Anthropology // Current

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5 months ago

From The Heart Of The World - The Elder Brothers' Warning

This documentary from 1991 explores the culture and spiritual beliefs of the Kogi tribe -- a pre-Colombian American tribe once... more

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Bone Fragments Confirmed to be Saint Paul

Pope Benedict XVI said scientific tests confirmed shards found in the underground chamber at the church of St... more

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35,000 year-old Bone Flute discovered in Germany

Archaeologists announced today that they had unearthed the oldest musical instruments ever found -- flutes that inhabitants of... more

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Untouched Canaanite tomb found in Bethleham!

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Ancient Sand Carvings in the California Desert

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The boy does not have a name, but he is not unknown. Smithsonian scientists reconstructed his story from a skeleton, found in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, buried underneath a layer of fireplace ash, bottle and ceramic fragments, and animal bones.

Resting on top of the rib cage was the milk pan used to dig the grave. "It's obviously some sort of clandestine burial," says Kari Bruwelheide, who studied the body. "We call it a colonial cold case."

Bruwelheide is an assistant to forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley. After more than a decade of cases that span the centuries, the duo has curated "Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th-Century Chesapeake," on view at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History through February 2011. The exhibit shows visitors how forensic anthropologists analyze bones and artifacts to crack historical mysteries. "The public thinks they know a lot about it, but their knowledge is based on shows like ‘Bones' and ‘CSI,' so they get a lot of misinformation," Owsley says. "This is an opportunity for us to show the real thing."

Take the boy in the clandestine grave. Since the 1990s, the Lost Towns Project in Annapolis, Maryland—which aims to rediscover settlements that have disappeared from the landscape—has conducted excavations in Anne Arundel County, a social and political hub in colonial Maryland. When intern Erin Cullen unearthed a skull in a 17th-century cellar, archaeologists at Lost Towns sought out Owsley.

He recognized that the skull belonged to a Caucasian male. Further analyses indicated the male was of European descent and 15 to 16 years old. The boy's spine and teeth were damaged from hard labor or disease. This profile fit that of an indentured servant in the Chesapeake Bay of the mid-17th century. During this time, young European men and women signed indenture contracts with Chesapeake planters, merchants and tradesmen. Typically, servants needed to work for at least four years to pay off the debt, but it was not uncommon for them to die during the harsh conditions of bondage.

Based on the artifacts surrounding the body—including a coin dated 1664 and a piece of window that has a date stamp of 1663—archaeologist Jane Cox determined that the boy had died between 1665 and 1675. That time frame corresponds to when laws were being passed against the private burial of indentured servants, to prevent owners from covering up instances of abuse. The boy's right wrist was fractured in a way that suggested he used his arm to block a strong blow shortly before his death. That injury, along with the awkward burial, points to a violent end. "They were burying him in secret so they would not have to report the death," Bruwelheide surmises.

For Owsley, reconstructing the lives of people whose skeletons he uncovers is the most important part of the job. "The story of these individuals is their legacy," he says.

Do you think forensic anthropology is interesting?The boy does not have a name, but he is not unknown. Smithsonian scientists reconstructed his story from a skeleton, found in Anne... more

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8 months ago

'Vampire' Discovered in Mass Grave

A skeleton exhumed from a grave in Venice is being claimed as the first known example of "vampires" University of... more

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9 months ago

Arab Anthropologist Discusses Islam and the Modern World

Anthropologist Sa'd Al-Sowayan discusses how the academic institutions in the Arab world must be changed, how interpretation... more

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Media-Producing Anthropologists

February 18, 2009

Dear Anthropologists,

Please consider submitting an abstract for consideration in the proposed panel, Media-Producing Anthropologists, at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 3-7, 2009. Participants should be prepared to screen and critique their own nonfiction visual production. Please send abstracts to Adam Fish at rawbird@gmail.com, before March 20, 2009 with the subject heading: AAA 2009 Panel.

For more information on the conference please visit http://www.aaanet.org/meetings/index.cfm.

Thank you,

Adam Fish
University of California, Los Angeles
Current TV, VC2 Producer

Media-Producing Anthropologists

Adam Fish, Chair/Organizer
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 3-7, 2009

Following the conference theme, the End/s of Anthropology, this panel investigates a post-textual, pro-visual anthropology. What new visual languages exist in the digital present? How does anthropological media production exist as an effective representational strategy in an age of amateur “democratized” media production and the hybridization of nonfiction genres? This panel explores emergent modes of anthropological visual media production. Panelists are media producing anthropologists who reflexively decompress the problems of field producing, editing, and exhibiting anthropologically illustrative media. Our subjects are the possibilities and limitations inherent in the use of video cameras, editing technologies, information architectures, or narrative structures. We discuss the mechanics and experience of media production and the architectonics that dominate the construction of visual actualities. Recently completed or in-development work are showcased to illustrate new methods of visual media production in anthropology. Presentations will be highly visible. Each panelist will criticize at least one of his or her recorded and edited clips. As anthropological media advances astride technological elaborations new audiences emerge and traditional audiences change. Panelists are encouraged to connect their production and editing choices to the modulating political economy of media anthropology within academia and beyond.February 18, 2009 Dear Anthropologists, Please consider submitting an abstract for consideration in the proposed panel,... more