A Note For The Discouraged

With the current state of the US government, it’s so difficult to keep from feeling discouraged…

Talk of slashing at the nation’s budget has shifted to focus on the frivolousness and dispensability of the social sciences, particularly funding of archaeological scholarships. Archaeology and Anthropology may be under attack by ignorant, scrambling politicians during a time of economic panic, but we can’t let it distract us from the importance of the study and the field.

Such things like racial divides, worldwide medical inefficiency, wrongful environmental exploitation, ethnic extinction, military humanitarian crimes, cultural ignorance, historical inaccuracy, scholastic bias, and just general hatred and discrimination are all things that anthropologists and archaeologists help to solve. It is not merely a “hobby”, it is a way (just like any other science) to come up with educated and thoughtful decisions about how to make the world a better place for us human beings to live in.

Postscript: In my opinion, when the world is going to shit, apocalypse style, and our humanity is on the brink of extinction: anthropologists will be the underdogs who save the day.

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Read on, my friends!

“Archeological Personalities and the Profession’s Future”
Society for Historical Archaeology (blog)

“Communicating Archaeological Scholarship”
Archeology and Material Culture (blog)

-with love, devonshiregrace

The Anthropologist’s Paradox

The paradox of Horace Miner’s article, “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” (first written in 1956), still strikes my heart, to this day, with the profoundness of the anthropologist’s favorite concept: cultural relativism.

In the words of Anthropologist Fans Boaz, cultural relativity is the principal that “civilization is not something absolute, but … is relative, and … our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes.” In short, it is the idea that we cannot understand another’s culture if we do not first recognize that our own way of thinking affects our abilities of perception. We must, according to this concept, learn the underlying beliefs and activities of a people in terms of their own individual culture, before we can truly study them without the cloudiness of judgement or bias.

Miner’s powerfully connotative language and scholarly overtones hide the riddle between the lines, so if you, like myself, didn’t understand the satirical irony after the first read through, you are not alone- that only further demonstrates the pungency of cultural relativity, which I’ll try to illuminate afterwords…

Bonobos

“Studies portray bonobos, which share 98 percent of our DNA, as almost comic distillations of enviro-liberal idealism: a nonviolent race of proto-hippies who live in a matriarchal, highly promiscuous society, using sex to solve intragroup conflict.” 
– John Falk, National Geographic

THE BONOBO, perhaps a word meaning “ancestor” in the extinct language of Bantu, is a species of the pan genus, alongside the common chimpanzee. They are relatively isolated in a small area on the left bank of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, possibly explaining the evolutionary distinction from the common chimpanzees (similarly challenged swimmers), who live on the opposite riverside. They comparatively have smaller skulls, ears, jaws, and teeth, more slender bodies, beardless faces, pinker lips, and elegantly longer limbs than their close cousins (here’s Nat Geo’s infographic to compare). Walking upright notably more often than chimps, they seem to stride with a similar suave as us tall, slender homo sapiens. The more interesting thing than physical features that sets them apart from pan troglodytes, however, is their unique social behavior.

First off, bonobos are matriarchal instead of patriarchal. While males are individually stronger and larger than females, it is based on the social status of their mothers who can acceptably act as alpha. Although this hierarchy exists, the social structure of bonobos is nearly egalitarian, as when conflicts emerge, they often chose to “make love, not war.” As biologist Frans de Waal famously quotes, “the chimpanzee resolves sexual issues with power; the bonobo resolves power issues with sex.” If the bonobos happen upon an unexpected goldmine of ripe fruit, for example, they may become overwhelmed with excitement and release it upon each other lovingly (rather than becoming overwhelmed with aggression and competition) so that they then can make fairly calm and rational distribution decisions.

They also use sex to welcome new group members, a form of initiation and bonding, especially among socialite females. Not only does all the love make bonobos fascinatingly peaceful and pragmatic, but it also is recreational. Just like most of us, they mostly practice social sex (versus reproductive sex, which is self-limited for most primates by females’ estrus cycles), and will playfully fool around with group members of any sex, of any age, in any position, any time of year. As de Waal puts it, “whereas the chimpanzee shows little variation in the sexual act, bonobos behave as if they have read the Kama Sutra, performing every position and variation one can imagine.”

Optimistically speaking -as I am not yet qualified enough to say scientifically– the unusual elements of the bonobo lifestyle may shed a different light on the biological foundations of human nature. Maybe we have just as much evolutionary potential to be free-loving, hippie homo sapiens as we do to be violent, patriarchal, and prude primates, as history oftentimes casts us out to be.

In my opinion, our species is so much more like these creatures than we egocentrically care to admit, but perhaps bonobos can change our minds. What EXACTLY differentiates us from bonobos, chimps, and any other beautiful beast -an ongoing and foundational curiosity of anthropologists, biologists, and homo sapiens sapiens around the world- will be something I look deeper into in the future. I’ll have to do some real digging first, and probably will be

digging digging digging for the rest of my days. I may never find the answers, but i’ll never stop wondering…

and that inextinguishable introspection, in and of itself, is just one small piece of that primordial puzzle. Wouldn’t you say?

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Read on, my friends!
Here are some interesting articles on the wonderful world of bonobos:

“Why the Bonobos Need a Radio and Other (Unlikely) Lessons From Deepest Congo”
-John Falk, National Geographic: Adventure Expedition

Are the bonobos as peaceful as we first perceived?
“The Left Bank Ape: An Exclusive Look at Bonobos” -David Quammen, National Geographic 2013

More on the ape vs human dilemma:
“Why Gorillas Aren’t Sexist and Orangutans Don’t Rape”
-Barbara J. King, NPR: Cosmos & Culture

Postscript: Bonobos are currently an ENDANGERED species! Poachers, deforestation, and simple ignorance are harming this already elusive and difficult-to-study species every day.  ):

Keep the bonobos and knowledge alive!
Bonobo Conservation Initiative

– with love, devonshiregrace