text-indent: 36.4667px;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span>Even though symbols are open to interpretation, the meaning of a symbol is often public. </span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">As art critic and philosopher George Dickie (1971: 121) explained, "the interpretation of symbols in paintings and literature is a public matter. Symbols such as halos have a conventional public or social meaning similar to the way in which words have public meanings." The meaning of a symbol is learned from other people, presumably through their speech. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 19.85pt; tab-stops: 4.5pt 49.5pt .75in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-indent: 36.4667px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span>Some writers argue or imply that symbolism is perhaps a sufficient condition for art. </span></span></span><span style="text-indent: 36.4667px;">Mithen (1999), for example, argues that art originated in large-brained humans who had developed the capacity to make and understand symbols. Green (1947z: 308) explained that "it is almost universally agred that if a composition in any medium deserves to be called a "work of art' it has some meaning" </span><span style="text-indent: 36.4667px;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><span>As Boas (1955:88) explained, however, </span></span></span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="text-indent: 36.4667px;">"Not all societies </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="text-indent: 36.4667px;">have art that is meaningful or has associative connotations." Dissanayake (1992:90) writes that the "existence of non-symbolic designs and patterns in human societies suggests that making art is not in any causal or inevitable way dependent on image making or symbolizing." Even "western art, Otten (1971:x) argued, "only partially and </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="text-indent: 36.4667px;">sporadically</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="text-indent: 36.4667px;"> carries this freight of prescribed symbolic meaning. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 36.4667px;">Many objects, even natural objects, can become symbolic as they have “meaning.” We associate a certain place or event that occurred at that place or at that time. To some degree animals understand signs, if not symbols - the sound of a can opener can signify food or it is time to eat. </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 36.4667px;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 19.85pt; tab-stops: 4.5pt 49.5pt .75in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 27.35pt;">Discussions of symbol and meaning often fail to address how the meaning of a symbol is actually transmitted between individuals; how, when it is social, individuals come to agree that it represents a particular thing. It becomes public. While researchers often agree that “common knowledge is a prerequisite to the functioning of the symbols” (Binford 1971:16), they seem to assume that the meaning of a symbol is in some as yet unspecified way transmitted from one human brain to another (Coe 1992). Or, perhaps viewers at a "preconscious or even unconscious level" recognize, through participation in a collective unconscious, a particular shape as a symbol of their "deepest aesthetic feeling" (Vinnicombe 1976: 350). </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 36px;">However, unless humans read each other's minds or have a template in their brains that influences a response to a particular symbol, a symbol’s meaning implies an identified and remembered association with its referent (Coe 1992). The memory of this association is crucial to the meaning of any symbol; indeed, this association appears to constitute the meaning of a symbol. Meaning, in other words, is learned and to the extent its meaning it is shared, it is learned from others presumably through their behavior (speech and actions).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 19.85pt; tab-stops: 4.5pt 49.5pt .75in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To omit meaning from the definition does not imply that art is meaningless; the omission </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 27.35pt;">rather suggests that before we can increase our knowledge of what is undone to art, we </span><span style="text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">must separate art from any message to which it calls attention. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="text-indent: 27.35pt;">It is perhaps for these reasons that Boas (1955:13) argued that a</span><span style="text-indent: 27pt;"> focus on symbols could obscure our study of art. Within a society, he
mused, “there can be…considerable wavering about the meaning of a symbol” (p.
102); "in the designs of the Californian Indians, the same form will be
called by different people or even by the same people at different times, now a
lizard's foot, then a mountain covered with trees, then again an owl's
claw."</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-right: 19.85pt; tab-stops: 4.5pt 49.5pt .75in 1.0in 1.5in 2.0in 2.5in 3.0in 3.5in 4.0in 4.5in 5.0in 5.5in 6.0in 6.5in 7.0in 7.5in 8.0in 8.5in 9.0in 9.5in 10.0in 10.5in 11.0in 11.5in 12.0in 12.5in 13.0in; text-indent: 27pt;"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-86262553004999071282021-04-20T14:57:00.002-07:002021-04-20T14:57:23.933-07:00<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The aesthetic emotion</span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent3"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-indent: 27pt;">Emotion is something that is rarely studied by
ethologists as they typically focus on behaviors, such as a message sent (an
inflated red pouch on a frigate bird) and a response (females notice and mate
with the male). Only a few ethologists concern themselves with any emotional
response experienced by the female. Yet, in humans, emotions are a primary
element of our studies of visual art. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Scholars who define art typically define it by
reference to the emotion it is said to arouse in both the viewer and the
artists. This definition, while appealing, has a number of problems. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">First, it
fails to distinguish what art is from what art does (e.g., arouse an emotion). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Further, it runs the risk of being tautological, inferring a mental state from
the art and then using the mental state to explain art (Lewis-Williams 1982). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In addition, although the emotion aroused by art is said to be pleasure, much
of art is said to arouse grave feelings, or it may leave the viewer bewildered,
confused, non-plussed, unsure of any emotional reaction (Anderson 1979).
Indeed, art may not arouse any emotion; it may arouse “no aesthetic interest”
(Brothwell 1976). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"> I recognize, however, that the emotions associated with visual art are often said to be profound, arousing joy and leading to tears. I also recognize, however, that not all viewers will share the same response. </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 27pt;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 27pt;">However, emotions are fleeting and difficult to articulate (Anderson 1979). Are we really safe
in assuming that all dancers share the same emotions, thoughts, and/or beliefs?</span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent3"><span style="font-family: arial;">A more
serious issue here, however, is that emotions and mental processes probably
exist because of their influence on behavior, particularly social behavior. An
exclusive focus on art and emotion may lead us to ignore art’s social effects.
The assumption that any emotions associated with a behavior imply that the
behavior is necessarily adaptive can lead even scientific studies astray.
Eating high fat foods can be pleasurable; eating many such meals could help
promote an early death from chronic disease. While the scarcity of fat in our
ancestors’ diet may have promoted our ancestors’ taste for fat, fats are no
longer a dietary scarcity. Environments change, and behaviors that were once
adaptive may no longer be adaptive. Similarly, although any emotions associated
with art may suggest that it once was an adaptation, we cannot use these
emotions to argue that it is currently adaptive.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent3"><span style="font-family: arial;">The point of this discussion is not that thoughts
or emotion, or even the presumed aesthetic emotion, are irrelevant to visual
art. In fact, we can assume that visual art attracts us because it interests
us, presumably by provoking some emotion. However, even if we assume that art
does arouse an emotion, we still do not know what elicits the emotion. Is it
aroused by the color, pattern, form, technique, or the experiences associated
with the art object?<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></span></p><br /><p></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-84170715374847261882021-04-08T13:31:00.003-07:002021-04-20T14:51:08.347-07:00<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: 27pt;">Visual art is made by humans</span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Virtually all discussions of visual art make the claim that visual art is manmade; it has a "human creator" (Dissanayake 1992:28). While I accept that only humans produce what we refer to as visual art, the question this raises is why humans regularly refer to the marks that animals make when given pigments and why we find natural objects (e.g.., sunsets, driftwood, colored stones) to be attractive, in the sense that they attract and hold our attention. Further, why do we seem to "art" to refer to those things. What is it about animal "art", sunsets and colored stones that lead people if not to refer to those events and objects as art why do they so often say that they attract and hold their attention? </span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Ethologists use the metaphor
animal “art” to refer to traits, both permanent and seasonal, that characterize a number of species. This “art” includes the brightly colored
feathers of birds, the red belly of the stickleback fish, and the red pouch of
the frigate bird (Darwin 1871; Diamond 1991). While these traits are highly influenced by genes, it seem clear that the opposite sex responds differentially to animals with these characteristics. Further, in regard to behavior, when elephants in the</span> <span style="font-weight: normal;">wild use their trunks to make marks in the dust or a
stick to make scratch marks on the ground, this behavior can be referred to as
“art” (Diamond 1991). When apes in the wild and in captivity were observed
draping themselves with vines and pieces of cloth, Kohler (1925) referred to
this behavior as “art.” Bowerbird nests, wove using hundreds of sticks and, at times, colored objects, such as crushed leaves or other objects, are referred to as “art” (Diamond 1991; Joyce 1975).
Satin bower birds, who make a “paintbrush” by nibbling a piece of bark into an
appropriate shape, hold this tool in their beak to control the flow of
a paint solution used to decorate the bower (van Lawick-Goodall 1970).
Gorillas, orangutan, chimpanzees, and monkeys living in captivity can master
painting with a brush or fingers and can work with chalk, crayons, or pencils
(Morris 1962). Even can experts find this “art” to be indistinguishable, from
products accepted as constituting human visual art.</span> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">While the frigate bird’s pouch does not involve learning (unless the learning consists of how to use the pouch to maximum benefit), making and decorating a
bowerbird nest involves significant learning. By watching other conspecific
males, bowerbirds learn to build bowers that can be as much as nine feet high
and weigh several hundred times the weight of the bird. Learning how to build the bower involves identifying the decoration that apparently makes the nest more attractive to a female. This can involve dragging decorations (brightly color objects, for example) dozens
of yards (Diamond 1991). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The implicit definition of animal “art” seems to
specify neither innateness, nor learning. Nor do all these example necessarily involve the expression of a particular
emotion, with in the creation or the response. The necessary element of animal “art” often seems to be the
modification of a body or object through the use of form, line, pattern, or
color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This decoration can, but does not
necessarily attract attention to a message, including the message: “look at me
or look at me and select me as a mate!” Elephants drawing in the sand and primates draping themselves
with vines and cloth do not seem to be performing these activities for an
audience. As the behaviors do not seem to be noticed, they presumably have no
social effect; that is, they do not attract attention nor do the influence the
behavior of an observer. They are neither patterned nor predictable. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">So, we might draw several points out of this discussion. One is that we regularly use the term art to refer to other things - things in nature - that involve the modification of a body or object (e.g., the bower). In many cases that modification attracts attention; the "art" is done to attract attention. Presumably, the "art" provokes a response - it attracts and holds our attention. This response can help explain why the "art" might be attractive to - attract the attention of - a female. </span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The decoration need not attract attention. For example, some males in their finery are ignored. Perhaps the male's color is not vibrant enough or the pattern of the feathers is off in some way. For some reason that particular male is not successful in attractive females and presumably is less likely to become an ancestor and his genes will, over time, die out. </span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Further, it is not clear why primates drape themselves with vines. No one appears to notice the "art." It has no social effect and it might be predicted that this behavior may not persist. It appears to have no regular effect and perhaps has some costs - attracting the attention of a competitor or another, dangerous species. While you may argue that the draping gives the primate some happiness, thus far it has not been able to identify primate emotions with great accuracy. The emotion is merely assumed to underlie the behavior and then used to explain the behavior. A final point, is that in nature we can observe things that closely resemble what we refer to as art. If we did not focus on an aesthetic emotion then perhaps we would include these as examples of art. </span></p><p class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 27pt;"><br /></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-40225322097766088632021-04-06T12:25:00.004-07:002021-04-20T14:40:26.089-07:00<span style="font-family: georgia;"><br />
<br />
</span><h2><span style="font-family: georgia;">Introduction: Is it possible to define visual art empirically? </span></h2>
<div>
<p style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 49.7pt 0.0001pt 31.5pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The whole science of aesthetics fails to do what we
might expect from it, being a mental activity calling itself a science; namely
it does not define the qualities and laws of art. (Tolstoy 1977:61)</span></p><p style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 49.7pt 0.0001pt 31.5pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"> </span><u style="font-family: georgia; text-align: center;">Introduction</u><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Evolutionary
biologists, who know how important definitions are, do
not always feel obligated to precisely or objectively define terms they are using, particularly if those terms refer to human behaviors. Richard Alexander (2001: 5), one of the best of the evolutionary scholars, wrote: “I am deliberately vague
or imprecise in my usage of a term like ‘culture’ and ‘the arts’ because I wish
to err on the side of inclusiveness.” P</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">oets and philosophers are known to claim that the arts "are too intangible and changing to be defined or classified" (Munro 1949"5),</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Making the issue of identifying what art is more complex is the fact that anthropologists are known to claim that indigenous and other non-westernized people have no word for art. “It is almost a cliché (perhaps a little too unexamined),” Murphy (1994) wrote, “to remark that there is no word for art in the language of this or that people” (p. 650-651). Whether or not those people produced objects that closely resemble what we call "art" is apparently irrelevant. </span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Making the problem of defining art even more difficult is the fact that t</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">he term art is used to refer to so many things - the art of war, the art of cooking, the art of medicine. These, however, may be mere metaphorical extensions of an implicit definition. </span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Three things that we need to try to explain here are (1) is it true that some people don't have a work for art and, if so, do they not produce anything that resembles what we call art? (2) why is it said to be so difficult to define art and (3) Is it possible to propose a definition of art that s more inclusive - that includes both westernized and non-westernized (e.g., indigenous) art and that allows for empirical study. </span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The first problem we might not solve to anyone's satisfaction (including mine), but it seems clear that even through people may not have a word for art, they do produce objects that not only resemble what we call art, but that have had an influence on westernized artists. French artists - Matisse, Picasso, were influenced by indigenous art. It only makes sense that indigenous art now is classified by some art historians as a form of contemporary art. </span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The second issue is related to the influence that art critics and historians have had. For decades, they have written and talked (seemingly endlessly) about the so called aesthetic emotion, an emotion (poorly defined) said to be aroused by viewing and presumably making art. <i>X is art IFF it arouses a specific emotion</i> (in certain people). If we focus solely on visual art (or the plastic arts), prehistorians have faced a conundrum - there is no way to know if prehistoric art aroused an aesthetic emotion. The way prehistorians solved this is by saying that art was </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">an inappropriate term to use for objects found in the prehistoric or ethnographic record (see Conkey 1983, 1993; Soffer 1997; Tomásková 1997; White 1992).</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-indent: 0in;"> We cannot assume, scholars argue, that
the primary function of either prehistoric or ethnographic art was or is aesthetic. This is especially true if indigenous people have no term for aesthetic emotion. So, even though prehistoric "whatever" was referred to for decades as "art," it no longer was art.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In sum, one reason scholars have been unable to define art is that they have focused on an emotion, the so called aesthetic emotion that indigenous people, if asked about the aesthetic emotion, would just be bewildered. I think the problem is that the term initially was used by art critics and historians to classify art they liked (good or fine art) from art that they dismissed (e.g., non art, bad art, or craft). Instead of focusing on something like mastery of technique, which most people, regardless of their status, are able to identify, they focused on an elusive emotion said to be aroused only by certain art produced in westernized societies. </span></span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In regard to the third problem, the definition of the term "art", we will not solve that problem here in this blog post. However, to begin, the term art has ancient roots and at the beginning it was an inclusive term. It perhaps came from the Sanskrit word for "making" (Duchamp, cited in Cabanne 1971:16). Later, the Latin word <i>ars</i> meant a craft or specialized form of skill (Munro 1949). Throughout the Middle Ages artists were classified as craftsmen who controlled particular techniques. It was in the 16th century that "artists" came to be distinguished from craftsmen and credited with possessing a particular, individualistic genius that aroused, in the viewer, an aesthetic emotion - an emotion that was not aroused by crafts. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is no accident that it was at this time that the first truly influential art historian, Giorgio Vasari, appeared. His book, <i>Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects</i> opened the door to discussions of good art (i.e.., fine art) versus craft. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-indent: 0in;">In the 18th century the word </span><i style="font-family: georgia; text-indent: 0in;">aesthetic</i><span style="text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> was coined by Alexander Baumgarten. The root of the word was the Greek word, <i>aisthetikos</i>, which referred to perception of the senses. He used the word that to refer to what he found to be beautiful and what he identified as beauty was perfection. Beauty was something we could perceive and respond to. </span></span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Visual art, in other words, has not always had conceptual attachments to aesthetics, beauty, or emotion. While we can respond to beauty in nature, that does not mean that nature is art or that our emotion is an aesthetic one. That emotion is aroused only by fine art.</span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0in;"><u style="font-family: georgia;">Classificatory Definitions</u></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent3"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A classificatory definition merely asks whether or not something is or is not a work of art. According to Dickie (1971:41) a classificatory definition attempts to </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">specify the necessary and sufficient conditions needed for something to be a work of art. A necessary condition for being an X is a characteristic why any object must have in order to</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">be an X. A sufficient condition of an X is a characteristic which, if that object has that</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">characteristic, it is an X. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Similarly, Socrates argued that if we examine a word's various usage, we will find some element that the common to all of those usages, but not to other things. We then will be able to isolate the element that is the essence of things (McEvilley 1992: 166). To ensure that our classificatory definition is also a scientific one we need to add the requirement that the necessary and/or sufficient qualities must be empirically verifiable. We next will continue that search for a classificatory definition. </span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent3"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It may seem irrelevant to define art (or any term for that matter); however, unless we have a definition of visual art how can we study it scientifically? How can we know if it is a behavior found solely in certain elite groups of people in westernized societies. How might be identify any possible function? How can we answer the question posed by Plato and Socrates over two thousand years ago: what role does art play "in the well ordered state"? </span></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent3"><br /></p><p class="MsoBodyTextIndent3"><br /></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoBodyText" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent"><o:p></o:p></p></div>
The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-73555020592502460172021-03-30T14:13:00.077-07:002021-04-06T11:00:11.179-07:00<p> </p><p><br /></p><p>Peopling of the Americas (excuse the font issues - I cannot figure out how to resolve them)</p><p>Many years ago, when I was a graduate student, I took a two year long course with Christy Turner on the peopling of the world. Each one of us - or a team in some cases - took a continent. I selected South America. </p><p>It was fascinating to try to figure things out. First I had to try to develop an understanding of the geography and climate as they existed at the time after the ice corridor opened</p><p>If the corridor in the ice in Canada did not open until about 10,000 years ago - which is what was estimated at the time - and that was the only way people got to the Americas, which was sort of what they assumed then, that had to be my start date. I assumed they didn't run like 20 year old track stars for the tip of South America - although they seemed to have been present then some 8-9,000 years ago.</p><p>Once migrating people arrived in Central America they would have, if they had settled there, created a bottle neck that would have made it difficult for anyone else to get into South America.</p><p>However, as people obviously got past the bottle neck, they would have had some problems getting very far into South America. They would have had problems going down the west coast, as Colombia doesn't have a large or inviting coastal plain. If they had gone to the east, they would soon have run into the Orinoco Drainage. Crossing it would have required some sort of boat. If they had gone down the middle, they had to climb up the side of the Andes. They would have had to climb quite high to reach the intermountain valleys, some of which were blocked by glaciers. If they had somehow made it to Ecuador's coastal plain, which is quite large, they would have had to cross several rivers - the Esmeraldas and the Guayas. If they had tried to continue down the coast, lack of water would have been a problem. Little rain falls around Lima and along the coast of Chile they would have encountered few rivers flowing to the sea. Consequently, finding fresh water would have been problematic. </p><p>I also looked at culture and found that objects like the Jew's Harp was used in the Amazon. There were other similarities with the cultural practices of Australia (assuming the Pacific Islands were not populated until much later).</p><p>Further, it was of interest that - if my memory does not fail me - that the coast of Antarctica was land not ice early on - some 6,000 years ago. I began to wonder if some people had not traveled from Australia, via Antarctica, to the tip of South America and then up into the Amazon Basin. Early anthropologists did consider that to be a possibility; however for some reason the idea was dropped. I am sure the reasons were good one; however, today I read that indigenous people in South America do share ancestry - genes -with Australians. The researchers assumed that the ancestors from Australia had traveled via the Bering Strait. I wonder if some didn't come north, via Antarctica. Only time and more evidence can reveal such patterns. Certainly, I ended up feeling that sea travel had occurred earlier than we thought at the time.</p><p>Long ago, perhaps in the 1960s Betty Megger argued that the Japanese visited the coast of South America. She claimed that she had found similarities in language and anchors that were identical to those used in Japan. Once we had some visitors from Japan and when I showed them a picture of a Valdivia figurine from Ecuador's Sta Elena Province (c. 3000 BC) they immediately said "Jomon". However, her ideas were rejected as "cult anthropology."</p><div data-v-0f498130="" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; letter-spacing: -0.32px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><pharos-heading data-qa="item-title" data-v-0f498130="" level="1" preset="3" style="--pharos-alert-color-background-base: #cccccc; --pharos-alert-color-background-error: #dc2828; --pharos-alert-color-background-info: #b4dee4; --pharos-alert-color-background-success: #e3eed8; --pharos-alert-color-background-warning: #ffefc2; --pharos-alert-color-icon-base: #333333; --pharos-alert-color-icon-error: #ffffff; --pharos-alert-color-icon-info: #00627a; --pharos-alert-color-icon-success: #54842a; --pharos-alert-color-icon-warning: #624e18; --pharos-alert-color-link-base: #000000; --pharos-alert-color-link-inverse: #ffffff; --pharos-alert-color-text-base: #343332; --pharos-alert-color-text-inverse: #ffffff; --pharos-asset-font-gt-america-standard-400-italic: "assets/fonts/GT-America-Standard-Regular-Italic.woff2"; 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--pharos-spacing-brand-1-x: 1rem; --pharos-spacing-brand-2-x: 2rem; --pharos-spacing-brand-3-x: 3rem; --pharos-spacing-brand-5-x: 5rem; --pharos-spacing-brand-7-x: 7rem; --pharos-spacing-brand-one-and-a-half-x: 1.5rem; --pharos-spacing-brand-one-eighth-x: 0.125rem; --pharos-spacing-brand-one-half-x: 0.5rem; --pharos-spacing-brand-one-quarter-x: 0.25rem; --pharos-spacing-brand-three-and-a-half-x: 3.5rem; --pharos-spacing-brand-three-quarters-x: 0.75rem; --pharos-text-input-color-icon-invalid: #dd3431; --pharos-text-input-color-icon-valid: #268241; --pharos-textarea-size-height-base: 3.5rem; --pharos-tooltip-color-background-base: #343332; --pharos-tooltip-color-text-base: #ffffff; --pharos-tooltip-size-text-base: 0.875rem; --pharos-transition-base: 250ms cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.67, 0.83, 0.67); --pharos-transition-curve-base: cubic-bezier(0.17, 0.67, 0.83, 0.67); --pharos-transition-duration-default: 250ms; --pharos-transition-duration-long: 500ms; --pharos-transition-duration-longer: 1000ms; --pharos-transition-duration-short: 100ms; --pharos-transition-duration-shorter: 50ms; --pharos-type-scale-10: 2.625rem; --pharos-type-scale-11: 3rem; --pharos-type-scale-12: 3.375rem; --pharos-type-scale-13: 3.75rem; --pharos-type-scale-14: 4.25rem; --pharos-type-scale-1: 0.75rem; --pharos-type-scale-2: 0.875rem; --pharos-type-scale-3: 1rem; --pharos-type-scale-4: 1.125rem; --pharos-type-scale-5: 1.25rem; --pharos-type-scale-6: 1.5rem; --pharos-type-scale-7: 1.75rem; --pharos-type-scale-8: 2rem; --pharos-type-scale-9: 2.25rem; box-sizing: inherit; contain: content; display: block;"><h1 class="heading" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: inherit; font-family: var(--pharos-font-family-serif); font-size: var(--pharos-type-scale-6); font-weight: var(--pharos-font-weight-regular); letter-spacing: calc(var(--pharos-type-scale-6) * -0.01); line-height: var(--pharos-line-height-brand-large); margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Valdivia, Jomon Fishermen, and the Nature of the North Pacific: Some Nautical Problems with Meggers, Evans, and Estrada's (1965) Transoceanic Contact Thesis</span></span></h1></pharos-heading><div class="mbm" data-qa="item-authors" data-v-0f498130="" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "GT America Standard", Helvetica, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Droid Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 16px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; padding: 0px;"><div class="contrib very-dark-gray-color" data-v-0f498130="" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #4b5555; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Gordon F. McEwan and D. Bruce Dickson</div></div></div><div class="metadata-text" data-v-0f498130="" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "GT America Standard", Helvetica, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Droid Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem; letter-spacing: -0.32px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /><div class="item-journal-info" data-v-0f498130="" style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.25; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="journal" data-qa="journal" data-v-0f498130="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><cite data-v-0f498130="" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: inherit; display: inline; font-size: inherit;">American Antiquity</cite></div><div data-v-0f498130="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="src break-word" data-qa="item-src-info" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px;">Vol. 43, No. 3 (Jul., 1978), pp. 362-371 (10 pages)</div></div></div><div class="item-published-by very-dark-gray-color" data-v-0f498130="" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #4b5555; line-height: 1.25; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="publisher" data-qa="publisher" data-v-0f498130="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Published </span>by: <span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><a class="publisher-link" href="https://www.jstor.org/publisher/cup" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; color: black; cursor: pointer; line-height: inherit; transition-duration: 0.25s; transition-property: color; transition-timing-function: ease-in-out;">Cambridge University Press</a></span></div></div></div><h4 class="heading" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: var(--pharos-form-element-color-text-base); display: block; font-family: var(--pharos-font-family-sans-serif); font-size: var(--pharos-form-element-size-text-label); font-weight: var(--pharos-font-weight-bold); letter-spacing: calc(var(--pharos-form-element-size-text-label) * -0.02); line-height: var(--pharos-line-height-brand-small); margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="font-family: arial;">ABSTRACT</span></h4><h4 class="heading" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: var(--pharos-form-element-color-text-base); display: block; font-family: var(--pharos-font-family-sans-serif); font-size: var(--pharos-form-element-size-text-label); font-weight: var(--pharos-font-weight-bold); letter-spacing: calc(var(--pharos-form-element-size-text-label) * -0.02); line-height: var(--pharos-line-height-brand-small); margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Meggers, Evans, and Estrada's (1965) thesis, that storm-tossed Jomon fishermen drifted across the North Pacific to the coast of Ecuador and introduced pottery-making at the Valdivia site, is presented. The thesis is examined from the standpoint of the mechanics of such a voyage. The nature of the surface current patterns in the North Pacific are discussed, together with the weather conditions found along the presumed route, the types of vessels known archaeologically for the early Jomon, and the suitability of such vessels for a trans-Pacific crossing. Finally, the survival problems faced by a crew adrift in an open boat on the North Pacific are presented. It is concluded that contact between Jomon and Valdivian peoples was unlikely to have occurred in the manner suggested by Meggers, Evans, and Estrada. Several possible alternative routes and explanations are advanced.</span></h4><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><h2 style="-webkit-box-orient: vertical; -webkit-line-clamp: 3; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(152, 152, 152); box-sizing: border-box; display: -webkit-box; line-height: 1.33em; margin: 0px 0px 0.683106em; max-height: 4.09em; max-width: 100%; overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 0.1em; text-align: left; text-overflow: ellipsis; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; width: 1147.38px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span><span>Archaeology | Studies examine </span></span>clues of transoceanic contact </span></div></h2><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: black;">Bradley T. Lepper is curator of archaeology at the Ohio Historical Society.</span></em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><a href="mailto:blepper@ohiohistory.org" style="background-size: 5px 1em; box-shadow: white 0px -0.175em inset, rgba(97, 139, 178, 0.8) 0px -0.2em inset; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; text-decoration-line: none; text-shadow: white -0.05em -0.05em, white -0.05em 0.05em, white 0.05em -0.05em, white 0.05em 0.05em; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out 0s;"><span style="background-color: black; color: black;">blepper@ohiohistory.org</span></a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="font-family: Crimson Text, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="background-color: black; font-size: 17.5px;">https://www.dispatch.com/article/20130519/news/305199804 </span></span></p></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><span><span style="background-color: black;">Pottery offers a bonanza of information for archaeologists. It represents a revolution in container technology, and the clay from which it is made provides a canvas with many possibilities for self-expression. As a result, differences and similarities in pottery decorations can offer clues about cultural relationships over space and through time.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span>Residues on pots reveal important clues to how people used their pottery. An international team of scientists reported last month in the journal </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Nature</em><span> the results of chemical analyses of the charred gunk on the surfaces of pottery shards from Jomon period sites in Japan. They determined it was composed mostly of the oily residue from cooking ocean fish.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span>T</span><span>he Jomon culture was mentioned in other news this month. The largest ever genetic study of native South Americans identified a sub-population in Ecuador with an unexpected link to eastern Asia. The study, published in <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">PLOS Genetics</em>, concluded that Asian genes had been introduced into South America sometime after 6,000 years ago -- the same time the Jomon culture was flourishing in Japan.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: black;">Back in the 1960s, the renowned Smithsonian archaeologist Betty Meggers argued that similarities between the pottery of the contemporaneous Valdivia culture in Ecuador and Japan’s Jomon culture indicated that Japanese fishermen had “discovered” America about 5,000 years ago.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: black;">Few archaeologists took this idea seriously. Gordon McEwan and Bruce Dickson, writing in a 1978 issue of <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">American Antiquity</em>, pointed out significant flaws with the hypothesis.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: black;">First of all, Pacific Ocean currents did not provide a direct route from Japan to Ecuador. Second, Jomon dugout canoes were unlikely to have been sufficiently seaworthy to allow a crew to survive an extended voyage across the ocean. Finally, food and fresh water would have been difficult to obtain.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: black;">Writing in 1980, Meggers expressed frustration that transoceanic contact as an explanation for cultural similarities was dismissed by dogmatic colleagues as “cult archaeology,” and she complained that “no amount of evidence” could convince them.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: black;">I can appreciate Meggers’ frustration, but although it’s likely that no amount of the same type of evidence that she marshaled in support of her original argument could make a thoroughly convincing case, I believe that most archaeologists could be convinced if compelling new evidence for transpacific contact were uncovered.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: black;">The discovery of an apparent genetic link between eastern Asians and Ecuadoran natives provides intriguing independent support for Meggers’ hypothesis. Moreover, the fact that Jomon pottery was used predominantly for cooking seafood suggests that Jomon fishermen would have had little trouble feeding themselves on a long ocean voyage.</span></p><div class="ad-container ad ad-300x250" style="box-sizing: border-box; clear: right; float: right; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; height: auto; margin: 1.2138em 0px 1.2138em 1.2138em; min-height: 250px; width: 300px;"><div class="ad-refresh" data-dimensions="[300,250]" data-gh-lazy-ad-bucket-targeting="{"keyword":"Science And Technology,Cartoons","ad-type":"standard","slot":"View Plus Med Rec","sov":"base ROS","refresh":"true","adcount":"2"}" data-gh-object-lazy-loaded="false" data-gh-object-offset="400" data-gh-object="{"method":"__gh__webApp.utilities.adsRefresh.refreshSlot","data":{"id":"lazyad-02-adRefresh","orgId":"lazyad-02","loadNow":"true"}}" data-secondlevel-7103="" id="lazyad-02-adRefresh" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: black;">Transoceanic contact long has been a popular explanation for cultural similarities, such as the occurrence of pyramids in both Egypt and Mexico. Archaeologists have demonstrated, however, that such similarities are largely superficial and meaningless. When closely examined, Egyptian and Mayan pyramids turn out to be fundamentally different things.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span>Meggers might prove to have been r</span><span>ight after all about the origins of Valdivia pottery, but she was wrong to attribute the rejection of her ideas to scientific dogmatism. Meggers simply didn’t have the extraordinary evidence to support her extraordinary claim.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Crimson Text", Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.5px; margin: 1em 0px;"><br /></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-27927311029713822882020-12-20T14:44:00.000-07:002020-12-20T14:44:44.659-07:00<h1 style="text-align: left;"> Why I wish we lived in Apache Junction</h1><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">We don't live in Apache Junction, although we live near there in a place that considers Apache Junction to be, well, a hick town. Can you imagine a more historic and romantic name than Apache Junction? It actually must be, according to my calculations, located on a prehistoric path, perhaps a Hohokam trade route. I can imagine the people moving back and forth, the petroglyphs that must mark the path, the events that happened, and the items being traded. </h3><h3 style="text-align: left;">Many of the streets in Apache Junction have historical names (e.g., Remington, Thunderbird, Wells Fargo, Concho, Tomahawk, Wickiup Rd., Conestoga Road, Wagon Wheel Road, Vaquero, Chaparral, Cortez, Cochise, Pima, De Soto, Raindance, Teepee) or biological name (e.g., Ocotillo, Palo Verde, Saguaro, Grease Wood, Iron Wood, Manzanita, Smoketree, Cactus Wren). The streets offer history lessons or point out what you should know if you want to understand this area and its history. It will help you realize what a fascinating place Apache Junction is.</h3><h3 style="text-align: left;">There used to be a large number of rock and gem stores, which I love to visit, and a bunch of funky antique stores. It was a wonderful place and one of the most wonderful places was Buckhorn Baths. </h3><div><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifwy3QeqsNUl59Ven87QxbbY7uF1Xaz8_WwyhOO1Y0PiYmW-_s2154k411eHDy9ovT4rQJdYJqrzyi8PvgNYOdRoPBZzytkWa3lw1xn6Xz19FYpxyZiZBmHHoM41FQMeGazHVQ/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifwy3QeqsNUl59Ven87QxbbY7uF1Xaz8_WwyhOO1Y0PiYmW-_s2154k411eHDy9ovT4rQJdYJqrzyi8PvgNYOdRoPBZzytkWa3lw1xn6Xz19FYpxyZiZBmHHoM41FQMeGazHVQ/" width="300" /></a></div><br />\<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ApacheTrail/posts/this-1944-image-shows-buckhorn-baths-on-apache-trail-and-recker-road-before-they/1585762284838854 /" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/ApacheTrail/posts/this-1944-image-shows-buckhorn-baths-on-apache-trail-and-recker-road-before-they/1585762284838854 /</a></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;">If you are interested in prehistoric paths, this is a good article to get you started.</h3><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.ajpl.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Arch-20171114.pdf">https://www.ajpl.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Arch-20171114.pdf</a></div><h4 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h4>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-69874226036442059212020-12-19T13:52:00.000-07:002020-12-19T13:52:24.501-07:00<p> </p><p><br /></p><h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Abuelas, Nanas, Grandmothers</span></h1><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It seems that grandmothers have become popular again, credited with promoting the fitness of their descendants. I don't disagree with that premise. I do disagree with several points.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">1. If the children, when they get old, replicate the cultural/behavioral strategies of the grandmother, then it becomes an ancestral strategy. I am sure that evolutionary biologists look at it generation by generation, but if you look at it in terms of everyone the grandmother influences, it seems clear that her influence is copied across generations and at any point in time she is, what the Mongolians would say, the one who founds a lineage, perhaps even a lineage going back as far as Genghis Khan. However, no matter how often I repeat myself, my words fall on deaf ears. We cannot escape from kin selection/inclusive fitness. I have to wonder if it is the sole means of explaining cooperation (other than reciprocal altruism - which has tough requirement and thus is tough to test) even in other species. However, I leave that for future generations to solve.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">2. I also agree that when a mother has more than one child she needs a strategy to get them to cooperate with her and with one another. Part of that strategy may involve having the grandmother teach them those skills while the mother tends to breast feeding, foraging, preparing food, keeping her husband happy - all cultural practices that she had been taught by her mother and grandmother. That teaching may have been explicit - "Do this!", or it may have been implicit, perhaps described in a story, or it may have been taught by modeling behavior. The how is less important than the result. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">3. The grandmother did more than teach her daughter (as a child) to find nutritious roots. That was only one thing she might have done, but even that she learned from her mother, who learned it from her mother. To try to make this clear, girls learn certain skills by watching their mothers. They learn other skills - probably social skills - from their grandmothers. </span></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-91891823118396187602020-12-18T14:25:00.000-07:002020-12-18T14:25:09.093-07:00Education and its discontents<p> </p><p><b>Education and its discontents (and contents)</b></p><p><br /></p><p>Once upon a time, at least in my imagination, the buildings in which teaching and learning occurred were designed to be beautiful and to last for centuries. The ideas taught in those buildings centered on logic, education, and the virtues and vices of humanity.</p><p>Today, institutions of higher learning are more "institutional" - not designed or built to last forever or inspire the viewer with their beauty. However, although they have lost the beauty element, they continue to teach what we call the humanities. Now it is left to community colleges to teach many of the skills such as plumbing and construction and car repair. </p><p>When I studied drawing long ago in a university, the worst insult you could get from your professor was that your drawing was beautiful. Beautiful meant trite, unimaginative, pattern. If by mistake you did draw something "beautiful" you were asked to take a pencil, pen, knife, or eraser and slash lines through your mistake.</p><p>When I studied literature in a university, our interpretations had to be, if not the interpretation of the professor (which was not always made clear), then a summary of the interpretation of some other scholar with whom the professor agreed. Despite the fact that any narrative can probably have a million possible interpretations, your interpretation if not repetitive was seen a faulty. Has it always been that way, even when the university campus was built to be beautiful and to last generations? Did the students of Socrates have to copy what Socrates said. Apparently so, as that is why we know about his thinking, just as that is the way we know what Confucius and many others have taught. </p><p>However, what concerns me here is the loss of beauty, which one might mourn as one mourns the loss of one's belief in the goodness of humankind. My real interest here is copying. We are a species know for copying. A first question is how did we get from beauty to practicality? Did funding inspire the change? Further, we may copy the virtues listed above or we may join others in rejecting them. By copying I do not mean plagiarism, although that is rampant, but the fact that many faculty and students seem to be expected to copy the ideas, words, postures...of those they accepted as role and thought models when they were graduate students. Where in this picture are the original thinkers, the ones who having learned the accepted models of thought, begin to forge their own way? More importantly, where in the humanities are the original thinkers - not just those who change a few words or describe the thoughts using academic terms. </p><p>The Liberal Arts include the sciences, which depend on hypotheses that are testable, not on how they fit with prior thinking (that that is there to some significant extent), but on the falsifiability and strength of their hypotheses. Evolutionary biology is trying to lure the humanities into its realm. I have to wonder though, as despite the fact that they are using - or reciting - modern Darwinian theory as a base - they often propose non-testable hypotheses that are, however worded in complex academic terms -- terms not defined either in the paper or dictionaries. Further, to what extent are mistakes made and, worse yet, copied generation after generation? Do interesting hypotheses, albeit nontestable, ever correct themselves or does "science" continue along a path that takes humanities scholars ever more deeply into convoluted errors of thinking.</p><p>Don't get me wrong, copying is not necessarily a negative thing. Copying helps a students get As and helps us be seen as members of any particular community. Shibboleths. As one example, young women who copy sorority girls are modeling behaviors known to be successful in attracting wealthy husbands. There are many possibly examples, but perhaps I am too skeptical. Can one be too skeptical when one lives in a social group created by humans? </p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-1149644155477157052020-12-18T12:45:00.000-07:002020-12-18T12:45:17.906-07:00Blaming the victim<span style="font-family: arial;">Many people in the US today seem to be professional victims. They are very good at it and have even raised it to an art form. These people have no responsibility for what occurs to them. It is fate, historical issues, poverty, disgusting people, or nasty white (or other) men who are to blame. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial;">It is probably a good bet that all of our ancestors suffered. That is a given. We have been on earth as Homo sapiens for some 100,000-300,000 years. One can guess that at least one and probably many of our ancestors suffered at the hands of others. </span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This brings us to the topic of blaming the victim. If a young and attractive woman, against the advice of her mother and friends, wears a tiny skirt and low cut blouse and wanders into a strange ghetto at night, does she have to accept any of the responsibility for being raped?</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">According to Wikipedia, </span><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family: arial;">Victim-blaming consists of holding victims </span><span style="font-family: arial;">of crimes </span><span style="font-family: arial;">or other misfortunes wholly or partly responsible </span><span style="font-family: arial;">for what has happened to them.</span></li></ul><p><span style="font-family: Arial;">Wikipedia then provides two examples:</span></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: arial;">For example: a motorist who leaves a car unlocked with the keys in the ignition may seem partly responsible if another party steals the car. Or persons who use verbal abuse may count as partly responsible if they suffer a physical assault.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">In the context of rape</span><span style="font-family: arial;">, this concept refers to popular attitudes that behaviour such as flirting </span><span style="font-family: arial;">or wearing sexually provocative clothing </span><span style="font-family: arial;">may encourage rape: that such actions resemble leaving one's car with the keys in the ignition or provoking an assault by "winding up" the assailant. In extreme cases people may accuse victims of "asking for it" by not behaving demurely.</span></li></ul><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This theory, Wikipedia goes on to write, "depends on the view that a prospective victim should know and acknowledge either human nature </span><span style="font-family: arial;">or other facts of life when making decisions. Thus persons may appear blameworthy if they act recklessly or with negligence. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Laws acknowledge this concept in some areas, for example when a driver ignores the rules of the road. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span> </p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-26216379326452308172020-12-18T12:40:00.000-07:002020-12-18T12:40:08.894-07:00<b>Health Promoters</b><div><br /></div><div>I was thinking today about lay health promoters. They go by various names - indigenous health worker, lay health workers, community health workers, etc. - however, all share the common role of serving communities that are underserved and that have populations that differ from the majority of professional providers - either in language/culture, race/ethnicity or SES. Having worked in those communities for many years I have been a strong proponent of those programs. However, I also realize that there are many requirements if such programs are to work. The promoter needs to be a member of the community he/she will serve, they need to be carefully selected and they need to be property trained, with continuing education required. And the programs need to be well funded and supported by the entity with which they are affiliated. <div><br /></div><div>This morning I was reading <i>A Tzeltal Maya Community </i>by Robert Harman<i>.</i> On page 219 I read:</div><div><br /></div><div> "The Indianist Institute has clinics which are well equipped and staffed by full-time salaried physicians or promoters. However, the Institute has no way to compel individuals to follow its recommendations on health related matters. This problem became clear when I spoke with members of the community about an Institute-sponsored puppet theatre in which characters act out humorous roles that delight the audience. The purpose of the puppet theater is to instruct viewers to employ Western medical practices and beliefs in order to promote better health. Beliefs in witchcraft and other 'superstitions' are ridiculed by the puppets, but, while the viewers recalled that they enjoyed the performance, they did not remember the import of the health topic messages. As a result of the puppet theater and other education many of the Indians have adopted the term <i>microbios</i> ('microbes') into their vocabulary, but none appear to associate with the word meanings that resemble those of the western world."</div><div><br /></div><div>This account then goes on to describe the life of the promoter, who, it admits, save lives and alleviate suffering. On page 220, the life of the promoter is described:</div><div><br /></div><div>"The same promoter believes that people get sick frequently from winds and microbes, which have the effect of drying up the body. He uses his affluence to support three wives, polygamy being a traditional symbol of wealth and prestige in Maya society. He tells patients to avoid 'hot' foods on the day they receive an injection with the rationale that it would interact unfavorably with the 'hot' medicine. He speaks with conviction about the clairvoyances of a local shaman and about the peopling of Oxchuc by distant ancestors as recorded in the <i>kawaltik</i>, a sacred book which is actually a legal document written by a Spanish administrator in 1674."</div></div><div><br /></div><div>The first example, of the puppet performances is interesting. The people in the audience reacted to the plays as if they were forms of entertainment, not as forms of education - in other words, the plays - which are enacted stories -did not "teach" them about health. Needless to say, they did not incorporate what they did not learn into their behavior. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is clear that storytelling - in puppet play format - doesn't necessarily educate - doesn't necessarily change behavior (the aim of education being to change behavior). It might be true that puppet theatre in the past has always been about entertainment and that is what members of the audience expected to see and responded to as such. However, it is equally true - or seems to be true - that we are influenced even by plays, stories, movies, etc. that entertain us. If we are influenced we are more likely to change our behavior to the models presented. It would be interested to see if even if the members of the audience couldn't recite the message they were likely to change their behavior. The author didn't ask that question.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the second example, one question is - does his increased prestige - having three wives - help him influence people? Is a hierarchy important in influencing others? A third question is whether the fact that the promoter is paid make him less likely to be seen as a member of the community. He was a member when he was poor - does he continue to be seen as one? </div><div><br /></div><div>I could go on, but this is long enough. Perhaps I will continue this theme on another day. </div>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-76910259849844333962020-12-13T14:20:00.000-07:002020-12-13T14:20:07.927-07:00<p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>By chance, when I was trying to find this blog on the internet, I ran into a review that Chris Knight wrote about my book. Needless to say, as I have met him and seen his arrogance (perhaps the arrogance is deserved - I am merely commenting on his behavior) he makes it "painfully obvious" (his words) that the book, basically, is foolish, poorly conceptualized. His dismissal of my book, however. was based on his misunderstanding of my argument. </p><p>As social relationships evolved around a mother, I argue she could have been the one to have originated culture, perhaps by braiding her child's hair (as braids are seen in the so called Venus figurines) or perhaps she could have provided some other form of decoration. Art, in other words. Over time, the decoration, if replicated by the next generations, would come to identify those who are kin due to shared descent from a common ancestor. The mother, also would have been the one to establish rules of behavior, as having more than one child makes it necessary to influence the behavior of siblings. Her life would be hell if she didn't establish rules. Those rules were taught by modeling behavior - acting like what she wanted to see - and through stories or myths. </p><p>I don't say that art and rules of behavior (behavior codes as they came to be called) were always the province of females. I only say that is how it could have started. Over time if her children copied what she had done, and her children's children copied what she had done, on down through time, what we would end up with would be large numbers of individuals dressed similarly - we used to call this tribal and clan decoration. </p><p>Kin selection theory implies that we need to identify those with whom we cooperate. Without that identification there is no reason to suspect we will differentially cooperate. Kin selection, however, only can account for a small number of kin, those with whom we predictably share genes. What I am arguing, is that humans cooperate with those they identify as kin, often through body decoration or through kin names. Knight ignores those points</p><p>His argument, which differs from mine, can help explain his disdain for my argument - To begin, I didn't cite him. For an arrogant person, that is unforgivable and I actually thought about him and what he would say as I wrote the book.</p><p>According to a review written by Bradden, E. (2017). Chris Knight's theory of human origins: an abridged account. https://libcom.org/library/chris-knight%E2%80%99s-theory-human-origins-abridged-account </p><p><span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;">Knight locates the origins of culture in the female solidarity that emerges to regulate sexual and marital relations. Women resist male domination by subordinating short-term sexual goals to longer-term economic goals. It is this female strategy (with help from male kin) that explains the origins of the ‘own-kill’ rule, the incest taboo and the elementary structures of kinship.</span></span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">In explaining the origins of female solidarity, Knight places particular significances on women’s ability to synchronise their menstrual cycles. Menstrual bleeding poses a major problem for females in that males will seek to bond with females who show visible signs of their fertility. According to Knight females and their male relatives bond together to resist predatory males. Females adopt a strategy in which they in effect ‘cheat’ by all appearing to menstruate at the same time. This can be achieved by painting themselves with surrogate ‘menstrual’ blood.</span></span></p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;">Non-human primates signal ‘no’ to sex by displaying lack of arousal or interest. However, if females are to signal ‘no’ to sex, deliberate measures must be taken: human females must reverse the normal body-language displays indicating ‘yes’. Thus instead of signalling ‘<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">right species, right sex, right time</em>’ the human female must signal ‘<em style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">wrong species, wrong sex, wrong time</em>’. In signalling ‘no’ to sex females set up a communal counter-reality. According to Knight the origins of culture are to be located in this female strategy of saying ‘no’ to sex.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white;">Knight argues that this account of the origins of culture is reflected in myth and ritual, illustrating this with reference to numerous myths and ritual practises in traditional societies. One example is male initiaton ritual in Aboriginal Australia, which is associated with the myth of the ‘rainbow snake’. Knight argues that such initiation rites reflect and perpetuate a situation in which women have become subordinated to men, men having appropriated the ritual power that originally belonged to women. In these rites, boys had to have their flesh cut to allow the blood to flow. Where ‘male menstruation’ became the rule, women’s menstruation became feared as a threat to male supremacy. Female menstruation became seen as polluting while male menstruation was seen as positive, magical and conducive to good hunting luck.</span></span></p><p><br /></p><p>Here are several criticisms: First, the evidence on menstrual synchronization is still under debate as methodological flaws were identified in the initial studies. It is now often argued that synchronization actually does not occur. That said, he seems to be saying that males recognize that menstruating females cannot be impregnated and leave them alone. So, females paint themselves red (or parts of their bodies red) to keep males away - menstrual blood signaling no sex, wrong species, wrong time. It is not clear how that decoration would communicate wrong species or wrong sex. It would seem to clearly indicate right sex but wrong time. Ignoring that, his argument seems like a fairy tale that presents a non-testable hypothesis. He is to be commended, however, for raising some important points. First, females in other species communicate when they are ovulating - through behavior, smell or body changes. Human females hide their ovulation. Females in ten primate species, several bat species, the elephant shrew and one mouse species menstruate. Other females do not. It would be very interesting to understand the behavior of those females during menstruation. </p><p>Another interesting point he raises is how ovulating human females might have discouraged males who did not interest them, given male superior strength. That is a good question. I would argue that rules of behavior specified who could marry whom - marriages were probably arranged fairly early in human history based on genetic analyses. Another rule would have told family members to protect reproductive age females. I remember one of my anthro professors telling the class that if a female were alone she would be raped. She knew it and would just lie down. Perhaps that is apocryphal, but I sure can remember talking to females who spoke about the importance of self-protection. </p><p>It also is true that in my book I don't confront the question of how males came to dominate culture. I did argue that males were influenced by their mothers. Even warriors dying on the battle field cry out for their mothers. Mothers have a lifelong influence. The influence a potential mate has may end with copulation. My assumption, which is not in the book is that females develop and cooperatively share things like art, weaving, dyeing cloth, gardening and males adopt those things and as they are more competitive, turn them into grandiose schemes. To end this, my main argument - art is used to identify kin or those cooperating as if they were kin - is testable and I can think of some interesting scenarios that would threaten my proposal. That is the way science is supposed to be. </p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-3131501563505938622020-12-13T13:05:00.000-07:002020-12-13T13:05:03.633-07:00<p> </p><p><br /></p><p>I do wish I knew how to make this more attractive, not intellectually, but aesthetically. However, I don't, so that is that.</p><p>I am reading a book on the history of recent epidemics. It is fascinating. We are one interacting world with bacteria and viruses - at times our friends, at times our enemies. It reminded me of an article I just read on trees. it is quite popular now to talk and write about tree communication. They communicate underground, through chemicals released from their roots. Those chemical warn surrounding species of various things and trees share important chemicals, even with trees of different species. All the communication seems to be aimed at improving the lot of surrounding trees. One has to wonder, however, if any trickery is going on. Nature is red in tooth and claw, competition for scarce resources is rife. Time and research will tell.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-90132517996810400222020-11-22T16:24:00.001-07:002020-11-22T16:24:26.343-07:00<p> </p><p><br /></p><p>Storytelling</p><p><br /></p><p>It has been said, as many things are said - with bravado but not much thought</p><p>That storytelling has disappeared or is of no more use, </p><p>as my daughter, Blair, and I discussed this morning.</p><p>She jumped into the discussion. </p><p>I knew if I were only quiet, </p><p>She would enlighten me.</p><p>She was indignant. Of course storytelling was not dead.</p><p>We were surrounded by storytellers, they filled our lives</p><p>and our minds, sometime with chatter, at times with wisdom</p><p>Storytellers can be found on Ted Talks, YouTube, Facebook, in a movie or video</p><p>or opera. </p><p>Parents read stories to their children</p><p>Religious leaders tell stories to explain doctrine</p><p>Teachers create stories to help students learn</p><p>Our healers tell stories, just as shamans once did, and perhaps still do</p><p>Their stories explain why we got sick and how to get well</p><p>Parents tell stories to socialize their children</p><p>Religious leaders use stories to encourage us to behave in appropriate ways. </p><p>Lawyers are not known to publicly refer to themselves as storytellers, </p><p>yet they realize that the lawyer who tells the most captivating story will win the trial. </p><p>They weave the evidence into stories to try to lead the jury to exonerate or convict.</p><p>Perhaps the actual question is how storytelling has changed over time, even though we </p><p>are surrounded by stories</p><p>Storytelling used to be a personal relationship, with eye contact, vocalizations, body language, and discussion</p><p>It was, as my daughter said, a performance, a social performance</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-78843115392258875762020-09-30T12:56:00.001-07:002020-09-30T13:01:01.802-07:00<p> </p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><i style="font-family: arial;"><b><span style="background-color: white;">Storytelling: Textiles</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></b></i></h2><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">As the use of the phrase<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-style: italic; text-indent: 0.5in;">
“spinning a yarn” suggests, an association has long been made between weaving
and storytelling. </span><span style="font-style: italic; text-indent: 0.5in;">The word spinning was often found regularly in ancient
Hindu texts including the Vedas, as Puntambekar and Varadachari (1926)
described in their book </span><i style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Hand-Spinning and
Hand-Weaving</i><span style="font-style: italic; text-indent: 0.5in;">.</span></span></h2><div><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: italic; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></span></div><div><i><p style="background: white; font-family: arial; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: white; font-size: medium;"><b style="background-color: black;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 45pt 0.0001pt 0.5in;"><i><span style="color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><b style="background-color: black;">When the poet sings his invocation to Agni,
he asks of the gods “to spin out the ancient thread”. The continuity of life
itself and of the human race is compared to the continuity of a well-spun
thread. ‘As fathers they have set their heritage on earth, their offspring, as
a thread continuously spun out.’</b></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p></i></div><h4 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt 45pt; text-align: left;"><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></p>
</h4><h3 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="background: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">It has been argued that all forms of art tell stories. Included among those forms of art are weavings. Weavers
in the Andes, Silverman writes, “are modern scribes who use thread as opposed
to pen and ink, to produce motifs in a true pictoric dictionary” (1993, 14). In
Oaxaca, Mexico woven cloth is said to be a language used to tell stories.</span></span></h3><h3 style="text-align: left;"><span color="windowtext" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></h3><h3 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; background: white;"><span style="color: white;"><u>T</u></span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; background: black;"><span style="color: white;">he earliest evidence of weaving dates back some 27,000 years. Thaat earliest evidence was <span style="text-indent: 48px;">found in impressions of weaving made on clay. Further, clay was used to create small “Venus figurines”, or small clay statuettes, that are wearing a large number of woven objects: skirts and belts, as well as hats, headbands and necklaces.</span></span></span></span></h3><h3 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></h3><h3 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">A prehistoric society in which some of the world's finest weavers lived was on the coast of Peru. Between 800 BCE and 100 BCE the Paracas people traded locally grown cotton for<span style="text-indent: 48px;"> wool from</span><span style="text-indent: 48px;"> llamas and alpacas that were being raised by people in the Andes. </span></span></h3><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="background-color: white; text-indent: 48px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><h3 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0in; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">They carefully spun the cotton and wood into fine thread and yarn. First, a cloth was woven out of plain cotton.<span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span>Brightly colored wool threads were
used to decorate the fabri</span><span style="font-family: arial;">c with embroidery depictions of c</span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: arial; text-indent: 0.5in;">ostumed dancers, plants, double headed
birds, pampas cats, llamas, fish, serpents, llamas carrying loads of vegetables,</span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0.5in;"> serpents, plants, mystical creatures including shamans
who are part human and part eagle and who can fly through the air. In one claw they
hold severed human heads and the other claw held the knife that was used to cut off the
head. </span></span></span></h3><div><span style="background-color: black; font-family: arial; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="color: #202122;"><br /></span></span></div><h3 style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; text-indent: 0.5in;">The weaving woven in Paracas weavers has been found in tombs. Mummified bodies
of the dead were wrapped in finely woven and skillfully and brightly embroidered
mantles or shrouds. Even today, thousands of years later, the colors remain bright and the skill is obvious. The complexity of the weaving and the beauty of the embroidery
communicated the social status, wealth, and social affiliation of the deceased.
</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Two thousand years later those weavings can
tell us stories about</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> the Paracas people. </span></span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: black;">They are telling us stories about</span><span style="background-color: black;"> their lives and concerns.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span></span></h3><p style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-63275420257149071202020-09-14T16:20:00.000-07:002020-09-14T16:20:00.260-07:00<p> </p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Storytelling: Performances,
ceremonies, celebrations, and rituals<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">When we combine our storytelling with the
other arts, we refer to that event using words like performance, ceremony,
celebration or ritual. These words are used interchangable and their meanings can be confusing.</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Sometimes it is possible to distinguish the
meaning of terms by looking at their etymology, or origin. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Possibly the oldest
of these terms is the word ceremony, which possibly was of Etruscan origin (8-3
century BCE). It came to English from the Medieval Latin word </span><i style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">ceremonia</i><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">, which referred to sacredness
or holiness. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The word ritual is a proto-European word that possibly came from Sanscrit (c. 1500-500 BCE), it came into usage around 1560 CE and made reference to a religious observance.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The next oldest word is celebration. Its root came from the Latin word <i>celebrationem</i>, which means numerous in attendance, possibly for a sacred event. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As these three terms have the oldest origins and make reference to gatherings that are of a religious nature, it suggest that the earliest use of </span>storytelling<span style="font-size: 12pt;">, when combined with the other arts, was a serious event, rather than merely a social or enjoyable event. </span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Performance is the
youngest of these words. It appeared in English during the late 15<sup>th</sup>
century to refer to public entertainment. While the meaning of words can and does change over time, the word performance continues to be used in the same sense today. Operas and
plays are performances. These events are held at certain times and certain
places. The audience, except in the case of slapstick, typically sits quietly
and its only participation is to, perhaps, quietly laugh or sigh, and certainly
to applaud.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Rituals, ceremonies and celebrations also are typically scheduled on certain dates, at certain times. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">These events all are patterned, meaning they
have recurring features, including starting with some sort of greeting or
introduction and typically people in the audience participate in some way.
These three words were, as stated before, used at least at one time to refer to
a religious event. Although we used the term celebration to refer to sacred
occasions, such as the Celebration of Mass, the term also is often used to
refer to an event like a birthday party. Celebrations like birthday parties are patterned. They typically start with a welcome and the placing of the gifts in</span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16px; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">a pile. People then move to view the birthday cake. They then play games, then sing a happy birthday song, light the candles, then blow thee out, and then cut the cake and open gifts. The audience may cheer, shout or boo. Jokes might be told. The story told is about the birthday boy or girl. The art consists of the song, the decorations, perhaps </span>crepe<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> paper streamers, the gaily wrapped gifts. and the "best cloths' that participants often wear. </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Rituals and ceremonies are more serious
events than celebrations. They are held in a place said to be special, such as
an auditorium, or sacred, such as a mosque. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 16px;">Confucius felt that rituals transformed man from an individualistic ego into one characterized by strong kinship ties, generosity, diligence, earnestness, filial piety, fraternal duty, loyalty and sincerity.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">A graduation is referred to as a ceremony. It follows a pattern of steps, beginning when Pomp and Circumstance is played and the university marshall enters the room carrying a mace. The mace, which is about three feet tall and golden, is a symbol of </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0.5in;">governing</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> authority. Then faculty and students file in and take their seats at the front of the room, before the stage. there is a welcome, some presentations are given, and the school song might be sung. A story will be told about the graduates, their future, and what they can contribute to their academic and society. The ceremony </span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 0.5in;">ends</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> when diplomas have been awarded and then there is a recessional. Perhaps graduates will toss their caps into the air..the audience cheers. The art consists of the caps and grown, the <i>gonfaons</i>, or banners carried to represent each college. A graduation party is celebration. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">A ritual typically is considered to be the most serious type of event, one that in some way - a song, a prayer, a blessing - invokes the supernatural. If a graduation mass is held, it is a ritual. If an invocation, or opening prayer, is recited at a graduation it becomes more like a ritual. A wedding, if no reference is made to religio u , or faith or the supernatural, is a celebration. If held in a church or other sacred place and the event is conducted by a minister or rabbi, it is a ritual. A wedding reception is a celebration. </span></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The type of art used with stories that are
part of ceremonies differs from the art and stories used in rituals. Of the
two, rituals are more patterned and special or sacred objects often are used
and the story of their sacredness is described. Rituals also can involve reading
from a sacred text and prayer, which is an appeal or attempt to call upon a
supernatural entity. The stories told also can relate the importance of the
event itself, the history of the sacred place and the sacred objects used, the
miracles that have occurred and the deeds of the heroic or saintly individuals involved.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Drums have played and in some cases
continue to play an important role in ceremonies and rituals performed in many
parts of the world. The sound of the drum, for some people, is said to be
sacred. The Igbu of Nigeria use different types of drums play during the Eke
Celebration. Participants arrive in decorated war canoes playing the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">egume</i> drum. As they near the royal place
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ufie,</i> the king’s talking drum,
calls to them, telling the stories of his great deeds. Each participant then
stands, dances and recalls his own ancestors’ heroic deeds (Jackson 1968; see
also Calame-Griaule 1986). “These drummers, Rattray (1916:134) writes, “are
trained from childhood, and must not only be experts in drumming, but also have
learned the traditions and genealogies of all the kings, and the folklore of
the tribe as contained in the proverbs. “ <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">A good description of a ritual comes from the
istory of St. Thomas Becket, who was Archbishop of Canterbury during
the Middle Ages. When his opinions clashed with those of King Henry II, he was
killed by four of Henry’s knights while he knelt in prayer at the altar. In 1173
he was declared a saint after more than 700 miracles had been recorded as occurring
at his tomb. For centuries, thousands of pilgrims traveled great distances to reach
his Shrine. Today, pilgrims follow the Pilgrims Way for fifteen days (153)
miles, from Winchester to the shrine at Canterbury. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">When they arrive they tour
the cathedral singing hymns and stopping to pray at places connected with Becket’s
life and death. His miracles are portrayed in beautiful stained glass windows.
One shows the healing of Petronella of Polesworth, a nun who suffered from
leprosy. She is shown bathing her feet in holy water while sitting on the tomb
of St Thomas. At each window the relevant story of his life was recited</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial;">to be continued</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br /></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-48744057523350912102020-08-31T16:31:00.001-07:002020-08-31T16:31:08.763-07:00<p> </p><h1 style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Stories
of heroes and villains. </span></i></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Stories, for centuries, have described heroes, generally focusing on men who took risks and perhaps sacrificed their lives for the benefits
of others. In the past, heroes were presented as models for correct social
behavior, generally for males. Females were taught quite different things and rewarded for certain behaviors (but that story is for another day. </span></span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">During the initiation rituals performed by the Aboriginal people, the
boys were told a series of short stories about the ancestral heroes who lived
in the Dreamtime. These stories taught tribal history and, Elkin (1964:156)
writes and “instilled into the minds of the younger men present, for most do today
what the great heroes did in the dream time”. The Bemba of Zambia tell stories
about heroes and villains as they can illustrate the consequences of behavior; the
good are rewarded and the bad are punished. As each generation listened to the
triumphs and tragedies of their heroic ancestors, their behavior changed.
Courageous acts of sacrifice became goals for the young to emulate, while the
derision heaped upon selfish characters would arise in their minds as powerful
obstacles whenever circumstances tempted them to shrug off their obligations to
others.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Detective stories are a unique type of
hero story that, written in French and English, made their sudden appearance
during the late 19<sup>th</sup> and early 20<sup>th</sup> centuries. By 1901,
they had become so popular that the famous art critic, theologian and
philosopher, G. K. Chesterton, published a paper to explain their popularity,
explaining that these stories were “a perfectly legitimate form of art”, one
that confirmed beliefs that there were absolutes in life – rules that
universally held – and when one ignored or violated those absolutes there would
be serious consequences in life. As such, detective stories could be agents for
societal good. He also wrote his own mysteries, one of which, Father Brown, describes the father in a small town in England who uses
his understanding of religion to solve local crimes. These books more recently have been
described as preachy and moralistic, in contrast to the more popular stories of
Sherlock Holmes, a flawed hero who was led at times by his passions, but
capable of using calm reason to solve crimes. Since the early 20<sup>th</sup>
century the number of detective stories has proliferated; today, they are one
of the most widespread narrative forms today. And while the detectives who become heroes tend to be moral people, working for justice, the books are not explicitly moral tales. However, their influence may certainly be in that direction. The moral message is more subtle now. </span></span></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-50559601852424889372020-08-30T10:18:00.002-07:002020-08-30T10:18:36.104-07:00<p><b><span style="font-size: large;">The storytellers of today</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="text-indent: 31.7pt;">Although some claim that no one tells stories anymore, that is not true. We have many storytellers among us today. Children continue to hear their parents tell them bedtime stories that teach them about perseverance (The Little Engine that Could) or honesty (Pinocchio). There are, however, storytellers for adults. Our doctors and nurses tell us stories so we can understand our problem and its treatment. Our prophets, priests, and and rabbis tell stories to help us understand doctrine. Our professors and teachers, the ones whose lectures interest us the most, are storytellers. From them we can and do, painlessly, learn a great deal. We hear stories in operas and radio broadcasts. We hear stories from salespeople trying to convince us that their products are best and those who build the most elaborate stories are trying to sell snake oil to naive buyers are selling snake. Perhaps surprisingly to some, our n</span><span style="text-indent: 31.7pt;">ewscasters, lawyers,
politicians and scientists all are or can be storytellers.</span></span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 31.7pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Lawyers, who are known to be articulate, do
not refer to themselves as storytellers. All lawyers, however, realize that the
lawyer who tells the most captivating story will win. Lawyers weave together lines
of evidence with legal precedent and create interesting stories that will lead the
jury to exonerate or convict.</span></span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 31.7pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Politicians, too, are storytellers and some are very good storytellers. Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln both recognized the power of Stories. Church, during the second world war used stories to remind the people of Great Britain of their heroic history, of the strength they had shown in time of crises, of the bravery of their soldiers and the moral value of the people. In doing so, he was successful in convincing them to persist in their battle with the Nazis. Lincoln, during America's Civil war energized his people and was able to preserve the Union by appealing to the best in each person. </span></span></p><p><span style="text-indent: 31.7pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The ancestors of journalists were news carriers, or criers, who carried information from one geographic area to another and one people to another. They were trusted to provide, in a plainspoken manner, accurate information of use in decision making. Today, our journalists walk a fine line between two roles, news carrying and storytelling. They need to provide facts, but must do so in an intriguing way so that they can keep their jobs and can attract and keep an audience.At time,as Marchese (2020: 43) explains, they cross the line.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 49.5pt; margin-top: 0in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">We
used to have news and we had entertainment. Now these categories are totally
intertwined – to the extent that it’s not far-fetched to say that we just have
categories of entertainment.</span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 292.5pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Historically, few scientific
discoveries were shared with the public; Darwin provided an interesting
exception. He used a quasi-lyrical style to write the <i>Origin of Species</i>. His writing style was interesting and easy to understand
and his theory came to convince many nonscientists. Today, science is advancing
more rapidly than ever before and many of the discoveries scientists are making
can have a serious impact on all our lives. To make sure that the public is
aware of their discoveries, scientists have begun using a storytelling format, not
only with the public, but with politicians and funding agencies. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 292.5pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Most of the example we provided above are drawn from the "good" storytellers. However, as example of the the snake oil salesman makes clear, w</span><span style="font-family: arial; text-indent: 48px;">e</span><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> can be duped, deluded, confused, or cheated by storytellers,not only snake oil salesmen, but even those who seem to be legitimate journalists, scientists, politicians and teachers. Stories - those told not just to entertain - are mechanisms to convince us of some point - the little engine persevered and was successful, the ants taught the grasshopper an important lessons (though it isn't always clear why they were so altruistic), politicians can use stories to fill their own pockets and incite wars. Stories, when well told, draw and hold the
attention of the listeners. We listen to stories differently than we listen to other forms of speech and it may be possible that hearing a story activates important sensory areas in
the cortex of the brain, </span><span style="font-family: arial; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">making it possible for listeners to actually visualize what
they are hearing and the outcome of that visualization - the snake oil cures you! .</span></p><br /><p></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-1088146009073091452020-08-22T11:05:00.001-07:002020-08-22T11:05:23.318-07:00<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-large;">Art, stories and rituals</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Traditional
oral art genres can be distinguished from ordinary speech by a unique
architecture that involves the use of such things as fictive details, arresting
images, mnemonic devices, alliteration, and metaphor and simile. These features
make the oral arts, and the messages they contain, more attractive, in the
sense that they attract and hold attention, and thus more effective in
influencing social behavior in the directions outlined in the narrative. Here, I
discuss rituals and the connections they have with the oral arts and describe the
key elements of rituals, including the incorporation of the arts -- dance, music,
stories, costumes and masks -- and the acts of gifts, feasting, and sacrifice. These
elements make the oral art and its message even more attractive, more
memorable, and more influential. I will end this post with a discussion of simple
and complex rituals and how they might be used to build and repair the social relationships
that have been of fundamental importance to humans. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">Discussions of
rituals, for decades, have linked them to stories. Lord Raglan (1955:454), for
example, claims that for many scholars, a myth was “simply a narrative
associated with a rite.” Segal (2009:366), who writes that myth “does not stand
by itself but is tied to ritual,” would agree. Early discussions of the
connection between myth and ritual often centered on whether ritual was created
first and myth followed, or vice versa (Davis, 1974). William Robertson Smith
(1894) for example, argued that myths were derived from rituals and this was
implied in an anonymous paper published in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Science
</i>in 1888, which attributes the origin of myth to rituals associated with
ancestor worship. As we will never answer the question of the primacy of ritual,
we turn to a question that may be answerable – Why do myths and rituals so
often occur together and why do they seem to be, as Malinowski (1926) argues,
intricately interdependent? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">While this
entire series of posts will focus on the characteristics of myth and the intertwining of
myth and ritual, to begin the discussion of the interrelationships, the claim
is often made that the connection between stories, usually referred to as
myths, and ritual occurs because, as Hocart (1933:223) explains, “Knowledge of
the myth is essential, because it has to be recited at the ritual.” The story
explains the ritual, as Raglan (1955:454) describes:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Consider
the pilgrimage to Canterbury, which resulted from the murder of Becket. As the
pilgrims performed the ritual of touring the cathedral and singing hymns or
praying at spots connected with Becket’s life and death, the story of these was
recited. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: arial;">This connection
between myths and rituals, Bennett, Wolin, & McAvity (1988) explain, makes
them mutually reinforcing. Tomorrow - or one of these days - I will describe the characteristics of rituals. </span></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-28318184750169311132020-08-20T09:48:00.003-07:002020-08-22T10:57:41.338-07:00once upon a time, long long ago...<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Our stories carry with them the whispers of
voices from our distant past, from the long-lost stories our distant ancestors
once told. Those </span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">stories, which held the listeners attention
until long after the evening fires turned to glowing coals, were so memorable
that listeners, years late, repeated them to their children who repeated them
to theirs, until, finally, the practice of telling stories came down to us. The
stories we tell and read today have much in common with those ancient stories. Our
stories’ structure is built on the one they developed. The emotions described
in their stories - fear, excitement, love, hate, jealousy, loss – fill the
pages of our stories, and our stories continue to address many of the same
themes – faith, conflict, reconciliation, and love. As the years and centuries
passed, they </span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">left their mark not only on the content of our stories, but on
storytellers and listeners.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">The path that that begin to lead people away
from their ancestors and th</span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">e stories they told began millennia ago. </span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Our ancestors, carrying their stories and art
with them, migrated out of Africa in small family groups and were able to
settle in new places that were isolated from one another. At some point in
prehistory, they became very successful in the sense that they had healthy
children, who had healthy children, who had healthy children and, repeating
this pattern, they, over time and across generations, increased in number.
They, in other words, did, as it is written in<span style="background-color: black; color: white;"> Genesis 9:7: </span></span><span face="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: white; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">"<i>As
for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply
in it</i>."\</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;"><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Families now
included not only parents and children, but grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces,
nephews, cousins, and even people more distantly related, beyond second and
third cousins. These people formed themselves into larger, tightly integrated
social groups and lived dispersed across a limited but shared geographic area
and remained in regular contact and</span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">, with slight differences, told the same
stories. We now use words like extended kinship, bands, clans, tribes or ethnic
groups to refer to such collections of people.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: white; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Eventually,
these extended families</span><span face="" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: black; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #23221f; font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">increased to the point that resources
became scarce. Families were forced to begin migrating farther from their
ancestral homes and</span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> the
traditions they had cherished for millennia and the stories they once had told</span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">.
Some of our ancestors, eventually, were drawn to urban centers in Mesopotamia; by
7,500 BC agriculture in the Fertile Crescent was able to provide a more
reliable source of food for more people.</span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"> Here they stayed. </span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">Once a wheat surplus was available,
wealth was consolidated and hierarchies emerged. Unprecedented power was placed
in the hands of a leader. </span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">Our
ancestors now were living in crowded urban centers, some with up to 200,000
residents</span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">. They were surrounded by </span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">large numbers of strangers who bought with them their own distinct
stories, art, and rituals. The social </span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">environment was </span><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">transfigured from a small, insular one
containing only close kin, all concerned with one’s well-being, into one in
which individuals were surrounded by strangers who could be kind, helpful or,
equally likely, self-interested, competitive, and, at times, lethal.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">The art of
storytelling begin to change; grandparents, once the storytellers, were, in some
cases too old to travel and were not available. The ancient ancestral stories,
if told at all, were no longer repeated as carefully as before or, if told, were
likely to be highly modified. Social rules such as honor the elders begin to
break down as elders often were no longer around to be honored or to remind
others now to continue retelling their traditional stories.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p>The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-88571811940644744772020-04-17T15:24:00.002-07:002020-08-20T09:40:34.670-07:00<br />
<h2>
Traditions</h2>
<h3>
<br />Once upon a time I sat in Emory Sekaquaptewa's office browsing through the Hopi dictionary. I saw a word, can't remember what it was, but what it referred to was traditions that could be discarded. That was interesting as the Hopi are one of the more traditional indigenous people in the US today. </h3>
<h3>
<br />I define traditions as behavior that is transmitted from one generation of kin to the next over many generations. Didn't we talk about this before? How does an idea or a belief get from one mind into another - it seems clear to me that is is via behavior - talk is a behavior by the way.</h3>
<h3>
<br />The traditions that I find interesting are those that we can find in the archaeological record and that we can continue to find in the historic or contemporary record. In other words, people have maintained the traditions over vast amounts of time. I was reading an article today that was written by Marie Sosressi. It is entitled From the origin of language to the diversification of languages: what archaeology and paleoanthropology say?</h3>
<h3>
<br />Language is interesting, as clearly language is a crucial requirement for storytelling. Sosressi also looks at pigment use, burial practices, personal adornments, production of depictions and arving, musical traditions in the archaeological record and various anatomical features that would have made speech possible. </h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
The fact that humans continue to bury the dead, use personal adornments, paint, and make music indicates, at least to me, that these are - or at least once were - of vital importance to humans. The particular way we bury the dead or the uniqueness of the ornaments we use, while interesting (e.g., were the ornaments personal objects or were similar objects used by others, why do we wear ornaments - what is their function - and what prompts the persistence or the change), what is more interesting is that we continue to do these things. Some of these behaviors - the behavior of using red ochre or wearing personal ornaments have been practiced for tens of thousands of years. It is not clear when language was necessary if, for nothing else, to teach the techniques to the next generation. I always wonder about the acheulean handaxe which was produced for something like a million years. Some of these axes are beautiful. It always struck me that the producers must have had at least some rudimentary form of language. However, language is not my interest here, except as a behavior that has persisted, transmitted from one generation of kin to the next. What I find interesting are traditional behaviors. How were the techniques taught, which traditions were important (can we assume that if they persisted and are widespread that they were important and may continue to be important?), what role did ancestors play (after all they were the ones who first created the traditions), what strategies helped promote their persistence across generations? We, in our own time, know how difficult it can be to get many of our children to comply with parental recommendations. </h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
It seems to me that biological anthropologists ignore traditions at their peril, as t fascinating information can be found in the study of traditions. Part of the problem is that despite the fact that evolution is about persistence - descent with modification - our theorists seem to be focused on one generation and that generation's behavior. Attention is paid to parental influence and sometimes people mention ancestors, while showing they know nothing about them. Some anthropologist even claim that traditions never existed, Given a focus on one generation or even one individual is would be a challenge to have to explain the careful transmission across generations of kin. Twenty generations down the line, why are the descendants continuing to replicate ancestral traditions? Why rather than being self interest seving do they continue to practice traditions that can have high costs? Do we either say traditions never existed, or that traditions don't have high costs, or should we say that we don't need to account for traditions, but should focus on now or on one period of time in the past?</h3>
The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-22658243596608648732020-03-31T14:27:00.002-07:002020-04-17T14:33:09.927-07:00<br />
<br />
<h2>
Artes plasticas and emotion</h2>
<h3>
Count Tolstoy wrote "The whole science of aesthetics fails to do what we might expect from it, being a mental activity calling itself a science; namely it does not define the qualities and laws of art. </h3>
<h3>
I carefully defined visual art following Dickie (1971:41), who wrote regarding classificatory definitions, that the definition needs to "specify the necessary and sufficient conditions needed for something to be a work of art. A necessary condition for being an X is a characteristic which any object must have in order to be an X. A sufficient condition of an X is a characteristic, which, if an object has that characteristic, it is an X."</h3>
<h3>
As Socrates argued, if we examine a word's usage, we will find some element that is common to all examples of being, but not to other things, and then we will be able to isolate that element as the essence which the defines the category of things. </h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
I accept that art is human-made. I will discuss animal "art" at some point.Art arouses an emotion, referred to by some as the aesthetic emotion, meaning a unique emotion aroused only by making and viewing art. </h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
I carefully omitted the function of art when I defined it. As arouse emotion is a function I omitted it from my definition, writing that </h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
This definition, while appealing, has a number of
problems. First, it fails to distinguish what art is from what art does (e.g.,
arouse an emotion). Further, it runs the risk of being tautological, inferring
a mental state from the art and then using the mental state to explain art
(Lewis-Williams 1982). In addition, although the emotion aroused by art is said
to be pleasure, much of art is said to arouse grave feelings, or it may leave
the viewer bewildered, confused, nonplussed, unsure of any emotional reaction
(Anderson 1979). Indeed, art may not arouse any emotion; it may arouse “no
aesthetic interest” (Brothwell 1976). Another issue, as McEvilley (1992: 161)
noted, is that “one serous problem with a definition of art that stresses
aesthetic or expressive qualities is that such a definition eliminates much of
what has been called art for the last seventy years.”I recognize that the
emotions associated with visual art and ritual can be profound. I also
recognize, however, that not all viewers would have shared my response and that
emotions are fleeting and difficult to articulate (Anderson 1979). Further, I
don’t know what emotion the dancers were experiencing and I cannot tell you
what thoughts or beliefs might have inspired their behavior. Are we really safe
in assuming that all dancers share the same emotions, thoughts, and/or beliefs?</h3>
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A more
serious issue here, however, is that emotions and mental processes probably
exist because of the influence they have on behavior, particularly social behavior. An
exclusive focus on art and emotion may lead us to ignore art’s social effects.
The assumption that any emotions associated with a behavior implies that the
behavior is necessarily adaptive can lead even scientific studies astray.
Eating high fat foods can be pleasurable; eating many such meals could help
promote an early death from chronic disease. While the scarcity of fat in our
ancestors’ diet may have promoted our ancestors’ taste for fat, fats are no
longer a dietary scarcity. Environments change, and behaviors that were once
adaptive may no longer be adaptive. To turn to art, we may say art arouses emotions, but have to ask what art and in whom does it arouse emotion. We don't know whether or not emotion is universally experienced by viewing or making art. We cannot know if art evolved because of any possible emotions associated
with it nor can we argue that even if emotions were associated with art in the ancestral past that such emotions are currently adaptive - could art lead us to behave in maladaptive ways? </h3>
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<b><br /></b><b>The point of this discussion is not that thoughts
or emotion, or even the presumed aesthetic emotion, are irrelevant to visual
art. In fact, we can assume that visual art attracts us because it interests
us, presumably by provoking some emotion. However, even if we assume that art
does arouse an emotion, we still do not know what elicits the emotion. Is it
aroused by the color, pattern, form, technique, or the experiences associated
with the art object? </b></h3>
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<b>This said, today I was reading a book entitled Ancient Art and Ritual, written by Jane Ellen Harrison (LL.D and D.lit). It was published in 1913. She wrote, in regard to music, that not everyone responds to music - that people can be tone deaf. However, if they do respond emotionally to the music it is a much more profound experience. I need to think about that a little bit. Any suggestions, please let me know. </b></h3>
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<b>Other possible characteristics to possibly be discussed at another time are </b></h3>
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<b>Symbols and meaning</b></h3>
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<b>creativity and individualism </b></h3>
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The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-11795583685708681652020-03-31T11:54:00.000-07:002020-03-31T11:54:18.647-07:00<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Food rituals</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 200%;">Today, I was reading an article by Marin (2010) on ritual architecture in complex hunter-gatherer communities. I was surprised and pleased to find a section on food rituals that basically says food rituals - feasting activities - played a critical role in transegalitarian societies. food rituals typically involve the consumption of special or exotic foods. they often are done in special places and at special times and may also involve ceremonies - dance, music, etc. </span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 200%;">I have coauthored a paper on food rituals (see reference below) and have long thought that food rituals are of particular importance - they are ancient and practiced around the world. This led to me the question of what effect the loss of such rituals has had and whether or not that loss may play a role not only in the weakening of families but in our obesity epidemic.</span></span></h3>
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We know that our ancestors <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">began to ritualize behaviors associated with food procurement,
preparation and consumption as far back as 20,000 years ago, around the time that our ancestors began to domesticate plants. It was at that time that they began making ground stone tools (e.g., mortars, pestles and milling stones). They also made pottery vessels that they used to prepare and to share food. The analysis of residues in vessels dating back to the Pleistocene, between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, in sites located in Japan suggests that these vessels were used for the preparation of marine products and terrestrial foods. By the Neolithic there is evidence that pottery was used to serve food and drinks to larger groups. Further, more attention was being paid to producing a better quality pottery. As Halstead points out, the care and skill lavished on Middle Neolithic pottery "underlines the social importance of hospitality." The use of finer pottery and the serving of food to larger groups also are strong suggestions that they were performing food rituals.</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">People<span style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> around the world
regularly perform food rituals. Some food rituals are simple - e.g., the evening meal - while others are more complex - e.g., a seder. They are characterized by the fact that they occur in special places (e.g., a dining room, a religious building) and at special times (which can include events like thanksgiving or an evening meal held at a certain time). They also can involve the use of special equipment in the preparation of the food (and remember the preparation was often a highly social event) and the use of special food serving items. Food rituals also include a predictable sequence, with some beginning with a prayer, and among
the foods eaten (e.g., salad main course, desert). Finally, good manners are typically required. </span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> In regard to obesity, the ritualization of any behavior not only results in the slowing down of the behavior, but food rituals help people restrain their consumption. Food rituals typically last longer and are more highly social than a non-ritualized meal. As Bossard and Boll argue, food rituals provide the mechanism through which important social ties are established and nurtured. Rituals also reinforce family identify, thus giving all family members a sense of belonging. Food rituals are powerful organizers of family life and they serve as strategies that promote the stability of the family in times of stress and change. In Africa, family rituals promote consensus building and assist in resolving conflict and rebuilding broken social relationships. In times of change, including migration, the continuation of family food rituals can help keep families strong.<span style="background-color: #444444;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #444444; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"> </span></span></span></h3>
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In
China, family rituals are said to be key to Chinese culture. <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">So important were family rituals that
S. W. Williams</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> would claim
that family rituals had “an influence in the formation of Chinese character, in
upholding good order, promoting industry, and cultivating habits of peace
thrift…” In Aboriginal families in Australia, rituals have been found to
strengthen family relationships and communication.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">The family, Demir</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">writes is “the buffer institution in the society. During times of social
change, family ensures the smooth functioning of this transformation process in
the society. For this reason, the institution of family is of vital importance
for every society.”</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small; text-indent: 0.5in;"><b>NOTE:</b> all references provided on request or are listed in the Coe article below. </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Coe, K., Benitez, T., Tasevska, N., et al. (2018). The use of family rituals in eating behaviors in Hispanic mothers. Family and Community Health, 41(1): 28.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Morin, J. (2020). Ritual architecture in prehistoric hunter-gatherer communities: A potential example from Keatley Creek on the Canadian Plateau. American Antiquity, 73(3) 599-625. </span></h3>
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The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18873038.post-13924509453636342022020-03-27T11:26:00.000-07:002020-03-27T11:26:09.101-07:00<h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Visual art: The replicable unit</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remember once, in the dark of night, wrestling with the idea of the transmission of ideas, which everyone seems to talk about and accept. However, truth to tell, can ideas be transmitted? Do they leap with abandon - or caution - from head to head? Do we all share a great consciousness from which we draw ideas in the dark of night or light of day? Did our mothers lower their foreheads to ours, when we were wee children sitting on their laps, so we could absorb their thoughts?</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I thought not. Now that that issue is settled, a second and related issue is persistence, not only transmission from one individual to another, but from one generation of kin to the next. I assume the transmission, for a great many years - millenia - was between kin because our ancestors lived in small groups of kin. Although we may see little cultural persistence these days, it certainly was characteristic of the past. </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">To quote M. G. Houston (1920: 2), “we are confronted with an extraordinary conservation or persistence
of style, not only through the centuries, but through millenniums [<i>sic</i>].”
Boas (1955: 144, 169) referred to this continuity in style as “fixed
type” or “fixity” of design and form.<b> </b>Despite
Alexander’s lament that he is “not optimistic about the usefulness of searches
for unalterable or ‘basic’ human social behaviors as a method for solving our
problems” (1987: 9), the millennia that traditions have lasted suggest that
humans often had fairly stable social strategies</span>.</h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, I have argued that the replicable unit, a unit that persisted across vast swaths of time, was the use of color, pattern, and or form used solely to attract attention to a body, object or message. Art is not a meme, if a meme is an idea. Art is a behavior - painting, sculpting, dancing singing, making music.... </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A third related question is does visual art have a function? Replication, particularly across generations, seems to imply a function. Don't we tend to copy things we observe that "work" - that have an effect we want to create? </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many scholars, some quite famous, do argue that art - any of the arts, has no function, that art merely exists or that it "exists for its own sake." One implication of Darwin’s theory is that behaviors we now regard as characteristic of our species, and that would include visual art, persisted precisely because they did have a function. As art is a universal and ancient cultural behavior, which has persisted despite costs that can be quite high, it quite possibly is an adaptation that, at least in the past, must have been important to humans. As an aside, the cost of art involved not only learning the techniques and perfecting them, to the degree necessary, but also the actual time spend in the application of color or the modification of form. It also included the time spent acquiring the necessary resources, which could be quite arduous and which could involve facing danger. It is said that the Australians had to cross into enemy territory to get the pigments they needed. </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, next time I will continue talking about art and make suggestions regarding its many functions. I really don't know why I am, after a hiatus of so many years, decades even, talking about art. For a long time it seemed that life held so many other challenges that needed to be addressed. </span></h3>
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The Ancestress Hypothesishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04817918037585619733noreply@blogger.com0