above question

Iron is also stronger, but the melting temperature is a lot higher - like around 2800 C but for copper/tin it's around 1800 C.

However, it should have been easier to discover and use iron over bronze since iron is very plentiful and doesn't need to be alloyed. Moreover, why couldn't the ancients just use copper, instead of bronze (which is 90% copper and tin)?

COuld it be possible that bronze could have only developed where tin is found, since tin is a lot more rare than copper, and that bronze was developed/discovered in modern-day Afghanistan since that's where huge deposits of tin existed?

Do we know anything about successful female lineages? Any help would be appreciated.

For example, when we talk about the Bantu migrations, that Bantu culture eventually split into different cultures or ethnic identities in the places where they settled, how long did that generally take?

Or, for the indigenous peoples of the Americas--after they migrated across the strait onto the Americas, how long did it take for the different nations/cultures we know today to form? Whether it be the Olmecs, Aztecs, Cherokee, or Tsimshian?

Hi! I have a question to anthropologists and scholars of religion who study the intersection of religion and colonialism.

I'm a POC raised Christian (a religion officially adopted and and integrated into the culture/nation of my parents due to colonization), but born and raised in the U.S. As I deconstruct, I'm increasingly aware of how "foreign" Christianity feels when compared to my ancestral heritage and its own distinct spiritual and cultural practices. What insights can your field offer on the psychological and cultural impact of a community adopting a religion that necessitates letting go of pre-existing cultural norms and beliefs?

Since everyone buys their food and no longer sources their food themselves, like buying bottled water. At what point in time say the 1950's, is isotope testing no longer a valuable tool? Sorry if I phrased this oddly.

I was watching a video about Neanderthals a little while ago, and the video mentioned that genomic testing found that Neanderthals are actually a subspecies of Homo sapiens, not a separate species.

Neanderthals were morphologically different enough for scientists before the advent of molecular phylogenetics to consider them a distinct species. This got me wondering, is there enough morphological variation within modern humans that, say, if a future advanced/intelligent species evolves and looks at us in the fossil record, they would not consider us to be a single species? Would they consider us to be multiple distinct species, or possibly a species continuum or a syngameon? This is assuming that they don't yet know about genetics or have the ability to sequence it at the time of finding us, or that we are too far back in the fossil record to be able to have our DNA sequenced.

Could we be doing this to animals in biology and zoological taxonomy? Could some species we think are distinct because of phenotypic differences actually be conspecific? From what I know, many fields within taxonomy still use morphological differences to classify their taxa.

Any recommendations appreciated.

Particularly interested in the emergence of religions and their impact on society.

I've recently found that the Romanian folk tale "Tinerețe fără bătrânețe și viață fără de moarte" ("Youth without aging and life without death"), collected by Petre Ispirescu, is interestingly similar to a Georgian tale "მიწა თავისას მოითხოვს" ("The earth demands its own"), not only in the general outline of the story, but also in particular details, sometimes phrases being identical almost word for word. I am also very curious in which other countries, if any, this tale exists:

A man goes in search of his life quest, finding a place where death does not exist. He goes through two episodes involving animals (in the Romanian tale it is enemies he must fight - a woodpecker and a scorpion - whereas in the Georgian one it's temptations he must endure - from a stag and a raven), after which he reaches the land of immortality in the form of a shining castle. There he meets a beautiful girl who has been living there since time immemorial, marries her and they live hundreds or thousands of years together, but he is unable to perceive the passage of time. One day he realizes he misses his parents and decides to go back to his place of origin, despite being advised against it by the girl. On the way back he finds new places that did not exist what he thinks was three days ago, and talks to people, some of which remember that only their oldest of old were telling tales about him. He then reaches his home, which is now a ruin, his hair and beard grow white and long, and dies.

I am having a hard time finding this information, and I am working on a project that would benefit from knowing. Assuming 117 billion people have ever lived (Based on most popular source), Some sources lead me to assume that less that 1% of that figure were stone age, while others made me think that maybe the number was closer to 40%

Another way to frame my question may be: If we looked at all human lives ever lived, what would be the percentage split between hunter gatherer/pre-agriculture peoples and everyone else?

I've decided as my goal that I'm gonna become a molecular anthropologist. That is my North Star right now. I've decided that that's the most logical path for me and I personally enjoy the topic as well. I love the idea of it, but now it's time to get to the reality of it. What can I do to become a Molecular Anthropologist in the future? What is the data on molecular anthology as a career? What are the facts of what's out there? I just wanna get the general data about it right now so I can get to organizing it.

Did this serve as some sort of survival advantage for us? Or did we just want their companionship?

For example, the first style of architecture to go international without a real place of origin was Art Deco.

What made me think of this was a post asking how to get the big huge crunchy permed look we all know as * '80s hair' *. Someone mentioned in a comment that in New Zealand aquanet wasn't available, but they used XYZ instead.

It had never occurred to me that in the 80s, everyone, everywhere was sporting the look. When did this start to happen?

I noticed that the only water-soluble vitamin that does not need to be replenished daily or near-daily (namely vitamin B12, which can be stored in the liver for years), is also the only of those vitamins that humans need to eat animals in order to get. Vitamin C and all the other B vitamins, which can all be found in plant foods, need to be replenished almost daily.

Of course, one should be careful to make too broad generalisations based on limited observations, but to me, it seems like this suggests that early humans had to eat plants everyday and only ate animals episodically (otherwise, why would the body develop a strategy to store B12?). I would like to hear some of your thoughts.

Perhaps this is not the right subreddit, in which case, apologies, and I would appreciate if I could be kindly redirected.

Most books I have found about it are about the business side of things.

Hello, What I'm going to ask here is more in the field of legal anthropology and comparative law. I hope this is the right subheading for my query. I'm interested in comparative law and legal anthropology with the aim of understanding what generally leads societies to judicialize certain areas of public/private life throughout history, in the same way that the environment and economic structures influence the judicialization of behavior. I would particularly like to talk about the judicialization of moral norms (on sexuality, family, etc.).

• First, I know there is surely a general empirical explanation. I would like to understand how progress affects normative inflation throughout history: there are more regulations, but are more freedoms granted? Or, on the contrary, is there greater legislation in the criminal sphere? (This is done by comparing several legal systems).

• In history, what generally leads to the enactment of norms (such as the Napoleonic Civil Code more recently, but also in medieval and ancient history more generally with the Code of Hammurabi, Roman laws, etc.), and in what contexts is this done?

• How do economic structures (linked to the environment) shape the legal system (subsistence economy, capitalism, pastoralism, socialism, etc.)?

I would like more long-term, process-based analyses. If you have any references and resources to share that could help me, I would be grateful.

Homo Sapiens migrated out of Africa to Asia via Egypt and also via Eritrea.

• When did these two migrations occur?
• Did one give rise to EHG and the other give rise to WHG?

I’ve read that the Zagroa Farmwrs and the Anatolian Farmers were so genetically different, and that there was a 50KY divergence between the two groups. So I’m thinking that the Zagroa Farmers came from the Eritrean route, and the Anatolian Farmers came from the Egyptian route.

Also, were the Zagroa Mountain Farmers the descendants of the EHG, and the Anatolian Farmers the descendants of the WHG?

after doing some reading I see that military related anthropology is controversial at best but is there any work out there about the effects of a military base on local civilian community around it?

I ask because I was stationed at no less than three bases (in the US) where the area directly outside the gate was forbidden to visit. this was usually because of strips clubs, bars, pawn shops, crime rates. It might be a chicken and the egg sort of question. Does the military presence encourage these types of businesses to spring up, or does the military only build bases on cheap land in povertous places? a lot of bases have existed for 50+ years now, so I wonder if there's any trends as these two communities develop alongside eachother.

Also, if there's any work out there about the evolution of language/slang terms in military communities. I know that's a difficult ask because slang is so hard to track.

Lmk

How important was trade, and how much did humans rely on it before settling down? Did humans other than Homo sapiens trade with each other?

I'm about to graduate with a BS in Anthropology and a minor in Political Science. I've been trying to look for jobs but I honestly have no idea what I want to do. If anyone has the same major/minor combo or just majored in ANTH, please let me know what you've done/been doing. Thanks!

I don't want to study anthropology in university but I'm interested in this subject so could you recommend me some high quality courses or books that they using in university etc

Hello fellow anthropologists. I am curious to get some feedback on something - I have an MA in anthropology, focusing in the archaeology of the Andes. I have field experience and some lab experience as well. I work full-time at a private research library in an entry level position, and I volunteer once a week at a museum doing compositional analysis of archaeological materials. The museum work is exciting and will hopefully lead to a few publications sometime soon (and these would be my first!). Both jobs allow me access to archaeological collections and some pretty substantial archival material which I have been using to conduct some research I have always been interested in, which I hope to submit to some journals (that is a whole other thing - I have no idea what the process is like).

On to my question - I plan to start a PhD in the next year or two. Would it be to my benefit to pick up a part time or adjunct teaching position at a Community College in the area while I continue to prepare for further graduate school? I don't have teaching experience so I thought this would be a good way to get some. There are a ton of CC's in the area and many are hiring adjunct anthro teachers and have been for a long time. Would I have to quit my full time position to pursue this? Is it even a good idea? I am very new to this world and don't have the perspective, so I was hoping some of you more experienced folks could help me out. Thanks!

I read the book a few years ago so my memory is a little spotty but I believe that was the one of the central elements. I found this fascinating. The premise was that human societies tend to lean towards polygyny where "high status" (however arbitrary that is) men take multiple wives, inevitably leaving a surplus of sexually unsuccessful "low status" men. These men in turn react violently, upsetting stability and cohesion. Therefore, religious and legal institutions favor monogamy so as to not have a profusion of angry, sexually-frustrated men champing at the bit to burn it all down.

I'm not saying this is MY opinion necessarily. I believe that there's a major gray area when it comes to marriage and mating systems and that humans are extremely adaptive given whatever respective society they're born into. I'm wondering if this has been discussed extensively and what further analysis there is. Thanks!