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…
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…
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…
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…
Where Have All the Comparisons Gone?, a recently published series from the Society for Cultural Anthropology, revisits a longstanding topic in the social sciences: the debate over the value of comparative cultural studies. In this…
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…
What do you do when a child throws a temper tantrum? Enabling young children to control their emotions – especially anger – is a challenge that all parents face. From deciding the “right” or “wrong”…
Happy Halloween! It’s the time of year for ghastly ghouls, wicked witches and terrifying things that go bump in the night. From haunted houses to headless horsemen, there are many spooky legends in Western culture.…