Anthro Online Study

I found a website that offers a bunch of questions and answers about cultural anthropology most of which are what we have been studying and they might help some people out so I thought i would share it

http://www.funtrivia.com/en/Humanities/Anthropology-16941.html

International DAY!

The University of Wyoming has been very good about having cultural events for their students to participate in, i was able to attend was International Day through my Kung Fu class. Throughout out the day each club would present a presentation of the culture they represented. There was salsa dancing, brazillian line dancing, African drums. My kung Fu class did Lion Dancing. We had musical instruments and actual lion dancing. For those who are confused at what lion dancing is i have a website link to what it looks like.
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/lion-dancing-in-ouatic-3/534cdca6aa9807ec6bb2534cdca6aa9807ec6bb2-255405457761?q=Lion%20Dancing&FORM=VIRE3
We also did the lion dancing during the homecoming parade in which we won best small Float. The lion dancers were in the back of the bed of a pickup while the people playing the instruments were in another. IT was very fun to be apart of it. I would continue to encourage everyone to participate in the Cultural events the university has to offer since it is a unique opportunity to expierience Anthropology without leaving Laramie.
Here are some links about the history of lion dancing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_dance
http://www.chcp.org/lion.html

Lion dancces have been around for a little over a thousand years. They  can be found at mos major chinese celebrations including New Years, dedicatoins of new temples and the opening of chain stores. The Lion dance we preformed was the Southern lion Dance style which originated in Guangdong Province.

Death in the Clouds: Bioarchaeology in the Northern Highlands of Peru By Dr. Catherine Faither

In the lecture "Death in the Clouds: Bioarchaeology in the Northern Highlands of Peru" by Dr. Catherine Faither she explains about burials of humans found in Peru. She talks about the burials, different types of trauma, infectious disease, genetic disorders, nutritional deficiencies and dental disease.
There was a lot of different mortuary burials found at the site of Chachapoya. THese contained circular structures and semi-circular structures. Dr. Faither wanted to see if there were other types of burials other than elite males. In the bodies that Dr. Faither studied in Peru she found that every single age of both femals and males were represented. She also found out aht the people were pretty tall for being a part of Peru Culture.
The different types of trauma that Dr. Faither found were accidental trauma and surgical trauma. Accidental trauma was discovered in the bodies and had pubis bone's broken out, a break in the femur or a break in the femoral necks. All of these seemed to be consistent with a fall of some sort. The surgical trauma dealt with healed skulls. There had already been pre-existing trauma, meaning that the people of this culture were doing skull surgery.
The disease and the disorders that were found in the bodies in Peru were infectious disease, genetic disorders, nutritional deficiencies and dental disease. In the infectious disease Dr. Faither discovered Saber Shin, Capitation and Mastoiditis. These were non-specific indicators of stress. One of the genetic disorders that she found in her study was a case where there werew not average size bones with Osteoporosis throughout the entire skeleton in a male's body. An interesting fact about this body is that although it is male, the body also looked female. The body was as well buried with some femal artifacts. Another genetic disorder that she found on a different body was a tumor located on the parathyroid glands. There were some signs of nutritional deficiencies in the bodies found. Although, the environment was rich in foods and in vitamin C the people of Peru were still dealing with the disease Scurvy. Dr. Faither believes that one of the reasons behind this is from children getting sick with something else and stops receiving the nutrition that a person needs. What was also noticed in analyzing these bodies was that males seemed to have more dental problems that females did.
Overall, I found it interesting when she spoke about the surgical trauma. It amazed me about these operations that they were performing on the skull. The pictures that Dr. Faither showed on her slides really gave a good interpretation to help better understand what she was talking about and they were all really interesting to look at.

Folsom Point Manufacting Decisions: Who Gets to Play? by Nicole M. Waguespack

I went to a presentation by Nicole M. Waguespack. In the presentation, Waguespack speaks about folsom points. She starts out her leture with a quote from the South Dakota State Historical Society, "Folsom points represent perhaps the pinnacle of the flint worker's art in the America's." Waguespack goes on to describe why folsom points are a type of art and how they are a very distinct form of projectile points. Her main points throughout the lecture are about how difficult folsom points are to make and about how skillful a person needs to be to make good folsom point without wasting material.
Folsom points are extremely difficult to manufacture. Failed attmpts to remove the flute often irreversibly damage the piece resulting in a wasteful expenditure of invested time and raw material. Waguespack explains that the dilemma is that reliance on such a failure-prone manufacturing step runs contrary to an overarching lithic production strategy based on conservative raw material use. To solve this dilemma a person should abandon fluting, rely on various fluting contraptions and rely on craft specialists.
Craft specialization is when a person sits back and lets others perfor tasks for us. This specialization would occur when at some distance, available raw material approaches. Another reason this would occur is further and further away the cost is increasing (about 20%-50% of fluting attempts fail.). IN making folsom points there are high skill makers and low skill makers. High skill makers can usually make a folsom point and be left with two channel flakes. A low skill worker usually is left with multiple channel flakes after making a folsom point.
I thought that the lecture was interesting for the fact that I have never really heard much about folsom points before. For projectile points, I have only mostly heard of arrowheads and spearheads. I would have never realized that folsom points would be that difficult to make. The fact that she stated about the percentage of fluting attempts being a failure is 20%-50% really shows how difficult they are to create.

Whalerider-review.

Here is a movie review of Whalerider. I thought it gave a good description of what this movie was about.



http://www.movie-gazette.com/391/whale-rider

Maori Culture

Since we just watched Whale Rider I thought it would be nice to find some more inrofmation on the people from movie. Firstly, they are called the Maori and are from New Zealand. I then looked for several sites that offered general information on them so that a little bit better understanding of the movie might be possible.

Very Brief Description but a Short Read with Good Information:
http://www.virtualoceania.net/newzealand/culture/maori/

Interesting Article on Smoking Habits:
http://tvnz.co.nz/health-news/price-hikes-turning-smokers-off-3877497

Another Brief Overview:
http://www.newzealand.com/travel/about-nz/culture/culture-maori-culture.cfm

Horrific Cultural Double Standard

The weekend before last I needed something to do and I remembered that the play “Extremities” by William Mastrosimone was playing in Cheyenne. So I called my best friend and the two of us headed over. The play was very intense. During the first ten minutes I almost walk out because it was too much for me. To be completely honest I just put my head down and didn’t even watch. Seeing a woman being assaulted left me speechless to say the least. After Marjorie took control of the situation it was a little better and I could resume watching. I don’t think I would go so far as to say that I enjoyed the play but it was very interesting to contemplate after it was over. My emotions toward the characters seem to change the more I think of it. At first I was thinking that Raul got what he deserved and wished something like this happened to every rapist. After thinking about it I realized that Marjorie had pushed it too far and should have sought help and medical attention sooner. I do understand that she was confused and scared but that is not an excuse for creating that much harm to another person. I also find culturally it very interesting that during the attack of Marjorie in the beginning most of the theater was like me and had to turn their heads away and could barely handle what was going on. However when Raul was being attacked, burned, and tortured no one seemed to have a problem with that. Interesting that a woman being attacked is hard to handle but a man being tortured is tolerable; it makes me rethink the double standard that we have set in our culture. How did such a nation where equality is so important create such a horrific double standard of inequality.

This article discusses the practice of "veiling" for Muslim women in Java, Indonesia. I thought this was an interesting account of how a world religion adapts or does not depending on where it is. It discusses a holiday that is Islamic however the celebration of it is unique to Java. There are ways in which they do not mix however and that is evident in the trouble that many women who chose to veil face.

https://uwmail.uwyo.edu/owa/attachment.ashx?attach=1&id=RgAAAACJuOzdc9KYQIB292%2bdsiQbBwDW%2fBe5GA%2bvRJyMGF25ncuvABRHq5FqAADW%2fBe5GA%2bvRJyMGF25ncuvADSFMHkfAAAJ&attid0=EAAw0s9ZtAagTKlEoHLMlOsU&attcnt=1