Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

Geography is a well-known factor shaping genetic variation in human populations. However, the potential role played by cultural variables remains much understudied. This study investigates the impact of socio-cultural variables on genomic similarity and the saliva microbiome, using data from populations in Lesotho and Namibia. Geographic distance within Lesotho increases genetic differentiation, while

A response to the promotional pack on Four Alternative Currencies and their Worlds.

In the late 1920s, Siegfried Kracauer studied the then new middle class in Berlin, asking why they were not more disruptive of the structures that bore down on them. I ask the same about insecure professionals in contemporary Berlin, using Kracauer's book Die Angestellten as foil. Kracauer demonstrated that, in the 1920s, they still perceived themselves as workers, albeit white‐collar and salaried

This article proposes that stigmas connected to social categories of exclusion prevalent during life extend into dealings with the dead, here referred to as ‘necro‐ostracism’, in the context of death and burial of Muslim nomadic populations in urban Afghanistan. Based on qualitative fieldwork carried out in Kabul, Herat, and Mazar‐e Sharif, it explores how the unequal status of pastoral and peripatetic

Activists fighting evictions in Madrid develop various social, affective, and material connections with and disconnections from their homes. This is especially important for people who are immersed in a regime of economic austerity and neoliberal housing policies that have provoked the social and material unmaking and remaking of homes. These processes take place and are performed through the making

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

In coastal Bangladesh, ‘affective assemblages of kinship’ produce differential abilities for landless single mothers to migrate to brick kilns, the garment industry, and the Gulf. This group of women who return to their natal homes as a response to violence or abandonment is neglected by anthropologists of kinship and migration. Thinking of assemblages of kinship as open‐ended gatherings enables us

Many animal species exploited by humans play important roles beyond simply consumption. While disentangling the diverse roles of animals and animal resources from the archaeological record can be difficult, it is especially important for establishing holistic perspectives of past lifeways and economies. Recent zooarchaeological investigations at the Mound Key site in southwestern Florida have identified

In this article, I examine practices of social detachment among West African migrants in urban Ghana. Faced with pressures arising from expectations of reciprocity, especially from kin back home, some migrants exert considerable efforts to break, if temporarily, with relations of mutual recognition and support, entering what I term migratory aloneness. Far from being an individualizing endeavour linked

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

In this article, we examine existing data on Southern Jê burial caves (SJBCs) in the Southern Brazilian Highlands to discuss their spatiality, chronology, symbolic aspects, and relation to mound and enclosure complexes (MECs), another Southern Jê burial practice. Through map creation and temporal analysis, we explore chronological and hierarchical hypotheses previously used to explain the dynamic relationship

Cultural interaction has been shown to be important in the (re)organization of social relationships in pre-contact North America and an important causal factor in Mississippian origins throughout the U.S. Southeast and Midwest. Indeed, recent research has documented the significance of migration and other forms of far-flung interactions in the spread of Mississippian lifeways. The Mississippian period

Despite a long tradition of characterizing the Bell Beaker-associated human groups as mobile herders, there has been limited evidence for their economy and diet, both key defining factors for human lifeways. Bone nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen stable isotopes from a collective burial in Sardinia provide the first data on the diet of Mediterranean Bell Beaker groups, crucial as there is the presence of

This article explores Christian principles, imagery, and ideas shaping the (re)making of masculine ideals, behaviour, and identities among Pentecostal Gitanos in Spain. Scholarship on Pentecostal masculinities emphasizes that in cultural settings dominated by ‘macho’ and other chauvinistic principles, men find it challenging to comply with Pentecostal standards of manhood, and those who do convert

Embedded within Japan's demographic and economic stagnation, traditional craftsmanship unexpectedly aligns with the discourse of creativity. This study delves into the intricacies of this convergence through ethnographic details, shedding light on how endeavours to preserve local crafts intertwine with the burgeoning discourse of creativity within public policy frameworks, thereby shaping a nuanced

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

This paper reports on the results of archaeological excavations at the cemetery sector of the Middle Horizon (AD 650–1000) Wari site of Pataraya, located in the middle Nasca valley of southern Peru, and biochemical analyses of human skeletal remains recovered during those excavations. The findings reported here demonstrate that the sharp differences in cultural practice between Pataraya’s occupants

For a number of years, researchers have associated Late Bronze Age (LBA) (2100 – 1300 BCE) settlements in the Trans-Ural steppe with nomadic pastoralism. This would have involved entire populations making periodic movements between pastures. To test this claim, I have synthesized eight lines of data from more than 40 archaeological sites. The analysis of settlement architecture, material culture accumulation

Beyond military conquest, the successful consolidation of Tawantinsuyu likely depended on the exercise of soft power and ideological cooptation. The widespread distribution of Inca pottery suggests it played a key role in the imperial agenda. Archaeological evidence from across the Empire indicates that provincial potters were mobilized to generate the distinctive vessels associated with the state

Social zooarchaeology stresses that animals’ role in social and political life is not limited to the merely “economic”. Recent studies of cattle and caprines’ role in the development of inequality, hierarchy, and political authority in Southwest Asia have begun to productively incorporate the “symbolic” or “social” value of animals. Taking an action-oriented anthropological approach to theorizing value

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

Archaeologists have traditionally conceptualized culture areas and associated ethnic group boundaries as reflecting significant degrees of dissimilarity between “core” and “peripheral” cultural types. This dissimilarity is typically thought to correlate with gradual geographic isolation. However, an alternative model has been presented that underscores the importance of inter-group interaction to ethnic

The Classic Maya (250–900 CE) lowlands of Mesoamerica were home to dozens of interconnected polities whose elites shared an intellectual and material culture. They also sustained common sociopolitical institutions like divine kingship, which relied in part on ritual performance to legitimate dynastic rule. This article suggests that exogamous marriage was an important context for maintaining this shared

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

At ∼160 ka, near the end of our African speciation, archaeologists identify a change from sporadic to habitual use of red ochre, interpreted as ‘blood-red colorant’ for decorating performers’ bodies during group rituals, with habitual ritual considered pre-requisite to symbolic culture’s ‘shared fictions’ (Dapschauskas et al. 2022). This article considers the proposed motivations for such behaviour

Experiments in money often recapitulate long‐standing human concerns over finality and fixity, despite money's reference points in political authority, trust, and the memorialization of relationships of credit and debt. From the point of view of the primary set of infrastructures facilitating the movement of money in 2050, those concerns are misplaced. Recounting the history of those infrastructures

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

In recent years, there has been rapid digitalization in agriculture, with India seeing a significant rise in agricultural technology (agtech) start‐ups. Many of these start‐ups promise to address the climate crisis by promoting the economic and ecological sustainability of agriculture through market‐driven business models. Using institutional ethnography and counteraccounting at an Indian agtech start‐up

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

Current Anthropology, Ahead of Print.

Based on multisite ethnographic work between 2018 and 2020, this article examines entrepreneurship promotion policies developed by the Chilean state directed at Mapuche people. We direct attention to how the notion of authenticity works as a hinge between Mapuche people, historical heritage, nongovernmental organizations, and public policymakers in their promotion of microentrepreneurship as a form

Current Anthropology, Volume 65, Issue 5, Page 936-938, October 2024.

Current Anthropology, Volume 65, Issue 5, Page 935-936, October 2024.

Current Anthropology, Volume 65, Issue 5, Page 933-935, October 2024.

Current Anthropology, Volume 65, Issue 5, Page 932-933, October 2024.

Current Anthropology, Volume 65, Issue 5, October 2024.

Current Anthropology, Volume 65, Issue 5, October 2024.

The Early Mycenaean era in mainland southern Greece is characterized by radical social transformations. The changes observed in the mortuary sphere include the introduction of new practices that stressed group identity alongside traditional modes of burial. Our hypothesis is that these mortuary choices should be seen as a social strategy for redefining kinship relations.