Radical Anthropology

Radical Anthropology Group Spring programme begins on Tues Jan 13, 6:30pm at UCL Anthropology Dept. Everyone welcome, we are LIVE and on ZOOM. Talks in Daryll Forde Seminar Room, 2nd Floor, UCL Anthropology Dept, 14 Taviton St, WC1H 0BW (*unless indicated otherwise*) Please note our new ZOOM ID 952 8554 1412 passcode Wawilak Jan 13 Chris Knight An Australian Myth: the Moon and the Origins of Death Jan 20 Stephen Kapos, Hugh Brody A Holocaust survivor and an anthropologist oppose all genocides Jan 27 Stefanie Lotter ‘Dignity without Danger’: Chhaupadi menstrual seclusion Feb 3 Morna Finnegan, Ingrid Lewis Corporeal morality is the antidote to war Feb 10 Chris Knight The Rainbow Snake and the Wawilak Sisters Feb 17 Ingrid Lewis Sing polyphony for the Lunar New Year Feb 24 Ian Watts How women drove the evolution of symbolic culture: the last half million years Mar 3 Cedric Boeckx How sapiens made history Mar 10 Chris Knight, Jerome Lewis The revolutionary origins of language Mar 17 Thea Skaanes Mar 24 Shivani Kaul Mar 31 Anne Monk, Jacob Seagrave Young Engels and the politics of the encounter

Undersea wall off #Brittany's coast evokes the local 'sunken city' stories. Neolithic 7000 years ago

BBC News

Huge undersea wall dating from 5000 BC found in France

The 120 metre wall was either a fish-trap or a dyke for protection against rising sea-levels, archeologists believe.

More on the long timedepth of dark skin colour of #Europeans When this started to shift slowly towards lighter skin from 14-4,000 years ago 'dietary changes may have played a key role. As humans transitioned from small, nomadic groups to larger, agricultural communities, their diets shifted. They relied less on vitamin D-rich wild game and more on cultivated crops, which lacked the vitamin. This change, combined with the need to absorb more sunlight in northern latitudes, may have driven the evolution of lighter skin.'

ZME Science

Ancient DNA Reveals Most Europeans Had Dark Skin Until Just 3,000 Years Ago

Pale skin didn't dominate Europe until surprisingly recently.

The narwhals stop calling. 'Local Inuit people were the first to notice that narwhals are particularly sensitive to ship noise.'

the Guardian

‘The narwhals stop calling’: how the noise from ships is silencing wildlife in the Arctic

Evidence that the whales and other marine animals are particularly vulnerable to sound is driving calls for quieter vessels

After the Ngogo #chimpanzee group killed 21 members of neighboring groups and expanded their territory by 22%, female #birth rates more than doubled and #infant survival increased sharply—showing clear fitness benefits from intergroup killing. Beware that this will be taken to back up #warfare models for early human societies. But this is a rather different story because female chimps get no help feeding their infants, rarely help each other and are constrained to great ape brain sizes. Chimps are way more territorial than hunter-gatherers in general. It's very doubtful if warfare would help Homo mothers of extremely large-brained offspring. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2524502122?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_term=pnas.org&utm_content=2dd2ef4b-ebb1-404f-b59b-65d8117dab10&utm_campaign=hootsuite

'the mismatch between our evolved physiology and modern conditions is unlikely to resolve itself naturally. Instead, the researchers argue, societies need to mitigate these effects by rethinking their relationship with nature and designing healthier, more sustainable environments.' Pretty interesting but these authors might think harder about key techniques of #huntergatherers for resolving 'acute stress', such as insistence on #egalitarianism, shared virtual worlds of #ritual and story plus, #laughter. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-humans-evolved-nature-cities-anthropologists.html

This is a moving story of a man offering space to a Syrian refugee in East London, who then became the main carer for his Mum. His response to a 'Labour Government' introducing 'laws that, when I was growing up in multi-ethnic East London, were the preserve of the National Front'.

Labour Hub

“No amount of concessions will be enough for the forces of reaction”

By Glyn Robbins I don’t usually share this story. But, on the day the Labour government (“a Labour government”) introduces laws that, when I ...

SW China funerary #ochre record of the terminal #Pleistocene. This correctly refs article by our colleague @npub1yguc...qq6p on the oldest anthropogenic ochre use up to half a million years ago in S Africa. https://www.nature.com/articles/s40494-025-02140-9

#Bizmoune Cave, Morocco, one of the most advanced of our entire species lifespan. 'Bizmoune’s fame rests on its shell beads, first published in 2021 and dated to 142,000 to 150,000 years. New analyses now indicate the ornaments are older than earlier estimates, which raises the site’s profile as a benchmark for early symbolic behavior. The bead assemblage remains the earliest known example of personal adornment.' #MiddleStoneAge #Africa #NorthAfrica #shells #jewellery #ochre

Morocco World News

Essaouira’s Bizmoune Cave Yields New Clues to Early Humans

Morocco’s National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage has launched a month-long field season at Bizmoune Cave to refine the story of early hum...