A new topical summary on Art is now available in Explaining Human Culture, our open access database that summarizes the results of over 1,000 cross-cultural studies. The art module is co-authored by HRAF President Carol R. Ember,…
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…
Pumpkins are typically associated with Halloween in the form of carved “jack-o-lanterns” and, especially in the United States, with pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. But around the world, pumpkins have been an important food throughout the…
In Advanced Search, the Add Subjects function can be used to select “body modification” as an OCM Subject. This and other Subjects can be used to search across all cultures, or to search within a…
Does vocal music, or song, exist across all known human cultures? What behaviors are commonly associated with it? Do the musical features of a song predict the behavioral context in which it is performed? Samuel…
“I must admit that through my college career so far, this was the most enjoyable topic to research! Thank you for the opportunity and teaching us how to use eHRAF. I will be using this database for…
In their book, The True Story of Chocolate, husband and wife co-authors Sophie Coe and Michael Coe make claim to the idea that chocolate – which originated in ancient Mesoamerica – is far older than…
Editor’s note: The following post contains contributions from Bernadette Bucher, Professor Emerita of Anthropology and Comparative Literature, Fordham University. The early history of the Human Relations Area Files from 1949 in North America is public…
Today, popular television shows featuring ethnographic culinary adventures bring food and film together for the enjoyment, entertainment, and enlightenment of foodies and anthropologists alike. While most of us do not have the opportunity to travel…
Our anthropologists and programmers have been hard at work to bring you five new culture collections: Babylonians (MH07) Hadza (FN11) Kanak (OP04) Kimam (OJ82) Mao (MP19) These collections include 46 new documents in total, with…