Current Anthropology - Volume 50, Nr. 2 - April 2009 Edition - Out Now

Chicago Journals - Current Anthropology

As this is something of landmark edition for CA, I've included the opening passages of Mark Alfenderfer's introductory notes...

It is with great pleasure that I offer to you my first words as editor of Current Anthropology. Although I have been hard at work with the journal since January 2008, I’ve spent my first year learning the editorial system, shepherding to publication the last of the manuscripts that arrived during Ben Orlove’s term, and perhaps most important, calibrating my experience as an anthropologist against the remarkable breadth and depth of the manuscripts that have been submitted to us. It has been an exciting and humbling experience: exciting to be a part of one of the world’s leading journals of anthropology, but humbling to be reminded almost daily of what I don’t know about the field and its varied practitioners.

As I researched the history of the journal in preparation for assuming my duties, I took comfort and inspiration from the words of Ethel John Lindgren, who wrote a letter to the editor, published in the March 1960 issue of Current Anthropology, saying, “The general plan seems excellent, though depending on an Editor sans peur et sans reproche.” I fully intend to live up to Ethel’s requirements!

My vision for Current Anthropology is simple and is based in large part upon Sol Tax’s original ideas for the journal and the ways in which my five predecessors—Tax, Cyril Belshaw, Adam Kuper, Richard Fox, and Ben Orlove—have implemented them. Foremost is to maintain the strength and centrality of the journal. As one of the few four‐field journals left standing in this era of increasing specialization, Current Anthropology strives to be open to diverse forms of anthropological inquiry and seeks to blur the boundaries between subdisciplines whenever feasible.

It has become more apparent than ever that truly interdisciplinary research is likely to lead to the most significant insights into understanding both the similarities and differences of humankind. However, no approach to the study of our common humanity is a priori off‐limits, and any manuscript that is clearly written and has a solid theoretical stance and a compelling argument is welcome.

(Regarding that last sentence, I can think of at least one researcher, Algis Kuliukas who will be hoping his work will be re-considered in that context, especially as I think I recall him citing CA as one journal that has in the past, apparently declined to publish his research, but as that's the partial subject of another post, I'll address that issue more fully therein.)

Returning to Mark Alfenderfer's stated mission objectives, we also learn that he intends giving greater voice to research that comes from beyond the English-speaking world, and several editors from discrete regions spanning South America, Europe and Asia have been appointed with the intention of offering the readership greater access to the literature emanating from those places. Africa and the Middle East have yet to be added to this initiative, and it would be good also to see an inclusion from Scandinavia, places like Latvia and Lithuania, out-lying regions such as Siberia, and indeed many of those nations around areas like the Black Sea, from whom we seem to hear precious little.

The editor notes that in addition to this being Darwin's bicentenary, Current Anthropology is celebrating it's own 50th anniversary, and moreover, there will be an experimental issue, described thus...

Later in the year, we will publish a special issue, organized by Mark Cohen, on the origins of agriculture, a topic where evolutionary thinking assumes a salient role. This issue will be something of an experiment; instead of five or so longish articles, it will instead feature ten or so shorter papers on varied themes related to the origins of agriculture, which will then be discussed and critiqued by ten or so commentators. The issue promises to stimulate new thinking and critical debate.

It will be especially interesting to see how Göbekli Tepe will feature in this, especially in relation to really early sites like Ohalo II, which shows signs that people were cultivating crops over 20 thousand years ago - and of course, we can probably expect to see extensive coverage of the Natufian as well.

Moving on to the rest of this latest edition, one paper in particular caught my eye, namely 'Fifty Years of Looking at Human Evolution' by Clifford Jolly, and from which the following is excerpted...

In hindsight, however, we can already discern the seeds of what was to become an informative paradox in the study of human evolution. Conventional wisdom saw human origins and human evolution as a unitary story—a one‐phase progression driven by adaptation to culture—but the fossil evidence had already begun to indicate that this story was too simple. After paring down early hominin taxonomy and applying new synthesis standards, J. T. Robinson (1954) had identified not one but two hominin adaptive types: the megadont, “gorilloid,” and supposedly vegetarian Paranthropus and a (dentally) more gracile, supposedly more omnivorous/carnivorous, and more humanlike lineage rooted in Australopithecus. Moreover, he and Broom (Broom and Robinson 1949) had shown that the South African site of Swartkrans had yielded both Paranthropus and a more humanlike hominin morph, which they called Telanthropus. If this interpretation was correct, there was obviously more than one way to be a hominin, and these two lifeways differed enough to permit their practitioners to coexist in a single ecosystem.

A passing comment suggests that Mayr (1953) evidently spotted the disturbing implication, but Robinson’s finding did not immediately lead to a widespread reevaluation of the one‐phase model. One reason, presumably, was that, in the mid‐'50s, the academic mainstream (i.e., outside Africa) was still digesting the notion that the australopithecines, as a group, were prehumans rather than aberrant apes. Only recently had the heated debate swung decisively in favor of hominin status, with the publication of W. E. LeGros Clark’s (1946) “Significance of the Australopithecinae” and his The Fossil Evidence for Human Evolution (1955; our text for the course at University College, London). In this context, evidence of adaptively related diversity among the earliest hominins was an unwelcome distraction from the central story and was treated as unimportant or even mistaken by LeGros Clark and others.

Similarly, the implications of australopithecine features that were derived but did not foreshadow conditions in later humans were also overlooked or ignored at this time. This was partly, I presume, because they were another unwelcome complication but also because the single‐phase, artifact‐determinant scenario simply had no place for them. A good example is in the dentition. Much was made, by LeGros Clark especially, of the humanlike, low incisor/molar ratio seen in australopithecines and its supposed relationship to dependence on cutting tools. The inconvenient fact that the low ratio was due to supersized cheek teeth at least as much as to “reduced” incisors was not mentioned or even, it seems, noticed until much later (e.g., Wolpoff 1971).

As the author acknowledges, his paper applies a broad brush when describing some of the more salient issues and debates that have arisen over the last 50 years, but it nevertheless covers a lot of ground. Bipedalism, the architecture of the hand with relation to eating smaller food items like seeds, and the role that hybridisation is thought to play in evolution are but three of the many and varied topics discussed in this very readable paper, which the author finishes by suggesting where future research might be focussed.

For a full table of contents, which includes several other papers and articles of note, just click through to the Current Anthropology page - a subscription is required to gain full access, details of which can be found here.