Recent hcs items

RETHINKING XINGUANO KINSHIP: ELEMENTS FOR COMPUTATIONAL ANALYSIS OF A MULTIETHNIC NETWORK

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The existence of kinship relationships across the entire Upper Xingu has been recognized as a key element of interethnic relations in this region since the time of the expedi-tions by Karl von den Steinen, in this region. The pattern of long-term repetition of marriages has seemingly contributed to the development of structurally very similar terminological systems among the Upper Xingu indigenous peoples (distinguishing them from their other neighbors) and to the generalization among them of a “relatives” condition. Although almost all monographs on the region have devoted some space to kinship, in general, and forms of marriage, in particular, there are few detailed studies on the subject, and available genealogical data are even more scarce. The objective of this article is to resume the discussion on the role of marriages in the production of Upper Xingu sociality based on the analysis of a genealogical network document-ed among the Kalapalo, one of the Carib-speaking...

CRITIQUE OF PROFESSOR ISABELLE CLARK-DECÈS’S DENIAL THAT DRAVIDIAN KINSHIP SYSTEMS IN INDIA FORM WELL-DEFINED CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE SYSTEMS

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Professor Dr. Clark-Decès’s research on Tamil kinship and marriage challenges Dumont’s alliance theory and Lévi-Strauss’s idea of marriage as reciprocal exchange between distinct social groups. Clark-Decès argues that there is nothing systematic or stable about the kin and affine distinction or the principle of opposition in the Tamil kinship and that the general vocabulary for kinship in the Tamil language shows the Tamil kinship to be about ownership rights rather than reciprocity, and that the Tamil marriage pragmatics portray inherent entitlement and violence rather than a spirit of equality and mutuality. Further, that the so-called cross-cousin marriage rule is not really indiscriminate but is marred by elitism based on side, seniority, rank and hierarchy, that the uncle-niece marriage is the most common and most favored marriage is said to provide the ultimate evidence that Tamil kinship is woman-centered, woman-powered and where females prevail and men willingly surrender....

A FURTHER NOTE ON GEG MARRIAGES

Thu, 1 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Marriages between groups of siblings-in-law, which, using kinship conventions, I call ‘GEG marriages’, resemble cross-cousin marriage or prescriptive alliance but lack the repeatability of such alliances in the immediately following generation(s). Although mentioned in passing quite frequently in ethnographic accounts, theory explaining them is largely lacking. Building on previous work, in this note I address the possible reasons for such marriages, both indigenously (and therefore locally) and as a possible waystation on the path to a society abandoning cross-cousin marriage.

REVIEW OF: “THE ANIMAL NAMES OF THE ARAB ANCESTORS,” AUTHORED BY WILLIAM C. YOUNG

Thu, 1 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000
REVIEW OF: “THE ANIMAL NAMES OF THE ARAB ANCESTORS,” AUTHORED BY WILLIAM C. YOUNG

REPLY TO VARISCO’S REVIEW 24 JULY 2024 OF BOOK BY WILLIAM C. YOUNG

Thu, 1 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000
REPLY TO VARISCO’S REVIEW 24 JULY 2024 OF BOOK BY WILLIAM C. YOUNG

COMPADRAZGO IN PITUMARCA, PERÚ: THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE TINKERBELL WATCH

Thu, 1 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Godparenthood, an institution where a family seeks sponsorship for their child established through a religious ritual, can be analyzed on several levels. On one level, it is a form of allo-parenting, an adaptive strategy that ensures better survival of one’s child by creating an alliance with a biologically non-related person. On the sociological level, it is a strategy for forging in-terfamily alliances. Godparenthood can be instrumentalized to promote political goals through reciprocal exchanges. In this paper I argue that this is achieved on the cognitive level by metaphorical extensions of kinship terminology to unrelated individuals through the use of the universal linguistic feature of markedness. I analyze compadrazgo in the town of Pitumarca, Perú, as a test case of all three aspects of godparenthood.

Introduction

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction

Caste and Jāti

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract: Traditional Indian social organization developed under very specific historical circumstances. The Brahmanic ideology of Dharma dominated the social and even economic life of the Hindus and cre-ated a system capable of maintaining stability through the unique structure of "caste order". However, caste as described in many Western scholarly publications bears only a faint resemblance to this institution of Hindu society.
Indian social structure is composed of a great diversity of elements with kinship categories being its essence. Specific characteristics of caste - such as endogamy, profession, a particular kind of religious worship and marriage rules - manifest themselves at the level of kin groups and birādarīs, of which the broadest and dominant of these being jāti. The institution of jāti is rooted in prehistoric tribal concepts and usages. In Hindu society, jāti acts as a real agent that...

Revisiting Compadrazgo: Issues Concerning ‘What Kinship Is’

Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000
Revisiting Compadrazgo: Issues Concerning ‘What Kinship Is’

SEX, LOVE, INCEST, DEATH, AND SUCCESSION: BEYOND BASIC BIOLOGY

Wed, 2 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000
SEX, LOVE, INCEST, DEATH, AND SUCCESSION: BEYOND BASIC BIOLOGY

Circumspector Reads Hominidae, Generatio and Sexus Nexus and It Is About Incest Prohibition and Inbreeding Avoidance

Wed, 2 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000
Circumspector Reads Hominidae, Generatio and Sexus Nexus and It Is About Incest Prohibition and Inbreeding Avoidance

Introduction to Volume 3, Issue 2

Wed, 2 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 3, Issue 2

Triadic Kinship Terms in Mẽbêngôkre: A Linguistic and Anthropological Analysis

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article compounds the effort of a social anthropologist and a linguist to understand and to analyze what is known about the triadic terms of the Mẽbêngôkre, a Northern Jê people from Central Brazil. Triadic terms are kinship terms that refer to a single individual but encode at least two kin relations simultaneously: that between the addressee and the referent, and that between the speaker and the referent; their meaning can be represented schematically as “your X = [who is also] my Y.” The only other region where this phenomenon has been identified so far is among the First Peoples of Northern Australia. Our aim is to describe the logic of this system of terminology, and to examine the social variables governing its use.

Introduction to Volume 3, Issue 1

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 3, Issue 1

The Anthropology of Kinship – the Avatar Debate

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000
The Anthropology of Kinship – the Avatar Debate

Analytical Review of Types of Kinship Terminological Systems and How to Analyze Them: New Insights from the Application of Sydney H. Gould’s Analytic System by David B. Kronenfeld (2022: Brill Publishers)

Wed, 27 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Analytical Review of Types of Kinship Terminological Systems and How to Analyze Them: New Insights from the Application of Sydney H. Gould’s Analytic System by David B. Kronenfeld (2022: Brill Publishers)

The Uses of Kinship for Political Ends by Local Descent Groups in Jordan

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Kinship is an important dimension of politics throughout the Middle East and, specifically, in Jordan. At the level of face-to-face negotiations, three kinds of kinship (common descent, affinity, ritual kinship) are invoked in Jordan to garner support from an actor’s kin and create political ties. At the level of large-scale organizations – such as tribes – appeals are made to kinship norms to mobilize members of each organization and enhance group solidarity. At the macroscopic level of national politics, rhetoric about the “national family” is used to try to pacify groups who have lost political battles or who are politically marginal to the decision-making process. Analysis of politics at all three levels can be improved by paying careful attention to kinship.

Can a Local Descent Group Become an International Network? Research on the Rashāyidah in Five Countries

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Local descent groups that all have the name – Rashāyidah – are found in many places in the eastern Arab world. There is evidence that at least some of these groups originated in northwest-ern Arabia, where some of their ancestors lived centuries ago. More significantly, many of them have recently become aware of each other’s existence. Some are constructing a historical and genealogical narrative about common out-migration from Arabia. This narrative does more than explain why they share the same name; it also (re)constructs the kinship bonds that link them. Research has begun in Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan to explore this process of “awakening” to a common past. Nine researchers are collecting ethnographic and linguistic data about six different Rashāyidah groups and the various localities where they live. The researchers will describe the relationships of each group with its neighbors and will explore the motivations for adopting a new, diasporic, identity...

Introduction to Volume 2, Issue 2

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Volume 2, Issue 2

Comments on Critique of The Cambridge Handbook of Kinship

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Comments on Critique of The Cambridge Handbook of Kinship

WHAT IS KINSHIP ALL ABOUT? AGAIN. CRITIQUE OF THE CAMBRIDGE HANDBOOK OF KINSHIP, EDITED BY SANDRA BAMFORD

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The world of anthropology has witnessed a recurring rhetorical title:“What Is Kinship All About?” and now this article titles itself “What is Kinship All About? Again.” Why? Whereas we have over a century’s worth of ethnography and theory focusing on the centrality of kinship in human society and in anthropological theory, in 2019 a Handbook is published that names itself “Kinship” but, despite its claim and to the contrary, it is not about kinship at all. The Handbook editor explicitly states that it is about “conceiving kinship,” with kinship reduced to gendered social relatedness. In response, we re-affirm the centrality of kinship as a domain universal in human societies by way of a critique of the Handbook and a comprehensive review of its contributing chapters. Countering the Handbook’s denialist — or in Harold Scheffler’s famous term, dismantling — position, we bring to the fore the already determined universal properties that define the boundaries of the kinship...

Comments on Comments

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Comments on Comments

Introduction to Special Issue

Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to Special Issue

Intrafamilial kafala: An alternative to produce family ties among Algerian couples looking for a child

Sun, 20 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Based on a qualitative study carried out among Algerian couples who, after having tried natu-rally, then through reproductive medicine (AMP), to have a child, have made the decision to adopt a child within their relatives, this article questions how infertile couples have coped with the absence of a child from a point of view of kinship logics. In other words, it is a question of understanding how the intrafa-milial kafala is mobilized to produce family ties. The analysis of the semi-structured interviews showed that the child's own parents agree to show solidarity to couples affected by infertility, being family mem-bers, through a kafala application signed before a notary. In this logic of kinship, the kafil parent devel-ops a sense of attachment to the Makfoul child. This practice is a restorative solution to the absence of a child allowing them to perform all parental functions.

Introduction to Volume 2, Issue 1

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Introduction to the current issue of Kinship.

What is Kinship About? Again. Critique of the Cambridge Handbook of Kinship, Edited by Sandra Bamford

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The world of anthropology has witnessed a recurring rhetorical title:“What Is Kinship All About?” and now this article titles itself “What is Kinship All About? Again.” Why? Whereas we have over a century’s worth of ethnography and theory focusing on the centrality of kinship in human society and in anthropological theory, in 2019 a Handbook is published that names itself “Kinship” but, despite its claim and to the contrary, it is not about kinship at all. The Handbook editor explicitly states that it is about “conceiving kinship,” with kinship reduced to gendered social relatedness. In response, we re-affirm the centrality of kinship as a domain universal in human societies by way of a critique of the Handbook and a comprehensive review of its contributing chapters. Countering the Handbook’s denialist — or in Harold Scheffler’s famous term, dismantling — position, we bring to the fore the already determined universal properties that define the boundaries of the kinship domain...

Comment by Fadwa El Guindi on the review by E. N. Anderson of the book: Suckling: Kinship More Fluid, Fadwa El Guindi, Routledge Press

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Comment by Fadwa El Guindi on the review by E. N. Anderson of the book: Suckling: Kinship More Fluid, Fadwa El Guindi, Routledge Press

Revisiting Kohler, Gifford and Rivers: Secondary marriages and Crow-Omaha terminologies

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

It is now well over a century since Gifford (1916) and Rivers (1914) invoked certain second marriages as an explanation for Crow-Omaha (C-O) terminologies, and even further from Josef Kohler’s initial attempt (1897; translated 1975) to marshal such an explanation for the Omaha themselves. In this paper, I wish to revisit these ideas with reference to a wider body of literature. This literature has only appeared since these three scholars wrote, though none of it is very recent. I shall end by arguing that these practices can be seen as modified forms of the sororate and levirate as conventionally understood.

Review of the Ends of Kinship by Sienna Craig

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Review of the Ends of Kinship by Sienna Craig

La kafala intrafamiliale : Une alternative pour produire des liens de parenté chez les couples algériens en quête d’enfant

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000
Dans cette présente étude, nous souhaitons appréhender sur le terrain algérien la kafala intrafamiliale mobilisée par les couples stériles face à l’absence d’enfant. Les couples algériens en quête d’enfant qui, après avoir tenté naturellement, puis par le biais de la médecine reproductive (la PMA), d’avoir un enfant, ont finalement pris la décision d’adopter un enfant au sein de leur parenté, par voie de la Kafala. Il s’agit principalement de montrer la façon dont cette démarche est mobilisée pour réaliser leur projet parental et créer le lien de parenté.

Review of SUCKLING by Fadwa El Guindi

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000
A book review of Fadwa El Guindi's recent book SUCKLING.

Kinship, Genealogy, Objectivity, and Ethnocentrism

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This describes the factual and epistemological mistakes leading to the collapse of anthropological interest in the scientific analysis of kinship and social organization in the 1980s, their persistence to the present, and the alternative that avoids them.
The basic argument is that while kinship was and is a challenging topic, the reason for the collapse of kinship studies in response to David Schneider's criticism in 1987 had did not reflect those inherent problems. They reflected self-contradictions and counter-factual assumptions in the conceptions of science, meaning, and objectivity in the approaches that were taken to it, both by those Schneider criticised and by Schneider himself.
The paper details the steps by which those errors accumuluted in this particular line of argument. It does so in part by contrasting this line with my own approach that avoided them, and that Schneider knew about but evidently did not understand.

Yet another view of Trobriand kinship categories, from optimality to conceptual structure

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In “Another view of Trobriand kin categories,” Lounsbury analyzes Trobriand kin terms by providing a core genealogical definition for each term, and then showing how a set of reduction rules make it possible to supply terms for more distant relatives. This article revisits Lounsbury’s analysis in the light of recent advances in linguistics and cognitive science. We show that Trobriand kin terms express a conventionalized tradeoff between expressing relevant information and avoiding marked forms. Formally, we follow Optimality Theory in developing a constraint-based approach, an alternative to Lounsbury’s derivational approach, in which reduction rules are not just stipulated but derived. Kin terms are polysemous, with core and extended senses: a collection of markedness scales and a ranked set of distinctive features (1) marshal core referents of kin terms, and (2) select optimal, best-fit terms for kin types outside the core. Apart from its formal merits, this approach...

ISSUE INTRODUCTION

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000
This, the second issue of the journal Kinship, features a major article, “Crow-Omaha Kinship: Revitalizing a Problem or Generating a Solution?,” in which the author, German Dziebel (USA), argues that the Crow-Omaha terminologies should not be viewed on a case-by-case basis but from a systems perspective. The article is followed by five comments that discuss the issues raised in the article, followed by the author's Reply to the comments. The issue also includes the English translation of an important Russian article on Crow-Omaha terminoiogies referenced in the Dziebel article. Finally, there is a review of the film, In My Mother's Hous e, that connects the present life of the film maker in the United States with her Italian and Eritrean past through her kin ties.

REPLY

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

My reply continues the discussion of Crow-Omaha skewing, Alternate-Generation equations, Bifurcate-Collateral and Bifurcate Merging kinship terminological types in the contexts of the contributions by Trautmann & Whiteley, Read, Parkin, Lea and Ensor. Special attention is given to the logical pitfalls in the definition and usage of the notion of “crossness” and to the need to re-focus on a more accurate notion of “merging.” Empirical evidence for the transition from Alternate Generation equivalences to Crow-Omaha and from Bifurcate Collateral to Bifurcate Merging is revisited. Further information is provided regarding correlations between Alternate Generation equivalences and Crow-Omaha skewing, on the one hand, and patterns of sibling and cousin terminologies, on the other hand. Among the topics of general methodological and theoretical interest, my reply specifically addresses the scope of kinship studies and the methodology of integrating anthropology and linguistics...

TOWARD A HISTORICAL TYPOLOGY OF KINSHIP-TERM SYSTEMS: THE CROW AND OMAHA TYPES

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

An attempt is made to determine the place held by the Crow and Omaha types in the historical typology of systems of kinship terms. Attention is centred upon structural differences between individual systems within each of these types. The author groups all these differences into six variants and advances the view that they should be considered as stages in the development of the Crow and Omaha systems. All the variants are mapped. Two suppositions are made to explain the preservation of the peculiarities of the Crow and Omaha systems in the earliest phase of the secondary stage in the evolution of kinship systems. The author regards it as the more probable explanation that certain features of these systems survive from the preceding stage of development in the course of evolution. However, another possibility should not be dismissed, namely that in the course of evolution the terminology of the Crow and Omaha types acquires a novel content and, in fact, represents a combination...

К исторической типологии систем терминов родства: типы кроу и омаха

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

An attempt is made to determine the place held by the Crow and Omaha types in the historical typology of systems of kinship terms. Attention is centred upon structural differences between individual systems within each of these types. The author groups all these differences into six variants and advances the view that they should be considered as stages in the development of the Crow and Omaha systems. All the variants are mapped. Two suppositions are made to explain the preservation of the peculiarities of the Crow and Omaha systems in the earliest phase of the secondary stage in the evolution of kinship systems. The author regards it as the more probable explanation that certain features of these systems survive from the preceding stage of development in the course of evolution. However, another possibility should not be dismissed, namely that in the course of evolution the terminology of the Crow and Omaha types acquires a novel content and, in fact, represents a combination...

FILM REVIEW OF “FRUZZETTI, L. AND Á. ÖSTÖR, 2016, IN MY MOTHER’S HOUSE”

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In 2005 Brown University anthropologist Lina Fruzzetti unexpectedly hears from two unknown Italian women, her cousins. Shortly thereafter she interviews her visiting mother. Lina’s father, an Italian official in colonial Eritrea, died when Lina was three. Previously he had a wife and daughter in Carrara, Italy, since deceased. Although Lina goes to Italy to meet her relatives, the film is not an exercise in “finding your roots” but rather is a “life history document”---Lina seeks to understand Italian-Eritrean colonialism. Footage goes back and forth. In Providence, Lina’s mother explains that, widowed, she went to Sudan to work and prosper, placing Lina to board in a Catholic school. Lina finds more relatives, including a nephew and his wife in faraway Barcelona. Experts explain how her father’s Carrara, once an epicenter of Anarchism, supported fascist military adventures. “Repatriated” mixed-race Eritreans discuss Italy and racism. In Eritrea she interviews her mother at...

COMMENT ON GERMAN DZIEBEL

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This comment is directed critically at certain arguments made by German Dziebel concerning the derivation of Crow-Omaha terminologies. Dziebel asks why such features cannot be derived from alternate generation equations. It is shown that this would have to happen indirectly, if at all. Dziebel's difficulties with the mixing of cross and parallel and the place of bifurcate merging and collateral terminological features in this context are also commented on, it being argued that they are all perfectly compatible with Crow-Omaha and indeed regularly found with such terminologies.

COMMENT ON GERMAN DZIEBEL

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

German Dziebel considers it more likely that the Crow-Omaha terminologies derive from terminologies that already have the vertical skewing associated with the Crow-Omaha terminologies than from terminologies without such a property. Thus, he argues, the horizontal skewing of genealogical relations that is characteristic of the Iroquois terminologies makes them unlikely candidates for being the kind of terminology from which Crow-Omaha terminologies originated. Vertical skewing does occur with self-reciprocal kin terms, and for this reason Dziebel posits that the Crow-Omaha terminologies had their origin in terminologies with self-reciprocal kin terms. While Dziebel is correct that the Iroquois terminologies lack vertical skewing, vertical skewing is introduced by simply adding the equation, ’son’ of ‘maternal uncle’ = ‘maternal uncle’ to an Iroquois terminology, along with its logical implications for kin terms relations, to derive an Omaha terminology, or add the equation...

AN INTRODUCTION TO VLADIMIR A. POPOV’S “TOWARD A HISTORICAL TYPOLOGY OF KINSHIP-TERM SYSTEMS: THE CROW AND OMAHA TYPES,” TRANSLATED BY ANASTASIA KALYUTA

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first English translation of Vladimir A. Popov’s important 1977 article on Crow-Omaha kinship systems. Popov’s global comparison proposes an historical typology of these systems covariant with socio-evolutionary stages. His six subtypes are configured by the variable operation of bifurcation and linearity among G+1 and G0 kin-terms, with Popov suggesting three possible evolutionary trajectories. While directly addressing contemporary Western kinship theory, Popov simultaneously engages a robust Soviet tradition little known to Western scholars. Of special note, Popov deploys the “Levin code,” a logically elegant formalist notation that commands comparison with other componential systems. Broader attention to Popov’s perspectives on the Crow-Omaha problem is long overdue.

COMMENT ON GERMAN DZIEBEL

Sat, 19 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

German Dziebel’s critique of our Crow-Omaha volume of nine years ago rests on his book of fourteen years ago. He acknowledges that crossness and skewing may in some instances covary but denies the covariance has any causal significance. Instead, he argues, Crow-Omaha systems derive from kin-terminologies marked by intergenerational self-reciprocals, which are purely linguistic in nature and uninfluenced by social organization; that sibling terminologies emphasizing relative age evolve into Omaha systems, and those emphasizing relative sex into Crow systems; and that in kinship-system evolution it is sibling terminologies—rather than crossness that predicates marriage alliances—which are the driving force.
We show in reply that systems with skewing are intimately and dynamically associated with crossness, even more robustly than previously thought, both empirically and, through reinterpretation of Lounsbury’s work, analytically. The interaction of crossness and skewing...

COMMENT ON GERMAN DZIEBEL: CROW-OMAHA AND THE FUTURE OF KIN TERM RESEARCH

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Kin terminology research—as reflected in Crow-Omaha and Dziebel (2021)—has long been interested in “deep time” evolution. In this commentary, I point out serious issues in neoevolutionist models and phylogenetic models assumed in Crow-Omaha and Dziebel’s arguments. I summarize the widely-shared objections (in case kin term scholars have not previously paid attention) and how those apply to kin terminology. Trautmann (2012:48) expresses a hope that kinship analysis will join with archaeology (and primatology). Dziebel misinterprets archaeology as linguistics and population genetics. Although neither Crow-Omaha nor Dziebel (2021) make use of archaeology, biological anthropology, or paleogenetics, I include a brief overview of recent approaches to prehistoric kinship in those fields—some of which consider Crow-Omaha—to point out how these fields’ interpretations are independent of ethnological evolutionary models, how their data should not be used, and what those...

COMMENT ON GERMAN DZIEBEL

Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Lea focuses on Dziebel’s analysis of the section on South America, composed of two chapters that deal with the Northern Jê (Gê) societies, some displaying Omaha features, others Crow, or a mixture of the two. In his review article, Dziebel argues enthusiastically about the merits of large kinship data bases. However, there is not even consensus among social anthropologists concerning the characterization of the Northern Jê peoples. Dziebel is very critical of the book edited by Trautman and Whiteley, but he naively takes T. Turner’s model of societal reproduction at face value, despite it not even dealing directly with the kinship terminology. The other contributor, Marcela Coelho de Souza, sums up her position affirming that kinship is made, not given. Both of these authors dismiss Lea’s alternative analysis of the Mẽbêngôkre as a house-based matrilineal society, but Dziebel sidesteps this issue.

SOCIALITY IN E. O. WILSON’S GENESIS: EXPANDING THE PAST, IMAGINING THE FUTURE

Thu, 6 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In this article, I critique Edward O. Wilson’s (2019) Genesis: The Deep Origin of Societies from a perspective provided by David Christian’s (2016) Big History. Genesis is a slender, narrowly focused recapitulation and summation of Wilson’s lifelong research on altruism, eusociality, the biological bases of kinship, and related aspects of sociality among insects and humans. Wilson considers it to be among the most important of his 35+ published books, one of which created the controversial discipline of sociobiology and two of which won Pulitzer Prizes. Big History is Christian’s recent attempt to graphically depict the history of the universe in a massive, sprawling, well-documented volume that opens with the Big Bang and terminates now, about 13.8 billion years later.
I take four disparate approaches to enhance the strengths of Wilson’s and Christian’s important books. Part 1. Expanding the past examines 1. contextual data for numerous transitions in sociality in the...

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE / MACHINE LEARNING RESEARCH USING THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL ALYAWARRA KINSHIP DATASET: PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 2004-2020

Tue, 4 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000
This paper describes methods used at the interface between anthropology and machine learning research. Charles Kemp, a graduate student at MIT in 2004, discovered my numerically coded Alyawarra kinship term applications data (Denham 1973; Denham, McDaniel and Atkins 1979; Denham and White 2005) and received my permission to use the data in his machine learning research. Since then, his co-authored papers (Kemp et al. 2004, 2006, 2010), and other works that cite his papers and mine, have played significant roles in the development of unsupervised pattern detection and machine learning technology as subsets of Artificial Intelligence research. Part 1 of the paper outlines how I produced the Alyawarra (Alyawara) kinship term applications dataset and introduces the structure and content of the dataset and supporting files. Part 2 briefly describes some simple ways to analyze the dataset either manually or with machine learning technology. Minimally these examples demonstrate some...

Genealogy of a Ghost Town: Kinship, Matrifocality and Adoption in Ayquina-Turi

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This paper is a first approach to the kinship and social organization of the Ayquina-Turi Atacama Indigenous Community (El Loa Province, Antofagasta II Region) from the perspective of a genealogical inquest made in situ and in the city of Calama. The discussion unfolds in four stages: first, an introduction to the setting where the ethnographic inquiry was conducted; second, the presentation of the problem which inspired the research; third, the exposition of the baseline information; and fourth, the analysis thereof. In contrast to the current situation in other peasant indigenous communities in the Central and Southern Andes, it is possible to identify a strong tendency towards the conformation of matrifocal family units related to a generalized practice of intrafamily adoption, which finds ethnographic echoes reverberating in other places of South America, namely British Guiana.

Genealogía de un pueblo fantasma: parentesco, matrifocalidad y adopción en Ayquina-Turi

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Este trabajo propone una primera aproximación al parentesco y la organización social de la Comunidad Indígena Atacameña de Ayquina-Turi (provincia del Loa, segunda región de Antofagasta) a partir de los resultados de una encuesta genealógica realizada in situ y en la ciudad de Calama. La discusión se desarrolla en cuatro pasos: primero, la introducción del escenario en el que se realizó la investigación etnográfica; segundo, la presentación del problema que inspiró su realización; tercero, la exposición de la información de base y cuarto, el análisis de la misma. A diferencia de lo que ocurre con otras comunidades campesino-indígenas de los Andes centrales y meridionales, se observa una sostenida tendencia hacia la conformación de unidades familiares matrifocales relacionadas con una práctica generalizada de adopción intrafamiliar que encuentra ecos etnográficos significativos en otros sitios de América del Sur, en particular la Guyana Británica.

CROW-OMAHA KINSHIP: REVITALIZING A PROBLEM OR GENERATING A SOLUTION?

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The article discusses the long-standing Crow-Omaha problem in kinship studies with a focus on the volume Crow-Omaha: New Light on a Classic Problem of Kinship Analysis (2012), edited by Thomas Trautmann and Peter Whiteley. While successful in restoring the importance of the Crow-Omaha problem to kinship studies and contributing to the revival of “traditional” kinship studies in anthropology, the book misses an opportunity to advance a solution to this problem. Drawing on a global database of kinship terminologies and the author’s own treatment of the Crow-Omaha problem in The Genius of Kinship: The Phenomenon of Human Kinship and the Global Diversity of Kinship Terminologies (2007), the article uses empirical material from multiple language families represented in the Trautmann & Whiteley volume to demonstrate the im-portance of alternate-generation equivalences, Bifurcate Collateral grouping and sibling termi-nologies in the evolution of “Crow-Omaha skewing.”...

General Introduction

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The journal, Kinship, is dedicated to the study of kinship in all of its facets, is international in scope and will publish original work in English, though publications in other languages, as is the case in this issue, will be considered on a case-by-case basis. In this issue of Kinship, there are two articles which reflect the nature of kinship research in both its more traditional format with focus on the social context of kinship relations and in a cross-disciplinary attempt to find a common ground between kinship as it is understood from a social and cultural perspective with kinship as it is understood from a biological perspective.

Human Kinship and the Reproduction of Sameness

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Nobody doubts that human kinship has something to do with biology and reproduction and, at the same time, biology and reproduction are clearly insufficient to explain it. The unexplained part of human kinship by the biology of human reproduction is what anthropologists call ‘social’ kinship. Whereas the biology of human kinship does not seem to differ in any significant way from that of any sexually reproducing species, it is unclear how that social kinship should be accounted for, specifically, how it should be related with its biological counterpart. The purpose of this text is to suggest a possible solution to this time-honored theoretical controversy in anthropology. My approach is based on Hamilton’s theory of inclusive fitness and its development and formalization by means of the Price equation. My proposal shall be that it is the concept of sameness that which makes both biological and social kinship amenable to the same type of analysis.

Research Activity Report: South America

Fri, 1 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This report focuses in particular on a specific project hosted by two distinguished academic centers in Brazil, namely University of São Paulo and the Federal University of Santa Catarina, to explore Amerindian kinship networks and ‘gift’ circulation, by a team of anthropologists and computer scientists from Brazil, Argentina and Peru.

Aboriginal Men Coming of Age in Central Australia

Tue, 7 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000
This is a quantitative analysis of the replication of Dreamtime traditions among the Alyawarra of Central Australia in 1971-72. A narrative summary presents observational data recorded during the enactment of a 108-hours long tone poem that embodied oral traditions, songs, dances and visual arts as aides-mémoire that facilitated the synthesis and persistence of a reliable society comprised of unreliable people. The tone poem, presented by 69 men and women, marked the beginning of one young man’s lifelong education in the all-encompassing Aboriginal Dreamtime. A tabular summary follows the narrative summary and describes demographic, genealogical, kinship and other quantified relations that were embedded in the narrative and that young men were required to learn before they could marry and sire children. The paper ends with a discussion of the two summaries that together shaped the education of young Aboriginal men. Instantaneous scan sampling and unsupervised pattern detection...

THE GENERATIVE LOGIC OF CROW-OMAHA TERMINOLOGIES: THE THONGA-RONGA KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY AS A CASE STUDY

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000
The goal of the paper is to show how the generative logic approach to kinship terminology structures sheds light on the basis for the skewing that characterizes the Crow-Omaha terminologies. The generative logic of the Omaha terminology of the Thonga-Ronga of southern Africa is examined in detail and the skewing in this terminology is found to occur as a consequence of having a set of male generating terms for the male kin terms, but only female self for the female kin terms. This contrasts sharply with the Omaha terminology of the Fox Indians for which the skewing is the result of a deleting the cross-cousin kin terms from an Iroquois terminology. The results obtained here underscore the need to consider the skewing associated with the Crow-Omaha terminologies from the perspective of the generative logic of kinship terminologies.

HAMBERGER’sCOMMENT ON D. READ “GENERATIVE CROW-OMAHA TERMINOLOGIES”

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000
This is the latest of a series of papers on the generative deep structures of kinship terminologies by Dwight Read, which considerably widens the spectrum of methods and concepts employed hitherto. I will therefore discuss it in the context of Read’s more general project to develop a theory and typology of kinship terminologies based on the process of their generation, by concentrating on three main arguments: (1) the newly introduced difference between symmetric and asymmetric deep structures; (2) the use of cross-sex kin terms as gender-switch operators; and (3) the interpretation of generational skewing as an effect of generative asymmetry.

COMMENT ON VAZ’ RELATIVES, MOLECULES AND PARTICLES

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000
COMMENT ON VAZ’ RELATIVES, MOLECULES AND PARTICLES

READ’S REPLY TO COMMENTS ONTHE GENERATIVE LOGIC OF CROW-OMAHA TERMINOLOGIES: THE THONGA-RONGA KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY AS A CASE STUDY

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The seven commentators, Thomas Trautmann, Peter Whiteley, Patrick McConvell, Patrick Heady, Franklin Tjon Sie Fat, Klaus Hamberger, and Mauro Barbosa de Almeida, have provided wide-ranging and important observations that go beyond the specifics of my text and bring to the discussion important issues that relate to our understanding of the Crow-Omaha terminologies. Their comments alone provide a major contribution to the discourse on the Crow-Omaha terminologies. Accordingly, my response to their comments focuses on ways that the structural analysis I presented of the Thongan kinship terminology relates to this broader discussion.
I have divided my reply into seven parts: (1) Relationship of Abstract Algebras to Kinship Terminologies, (2) Other Methodologies: Thick Description, Equivalence Rules, Description and Extension, (3) Ethnographic Issues Relating to The Algebraic Representation, (4) Comments by Patrick McConvell, Patrick Heady, and Franklin Tjon Sie Fat, (5) The...

PATRICK MCCONVELL’sCOMMENT ON D. READ “GENERATIVE CROW-OMAHA TERMINOLOGIES”

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This is a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate about Crow-Omaha and the overall approach to analysis of kinship systems.

That Omaha patterns can arise for different reasons in different societies is certainly a possibility, and it is good that Read presents here a comparison which claims to show that. I do agree with Read that a formal analysis is a necessary first step before continuing with an explanation of the causes of the specific form of kinship structure in a specific group. The key dichotomy proposed is that between Crow-Omaha as a direct consequence of an inherent generative logic and as resulting from a transformation of the terminology.The idea that there is a major difference between the causes of the two types is attractive but this conceptualisation of it is problematic. It implies that the Thonga-Ronga system is not due to a transformation, so perhaps has remained the same from a very ancient time. But no evidence bearing on this is offered,...

TJON SIE FAT’sCOMMENT ON D. READ “GENERATIVE CROW-OMAHA TERMINOLOGIES”

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000
It is always a pleasure to read any of the ongoing elaborations of Dwight Read’s framework for the formal analysis of kinship terminologies. This exploratory case study of the Thonga-Ronga terminological system raises a number of important issues concerning the specificities of skewing as well as the encompassing methodology of Read’s generative logic program for kinship analysis. I first comment on Read’s framework for the analysis of a kinship terminology’s generative logic. I then argue (as other respondents have) for embedding the analysis of Thonga-Ronga skewing within the context of a more locally constrained field of comparison. I conclude with specific suggestions for comparing kinship models and their underlying generative logics as variants and transitions situated within an abstract morphospace.

TRAUTMANN AND WHITELEY’sCOMMENT ON D. READ “GENERATIVE CROW-OMAHA TERMINOLOGIES”

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000
Read’s formal analysis of kinship terminologies is well known and widely respected, as is his leadership in promoting the formal analysis of kinship through the formation of panels and conferences, and his role in this journal. As in all his work the paper is strongly reasoned and draws upon a knowledge of the literature that is long and deep. All of these are reasons we welcome the piece before us. On the other hand, the spirit of this work is somewhat different from that of our book, engendering in us some reservations. Taking the strengths for granted, we will confine our comment to a couple of things in Read’s article with which we take issue.

ALMEIDA’sCOMMENT ON D. READ “GENERATIVE CROW-OMAHA TERMINOLOGIES”

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000
Read´s research program for describing the “generative logic” of distinct kinship terminologies in a homogeneous framework has proved its fruitfulness in different ethnographic domains, ranging from North American kinship to Dravidian terminologies, and more. Applied now to the so-called Omaha systems, the framework suggests a new taxonomy of kinship terminologies, in which Thonga kinship terminology – until now a type specimen for the Omaha terminology, based on Junod´s ethnography – is separated from Fox kinship terminology, another type specimen of the Omaha, as described by Dorsey, and Morgan before him. Read´s thesis, therefore, subverts Lounsbury´s subdivision of “Omaha” taxon in four varieties, among which “Type I” was instanced by the Fox terminology, while Type III had Thonga data as a standard representative. It is not my intention to refute Read´s representation of the logic underlying Thong kinship terminology, expressed in diagrammatic form, but, rather, to suggest...

HEADY’S COMMENT ON D. READ “GENERATIVE CROW-OMAHA TERMINOLOGIES”

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000
Read’s work on the generative logic of kinship terminologies constitutes one of the most distinctive and stimulating series of publications in the contemporary anthropology of kinship. His intention to produce a universally valid explanatory (i.e. causal) theory of kinship terminology is highly ambitious – but also appropriate and intellectually refreshing. An important feature of his theoretical framework is that it allows for an interaction between universal cognitive processes and local cultural ideas. Another distinctive feature is that Read usually models whole terminologies – and specific features, such as crossness and generational skewing, are understood in the light of the terminological system as a whole. Read has been continually testing and refining his conceptual apparatus, and in this paper he brings it to bear for the first time on Crow-Omaha systems – offering us an exploratory case study that is intended both to show the insight that the generative logic approach...

The Chinese Room’s Secret

Sun, 11 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000
Starting from a reflection by Jean Pouillon, it is shown - both deductively and on the basis of experimental data - that consciousness is deprived of any decisional power. Consciousness' role is reduced to transmitting to the body instructions based on the emotional response to percepts. Language allows human beings to generate a self-justifying narrative of their deeds. Such an account does not reflect, however, the actual psychological mechanism at work. Consciousness' actual effectiveness resides in influencing on the one hand the affect of the speaker (as speech or as “inner speech”), and on the other hand the affect of any listener. The pair “body” and “soul” gets thus validated, but their traditionally assigned responsibilities need reassigning between one body that decides and acts and one soul whose feedback operates at the affective level only.

Reflections on the Algebraic Representation of Kinship Structure

Sat, 30 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000
The reflections here are on work done in 1976 and abandoned in 1980. Nonetheless, after forty years the author may have forgotten the ethnography, but he could not help but reflect on the algebraic aspects, despite himself.

Quantitative Differences Between the Working Memory of Chimpanzees and Humans Give Rise to Qualitative Differences: Subitizing and Cranial Development

Mon, 12 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A recent article argues that pure working memory in humans and chimpanzees have the same size. However, the data offered to support this claim show the opposite, namely that the size of pure working memory in chimpanzees is smaller than that of humans. In addition, extensive data show that the effective size of working memory in chimpanzees is much smaller than in humans. Altogether, there are quantitative differences in the size of working memory (pure or effective) between chimpanzees and humans leading to significant qualitative differences between them.

Residential Group Composition Among the Alyawarra

Sat, 19 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is the third of three papers I have written recently that challenge and seek to supplant the presumption of closure, rigidity and simplicity in anthropological analyses of Australian Aboriginal social organization. The first dealt with generational closure in canonical Kariera and Aranda kinship models; the second dealt with societal closure, endogamy and the small-world problem; this one examines closure, rigidity and simplicity in residential group compositions. I argue that these three problematic applications of the concept of closure converted European folk beliefs into a scientific theory based more on assumptions and conjectures than on observations of Aboriginal behavior. This paper and the two that preceded it constitute a systematic argument that emphasizes the importance of openness, flexibility and complexity in analyzing Australian Aboriginal social organization.
The current paper is a commentary on theoretical issues associated with diversity in residential...

COMMENT ON: DENHAM, “ALYAWARRA KINSHIP, INFANT CARRYING, AND ALLOPARENTING”

Fri, 5 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000
Arising from an initial inquiry about the distribution of levels of inbreeding in Aboriginal Australian (Denham, 2012) societies and subsequent analysis of some small datasets with Dr Denham, I have come to read the paper “Alyawarra kinship, infant carrying, and alloparenting”. It contains interesting observations about patterns of interaction within- and between-social and kinship groups studied by Dr Denham, which have prompted for me some questions and speculations. I should stress that my perspective on the material covered in the paper is a combination of quantitative genetic analysis, coupled with a broader interest in evolutionary processes, in this case as they may have applied in both the genetic and social or cultural senses of evolution. I share these questions and speculations simply to extend the discussion which I am sure will be prompted by the paper. And I stress in advance my extremely limited knowledge of the fields of research covered by this journal.

ALYAWARRA KINSHIP, INFANT CARRYING, AND ALLOPARENTING

Fri, 5 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000
In recent decades, fieldwork with 20th century hunter-gatherers has led to a “paradigm shift” away from emphasis on child care by the mother alone, toward alloparental care in which parents and their children benefit from help provided by children’s older siblings, mother’s siblings, mother’s mother and more distantly related or unrelated others. This paper emphasizes the importance of alloparental care among the Alyawarra-speaking people of Central Australia in 1971-72. It reports on 1439 numerically coded behavioral observations of infant and child carrying, in combination with extensive kinship, genealogical, demographic and census data that reveal previously undetected patterns in child care, including the extreme rarity of carrying by parents (2.85% of carries by mothers, 0.28% by fathers). I suggest that Alyawarra infants and children were treated as part of the Commons, deeply analogous to all shared resources including kangaroos, waterholes and sacred sites. Everyone ultimately...

RESPONSE TO MACT COMMENTS ON DENHAM’S “ALYAWARRA KINSHIP, INFANT CARRYING, AND ALLOPARENTING”

Fri, 5 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000
I am delighted with the broad range of Comments submitted to MACT concerning my paper on kinship, infant carrying and alloparenting among the Alyawarra. I thank all of the authors for their contributions. Although some topics were addressed by only one author, several were addressed by most or all of them, so I have directed my responses to selected topics rather than to individual Comments. I have not attempted to respond to all of the issues addressed in the Comments, but have chosen a representative sample for special attention.

ALLOMATERNAL CARE AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NATURALISTIC OBSERVATIONS AMONG CONTEMPORARY FORAGERS: A COMMENTARY ON DENHAM’S “ALYAWARRA KINSHIP, INFANT CARRYING, AND ALLOPARENTING”

Fri, 5 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000
In this substantive work, Denham presents quantitative data on approximately 200 hours of observational research on infant and child carrying among the Alyawarra of Australia. His aim was to “demonstrate ways in which observational data collected with a hunter-gatherer society almost half a century ago can contribute to an understanding of our species”. He does just this. While his data, at first sight, may appear to be out of date (being collected from 1971-1972), that interpretation would be misguided. These are valuable and timely data, given the current climate of research on cooperative care matrices and their significance for understanding the evolution of human behavior and reproduction. Denham’s data represents thoughtful and detailed ethnographic and behavioral data collection.

COMMENTS on W. Denham’s “Alyawarra kinship, infant carrying, and alloparenting” and the review of it by Herlosky et al., “Allomaternal care and the significance of naturalistic observations among contemporary foragers”

Fri, 5 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000
Regarding a possible theory about the distribution of alloparenting, which is what Denham’s ethnographic paper is at least implicitly dealing with and which is nicely addressed by the Herlosky et al review of Denham, especially the broad range of the relevant literature, something more needs to be addressed. Most of all Denham’s paper and the literature cited in the review seem concerned with what appears to be a sort of bio-evolutionary basis for alloparenting; a perspective that hardly considers the importance of larger scale socio-cultural factors at all directly, factors which do not lend themselves simply to bio-evolutionary analysis. What I want to do here is address the latter factors more directly without disputing the bio-evolutionary analysis.

COMMENT ON: DENHAM, “ALYAWARRA KINSHIP, INFANT CARRYING, AND ALLOPARENTING”

Fri, 5 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000
The thought-provoking review of Denham by Dr. Robert Banks points out some very important parts of cultural analysis, unfortunately seldom discussed. Some of the questions posed by Banks are in part answered by two citations in Denham’s original paper: those of Hirshleifer (1977) and Gammage (2011). While Denham discusses Gammage in a bit more depth (pages 82 and 83), he cites Hirshleifer for more narrow reasons. Hirshleifer, a micro-economist, was one of the original modern thinkers on how biological and cultural evolution can be treated as one subject. Had Hrdy not treated the subject, Denham could have proposed his study showing that Hirshleifer predicted much of what Denham found.

Les bases culturelles de la parenté : un changement de paradigme (translated by Corinne Hewlitt)

Sun, 7 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000
D’un point de vue conceptuel, les systèmes de parenté reposent sur des modes de représentation culturelle que nous appelons terminologies de parenté et à partir desquelles les limites, la forme et la structure des principes d’organisation sociale sont culturellement élaborés. Contrairement à ce que les anthropologues tiennent depuis longtemps pour acquis, une terminologie n’est pas forcément inhérente aux relations généalogiques, ces dernières découlant de la logique structurelle de la terminologie de parenté. La structure de la terminologie, représentée sous une forme algébrique, peut être produite à partir des principaux termes de parenté, suivant un principe supposé universel de structures terminologiques de la parenté. Les terminologies diffèrent, sur le plan culturel, selon les principales expressions et équations utilisées pour les élaborer. Cela implique un changement de paradigme qui nous ferait passer de la généalogie considérée comme fondement essentiel des relations...

Quantitative Differences Between the Working Memory of Chimpanzees and Humans Gives Rise to Qualitative Differences

Sat, 2 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In a recent article, it is argued that the pure working memory in humans and the chimpanzees are homologous with the same parameter values for the size of pure working memory. However, the data offered to support this claim show the opposite, namely that the pure working size of chimpanzees is smaller than that of humans. In addition, extensive data show that the effective size of working memory in the chimpanzees is much smaller than in humans. Altogether, there are qualitative differences between the chimpanzees and humans deriving from quantitative differences in the size of their working memory (pure or effective).

Quantitative Differences Between the Working Memory of Chimpanzees and Humans Gives Rise to Qualitative Differences

Sat, 26 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

In a recent article, it is argued that the pure working memory in humans and the chimpanzees are homologous with the same parameter values for the size of pure working memory. However, the data offered to support this claim show the opposite, namely that the pure working size of chimpanzees is smaller than that of humans. In addition, extensive data show that the effective size of working memory in the chimpanzees is much smaller than in humans. Altogether, there are qualitative differences between the chimpanzees and humans deriving from quantitative differences in the size of their working memory (pure or effective).

Intelligibility and Unintelligibility: Response to Professor Mithen’s Review of Human Thought and Social Organization: Anthropology on a New Plane by Murray Leaf and Dwight Read

Sun, 20 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000
Mithen describes our book, Human Thought and Social Organization, as unintelligible. Since a previous review by Bojka Milicic showed an excellent grasp of the full range of implications of the argument and another by Radu Umbres showed a good understanding of it, we are confident that Mithen's description is wrong as a matter of fact. In our reply we address what led him astray.

COMMENT ON VAZ’ RELATIVES, MOLECULES AND PARTICLES

Fri, 13 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000
COMMENT ON VAZ’ RELATIVES, MOLECULES AND PARTICLES

COMMENT ON VAZ’ RELATIVES, MOLECULES AND PARTICLES

Fri, 13 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000
COMMENT ON VAZ’ RELATIVES, MOLECULES AND PARTICLES

RELATIVES, MOLECULES AND PARTICLES

Fri, 13 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The logical nature of kinship terminologies has been argued for from the beginning of kinship studies, starting with Morgan, and more recently, analysts have begun to appreciate the “mathematical beauty” of kin terminological systems. Application of insights from fields such as archaeology, linguistics and molecular genetics is taking kinship studies to levels never before reached. This paper on the kinship system of a Dravidian tribe, the Hill Madia of central India, may be seen as following a similar approach, and the reason being the advantages it gives in understanding this central Dravidian kinship. Most of the ideas and concepts used in the analysis of the Madia data are standard and conventional in the study of human kinship systems, but a few such as complementation, unification and supersymmetry are taken from the natural sciences. Using these concepts as key analytical tools has proven helpful in describing some vital aspects of the Madia kinship.
We propose...

Kinship Terminologies, Hypothetical or Extant, Are Optimal Solutions

Wed, 21 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The claim that extant terminologies are optimal solutions in a space of all possible terminologies depends on invalidly assuming any partition of a set of genealogical relations is a possible kinship terminology. Instead, kinship terminologies have a particular type of logical/formal structure that is generative with categories providing for classification that is reciprocal. As a consequence, all terminologies, extant or hypothetical, are optimal solutions in the sense this term is used in the claim made about kinship terminologies.

Comment on Denham's 'Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship'

Sun, 9 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000
Comment on Denham's 'Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship'

Comment on Denham's 'Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship'

Sun, 9 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000
Comment on Denham's 'Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship'

Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship

Sun, 9 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000
Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship

Cross-Comment on Denham's 'Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship'

Sun, 9 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000
Cross-Comment on Denham's 'Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship'

Response to Comments on "Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship"

Sun, 9 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000
Response to Comments on "Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship"

Response to Read's Comment on "Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship"

Sun, 9 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000
Response to Read's Comment on "Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship"

Comment on Denham's 'Beyond Fictions of Closure of Australian Aboriginal Kinship'

Sun, 9 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000
Comment on Denham's 'Beyond Fictions of Closure of Australian Aboriginal Kinship'

Comment on Denham's 'Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Kinship'

Sun, 9 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000
Comment on Denham's 'Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Kinship'

Evidence for Systemic Outbreeding: A Rejoinder to Denham, 'Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship'

Sun, 9 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000
Evidence for Systemic Outbreeding: A Rejoinder to Denham, 'Beyond Fictions of Closure in Australian Aboriginal Kinship'

Band-Aids Versus Structural Corrections

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000
Alex Mesoudi observes that the “treadmill” model for relating average skill level achieved through imitation to demogaphic factors implies, incorrectly, that skill levels will increase without bound. Rather than correcting the structural problem with the model, he applies a “Band-Aid” in the form of an imitation cost to the model to force the average skill level to reach a plateau. The model, however, incorrectly assumes that the imitation bias remains constant with increasing average skill level and, when corrected, average skill level will reach a plateau even without the added cost factor.

Population Size and Technological Accumulation

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000
Comparing the effect of statistical distributions on the outcome of the “treadmill” model relating average skill level achieved through imitation to demogaphic factors is premature as the model incorporates an invalid assumption. The model incorrectly assumes that the imitation bias remains constant with increasing average skill level and is contradicted by data on hunter-gatherer and oceanic fishing groups showing that for these groups there is no relationship between the interacting population size and tool complexity.

A Book Review Made out of Whole Cloth

Sat, 8 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000
A good book review provides documentation for its evaluations, especially when they are either very positive or very negative. A good review is also faithful to what the author has written and bases criticisms or praise on accurate paraphrasing or quotes from the book. This review by Thompson fails on both accounts. Critical comments are not documented and the review is based on what Thompson imagines Read to have written, not what Read actually wrote.

KINSHIP, MARRIAGE AND AGE IN ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIA

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

McConnell (1930) first described and attempted to explain an “age spiral” in Australian Aboriginal systems of descent, marriage and kinship over eighty years ago. Since then, ethnographic and theoretical research concerning this matter has been sporadic and inconclusive, with societies that display this feature most often being treated as anomalous, transitional, hybrid or aberrant. Atkins (1981) attributed the failure to understand these societies to a lack of realism in the models; specifically to the widely accepted supposition that any ‘normal’ kinship system must entail an infinite or open series of successive genealogical generations each of which is both discrete and closed. Since that supposition can apply only to societies in which mean husband-wife age differences are zero or negligibly small, he suggested that the age spiral, reported in Australian Aboriginal societies where husband-wife age differences generally exceed 14 years, rests on a finite set of open generations...

Population Size Does Not Predict Artifact Complexity: Analysis of Data from Tasmania, Arctic Hunter-Gatherers, and Oceania Fishing Groups

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000
A mathematical model purporting to demonstrate that the interaction population size of a group of social learners is a primary determinant of the level of technological complexity achieved by the members of that group through imitation of the most skilled individual in the group has been proposed. Empirical validation of the model has been attempted with archaeological data from Tasmanian hunter-gatherers and ethnographic fishing data from Oceania, but these data do not support the model. Data from a wide variety of hunter-gatherer groups show, instead, that implement complexity varies with an interaction effect between risk and number of annual moves and not with the interaction population size. Data from the Polar (Inuit) Eskimo and the Angmaksalik Inuit on the east coast of Greenland show that complex implements were part of both group’s technological repertoire even though each had interaction population sizes limited to a few hundred individuals, in direct contradiction...

FAMILIAL GENERATIONS TUTORIAL

Sat, 8 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This tutorial explores the dimensions and contours of Australian Aboriginal generations focusing on the implications of asymmetrical generation intervals with regard to bilateral cross cousin marriage, circulating connubia, senior/junior marriage systems and generic age biased marriage systems. It is based on recent data showing that on average men in Australian Aboriginal societies are 14+ years older than their wives, much greater than the worldwide mean wife-husband age difference of 3 to 5 years. The resulting highly asymmetric generation intervals (maternal = 28 years, paternal = 42 years) have important biobehavioral implications for the structure of Australian Aboriginal societies. People who work well independently and have some background in kinship studies can use the tutorial alone, or instructors can use it as a multi-session segment of an upper-level kinship course.

THE MISUSE OF A MATHEMATICAL MODEL: THE TASMANIAN CASE (REPLY TO HENRICH’S RESPONSE)

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Good application of a mathematical model depends on conformity with empirical observations. Mathematical models based on Dual Inheritance Theory and purporting to demonstrate that population size is a primary determinant of the complexity of tool assemblages in hunter-gatherer societies have been proposed despite their obvious contradiction with data from hunter-gatherer groups. One such model has relied on archaeological data from Tasmania for its validation, but has been extensively critiqued. A response to that critique attempts to justify the application of the model to the Tasmania data but does not succeed in so doing and still fails to address the more fundamental problem of disconnect between model prediction and empirical observation. The problem does not lie in the mathematical formulation of the model but the use of an invalid assumption when the model is used to account for variation in the complexity of tool assemblages in hunter-gatherer societies.

The long-term Evolution of Social Organization

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This chapter outlines how the ‘innovation innovation’ transformed the world of our distant ancestors into that in which we live today. It focuses on the relationship between people and the material world, as it is the material world that has been most drastically, and measurably, transformed over the last several tens of thousands of years. In view of what we know about such distant periods, and in view of the space allot-ted to us here, it will not surprise the reader that we do so in the form of a narrative that is only partly underpinned by substantive data. We emphasize this because we do not want to hide from the reader the speculative nature of the story that follows. Yet we firmly believe that, in very general terms, this scenario is correct, and that further research will vindicate us.
We first give examples of the kinds of abstractions, and the hierarchy of conceptual dimensions necessary for prehistoric human beings and their ancestors, to conquer matter, i.e....

From Population to Organization Thinking

Thu, 9 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This chapter begins by reviewing the Darwinian account of biological innovation, which is based on what Ernst Mayr calls “population thinking” and posits two kinds of key mechanisms underlying the innovation process, variation and selection. The chapter then argues that the increasingly popular tendency to adapt this account to provide the foundations for a theory of human sociocultural innovation is ill-advised. Human sociocultural organizations are self-reflexive and self-modifying, through negotiation processes that can lead to transformations in organizational structure and functionality, including the essential activities of recruitment, differentiation and coordination. Innovation in these organizations is accomplished through processes of organizational transformation, and to understand how these work, “organization thinking” rather than “population thinking” is required. The fundamental questions that organization thinking addresses include the following: What is social...

LETTER CONCERNING “ON THE STRUCTURE OF DRAVIDIAN RELATIONSHIP SYSTEMS” BY MAURO WILLIAM BARBOSA DE ALMEIDA In MACT Volume 3 No. 1, August 2010

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000
LETTER CONCERNING “ON THE STRUCTURE OF DRAVIDIAN RELATIONSHIP SYSTEMS” BY MAURO WILLIAM BARBOSA DE ALMEIDA In MACT Volume 3 No. 1, August 2010

ON THE STRUCTURE OF DRAVIDIAN RELATIONSHIP SYSTEMS

Sat, 2 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

We propose a calculus for kinship and affinity relationships that generates the classification of Dravidian terminologies proposed by Dumont (1953 and 1958) in the form given to them by Trautmann (1981). This calculus operates on the language D* of words for kinship and affinity, endowed with rules that select amongst the words in D* a sub-set of words in canonical Dravidian form. We prove that these rules generate uniquely the Dravidian structure (as in Trautmann's model B), and we demonstrate that that Trautmann's model B is the correct version of his model A. We discuss the meaning of the anticommutative structure of D*, and finally point to a generalization of the proposed calculus allowing its rules to be seen in the more general Iroquois context.

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