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Human Adaptive Strategies
This book introduces students to cultural anthropology with an emphasis on environmental and evolutionary
approaches, focusing on how humans adapt to their environment and how the environment shapes culture. It
shows how cultures evolve within the context of people’s strategies for surviving and thriving in their environ-
ments. This approach is widely used among scholars as a cross-disciplinary tool that rewards students with valu-
able insights into contemporary developments. Drawing on anthropological case studies, the authors address
immediate human concerns such as the costs and consequences of human energy requirements, environmental
change and degradation, population pressure, social and economic equity, and planned and unplanned change.
Impacts of increasingly rapid climatic change on equitable access to resources and issues of human rights are
discussed throughout. Towards the end of the book the student is drawn into a challenging thought experiment
addressing the possible impacts of climatic warming on Middle America in the year 2040.
All chapters conclude with “Summary,” “Key Terms,” and “Suggested Readings.”
This book is an ideal text for students of introductory anthropology and archaeology, environmental studies,
world history, and human and cultural ecology courses.
Daniel Bates is Editor-in-Chief, Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and Emeritus Professor of
Anthropology and Research Associate, Hunter College and the Graduate School and University Center, City
University of New York, USA.
Judith Tucker is Senior Editorial Consultant, Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal.
Ludomir Lozny is Managing Editor, Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Department of Anthropology,
Hunter College, CUNY, and Adjunct Full Professor, Archaeology, Department of Anthropology and Sociology,
Long Island University Brooklyn, New York, USA.
ii
iii
Human Adaptive Strategies

An Ecological Introduction to Anthropology
Fourth Edition
Daniel Bates and Judith Tucker with Ludomir Lozny

iv
Designed cover image: Daniel G. Bates. Dating from Incan times, these salt pans in Peru are individually owned
and exploited, but managed jointly as a form of “commons.”
Fourth edition published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Daniel Bates, Judith Tucker, Ludomir Lozny
The right of Daniel Bates, Judith Tucker, and Ludomir Lozny to be identified as authors of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by McGraw-Hill 1991
Third edition published by Pearson 2004
ISBN: 9781032407173 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032407166 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003354444 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/b23278
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
v
For Marty Nathan M.D. (1951–2021)
Spouse, parent, social activist, and co-researcher with Elliot Fratkin,

founder of Greensboro Justice Fund and the Markham-Nathan Fund for Social Justice
vi
vii
Contents
List of Boxes xi
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
1 Evolution and the Study of Human Origins and Behavior 1

PART ONE: THE STUDY OF HUMAN ORIGINS 1
The Human Evolutionary Legacy 3
The Nature of Scientific Inquiry 8
PART TWO: ANTHROPOLOGY, SCIENCE, AND THE STUDY OF CULTURE 10
Holism 11
Cultural Relativism 12
The Role of Theory 13
Aspects of Culture 15
Culture Gives Meaning to Reality 15
Culture Creates Gender 16
Gender Socialization 17
Gender and Work 17
Gender and Power 17
Culture Is Integrated 17
Culture Is Adaptive 18
Behavior and Learning 19
Language, Biology, and Culture 21
The Science of Anthropology 22
Studying Cultural Behavior: Fieldwork, Data Collection, and Analysis 23
Surviving in the Field 26
Objectivity and Science in the Study of Behavior 27
Bibliography 33
2 Anthropology, Human Ecology, and Politics 36

Human Ecology 36
The Nature of Ecological Systems 37
The Components of the Ecosystem 37
Population Ecology 41
The Human Ecological Context 41
Politics and Ecology 42
Ecosystems and Adaptation 42
Variation: Human Decisions and the Environment 43
Adapting through Innovation 44
The Evolution of Procurement Systems 47
Adapting to Environmental Challenges 48
Adapting to Available Resources 49
Adapting to Resource Fluctuation 49
Political Ecology 51
Access to Resources: Cooperation and Competition 51
viii
viii Contents
Environmental Uncertainty 51
Politics and Access to Resources 52
Ownership versus Use Landholding Systems 53
Private Ownership and Commercial Farming 54
Gender, Politics, and Property 55
Whose Cows Are They, Anyway? 55
Bibliography 60
3 Foraging 63
The Organization of Energy 66
Managing Resources 68
Food as Energy 69
Social Organization 70
Economic Exchange: Reciprocity 70
Power, Influence, and Social Control 73
Settlement Patterns and Mobility 73
Resilience, Stability, and Change 74
The Dobe Ju/’hoansi 75
Climate and Resources 75
Settlement Patterns 77
Social Practices and Group Composition 77
Reciprocity 78
Quality of Life: Diet and Nutrition 78
Demography 79
The People of the Dobe Today 80
The Hadza of Tanzania 83
The Inuit or Eskimo 85
The Arctic Ecosystem 85
The Seasonal Migrations 86
Demography 86
Social Relationships 87
The Impact of Modernization 88
Energy Flow among the Baffin Islanders 88
Changes in Settlement and Hunting Techniques 89
Surviving in the Modern World 90
Claiming the Land 90
The Witsuwit’en and Gitxsan of British Columbia, Canada 91
Ecological Setting 91
The Gitxsan Seasonal Round 92
The Gitxsan Household Economy 92
Bibliography 98
4 Horticulture: Feeding the Household 101

The Horticultural Adaptation 103
Prehistoric Origins of Agriculture 103
Population, Settlement, and Pressure on Resources 106
Early Farming and Climate 107
Energy Use and the Ecosystem 108
Horticultural Cultivation Methods 109
Slash-and-Burn Agriculture 109
Relations within the Community 110
Relations among Communities 110
The Yanomamö of Brazil and Venezuela 112
Farming in the Jungle 112
Village Life 114
Warfare and Violence 115
Unbalanced Sex Ratio 115
Political Alliances 116
ix
Contents ix
Future Prospects for the Yanomamö 117
Yanomamö Update 118
The Pueblo of North America 121
Two Environments 122
The Western Pueblo 122
The Eastern Pueblo 123
Two Social Patterns 123
The Western Pueblo 124
The Eastern Pueblo 124
Bibliography 128
5 Nomadic Pastoralism 130

History of the Pastoral Adaptation 131
Nomadic Movement 133
Tribal Structure 135
Hierarchical Tribal Organization 137
Camp Groups and Household Organization 137
Wealth, Inequality, and Status 137
Pastoralism and Market Relations 138
The Social and Symbolic Value of Livestock 139
The Ariaal of Northern Kenya 141
The Origins of the Ariaal 141
The Ariaal Adaptation 142
Diversity in Livestock 143
Seasonal Movements 143
The Household: Organization and Status 144
Age Grades and Age Sets 145
Gender Roles and Power 145
Can the Ariaal Survive Development? 146
The Yörük of Turkey 147
Nomadic Pastoralism Mountain Style 149
Changing Livelihood Strategies 151
Bibliography 154
6 The Rise of Intensive Agriculture: Feeding the Cities 157

The Development of Intensive Agriculture 158
Social Complexity 160
An Archaeological Example: The Shang Dynasty of China 161
Human Labor as Energy 162
Agricultural Intensification, Fallowing, and Land Degradation 163
Environmental Resilience, Stability, and Change 165
The Rural Consequences of Intensive Agriculture 165
Varieties of Rural Society 166
Peasants, Small Farmers, and Change 167
Access to Land 167
Sharecropping 170
Rural Responses to Oppression and Change 170
The Tamang of Nepal 173
The Village 174
Field, Forest, and Pasture 175
The Domestic Cycle 175
Sexuality and Marriage 176
Prospects for Timling’s Future 176
Where the Dove Calls: The Mexican Village of Cucurpe 178
Bibliography 183
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x Contents
7 The New Frontier: Feeding the World 185
Intensification through Science and Industry 185
Mechanization 186
Nonmechanized Approaches to Intensification 186
The Green Revolution 186
The Blue Revolution 187
Beyond Green and Blue 188
Specialization 189
Centralization and Agriculture 192
Expanding Cities and Migrant Workers 192
Dams and Their Consequences 194
Urbanized Rural Society 198
The Rise and Fall of Collective Agriculture in Bulgaria 198
Farming in the United States 201
The Development of Agribusiness in California 201
Growing Tomatoes in California 202
Family Farmers in the Midwest 203
The Immigrant Legacy 203
Current Pressures on the Family Farm 205
Bibliography 210
8 Global Challenges in Anthropological Perspective 212

Adaptation and Processes of Cultural Transformation 214
Long-Term Change: The Vikings in the North Atlantic 214
Processes of Long-Term Cultural Change 215
Intensification 215
Specialization 216
Centralization 216
Stratification and Inequality 217
Settlement Nucleation 218
The Integration of the Postindustrial World in a Time of Climatic Uncertainty 218
Globalism and Adaptation to a Warming Planet 220
Emergence of the Information Revolution and Artificial Intelligence 220
The Ecological Consequences of Post-Industrialism 221
Energy Consumption and Resource Depletion 222
Pollution and Toxic Waste 222
The Ecology of Cumulative Change: Response to a Warming Planet 224
Middle America Faces the Warmer Climate: A Thought Experiment 224
Middle America in the 2040s 224
Can We Survive the Future? 234
Globalism and the Social Scientist 235
Development Anthropology and Coping with Globalism 235
Environmental and Ecological Factors in Development 236
Into the Future 237
Bibliography 243
Glossary 245
Index 249
xi
Boxes
1.1 Neanderthals, Our Undervalued Cousins 6

1.2 Getting into the Field in Southeastern Turkey 25
1.3 Becoming Invisible 27
2.1 Images in the Dark: Prehistoric Cave Art 38
2.2 Normative and Alternative Behavior: Breaking the Rules, Changing the Culture 44
3.1 Göbekli Tepe: Architecture before Agriculture 64
3.2 Optimal Foraging and Hunting 66
3.3 The Plight of the Bushmen of the Kalahari in the Twenty-First Century 81
4.1 Early Farming in Central Europe: An Archaeological Example 105
4.2 Anthropologists and the Peoples They Study 119
5.1 Early Pastoralism in North Africa: An Archaeological Example 132
5.2 The Bedouin of the Negev: Numbers Matter 140
6.1 The Kofyar of Central Nigeria 168
6.2 Directions of Change in Rural Egypt 171
7.1 Demographic Changes: Albania Takes the Lead 191
7.2 The Narmada Valley Project 195
8.1 Aral: The Sea That Vanished Reappears 216
8.2 The Rise and Fall of a North American Civilization: Mississippian Culture and
Cahokia, 700–1300 C. E. 225
xii
xiii
Preface
This book has been developed in an era of profound change. Every day brings news of people on the move, driven
by unprecedented climate events, both natural and man-made disasters, warfare, and dire economic necessity.
Obviously, these words could apply to any social science or literary effort at least since the renowned Greek his-
torian and geographer Herodotus of Halicarnassus (d. ca. 430 B. C. ), often described as the “father” of these dis-
ciplines, was writing about contemporary events in the Persian Empire and beyond. At that time, Greek-speaking
peoples dispersed around the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean were just one element in a “multinational”
global system dominated by the rulers of a far-flung empire. That not all was peace, mutual respect, and cooper-
ation among the peoples of the Persian Empire is clear from the fact that within 100 years of Herodotus’ writing,
Alexander the Great (d. 323 B.C. ) was able to organize a huge and culturally diverse military force that swept the
Empire into the history books.
In what ways does our contemporary environment differ from what has gone on before? Why is it relevant to
the writing and use of this book? The short answer is “self-awareness.” We might, of course, detail the obvious
technical developments in warfare, industry, public health, transportation, and agriculture. Still, this would
be true at any arbitrary point selected in time over the last 2,000 years. What seems to us to be unique about
our present vantage point is a phenomenon that has developed in an evolutionary nano-second—the extra-
ordinary reach of global computer-driven connectivity. Quite simply, anyone on the globe can now access the
means not only to interact with an exponential number of other people; they can draw on incalculable billions
of stored “conversations” or data troves going back in time. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR)
taken together are a foundational development when combined with smart phones. As with other foundational
breakthroughs, nothing will ever be quite the same. Herodotus described the “wild tribes” of the Caucuses as
barely human, but his subjects were never able to read his words nor were they able to access knowledge of Greek
language and culture to respond with their own denigrating comparisons. Now, if we write about almost any
population, however remote, in the Brazilian Amazon or the highlands of New Guinea, they may well have the
means to read it and, if they wish, to reciprocate or possibly repudiate the attention.
We are now experiencing a discernable change in global climate that potentially every adult on earth can see
unfolding. People can turn to science to explain and better cope with it, or to religion, or to any number of con-
spiracy theories, but it has become impossible to scientifically refute it. With VR, individuals can create their
own reality, communicate it, and invite others to participate in it. They can, of course, simply deny any reality,
as is often the case at the onset of a potential terminal illness or a resounding election loss. The outcomes of
the global combination of accelerating climate change with the consequences of these little tested new means
of communication are, of course, unknowable. But this makes it all the more imperative that we think globally
while maintaining our self-awareness; let’s say “enlightened self-awareness.” As individuals, we are awash in a tide
of facts, ideas, suppositions, and pure bullshit. Awareness invites skepticism, which, as current environmental
changes are rapidly becoming irreversible, is a vital tool for personal as well as global survival.
“Enlightened self-awareness” is in many respects a very good definition of anthropology as a particular focus
within the social sciences. It captures the vanity inherent in studying our own species as one among many others,
along with skepticism employing objectivity and empiricism. Empiricism is seemingly straight forward as the
recognition, assemblage, and measurement of observable facts. Objectivity is more difficult to achieve, but not
impossible when we take due precautions to minimize our anthropocentric and ethnocentric biases. These terms
describe a perspective on the world centered on humans generally or as specific groups. These biases evidence
themselves in the use of the term “human nature” as, for example, an explanation for the occurrence of warfare
or in arguing for the superiority of specific “cultural models.” Under scrutiny, appeals to “human nature” as an
explanation for behavioral preferences are clearly entirely either devoid of substance or self-serving appeals as
justification, such as: “It is only natural to for boys (or men) to fight.” Ethnocentrism is also unfortunately easily
xiv
xiv Preface
stretched to absurdity. So-called White nationalists may say they are defending their “Greco-Roman heritage or
civilization” without realizing that almost every distinctive element they claim as their own, be it religious or sci-
entific, has an African (Phoenician, Egyptian) or Middle Eastern origin (Babylonian, Assyrian, Sumerian).
Bearing in mind these cautions, the quest for “enlightened self-awareness” can be a very positive motive for
engagement with the academic discipline of anthropology, either as preparation for endeavors in other fields or as
a career itself. Our presentation focuses somewhat more than is customary on environmental issues, a reflection of
the unprecedented anthropogenic climatic transformation the world currently faces. Of course, we should keep in
mind humans are not unique in causing climate change. What we call “the climate” has always been the product as
well as the driver of organic life and this includes major shifts in temperature and hydrology. And both terrestrial
and extra-terrestrial events can impact earth’s climate, such as the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia,
said to cause the “year without a summer,” and the asteroid that the dinosaurs so unhappily encountered long
before people were on the scene. But even so, ecology or the dynamic interconnections that support life in general
also support it in particular: our species, our society, our family.
A central theme of this book is that individuals are active decision makers, continually involved in creating and
using their cultural and material environments, however misguided their creations may sometimes be. Faced with
new problems and new situations, people will often attempt to find solutions that go beyond traditional cultural
solutions or customary behaviors and received prescriptions, so that behavioral innovation, diversity, and vari-
ation constantly exist within as well as between societies. Those variations that prove to be advantageous are often
passed on to new generations; they become part of the culture. Some ways of doing things that are useful in one
context may prove otherwise in other situations. Cultural innovation and transmission of ideas and techniques are
processes of continual intergenerational experiment, “filtering,” affecting all peoples. In every generation, some,
perhaps most, ideas, technologies, social usages, and even modes of speech pass through what might be seen as a
filter or screen, but not all. Generally, what is transmitted is what seems to work in a specific context. Processes of
innovation, the adoption of new ideas and their transmission to others, lie at the heart of cultural variation and
are part of broader ecological and evolutionary processes.
The concept of change most accurately captures what is distinctive about humans. Our brief history on earth is
one of unparalleled expansion as the early representatives of our species spilled out of Africa to inhabit virtually
every region of the globe. This expansion required altering behavior in all domains to meet the demands of very
different habitats—in short, the continual interplay between learned behavior and ever-changing environments.
Decisions arrived at by individuals, the adaptive strategies of people and societies, and the evolutionary processes
of which these form a part are central themes of this book. Our approach, then, is essentially an ecological and
evolutionary one. However, one cannot slight what might be called the ideational or symbolic aspects of social
life—ways of behaving and believing that validate our behavior, form our social identities, and satisfy our aes-
thetic needs. Nor can one ignore the extent to which individual and group behavior is played out in environments
in which the most striking features are other people and other groups. This is, of course, true across the evolu-
tionary spectrum, but it is particularly notable for humans.
In this sense, any understanding of human ecology must consider the politics of group life—factors that deter-
mine who gets what, how much, and when. Human populations are often socially far more differentiated than are
other social animals. We not only engage in division of labor beyond that associated with age and role in sexual
reproduction, but we also create systems of perpetuated inequality, such as caste, class, and other types of diffe-
rence of economic and political access across age and gender lines. Such inequality has major ramifications for the
ways in which we interact with our environments. The fact that there are no physical limits on the accumulation
of wealth in a market or capitalist economy, for example, has important consequences for the way that natural
resources are exploited. And the fact that the nominal “owners” of resources and the means of exploiting them do
not necessarily live and work near them has important consequences for other people who do. Thus, local people
may be powerless to prevent their central government from granting rights to a foreign company to cut down the
forest they live in. The impact of cultural diversity, exchange, and inequality on humans and on the ways that
humans interact with environments has grown with time and with changes in human social organization since the
earliest Homo sapiens developed tool technology in the Paleolithic period. This is reflected in the growing field of
political ecology and is a major theme of this book.
Nor can one ignore the pitfalls inherent in the concept of adaptation, which all too easily can be employed
to explain everything and hence nothing. The record of human evolution contains much that is due to chance,
misadventure, and error. Further, the ecological and evolutionary perspective includes much more than simply
the material aspects of life. Religious and political beliefs and practices, even kinship systems, are as much a part
of human adaptation as are subsistence strategies and economic practices. Throughout this text, the many topics
xv
Preface xv
customarily treated as basic to an understanding of human society are integrated rather than treated as separate
aspects of culture: politics, economics, and religion are closely intertwined in the adaptive process. We hope that
this book conveys some of the excitement and controversy that are part of the contemporary sciences of human
ecology and behavior.
The book comprises eight chapters. The five central chapters (Chapters 3–7) focus on ethnographic case studies
and discussions relating to distinctive forms of human food procurement, settlement, or subsistence: hunting
and gathering, horticulture or low-energy farming, pastoralism, intensive agriculture, and industrial society.
This organization reflects a very general evolutionary or historical approach, but it is not offered as a rigid
typology or simple sequence of stages of development. It is archaeologically verifiable that foraging was the
way of life for all Homo sapiens until quite recently. And simple faming or horticulture predates by millennia
intensive farming supporting large populations. And, of course, industrial farming came only after advanced
metallurgy and mechanized ways to store and use energy. This presentation is entirely comfortable with the fact
that any specific population may engage in industrial farming but still derive much from wild harvests or gar-
dens. It is a historical fact that ancient Britons adopted farming on a widespread swathe of their lands, but had
mostly abandoned it prior to the erection of Stonehenge (ca. 3,000 years ago). Our advanced technology has
not separated us from “nature.” About 70% of the world’s population is still dependent on unprocessed natural
substances: firewood for cooking and heating is an important instance, but also the use of marine resources. To
state the obvious, every contemporary population uses a variety of ways of securing their livelihood. Our case
studies, as organized here, provide a closer look at the anthropological perspective in action; a number illus-
trate how anthropologists view long-term cultural change, analyze cultural adaptation, and attempt to under-
stand diverse aspects of social behavior. Most make use of archaeological data to provide richer examples and
expanded time frames. Populations whose ways of life and livelihood are as diverse as the San people of southern
Africa and the farmers of central California are similarly viewed as people responding to and coping, usually
successfully, with the problems facing them. What we do emphasize are the costs and rewards of different ways
of providing for necessities of life and the relationship of settlement system, mobility, and economic and polit-
ical organization to other aspects of adaptation. A distinctive feature of all these chapters is that they describe
not only different societies but also a wide range of methods and techniques of studying them. This organization
is intended to draw the student into interesting ethnographic material and give an insight into methodological
concerns. The bulk of the material comes from cultural anthropological sources but is often used here to focus
more immediately on ecological issues. Also, frequent reference is made to current events and topical problems.
The first two and the final chapters (Chapters 1, 2, and 8) treat general issues related to human ecology and cul-
tural behavior as well as planned and unplanned change.
In Chapter 1, we offer an introduction to general concepts in the study of human social behavior and the con-
cept of culture and an overview of the organization of the book. This edition adds new material to the discussion
of culture and gender and expands the discussion of science generally and anthropology specifically. For this
reason, we have divided the chapter into two distinct sections to equally emphasize each domain of inquiry. Part
One focuses on biological evolution and our evolutionary legacy. Part Two introduces culture and the study of
behavior. Taken together, these parts present a concise introduction to general anthropology. Chapter 2 outlines
the ecological framework on which subsequent chapters build and provides an extended discussion of evolution,
adaptation, politics, decision-making, gender, and behavioral variation. The nature of basic systems of food pro-
curement is introduced, although their developmental histories appear in the subsequent chapters. We explore the
developing field of political ecology and stress the central role of gender throughout.
Each of the five case study chapters presents at least two detailed ethnographic cases along with more focused
material. Each has boxes presenting relevant detailed or technical material. Students are introduced to basic
concepts and methods in the course of learning about particular peoples and places. Together, the text, ethno-
graphic examples, and boxes illustrate topics such as gender, kinship and marriage, economic processes, politics
and leadership, social control, religion, and cultural change. The case study material is, we hope, lively, timely,
and jargon free; the discussion accompanying it draws attention to important issues, including sources of energy
in human society, responding to problems or hazards, aspects of innovation and entrepreneurship, short-and
long-term processes of change, and issues of human rights. We hope to showcase anthropological scholarship in
action as it addresses important and immediate human concerns, such as the costs and consequences of human
energy requirements, environmental degradation, population pressure, social and economic (in)equity in a chan-
ging world and planned and unplanned social change.
More specifically, Chapter 3 deals with foraging and has an expanded discussion of reciprocity and social
organization in general. Each ethnographic case also deals with efforts of indigenous people to keep or reclaim
xvi
xvi Preface
their lands. Chapter 4 now looks specifically at horticulture or garden subsistence farming rather than at exten-
sive farming generally. We discuss the early development of farming, using recent material. Along with the
Yanamamö, the Pueblo are presented as a largely historical case in which the Eastern and Western groups are
compared. There is a detailed discussion of Amazonian groups and their efforts to preserve the integrity of and
their access to their lands. Chapter 5, Nomadic Pastoralism, describes a highly specialized land use strategy that
in certain respects, namely mobility, resembles hunting and gathering. Pastoralists incorporate movement in their
seasonal round of productive activity during which they must exploit great topographic and climate variability.
In addition to boxed material describing archaeological research on early pastoralism in Egypt, and the current
plight of Bedouin in the Israeli Negev, we present two extensive ethnographic discussions of contemporary pas-
toralist societies: the Arial of northern Kenya and the Yörük of southeastern Turkey. In Chapter 6, we examine
the development of the forms of farming that feed the cities of the world, followed by a more detailed look at
peasant household economics, small-scale farmers and change, and increasing inequality. The case of the Tamang
of Nepal is updated with recent developments stemming from increasing availability of employment outside the
agricultural sector and the country itself. The case of the Mexican village of Cucurpe focusses on land ownership,
and the potential impacts of the expansion of mineral mining in the region. The boxed material on the Kofyar of
Central Nigeria and changes occurring in rural Egypt provides further context. In Chapter 7, we look at changing
demographics and the social and ecological consequences of developments in industrial society and particularly
farming. Both the short-and long-term impacts of dams in particular are highlighted. The example of the cen-
tralization and subsequent re-privatization of Bulgarian agriculture provides a telling example of individuals’
adaptivity to unpredictable government regulations imposed with little consideration of local circumstances. And
expanded material on North American agriculture illustrates the rapid changes now underway in response to not
only developing technology but also the impacts of increasingly rapid climate changes.
Finally, Chapter 8 deals with planned and unplanned cultural change, development, and the environmental
implications of human activities; it concludes with suggestions for risk assessment as we plan for an uncertain
future. Starting with a historical overview of the history of the Vikings of Iceland, we proceed to address long-
term processes of change. We cover new material on the postindustrial world, “globalism” and the challenges this
poses for people struggling to make a living, as well as for those who attempt to assist them in rapidly changing
circumstances. A thought experiment dealing with how climate change might affect a middle American city in
2040 invites the reader to consider a wide range of possible scenarios. Readers might be encouraged to apply the
effort to the city or place with which they are most familiar. We conclude with a review of the ethical concerns
that must accompany and guide development work or applied social science.
In addition to a list of key terms, suggested readings, and illustrations for each chapter, this book contains sev-
eral features we hope may prove pedagogically useful, including:
• Each case study is presented in a contemporary setting, showing people coping with issues and problems to
which the reader can easily relate.
• Each case is tied to larger issues of cultural transformation and change.
• Cases exemplify a variety of research methods and theoretical approaches.
• Each chapter addresses energy requirements, environmental hazards, and special problems faced by the
populations under discussion, the development and significance of their adaptive strategy in human history,
and the social organizational concomitants.
• Each chapter has boxed inserts that present either recent technical reports in summary form or address
specialized topics in greater depth than possible in the text.
newgenprepdf
xvi
Acknowledgments
We undertook this edition of a well-established book using material largely derived from Human Adaptive
Strategies, third edition, published by Pearson 2004. Since the previous work, much has changed in the intel-
lectual environment not to mention in our physical environment. The three present collaborators are long-time
associates editing Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal. The responsibility for the present content rests
with Daniel Bates as lead author, and Judith Tucker, who has worked on the earlier editions and on this pro-
ject from the earliest stages to completion. Ludomir Lozny, an archaeologist who has worked with us at Human
Ecology for over 20 years, enthusiastically embraced this project as many of the new studies used here come from
Human Ecology sources as well as from areas in his own specialization, Old World archaeology.
Foremost, of course, we owe a great debt of gratitude to the scholars who carried out the often difficult and
time-consuming research on which this book reports and those who generously agreed to our use of their images
(many of which were Human Ecology covers), including Claudio Aporta, Shankar Aswani, Michael Barton,
Vincent Battesti, Peter Bogucki, Andrzej Boguszewski, Leif Brottem, Jean Clottes, Richard Daly, Tom Dillehay,
James Eder, Gary Feinman, Elliot Fratkin, Michael Gurven, William Irons, Michael Little, Lech Lozny, John
Metz, Amal Rassam, Philip Reno, Neil Roberts, Brigitta Hauser-Schauldin, Romuald Schild, Marina Temudo,
Martina Tyrrell, Bram Tucker, Sandagsuren Undarga, Joe Lamia Vod, and James R. Welch. Special thanks to
Stacie A. Shellner for timely logistical assistance. In addition, we thank Jonathan Mazower and Fiona Watson of
Survival International and Sander Manse at the Kéré Foundation for their enthusiasm and generosity.
We also wish to thank many other friends, academic critics, and consultants, in addition to several anonymous
reviewers in the United States and elsewhere, including Dennis Bates, Bill Baughman, David T. Cheetham, Gerald
Creed, James Eder, Greg Johnson, Ray Kelly, Roger Ling, and John Metz.
And of course we owe many thanks to Fiona Hudson Gabuya, Meagan Simpson, and Genni Eccles at
Routledge for gently guiding us through the intricate maze of publishing in the twenty-first century, a long way
from where we started!
Finally, we dedicate this book to Marty Nathan, wife of our long-time friend and colleague Elliot Fratkin,
whose compassion, skills, and generosity touched so many.
Daniel G. Bates
Judith Tucker
Ludomir Lozny
xvii
1
1 Evolution and the Study of Human Origins and Behavior
This chapter deals with two domains of knowledge that we can safely say are topics basic to any discussion of
human “long history,” namely, our biological origins and the coevolution of culture. The tools and evidence
needed to discuss these require their own, somewhat distinct treatment. To facilitate this presentation, we divide
this chapter into two parts, beginning with the Study of Human Origins. Part two is focused on the Science of
Cultural Anthropology.
PART ONE: THE STUDY OF HUMAN ORIGINS
It is safe to say that among all forms of life on Earth, humans are unique in only one incontrovertible respect: their
capacity for self-reflection and curiosity as to their own origins. Modern humans emerged out of Africa in
what might be described as a biological nanosecond. So recently, in fact, that our species has occupied only 1/
3,500,000,000,000th of the period of 3.75 billion or so years that there has been life on Earth. The features that we
so proudly trumpet as uniquely ours, such as our cognitive and communicative skills, toolmaking dexterity, care
and compassion toward others, all on close examination turn out to be to some degree shared with other animals.
But one fact that remains distinctively part of our heritage is that no other large animal has evolved so rapidly and
spread in such great abundance throughout most of the Earth’s land masses.
All the life sciences are concerned with what makes species persist and thrive or as most have done, become
extinct, but some, and anthropology in particular, focus more directly on what is responsible for the success of
our species, and what we might surmise about our future. The latter issue is an especially difficult question for
humans in large part because our past, with respect to our present condition, is too brief to be a reliable guide.
The global population is predicted to reach 8 billion in 2024, greater than the number of all who have lived before.
As financial disclosures always note, “past performance is no guide to future performance.” We might be little
more than the equivalent of a blossom of bacteria in a laboratory’s petri dish. Certainly, the latest series of global
coronavirus pandemics gives pause for thought as does impending climate change.
Still, there is a lot we can learn from past and present human populations. Despite the enormous variety of local
problems and hazards that humans must deal with to survive, all the world’s peoples are very similar in biological
makeup and physique. For the last 30,000 years, since the Neanderthals, a very closely related species—cousins
in fact, were absorbed into other coexisting Eurasian populations, anatomically modern humans remain the only
human species. Within our species, there are only localized populations with essentially quite minor physical or
phenotypical variations. The terms to keep in mind are phenotype, which refers to the physical expression of gen-
etic codes, or genotype. We are all very much alike genetically and behaviorally. Common physical congruities are
obvious, but there are also striking behavioral congruities: for instance, the near universality of religious beliefs,
moral strictures, and the importance of family and kinship. Fathers in every society take an interest in their off-
spring quite unlike most males in our living nonhuman primate cousins. What does vary greatly around the world
lies in the specifics of human social life, life sustaining procurement strategies and myriad rituals, traditions,
and customs. This overall unity combined with localized variability contains clues to both our rapid growth in
numbers and global dispersal and may well contain hints as to what will constrain our future. Contemporary
anthropology, among the social sciences, takes a global perspective but is not alone in this endeavor: psychology,
sociology, human biology and ecology, and cultural geography are closely interrelated disciplines.
These fields, to varying degrees, emphasize the connections between human society and the larger web of life.
Only by appreciating the fact that we are subject to the same forces that affect all other living organisms can we
come to understand those many aspects of human behavior that distinguish us from other species. And if we more
fully appreciate the extraordinary unity and diversity evident in the ways of life of the world’s peoples, we may
come to a better understanding of our own multicultural society and even ourselves as individuals.
DOI: 10.4324/b23278-1
2

A perspective on humankind encompassing nonhuman life forms is relatively recent in scientific thought. For
millennia, scholars were accustomed to thinking of the world’s living things as eternally fixed and unchanging.
Although similarities among species were widely noted, these similarities were not thought to represent the out-
come of a shared and ongoing process of change—the process we call evolution. Rather, each species was seen as
a unique entity with unique and fixed characteristics.
However, by the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of evolutionary change had become respectable in European
scholarly circles and soon became familiar to the public, in large part as a result of the tremendous impact of
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, published in 1859. Darwin’s thesis is
that species are related to one another by descent, with modifications, from common ancestors. He postulated that
such modifications occur primarily through differential reproduction, or the ability of some members of a species
to produce more surviving offspring than others. These favored individuals pass on their traits to the next gener-
ation, whereas the less favored do not do so to the same degree. Darwin called this process natural selection and
demonstrated that it can change the characteristics of an entire species over time or even give rise to new species.
While Charles Darwin understood that all species of plants and animals tend to produce more offspring than
the environment can support, which results in intense competition for living space, resources, and mates, and
only a favored few survive long enough to reproduce. He also noted that individual members of a species differ
from one another physically, but he had only vague idea of how this could play out in distinct traits. A major
weakness of Darwin’s theory as originally formulated was that it could not explain how favored characteristics
were inherited—and such a systematic explanation was needed. The prevailing belief was that every individual
inherited a blend of its parents’ characteristics. If true, this implied that advantageous variations would be lost by
dilution with less advantageous traits long before natural selection could act on them. It was an obscure Austrian
monk named Gregor Mendel (1822–1884), who discovered the hereditary basis of natural selection.
In the garden of his monastery in what is now the Czech Republic, Mendel spent years crossbreeding strains
of peas and other plants attempting to find out how traits are transmitted from one generation to the next. He
discovered that biological inheritance was not an irreversible blending of parental traits. Rather, individual units
of hereditary information, later called genes, were passed from parent to offspring as discrete particles according
to certain regular patterns (recessive and dominant traits). In one individual, a gene’s effect might be blended with
the effects of other genes or even suppressed altogether. But the gene itself remains unchanged, ready to be passed
on to the next generation where it might express itself and thus be available for natural selection.
Mendel’s work attracted little attention in the scientific community until after both he and Darwin were dead.
It was rediscovered in the early 1900s, but its relevance to evolution was not fully appreciated until the next gener-
ation. By that time, other apparent discrepancies in Darwin’s theory had been resolved, and it was finally accepted
that the human species, along with every other species, is a product of evolution. Today, evolutionary theory is
at the very heart of all research in the biological and natural sciences. With the recent breakthroughs in modern
genetics, population biology, and biochemistry, the utility of the “evolutionary synthesis,” as it is now called, is
established beyond doubt.
The idea that humans may also be a product of a long sequence of ongoing change received support of a
rather startling variety: the discovery of humanlike fossils in association with stone tools. Fossils are the nat-
urally mineralized remains of organic matter—earlier forms of plant and animal life turned to stone and thus
preserved—very often lying underground for thousands of years until chance discovery brings them to light.
While such finds have been recorded and speculated upon from the eighteenth century onward, it is only relatively
recently that they can be accurately dated and related to specific early ancestors. For example, in 2015, Sonia
Harmand and colleagues reported on a set of stone tools found in association with clearly hominin fossils at a site
in West Turkana, Kenya, which they dated to 3.3 million years ago (Harmand et al. 2015). Many more such tools
have been found in southwestern Kenya near Lake Victoria, which further suggests that there the craftsmen were
making a wide variety of sharp-edged tools from rock sourced at some distance. These discoveries suggest that
early Homo sapiens were not the first toolmakers but that toolmaking behavior has an extremely long hominin
evolutionary history.
Such discoveries confirm the idea that not only human beings themselves but also societies are the products of
evolution—that is, they developed from earlier forms. Over millions of years, the human body and human soci-
eties have emerged from earlier human and prehuman forms, through a combination of physical evolution (cumu-
lative changes in biological makeup) and cultural evolution (cumulative changes in thought and behavior). The
study of contemporary peoples and their social behavior offered here is closely tied to this view of the world: the
evolutionary view. One way to envision the process is to draw on a metaphor suggested by British biologist
Richard Dawkins (1995), who likens the development of life on Earth, from its origins as very simple organisms
3
Evolution and the Study of Human Origins and Behavior 3

capable of reproduction to the dazzling complexity of the world today, to an ever-growing and branching river—a
“river out of Eden.” In this scenario, all past and present living things are “vehicles of information,” carriers of
DNA, or genes and have the potential, sometimes realized and sometimes not, to replicate themselves, so that
the “river out of Eden” is a swirling flow in which genes meet, unite, sometimes compete, and, when separated by
branching, give rise to new species.
Central to this view of life is the special property that genes have to use material at hand with which to replicate
themselves, including such flaws in copying that might arise. This model with its singular but elegant economy
of assumption goes a long way to explain diversity or “ways of making a living” among millions of species.
Although each species, not to mention each working organ of each individual seem so evidently “designed” to
work or “make a living,” all are products of cumulative change. Each variation builds on past developments while
using genetic information at hand—a blind process stretching back through geological time. While this blind pro-
cess inevitably leads to change, it also not infrequently leads to increasing complexity, as changes in one species
reverberate through the “ways of making a living” of others on whom they prey or for whom they themselves
are prey.
The Human Evolutionary Legacy

Evolution, at its most basic, occurs whenever there is a genetic change in a population, and the evolutionary
process is thus a constant as individuals are added through birth or removed through death or migration. While
natural selection is one major force acting on the genetic composition of populations, any force that causes the
genetic composition of a population to change is evolutionary. For example, spontaneous change or mutation
adds new genetic material, genetic drift alters the composition of a daughter population randomly, such as group
migration and colonization of an island by individuals carrying distinctive traits—take the somewhat notorious
case of Pitcairn Island settled by British mutineers and their Polynesian consorts. Interbreeding, or gene flow
that transfers genetic information among populations, is also a major source of both change and unity in human
populations.
There is almost complete scientific agreement that taxonomically speaking (that is, for purposes of classifica-
tion) our contemporary species, Homo sapiens sapiens, is a relatively recent product of evolutionary processes,
certainly not much more than 315,000 years old and more likely closer to 100,000 (DeSilva 2021). The most recent
find from Morocco (Hublin et al. 2017) suggests that our species may have evolved around 300,000 years ago in
different regions of Africa. Even though most fossil remains of our earliest human-like, or hominin, forebears
were found in widely scattered locations in Eurasia (none in the Americas), it soon became clear that the first
hominins evolved in Africa. While the so-called “Out of Africa” scenario remains valid, very recent DNA and
fossil evidence reveals that this development was very complex, involving many different branches of hominins
rather than a neat unilinear evolution of one species. Just in Africa, we see a bewildering array of early hominins,
collectively termed australopithecines. As Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London describes it,
we are a “composite” species with no specific center of origin in Africa (New Scientist 2020: 39). African multi-
regionalism is a major shift in thinking in that our ancestral lineage is not a simple “tree” but rather involves a
multitude of closely related “bushes.” Genetic studies as well as the fossil record reflect a transition among diverse
branches of hominins. It is also clear that modern humans, and presumably ancestral populations, are highly
mobile and continually interbreed with neighboring populations.1 Major changes can occur in what geologists
consider rather short periods although by human measures based on life experience almost too slowly to notice.
Philip Reno (2017), an anthropologist specializing in biomedical science, notes that when we visit a zoo and peer
at our closest living relatives—bonobos, chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas—two things captivate us. They
look very much like people with their grasping hands and expressive faces. But they clearly are not human: we
walk upright, have far larger brains, enjoy a global distribution, and live in uniquely human social groupings—to
mention just a few distinguishing traits. While it is often assumed that evolution proceeds with improvements on
existing traits and capacities through adding or modifying genes, Reno along with a growing number of other
scientists are discovering that major changes can derive from genetic losses: the disappearance of key stretches of
DNA (ibid.: 44).
Together with David Kingsley, and other colleagues, Reno compared the DNA of modern humans with that
of other mammals and with archaic humans, the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, known from fossils recently
discovered in Siberia. Their findings have revealed that while all mammals share a large percentage of genes overall
(humans and chimps share 99% of the genome responsible for making protein) there are significant differences in
the “switches” that activate proteins to make a brain or bone or hair.
4

It is not hard to recognize the significance of changes in brain or skeletal development. But Reno became
interested in one human feature not much commented upon: the penis. Unlike humans, many mammalian males,
including nonhuman primates, rodents, cats, and bats have penis spines of keratin (like fingernails). These may
range from simple microscopic cones to large barbs or spikes (ibid.: 47). He notes that the copulation time of
spine-sporting primates is very brief: with chimps at less than ten seconds. This change had huge implications
for the course of human development: unlike the great apes, human males take a strong interest in their off-
spring and generally have strong pair bonding, and this increases the overall reproductive rate. Furthermore,
strong familial bonding facilitates cultural learning, which is of pivotal significance for the distribution of modern
human populations (Figure 1.1).
As we stressed earlier, we are relatively homogeneous in terms of genetic material often termed our genome
despite internal variation within every population. In fact, most anthropologists feel it is inappropriate, or at best
problematic, to speak of significantly different biological races, as individual differences within large populations
are as great as or greater than differences among geographically defined populations.
Figure 1.1 The different penis spine patterns in our ape relatives and the associated copulation times. Pleasurable sexual
interactions may facilitate long-term bonding. The anatomical loss of another long-established primate trait in the
larynx may have facilitated the evolution of human language.
Source: P. Reno.
Photo 1.1 Biological anthropologist Philip Reno has a special interest in human evolution. Along with his colleagues, he has
identified gene “switches” that activate proteins to make a brain or bone or hair.
Source: P. Reno.
5

DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) is the chemical name for the molecule that carries genetic instructions in all
living things. Mitochondria are important DNA-bearing units lying outside a cell’s nucleus that provide the cell
with energy and regulate metabolism. Based on their analysis of mitochondrial DNA collected from the placentas
of babies born throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and from Native Americans, Rebecca Cann and her colleagues
suggest that all present-day Homo sapiens shared a female ancestor who lived in Africa about 188,000 years ago
(Cann 1988: 127–143). The significance of mitochondrial DNA lies in the fact that it is passed unchanged through
each generation from mother to daughter and thus is unlike the DNA within the cell’s nucleus, which undergoes
change and replacement during sexual reproduction. Noting that mitochondrial DNA changes slowly and only by
mutation, the researchers created a “molecular clock” that they estimated moved at a rate of change of 1% every
million years. The fact that mitochondrial DNA in African populations displays much more mutation-induced
variability indicates that this population must have been antecedent or ancestral to all other human populations.
Much recent research on DNA includes the mapping of the entire human genome, or the 1.5 million base
pair DNA sequences that contain all the information held in the chromosomes that govern how an organism
develops. Much of the analysis of DNA has been automated to the extent that any individual with access to the
internet can (for a fee) acquire a description of their individual genetic lineage in the form of a chart of where
your ancestors most likely originated rather than a family genealogy using names and birth and death dates. Even
human chromosomes are now better understood than just a few years ago, and it is possible to trace male lineages,
the Y-chromosome marker, in a similar, albeit much simpler and easier manner than that which Cann pioneered.
Once again, the “Out of Africa” hypothesis is confirmed. Large-scale migrations of modern humans can similarly
be mapped, showing, for example, that modern humans did not move directly into Europe from Africa but passed
through parts of Arabia, now desert but at that time better watered, and then through Central Asia to circle back
to the Middle East and Europe. Tracing these migrations frequently involves identifying the spread of mutations
from a single “founder” through successive generations and migrations among continents (Drayna 2005: 79–85).
For example, a mutation affecting the HbS blood gene (or so-called sickle cell gene) has occurred five times (as far
as is known) in ancestral populations in Arabia-India, Senegal, Benin-Cameroon, and among Bantu-speakers in
south central Africa. Carriers of one of these variants have now dispersed throughout the world. The mutation
itself spread because of its ability to confer some protection against malaria despite deleterious effects for some
carriers. About 8% of African Americans carry at least one copy of this sickle cell mutation.
An important consequence of genome studies is that what had been assumed to be fundamental genetic
differences among species are now understood to be far less significant than had been thought. While it was long
recognized that we are closely related to chimpanzees, few could have suspected that our genomes are virtually
identical. More surprising, we share 88% of our genes with rodents and 60% with chickens, so the puzzle is what
exactly makes us, rather than chimps, human? Clues are provided by studies of identical twins whose DNA is,
appropriately, identical. Some twins may develop diseases inherited from his/her parents while their sibling does
not, such as childhood diabetes or schizophrenia (Gibbs 2005: 107–113). It is not just an individual’s genes that
account for this, but also how these genes are regulated and expressed. Gibbs aptly terms this “volume controls
for genes” (ibid.: 110). The study of the regulation of gene expression is called epigenetics and has emerged among
evolutionary biologists as a window on the interface between nature and nurture—that is, how our genome reacts
to our environment. The medical applications are potentially huge, as also are the implications for understanding
the rapid appearance in hominins of brain complexity sufficient to produce language. Epigenetic processes,
although still little understood, work more rapidly in producing traits that can be passed on to offspring than can
natural selection acting on genes alone, which respond to relatively rare mutations.
However, human origins have long been and continue to be the subject of controversy. What is known? While
australopithecines flourished from about 3.5 million years, they do not seem to have spread throughout the Old
World. Homo erectus had a significantly larger cranial capacity and a far larger stature and developed much
more elaborate stone hand axes, which, together with the use of fire, enabled them to colonize much of the
Pleistocene Old World that was not glaciated. They seem to have flourished in the Caucasus long before the advent
of modern humans. Discoveries in Morocco and Ethiopia seem to furnish quite clear proof that anatomically
modern humans and Neanderthals originated in Africa, replaced the earlier hominins and spread out to colonize
the entire world (Clark et al. 2003; Gibbons 2003; Richter et al. 2017; White et al. 2003). And the last common
ancestor of all the early hominin cousins may have walked the earth 800,000 years ago (Stringer cited in Barras
2022).
It must be kept in mind that those features we often use to describe different peoples of the world—skin
color, eye color and shape, stature, and hair color and texture—are all the products of very recent and minor
adaptations and are continually changing in every human population. A closely related issue is the question
of how many of our antecedent hominins lived at any given time. Today, of course, there is only one species of
6
Photo 1.2 Excavations in the Grotte du Noisetier in the Hautes-Pyrénées, Southern France. Beginning in 2004 an interdis-
ciplinary research team made several discoveries related to the Neanderthal Mousterian culture, including three
juvenile Neanderthal teeth, the only Neanderthal biological remains found in the Pyrenees.
Source: Ludomir R. Lozny.
hominins—ourselves. But even as recently as 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and at least one more
“cousin” population known now only from its DNA are likely to have coexisted for a very substantial time with
Homo sapiens. A skull rediscovered in Harbin, China, nicknamed the Dragon Man, may point to the missing
cousin (Barras 2022; DeSilva 2021; Jacops et al. 2019; Krasue et al. 2010; Sykes 2021; Tattersall 2000). The names
of fossil strains of human ancestors are of less importance than the story they tell of a common and complex
worldwide ancestry. Moreover, there is no such thing as a modern or “more adapted” feature as opposed to some
trait supposedly “left behind.” Homo sapiens facial structure, for example, is far more reminiscent of our very
early hominin ancestors than that worn by our fellow primates today.
Thus, for much of our history, there is evidence that “we were not alone” and that at certain periods more than
one distinct hominin species coexisted and inter-bred. The minor differences we now see among human beings
are the products of behavioral or cultural adaptation. Many anthropologists currently speculate that ultimate
dominance of modern hominins was the result of the invention of language, our peculiar mode of symbolic com-
munication that makes possible our mode of reasoning and in turn our behavioral flexibility.
Box 1.1 Neanderthals, Our Undervalued Cousins

One often underestimated ancestral cousin of modern humans, Neanderthals, are the most widely recognized
population stemming from the adaptive radiation out of Africa into Eurasia. Very closely related to Homo
sapiens, Neanderthals occupied a highly diverse environment far greater in area than the Chinese and Roman
Empires put together at their maximum distribution, flourishing between 250,000 years and ca. 35,000–
40,000 years ago. Of course, it is misleading to compare a biologically defined population’s range to the pol-
itically integrated entities of the modern world, but with hindsight and the aid of science we now know that
western Eurasia was long the homeland of humans distinct in some respects from those in other parts of the
world. Neanderthals are recent examples of these populations that extend back to Homo antecessor, living
in Spain over 800,000 years ago, and Homo heidelbergensis across Europe after 450,000 B. C. Check: Clearly
7
modern humans now found across Eurasia have a challenge if we hope to match the endurance-measured
success of our close cousins. Although distinctive in some physical characteristics, these early Europeans
were not isolated from the rest of humanity. The ancestors of modern humans co-existed with and inter-
bred with Neanderthals for approximately 90 millennia, perhaps learning from its original inhabitants how
to thrive in diverse and often challenging European environments. An interesting find in Portugal at the
end of the twentieth century revealed the fossilized remains, dated to about 27,000 years ago, of a boy aged
between four and five with both modern human and Neanderthal features—a modern chin but the shorter
body proportions of a Neanderthal (Duarte et al. 1999; Zilhão 2000). Paleoanthropologists believe this and
other similar skeletal discoveries provide direct evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and early
humans.
In the fast-evolving scientific field of hominid paleontology, narratives interpreting the prehistoric record
can be rapidly outdated by new discoveries. Even for a hominin as well-studied as Neanderthals, the sparse
and fragmented nature of the evidence makes writing about the behavior and life ways of these widely
dispersed and now extinct human cousins challenging, This is made all the more difficult by the recog-
nition that diverse and evolving cultural traditions across the enormous expanse of time and space the
Neanderthals occupied enabled a wide range of localized adaptations that are can only be faintly glimpsed
in the archaeological remains. Rebecca Wragg Sykes (2021) demonstrates why the immense temporal and
spatial span of occupation is relevant to understanding current human ecology. She shows that contrary
to earlier stereotypes the Neanderthals were not specialized biologically or culturally to only living in high
altitude or cold weather conditions but thrived in highly diverse environments ranging across deep Alpine
forests, sub-tropical climes, temperate seashores, open temperate plains, marshlands, and various habitats
in between. Physically, Neanderthals are clearly human but have distinct characteristics typical of a popula-
tion long endemic to a single geographical region. As Frank Livingston, late of the University of Michigan
well known for his work on sickle cell anemia and malaria, liked to say: “A Neanderthal travelling in the
NYC subway system would not occasion comment.” True enough, we are sure, but their slightly shorter and
strikingly strong, robust bodies, and face with little forehead, a distinct bony crown over the eyes, and lack
of prominent chin would stand out from most subway riders.
Middle Paleolithic stone technology, sometimes referred as the Mousterian by archaeologists, has been
closely scrutinized for over a century and a half; what is new is the amount of information that can now be
derived from stone and bone. Without going into evidential details, current thinking now finds that a wide
range of task-specific stone tools, including microlithic artifacts and compound tools, formerly thought to
be H. sapiens inventions, such as arrow or spear points, were utilized by Neanderthals. The inventory of
game hunted is impressive, reflecting a huge range of habitats, including mammoth, elephant, rhinoceros,
bear, diverse large and powerful carnivores, horse, bison, deer as well as small game, birds, and a range of
marine creatures. Humans world-wide had become keystone species by the time Neanderthals dominated
Europe, and their environmental footprint was clearly significant. Even in mildly temperate climes, Wragg
Sykes notes that each adult member of a group would require approximately the skins of 30 “deer-sized”
animals per annum. To feed ten individuals for one week, she writes, would require 300,000 calories or the
equivalent of three reindeer (141ff). Even this is not the complete nutritional story; in addition, members of
the group would require the micronutrients such as fats, vitamins, and minerals. And the number of large
prey would have to be doubled to acquire the necessary fat, brains, eyes, tongue, and marrow. Analyses of
teeth indicate wear patterns indicative of large quantities of plant consumption or chewing related to pro-
cessing for the making of cordage or strapping. Even within local groups, evidence points to significant
individual variation (161, 192). Dentition analysis shows how individuals tore flesh from bone using their
teeth as well as stone or flint. Wragg Sykes also writes that with Neanderthals may show evidence of the
emergence of some craft specialists in the knapping of stone, woodwork, complex adhesive production
(using bitumen and tree saps) and hide processing to produce leather (135). Fires maintained for warmth
and cooking leave their datable presence in caves and shelters.
Any study of a human population, archaic or modern, needs integrated methods of observation and ana-
lysis as well as an important reminder of the fragility of any local settlement or system of sustenance. To
get a sense of Neanderthal life Wragg Sykes discusses birthing, child-rearing, food procurement and prepar-
ation, crafts and material culture, cognitive development, and, of course, death. In each, the reader is drawn
into the mechanics of observation and the newest techniques of DNA analysis and dating.
While generally nomadic, like all of humanity prior to farming and cities, it appears that most
Neanderthal communities were fairly constrained in the movements, with less evidence of long-distance
8
sourcing of materials than hunting and gathering Homo sapiens. Domestic life to the extent it can be
archaeologically recovered involved familial groupings, including care of incapacitated adults living with
wounds or illness or reduced mobility and greater fragility associated with age. While an earlier argument
for Neanderthal burials (Shanidar, Iraq) has been disputed such burials elsewhere have been carefully
excavated. Moreover, there is indirect evidence of mourning for a dead child: a newborn infant’s remains
were discovered in France almost intact due to being deliberately buried and protected from potential
predators. Also, in France, an authenticated male burial has recently been reported. The humans in
each instance, and fully human is what the Neanderthals are shown to be, organized their living spaces,
working or killing places, their trash, and their dead. Incipient artistic expression is seen in incisions
in rocks carved in reoccurring patterns, and one cave site in France has an intriguing arrangement of
stalactite-derived large stones situated in a circle. This seemingly indicates ceremonial or religious activ-
ities. The complexity of Neanderthal social life Wragg Sykes describes indicates they were linguistically
capable, teaching and learning from each other as we do today.
Neanderthal life also had a darker side, with sites that indicate the consumption of conspecifics, or can-
nibalism. Long bone remains are broken to extract narrow, teeth marks on bones, skulls opened to access
brains—all evidenced in antecedent hominins as well as wide-spread among H. sapiens. What is not clear
is whether the practice was associated with mortuary rites (as is known ethnographically), driven by des-
peration and starvation, or simply motivated by culinary expediency and inclination. Importantly, how-
ever, in all recorded excavations only two unambiguous cases of Neanderthal-on-Neanderthal homicide
are evident. Life in Eurasia was hard enough without inter-personal violence; bones from many sites show
blunt trauma on their remains. Neanderthals were not just predators but prey as well. In 2021, evidence
from a recently excavated cave site located north of Rome found that several adults and one child had been
consumed (and possibly killed?) by hyenas (Papagianni and Morse 2018).
The entire genomes of some Neanderthals are now known, and the DNA evidence of interbreeding in
the millennia of co-existence with H. sapiens is unmistakable. In the case of one Neanderthal jawbone, the
owner had an H. sapiens ancestor six generations back. While the circumstances in which interbreeding took
place remain unclear, the results are not: many people reading this (especially if they have any European
ancestry) carry genetic material from these interactions. C. M. Barton presciently describes the end of
the Neanderthal era not as a collapse or extinction but “… the result of Late Paleolithic globalization as
Neanderthals were absorbed into pan-Eurasian genome and cultural sphere” (Barton et al. 2011: 722).
Moreover, our cousins and “ourselves” co-existed for far longer than what we call modern humans have been
“alone.” Theirs was not a struggle, as a poetic image might have it “… red in tooth and claw.” It was a simple
question of relative thriving or rates of reproduction. So, what gave Homo sapiens sapiens the edge? Carl Zimmer
(2021) describes a newly found mutation or “glitch” in the DNA in the modern human brain that distinguishes
our line from that of our now extinct cousins: without increasing the actual size of the brain, it spurred the growth
of frontal lobe neurons used in the region of complex thought. While Neanderthals undoubtedly had language,
our branch seemingly had a unique edge for communication and planning.
The Nature of Scientific Inquiry

Since our approach is rooted in science and evidence-based perspectives, it is useful at the onset to be clear as to
what this means. In 1944, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, Erwin Schrodinger, wrote an influential
book entitled What is Life. As science writer Jim Holt (2008: 17) paraphrases him:
Living things are made of matter, Schrodinger observed, yet they seem to violate the laws of physics. One
of the most basic of these laws is the second law of thermodynamics, a universal tendency towards disorder.
Entropy –a mathematical measure of the disorder present in a system –is always on the rise. Left on their
own, things fall apart, run down, become inert; they tend towards an equilibrial state of chaos and dissol-
ution. This is a matter of cruel probability: as we all know from our own domestic lives, there are vastly more
ways for things to be disordered than to be ordered, so it is far more likely that things will slip from orderly
to disorderly rather than the reverse.
One clear implication of this observation is that all life on our planet is continually in a state of flux or transition.
Secondly, stability, organization, and even continuity are simply artifacts of the time frame of the observer. And
9
Photo 1.3 By 20,000 years ago modern humans were well established worldwide and often displayed their self-awareness in
symbolic expression—here late Paleolithic rock carvings near Baku, Azerbaijan.
Source: D. Bates.
thirdly, that all life on earth is bound up in arrangements that depend on our sun, or as Holt (2008: 18–19) some-
what lyrically describes it:
Terrestrial nature drinks up the sky’s orderliness in a beautifully simple way. During the day, the earth gets
energy from the sun in the form of photons of visible light. At night, the same amount of energy is dumped
back out into space in the form of infrared photons, otherwise known as radiant heat.
Entropy always increases in any system that is cut off from outside influence; every living organism is exchan-
ging with its environment. Energy absorbed and utilized to perform work or to manufacture ordered organic
compounds ultimately returns to the cosmos as less ordered energy or disordered waste. Plants on which directly
or indirectly all or most terrestrial life depends absorb organic compounds from solar energy through photosyn-
thesis. All life forms exist in an “open system” dependent on external sources of energy. Most descriptions of life
forms are simplifications, treating these open systems as analytically closed—a convenience that sometimes unin-
tentionally obscures the long-term dynamics of the phenomena studied. You might, with justification, say that we
tend to study open systems with closed minds.
All science is focused on the description and explanation of natural phenomena. The researchers whose work
we describe here generally agree that human biology and behavior are best studied as a scientific endeavor. While
it is easy to become entangled in debate as to what exactly constitutes science and where its intellectual bound-
aries lie, it is not difficult to sketch what, in practice, it demands of us and what scientific thinking must avoid.
Science, from the Latin scientia, is minimally defined as “knowing” or a “state of knowledge” as opposed to
ignorance or misunderstanding. In practice, scientific knowledge is rooted in procedures and principles for the
systematic pursuit of knowledge through observation and experiment. Emphasis on systematic is the key to
understanding scientific method: that is, knowledge is gained not by mere luck, discovery based on religious
prophecy, or random, open-ended musings, but through using one’s capacity for rational thought and for observa-
tion. Science is a cumulative process of questioning received wisdom, of utilizing the observations of others, and
seeking answers in the natural world. It also involves a seemingly confrontational mode of thinking achieved not
simply through sound reasoning, but reason combined with a powerful skepticism (see, for example, Gabennesch
2006: 36ff). Maintaining a skeptical outlook can be challenging to one’s own deeply held beliefs as well as the
beliefs and assumptions of others, as is so clearly the case with biological evolution. Skepticism as a component
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of critical thinking, to paraphrase Gabennesch, means (1) not to believe unquestioningly—a “show me” or “prove
it” approach; (2) to take positions only provisionally since knowledge is fallible or incomplete; and (3) to defer
to no “sacred cows”—all orthodoxies are the mortal enemy of scientific thought (2006: 38–39). Herein lies a
disturbing paradox: by inviting skepticism, critical thinking can lead to extreme and deeply irrational conclusions,
for example the rejection of extremely useful ideas—such as the concept of evolution or even the validity of scien-
tific thinking itself. Generally, though, science is advanced through a process of self-correction by means of peer
review and repetitive testing.
Scientific inquiry, however complex in practice, rests on two interrelated mental activities: (1) reducing the sub-
ject of inquiry to manageable units (that is, defining and describing units of useful data), and (2) once a sufficiency
of information is in place, generalizing further about related categories of data or even about expectations of
future discoveries. Thus, inquiry necessarily proceeds at multiple levels, ranging from microanalysis of very small
units to macro-descriptions of entire classes of phenomena.
PART TWO: ANTHROPOLOGY, SCIENCE, AND THE STUDY OF CULTURE
Much of what anthropologists and other social scientists study in their investigation of the human species lies in
the broad domain we call “culture.” Usually, culture is defined as the primary non-biological or learned means by
which humans adapt to their environments (see Fagan 2004).
To be more specific, culture is a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the
members of a population use to interact with their world and with one another and that are transmitted from gen-
eration to generation through learning. This definition includes not only patterns of behavior but also patterns of
thought (shared meanings that the members of a society attach to various phenomena, natural and intellectual,
including religion and ideologies), artifacts (tools, pottery, houses, machines, works of art), and the culturally
transmitted skills and techniques used to create the artifacts. If an explorer on Mars finds, for example, a seashell,
she will know that there was once life on the Red Planet; if she finds shells on a string, she will have discovered
that culture had thrived there. In short, culture includes almost any form of behavior that is learned rather than
instinctive. Obviously, the culture in question may have nothing to do with our species! Culture is not an exclu-
sively human club.
While this working definition of culture suffices for most purposes, it is important to keep in mind some problems
that occur at the interface of genetically rooted capabilities and learning. Japanese macaques, for instance, have
ways of opening seashells that are learned, usually from females, but that vary among different populations.
Studies of nonhuman animals show conclusively that much behavior essential to survival is learned. Think of
the numerous centers around the world devoted to teaching basic skills to orphaned offspring of endangered
species. For the most part, this “learning” involves simply providing the environmental stimuli needed to prompt
behaviors already part of the genetic capabilities of the species—whooping cranes flying south, for example. Less
common but still widespread is the learning of “traditions” or social practices that vary among populations of the
same species and are passed on across generations—bird song dialects, for instance. There is, however, a quantum
gulf separating humans from other social animals. Human social learning is not as narrowly constrained as is
that of all other known species and occupies a far greater role in our bag of survival tricks. Chimpanzees, whose
cultural practices are second only to our own, have only 40 or so patterns of learned behavior that vary among
wild populations—ways of grooming or fishing for termites with sticks, for example—while humans have untold
thousands of learned traditions. Studies of animal cognition find that the process is quite different with humans
in that it begins with infants copying their parents’ behavior with great fidelity. Thus, human children acquire
many ways of doing things whose purposes may not be in the least bit obvious, for example learning to kneel in
prayer with hands clasped at bedtime or to clap hands to signify approval. Nonhuman young animals, in contrast,
tend to learn a very limited range of traditions most of which have an immediate payoff in terms of their survival.
Human learning by unquestioning imitation has the advantage of allowing the child to rapidly acquire the
huge repertoire of traditions that suits them for the rich cultural life that distinguishes our species. It also means
that as children we risk learning behaviors that may have no inherent function. An apocryphal case describes a
woman who prided herself on her baked ham, which she always prepared by cutting off both ends before cooking.
When asked by a friend why she did this, she replied that she had learned it from her mother; when she then asked
her mother why she did this, her mother replied that this was how “grandmother did it.” Grandmother, when
finally approached on the issue, said that she always cooked ham this way because her pans were too short!
Human cultural learning is of such breadth and variability that it often appears to be infinitely plastic even
though common sense tells us that it cannot be limitless. The innate limits to learning, as well as whatever neuro-
logical processes may structure or shape it, is what is meant by popular reference to human nature. Just about
11
Photo 1.4 In a break with tradition, men and women of the minority Bulgarian Turkish community gather in the mosque
expressing their shared cultural and religious identity during a period of rapid change in Şumen, Bulgaria.
Source: D. Bates.
any conceivable human activity has at one time or another been described as either due to “human nature” or in
violation of it. Examples abound in debates over areas such as sexual mores and practices, gender roles, and pol-
itical systems, to name only a few. So much controversy has attended the search for the limits of human behavior
that most scholars now approach the subject very gingerly and avoid categorical statements such as “humans
are aggressive animals” in favor of qualified ones, such as “humans are capable of aggression under certain
circumstances.” As was known even in Darwin’s own time, within nonhuman populations there is behavioral vari-
ability among related individuals for many traits, such as willingness to fight; immediate or delayed gratification;
timidity and the like. This variability is subsumed under the term we all understand: “personality.”
Holism
All scientists tend to specialize to reduce their subject matter to manageable proportions. There are hundreds
of distinct specializations in the sciences, social sciences, and engineering, and the result has been a prodigious
accumulation of knowledge about the world. In 1797, when Thomas Jefferson presided over the American
Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, all the scientists in America could have been comfortably seated in the
lecture hall; today, their intellectual successors, who now number over 450,000, would overcrowd the city. In
the eighteenth century, any single American scholar would have been broadly familiar with the entire scope of
European learning, which they would have viewed as a single corpus. Today, a complex global division of labor
has paid off in the exponential growth in knowledge about our planet and beyond. The drawback of this extraor-
dinary amount of available information is that the unity of the sciences has become obscured.
This means that scientific holism, or the study and description of the properties of complex systems is espe-
cially important, including the study of living systems comprised of interacting organisms. But in the study of
any system, we must be careful not to forget that the emergent properties we describe for the totality (for example,
the workings of a gasoline engine or even a complex natural system, such as a lake or forest) rest ultimately on
individual components. Philosophical holism is thus the view that no complex entity is merely the sum of its
parts; scientific holism, while accepting this view, keeps in mind that all organic and inorganic matter does have
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concrete attributes that can be described, measured, and ultimately related to the larger whole. The evolutionary
psychologist Pascal Boyer puts it bluntly “Do not anthropomorphize humans!” In other words, just as we should
not explain other species’ behavior as having human-like attributes, we cannot account for human behavior as
“just being human” (Boyer 2018: 23ff). The prevalence of male violence against female partners is not explained
by reference to some male predilection to aggression; it has to be understood in the context of marriage norms,
gender roles in the household, and many other factors. Although some formulations of holism risk sliding into
mysticism by focusing exclusively on the emergent properties of abstract systems, scientific holism considers a
hierarchy of interrelated components.
As a principle guiding social research, holism is the assumption that any given aspect of human life is
to be studied with an eye to its relation to other aspects of human life including physiological processes.
Anthropologists, for example, attempt to understand specific problems or questions of interest within a wider
context. Often the broad philosophical and theoretical concerns of anthropology must be approached through
studies of a particular people, living in a particular place and time. The specific nature of our inquiries cannot
be allowed to limit the field of investigation. Data must be collected even in those areas that at first glance
seem to impinge only peripherally upon the problem. For example, understanding a people’s dietary habits
requires knowledge of their economy and ecology, as well as their religious, social, and aesthetic ideologies.
Thus, a researcher studying child nutrition in Brazil will probably consider how the occupations of parents
affect family diet, and then how differences in nutrition arise, and what causes them to persist. The political
implications of nutritional differences among ethnic groups may also be explored. The biological anthropolo-
gist studying the evolution of the human brain will take into consideration not only the shape and size of fossil
skulls but also evidence regarding the evolution of language, toolmaking, social organization, and hunting and
gathering techniques, all of which are related to the growth of the brain. Likewise, the archaeologist studying
prehistoric stone tools and the linguist investigating the origins of language will take all these matters (and
more) into account. Findings in other disciplines are consulted as well. Geologists, paleontologists, botanists,
zoologists, geneticists, physicists, geographers, and specialists in other fields all provide information relevant
to these concerns. As biologist E. O. Wilson so elegantly writes, “The greatest challenge today, not just in
cell biology and ecology but in all of science, is the accurate and complete description of complex systems”
(1998: 85), and the most complex systems of all involve human beings.
Cultural Relativism
The second important principle in the study of cultural diversity is cultural relativism—the necessity of viewing
the beliefs and customs of others within the context of their cultural, social, and religious matrix rather than one’s
own. This ability does not necessarily come naturally. Our perceptions are obviously adjusted to our own cultures.
So, at first sight, an African man with ritual scars on his face or a Middle Eastern woman in purdah (that is, with
her face and body largely covered) may well seem strange to some of us. Unfamiliar food preferences may seem
unpleasant. When the practice in question is one that we consider a matter of morality rather than simply one of
taste—as, for example, the ritual homosexuality involving adult males and adolescent boys found in some New
Guinea tribes, or female infanticide practiced by the Yanomamö of Venezuela—our reactions can be far stronger.
Cultural self-centeredness, the tendency to judge the customs of other societies by the standards of one’s own,
is called ethnocentrism, and is a major threat to objective observation and evaluation. It is by no means a phe-
nomenon exclusive to Western societies. People in every society tend to view outsiders and their customs with
suspicion and often condemnation. This is obviously true even at the intimate personal or familial level: we easily
judge others in the light of our own circumstances all too often to discover shortcomings.
Sometimes employing relativistic principles, while facilitating academic study, leads the observer to questions
that cannot easily be resolved. For example, is ritual circumcision of Hasidic Jewish males by religious practitioners
a form of protected religious expression or is it a form of child abuse (see Rosen 2006: 28)? Female circumcision
is widely condemned in the United States and is against the law in most states, but male circumcision, which is
almost the norm in the United States, is also an unnecessary procedure with some risk of harm. While there are
no easy resolutions for conflicting social practices or norms in complex societies, cultural relativism can assist in
understanding what is at issue.
Cultural relativism enables us to approach other cultures with open minds and an appreciation for human
diversity. We need not and should not surrender our own values and our own ethical or moral standards. We
simply adopt an approach that fosters scientific objectivity and at the same time encourages empathy with other
peoples: an ability to see things, to some degree, as they see them. These products of cultural relativism—objectivity,
13
Photo 1.5 Traditional healers and family counselors are licensed by the Ugandan government, and some acquire national
stature not unlike some media focused doctors and clergy in America. They often converse with local spirits; in this
case in Bujugali, with those associated with the Nile’s origin near Lake Victoria.
Source: D. Bates.
empathy, and informed judgment—are indispensable to anyone who wishes to understand the customs of another
society and even different sectors of their own.
There is, however, a troubling dilemma inherent in cultural relativism—one that is increasingly central in
discussions of universal human rights. Can we use cultural relativism to justify the violation of basic civil and
human rights? Eugene Hammel has written, with respect to the bloody Balkan wars of the 1990s, that when a
society with which one is familiar is consumed by war, the anthropologist must speak out against war crimes,
such as politically motivated rape, massacre of civilians, and torture. Such practices cannot be justified even
if the perpetrators consider them to be so and they are perhaps even expected by the victims (Hammel 1994).
The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2011 and its cascading aftermath created millions of
refugees. As of 2020, at least 9.2 million Iraqis remained internally displaced or living as refugees abroad.
The Syrian Civil War started in 2011 in part as a response to protests arising from the Arab Spring movement
of 2010. By the end of 2021, the conflict had created 5.7 million refugees, including 2.7 million children.
The civil war continues into the 2020s with no signs of resolution. Only five weeks after the Russian inva-
sion of Ukraine in March 2022, more than 4 million refugees had already fled. They are not alone: millions
of refugees across the globe daily endure horrific conditions. While conflict remains a major source of dis-
placement, the extent of the negative impacts of climate change on human populations is becoming starkly
apparent (see Chapter 8).
The Role of Theory

Theories are the backbone of scientific research. A scientific theory is a statement that postulates ordered
relationships among natural phenomena and explains some aspect of the world in terms of natural phenomena.
The theoretical model chosen by researchers leads them to ask certain kinds of questions and helps them formu-
late some questions as specific hypotheses.
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Today, evolutionary theory is at the very heart of all research in the biological and natural sciences. With the
recent breakthroughs in modern genetics, population biology, and biochemistry, the utility of the “evolutionary
synthesis,” as it is termed, is established beyond doubt. However, while acknowledging the importance of evolu-
tion for the emergence of new species and biodiversity, general evolutionary processes were largely neglected in
anthropological research until relatively recently. This is because much research is framed in what in evolutionary
terms are very short-term interactions in which issues of genetic or biological modifications within populations
can be ignored. Today, there is a significant line of inquiry variously called evolutionary ecology or behavioral
ecology that investigates the implications of natural selection models for human activities as diverse as territorial
defense, common property management and foraging patterns, and mating choices, which are measured against
the expectation that “individuals behave in such a way that their personal reproductive success and/or inclusive
fitness is maximized” (Schutkowski 2007: 13–14; for an expanded discussion, see especially Boyer 2018).
The significance of this for anthropology is that populations and their constituent members are always
dynamic even if the changes are hidden by the time frame within which researchers necessarily work. Examples
of such changes that appear to have occurred within recent times among modern humans, based on rapidly
advancing DNA studies, include those affecting skin pigmentation, the ability to process certain sugars and
alcohol, fatty acid metabolism, as well as genetic resistance to specific diseases such as malaria, and they clearly
indicate that humans’ technological breakthroughs have not put them beyond the reach of evolutionary forces.
Another example of evolutionary adaptation, albeit a negative one from a human vantage point, is the, at the time
of writing, ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Researchers now are confident that the virus arose in a
Chinese urban population through human-wildlife contact in a marketplace where both live and slaughtered game
was sold. But the disease reached epidemic proportions as sufficient human carriers who lived long enough to
transmit the deadly virus through multiple human-human contacts circulated through China and on throughout
the world. Organisms, even viruses and bacteria, continually adapt opportunistically to their environments and
thereby effect change over both the short and long term. At least 60,000 new strains of COVID-19 were identified
less than one year after the initial outbreak, with the expectation that there will be many more before the pan-
demic is over or has mutated into a relatively less severe virus, such as influenza.
The use of theory is not to say that researchers see only what they are looking for and block out everything
else. Still, perception is always selective and tends to be shaped by individuals’ assumptions—in this case, by what
they expect or hope to find. To prevent this issue from becoming a problem, researchers should be careful to spell
out their theoretical assumptions when they design the plans for their research and later when they report their
findings. Thus, any biases, if indeed they have influenced the research, are at least apparent to anyone seeking to
use the results for further research design.
A theory is never tested directly; theoretical expectations are tested through testing specific hypotheses.
A hypothesis is a statement about relationships that it is possible to show is untrue. The statement, “Cigarette
smoking is bad,” is not a hypothesis because it does not define “bad” or specify the relationship between smoking
and anything else. It seems like a valid or logical statement, but a skeptic might argue that the economic, social,
or psychological benefits of smoking outweigh the physical harm it causes. The similar statement, “Cigarette
smoking increases the risk of lung cancer,” is a hypothesis because the risk of lung cancer can be measured
among smokers and nonsmokers and a causal relationship between exposure to specific carcinogens in tobacco
and smoking can be established. This distinction is important because unless a statement is logically falsifiable by
appeal to relevant facts (or subjected to the appropriate test), it cannot enhance our knowledge of the world. If
the actual results or observations are consistent with the hypothesis in a significant number of cases, the theory
that generated the hypothesis is strengthened and perhaps expanded. But if the observed results of hypothesis
testing repeatedly contradict theoretical expectations, the theory is eventually altered or abandoned. In short, the-
ories survive for as long as they continue to suggest useful approaches to the phenomena that scientists are trying
to explain.
A theory may be the product of decades of diligent research. Or as in the case of Darwin, it may be the
product of a young scientist capable of seeing through the preconceptions that block the insights of others.
Every theory has its blind spots—aspects of a subject that are underemphasized or disregarded in favor of others.
And new theories often displace the old by redirecting attention to those neglected areas. Through this dynamic
process—the constant challenging and retesting of ideas—the discipline’s theoretical framework is refined and
developed over time. A recent example concerns a uniquely human disease—endometriosis, a chronic disorder
marked by extreme pain and sometimes infertility, often termed a “female” disease. In 2009, Dr. Linda Griffith,
a professor of biological and mechanical engineering, founded the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research to
study the long-overlooked disease, which strikes one in 10 women as well as trans men and non-binary people.
Discussion of menstrual issues is virtually taboo in Western society, but human menstruation, in which the entire
15

endometrium (the inner lining of the womb) is entirely regrown and shed every month (if there is no fertilized
egg present), is almost unique among mammals (Gross 2021). Endometriosis occurs when tissue resembling that
of the endometrium grows outside the uterus. Dr. Griffith hopes to encourage global acknowledgement of and
further research into this painful and debilitating disease.
Aspects of Culture
As we have noted, the most distinctive single attribute of our species is that complex but elusive trait we call cul-
ture. It is complex in that it encompasses learned behaviors as diverse as toolmaking, bridal customs, funerary
rites, farming, religious practices, all forms of art—in short, anything that is based on learning and that is passed
on among individuals. Culture is elusive because, while it seems easy to distinguish what is learned from what is
innate (for example, how to start a fire as opposed to the emotion of fear we experience when threatened by a fire),
in practice it can in fact be quite difficult because all behaviors, learned or otherwise, have a basis in the human
brain. Learning to speak English as we grow up—as opposed to Arabic or Finnish, for example—is clearly a cul-
tural phenomenon, but the ability to learn a complex language at all is seemingly a unique biological property
of hominid species. Since culture encompasses all knowledge that we acquire through learning as we proceed
through life, it can and regularly does change; after all, we do not think and behave in quite the same ways as our
parents.
Cultural behavior also varies greatly among individuals in the same society; not everyone has the same
preferences in food and dress or practices the same forms of sex. Nevertheless, there are apparent limitations
to cultural plasticity; human sensory mechanisms, intelligence, emotions, reproductive systems, color recogni-
tion, and linguistic ability are universally shared. Pascal Boyer argues very effectively that even what might be
termed “acquired culture” (that is, what we learn through interactions in social situations), while very much
dependent on the context, is nevertheless strongly constrained by the evolved properties of the mind (Boyer
1998: 877 ff; 2018). Although his case is beyond our interests here, it is noteworthy that many aspects of
cultural learning seem to follow linguistic models of language acquisition and transmission, which helps to
account for many similarities in basic cultural themes and representations worldwide. Also keep in mind that
people frame biological needs into cultural patterns. For example, we think of discrete mealtimes—breakfast,
lunch, and dinner—but for many societies, meals, satisfying a biological necessity, may occur almost at any
point in the day. The same holds for food preferences: while some tastes and smells are universally distasteful,
what is considered appetizing varies.
Even aspects of social life fall into familiar patterns among greatly diverse cultures: notions of human beauty,
the importance of family or kin ties, the importance of “reputation,” and the importance of religion and art are
elements of every human society. Thus, while human culture appears as a wonderfully colorful collage, it has an
underlying structure expressing our common humanity, which is rooted in our unique ability to acquire and use
language. Despite the many biological traits we share with other species, only humans possess the neurological
infrastructure that allows for true language and, hence, culture.
Culture Gives Meaning to Reality

Culture encompasses not only social behaviors but also ways of thinking. From our cultural training, we learn
what meanings to attach to the events of our world, and especially to the behavior of others, so that we can make
some sense of those events and know how to respond. The meanings of specific actions can vary with the cultural
context in which they are interpreted.
Because meaning is supplied by cultural context and because such contexts differ, people of various societies
can view the world in quite different ways. Whether marrying more than one spouse is treated as aberrant or
even a crime or as an acceptable arrangement depends on culturally defined values. For example, different reli-
gious traditions may make widely different distinctions between the natural and the supernatural. For Australian
aborigines, certain rocks, animals, and places have spirits or souls. The sacred sites of Christianity, Islam, and
Judaism have meanings for their adherents that are not shared by outsiders. The beliefs and values of a society
are a cultural reality. Even so, we cannot regard our ability to define reality and to make rules for appropriate
behavior as completely open or arbitrary. Although different systems of marriage, mating, or cohabiting are
practiced by societies around the world we can easily think of variations that no society has adopted or condoned.
There appear to be universal constraints on sex roles, as on other areas of human behavior, within which vari-
ation occurs. All societies distinguish between male and female, providing institutionalized sex-appropriate roles
for adult men and women. Most societies also hold consensual ideals—guiding or admonitory images—for adult
16

masculinity and femininity by which individuals are judged as “worthy” members of their sex and are evaluated
more generally as “moral actors.” Obviously, such notions are malleable and changing.
Culture Creates Gender

There is no society that does not recognize, encourage, and even in some cases demand behavioral differences
between the biologically defined sexes. Anthropologists generally define “sex” as the biological category
determined largely by genital structures and secondary sexual characteristics. Gender is usually taken to be the
behavioral or culturally interpreted dimensions of sexual categories, and the term is employed to avoid confusing
cultural (and hence “learned” and presumably malleable) aspects of male/female differentiation with biological
or inherited characteristics. The issues are rather more complex than implied by this straightforward distinction.
Behavior of all varieties and, most particularly, that associated with sex is mediated or regulated by the body’s
hormonal systems. Thus, our sexual identity is largely fixed during prenatal development and generally is not
subject to simple variation in socialization or childrearing. Of course, this is not to say that physiological or body
structure need be identical to one’s self-identity as “female” or “male.” What does seem clear is that there is no
evidence of rigidly dichotomized male/female or sex-linked cognitive or intellectual capabilities. Put simply, there
is no biological imperative determining or limiting either male or female participation in cultural arrangements.
As defined by the World Health Organization, the linguistic distinction “gender” does not exist in all languages,
for example Turkish, but Turkish speakers most assuredly recognize distinctions in gender roles. Gender, as we
have seen, refers to the behaviors associated with the biologically defined sexes, and this is what varies from culture
to culture. Parents in all societies begin to train their children at an early age in the social behavior, or gender roles,
considered appropriate to their biological sex. Gender identity is an individual’s feeling of being male or female.
Gender identity and gender roles usually develop in tandem but not always nor inevitably.
It is impossible to understand any society in the absence of gender as a category of analysis; at the same time,
gender itself requires a cultural and historical context. Although gender is a universal source of individual iden-
tity and a pervasive means by which access to resources and political power is structured, generalization in the
absence of specific historical or cultural experience is risky. The gender experiences of people vary with historical
processes, as reflected in religion, cultural conventions, access to resources, and education—not to mention the
fact that within a complex society, gender experience varies with ethnicity, class, and region.
Photo 1.6 Girls are often taught at an earlier age to defer to their brothers and to accept roles that emphasize childcare and
home-focused activities. This little Yörük girl in eastern Turkey is already caring for her infant brother.
Source: D. Bates.
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Because gender roles are so intensely socialized and so personal, it is difficult to separate the present from
the possible. It is no accident that until recently anthropologists (like other observers of society) largely ignored
intercultural variation in gender roles. They took it for granted as a biological given that men and women belonged
to different spheres of activity and the female domain was domestic whereas the male domain was everything
else: productive, political, ceremonial, and military. Not only was great variability in gender roles overlooked, but
so also was the fact that even apparent similarities in gender relationships could have diverse roots. In the West,
traditional male power and authority have been largely based in property rights and control of wealth; the classic
patriarchy, in Roman law, gave the male head of household final title to almost all property and control over his
children (to the exclusion of his wives). Among the Yanomamö of Venezuela and Brazil, male dominance seems
to rest in part on the threat of physical violence. Among other Amazonian peoples, male social and political
precedence rests on their ability to dominate religious and ceremonial life through control of rituals and ritual
objects. Anthropologists have become aware of the importance of gender in social organization, in part because
of the recent transformation of their own societies. There are three interrelated areas that are of primary concern
in analyzing gender: gender socialization, gender and work, and gender and power.
Gender Socialization
Gender socialization of children begins immediately after birth and generates systematic inequality between the
sexes. It is largely in the process of socialization that individuals form their notions of what gender identity means
in terms of appropriate or expected and acceptable behavior. Of increasing concern today is where group-level
socialization conflicts directly with individual personal development and self-identity awareness.
Gender and Work

The organization of work in a society is critical for understanding gender. Labor is often valued differently for men
and for women, with the tasks done by women often seen as of private or domestic benefit, such as childbearing
and rearing or food processing, and hence are undervalued in the public arena. Even when women perform the
same tasks as men, they may be less visible and under-rewarded. Further, even restricting access to nonproductive
sectors such as religious ritual and ceremonial leadership differentiates between the sexes. In most cases, it is women
who play a secondary role in ritual and public ceremony. There are exceptions, but when examined more closely, it
becomes clear that women appearing in prominent ritual, ceremonial, and even political roles are often regarded as
honorary men for that purpose. Using gender to create different domains of activity usually contributes to stratifi-
cation. While gender considerations obviously affect access to resources and contribute to inequality, gender should
be viewed along with other sources of identity used to compartmentalize and divide society.
Gender and Power

The third area of concern is closely related to socialization and the organization of the work force—that is,
gender, power, and access to the political process. Even family life can be viewed as political, in that individuals
are contending for resources. Moreover, social control operates quite differently on men and women in many
instances. In societies where notions of family honor are important in local politics or public life, this may be
linked to male control over female sexuality and, by extension, many aspects of female public behavior. Thus, it
might be thought threatening to family honor for female members of the family to be seen with nonfamily males.
This puts serious constraints on female behavior, sometimes making it difficult for a woman to accept employ-
ment outside the home. Outside the household, gender is an aspect of stratification, particularly in conjunction
with race, ethnicity, and class. Women from different ethnic groups in the United States, for example, experience
different rates of poverty, childbearing options, and degrees of involvement in community mobilization. Class
inequality can be greatly amplified by gender expectations regarding housework and childrearing for poor women.
However, gender is understood, it should be kept in mind that gender relations can and do change; in the final
analysis, gender is shaped in society by the activities, beliefs, and values of both men and women. People are not
simply passive respondents.
Culture Is Integrated
Because the religious, political, and economic institutions of a society are shaped by common experience and
material forces operating over long periods of time, they consequently appear to “fit” with each other. This “fit”
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is, of course, an illusion since culture is in constant flux with seeming defining elements changing and new modes
of belief and behavior adopted and embraced. The “fit” is often supplied by language or, at least, by verbally
expressed models of the world. We use language to signify the legitimacy of a given political order or religious
institution. The language used to justify equality or, on occasion, to justify revolution is expressed symbolically
in special terminology—for example, the words of the U.S. Constitution, the Bible, or the Bill of Rights. We also
rely on social rules and symbols such as the shape of stop signs and the colors of traffic lights to provide order to
our daily lives. They supply the sources for communal identity.
The many ways in which cultural practices are interrelated may give stability and continuity to cultural evo-
lution; changes are incremental and often occur very slowly. We do not wake up each morning with a burning
need to reconfirm the existence of institutions on which we depend or the symbols through which we interpret
our reality. It is probably because stability and continuity are so important to our survival that alterations and
innovations are usually so conservative. It is as though humans were generally guided by the maxim “If it ain’t
broke, don’t fix it.”
Sometimes we see this tendency toward stability and continuity most dramatically when it is violated by the
cataclysmic events of war or other disasters. People who are suddenly cut off from their customary practices and
familiar ways of doing things experience stress not unlike what is sometimes described as “culture shock”—the
feeling of disorientation one may experience when thrust into an unfamiliar cultural setting. In many respects, when
an individual is born into a particular society and grows up learning its language, social rules, and expectations,
it is analogous to a new employee coming into a long-established corporation. The established manner of doing
things is the environment in which the new employee must find his or her way; for most of the employee’s career,
conformity will be the rule and experimentation the exception. Nevertheless, people do innovate, and out of indi-
vidual shifts in behavior, major cultural shifts or trends occur.
Culture Is Adaptive
Cultural adaptation encompasses all the learned or socially acquired responses and behaviors that affect repro-
duction, provisioning, shelter—in short, survival. Like many other species, humans adapt by learning new ways
of doing things. The swelling human population is testimony to how rapidly we can adjust our systems of food
production and other technologies. Our ability to learn rapidly and to communicate learning is, in large measure,
due to our ability to use language.
The pairing of learning and language has enabled us to develop technologies that allow us to occupy most
areas of the earth—something no other large animal has done. In the long run, of course, these technologies may
also prove to be maladaptive; the so-called doomsday climate clock is now set at just ninety seconds before mid-
night. We may be a species with a relatively short history. Cultural adaptation involves changes of all sorts that
continually affect our relationship to our environment. It results in changes that can never be ideal, as the envir-
onment is itself constantly changing. No adaptation or response is a perfect or final solution; each necessarily
entails certain costs and hazards.
Adaptation is always opportunistic: we take advantage of whatever resources are available to us at a par-
ticular time (including genetic and cultural materials), often with little regard for future consequences. For
example, industrialized societies began seriously to use petroleum as an energy source in the first half of the
nineteenth century in a limited way. This adaptation soon solved the problem of furnishing an effective, cheap,
and transportable fuel to power modern machinery. Its use was opportunistic in the sense that the oil was
there to be tapped and our technology happened to have developed to the point that allowed us to make use
of it. By the first quarter of the twentieth century, the major powers were competing fiercely to secure access,
particularly to the extensive oil fields in Iran and the Arabian Gulf. In adapting to oil as an energy source, we
made numerous commitments that have altered the structure of our society: we rely on foods produced with
oil-fueled machinery; we grow crops dependent on fertilizers and pesticides derived from the petrochemical
industry; we use rapid transport, cheap electricity, and productive systems too numerous to mention. All these
activities are fueled by oil. Only in the first two decades of the twenty-first century have wind, solar, and nuclear
energy dislodged oil to a significant degree.
But in recent years, the environment has been changing in unexpected ways. As we will explore in later chapters,
people everywhere are experiencing global warming—in many different manifestations. Climate change is now
driving mass migrations, habitat challenges to coastal and island populations, and possible cascading waves of
new diseases. We are faced with the toxic consequences of a highly developed industrial society, and perhaps
with long-term changes in the atmosphere—all consequences of extensive use of carbon fuels as well as the
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accompanying agricultural intensification and deforestation. It is also certain that whatever other energy sources
we turn to next will be imperfect solutions that will also generate a host of new and unforeseen difficulties.
Adaptation is at once the solution to a particular problem and the source of unanticipated changes and, inev-
itably, new problems. Many would liken both biological (or genetically measured) adaptation and cultural adap-
tation, which need not involve changes in the genetic makeup of the population, to an “existential arms race” in
which one defensive or offensive innovation triggers a corresponding response. Not infrequently with humans the
two processes work together: treating tuberculosis in humans with antibiotics is cultural adaptation at work; the
emergence of a drug-resistant tubercle bacillus is a biological countermeasure on the part of bacteria that cause
the disease.
Behavior and Learning

Animal behavior (including, of course, human behavior) is often seen in terms of a basic distinction: it may be
thought to be instinctive—that is, genetically controlled—or it may be learned. While this distinction appears
useful, it should not obscure the fact all behavior is ultimately a life-or-death matter—our biological success rests
upon it. This is especially the case when looking at human social behavior. Learned ways of behaving constitute a
large percentage of human activity, far outweighing instinctive or biologically determined behavior, as can be seen
in the contrast between the behavior of a young child and that of an adult in the same family. All animals have
some capacity to learn, and learning is important to the survival of most species. But no other animal learns, can
learn, or needs to learn as much as the human animal. To function as independent members of our societies, we
require not only a long period of physical care but also a long period of training in how to use language, to think
and behave; in other words, we need training in a society’s system of behaviors—its culture. In short, “childhood
lasts, and lasts, and lasts” (Angier 2002) for biological as well as cultural reasons.
A child born into any society begins to learn behavior, language, and skills appropriate to that culture from the
day of birth. The child’s toilet training and feeding habits, the encouragement (or discouragement) given his or
her first experiments in interacting socially with others, the rewards offered for correct deportment—all amount
to an intensive training course in how to be a proper person. The child goes on to learn social roles specific to their
appropriate sex, useful technical skills, and his or her people’s religion and moral codes. This training in one’s own
culture is sometimes called socialization or enculturation, and what we become is greatly influenced by the per-
sons who carry out that enculturation and the way they do it. In many societies, a rather narrow circle of people,
primarily parents and kin and community elders, is responsible for the bulk of an individual’s socialization. In
other societies, such as our own, families send their children to schools, churches, summer camps, universities, and
other institutions so much of their socialization is provided by specialists outside the family and the immediate
community. Our behavior as men and women, our conduct as parents, our expectations, and our attitudes are all
to a large extent shaped by these processes.
Socialization is by no means uniform for all members of a society. In our own society, for example, some
parents raise their children quite strictly, setting clear rules and clear punishments for violations. Others take a
more permissive approach, making large allowances for experimentation and failure on the child’s part. As noted
above, parents are not the only socializing influences. Each child has a unique constellation of friends, relatives,
and neighbors, and hence, each learns a somewhat distinctive version of the culture. Moreover, the exact content
of the socialization process varies along gender, ethnic, socioeconomic, religious, and regional lines.
For example, Yanomamö boys are encouraged by their parents to be aggressive and to display anger and rage.
Their sisters are not encouraged to behave in this way, although we may assume that their capacity for anger and
rage is as great as that of boys. Among the Yomut Türkmen of northeastern Iran raise boys to have a high regard
for physical prowess and the necessity of defending one’s kin and community, by force if necessary. One descent
group among the Yomut, however, is considered holy by virtue of presumed descent from the Prophet Mohamed,
and the men do not fight. In fact, it is considered a serious religious offense to strike a member of this holy tribe
or to steal their property. Boys in this group are socialized quite differently from those born into other Yomut
groups, with little emphasis on fighting or self-defense.
This is not to say that these learned behaviors have no basis in biology; all behaviors are mediated by biological
processes and limitations. Our basic physiological requirements—the need for food, water, shelter, sleep, and
sexual activity—underlie a good deal of our behavior. Our brains, with their elaborately encoded propensities
for liking some things and avoiding others, also channel behavior in ways that are attracting increasing research.
One fact seems clear: rather than being a sharply distinct alternative to instinct, learned behavior is often guided
by genetics. Learning to speak is a good example. It has long been known that human infants innately recognize
20
Photo 1.7 An adult male teaching children Xavante traditions and culture in the Brazilian Amazon. These discussions include
ideas of what is healthy and what is injurious. According to the Xavante point of view, nontraditional diets and
lifestyles increase undesired fatness. This attitude has led to the healthy re-emphasis of traditional yams as opposed
to newly introduced rice in their diet.
Source: Nancy Flowers. Rights held by Ludomir Lozny.
most or all the consonant sounds characteristic of human speech, including consonants not used in their native
language. Some cognitive scientists now propose that human brains may be “wired” with a universal program
enabling infants to rapidly learn the subtle and complex patterns of seemingly drastically different languages.
Learned behavior, quite apart from instinct, serves biological purposes because of the practical advantages it
confers. These advantages are attested to by our success in reproducing and surviving in virtually every climatic
zone on earth. Even our universally shared taste for sweets, fats, and salts, and hence the underlying basis for
our dietary systems, is the result of a long evolutionary process. It has been suggested that human systems of
knowledge—religion, magic, science, philosophy—are based on a uniquely human, inborn need to impose order
on experience. This is not surprising, as pattern recognition (for example, of a dangerous situation) is a key means
for processing information critical to survival.
The biological basis of human behavior, then, is important. But how we go about satisfying innate needs and
developing successful coping strategies is largely a matter of contextual learning. Whether we feed ourselves by
growing yams and hunting wild game or by herding camels and raising wheat, whether we explain a thunder-
storm by attributing it to meteorological conditions or to a fight among the gods—such things are determined
by what we learn as part of our enculturation. Enculturation prepares us to function as members of a given
society—to speak its language, to use its symbols in abstract thought, and so forth. This ability depends in
turn on genetically inherited physical traits, notably a brain of awesome complexity. But even though cultural
behavior may be guided by genetically rooted limitations and propensities, it is obvious that we do not inherit
an aptitude for speaking English as opposed to Swahili or for training as a doctor as opposed to a teacher. It
is more difficult to assess the contribution of our biological heritage to the shaping of basic aspects of social
organization, sex roles, aggression, and family, but clearly, there are limits to the range of variation found in
different societies.
21
Language, Biology, and Culture

While human language presumably began as a call or gesture system, it differs from such systems in several
ways. Animal calls, probably because they are in large part genetically determined, convey very few simple
meanings: danger, hostility, sexual excitement, the availability of food, and so on. Moreover, animal call systems
are closed in that elements of one call cannot be combined with elements of another to produce a new message.
The calls are unique, limited in number, and mutually exclusive. As the British mathematician and philosopher,
Bertrand Russell, put it, “No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor
but honest” (cited in Fromkin et al. 2002).
Human language is recursive and open so the number of messages that can be conveyed is infinite. Indeed,
people can and continually do create entirely new messages—sentences that have never been formulated. It is
recursive in that basic elements can be repeated and combined. For example, “My father’s father’s father was
a farmer.” Human language can be used to communicate a vast range of meanings, from subtle philosophical
abstractions to complex technical information to delicate shades of feeling. This flexibility is made possible by
the arbitrariness of human language. Unlike animal calls, the sounds of a language have no fixed meaning.
Instead, meaning emerges from the way sounds are combined into words and words arranged to make sentences
in accordance with a complex set of rules (grammar).
Another distinctive feature of human language is that it is stimulus-free. That is, a linguistic utterance need not
be evoked by an immediate situation. We do not have to turn a corner and come upon a tiger in order to say the
word “tiger” or talk about “danger.” We can discuss things that are not present, past experiences, things that may
happen in the future, emotions, even things that are not true or not real, such as unicorns and utopias. Little of
this sort of communication appears possible in call systems, which lack the dimensions of time and possibility.
While animals have been frequently observed to send false signals, generally the use of call systems for deception
is limited. It has been said, with some justice, that hominids became truly human when they became capable of
telling a lie.
All animals communicate with one another, using various kinds of cries, calls, gestures, and chemical emissions.
Bees, however, are known to have very sophisticated systems of communication, and in some species, “scouts”
are sent out by the hive and return to inform the others of the way to proceed to reach a newly discovered food
source. Even so, this pattern is far removed from human language, with its nearly infinite flexibility and capacity
to generate new meanings. And although we associate human language with speech, sounds are not a necessary
aspect of language; people who cannot hear or speak can acquire and use language. Conversely, when a parrot
imitates human utterances, it is not using language the way a human does. At the same time, apes and some birds
seem to have linguistic ability at the level of what is termed “protolanguage.” Much like human infants prior to
age 18 months or so, they are capable of communicating emotional states but fall far short of fully developed
natural languages.
Because sounds leave no trace, researchers investigating the origins of language depend on indirect evi-
dence: studies of the way children acquire language, comparisons of human and nonhuman vocalizations, guesses
as to what kinds of brains and vocal tracts might have accompanied fossil skulls, and of course, cultural evidence
of the way our early ancestors lived.
The cultural evidence, in the form of stone tools, seems to indicate that at least some aspects of a protolan-
guage began to evolve as early as 4 million years ago. It was probably around that period that our early ancestors
made a crucial change in their way of procuring food—from individual foraging for vegetable foods to regular
eating of meat and vegetables on a communal basis. The new pattern demanded cooperation and the coord-
ination of hunting and gathering activities, for which at least an advanced call or gesturing system seems to
have been required. For example, experimental studies have shown that chimps communicate with each other to
engage in cooperative strategies to mitigate risk during hunts using communication (Duguid et al. 2014; Melis and
Tomasello 2019). Most importantly, the earliest stone tools indicate by how they were struck that their makers
were preferentially right-handed, suggesting that their brains were already lateralized as in modern humans (and
unlike other primates).
Of course, there are other perspectives on the same cultural data. The relatively slow rate at which tech-
nology changed over the first 4 million or so years of hominid evolution suggests that while an elaborate call
system is probable, true language did not appear until approximately 100,000 years ago. For example, the caverns
of Zhoukoudian in northern China were inhabited continuously by hominids from 500,000 years ago until
200,000 years ago, and yet the tiny handful of artifacts produced underwent no design changes during a period of
300,000 years. This degree of cultural stasis could not be associated with a population possessing full language.
Indeed, the limited variety of the Lower Paleolithic tools (Oldowan chopping tools and Acheulean hand axes)
22

associated with Homo habilis and Homo erectus suggest that toolmaking skills and techniques were passed on
through imitation rather than learned via communication. On the other hand, increased variety of task-specific
Mousterian tools associated with Neanderthals (see Box 1.1), and the Upper Paleolithic tools linked to Homo
sapiens suggest the use of complex language in learning toolmaking skills through communication of innovation
and creativity.
It is a fair assumption that the structures underlying the conversion from call system to language had begun
about 4 million years ago and that truly fluent language is only a relatively recent achievement in the history of
our species. Firm and striking evidence appeared during the 1990s in the study of hereditary speech impairments
in families of English and French speakers, defects that can be traced to specific miscoding on DNA segments.
Steven Pinker (2021) reports on research by teams in England, Canada, and the United States in which specific
language errors, for example, how regular verbs are formed, or inflections handled, are passed on through genetic
rather than cultural transmission. In one case, a 16-year-old girl severely afflicted with Williams syndrome was
observed to have exceptional verbal skills although her effective IQ was 49. She nevertheless made a few but highly
specific grammatical errors, all in verb conjugation. Less controversial is the recent discovery of the actual genetic
site that is universally present in humans capable of normal speech, the gene FoxP2. This was identified through
studies of a large London family with many members having compromised speech capabilities, and subsequently
established as present in all normal humans (Wade 2003b).
The use of language is undoubtedly responsible for the archaeologically recent, explosive development of
human culture. Groups whose members communicated effectively with one another hunted more successfully,
gathered more efficiently, made more sophisticated tools, built stronger shelters, found more suitable locations
for habitation, and argued and resolved their differences without necessarily coming to blows. It has been argued
that language is really a form of “verbal grooming.” Just as our primate cousins, the chimpanzees, spend a large
portion of each day in mutual grooming exercises, humans devote a great deal of time to gossip—perhaps as much
as 70% of conversation is devoted to sharing observations about others in our social world (Dunbar 1997). This
is so important to our constructing and maintaining cooperative group life that it may be the impetus for the evo-
lution of language. Others argue that language evolved out of facial movements and hand gestures (Eakin 2002).
This point is important because complex social behavior associated with group living and cooperation entails
individuals reconciling their immediate self-interest with their long-term prospects. Language greatly facilitates
this, as individuals can negotiate long-lasting relationships of mutual trust and assistance that continue beyond
any given event. The concomitant growth of language and culture in turn created strong selective pressures for
more complex brains, which made possible the development of yet more elaborate language and culture. There
arose, in other words, a feedback cycle: language, culture, and the brain evolved together, each stimulating and
reinforcing mutual development. As we describe in the next chapter, there were physiological changes early in our
lineage that also encouraged pair bonding.
The Science of Anthropology

Having introduced culture and the nature of science, we now address their role in anthropological investigation,
which involves comparisons of contemporary cultures and the examination of cultural and biological changes
over time. Anthropology takes as its object of study all human peoples, across the globe and across time, treating
topics as varied as their teeth, their diseases, their ways of getting food and shelter and rearing children, and their
ideas about their place in the world. Regardless of theoretical orientation, cultural anthropology relies heavily
on the firsthand observation of human behaviors as a means of gathering data and testing hypotheses generated
by theories. Most theoretical approaches are not developed in quiet corners of university libraries or modified
through laboratory experiments. They evolve through continual testing among the peoples whose ways of life they
seek to explain.
We take the position that culture and social behavior in general can be studied scientifically. Cultural
anthropologists depend heavily on fieldwork, the firsthand observation of people, as their primary means of
gathering data and testing hypotheses generated by theories. Most fieldwork today is problem oriented: scholars
study aspects of a given society to test theoretical assumptions. At times, fieldwork can be quite arduous—even
dangerous. It is almost always time-consuming—researchers can spend a year or longer in the field. Just as in
the natural sciences, great care must be paid to sampling techniques and methodical observation. Common
techniques include participant observation and formal and informal interview procedures. Very often, the
researchers will conduct some form of census and collect basic demographic and economic data, as well as an
inventory of material culture—the technology available to the population studied. Obviously, the selection of a
23

population for study is a major area of concern because it determines the sorts of generalizations the researcher
may safely make.
For example, the ethnographers Terese and John Hart carefully determined the caloric and nutritional values
of food resources in the Ituri rain forest of Zaire. Their findings indicated that the Mbuti Pygmies—hunters and
gatherers in the forest—could not live independently of the farmers with whom they trade. Elliot Fratkin and Eric
A. Roth, working in northern Kenya among Ariaal pastoralists (see Chapter 5), found that the key to Ariaal sub-
sistence was herd diversity combined with mobility. Families who had different varieties of livestock could cope
with drought far better than those who focused on one. Further, wealthy herders with large numbers of animals
were better able to recover from periodic disasters, a fact that amplifies wealth differentials.
Studying Cultural Behavior: Fieldwork, Data Collection, and Analysis

One hallmark of cultural anthropology is the intensive involvement of the scholar with the phenomena being
studied, particularly the intimate contact developed over the course of living for a long period of time with
people in what is often a small, close-knit community. In carrying out ethnography, cultural anthropologists are
sometimes chided by other social scientists for “knowing a great deal about very little,” a reference to the frequent
involvement of the ethnographer with small and often marginalized populations. Nonetheless, the specialized
knowledge acquired in this manner very often reveals widespread patterns or problems not otherwise readily
apparent.
Anthropologists gather data in the field partly through firsthand observation and reporting, living among
the members of a group in an effort to understand their customary ways of thinking and behaving. They ask
people questions and carefully record their answers. They closely examine the things the people produce: their
tools, baskets, sculptures, musical instruments, weapons, jewelry, clothing, and houses. Above all, they spend
many hours watching and inquiring about the people’s daily routines and interactions. From these activities
emerge the fine-grained ethnographic descriptions that together constitute an invaluable repository of infor-
mation about the breadth and variety of human culture. There is more to fieldwork than simple observation,
as we shall see, but it is firsthand observation that gives anthropological reports a distinctive and vibrant
quality.
Photo 1.8 Anthropologist Shankar Aswani interviewing villagers concerned with new economic regulations regarding land
use, Solomon Islands.
Source: Joe Lamia Voda.
24

Fieldwork requires intense preparation. Today, almost all anthropologists are trained at universities. Graduate
programs are designed to give students a thorough grounding in anthropological literature, to make them aware
of theoretical disputes and of what is already known about the cultures of a particular area, to enable them
to establish a valid sample and to formulate realistic research questions, and to train them in how to organize
and interpret the ethnographic data they collect. Just as the development of precision instruments in the nat-
ural sciences has allowed scientists to probe previously uncharted areas of nature (the surface of the moon, for
example), so improved techniques of field research have enabled anthropologists to explore more systematically
the many ways of human life and thus to broaden our understanding of human nature. Methodical observa-
tion and interviewing, systematic comparison, and sampling are the primary research tools of the anthropolo-
gist today.
But the process of observation is not neat and tidy (Box 1.2 Getting into the Field). From the day the eth-
nographer arrives in the field to the day she departs, the course of research is being shaped by myriad chance
encounters—often of a less than benign nature.
The researcher may be held up for months getting permission from local officials to visit the area targeted
for investigation; lack of all-weather roads may make it impossible to visit a site during a critical period; local
conflicts or strife may curtail movement from one community to another. We noted earlier that gender influences
many aspects of an individual’s experiences, as anthropologist Amal Rassam found during her fieldwork in nor-
thern Iraq (see Box 1.3).
Moreover, the data being collected are constantly affected by the researcher’s own social presence. Most
ethnographers gain access to a community by associating themselves with a particular family or local grouping.
Such an alliance, however tenuous, invariably affects the ethnographer’s relations with others in the community—
sometimes favorably, but sometimes negatively. People who are on poor terms with one’s hosts tend to be wary
of the guests.
It is reasonable to ask why so much emphasis is placed on theory, method, and planning for the field when,
in the end, things are likely to turn out not at all as expected. The answer is that command of theory or theories
enables researchers to be flexible and to ask significant questions no matter what conditions they encounter in the
field. The researcher who has a firm theoretical focus can tailor work successfully to accommodate ever-changing
circumstances in the field. Fieldwork usually must be preceded not only by theoretical grounding but also by
training in the language and history of the area chosen and in specialized techniques of sampling, computation,
and analysis of data.
Anthropologists investigate a wide range of problems and must command an equally wide range of information-
gathering techniques. Participant observation helps anthropologists to see cultures from the inside, to see people
behaving informally and spontaneously, while at the same time allowing them to understand and conform to
indigenous rules of behavior. Official documents (statistical and historical records) can also provide valuable
information.
However, participant observation is basic to almost all field research, used in conjunction with interviewing and
the systematic collection of economic, demographic, and material culture data. In practice, “participation” can
range from commuting to the village or neighborhood from a home nearby to almost total immersion in commu-
nity life. Bronislaw Malinowski, an early pioneer in this approach, explains why it is essential for anthropologists
to participate in the activities of the societies they investigate:
Soon after I had established myself in [Omarakana, Trobriand Islands], I began to take part, in a way, in
the village life, to look forward to the important or festive events, to take personal interest in the gossip
and the developments of the village occurrences; to wake up every morning to a day presenting itself to
me more-or-less as it does to the native. ... As I went on my morning walk through the village, I could see
intimate details of family life, of toilet, cooking, taking of meals; I could see the arrangements for the day’s
work, people starting on their errands, or groups of men and women busy at some manufacturing tasks.
Quarrels, jokes, family scenes, events usually trivial, sometimes dramatic but always significant, formed
the atmosphere of my daily life, as well as of theirs... . Also, over and over again, I committed breaches of
etiquette, which the natives, familiar with me, were not slow in pointing out. I had to learn how to behave,
and to a certain extent, I acquired “the feeling” for native good and bad manners. With this, and with the
capacity of enjoying their company and sharing some of their games and amusements, I began to feel that
I was indeed in touch with the natives, and this is certainly the preliminary condition for being able to carry
on successful field work.
(1922/1961: 7–8)
25
Box 1.2 Getting into the Field in Southeastern Turkey

In 1968, Daniel Bates, principal author of this volume, equipped with a grant from the Social Science
Research Committee (Ford Foundation), a marital exemption from the Vietnam era draft board, and a
passable level of Turkish language skills, set out to conduct an ethnographic study of a mountain dwelling
Turkish pastoral society—the Yörük, familiar from various travel accounts, historical writings, and geo-
graphic reports. He had no particular group or place in mind and accompanied his Turkish wife, Ülkü, also
a University of Michigan doctoral student, although in Art History, who carrying out a survey of early
Islamic monuments (türbe) in Anatolia. This is his account of his early field experiences:
I was familiar with sophisticated urban Turkey, having studied at Robert College in Istanbul, although
my only previous field venture was in 1967 on an archaeological dig directed by Henry T. Wright, then a
newly hired University of Michigan assistant professor, who was doing an emergency survey in lands to be
flooded by the construction of a dam on the Euphrates River. It was a pre-Neolithic site not far from the now
famous sensational discoveries at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Anatolia (see Box 3.1). Unfortunately, we
didn’t uncover any signs of architecture let alone a temple complex—just some revealing flints and stone tools
plus bits and pieces of contemporary ceramics presented by helpful village workers seeking bonuses. Following
that dig, accompanying Ülkü on her survey of Islamic architecture, we came to Maraş where Ülkü’s former
classmate, Murat, was museum director. In casual discussion over drinks, Murat volunteered that the son of
a nomadic family was boarding in the city and taking a high school course that he was teaching. Would I care
to meet him? Of course, I jumped at the chance. I had earlier hired a horse to visit remote Yörük villages in the
Taurus Mountains along the Mediterranean Coast, but found that among the nomads there, pastoralism had
already disappeared along with malaria, and they had settled into garden farming.2
Within a day or so, when his classes permitted, my new acquaintance, Güzel, said I should pack my little
tent, rucksack, and necessaries and accompany him on a visit to his father; I was to be his guest. What he
did not mention was that he had not informed his family. Awkward does not do justice to my feelings when
after a short, rather tense family discussion, Güzel had to return to town. I explained to his father that I was
an American university student and that my professor had given me an assignment to do a report on animal
herders in Turkey. I knew that any adult Turkish male would be familiar with the caprices of authority,
and so wanted to appear somewhat under orders from a higher authority. Rural people in those days were
constantly being stopped arbitrarily for document checks, every male did military service (always far from
home), and not an insignificant number had been in jail for smuggling or illegal possession of firearms or
untaxed tobacco. My host asked if I had permission to be in Turkey. I showed him my papers listing all the
districts I could visit and read them out. When I’d finished, his tense expression relaxed and he smiled with
relief: “Islahiye” he said, “is not on your list. We are going to Islahiye in two weeks, perhaps even sooner.”
Thus began my first night.
The next day, I began “work” as an ethnographer. My dissertation mentor, Eric Wolf, had told me to be
sure to keep a detailed diary, and so I began filling notebooks. I started with the children of the ten or so
tents camping together, who were eager to chat. I asked them to identify for me all the plants and animals
in our environs, the names of household elders, and all sorts of domestic utensils and camping and herding
items in use. I also kept a wary eye on the huge mastiff dogs associated with each tent. The breed, karabaş,
specific to Anatolia, is renowned for its strength and bone crushing jaws. I never approached a domicile
without calling out first for someone at home to escort me in.
In the evenings, I tried to elicit family histories and some genealogical facts—basically anything to get
people talking about their lives. Fortunately, family history is always a popular topic of conversation and
within days I had quite a list of families and how they were related to each other. Moreover, family histories
informed me that this particular kabile or tribe had moved to the Maraş region after World War I from the
Taurus Mountain region of Aydin, further west on the other side of the mountains. In fact, local non-Yörük
villagers and officials alike called the tribe the “Ones from Aydin” or Aydinli. This information was to come
in useful quite soon.
The first week or so proved quite productive and, while not feeling complacent, I felt I was being tolerated
as at least having some entertainment value. This sense of being able to relax was shattered in the middle of
one night when I was suddenly woken by snarling dogs and people shouting curses and threats—the word
“infidel” was flung out from several sources. Uneasily, I emerged from my tent. The men had flashlights
and lamps and at least one was brandishing a gun. I was relieved to be ignored, presumably as completely
irrelevant to whatever crisis was occurring, which I quickly learned was that the teenage daughter of one of
26
Photo 1.9 (a) Anthropologist’s tent pitched near that belonging to a welcoming family and host’s dog; privacy is often
scarce during fieldwork, but children are great conversationalists. (b) Eating with a family involves not
becoming a burden—perhaps regularly contributing desirable foodstuffs.
Source: D. Bates.
our camp group families had been abducted—kidnapped they said—by two or three men. Her marriage to
a cousin had already been arranged to take place soon, the bride price had been set with the bridegroom’s
father but was yet to be paid. It wasn’t clear to me as the men discussed pursuing the miscreants whether she
had been taken against her will or that the crisis was in fact an assisted elopement. In the parlance of the
day, this was not an important distinction: the assault was on her father and brothers. As was almost always
the case, this fracas extended into the larger tribal grouping. A month later, I heard that the aggrieved father
had accepted a larger bride price payment than initially agreed in lieu of filing legal charges of rape with the
authorities. A year later, when I was again camping with a group including the then aggrieved family, Ülkü
came to see me for short visit. At one point, she struck up a conversation with the mother of the “abducted”
bride and was somewhat surprised to learn that she had abetted in her daughter’s “abduction”—in fact
elopement with the man she wanted to marry. The mother explained that she herself been forcibly married
to the girl’s father—a case of “what goes around, comes around.”3
Not long after the night of the kidnapping/elopement, the camp group did cross into the district for
which I had no permit. I left for Ankara to remedy this—not easily done I feared. So, during the inevitable
wait, I decided to go to Aydin, for which I did have papers. There, using my recently collected genealogical
information, I was able to meet up with a group of settled households closely related to my earlier hosts.
They were delighted that I had news of relatives, of whom some had only distant memories. I stayed in the
extended and relatively wealthy household of the leader of this kin group for two months before claiming
my adjusted permit and returning to Islahiye. Once back, I was able to share news and gossip in the other
direction, much to the delight of my pastoralist hosts.
P.S. I have been in touch with many of the children whose families so generously tolerated me 50 years
ago. I have shared my photographs with them via email and sadly received news of deaths among the older
generation. Many have migrated to western Turkey and Europe, and some have come to the United States.
Those who remain in the southeast now have very different lifestyles to their parents and grandparents. (See
Chapter 5.)
Surviving in the Field

Despite arriving in the field armed with an impressive array of research techniques, anthropologists usually find
their new world full of surprises. One of the most basic difficulties is language. Although a familiarity with the
native language greatly enhances the quantity and quality of data that can be gathered, it is not always possible
for an anthropologist to learn that language in advance. Or there may be important dialect differences between
the language learned and that spoken in the community ultimately chosen as the research site.
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CHAPTER VII
A SUCCESSFUL STILL HUNT
About three months after my adventure in the bay, the doctor

came to me one morning after quarters and reported that he had a
number of cases on the sick list of a decidedly scorbutic character.
This, he said, was mainly the result of a lack of fresh vegetables in
the messes, as we had been neglected by the supply steamers for a
long time. Since my late experience, I had made no further attempts
at obtaining fresh beef on shore, so had come down to a salt-beef
ration.
The doctor said that it would be necessary to have a change in the
dietary to check the progress of this disease, and he submitted his
report for my consideration.
Although my orders from Commodore Bell contemplated my
keeping a close blockade of Aransas, I had received, in view of the
extent of coast I was expected to care for, permission to exercise a
certain amount of discretion, which I felt assured would warrant me
in running down to the Rio Grande under the existing circumstances.
That was the southern limit of the Texan coast, about one hundred
and seventy-five miles from Aransas, and was included in my beat,
as the Anderson was the only ship on the blockade between
Galveston and Matamoras.
When I notified Mr. Bailey of my intention and gave orders for
getting under weigh at daylight the following morning, my executive
officer did not attempt to conceal his pleasure at the prospect of a
change from the deadly monotony of the blockade; and I observed
that evening, as I took my after-dinner exercise on the poop, that the
songs from the forecastle displayed an unusual amount of vigor in
the choruses. Indeed, I had never heard “Dick Turpin’s Ride to York”
go off with such vim, and the chorus,—
“My bonny, my bonny, my bonny Black Bess,”
could almost have been heard on the sand hills, three miles away,
that sheltered our Confederate friends, the Texan Rangers.
The next morning we were off bright and early with a fresh breeze
from the northward, and the following day we dropped our anchor
just north of the imaginary line that divided Mexican from American
waters. In fact, I was so close to this boundary line that, although I
laid my anchor on American bottom, when the wind was from the
northward my ship swung into Mexican water. By treaty this line,
starting from the centre of the mouth of the Rio Grande, runs out
three miles W. N. W. I mention this particularly, as its importance in
my story will be discovered farther on.
My anchorage was well outside of the fleet in the harbor, which to
my surprise included a number of large merchant steamers flying the
English flag, all of them busily engaged in loading or unloading; and
all of them, as I observed, were well to the southward of the line, and
consequently in Mexican waters.
Our anchors down, sails furled, and yards squared, I had my gig
called away, and pulled in shore to an American ship of war with
whom I had exchanged signals and which I had thus learned was the
United States steamer Princess Royal, a captured English blockade
runner purchased by our government at the prize sale and fitted out
as a vessel of war. She was commanded by Commander George
Colvocoresses, a regular officer, a Greek by birth, and called by the
sailors, who could not grapple with this Hellenic appellation, “Old
Crawl-over-the-crosstrees.”
After reporting and explaining my errand at the Rio Grande, I
expressed my astonishment at the activity that was manifest on
every side in the harbor.
“Yes,” said the captain, “I have had the pleasure of seeing small
vessels come in here almost every day loaded with Texan cotton,
which they have quietly discharged in lighters, and those ships have
brought cargoes of arms and ammunition from England which they
sell at excellent prices to the Confederate agents ashore, and after
they have discharged they will load up with cotton for Liverpool.”
“What becomes of the war material?”
“Oh, it is all smuggled across the river, a little farther up from the
coast, into Texas. Those guns you can now see being hoisted out will
be in the hands of the Confederates within the next sixty days.”
“And can nothing be done about it?”
“Absolutely nothing. I have protested with the authorities, and they
assure me that nothing contraband of war shall be permitted to cross
the river into Texas. But the under customs officers are easily bribed,
and they become conveniently blind.”
Returning to the Anderson, I pulled near the discharging ships,
and I could readily see that they were, as the captain had said,
hoisting out munitions of war, with no attempt at concealment. Of
course, as they were ships of a neutral power in Mexican waters, we,
as United States officers, were helpless in preventing this traffic,
which was of such great benefit to the Confederates and which kept
their trans-Mississippi armies so admirably equipped.
On going ashore the next day to arrange for supplies, I found the
streets of Matamoras swarming with Confederate officers, who made
themselves offensive to us in many ways. So I did not endeavor to
prolong my stay at the Rio Grande, but pushed things along, laid in a
generous supply of fresh fruits and vegetables, filled our water tanks,
and was ready for sea again within a week. Then one afternoon I
went on board the Princess Royal to make my farewell call on
Captain Colvocoresses, and returning to my ship, was about getting
under weigh, when, taking a look seaward, I saw a schooner
standing in for the harbor from the eastward.
Mr. Bailey, who was looking at her intently with his glass,
exclaimed: “Captain, she is full of cotton and carrying a large deck
load. She is a blockade runner, sure!”
A glance through my own glass verified the correctness of his
report.
“By George, Mr. Bailey, we’ll have a try for her!”
“I am afraid it is no use, captain. She is too near the line; before
we can get under weigh she will be in Mexican water, where she can
laugh at us.”
“Yes, if she finds out who we are. Let us see if we can’t outwit her.
I don’t believe she has noticed us yet, and she is well to the
eastward of the line yet. Quietly brace our yards awry; cock-bill the
main yard a bit; haul down that pennant and ensign; run in our guns
and close the ports; slack up the running rigging; throw an old sail
over the port gangway as though we had been taking in cargo there;
get up a burton on the mainstay and a whip on the main yard; send
all hands below. In short, turn the old ship into a merchantman for
the time being, to throw the schooner off the scent. If we succeed in
doing that, I will guarantee that we bag her.”
Mr. Bailey hurried away to have this work done, and I sent my
orderly to ask Mr. Taylor to come into the cabin.
I explained my plan to him, and told him to man and arm the
second cutter and to drop her under the starboard quarter, where
she could not be seen from the approaching schooner, and to be
ready at a word from me to dash upon the prize. I knew that I could
depend upon this officer for an intelligent and prompt performance of
his share of the work, and I told him the instant he got on board the
schooner to heave her to on the other tack and at once take the
bearing of the mouth of the river so carefully that he could swear to
the vessel’s position, if the matter should come up in the prize court
for adjudication.
Then I replaced my uniform coat and cap with a white linen jacket
and a straw hat, and took up a conspicuous position on the poop,
looking very like a merchant captain. Meanwhile Mr. Bailey, following
my suggestions, had transformed my dandy man-of-war bark into a
merchant drogher, to all appearance from a short distance. He had
also got himself up in the masquerade costume of a Kennebunk
mate, and in his shirt sleeves was lounging over the midship rail,
cigar in mouth, watching the approach of our Confederate friend,
who was standing in for the anchorage evidently entirely
unconscious of any lurking danger.
The greatest difficulty I experienced was in keeping my men out of
sight. They were as full of excitement as a cat watching for a mouse,
and would endeavor to steal up the hatchways for a peep at the
schooner, notwithstanding all the vigilance of their officers.
At last the schooner was within little more than a cable’s length of
our port quarter, and her crew were standing by to shorten sail, in
anticipation of anchoring, when I quietly walked across the poop and
gave Mr. Taylor the word.
Like a tiger springing upon his prey, the boat flew through the
water, was alongside the schooner, and Mr. Taylor was at the tiller,
which he put hard down, to the utter astonishment of the steersman.
The boat’s crew were already in possession, the schooner, was
luffed up in the wind, close under my quarter, a line was thrown to
her, her sails came down by the run, and she was our prize without
striking a blow and almost without a word being uttered!
The captain of the vessel had not fully recovered from his
astonishment when he was brought on board my ship. From him I
learned that she was the America, with one hundred and eleven
bales of cotton, with which she had run out of Laredo a few days
before. Casting a glance about my decks, now filled with men, he
muttered: “Well you ’uns certainly tricked me that time! This must be
that infernal Yankee bark they told me was off Aransas Pass!”
As I did not deem it advisable to remain longer in port after my
capture, although it was undoubtedly made in American waters, I got
my ship under weigh at once, and within thirty minutes we were
standing out to sea with the schooner in tow, and the whole affair
had passed off so quietly that I doubt if a vessel in port was aware
that anything out of the common order had taken place.
I sent the America to Key West with a prize crew, and the following
evening I was back at my old anchorage off Aransas with an
abundance of fresh provisions and mess stores and enjoying the
comfortable feeling that comes of outwitting an adversary.
CHAPTER VIII
CATCHING A TARTAR
But the good fortune that had thus far fallen to the lot of the
Anderson was to take a turn, for we had not long returned to our
station at Aransas when an affair occurred that was a decided
damper upon the fun we had heretofore enjoyed in capturing prizes.
One morning while the watch was washing down the decks the
lookout at the masthead gave the always welcome “Sail ho!” and
upon closer inspection the vessel in sight proved to be a small sloop
hugging the shore to the northward and evidently running down the
coast on her way to the Rio Grande.
Of course we slipped our anchors at once and made sail in chase;
but the wind was light and the sloop was of such light draft that,
having a leading wind, she could safely keep almost in to the surf
line, where we could not possibly get at her with the ship. In
consequence, the sloop was rapidly approaching the entrance to
Aransas Bay, where she would easily have escaped us, when I
resorted to my former expedient and sent in an armed cutter, with a
light gun, to head her off, knowing that if I could get her off shore I
should eventually capture her.
But when the captain of the sloop saw what I was up to, he put his
helm up, without hesitation, let draw his sheets, and drove his vessel
through the light surf and high up on the beach. Then the crew at
once abandoned the craft, and, running up over the sand hills,
disappeared.
The officer in my boat, following sharp upon his chase, ran
alongside the sloop, of which he took possession, and found her
loaded with between forty and fifty bales of cotton. But, unfortunately,
she had been beached at the very tiptop of high water; and as the
tide soon after began to run ebb, it was very evident to Mr. Allen that
his prize would soon be high and dry, so he returned to the ship for
further orders.
That evening at high water I sent in three armed boats, with orders
for one of them to lay outside the breakers and cover the landing
party. The crews of the other two boats, under command of my
executive officer, were directed to make every effort to get the sloop
afloat, and for that purpose they were amply provided with hawsers,
blocks and tackles, a kedge anchor, and such other paraphernalia as
I deemed necessary for the proposed work.
The wind was light and there was a full moon, so that the
conditions were very favorable for success. Mr. Bailey laid out the
sloop’s anchor, backed with our kedge, brought the hawser to the
sloop’s windlass, reinforced it with a heavy purchase, and got a
heavy strain on the hawser with the aid of his twoscore men, who
were working with all their heart, but not an inch would she budge.
Her skipper had driven her up with all sail set, and she had made a
bed for herself in the soft sand from which we could not possibly
move her.
When the tide began to run ebb, Mr. Bailey decided to return to the
ship and report progress—or rather the lack of it. I had been
anxiously watching the operations from the ship, which I had
anchored as near the beach as prudence permitted, and I was
naturally annoyed at the want of success on the part of my people.
I presume my manner gave Mr. Bailey the impression that I
attributed the failure to his insufficient effort, which was by no means
the case, but I saw that he was very much dejected as he made his
report.
The officers talked the matter over together in the wardroom that
evening, as I learned later on, and the next morning Mr. Taylor, who
was my favorite boat officer, came to me after quarters and asked,
as a special favor, permission to go in with three picked boat’s crews
that morning and, abandoning what seemed a well-nigh useless
attempt to get the sloop afloat, to unload her and tow the cotton,
worth twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars, off to the ship.
“I’ll guarantee to do it, captain,” said the plucky fellow. “I propose to
take in two or three coils of inch rope in the boats and after getting
the bales afloat I can lash them together so that we can tow them off
to the ship in this smooth water with our three boats.”
“It will be very hard work, Mr. Taylor, even if you get the bales
afloat through the surf, which is doubtful. And I don’t feel clear in my
mind that it would be strictly in the line of duty. The sloop is ashore,
and her blockade running can be put an end to for good and all by a
match and a few pounds of powder, or we can knock her to pieces
from the ship in target practice. Our men had a hard day’s work
yesterday for nothing, and I don’t care to give them more of it.”
“I know that, sir; but the crew are just crazy to do it. I should only
take volunteers, and there are twice as many ready to go as I require
for the work.”
I saw that officers and men were alike anxious for the lark, as they
considered it; they were always ready when I called upon them for
the severest duty, and so against my better judgment I gave way and
consented. But I insisted that the first cutter, well armed, should
remain outside the surf to cover the shore operations, and that under
no circumstances should she be taken off from guard duty. By this
precaution alone I was saved from what would have otherwise been
a very serious disaster.
Most of the forenoon was passed by the shore party in breaking
out the bales and in warping them out to one of the boats outside the
surf, and by noon nearly all the cotton was afloat. Just before twelve
o’clock I was about giving the order to make the boat recall signal,
for the men to come off to dinner, when I saw a series of puffs of
smoke from the sand hills and heard the muffled reports of musketry.
In a moment there was a rush of gray-coats toward my men, a rapid
return fire from my guard boat, a struggle on the beach, plainly
visible through the glass, two or three figures lay prone on the sand,
and then the heads of men could be seen swimming from the beach
out to the boat. One of the cutters was meanwhile launched and
forced out through the surf, the rebels keeping up an active fire at it,
and then all was quiet, with two boats pulling out toward us and a
group of rebels gathered about my whaleboat on the beach!
All this had not taken much longer in the action than it has in the
telling, and we on board ship were so utterly surprised at the sudden
attack, that for a moment we looked on in speechless amazement!
But only for a moment, for the boatswain’s call was not needed to
bring all hands on deck, and the orders that rang out sharp and swift
were obeyed with equal promptness.
“Aloft, topmen and lower yard men, and loose topsails and
courses! Stand by to sheet home and hoist of all! Stand by to slip the
anchor! Forecastle there; clear away the rifle and get a range on
those fellows! Be careful, Mr. Allen, and give the gun elevation
enough to clear our boats!”
The sails fell from the yards and flew to the mastheads, the
courses were sheeted home and the tacks ridden down, the jibs ran
up, our anchors were slipped, and filling on the starboard tack we
stood in for the land, the forecastle gun, actively served, throwing
shells among the rebels, who were taking shelter behind the sand
hills.
“Put a leadsman in the fore chains, sir! Give me the soundings
sharp, my lad!”
“And a quarter five,” came the quick response.
We were drawing sixteen feet, and that left but fifteen feet of water
under my keel. I certainly could not go much farther in.
“Get another cast, and be quick about it!”
“Qu-a-a-r-ter less five!”
“Stand by to tack ship! Put your helm down!”
“And a h-a-l-f four!”
“Hard a lee! Tacks and sheets! Mainsail haul!”
The dear old barkey came up in the wind like a bird, lost her
headway, paused, trembling, for a moment, and then filled on the
other tack as the head yards flew round. We began to edge off shore
again, while the call from the leadsman, “Quarter less four,” warned
me that we had got on the other tack none too soon.
Out of danger with my ship, I could now turn my attention to the
situation in shore, where I found two of my boats well off to me and
the beach clear of the combatants, who did not care to face my fire;
but my white whaleboat had been run up inside of the sloop, and
was temporarily abandoned.
The two boats were soon alongside, and I learned, to my sorrow,
that six men of the whaleboat crew were prisoners on shore and two
of the second cutter’s crew had been wounded in escaping. The
abandoned cotton was meanwhile floating about in the breakers, a
disagreeable reminder of the cause of our discomfiture.
Mr. Taylor reported that when the rebels opened fire and made a
rush for them, two of our boats were beached. The crew of the cutter
ran their boat out and got her beyond the breakers under a heavy fire
with only two wounded; but the crew of the lighter boat were less
fortunate, and were headed off by the rebels, and six of them were
compelled to surrender at discretion. Several of the Confederates
were wounded by the fire from our guard boat, and Mr. Taylor
thought that two of them were killed.
The next day I sent in a flag of truce boat to Colonel Hobbie, in
command of the Confederates, and endeavored to effect an
exchange of my men for several rebel prisoners I had on board; but
failing in that attempt, I sent my boys their clothing and a liberal
supply of tobacco. All of this, however, as I learned, was confiscated
by the rebels, and none of their property ever came into the hands of
my men.
The following day I found that my whaleboat had been taken away
during the previous night, so I went to quarters for target practice and
speedily knocked the sloop into kindling wood with our broadside
battery,—as I should have done at first,—and so brought that
episode to a close.
Six months later, while the Anderson was at New Orleans, Harry
Benson, the coxswain of my whaleboat, who was one of those
captured, came off to the ship and reported for duty. He had escaped
from the prison pen at Matagorda wearing an old Confederate
uniform he had managed to purchase, and had actually walked,
nearly six hundred miles, through Texas to New Orleans!
CHAPTER IX
THE NAVAL TRAITOR
The following spring the commodore ordered the Anderson to New

Orleans to refit, and while there an official letter came to me from the
Navy Department detaching me from the West Gulf Squadron and
granting me two months’ leave of absence, with orders to report at
the expiration of that time to the officer commanding at Cairo, Illinois,
for service in the Mississippi Squadron, which was then under the
command of Rear Admiral David D. Porter.
On inquiry I found that I was one of the half dozen officers selected
as a contingent from the West Gulf Squadron to be placed in
command of Porter’s fleet of river steamers, which had been
transformed into vessels of war.
As the fighting was all over in our department since the capture of
Mobile, and as there was a decided novelty in the river fleet, I did not
object to this transfer, more particularly as a furlough was the
agreeable accompaniment of the change.
So I went home, and of course thoroughly enjoyed every moment
of the first leave of absence I had obtained for more than three
years. I found my only little baby, whom I had never seen, grown into
quite a child of two and a half years, who would scarcely come to the
stranger in uniform she had never seen, who called her daughter.
And there were other family changes, some of them very sad ones,
but in those busy war-days we had little time for sentiment.
Like everything else in this world, my two months’ furlough soon
passed, and I bade everyone good-by, and took the train for Cairo.
And a vile hole it was in the early spring of 1864, the streets flooded
and almost impassable and the wretched hotels filled with soldiers,
gamblers, and the ruck that always hang about the skirts of an army.
When I reported to Commodore Pennock, he was kind enough to
say that he wanted me with him at the Naval Station at Mound City, a
few miles above Cairo, and so I moved out there and was acting as
executive officer of the Navy Yard, as we called it, when the rebel
General N. B. Forrest, in April, made his famous—or infamous—
assault on Fort Pillow, a few miles below us, carrying it by storm and
massacring a large number of the colored troops who were
defending the work.
The mangled survivors of this affair were brought at once up to our
naval hospital at Mound City, and we improvised beds as best we
could for their accommodation. General Forrest is still living, I
believe, and I understand that he denies that any extraordinary
cruelty was manifested by his conquering troops. But I speak from
my own observation; and although it is now thirty years ago, the
recollection of the horrors we saw among those poor mangled
negroes is still fresh in my mind, as are the stories of the dying that
were poured into our ears.
It was a brutal, cowardly massacre, pure and simple, and no
amount of attempted explanation can make it anything else. It was
only one sad episode of a cruel war, but it was an episode worthy of
Alva, “the Spanish Butcher.”
To convict the man, it is only necessary to read his original
dispatch to the Confederate government, which fortunately is still
preserved as a double evidence of his brutality and his illiteracy. It
reads: “We busted the fort at ninerclock and scatered the niggers.
The men is still a cillenem [killing them] in the woods. Them as was
cotch with spoons and brestpins and sich was cilled and the rest was
payrolled and told to git.”
Not long after this event, Commodore Pennock sent for me, one
day, and handed me my orders to the command of the ironclad
Benton, then at anchor off Natchez, and suggested that I had better
take the first steamer from Cairo down to my new ship.
In a way this was a piece of good fortune. The Benton had been at
different times the flagship of both Admirals C. W. Davis and David
D. Porter, and she was the largest vessel on the river and carried the
heaviest armament. The trouble was that she was a very slow ship,
and against the strong Mississippi current, going up stream she
could scarcely make four knots an hour.
However, she had spacious quarters for her commanding officer,
albeit they were directly over the boilers; and she was the division
flagship, which carried a certain distinction; while if she ever should
get into a fight again she had the weight of metal to make her a very
formidable opponent. So I packed my traps and was soon steaming
down the river on the fine passenger steamer Olive for my new
command.
The torrid heat of a waning July day was being tempered by the
delicious evening breeze that was blowing up the Mississippi River
as I sat aft on the berth deck of my ship smoking a post-prandial
cigar in one of the ports and trying to make up my mind to get into
my evening togs and go on shore to make a long-postponed call. I
had now been several months in command of the Benton, and on the
whole they had not been unpleasant nor altogether unprofitable
months.
The navy was just then very busily engaged in keeping up a close
patrol of the river to prevent the Confederate trans-Mississippi army
in Arkansas, under the command of General Dick Taylor and Prince
Polignac, from crossing over the river and effecting a junction with
General Joe Johnston, which they were very desirous of
accomplishing.
Cooped up where they were, these twenty-five thousand
Confederates, with an abundance of military stores obtained from
English ships at the mouth of the Rio Grande, did no particular harm;
but let them get on the other side of the river and they would make a
very material difference in the comfort of Sherman, who was then
starting on his famous march through Georgia.
The navy was expected to prevent this passage of the river by
keeping up an incessant patrol day and night, and thus a crossing of
the army in force was an impossibility. We were constantly capturing
rebel deserters, or stray couriers with letters from the Confederate
leaders to Johnston; and occasionally, no doubt, some escaped us,
but not many of them, I imagine.
I wish to emphasize the vital importance to us of keeping this
patrol effective, and the great value it would be to the rebels to break
it, as this has an important bearing upon the incident I am about to
relate.
The ship stationed next above me had been the light-armored (we
called them tin-clad) steamer—Brilliant I will call her, although that
was not her name. She was commanded by Acting Master Daniel
Glenny, a native of Connecticut, a bright, active young officer, an
excellent seaman, and a man who had always impressed me
favorably.
As I was his senior officer and for the time commanding the
division, Glenny always came on board the Benton to report when
our ships met, which was almost daily, and I had often had him at
dinner with me, and had come to know him intimately. A few weeks
before this evening he had been ordered to a beat thirty miles farther
up the river, not far from Skipwith’s Landing, and consequently I had
not seen him for perhaps a month.
As I sat in the port smoking and dreaming of home, my orderly
came up and said the officer of the deck reported that a tug was
steaming up the river, and that she had signaled, “I wish to
communicate.”
I at once went on deck, and by that time the tug was within hail.
“Tug ahoy!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“What tug is that? Don’t come any nearer at present!”
“This is the Rover, sir. I have special orders for you from
Commodore Morris from New Orleans.”
“Very well; steam up under my quarter and come on board!”
The tug came near, and as she touched our overhang we lowered
a side ladder, and an officer in uniform came on board and handed
me an official document.
I went down to my cabin, opened the letter, and read:—
A. V. Lieut. Robert Kelson, Commanding U. S. S. Benton:
Sir,—Upon the receipt of this order you will at once detach your
executive officer and order him to proceed immediately, without any
delay, in the tug Rover up the river to the U. S. S. Brilliant, where he
will take command of that vessel, putting her commanding officer,
Acting Master Daniel Glenny, in close confinement.
When this duty is accomplished send the Rover back to me here.
Very Respt’y,
Yr. Obt. Servant,
(Signed) Henry W. Morris,
Commodore Commanding West Gulf Squadron.
Here was a pretty kettle of fish! And what did it all mean? I touched
my bell. “Orderly, send the captain of the Rover down here to me.”
The ensign in command of the tug came down to my cabin.
“Captain,” said I, “do you know what duty you are on?”
“No, sir; except that I was to give you a letter and then follow your
instructions.”
“You have no idea of the contents of this letter?”
“I haven’t the least idea, sir.”
“Very well, I shall send an officer up the river with you to-night to
the Brilliant. You will find her not far below Skipwith’s, I fancy. Go on
board your tug, sir, and be all ready to proceed up the river within an
hour.”
The officer bowed and retired. Then I sent for my executive, Mr.
Willetts, feeling as though I were in a dream. He was a plain,
straightforward man with no more imagination in his composition
than a boarding pike. When I read the commodore’s orders to him,
he merely said, “Shall I put Captain Glenny in irons, sir?”
I had never thought of that unpleasant detail in the affair, and could
have beaten Willetts for the suggestion.
“The commodore says ‘close confinement,’ sir,” he added.
“Yes, Mr. Willetts; but I think confinement to his stateroom, with
possibly a sentry on the guards and another at the door of his room,
will be near enough to close confinement until we get further orders. I
can see nothing in this dispatch to warrant me in subjecting an officer
to the indignity of irons.”
So I packed Willetts off within the hour and turned in for a
sleepless night in my berth, with the problem running through my
brain, “What on earth has Glenny been doing to get him into this
scrape?”
Three evenings after that eventful night a vessel was seen

steaming down the river showing the Brilliant’s night signal. She
passed us, rounded to astern of the Benton, and then steamed up
within hailing distance.
“Benton ahoy!” came the hail in Willetts’ familiar voice. “I wish to
communicate, sir. Can I come alongside?”
“Very well; come on board yourself.”
I heard the captain’s gig called away, and in a few minutes Willetts,
looking as pale as a ghost, stood in my cabin.
“Captain Kelson,”—he stammered.
“What has happened to you, sir?” I queried, for the man’s manner
warned me that something was wrong.
“Captain Glenny escaped last night, sir!” he said, as he sank into a
chair.
“Escaped!”
And then he told me as much of the story as he knew, which was
later supplemented, bit by bit, from different sources.
Three months before, Glenny had made the acquaintance of a
Miss ——, a very bright, dashing girl, devoted to the cause of the
Confederacy and willing, as she often boasted, to sacrifice anything
but her honor for her country. She lived near the river, within
Glenny’s beat, and she soon discovered that he was attracted by her
beauty, which was very striking, and it was not long until she had
made him her willing and abject slave, body and soul.
Of the details of the affair we could learn little except that she
came on board the Brilliant almost daily and Glenny visited her very
frequently on shore. But this we did discover: that for love of this girl
the young officer at last became a traitor and actually entered into a
compact with the rebel officer commanding on shore to deliver up his
ship to the Confederates.
The consideration for this treachery was to be a major’s
commission in their army, a hundred bales of cotton, and one
hundred thousand dollars in gold, while, as it was understood, the
girl promised to marry Glenny when the deed was accomplished.
A plan was arranged by which a body of the Brilliant’s crew was to
be given liberty on shore to go to a negro ball on a certain night,
when the Confederates were to come off in boats in large numbers
and take possession of the steamer, Glenny making a mere nominal
resistance.
The sailors were duly sent on shore to the dance; but through a
suspicion on the part of a vigilant junior officer of the Brilliant, the
consummation of the plot was thwarted and the attempted surprise
failed.
Meanwhile, news of the proposed plan was carried down to New
Orleans by a deserter from Dick Taylor’s corps, and it came to
Commodore Morris, who took prompt action by sending to me to
place Glenny under arrest.
Mr. Willetts told me that he obeyed my orders by placing Captain
Glenny under close arrest, and had stationed a sentry at the door of
his stateroom and another at the window, which opened on the
guards. The first night, however, at midnight, Glenny quietly got up,
dressed himself, and, looking out of the window, said in a calm voice
to the sentry, “Take this pitcher to the scuttle butt and bring me some
cool water!”
With the instinctive impulse of obedience to a commanding officer,
the man at once obeyed and went for the water, without a second
thought.
During his absence Glenny crawled out of the window to the
guards and lowered himself down by a rope into a small fishing-
canoe they had towing alongside. He then cut the painter, and in a
moment he had dropped astern in the swift current and vanished in
the darkness!
We never saw Glenny again, but I heard of him a couple of years
later from a Texan who had met him, under another name, in the
Confederacy at about the time of Lee’s surrender.
One thing is very sure: had the rebels succeeded in getting
possession of the Brilliant, as they planned, and had obtained her
signal book from Glenny, they could have filled her with armed men,
steamed down to the Benton, made their night number and ran
alongside of us without exciting suspicion, and, pouring a large body
of men on my decks, could have captured my ship almost without a
struggle.

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