In former times, even more than today, climatic changes had major influences on migratory flows, and consequently on ancient agrarian civilizations, leading to deep economic, social, political and religious chaos, history that we should meditate today to decide our future. This original book insists on the importance of the El Niño climatic phenomenon on the trans-Pacific migratory flows which occurred 5000 years ago, and presents comparisons between cultures and civilizations which existed on both sides of the Pacific, in Asia and America, in comparable epochs. Travelers who want to discover pre-Colombian America or ancient Asia, whether they are lovers of archeological sites or passionate about the cultural heirs of old civilizations, will be fascinated by the innovating content of th...

This 378 page archaeological publication covers the development, definition, classification, and world-wide deployment of the lithic bipoint and includes numerous photographs, drawings, and maps. The bipoint is a legacy implement from the Old World that is found through time/space all over America. It was brought into the U.S. on both coasts; the Pacific Coast introduction was around 17,000 years ago and the Atlantic Coast was 23,000 years ago. The basic bipoint is defined and its manufacturing processes are presented along with bipoint properties, shape/form, resharpening, and cultural associations. This publication illustrates numerous bipoints from the Atlantic and Pacific states (and within the U.S.) and presents some of their inferred chronologies which are the oldest in the New World...

This book is a full-color study of over 500 pre-Clovis stone artifacts of Virginia. With the 22K-year date of the Cinmar bipoint in Virginia, there is ample evidence of artifact classes that are older than Clovis. Over 50 tool types are illustrated and discussed. Artifact single-site collections are documented. The book argues the differences between Holocene biface technology with the blade and core technology of the Pleistocene era. The requirements for identifying Pleistocene artifacts is presented, such as platforms, remaining cortex, and invasive retouch. They are presented in a tool model. Major stones, namely jasper, are discussed as a lithic determinism. The east coast distribution is presented for various tool types. Additionally, as a major focus, cross-Atlantic flake/blade ident...

The problematic field of investigation for this study was for the care of bereaved human beings in the context of significant cultural shifts now shaping the twenty-first century. Deritualization was identified as a significant interdisciplinary concern that contributes to potential distress in processes of grieving. The objective of the research was the development of a practical theology of compassionate caregiving for the bereaved with deference to the problem of deritualization. The theoretical framework was guided by the Oxford Interdisciplinary Research model and the Loyola Institute of Ministries model of practical theology. The study was designed for applied research for funeral directors and vocational pastors utilizing qualitative research methods. Hermeneutical and empirical com...

The understanding of shamanism in its variety of forms and manifestations has become vital in our understanding of the origins and development of ideological systems of the human family. Though not a religion, shamanism is the first formalization of the human quest for meaning, understanding and participation in the mysteries of the cosmic drama. It is a global phenomenon; cultural specific practices and beliefs reflecting and embodying universal "truths." This book is a collection of the papers presented at the 6th Conference of the International Society for Shamanistic Research held at the Viljandi Kultuurikolledz, Viljandi, Estonia in August of 2001. It represents the contemporary work of international scholarship in its attempt to understand the complexities of shamanism, both anc...

This archaeological publication covers the development, definition, classification, and world-wide deployment of the lithic bipoint and includes numerous photographs, drawings, and maps. Lithic bipoint technology originated 75,000 years ago, and it continued to the discovery of metal for tools. It was brought into the U.S. on both coasts; the Pacific Coast introduction was around 17,000 years ago and the Atlantic Coast was 23,000 years ago. This book presents and discusses bipoints from nearly every U.S. state. Bipoint function, usage, and resharpening are also presented. The book is indexed and has extensive references.

The dissertation describes the processes surrounding the production of investigative knowledge within the Danish Police based on in-depth analyses of how investigators seek out, discover, and produce knowledge that can assist in the production of evidence for identification and prosecution. The central question informing the dissertation is the question of how knowledge comes about, and how such processes of knowledge can be studied anthropologically. The dissertation develops a theoretical frame for the study of knowledge, which addresses the becoming of knowledge as the effect of the interaction of heterogeneous 'parts' producing knowledge as a complex 'whole'. This is done by investigating how tacit and embodied forms of knowledge (experience or 'craft knowledge') as well as more abs...

U.S. fisheries legislation requires National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to attend to the critical social and economic issues surrounding the definition and identification of fishing communities, and to the effects that changes to the physical environment and regulatory decisions can have on such communities. To fulfil their mandate, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) sponsored the research entitled Identifying Fishing Communities in the Gulf of Mexico to study the economic, social and cultural status of potential fishing communities along the Gulf of Mexico. NMFS contracted the research project to Impact Assessment, Inc. to study 80 plus potential fishing communities in the Florida Gulf Coast. I worked as an intern in the research and visited...

This work focuses on contemporary Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture - widely known until the early 1990s as "Shona Sculpture" - from the perspective of a critical anthropological analysis of cultural identity and representation. The analysis frames the inception of this art movement within the colonial socio-historical circumstances of its genesis, where discourse about the producers of this art form ("Shona discourse") was created. Drawing from the social context of inequality and racial (spatial) segregation, and from the concepts of the "primitive" in art and anthropology, the author aims to show how "Shona discourse" entails a primitivist construction of the Other (i.e., the sculptors' cultural identity) that is directly linked to modernist primitivism. "Shona discourse," as a temporalising d...

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, has been described in many ways. It has been called qigong, one of many schools of physical exercises that aim at improving health and developing supernatural abilities. Scholars and mainstream media have referred it to as a spiritual movement or religion, although practitioners claim it is not a religion. It has been called a cult, in the pejorative sense rather than in a sociological context, by the Chinese government and by some Western critics. In the writings of Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, it is referred to in different ways, though primarily as a cultivation practice. The question of how to define Falun Gong is not just an academic issue; the use of the cult label has been used to justify the persec...

Personal impurity caused by childbirth, menstrual blood or death is an issue of concern prevalent in many cultures. In Japan, the generic term for these kinds of impurities is kegare and death impurity, a sub-type of kegare, is known as shi-e. The major topic of this book is death impurity. The definition and genesis of shi-e are explained. In addition, details of the influence shi-e had on ancient Japanese society as well as its continuing influence on modern Japanese society are given. Three hypotheses are stated and supported: (1) the shi-e concept began in Japan during the Yayoi period (300 BC - 300 AD) rather than at a later date as previously hypothesized; (2) the basis for the aversion to dead bodies, i.e. shi-e, is that corpses remind people of the fact that they will soon die...

This interdisciplinary dissertation explores the archetype of the "ape-man" from a phenomenological perspective, with its genesis and present continuation dependent on extant and accreted human behavior and morphology. In order to ascertain the embedded components of the ape-man archetype, an identikit ape-man as a discrete phenomenon is derived after the examination of cross-cultural examples world-wide. Next, this discrete phenomenon and its constituent parts are compared both to extant ape species' behavior and morphology and the paleoanthropological evidence to determine in what ways -- if any -- components of each are reflected accurately in the phenomenon. Utilizing concepts in the fields of cultural and physical anthropology, ethology, psychology, and philosophy, this dissertati...

Dostoevsky's novels have contributed to a conception of man that reverberates in the conclusions of prominent twentieth-century philosophical anthropologists. Max Scheler, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus, among others, have admitted that the works of Dostoevsky had an influence on the manner in which they learned to conceive of human nature and the world in which humans live. Our aim in this dissertation is to ask: what is there in the novels of Dostoevsky concerning the nature of man, of which certain philosophers could claim that in their philosophical conceptions of man they were positively influenced by him? The main thesis is substantiated with a careful analysis of four novels: Notes From the House of the Dead (Zapiski iz mertvo...

Cranial and postcranial research on East and Southeast Asians has shown population variability between and within these two regions. Moreover, as populations vary by sex, sex differences vary by population. The purpose of this study is to provide the first descriptive and comparative analysis of two recently curated samples of complete, documented, contemporary skeletons from Thailand (N=104) and Hong Kong (N=94) that have not been previously studied. Sex differences reveal Hong Kong males and females as larger but less dimorphic than Thais. Stepwise discriminant function analysis of the Thai humerus and femur allowed 94%-96% sex classification accuracy. In conclusion, this research has increased our knowledge of sex and population differences in Asia and has important application...

Departing from John Herbert Michael Agar's contention that "the truth that makes people free is for the most part the truth which people prefer not to hear," I focus this article on two all too often implied, although not explicitly formulated, major triggers of Africa's predicaments -- including environmental degradation. I argue that while the ruling elites (Africans and non-Africans alike) have been, and still are, the major players in the development and exacerbation of the myriad of problems facing Africa and its people, this elemental dimension has not received sufficient academic attention. I also ascertain how the challenges facing Africa and its people -- ranging from environmental degradation to cultural putrefy, and from political paralysis to economic stagnation, are, while i...

Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, has been the landscape of religious, social and political conflict for more than 500 years. The Magindanawn people, who embraced Islam after contact with Malay Muslims in the late 1400s, have experienced clan rivalries and other outsider aggressions leading to disenfranchisement and displacement from their ancestral domain in west Central Mindanao. In the activism and rebellion of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Magindanawn people were often caught between Philippine military forces and the Bangsamoro mujahideen. In the 1980s, there was some respite but, until the present-day, the people and the land have been subjected to continual skirmishes and sometimes all-out war. In the mid-1990s, Datu Ibrahim "Toto" Paglas III wanted to fulfill his fathe...

This publication was written to provide a source for archaeological projectile point typology for a region of the U.S. that over the years has been traditionally divided into:Northeast culture area Middle Atlantic culture area Southeastern culture area These divisions are based primarily on lithic technology and settlement patterns. While this focus tends to serve archaeological investigations, most of the prehistoric Indian habitation/occupation requires greater definition and appraisal from other sources within the archaeological community. Even among artifact collectors, there is a tendency to parcel these areas into the classic culture area concepts. This publication makes no attempts to refocus archaeology, but to show the vast overlaps of numerous point technologies. This is especi...