The Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) at Yale University is pleased to announce that eHRAF World Cultures now contains matching focal documents for all Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) cases. The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample was created…
The National Science Foundation (NSF), in a grant to the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), is supporting three years of Summer Institutes for Cross-Cultural Anthropological Research (BCS #2020156). These Summer Institutes will train faculty, researchers,…
After several years of development and months of beta testing, the new look for our eHRAF World Cultures database is scheduled to launch in Fall 2021. The official public rollout will begin in the Fall,…
Are fathers and “fatherhood” underrepresented as a subject of inquiry in anthropology? According to evolutionary anthropologist Anna Machin, up until 10 years ago, fatherhood was neglected by researchers “due to the misguided assumption that it…
Have you ever wondered how the Human Relations Area Files got its name? Or how we organized our ethnographic collections for members before the Internet? HRAF has partnered with Choice’s podcast The Authority File to…
Francine Barone Proverbs are a simple way of expressing a well-known truth or adage based on common sense or experience. They are usually considered to be imbued with ancestral wisdom, passed down from generation to…
In homage to the late Alex Trebek (1940-2020), host of the television game show Jeopardy! for 37 years, we are pleased to share a new interactive HRAF game: eHRAF Archaeology Jeoparody. A play on the…
For over 70 years, the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) has been fulfilling our mission to promote understanding of cultural diversity and commonality in the past and present. To accomplish this mission, HRAF produces scholarly…
Food is a universal human experience. People everywhere must eat to survive, yet what foods are eaten and how they are enjoyed can vary widely across cultures and time. “Comfort foods” made a comeback in…
If the number of cute animal memes on the internet is a fair benchmark, then the human love of pets is a powerful and global phenomenon. For many pet owners, their furry (or scaly) domestic…