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Anthropology – Understanding – Possibility

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Archaeology

This page is a collection of blog-posts about the role of history, material culture, and archaeology as a part of anthropology. My most recent attempts to do archaeology in a classroom are:

  • The 2021 lectures beginning with Archaeological Methods and based on Anthropology: What Does it Mean to Be Human?
  • The 2020 lectures beginning with Stone Tools and based on Through the Lens of Anthropology

The overview page Domesticaton, Agriculture, Civilization outlined some of the writing accomplished as a 2011 attempt at providing an independent web textbook. The sections on Jared Diamond–Agriculture: Jared Diamond’s Worst Mistake and Jared Diamond: Against History–are still two of the most popular landing pages on Living Anthropologically.

My perspective on archaeology and Jared Diamond borrowed from Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability, and the Aftermath of Empire.

Indigenous Allies & Politics of Empire

Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest

The indigenous allies in Matthew Restall’s Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest point to contingent histories, not the inevitability of guns, germs & steel.

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Categories Archaeology Tags capitalism, Eric Wolf, Jared Diamond, Latin America, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, politics, race, racism, textbooks 17 Comments

Geography, States, Empires

Eric Wolf - Europe and the People Without History

Eric Wolf’s Europe and the People Without History attempts to answer Yali’s Question – Why Europe? It’s time to rediscover the history of Eric Wolf.

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Categories Archaeology Tags agriculture, ambushing anthropology, capitalism, culture, Eric Wolf, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, Sidney Mintz, textbooks 27 Comments

DNA Battles

Earliest Americans Arrived in Waves, DNA Study Finds - Nicholas Wade

Research on earliest Americans reveals multiple migrations and complexity. But Nicholas Wade botches the coverage–and the anthropology.

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Categories Archaeology Tags education, empathy, evolution, genetics, Nicholas Wade, race mixing, textbooks 12 Comments

Earliest Signs & Origin Stories

Wrangham - Catching Fire - Earliest Signs

Pronouncements of firsts and earliest signs are reminders of a truth from Robert N. Proctor: There’s no glory in “second oldest.”

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Categories Archaeology Tags agriculture, evolution Leave a comment

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© 2011-2023 Jason Antrosio. All Rights Reserved. This blog is a personal project and does not represent the views of any institutions or employers, current or previous. The opinions expressed here are mine alone.