Luck of the Irish: Folklore and fairies in Rural Ireland
If the month of March has you seeing shamrocks, it might be a good time to brush up on your knowledge of Irish culture. The Rural Irish collection in eHRAF World Cultures is a great…
Category Archives: Feature
Knowledge is power: anthropology of proverbs
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…
Craving comfort: bonding with food across cultures
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…
Unconditional Love: Is devotion to pets a cultural universal?
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…
Romantic or disgusting? Passionate kissing is not a human universal
From pop culture to evolutionary psychology, we have come to take kissing for granted as universally desirable among humans and inseparable from other aspects of affection and intimacy. However, a recent article in American Anthropologist…
eHRAF Archaeology Jeoparody Game
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…
HRAF 2020 in Review & 2021 Preview
It’s 2021, and time for our annual news & notes recap and preview. This post will summarize our activities from the previous year, as well as what you can expect to see from HRAF over…
New and Forthcoming Cultures and Traditions in eHRAF World Cultures & Archaeology (2020-2021)
A popular annual request from our members is for information about how we are growing our culture collections in our eHRAF databases. Below is a brief summary of what cultures and traditions we have added…
Winter Solstice Celebrations Around the World
The Winter Solstice is upon us in the Northern Hemisphere. Marking the longest night and shortest day of the year, the hibernal solstice is an astronomical event that takes place when the Earth reaches its…
Thanks, but no thanks: Expressions of gratitude in eHRAF World Cultures
During the end-of-year “holiday season” throughout much of the Western world, we are often reminded to be grateful for the things that we have, and even to go out of our way to be gracious…