HRAF 2018 in Review & 2019 Preview
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…
Tag Archives: Archaeology
The Power and Potential of eHRAF: Cross-Cultural Research and Archaeology
Jeffrey Vadala Given that the archaeological record is often incomplete, how can archaeologists make reliable conclusions about human behavior in the past? Archaeologists employ a variety of approaches to this end, using statistical, interpretive, comparative…
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…
New member offer: special rates for 3- & 5-year HRAF memberships
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…
Think you know HRAF? Check out our podcast series on Choice’s ‘The Authority File’
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…
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 –…
Announcing: New look and features for Teaching eHRAF
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…
A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Childhood
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…
Get ready for the fall semester with eHRAF video tutorials
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.…