By Francine Barone 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…
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…
It’s that time of year again when the fall semester is just around the corner. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with a few ways that you can get classroom- and research-ready with HRAF.…
By Francine Barone 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…
![Fieldnotes: Traditional Basarwa (San) dancing in Botswana [Video]](https://hraf.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/san-dancing-feature.png)
HRAF anthropologist Ian Skoggard visited Botswana last year. In this post, he shares his experiences along with some video footage from his trip. Last September 2016, my wife and I had the privilege to visit…
In our live webinars, you can learn more about the eHRAF databases, including how cultures and traditions are organized by regions, sub-regions, samples, and subsistence types. First developed in the 1930s by George Peter Murdock,…
This year, HRAF welcomes new member institutions from across the world—with universities in Turkey, France, and Canada.
The Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) at Yale University is pleased to announce a one-year internship in Melvin Ember’s name. Melvin Ember was President of HRAF from 1987 until his death in 2009. The intent…
Do songs share certain forms across the world? If you hear a song sung in an unfamiliar language, in a rhythm you’ve never heard before, can you still understand what it means? In a cross-cultural…
By Francine Barone A recent article from NPR, Lost Posture: Why Indigenous Cultures Don’t Have Back Pain, prompted us to see what we could uncover in eHRAF World Cultures that would shed more light on…