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PALEOANTHROPOLOGY: SCIENCE OR MYTHICAL CHARTER Matt Cartmill
Causal explanations involve both narrative and laws. To explain some events as the effect of other events, we must at least demonstrate (1) that the cause and effect both took place, with the cause preceding the effect, and (2) that the effect belongs to a class of events that can be reliably expected to follow from a class of events to which the cause belongs. Demonstration (1) is a narrative; demonstration (2) is a law. Narrative and "contingency" are not satisfactory substitutes for laws in explaining evolutionary events. If any evolutionary events are explicable, there must be evolutionary laws, and the course of evolution must therefore be to some extent predictable. However, many evolutionary events will probably always elude causal explanation. In particular, as Hume pointed out, qualitatively unique events cannot be explained causally. If human beings possess qualitatively unique traits, their causes must remain a subject for speculation. The only evolutionary events we can explain, in our own lineage or any other, are those that conform to recurring regularities.
CANNIBALISM AMONG AZTECS AND THEIR NEIGHBORS: ANALYSIS OF THE 1577-1586 RELACIONS GEOGRÁFICAS FOR NUEVA ESPAÑA AND NUEVA GALICIA PROVINCES Barry L. Isaac
This article presents the first systematic analysis of the statements on prehispanic cannibalism in the 1577-1586 Relaciones Geográficas (RGs) for Nueva Galicia and Nueva España provinces of New Spain, an area occupied by the Aztecs and their closest neighbors. Forty of the 105 RGs analyzed, from widely scattered locales in the two provinces, allege cannibalism. In both their content and their inherent limitations as a database, these mainly rural reports are very similar to the well-known, intensive, largely urban studies of Aztec culture made in the sixteenth century (e.g., by Durán and Sahagún). While the Spanish/mestizo RG authors who offered damning assessments of Indian culture or character were more likely to allege cannibalism, those whose greater interest in indigenous culture in reflected in their lengthier reports on it also mention the practice. At the same time, the statements on cannibalism were directly attributed to Indian informants in 18 (45 percent) of the 40 RGs alleging cannibalism.
RACE FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE TRIBE THAT NEVER WAS: SEGMENTARY NARRATIVES AMONGST THE GHAWARNA OF GALILEE Sliman Khawalde and Dan Rabinowitz
Members of a low-status Arab group in Galilee, said to be of Bedoin origins and known by neighboring Palestinians as Ghawarna (sing. Ghorani), recently tend to play down this affiliation, some to the extent of denying that a group called Ghawarna ever existed. This phenomenon is evaluated against the better-known tendency in Arab cultures to embellish, glorify, and sometimes invent a unified past. A distinction is made between competition at the top of the social scale-- which tends to stress noble descent-- and struggle to escape the bottom, which may hinge on undoing pejorative associations. The article suggests that the ideology of blood ties and the social hierarchy that it engenders within and between groups and tribes in Arab culture are perhaps less uniform and constant than hitherto assumed. Finally, the case of the Ghawarna and their (denied) geneology is contextualized within the political predicament of Palestinian citizens of Israel, particularly those who were displaced in 1948.
PASTORAL NOMADS: SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS BASED ON RESEARCH IN IRAN Philip Carl Salzman
A review of research on pastoral nomads in Iran leads to a number of general observations about pastoral nomadism. Nomadic movement is highly purposeful and is oriented toward achieving specific production or other goals. Commonly nomadic mobility is used to advance production goals in a number of diverse sectors. However, nomadism is not tied to one type of economic system; some nomads have generalized, consumption-oriented production, while others are specialized and market-oriented. Nor is nomadism limited to one type of land tenure; some nomads migrate within a territory that they control, while others have no political or legal claim over the land they use. Furthermore, some pastoral nomads live in isolated regions far from other populations, while others live close to peasant and urban populations. Pastoral nomads vary in political structure from state-controlled peasants, to centralized chiefdoms, to weak chiefdoms, to segmentary lineages systems.
BOOK REVIEWS
Posing Questions for a Scientific Archaeology. Terry
L. Hunt , Carl P. Lipo, and Sarah L. Sterling, eds. Westpost,
Conn.: Bergin and Garvey, 2001, 336 pp. $67.50, cloth.
Sampling in Archaeology. Clive Orton. Cambridge, Eng.:
Cambridge University Press, 2000, 261 pp. $75.00, cloth; $28.00, paper.
Excavation. Steve Roskams. Cambridge, Eng.:
Cambridge University Press, 2001, xv + 311 pp. $74.95, cloth; $27.95, paper.
Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food, Politics,
and Power. Michael Dietler and Brian Hayden, eds.
Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001, 432 pp. $55.00,
cloth; $29.95, paper.
Cultural Evolution: Contemporary Viewpoints.
Gary M. Feinman
and Linda Manzanilla. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers,
2000, xv + 269 pp. $67.50, cloth.
Classic Period Mixtequilla, Veracruz, Mexico: Diachronic Inferences
from Residential Investigations. Barbara L. Stark, ed.
Albany, N.Y.: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, SUNY Albany, 2001, 411
pp., 195 figures, 114 tables. $45.00, paper.
Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru. Elizabeth P. Benson and
Anita G. Cook, eds. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001, 227 pp.
$45.00, cloth; $19.95, paper.
The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest
Peoples from the West. J.P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair. London:
Thames and Hudson, 2000, 352 pp., 190 illustrations. £28.00, cloth.
Ceramics and Community Organization among the Hohokam. David
R. Abbott. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2000, 280 pp. $40.00,
cloth.
Prehistoric Painted Pottery of Southeastern Arizona. Robert
A. Heckman, Barbara K. Montgomery, and Stephanie M. Whittlesey, eds.
Tucson,
Ariz.: Statistical Research, Inc., 2001, 163 pp., 10 color plates, 59 black-and-white
illustrations. $35.00, paper.
The Mastery and Uses of Fire in Antiquity. J.E. Rehder.
Quebec: McGill-Queens University Press, 2000, 216 pp. $39.95, cloth.
Earliest Italy: An Overview of the Italian Paleolithic and Mesolithic.
Margherita Mussi. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers,
2001, xviii + 399 pp. $79.95, cloth.
Settlement Dynamics of the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age.
N.J. Caonrad, ed. Tübingen: Kerns Verlag, 2001, xx + 61 pp. 49.95
euros.
Pathways of Power: Building an Anthropoloy of the Modern World.
Eric R. Wolf, with a preface by Sydel Silverman and a foreward by
Aram A. Yengoyan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001,
xx + 463 pp. $60.00, cloth; $24.95, paper.
The Shaping of American Ethnography: The Wilkes Exploring Expedition,
1838-1842. Barry Alan Joyce. Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 2001, 187 pp., 30 figures, 2 maps. $40.00, cloth.
A New System for the Formal Analysis of Kinship. Sydney
H. Gould. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2000, 472
pp. $57.50, cloth.
Creativity and Beyond: Cultures, Values, and Change. Robert
Paul Weiner. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press,
2000, 353 pp. $24.95, paper.
Doing Fieldwork: The Correspondence of Robert Redfield and Sol Tax.
Robert A Rubenstein, ed. with forward by Lisa Redfield Peattie.
New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2002, 354 pp. $29.95,
paper.
Reproducing Jews: A cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel.
Susan Martha Kahn. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000, 227 pp.
$17.95, paper.
Humors and Substances: Ideas of the Body in New Guinea.
Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern, with contributions by Ien Courtens
and Dianne van Oosterhout. Westport, Conn.: Bergin and Garvey,
2001, 176 pp. $54.50, cloth.
Deadhead Social Science: "You Ain't Gonna Learn What You Don't Want
to Know." Rebecca G. Adams and Robert Sardiello, eds.
Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 2000, 299 pp. $24.95, paper.
African-American Pioneers in Anthropology. Ira E. Harrison
and Faye V. Harrison, eds. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois
Press, 1999, 328 pp. $49.95, cloth.
Dance in Cambodia. Toni Samantha Phim and Ashley Thompson.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, vii + 91 pp. $19.95, cloth.
The Performance of Gender: Anthropology of Everyday Life in a South
Indian Fishing Village. Cecilia Busby. New Brunswick,
N.J.: Athlone Press, 2000, 262 pp. $80.00, cloth.
The Rise of Anthropological Theory, updated edition. Marvin
Harris. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira Press, 2001, 832 pp. $90.00,
cloth; $34.95, paper.
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