The Scope and Limits of Biological Explanations in Archaeology

10.26686/wgtn.16926496.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Benjamin Jeffares

Keyword(s):

Homo Sapiens ◽

Direct Application ◽

Biological Mechanisms ◽

Ongoing Debate ◽

Raw Data ◽

Cognitive Capacities ◽

Explanatory Framework ◽

The Past ◽

Cultural Processes ◽

Biological Explanations

I show how archaeologists have two problems. The construction of scenarios accounting for the raw data of Archaeology, the material remains of the past, and the explanation of pre-history. Within Archaeology, there has been an ongoing debate about how to constrain speculation within both of these archaeological projects, and archaeologists have consistently looked to biological mechanisms for constraints. I demonstrate the problems of using biology, either as an analogy for cultural processes or through direct application of biological principles to material remains. This is done through setting out the requirements of a Darwinian Archaeology, and then measuring various approaches against these requirements. This approach leads to the conclusion that archaeologist's explanations of the past must include within their formulations an account of human cognitive capacities within their explanatory framework. The limits of our understanding of the human past will be the limits of our understanding of Homo sapiens.

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Introduction

10.1093/oso/9780198799887.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Gianfranco Pacchioni

Keyword(s):

Industrial Revolution ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

Modern Society ◽

Full Time ◽

Human Race ◽

Hunter Gatherers ◽

The Past ◽

The World ◽

The Universe ◽

Radical Transformation

About 10,000 years ago, at the beginning of the agriculturalrevolution, on the whole earth lived between 5 and 8 million hunter-gatherers, all belonging to the Homo sapiens species. Five thousand years later, freed from the primary needs for survival, some belonging to that species enjoyed the privilege of devoting themselves to philosophical speculation and the search for transcendental truths. It was only in the past two hundred years, however, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, that reaping nature’s secrets and answering fundamental questions posed by the Universe have become for many full-time activities, on the way to becoming a real profession. Today the number of scientists across the globe has reached and exceeded 10 million, that is, more than the whole human race 10,000 years ago. If growth continues at the current rate, in 2050 we will have 35 million people committed full-time to scientific research. With what consequences, it remains to be understood. For almost forty years I myself have been concerned with science in a continuing, direct, and passionate way. Today I perceive, along with many colleagues, especially of my generation, that things are evolving and have changed deeply, in ways unimaginable until a few years ago and, in some respects, not without danger. What has happened in the world of science in recent decades is more than likely a mirror of a similar and equally radical transformation taking place in modern society, particularly with the advent ...

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ANCA Status or Clinical Phenotype — What Counts More?

Current Rheumatology Reports ◽

10.1007/s11926-021-01002-0 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 23 (6) ◽

Author(s):

Martin Windpessl ◽

Erica L. Bettac ◽

Philipp Gauckler ◽

Jae Il Shin ◽

Duvuru Geetha ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Clinical Trials ◽

Granulomatosis With Polyangiitis ◽

Clinical Phenotype ◽

Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody ◽

Cardiovascular Death ◽

Genetic Associations ◽

Ongoing Debate ◽

The Past ◽

Anca Associated Vasculitis

Abstract Purpose of Review There is ongoing debate concerning the classification of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis. That is, whether classification should be based on the serotype (proteinase 3 (PR3)- or myeloperoxidase (MPO)-ANCA) or on the clinical phenotype (granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA) or microscopic polyangiitis (MPA)). To add clarity, this review focused on integration of the most recent literature. Recent Findings Large clinical trials have provided evidence that a serology-based risk assessment for relapses is more predictive than distinction based on the phenotype. Research conducted in the past decade indicated that a serology-based approach more closely resembles the genetic associations, the clinical presentation (i.e., lung involvement), biomarker biology, treatment response, and is also predicting comorbidities (such as cardiovascular death). Summary Our review highlights that a serology-based approach could replace a phenotype-based approach to classify ANCA-associated vasculitides. In future, clinical trials and observational studies will presumably focus on this distinction and, as such, translate into a “personalized medicine.”

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“So Quick Bright Things Come to Confusion”

American Journal of Law & Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0098858800008327 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 13 (2-3) ◽

pp. 169-187

Author(s):

Alexander Morgan Capron

Keyword(s):

Homo Sapiens ◽

Care Delivery ◽

Well Being ◽

Workplace Safety ◽

Selective Abortion ◽

Self Identity ◽

The Past ◽

Adverse Impacts ◽

The Rich ◽

Insurance Discrimination

In the past several decades, the problems facing those of us who labor in the vineyards of health policy and ethics have been the problems of success — first medicine's and then, though to a lesser extent, our own. By this I mean that it has been the remarkable fruits of biomedicine, from research to health care delivery, that have produced the rich harvest of ethical, social and legal issues that have drawn our, and society's, attention.In the basic science laboratory, scientists have developed means to splice pieces of DNA together, raising questions from workplace safety to the reengineering of homo sapiens. Of more immediate concern, tests for genetic susceptibility to disease in one's self and one's offspring have been developed, thereby generating questions about employment and insurance discrimination, selective abortion, and adverse impacts on self-identity and well-being.

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Monitored Lives: Writing Indigenous Land Management and the State (Part One)

Practicing Anthropology ◽

10.17730/praa.23.1.kl705833845056h5 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 32-35

Author(s):

Jim Birckhead

Keyword(s):

Cultural Identity ◽

Land Tenure ◽

Government Agencies ◽

Contract Work ◽

The Past ◽

Cultural Processes ◽

Indigenous Land Management ◽

Expert Input ◽

Management Issues ◽

Indigenous Land

Anthropologists in Australia are becoming increasingly involved in government contract work on Indigenous land tenure and management issues, most of which require some ‘expert’ input to help authenticate cultural identity and establish connection to ‘country’. In this paper I have reviewed some issues and themes drawn from my uneven and serendipitous work as an anthropologist. This work has been done as both an academic and practitioner, over the past couple of decades on Indigenous land tenure, hunting, management, and ranger training at this dynamic and contentious interface between Indigenous cultural processes and government agencies. My aim is to raise questions of both ethics and epistemology and to reflect on the work of the anthropologist in these domains, without attempting to systematically cover all of the possible issues.

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Estimation of food intake in sheep by blood assay for lithium content following ingestion of lithium labelled food

Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Science ◽

10.1017/s1752756200590152 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 1995 ◽

pp. 16-16

Author(s):

J.E. Vipond ◽

G. Horgan ◽

D. Anderson

Keyword(s):

Basal Diet ◽

Lithium Content ◽

Biological Mechanisms ◽

Fixed Amount ◽

Physiological Factors ◽

The Past ◽

Coefficients Of Variation ◽

Supplementary Feed ◽

Supplement Intake ◽

Selection Of

Current rationing systems for sheep and cattle aim to balance a deficit in a basal roughage diet by giving group-fed animals a fixed amount of supplementary food. Assumptions are made that both the intake of basal diet and supplementary feed are average values. Coefficients of variation in individual intake of supplementary feeds of 16-36% have however been observed (Foot and Russel, 1973; Foot et al, 1973) and this variation may be larger (67-107%) where supplements are available as feed blocks (Kendall et al, 1983; Ducker et al, 1981).Recent work on the selection of feed ingredients by sheep (Kyriazakis and Oldham, 1993) and the effect of physiological factors such as parasitism on diet selection (Kyriazakis et al, 1994) suggest that there may be biological mechanisms behind this variation. Estimation of intake of supplements has been difficult in the past, particularly at pasture using chronic oxide and N-alkane indigestible marker systems owing to the need for complete faecal collection procedures and handling procedures that disrupt grazing. A promising new method using lithium as a marker has been developed in Australia (Nolan et al, 1994). This work was undertaken to evaluate the lithium technique for use under UK conditions to elucidate causes of variation in supplement intake of sheep.

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Dental tissue proportions in fossil orangutans from mainland Asia and Indonesia

Human Origins Research ◽

10.4081/hor.2011.3 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. e1 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Tanya M. Smith ◽

Anne-Marie Bacon ◽

Fabrice Demeter ◽

Ottmar Kullmer ◽

Kim Thuy Nguyen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Fossil Record ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

Homo Erectus ◽

Dental Tissue ◽

Developmental Constraints ◽

Enamel Thickness ◽

Selective Pressures ◽

The Past ◽

Geometric Scaling ◽

Dental Reduction

Orangutans (Pongo) are the only great ape genus with a substantial Pleistocene and Holocene fossil record, demonstrating a much larger geographic range than extant populations. In addition to having an extensive fossil record, Pongo shows several convergent morphological similarities with Homo, including a trend of dental reduction during the past million years. While studies have documented variation in dental tissue proportions among species of Homo, little is known about variation in enamel thickness within fossil orangutans. Here we assess dental tissue proportions, including conventional enamel thickness indices, in a large sample of fossil orangutan postcanine teeth from mainland Asia and Indonesia. We find few differences between regions, except for significantly lower average enamel thickness (AET) values in Indonesian mandibular first molars. Differences between fossil and extant orangutans are more marked, with fossil Pongo showing higher AET in most postcanine teeth. These differences are significant for maxillary and mandibular first molars. Fossil orangutans show higher AET than extant Pongo due to greater enamel cap areas, which exceed increases in enamel-dentine junction length (due to geometric scaling of areas and lengths for the AET index calculation). We also find greater dentine areas in fossil orangutans, but relative enamel thickness indices do not differ between fossil and extant taxa. When changes in dental tissue proportions between fossil and extant orangutans are compared with fossil and recent Homo sapiens, Pongo appears to show isometric reduction in enamel and dentine, while crown reduction in H. sapiens appears to be due to preferential loss of dentine. Disparate selective pressures or developmental constraints may underlie these patterns. Finally, the finding of moderately thick molar enamel in fossil orangutans may represent an additional convergent dental similarity with Homo erectus, complicating attempts to distinguish these taxa in mixed Asian faunas.

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Warfare, Ethics, Ethology: evolutionary fundamentals for conflict and cooperation

10.31235/osf.io/fa84e ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel Barreiros

Keyword(s):

Phylogenetic Tree ◽

Common Ancestor ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

Social Ethics ◽

Historical Narrative ◽

Conflict And Cooperation ◽

African Apes ◽

The Past ◽

Cognitive Capability ◽

The Social

The aim of this article is to set a macro-historical narrative concerning the emergence of warfare and social ethics as symplesiomorphic features in the lineage of Homo sapiens. This means that these two behavioral aspects, representative of a very selected branch in the phylogenetic tree of the Primate order, are shared by the two lineages of great African apes that diverged from a common ancestor around six million years in the past, leading to extant humans and chimpanzees. Therefore, this article proposes an ethological understanding of warfare and social ethics, as both are innate to the social high-specialized modular mind present in the species of genera Pan and Homo. However behavioral restraints to intersocietal coalitionary violence seems to be an exclusive aspect of the transdominial modular cognition that characterizes modern humans. Thus, if in the evolutionary long durée, warfare and restrictions to intrasocial violence both appear to be ethologically common to humans and chimpanzees to a certain extent, an ethics of warfare - and, of course, the cognitive capability for intersocietal peace - seems to be distinctly human.

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The Past and Future Distribution of Homo Sapiens and his Activities in Great Britain

The Future of Man ◽

10.1016/b978-0-12-229060-2.50007-0 ◽

1972 ◽

pp. 1-35

Author(s):

J.K. PAGE

Keyword(s):

Great Britain ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

The Past

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Evidence for Magnetoreception in Red Drum (Sciaenops ocellatus), Black Drum (Pogonias cromis), and Sea Catfish (Ariopsis felis)

Aquatic Science and Technology ◽

10.5296/ast.v4i1.8711 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 17

Author(s):

Joshua Courtney ◽

Michael Courtney

Keyword(s):

Red Drum ◽

Sciaenops Ocellatus ◽

Ongoing Debate ◽

Additional Species ◽

Simple Method ◽

The Past ◽

Biogenic Magnetite ◽

Analogous Experiment ◽

Elasmobranch Fishes ◽

And Control

Over the past few decades, magnetoreception has been discovered in several species of teleost and elasmobranch fishes by employing varied experimental methods including conditioning experiments, observations of alignment with external fields, and experiments with magnetic deterrents. Biogenic magnetite has been confirmed to be an important receptor mechanism in some species, but there is ongoing debate regarding whether other mechanisms are at work. This paper presents evidence for magnetoreception in three additional species, red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus), black drum (Pogonias cromis), and sea catfish (Ariopsis felis), by employing experiments to test whether fish respond differently to bait on a magnetic hook than on a control. In red drum, the control hook outcaught the magnetic hook by 32-18 for Χ2=3.92 and a P-value of 0.048. Black drum showed a significant attraction for the magnetic hook, which prevailed over the control hook by 11-3 for Χ2=4.57 and a P-value of 0.033. Gafftopsail catfish (Bagre marinus) showed no preference with a 31-35 split between magnetic hook and control for Χ2=0.242 and a P-value of 0.623. In a sample of 100 sea catfish in an analogous experiment using smaller hooks, the control hook was preferred 62-38 for Χ2=5.76 and a P-value of < 0.001. Such a simple method for identifying magnetoreceptive species may quickly expand the number of known magnetoreceptive species and allow for easier access to magnetoreceptive species and thus facilitate testing of magnetoreceptive hypotheses.

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