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This study examines the complexities of cultural-heritage management in Vietnam and the various tensions that arise within initiatives promoting “authentic” versions of cultural practice. In particular, this research investigates local perceptions concerning the commodification of the Cham New Year (Rija Nâgar) at temple-tower complexes, and explores the implications of sacred religious holidays (ngày lễ) that are organized as festival (lễ hội) events. Arranged by local Vietnamese officials, the implementation of these events for tourists contradicts important Cham worldviews, leading to negative perceptions of tourism among community members, and fears that such practices pose irrevocable damage for Cham spirituality and the future of their ancestral heritage. This research underscores the importance of community involvement with respect to decision making in cultural-heritage management, and that heritage tourism in Vietnam, and Southeast Asia more generally, may be dramatically improved with guidance from indigenous voices and local spiritual leaders.

The Busidima Formation in the Afar region, Ethiopia, spans the Quaternary and records the cultural evolution of the genus Homo. Yet, the Middle Pleistocene to Holocene fluvial environments in which early humans lived are undersampled in eastern Africa. This paper examines the stratigraphy, geochronology and paleoenvironments of the newly designated Odele Member of the uppermost Busidima Formation (<152 thousand years ago (ka)), which has received little attention despite representing a critical period in the evolution of early Homo sapiens and its migration out of Africa. The Odele Member is 40–50 m thick and is dated using tephrochronology, radiometric, luminescence, and electron spin resonance techniques. The member spans 151 to 7 ka, defined at the base by the widespread Waidedo Vitric Tuff (WAVT, 151 ± 16 ka modeled age and 95.4% credible interval - C.I.). There are two prominent erosional unconformities in the Odele Member, a lower one after the WAVT deposition with a modeled 95.4% C.I. range of 124–97 ka; and an upper one involving widespread alluvial fan incision commencing between 21.7 and 12.9 ka. The uppermost Odele Member also contains black, organic-rich mats, redox features, reed casts, and freshwater gastropods marking wetter conditions during the terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene. A black, fine-grained relict soil coeval with the Halalalee paleosol bounds the top of the Odele Member and has mollic and vertic properties, weathering since ∼12 ka. These incision events and prominent paleosol development near/at the top of the Busidima Formation document Middle to Late Pleistocene Awash River incision to its present-day course. Paleo-rainfall estimates suggest that the Early Holocene-age Halalalee paleosol weathered under a climate with mean annual rainfall 10–15% higher than today. A compilation of radiocarbon ages from aquatic gastropods, carbonized wood and charcoal from the upper Odele Member shows wetter and possibly more vegetated conditions during late marine isotope stage (MIS) 3 and the African Humid Period (AHP) that are tightly coupled with precession-driven summer insolation maxima. These key findings suggest that periods of incision, aggregation, and landscape stability in the Odele Member have an orbital precession pacing. The Odele Member revises upward the age of the Busidima Formation to 7 ka, showing that it spans into the Holocene and now includes Middle and Later Stone Age archaeological traditions.

The nearly complete cranium DAN5/P1 was found at Gona (Afar, Ethiopia), dated to 1.5–1.6 Ma, and assigned to the species Homo erectus. Its size is, nonetheless, particularly small for the known range of variation of this taxon, and the cranial capacity has been estimated as 598 cc. In this study, we analyzed a reconstruction of its endocranial cast, to investigate its paleoneurological features. The main anatomical traits of the endocast were described, and its morphology was compared with other fossil and modern human samples. The endocast shows most of the traits associated with less encephalized human taxa, like narrow frontal lobes and a simple meningeal vascular network with posterior parietal branches. The parietal region is relatively tall and rounded, although not especially large. Based on our set of measures, the general endocranial proportions are within the range of fossils included in the species Homo habilis or in the genus Australopithecus. Similarities with the genus Homo include a more posterior position of the frontal lobe relative to the cranial bones, and the general endocranial length and width when size is taken into account. This new specimen extends the known brain size variability of Homo ergaster/erectus, while suggesting that differences in gross brain proportions among early human species, or even between early humans and australopiths, were absent or subtle.

Both negative and positive cultural factors affect innovative efforts in developing countries. In the case of Ethiopia, negative factors include a low esteem for craftsmanship. Even where modern education is making inroads on some negative factors, as in the towns, feudalistic attitudes toward labor and the preference for unskilled labor on the assumption that it is more economical, act to continue functionally inefficient attitudes. In contrast, positive factors exist in traditions of mutual aid, now spreading from South Ethiopian cultures northward. An excellent model for mutual aid may be found in the practices of the migrant weavers' association of the Gurage and some neighboring tribes. Ethiopia provides an interesting area for the study of human factors in developing countries since it has not passed through a colonial period. Various stages of development can be traced comparatively free of outside influences. © 1968, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. All rights reserved.

The relationship between the development of public health programs and "social problems" is of increasing concern to students of social and cultural problems. Health is obviously related to the availability of good nutrition, essential in building resistance against contagious diseases that form the bulk of preventable health problems in underdeveloped countries. Good nutrition, in turn, is dependent upon availability of agricultural products, basic income to buy them, and education to utilize them properly. This article attempts to trace, briefly, some of the etiology of these interrelated problems in a country in which traditional values have not been distorted by a foreign-established colonial period, and which has experienced only superficial change in modern times. This makes it possible to view relationships more clearly than in other underdeveloped countries where they may exist in more complex forms. © 1970.

This article employs a dialogic approach, in the parlance of Bakhtin, to explore the ways in which a school's "medium," its primary language of instruction, has become a major category of identity in North India. Many people describe themselves and others by invoking attendance at either a Hindi- or English-medium school. The first task of this article is to account for what Bakhtin calls "centripetal forces" that enable people at different positions in terms of class or school experience to use a common duality of Hindiversus English-medium and its attendant social resonances. The second task is to account for the abilities of a teacher to question the inevitability of the medium divide and to radically reframe what is important about schooling. Her abilities derive, in part, from her experiences with schools, attesting to Bakhtin's insight that centripetal forces in language are never total, and that centrifugal forces arise from complex engagements with institutions. © 2006 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved.

Although Spanish chroniclers referred frequently to coerced migration in the Inca Empire, these migrations have been difficult to document archaeologically. One approach to migration studies, strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) analysis, has emerged as an effective technique. Until now, however, this method has not been applied to the Inca heartland region of Cuzco, Peru. In this study, we use strontium isotope analysis to examine patterns of prehistoric migration in the Cuzco Valley. Human dental enamel samples from the Cuzco Valley site of Chokepukio are analyzed and compared to the local 87Sr/86Sr signature established through faunal specimens. Though tentative due to a small sample size, the isotope results do not provide evidence for migration at this site from the time periods preceding the rise of the Inca Empire (200 B.C. to A.D. 1400). In contrast, there is substantial evidence for migration during the time of Inca imperialism (A.D. 1400-1532). Among these migrants, variation in 87Sr/86Sr values suggests that individuals emigrated from geologically diverse locations, while sex differences in the migrant group include a higher percentage of females and a greater diversity in female 87Sr/86Sr values. These data, along with ethnohistoric evidence, reveal how Inca labor policies reconfigured the composition of populations in the imperial heartland. Copyright ©2009 by the Society for American Archaeology.

The study of the origin and causes of interpersonal violence and warfare in human prehistory has drawn the interest of anthropologists for over a century (Ember and Ember 1995; Ferguson 1984; Ferguson and Whitehead 1992; Gat 2000; Haas 1990; Keeley 1996; Kelly 2000; Lambert 2002; McCall and Shields 2008; Martin and Frayer 1997; Otterbein 1994; Turney-High 1971; Walker 2001; Wrangham and Peterson 1996). Over the past few decades, a plethora of research has provided unambiguous evidence for interpersonal violence and warfare in a vast number of prehistoric societies, countering the notion of a “pacified past” (Keeley 1996; Lambert 2002; Maschner and Reedy-Maschner 1998; Milner 1995; Walker 2001). This is particularly true in California, where the notion of idyllic, peaceful hunter-gatherer groups living in a bountiful temperate climate has been contradicted by numerous skeletal studies revealing evidence of cranial trauma, projectile point injuries and trophy-taking (e.g. Andrushko et al. 2005, 2010; Jurmain 1991, 2001; Jurmain and Bellifemine 1997; Jurmain et al. 2009; Lambert 1994, 1997; Nelson 1997; Walker 1989; Wiberg 2002). The study of human skeletal remains provides a unique perspective on trauma in pastsocieties that complements evidence from material culture, site context and ethnographic and ethnohistoric accounts (Jurmain 1999; Larsen 1997; Walker 1997). While early trauma analyses focused on single case studies or small samples, more recent studies have followed a population-based perspective, with greater emphasis on the examination of trauma patterns in larger and more representative skeletal samples (e.g., Lambert 1994, 1997; Lovejoy and Heiple 1981; Steadman 2008). This population-based perspective has allowed osteologists to recognize individual, temporal and geographic variation in traumatic injuries due to a wide range of cultural, biological and environmental factors. Over the past two decades, several studies have also increasingly focused on more definitiveindicators of violence, such as cranio-facial trauma and injuries associated with embedded projectile points or other types of weaponry (e.g. Andrushko and Torres 2011; Buzon and Richman 2007; Dawson et al. 2003; Fiorato et al. 2000; Jurmain et al. 2009; Kanz andGrossschmidt 2006; Lambert 1994, 1997; Lessa and Mendonça de Souza 2004, 2006; Murphy et al. 2010; Owens 2007; Paine et al. 2007; Smith, 1996, 1997, 2003; Standen and Arriaza 2000; Steadman 2008; Torres-Rouff and Costa Junqueira 2006; Tung 2007; Walker 1989, 1997; Webb 1995; Willey and Emerson 1993). Peri-mortem mutilation, including evidence of dismemberment and trophy-taking (e.g. scalping, body part removal), is also considered a corollary to interpersonal violence and warfare practices (Andrushko et al. 2005, 2010; Lambert 2007; Steadman 2008; Tung 2007, 2008; Tung and Knudson 2008; Verano 2003). When analysed together, these direct indicators of violence – cranio-facial trauma, projectile point injury and evidence of trophy-taking – provide powerful evidence for interpersonal violence in a society. Moreover, when these indicators of conflict are analysed from a population-based perspective, as described above and employed in the present study, a more accurate and nuanced understanding of violent conflict in the past can be achieved. © 2014 Christopher Knüsel and Martin J. Smith for selection and editorial matter; individual contributions, the contributors. All rights reserved.

The colonization of the Pacific, Caribbean, and Mediterranean by food-producing communities in prehistory has rarely been considered in an explicitly comparative perspective. This article suggests that, despite evident human and environmental diversity, these insular colonization episodes have certain formal and processual similarities, especially in terms of the rate and dynamics of the colonization episodes. Specifically, in all three cases, colonizing populations seem to have rapidly crossed very great distances to find new niches, only for these events to be followed by generations of colonizing inactivity. It is proposed that such patterning may be a feature which is somehow common to episodes of coastal and insular colonization by food-producing, pre-state communities. Reasons as to why this might be-including ecological and demographic factors-are considered. This study indicates the utility of a comparative approach, and contributes to the ongoing debate centered on the extent to which insularity conditions human behavior. © 2014 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This article presents an approach to economic value based on the paradigm of multimodal analysis. I argue that economic value is constituted within its own interactional mode, that economic laws are constituted as semiotic resources, and that markets can ultimately be understood as the “habituation in mode” (Kress) of these resources. The article is organized as a set of problems and possible solutions for the multimodal analysis of language and value. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd