The anthropological participants agreed that if there is to be a fruitful dialogue on ritualization between the ethologists and other behavioural scientists it will be necessary to have detailed discussions of examples of empirical work produced by each of them. What is required is a protracted series of meetings between a restricted number of representatives of those disciplines interested in ‘ritualization’ (and anthropologists feel that premature closure on the definitional problem should be avoided) who could examine concrete data on human and animal behaviour that is ‘stereotyped’, ‘regular’, ‘periodic’, ‘repetitive’, ‘patterned’, etc., and in each species relate such behaviour to behaviour that is ‘flexible’, ‘plastic’, ‘labile’, etc. ‘Ritualized’ and ‘non-ritualized’ behaviour should also be investigated in their total situational contexts, ecological, social and, in the case of man, ideological. Synchronic studies of this type should be coupled with developmental and dynamic studies for each life-form discussed. In these ways better communication would be achieved between interested scientists than is possible from the formal interchange of prepared papers. Comparisons could then be made which might eventually contribute to the study of the
evolution
of behaviour patterns.
Radicant Israeli Art: From Past to Future