Anthropology 498/898
Advanced Current Topics
Fall 1997
Course webpage http://www.unl.edu:80/rhames/courses/current97.htm
Please note: topics and readings will undergo slight revision
Instructor: R. Hames
Office Hours:Monday 2:00-4:00
Tuesday 8:00-9:00
Wednesday 9:30-11:00
Friday 8:00-10:30
Office: 126 Bessey Hall
Class meeting: W 2:00-4:30, Room 219 Bessey Hall (2nd floor seminar room)
Aim and Scope of Course:
This is a four field course designed to acquaint advanced undergraduate and graduate students with current and
sometimes controversial issues in anthropology. At the close of their graduate or undergraduate careers students
often specialize in particular areas of study and seem to forget that anthropology is a four field discipline. (The same
may be said of academics.) While it is impossible for anyone to keep abreast of all new developments across all
fields of anthropology, students should be aware of basic research and theoretical issues in physical, archaeology,
linguistics, and cultural anthropology. The aim of this course is to make you knowledgeable and conversant in some
of these issues. I would characterize the course as a reading seminar.
All the readings present at least two sides of an issue (e.g., peopling of the Americas, the Eve hypothesis) and most
articles are direct comments on proponents, ideas, theories, methods, and data. At times these debates are quite
heated (see especially the IQ, race, and class debate) and contestants frequently resort to logical fallacies in order to
make their points. You will learn how to spot such tactics such as ad hominem ("if you were better trained you would
not have made such a stupid statement") ad popularum (e.g., "the majority of anthropologists do not take this
position, therefore you are wrong"), and the naturalistic fallacy (that which is natural is good or "that theory cannot be
correct because it is immoral")... But more importantly, I hope to give you some tips on evaluating theory, methods,
research design, and data analysis that will help you determine the strengths and weaknesses of what you read.
Weekly Plan
Each week you will read the assigned articles held on reserve in the Geology Library. I recommend that you copy
them. The cheapest and quickest place to take them is the Burnett Copy Center in Burnett 222 (phone: 2-2606).
When you come to the seminar to discuss the assigned readings you should have made notes on each of the articles
and have a minimum two page summary describing the issue or issues, positions taken, and your assessment of the
controversy. The summary is due on the next seminar date (e.g.., summaries of week two are due in day we meet
on week three). Although I will not systematically ask to see your notes, I expect you to bring them with you. In
addition, prior to the next seminar meeting graduate students should write a minimum one page summary of the
issues discussed in the previous week. You will be graded on your notes, summaries, and seminar participation.
There will be no final or term paper.
In many of our seminars a faculty guest or "local expert" will be present to serve as a resource in our discussion of
the issues. Finally, I will ask the group to suggests readings for the final weeks of the course that cover issues you
feel to be important. To stimulate your thinking allow me to suggest the following:

the origins of agriculture

demise of the Maya civilization

intellectual property rights and native ethnobiological knowledge

NAGPRA
Special Assignment
The internet is an important source of information on current issues in all the sciences and humanities. All
participants will be asked to get an account on UNLINFO and subscribe to a List Server (both are free) of his or her
choice. You will then monitor a discussion on an issue (sometimes called a thread on the internet) and periodically
report on it in class. I will assist you in learning how to subscribe and use the mail utility.
Readings and Topics for Each Week (beginning with Week 2)
September 3
Lee vs. Wilmsen debate on the authenticity of the !Kung

Solway, J. and R. B. Lee "Foragers, Genuine or Spurious? Current Anthropology 31(2):109-146.

Wilmsen, E. and J. Denbow "Paradigmatic History of San-speaking Peoples and Current Attempts at
Revision". Current Anthropology 31(5): 489-524.

"On subsistence and social relations in the Kalahari". Current Anthropology 32(1):55-57 (191).
Comments by Eibl-Eibesfeldt and Robert Hitchcock
Local Expert: Robert K. Hitchcock
September 10
Human Genome Diversity Project

Discovery Magazine and Cultural Survival (special issue on Human Genome Diversity Project)

Moore, John. Putting Anthropology Back Together Again: The Ethnogenetic Critique of Cladistic
Theory. American Anthropologist, 96(4): 925-948.

Cavalli-Sforza, Luca. The Human Genome Diversity Project. Presented to UNESCO, Paris, 12
September 1994 (offprint).

Cultural Survival special issue on HGDP, pp. 22-41.

NSF Memo
Links

Home Page of RAFI, a NGO strongly opposed to the Human Genome Diversity Project

Links to Human Genome Diversity Project (from Cavalli-Sforza's Lab)
September 17
Multiregionalism versus Out of Africa

Frayser, D. et al. 1993 Theories of Modern Human Origins: The Paleontological Test. American
Anthropologist 95: 14-51.

Stoneking, M. 1994 In Defense of "Eve" - A Response to Templeton’s Critique. American Anthropologist,
96:131-14.

Templeton, A. 1994 "Eve": Hypothesis Compatibility versus Hypothesis Testing. American Anthropologist,
96:141-147. And several others.
Web Sites Dealing with Out of Africa and Multiregionalism

NY Times Book Review of "African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity" by C. Stringer
and R. McKie

Origins of Human Kind (Recent Research on hominid evolution)

Wilford Wolpoff's Web (leading proponent of multiregionalism)

New MDNA Findings Cast Doubt on Neanderthal as Ancestral to Modern Humans
September 24
The Causes of Polygyny

White, D., and M. Burton (1988) Causes of Polygyny: Ecology, Economy, Kinship and Warfare. American
Anthropologist 90:311-322.

White, D. (1988) Rethinking polygyny. Current Anthropology 29:529-571.

Borgerhoff Mulder (1989) Questioning the Correlational Evidence for Kipsigis Wealth as a Cause of
Reproductive Success Rather than Polygyny as a Cause of Both Extra Children and Extra Wealth. American
Anthropologist 91:175-178.

Borgerhoff Mulder, M. (1989) Polygyny and the Extent of Women’s Contributions to Subsistence: A Reply to
White. American Anthropologist 91:178-180.

Borgerhoff Mulder, M (1987) On Cultural and Reproductive Success: Kipsigis Evidence. American
Anthropologist 89:617-634.
October 1
Processualists and Post-processualists

Osborn, A. MS Socioecological Archaeology: The Context for Symbol use among the Il Chamus of WestCentral Kenya

Hodder, I. (1991) The Decoration of Containers: An Ethnographic and Historical Study. In Ceramic
Ethnoarchaeology, Longacre, W., ed., pp. 71-94. University of Arizona Press: Tucson.

Hodder, I (1991) Post processual Archaeology and the Current Debate. In Processual and Postprocessual
Archaeologies: Multiple Ways of Knowing the Past, Robert Preucel, ed., pp. 30-41. Southern Illinois
University Press, Carbondale, IL.
Local Expert: Alan Osborn
October 8
Problems From Sample to Population with Human Remains

Wood, J., G. Milner, H. Harpending, and K. Weiss (1992) The Osteological Paradox. Current Anthropology,
33:343-370.
Local expert: Karl Reinhard
October 15.
Postmodern versus Scientific Anthropology

Sangren, S (1988) "Rhetoric and the Authority of Ethnography". Current Anthropology, 29:277-305

D'Andrade, R. (1995) "Objectivity and Militancy: A Debate. 1 Moral Models in Anthropology". Current
Anthropology 36:399-440.

Schepher-Hughes (1995) "2 The Primacy of the Ethical".Current Anthropology 36:399-440.
Links

The Goals of Science
October 22
The Original Aboriginal Affluent Society

Bird-David, N. (1992) "Beyond the Original Affluent Society: A Culturalist Reformulation" 33:25-47. Current
Anthropology

Hawkes, K. (1992) "On Sharing and Work". Current Anthropology, 33:405-47.

Winterhalder, B. (1993) Work, Resources and Population in Foraging Societies. Man 28, 1-19.
October 29
The Bell Curve, Part I

Herrnstein and Murry (1994) Introductions to all chapters in the Bell Curve

Hunt, Earl (1995) "The Role of Intelligence in Modern Society". American Scientist, 83:356-368.

Coughlin, Ellen (1994) Class, IQ, and Heredity. Chronicle of Higher Education. October 26, A12.

Gladwell, Malcom (1997) "The Sports Taboo". The New Yorker, May 19: 50-55.
Web Sites Dealing with "Bell Curve Issues":

Maternal Health and IQ

Prenatal Care Affects IQ, Study of Twins Determines

"The Role of Intelligence in Modern Society" (American Scientist) by Earl Hunt

The Race Gallery: Science and Pseudo-science Research

Chris Brand and the furor over General Intelligence and Race
November 5
The Bell Curve, Part II

Miller, Adam (1995) Professors of Hate. Rolling Stone October 20

Various Authors (1996) "The Eternal Triangle: Race, Class, and IQ. Current Anthropology 37:s143-s181.
November 12
The Professional Feminists and the Feminists Professionals: Discussing our Past.

Readings to be announced.
Local expert: LuAnn Wandsnider
November 19
Clovis and the peopling of the Americas

Whitely, David S. and Ronald Dorn (1994) New Perspectives on the Clovis vs. pre-Clovis Controversy.
American Antiquity 58:626-647.

Other readings to be announced.
Web Sites Dealing with the Clovis Controversy

Experts Agree (or do they?) on Pre-Clovis Site
Local Expert: Peter Bleed
December 3

Student selected topic