Anthropology | CAS in the Media | Washington State University

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Most violent era in America was before Europeans arrived

August 4, 2014

There’s a mythology about the native Americans—that they were all peaceful and in harmony with nature. It’s easy to create narratives when there is no written record.

But archeology keeps its own history and a new paper finds that the 20th century, with its hundreds of millions killed in wars and genocides, was not the most violent. On a per-capita basis that honor may belong to the central Mesa Verde of southwest Colorado and the Pueblo Indians.

Writing in the journal American Antiquity, WSU archaeologist Tim Kohler and colleagues document how nearly 90 percent of human remains from that period had trauma from blows to either their heads or parts of their arms.

Learn more about this myth-busting research at Science 2.0 and WSU News

Ancient baby boom offers lessons in over-population

July 1, 2014

WSU scientists have sketched out one of the greatest baby booms in North American history, a centuries-long “growth blip” among southwestern Native Americans between 500 and 1300 A.D.

It was a time when the early features of civilization—including farming and food storage—had matured to a level where birth rates likely “exceeded the highest in the world today,” the researchers report in this week’s issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Then a crash followed, offering a warning sign to the modern world about the dangers of overpopulation, says Tim Kohler, professor of anthropology.

“We can learn lessons from these people,” says Kohler, who co-authored the paper with WSU researcher Kelsey Reese.

Anthropologist discovers clues to first Americans

May 16, 2014

For more than a decade, WSU molecular anthropologist Brian Kemp has teased out the ancient DNA of goose and salmon bones from Alaska, human remains from North and South America and human coprolites—ancient poop—from Oregon and the American Southwest.

His aim: use genetics as yet another archaeological record offering clues to the identities of ancient people and how they lived and moved across the landscape.

As head of the team studying the DNA of Naia, an adolescent girl who fell into a Yucatan sinkhole some 12,000 years ago, he has now helped illuminate the origins of the first people to inhabit the Americas and their possible connection to native people today.

“It’s incredible to make such a discovery,” said Kemp, an associate professor in WSU’s Department of Anthropology. “It is an honor to be able to use the skills I have acquired to address classic questions about the entrance of humans into the Americas.”

Find out more about this breakthrough research at WSU News

Other sources:

Smithsonian
CBS News
Heritage Daily
The Spokesman-Review
The Yakima Herald-Republic
Science 2.0
The Seattle Times
Archeology News Report
Yahoo News
Red Orbit

45 undergraduates named top researchers in SURCA competition

April 28, 2014

Thirty-nine awards were presented recently to 45 WSU students—many in the College of Arts and Sciences—at the third annual Showcase for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities (SURCA) 2014.

The work of 192 students University-wide was detailed in 11 oral and 145 poster presentations open to faculty, staff, students, and guests. More than 100 judges evaluated the presentations. The judges included WSU emeriti faculty and retirees, faculty, staff, and post-doctoral students as well as experts from companies outside of WSU.

While many students from urban campuses traveled to participate, SURCA was made available to two place-bound students thanks to web conferencing provided by the Global Campus. A Pullman student studying abroad in Mexico and a WSU Vancouver student who was unable to attend SURCA in person talked “live” to their judges who were in the senior ballroom of the Compton Union Building.

More about the competition and list of winners

How anthropologists help control Ebola outbreaks

April 3, 2014

When disease strikes in the developing world, like the current Ebola outbreak in Guinea, doctors, nurses and epidemiologists from international organizations fly in to help.

So do anthropologists.

Understanding local customs—and fears—can go a long way in getting communities to cooperate with international health care workers, says Barry Hewlett, a medical anthropologist at WSU Vancouver.

Otherwise medical efforts can prove fruitless, says Hewlett, who was invited to join the Doctors Without Borders Ebola team during a 2000 outbreak in Uganda. There are anthropologists on the current team in Guinea as well.

Before the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders started bringing in anthropologists, medical staff often had a difficult time convincing families to bring their sick loved ones to clinics and isolation wards. In Uganda, Hewlett remembers, people were afraid of the international health care workers.

“The local people thought that the Europeans in control of the isolation units were in a body parts business,” he says. “Their loved ones would go into the isolation units and they would never see them come out.”

Learn more about anthropology’s role in disease control