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Tag Archives: Anthropology
Neanderthals and the beginnings of us
The Smithsonian has an interesting article up on what we currently know about Neanderthals. The article details some of the internecine battles that always seems to be a part of the paleoanthropology field, in this case focusing on the capabilities … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Human evolution, Neanderthal, Prehistory, Science
1 Comment
Big societies came before big gods
Some years ago I reviewed a book by Ara Norenzayan called Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict. Norenzayan’s thesis was that it was a belief in big gods, specifically cosmic gods that cared about human morality, that enabled … Continue reading
Posted in Religion
Tagged Ancient History, Anthropology, big gods, History, Morality, Religion, Seshat database
35 Comments
Sex laws over the millenia
Last week I listened to an episode of Fresh Air on NPR, where Terry Gross interviewed Eric Berkowitz on his new book, ‘The Boundaries of Desire‘, about sex laws over the last century. But what interested me more in the interview was … Continue reading
Posted in Society
Tagged adultery laws, ancient sex laws, Anthropology, Culture, Eric Berkowitz, History, Law, LGBT, sex, sex laws
13 Comments
First Peoples and Neanderthals
This weekend, I finished off the last of the ‘First Peoples‘ PBS miniseries on prehistoric humans. If you’ve watched other documentaries on human prehistory and found them interesting, then you’ll want to watch this one to get the latest findings. … Continue reading
First Peoples documentary series to air on PBS starting Wednesday
I’ve posted before on prehistorical societies, and the fact that, for virtually all of human history, including the history of our particular sub-species: Homo sapiens, we lived in nomadic hunter gatherer tribes. The evidence points to anatomically modern humans first … Continue reading
Religion, the Axial Age, and theoretic culture
I recently read the late Robert Bellah’s ‘Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age.’ Although the title of the book seems to narrow it to just religion, in ancient societies, religion was just about everything, so … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Religion
Tagged Ancient History, Anthropology, Axial Age, Evolution, History, Human evolution, Philosophy, Religion, Robert Bellah, Sociology, theoretic culture
20 Comments
Confucianism and the definition of religion
I’ve noted before that defining religion is difficult. Simple definitions (such as belief in gods) tend to either exclude some religions (such as Buddhism), or include things that most people don’t consider to be a religion (such as constitutional law or … Continue reading
Posted in Religion
Tagged Analects, Anthropology, Axial Age, Chinese philosophy, Confucianism, Confucius, History, Mencius, Religion, Sociology, Zhou dynasty
27 Comments
Wealth may have driven the rise of moralizing religions
One of the things that a lot of people are often surprised to hear, is that most scholars don’t believe that religion was always concerned with morality, that moralizing religion didn’t exist to any significant extent before the ‘Axial Age’ … Continue reading
Posted in Zeitgeist
Tagged Anthropology, Atheism, Ethics, God, gods, History, Moral philosophy, Morality, Nicolas Baumard, Religion, Sociology, world religions
29 Comments
World’s Oldest Art Identified in Half-Million-Year-Old Zigzag
I’ve noted before that I think capabilities like human language didn’t pop into being 50-75 thousand years ago, but developed over hundreds of thousands of years (if not millions). Well, it looks like another piece of behavioral modernity may predate … Continue reading
How Farming Almost Destroyed Ancient Human Civilization
Annalee Newitz has a fascinating article at IO9 on early neolithic societies: How Farming Almost Destroyed Ancient Human Civilization. Roughly 9,000 years ago, humans had mastered farming to the point where food was plentiful. Populations boomed, and people began moving into … Continue reading
