Latest news with #anthropology
ABC News
23-05-2025
- ABC News
Pacific voyagers' remarkable environmental knowledge allowed for long-distance navigation without western technology
Wet and shivering, I rose from the outrigger of a Polynesian voyaging canoe. We'd been at sea all afternoon and most of the night. I'd hoped to get a little rest, but rain, wind and an absence of flat space made sleep impossible. My companions didn't even try. It was May 1972, and I was three months into doctoral research on one of the world's most remote islands. Anuta is the easternmost populated outpost in the Solomon Islands. It is a half-mile in diameter, 120 kilometres from its nearest inhabited neighbour, and remains one of the few communities where inter-island travel in outrigger canoes is regularly practised. My hosts organised a bird-hunting expedition to Patutaka, an uninhabited monolith 30 miles away, and invited me to join the team. We spent 20 hours en route to our destination, followed by two days there, and sailed back with a 20-knot tailwind. That adventure led to decades of anthropological research on how Pacific Islanders traverse the open sea aboard small craft, without "modern" instruments, and safely arrive at their intended destinations. Wayfinding techniques vary, depending upon geographic and environmental conditions. Many, however, are widespread. They include mental mapping of the islands in the sailors' navigational universe and the location of potential destinations in relation to the movement of stars, ocean currents, winds and waves. Western interest in Pacific voyaging Disney's two Moana movies have shined a recent spotlight on Polynesian voyaging. European admiration for Pacific mariners, however, dates back centuries. In 1768, the French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville named Sāmoa the "Navigators' Islands". The famed British sea captain James Cook reported that Indigenous canoes were as fast and agile as his ships. He welcomed Tupaia, a navigational expert from Ra'iātea, onto his ship and documented Tupaia's immense geographic knowledge. European explorers were impressed by the navigational skills of the people they encountered in the Pacific islands. In 1938, Māori scholar Te Rangi Hīroa (aka Sir Peter Buck) authored "Vikings of the Sunrise", outlining Pacific exploration as portrayed in Polynesian legend. In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian explorer and amateur archaeologist, crossed from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands aboard a balsa wood raft that he named Kon-Tiki, sparking further interest and inspiring a sequence of experimental voyages. Ten years later, Andrew Sharp, a New Zealand-based historian and prominent naysayer, argued that accurate navigation over thousands of miles without instruments is impossible. Others responded with ethnographic studies showing that such voyages were both historic fact and current practice. In 1970, Thomas Gladwin published his findings on the Micronesian island of Polowat in "East Is a Big Bird". Two years later, David Lewis's We, the Navigators documented wayfinding techniques across much of Oceania. Many anthropologists, along with Indigenous mariners, have built on Gladwin's and Lewis' work. A final strand has been experimental voyaging. Most celebrated is the work of the Polynesian Voyaging Society. They constructed a double-hull voyaging canoe named Hōkūle'a, built from modern materials but following a traditional design. In 1976, led by Micronesian navigator Mau Piailug, they sailed Hōkūle'a over 2,500 miles from Hawai'i to Tahiti without instruments. In 2017, Hōkūle'a completed a circumnavigation of the planet. In traversing Earth's largest ocean, one can travel thousands of miles and see nothing but sky and water in any direction. Absent a magnetic compass, much less GPS, how is it possible to navigate accurately to the intended destination? Looking to the stars Most Pacific voyagers rely on celestial navigation. Stars rise in the east, set in the west, and, near the equator, follow a set line of latitude. If a known star either rises or sets directly over the target island, the helmsman can align the vessel with that star. However, there are complications. Which stars are visible, as well as their rising and setting points, changes throughout the year. Therefore, navigation requires a detailed astronomical understanding. Also, stars are constantly in motion. One that is positioned directly over the target island will soon either rise too high to be useful or sink below the horizon. Thus, a navigator must seek other stars that follow a similar trajectory and track them as long as they are visible and low on the horizon. Such a sequence of guide stars is often called a "star path". Of course, stars may not align precisely with the desired target. In that case, instead of aiming directly toward the guide star, the navigator keeps it at an appropriate angle. A navigator must modify the vessel's alignment with the stars to compensate for currents and wind that may push the canoe sideways. This movement is called leeway. Therefore, celestial navigation requires knowledge of the currents' presence, speed, strength and direction, as well as being able to judge winds' strength, direction and effect on the canoe. During daylight, when stars are invisible, the Sun may serve a similar purpose. In early morning and late afternoon, when the sun is low in the sky, sailors use it to calculate their heading. Clouds, however, sometimes obscure both sun and stars, in which case voyagers rely on other cues. Navigating requires deep understanding of waves, in the form of both swells and seas. ( AP: Esteban Felix ) Waves, wind and other indicators A critical indicator is swells. These are waves produced by winds that blow steadily across thousands of miles of open sea. They maintain their direction regardless of temporary or local winds, which produce differently shaped waves called "seas." The helmsman, feeling swells beneath the vessel, gleans the proper heading, even in the dark. In some locations, as many as three or four distinct swell patterns may exist; voyagers distinguish them by size, shape, strength and direction in relation to prevailing winds. Once sailors near their target island, but before it is visible, they must determine its precise location. A common indicator is reflected waves: swells that hit the island and bounce back to sea. The navigator feels reflected waves and sails toward them. Pacific navigators who have spent their lives at sea appear quite confident in their reliance on reflected waves. I, by contrast, find them difficult to differentiate from waves produced directly by the wind. Certain birds that nest on land and fish at sea are also helpful. In early morning, one assumes they're flying from the island; in late afternoon, they're likely returning to their nesting spots. Navigators sometimes recognise a greenish tint to the sky above a not-yet-visible island. Clouds may gather over a volcanic peak. And sailors in the Solomon Islands' Vaeakau-Taumako region report underwater streaks of light known as te lapa, which they say point toward distant islands. One well-known researcher has expressed confidence in te lapa's existence and utility. Some scholars have suggested that it could be a bioluminescent or electromagnetic phenomenon. On the other hand, despite a year of concerted effort, I was unable to confirm its presence. Estimating one's position at sea is another challenge. Stars move along a given parallel and indicate one's latitude. To gauge longitude, by contrast, requires dead reckoning. Navigators calculate their position by keeping track of their starting point, direction, speed and time at sea. Some Micronesian navigators estimate their progress through a system known as etak. They visualise the angle between their canoe, pictured as stationary, and a reference island that is off to one side and represented as moving. Western researchers have speculated on how etak works, but there is no consensus yet. For millennia, Pacific voyagers have relied on techniques such as these to reach thousands of islands, strewn throughout our planet's largest ocean. They did so without Western instruments. Instead, they held sophisticated knowledge and shared understandings, passed by word of mouth, through countless generations.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Humans Are Evolving Right in Front of Our Eyes on The Tibetan Plateau
Humans are not yet done cooking. We're continuing to evolve and adjust to the world around us, the records of our adaptations written in our bodies. We know that there are some environments that can make us unwell. Mountain climbers often succumb to altitude sickness – the body's reaction to a significant drop in atmospheric pressure, which means less oxygen is taken in with each breath. And yet, in high altitudes on the Tibetan Plateau, where oxygen levels in the air people breathe are notably lower than lower altitudes, human communities thrive. In the more than 10,000 years the region has been settled, the bodies of those living there have changed in ways that allow the inhabitants to make the most of an atmosphere that for most humans would result in not enough oxygen being delivered via blood cells to the body's tissues, a condition known as hypoxia. "Adaptation to high-altitude hypoxia is fascinating because the stress is severe, experienced equally by everyone at a given altitude, and quantifiable," anthropologist Cynthia Beall of Case Western Reserve University in the US told ScienceAlert. "It is a beautiful example of how and why our species has so much biological variation." Beall has been studying the human response to hypoxic living conditions for years. In research published in October 2024, she and her team unveiled some of the specific adaptations in Tibetan communities: traits that help the blood deliver oxygen. To unlock this discovery, the researchers delved into one of the markers of what we call evolutionary fitness: reproductive success. Women who deliver live babies are those who pass on their traits to the next generation. The traits that maximize an individual's success in a given environment are most likely to be found in women who are able to survive the stresses of pregnancy and childbirth. These women are more likely to give birth to more babies; and those babies, having inherited survivability traits from their mothers, are also more likely to survive to adulthood, and pass the traits on to the next generation. That's natural selection at work, and it can be a bit strange and counterintuitive; in places where malaria is common, for example, the incidence of sickle cell anemia is high, because it involves a gene that protects against malaria. Beall and her team made a study of 417 women between the ages of 46 and 86 years who have lived all their lives in Nepal above altitudes of around 3,500 meters (11,480 feet). The researchers recorded the number of live births, ranging between 0 and 14 per woman for an average of 5.2, as well as health and physical information and measurements. Among the things they measured were levels of hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells responsible for delivering oxygen to tissues. They also measured how much oxygen was being carried by the hemoglobin. Interestingly, the women who demonstrated the highest rate of live births had hemoglobin levels that were neither high nor low, but average for the testing group. But the oxygen saturation of the hemoglobin was high. Together, the results suggest that the adaptations are able to maximize oxygen delivery to cells and tissues without thickening the blood – a result that would place more stress on the heart as it struggles to pump a higher viscosity fluid more resistant to flow. "Previously we knew that lower hemoglobin was beneficial, now we understand that an intermediate value has the highest benefit. We knew that higher oxygen saturation of hemoglobin was beneficial, now we understand that the higher the saturation the more beneficial. The number of live births quantifies the benefits," Beall said. "It was unexpected to find that women can have many live births with low values of some oxygen transport traits if they have favorable values of other oxygen transport traits." The women with the highest reproductive success rate also had a high rate of blood flow into the lungs, and their hearts had wider than average left ventricles, the chamber of the heart responsible for pumping oxygenated blood into the body. Taken all together, these traits increase the rate of oxygen transport and delivery, enabling the human body to make the most of the low oxygen in the air respired. It's important to note that cultural factors can play a role, too. Women who start reproducing young and have long marriages seem to have a longer exposure to the possibility of pregnancy, which also increases the number of live births, the researchers found. Even taking that into account, however, the physical traits played a role. Nepalese women with physiologies most similar to women in unstressed, low altitude environments tended to have the highest rate of reproductive success. "This is a case of ongoing natural selection," Beall said. "Understanding how populations like these adapt gives us a better grasp of the processes of human evolution." The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. An earlier version of this article was published in October 2024. Nanoplastics Stick to Toxic Bacteria, Forming a Deadly Combination Expert Explains FDA's New COVID Vaccine Rules in The US Your Perfume Could Be Messing With Your Chemical Force Shield
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Song And Dance May Not Be Universal Human Behaviors, Study Shows
No matter what language you speak, music compels you to get up and move. Or so it's been thought. Some cultures, it now appears, may lose their groove, forgetting how to dance and even sing lullabies to their children. That's the main finding from new research carried out by anthropologists Manvir Singh, from the University of California, Davis, and Kim Hill, from Arizona State University, which was based on a decade of study on a Northern Aché tribe in Paraguay. In all that time, no singing was seen directed at infants, and no dances were observed. It's apparently not something the Northern Aché know how to do – and that challenges most previous research on the topic. "Dance and infant-related song are widely considered universal, a view that has been supported by cross-cultural research, including my own," says Singh. "And this conclusion, in turn, informs evolutionary theorizing about music's origins." What singing there was mostly happened when people were alone, the researchers found. Women tended to sing about loved ones who had passed away, while the songs of men (who sang more frequently) were primarily about hunting. The researchers have a couple of hypotheses explaining what's happened. The concepts of dancing and singing to young children may have been lost during times when the Northern Aché population dropped, or when they were settled on reservations. According to conversations with the nomadic hunter-gatherers, other behaviors – including the ability to make fire, the use of magic rituals in hunting, and polygyny – have been lost to time in the same ways. "It's not that the Northern Aché don't have any need for lullabies," says Singh. "Aché parents still calm fussy infants. They use playful speech, funny faces, smiling and giggling." "Given that lullabies have been shown to soothe infants, Aché parents would presumably find them useful." It's also notable that the Southern Aché tribe closely linked to the study group do have dancing and group singing. It's possible that their northern relatives did practice these behaviors, once upon a time. While this study only covers a single group of people, it seems that lullabies and dancing may not be innate for human beings. Compare that to something like smiling, which everyone does, and which doesn't need to be learned. Getting clarity on what we do and don't do naturally, without any input from anyone else, is important in understanding the evolution of our species – and the ways in which we've gained an advantage over other animals. However, the researchers aren't rushing to any firm conclusions from their years studying the Northern Aché. It'll be interesting to see if anthropologists discover any more communities who never think of dancing or singing lullabies. "This doesn't refute the possibility that humans have genetically evolved adaptations for dancing and responding to lullabies," says Singh. "It does mean, however, that cultural transmission matters much more for maintaining those behaviors than many researchers, including myself, have suspected." The research has been published in Current Biology. TikTok Trend Has Men Shaving Their Eyelashes – Here's Why You Shouldn't Unprecedented Survey of Aztec Obsidian Reveals Coast-to-Coast Trade Network Music Does Something Amazing to Your Brain's Own Natural Rhythms
CNN
15-05-2025
- Science
- CNN
Hundreds of obsidian artifacts show how the Aztec Empire evolved
Hundreds of obsidian artifacts have revealed where the Aztecs acquired the volcanic glass they used for tools, ornamental pieces or religious objects centuries ago — and their vast trade networks included their rivals. A new study of the 788 pieces is the largest sample of obsidian artifacts ever analyzed for Tenochtitlán, which served as the capital city of the Aztecs — also known as the Mexica people — according to the authors, who reported their findings Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Using portable X-ray fluorescence, a nondestructive way to identify geochemical fingerprints, the researchers confirmed that the Mexicas were partial to a particular green and golden obsidian to produce items for rituals. But the community also relied on everyday objects made of different kinds of obsidian, like blades for cutting and scraping, and thus had to establish a complex economic system that encouraged long-distance trade with rival societies beyond their political borders, the researchers said. 'Although the Mexicas preferred green obsidian, the high diversity of obsidian types, mainly in the form of non-ritual artifacts, suggests that obsidian tools from multiple sources reached the capital of the Empire through market,' said lead study author Diego Matadamas-Gomora, a doctoral candidate of anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans, in a statement. 'By studying where this material came from, we can explore the movement of goods across Mesoamerica.' The research team was surprised by the variety of obsidian types found in the ancient capital, which surpasses that found at other sites in Mesoamerica. The discovery also sheds light on how the Aztec society evolved — introducing more standardized religion and control before the empire fell in 1520 — by showing how obsidian use changed over time. The Aztecs didn't discover obsidian. It was already the most common raw material in Mesoamerica when they arrived in the Basin of Mexico in 1200, and the use of obsidian on a broad scale dates to the Archaic period, which was from 6000 to 2000 BC for Mesoamerican societies, Matadamas-Gomora said. Obsidian originated from a geological formation known as the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, spanning 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the west to east coasts in central Mexico, the study authors noted. Craftspeople who had experience working with obsidian could shape the volcanic glass into incredibly sharp instruments, according to the study authors. The material's natural reflectivity and luster also enabled the Mexica people to turn obsidian into highly polished ornaments and religious objects. The artifacts examined in the study were uncovered during excavations that took place over decades from the main Aztec temple of Tenochtitlán, called the Templo Mayor, in what is now Mexico City. Nearly 90% of these obsidian artifacts came from the Sierra de Pachuca mountain range, the study found. Centuries ago, the Mexicas buried offerings of miniature weapons and jewelry within this sacred heart of the city. They considered green obsidian the most valuable of all obsidian types due to its hue and called it the 'obsidian of the masters,' Matadamas-Gomora said. The green obsidian was also thought to have a symbolic connection to Tollan, a mythical city where the god Quetzalcoatl lived, which was believed to be the ancestral origin of Mexico's civilizations. 'Most obsidians are naturally gray or black,' Matadamas-Gomora said in an email. 'Green obsidian from Sierra de Pachuca is unique and related to this specific geological source. The Aztecs recognized and valued that. In addition, the geological formation processes at the Sierra de Pachuca allowed the creation of high-quality obsidian at this source, making it ideal for producing complex ornaments.' The study highlights how important nondestructive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry has become to archaeology, said John Millhauser, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at North Carolina State University. Millhauser was not involved in the new study. 'Without it, we wouldn't be able to study the histories of these artifacts in such detail,' Millhauser said. 'Though the technique has only been widely used for about two decades, each new application adds a crucial piece to the puzzle of the ancient Mexica economy.' The other 10% of the artifacts were made using obsidian from seven other locations, including Otumba, Tulancingo, Ucareo and El Paraíso. While Otumba and Sierra de Pachuca were both controlled by the Aztec Empire, places like Ucareo were beyond the empire's political borders, suggesting that the Mexicas did not restrict the flow of obsidian tools from rival regions to local markets, Matadamas-Gomora said. Additionally, the tools could be found at rural as well as urban markets. The fact that people living in the heart of the capital relied on the same obsidian materials as villagers and farmers in the surrounding countryside was one of the most striking findings of the study, said Millhauser, who also directs the graduate program in anthropology at North Carolina State University. 'Considering that hundreds of thousands of people lived in the region, the scale of the obsidian supply and distribution network is extraordinary,' he said. 'It's a powerful reminder of how robust and far-reaching the economy of central Mexico was 500 years ago, with commodities like obsidian circulating widely to meet the needs of communities across the region.' Early in the Aztecs' history, obsidian for ritual and everyday objects came from limited sources. But after the Aztec Empire defeated the Tepanecs from Azcapotzalco and began imperial expansion in 1430, obsidian types increased, showing how the Mexicas expanded their commercial networks, Matadamas-Gomora said. 'Later, between (1481 and 1486), the Mexicas were ruled by a problematic tlatoani (Aztec ruler), Tízoc, who destabilized the Empire's dominance,' he said in an email. 'We see in this period that obsidian diversity was reduced to only two sources, Sierra de Pachuca and Otumba, which were historically the primary supply sources for the Mexica. After 1486, when a new ruler came to power, obsidian diversity increased again to seven sources. Therefore, our diachronic perspective on obsidian consumption revealed that the availability of this raw material was related directly to the transformations of the capital city.' Next, to better understand the ancient obsidian trade, Matadamas-Gomora wants to uncover how obsidian moved across Mesoamerica, including other archaeological sites, and arrived at Tenochtitlán. 'Archaeologists still know surprisingly little about Tenōchtitlan, the Mexica capital, largely because it lies beneath the modern sprawl of Mexico City,' Millhauser said in an email. 'Every new study offers fresh insights into the lives of its ancient residents.'
CNN
15-05-2025
- Science
- CNN
Hundreds of obsidian artifacts show how the Aztec Empire evolved
Hundreds of obsidian artifacts have revealed where the Aztecs acquired the volcanic glass they used for tools, ornamental pieces or religious objects centuries ago — and their vast trade networks included their rivals. A new study of the 788 pieces is the largest sample of obsidian artifacts ever analyzed for Tenochtitlán, which served as the capital city of the Aztecs — also known as the Mexica people — according to the authors, who reported their findings Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Using portable X-ray fluorescence, a nondestructive way to identify geochemical fingerprints, the researchers confirmed that the Mexicas were partial to a particular green and golden obsidian to produce items for rituals. But the community also relied on everyday objects made of different kinds of obsidian, like blades for cutting and scraping, and thus had to establish a complex economic system that encouraged long-distance trade with rival societies beyond their political borders, the researchers said. 'Although the Mexicas preferred green obsidian, the high diversity of obsidian types, mainly in the form of non-ritual artifacts, suggests that obsidian tools from multiple sources reached the capital of the Empire through market,' said lead study author Diego Matadamas-Gomora, a doctoral candidate of anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans, in a statement. 'By studying where this material came from, we can explore the movement of goods across Mesoamerica.' The research team was surprised by the variety of obsidian types found in the ancient capital, which surpasses that found at other sites in Mesoamerica. The discovery also sheds light on how the Aztec society evolved — introducing more standardized religion and control before the empire fell in 1520 — by showing how obsidian use changed over time. The Aztecs didn't discover obsidian. It was already the most common raw material in Mesoamerica when they arrived in the Basin of Mexico in 1200, and the use of obsidian on a broad scale dates to the Archaic period, which was from 6000 to 2000 BC for Mesoamerican societies, Matadamas-Gomora said. Obsidian originated from a geological formation known as the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, spanning 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the west to east coasts in central Mexico, the study authors noted. Craftspeople who had experience working with obsidian could shape the volcanic glass into incredibly sharp instruments, according to the study authors. The material's natural reflectivity and luster also enabled the Mexica people to turn obsidian into highly polished ornaments and religious objects. The artifacts examined in the study were uncovered during excavations that took place over decades from the main Aztec temple of Tenochtitlán, called the Templo Mayor, in what is now Mexico City. Nearly 90% of these obsidian artifacts came from the Sierra de Pachuca mountain range, the study found. Centuries ago, the Mexicas buried offerings of miniature weapons and jewelry within this sacred heart of the city. They considered green obsidian the most valuable of all obsidian types due to its hue and called it the 'obsidian of the masters,' Matadamas-Gomora said. The green obsidian was also thought to have a symbolic connection to Tollan, a mythical city where the god Quetzalcoatl lived, which was believed to be the ancestral origin of Mexico's civilizations. 'Most obsidians are naturally gray or black,' Matadamas-Gomora said in an email. 'Green obsidian from Sierra de Pachuca is unique and related to this specific geological source. The Aztecs recognized and valued that. In addition, the geological formation processes at the Sierra de Pachuca allowed the creation of high-quality obsidian at this source, making it ideal for producing complex ornaments.' The study highlights how important nondestructive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry has become to archaeology, said John Millhauser, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at North Carolina State University. Millhauser was not involved in the new study. 'Without it, we wouldn't be able to study the histories of these artifacts in such detail,' Millhauser said. 'Though the technique has only been widely used for about two decades, each new application adds a crucial piece to the puzzle of the ancient Mexica economy.' The other 10% of the artifacts were made using obsidian from seven other locations, including Otumba, Tulancingo, Ucareo and El Paraíso. While Otumba and Sierra de Pachuca were both controlled by the Aztec Empire, places like Ucareo were beyond the empire's political borders, suggesting that the Mexicas did not restrict the flow of obsidian tools from rival regions to local markets, Matadamas-Gomora said. Additionally, the tools could be found at rural as well as urban markets. The fact that people living in the heart of the capital relied on the same obsidian materials as villagers and farmers in the surrounding countryside was one of the most striking findings of the study, said Millhauser, who also directs the graduate program in anthropology at North Carolina State University. 'Considering that hundreds of thousands of people lived in the region, the scale of the obsidian supply and distribution network is extraordinary,' he said. 'It's a powerful reminder of how robust and far-reaching the economy of central Mexico was 500 years ago, with commodities like obsidian circulating widely to meet the needs of communities across the region.' Early in the Aztecs' history, obsidian for ritual and everyday objects came from limited sources. But after the Aztec Empire defeated the Tepanecs from Azcapotzalco and began imperial expansion in 1430, obsidian types increased, showing how the Mexicas expanded their commercial networks, Matadamas-Gomora said. 'Later, between (1481 and 1486), the Mexicas were ruled by a problematic tlatoani (Aztec ruler), Tízoc, who destabilized the Empire's dominance,' he said in an email. 'We see in this period that obsidian diversity was reduced to only two sources, Sierra de Pachuca and Otumba, which were historically the primary supply sources for the Mexica. After 1486, when a new ruler came to power, obsidian diversity increased again to seven sources. Therefore, our diachronic perspective on obsidian consumption revealed that the availability of this raw material was related directly to the transformations of the capital city.' Next, to better understand the ancient obsidian trade, Matadamas-Gomora wants to uncover how obsidian moved across Mesoamerica, including other archaeological sites, and arrived at Tenochtitlán. 'Archaeologists still know surprisingly little about Tenōchtitlan, the Mexica capital, largely because it lies beneath the modern sprawl of Mexico City,' Millhauser said in an email. 'Every new study offers fresh insights into the lives of its ancient residents.'
