There is enormous interest in the evolution of cooperation in both the animal kingdom and among humans. This focus on cooperative behavior is a necessary corrective to longstanding emphasis on competition in evolutionary models. Some…
HRAF is excited to announce that Dr. Damián Blasi of the University of Zurich joined HRAF as a Research Associate in Summer 2018. His research agenda is focused on the relationships between language and environment/ecology…
Did you know that as a small, non-profit organization, Human Relations Area Files services over 500 academic member institutions from around the world? Anthropologists, archaeologists, social scientists, and cross-cultural researchers from these institutions benefit from…
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…
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 –…
If you haven’t yet browsed our open access collection of over 40 teaching exercises, now is a perfect time. Teaching eHRAF is a ready-made classroom companion offering sample syllabi for the eHRAF World Cultures and…
What is a “normal” childhood? Childhood, child-rearing and care-giving are all areas of human development which are largely taken for granted from within a single culture. However, approaches to childhood and children vary greatly across…
The New Year is underway, which means it’s time for our annual news and notes review. This post will summarize our highlights from the previous year as well as what you can expect to see…
This week, we have a guest contributor to eHRAF Highlights: HRAF Research Anthropologist Ian Skoggard, who shares some thoughts and findings on human cooperation. Cooperation has deep evolutionary roots. Bees do it, ants do it,…
HRAF President, Carol Ember, has contributed this post reporting on her ongoing research into natural hazards and cultural “tightness”. Some societies appear to have strong and clearly defined expectations for how to behave in many…