Category Archives: Archaeology Database Highlights

Dogs and the Hands That Feed: The Utility of Dogs in Hunter-Gatherer Societies

By Jeffrey Vadala Human relationships with dogs extend into the deep past, just as they strongly endure in myriad forms in the present. New research in Siberia indicates that humans may have established relationships with…

Shaman Lords, Spider Diviners, and Hoards: An Archaeology of the Objects We Bury

Jeffrey Vadala Throughout history, humans have collected and buried groups of objects together, whether for ritual purposes (e.g., offerings to the gods) or pragmatic reasons (e.g., for secret stores of food). Today, many cultural groups…

Featured eHRAF teaching exercise: Comparison of prehistoric burial practices

This week’s featured eHRAF teaching exercise was produced in-house here at HRAF by Christiane Cunnar. Designed for classroom use or as a homework assignment, Exercise 2.3 Burial Practices: A world-wide comparison of burial practices in…

Featured Culture: Aztecs, cosmology, and ancient rituals in eHRAF

The Aztec Empire constituted the greatest empire in Mesoamerican prehistory, both territorially and demographically, extending from highland basins to coastal plains, valleys and lowland forests. The Mexica – as the Aztec people are known –…

Burning questions: evidence for off-site fire use by hunter-gatherers in eHRAF Archaeology

An insightful publication by Fulco Scherjon, Corrie Bakels, Katharine MacDonald, and Wil Roebroeks in the June 2015 issue of Current Anthropology sheds new light on present-day and historical fire setting practices among hunter-gatherers and foragers.…

eHRAF databases rated “highly recommended” by Choice magazine

Full-text reviews: eHRAF World Cultures; eHRAF Archaeology. HRAF’s cross-cultural databases – eHRAF Archaeology and eHRAF World Cultures – have each been reviewed as “highly recommended” for undergraduates, researchers, faculty and professionals/practitioners in the October 2015…

Citing from the eHRAF databases and HRAF home page

When citing a document from the eHRAF World Cultures or the eHRAF Archaeology database, please include both the original publication citation (if applicable) followed by information about where and when you found it. Evans-Pritchard, E.…