Women's dental health takes a hit with the move from hunting and gathering to agriculture

Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 month 20 hours (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

There is an old wives' tale saying that women lose one tooth for every child they have. While this is not precisely true, pregnancy does take a toll on a woman's teeth. On one hand, they tend to crave sweeter, calorie-rich foods. On another hormonal changes affect a woman's saliva, diminishing its ability to protect her teeth.

For years, archaeologists and anthropologists have known that dental health among women takes a dive when a society shifts from hunting and gathering to early agriculture

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: agriculture pregnancy dentistry dental health hunter-gatherers culture womens health anthropology archaeology

Non-verbal communication, innate or learned?

Darkfrog submitted, created time 2 months 2 weeks (www.nytimes.com)

This article talks about the assumption that non-verbal signs of pride and shame, such as gestures and facial expressions, are learned and not innate.

It seems that even people who have been blind since birth still raise their arms in a great "WOHOO!" of victory and slump their shoulders with disappointment. Frankly, I don't think this entirely precludes the idea that they're learned, but it does open up the question pretty well.

3 comments | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: blindness facial expressions primates human evolutionary biology communication non-verbal communication anthropology

Ancient bones could yield TB clue

sea-maid submitted, created time 4 months 6 days (news.bbc.co.uk)

Researchers are using human remains from the ancient city of Jericho to study the evolution of tuberculosis. So far, the team out of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has found evidence of TB on several sets of 6000+ year-old bones that were collected during the thirties, forties, and fifties. They are also looking for leprosy, leishmania and malaria.

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: archaeology anthropology history TB clue tuberculosis

Natural selection does not explain cultural rates of change

sea-maid submitted, created time 5 months 1 week (www.pnas.org)

This abstract tell us that Rogers and Ehrlich find that canoe functional design features change more slowly than symbolic ones. And at last they attribute this to positive selection.

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: human cultures traditions human culture anthropology negative selection positive selection

Tracing Humanity's Path

jerry submitted, created time 5 months 4 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

Most researchers agree that modern humans got their start in Africa and then spread throughout the world beginning about 50,000 years ago. But scientists are still working out the details of how the planet was peopled, such as who went where, and when. A new study, employing sophisticated modeling techniques, confirms the prevailing Out of Africa model but also comes up with some surprises, including evidence that the Americas' first human inhabitants arrived in multiple waves.

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: migration migrations out-of-Africa out-of-Africa hypothesis history prehistory science and culture human evolutionary biology anthropology

Your history is printed in your hair

Music is in our genes

Hug It Out, Monkey

matrix submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

"We all do it: Give friends and family a peck on the cheek, a quick hug, or maybe even a nose rub to say hello. It's a way of assuring each other that we have no hostile intent, anthropologists say. Now, primatologists report that spider monkeys embrace intensely after a period of separation for exactly the same reason."

1 comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: spider monkey anthropology hug Ateles geoffroyi