Category Archives: Anthropology

The usefulness of anthropology

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

The Daily Beast published a list this week of the “13 Most Useless Majors.” Coming in at #9 was Anthropology and Archaeology. The information they publish alongside their ranking is as follows: Unemployment, recent grad: 10.5 percent Unemployment, experienced grad: … Continue reading →

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Human violence

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

One of the issues brought up by Michael Plavcan and Phil Reno in yesterday’s BU dialogue on sexual dimorphism was the issue of human violence, specifically male-initiated violence. Humans are unquestionably violent in many nuanced and complex ways. Richard Wrangham … Continue reading →

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Site changes

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

I have made a slight change to the blog’s title. “A.P. Van Arsdale Biological Anthropology Lab was always just a default placeholder till I found something I liked better. I have, at least temporarily, changed it to “The Pleistocene Scene.” … Continue reading →

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What I talked about at the AAPA meetings

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Here is a link to a slightly modified (in order to display correctly in .pdf form) version of the talk I gave in Portland at this year’s AAPA meetings.

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Early Homo and the carnivore guild

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

One of the topics making the rounds today is the connection between Plio-Pleistocene hominins and their carnivorous contemporaries. Ann Gibbons gets the ball rolling by reporting on recent research by Lars Werdelin and colleagues on the apparent extinction of carnivores, … Continue reading →

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Sexual dimorphism and human evolution

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

I am once again going to promote BU’s on-going Dialogues in Biological Anthropology series. This Thursday they are hosting a discussion on sexual dimorphism and human evolution (Does Size Matter?) featuring Michael Plavcan (Univ. of Arkansas) and Josh Reno (Penn … Continue reading →

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AAPA highlights

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

As I said previously, most of my time in sessions at this year’s AAPA meetings were at talks focused on hominid evolution. So while I am sure there were great presentations on bioarchaeology, primate behavior, human biology, genetics and other … Continue reading →

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Weekend wag the dog: 4/14/12

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

Clifford is taking a break from this week’s edition since I am in Portland for the AAPA meetings. Here is the view from my floor: I am leaving the meetings early today, but they have been nice meetings. I wanted … Continue reading →

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Dmanisi Field School students at the meetings

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

One of the things I am definitely excited for during the upcoming AAPA meetings is the large number of Dmanisi Field School alums who are contribution posters and/or podium presentations to the event. We have had wonderful students on the … Continue reading →

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PortlandiAAPA

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Adam Van Arsdale

This week is the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, hosted this year by the University of Oregon and taking place in Portland. Running concurrent with the AAPA meetings are the annual meetings of the Human Biology … Continue reading →

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