TAKING SIDES: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Anthropology, Third Edition
PART 1. Biological Anthropology
New! ISSUE 1. Is Race a Useful Concept for Anthropologists?
New! YES: George W. Gill, from “The Beauty of Race and Races,” Anthropology Newsletter (March 1998)
New! NO: Jonathan Marks, from “Black, White, Other,” Natural History (December 1994)
Biological and forensic anthropologist George W. Gill contends that the concept of race remains a useful one. For him, races are conceived as populations originating in particular regions. He contends that because races can be distinguished both by external and skeletal features, the concept is an especially useful tool for the forensic task of identifying human skeletons. Furthermore, the notion of race provides a vocabulary for discussing human biological variation and racism. Biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks argues that race is not a useful concept for anthropologists because there are no “natural” divisions of the human species. He concludes that the popular idea of races as discrete categories of people who are similar to each other and different from all members of other races is a cultural—not a biological—concept.
ISSUE 2. Are Humans Inherently Violent?
YES: Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson, from Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996)
NO: Robert W. Sussman, from “Exploring Our Basic Human Nature,” Anthro Notes (Fall 1997)
Biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham and science writer Dale Peterson maintain that sexual selection, a type of natural selection, has fostered an instinct for male aggression because males who are good fighters mate more frequently and sire more offspring than weaker and less aggressive ones. Biological anthropologist Robert W. Sussman regards the notion that human males are inherently violent as a Western cultural tradition, not a scientifically demonstrated fact.
ISSUE 3. Did Neandertals Interbreed With Modern Humans?
YES: João Zilhão, from “Fate of the Neandertals,” Archaeology (July/August 2000)
NO: Jean-Jacques Hublin, from “Brothers or Cousins?” Archaeology (September/October 2000)
Archaeologist João Zilhão discusses the recently found remains of a young child who was buried in a rock shelter in Portugal about 25,000 years ago. He concludes that the Lagar Velho child was a hybrid with mixed Neandertal and early modern human ancestry. Biological anthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin maintains that the Lagar Velho child was merely one variant within the diverse early modern human population. He argues that there was some cultural influence from early modern humans to Neandertals but little or no interbreeding between them. PART 2. Archaeology
ISSUE 4. Did People First Arrive in the New World After the Last Ice Age?
YES: Stuart J. Fiedel, from Prehistory of the Americas, 2d ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1992)
NO: Thomas D. Dillehay, from “The Battle of Monte Verde,” The Sciences (January/February 1997)
Archaeologist Stuart J. Fiedel supports the traditional view that humans first reached the Americas from Siberia at the end of the last Ice Age. He argues that there are currently no convincing sites dated before that time and is skeptical of statements by other archaeologists who date human occupation of sites significantly earlier. Archaeologist Thomas D. Dillehay asserts that the site he has excavated at Monte Verde proves that humans reached the New World well before the end of the last Ice Age, possibly as early as 30,000 years ago.
ISSUE 5. Was There a Goddess Cult in Prehistoric Europe?
YES: Marija Gimbutas, from “Old Europe in the Fifth Millennium: The European Situation on the Arrival of Indo-Europeans,” in Edgar C. Polomé, ed., The Indo-Europeans in the Fourth and Third Millennia (Karoma Publishers, 1982)
NO: Lynn Meskell, from “Goddesses, Gimbutas, and ‘New Age’ Archaeology,” Antiquity (March 1995)
Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas argues that the civilization of pre–Bronze Age “Old Europe” was matriarchal—ruled by women—and that the religion centered on the worship of a single great Goddess. Archaeologist Lynn Meskell considers the belief in a supreme Goddess and a matriarchal society in prehistoric Europe to be an unwarranted projection of some women’s utopian longings onto the past.
New! ISSUE 6. Did Prehistoric Native Americans Practice Cannibalism in the American Southwest?
New! YES: Brian R. Billman, Patricia M. Lambert, and Banks L. Leonard, from “Cannibalism, Warfare, and Drought in the Mesa Verde Region During the Twelfth Century A.D.,” American Antiquity (January 2000)
New! NO: Kurt E. Dongoske, Debra L. Martin, and T.J. Ferguson, from “Critique of the Claim of Cannibalism at Cowboy Wash,” American Antiquity (January 2000)
Archaeologists Brian Billman and Banks L. Leonard and bioarchaeologist Patricia Lambert argue that there is evidence of prehistoric cannibalism in the Mesa Verde region of southwestern Colorado. They conclude that the bodies of seven individuals were processed in ways that suggest that they were eaten by other humans. Archaeologists Kurt E. Dongoske and T.J. Ferguson and bioarchaeologist Debra L. Martin object that the analytical framework Billman et al. use assumes that cannibalism took place and does not adequately consider alternative hypotheses. PART 3. Linguistic Anthropology
ISSUE 7. Can Apes Learn Language?
YES: E. S. Savage-Rumbaugh, from “Language Training of Apes,” in Steve Jones, Robert Martin, and David Pilbeam, eds., The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution (Cambridge University Press, 1999)
NO: Joel Wallman, from Aping Language (Cambridge University Press, 1992)
Psychologist and primate specialist E. S. Savage-Rumbaugh argues that, since the 1960s, attempts to teach chimpanzees and other apes symbol systems similar to human language have resulted in the demonstration of a genuine ability to create new symbolic patterns. Linguist Joel Wallman counters that attempts to teach chimps and other apes sign language or other symbolic systems have demonstrated that apes are very intelligent animals, but up to now these attempts have not shown that apes have any innate capacity for language.
ISSUE 8. Does Language Determine How We Think?
YES: John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson, from “Introduction: Linguistic Relativity Re-examined” and “Introduction to Part 1,” in John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson, eds., Rethinking Linguistic Relativity (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
NO: Steven Pinker, from The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (Perennial Classics, 2000)
Sociolinguists John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson contend that recent studies of language and culture suggest that language structures human thought in a variety of ways that most linguists and anthropologists had not believed possible. Cognitive neuropsychologist Steven Pinker draws on recent studies in cognitive science and neuropsychology to support the notion that previous studies have examined language but have said little, if anything, about thought. PART 4. Cultural Anthropology
ISSUE 9. Should Cultural Anthropology Model Itself on the Natural Sciences?
YES: Marvin Harris, from “Cultural Materialism Is Alive and Well and Won’t Go Away Until Something Better Comes Along,” in Robert Borofsky, ed., Assessing Cultural Anthropology (McGraw-Hill, 1994)
NO: Clifford Geertz, from The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays by Clifford Geertz (Basic Books, 1973)
Cultural anthropologist Marvin Harris argues that anthropology has always been a science and should continue to be scientific. He contends that the most scientific approach to culture is cultural materialism, which he has developed specifically to be a “science of culture.” He concludes anthropology’s goal should be to discover general, verifiable laws as in the other natural sciences. Cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz views anthropology as a science of interpretation, and as such he argues that anthropology should never model itself on the natural sciences. He believes that anthropology’s goal should be to generate deeper interpretations of diverse cultural phenomena, using what he calls “thick description,” rather than attempting to prove or disprove scientific laws.
New! ISSUE 10. Was Margaret Mead’s Fieldwork on Samoan Adolescents Fundamentally Flawed?
New! YES: Derek Freeman, from Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth (Harvard University Press, 1983)
New! NO: Lowell D. Holmes and Ellen Rhoads Holmes, from Samoan Village: Then and Now, 2d ed. (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1992)
Social anthropologist Derek Freeman contends that Margaret Mead went to Samoa determined to prove anthropologist Franz Boas’s cultural determinist agenda and states that Mead was so eager to believe in Samoan sexual freedom that she was consistently the victim of a hoax perpetrated by Samoan girls and young women who enjoyed tricking her. Cultural anthropologists Lowell D. Holmes and Ellen Rhoades Holmes contend that during a restudy of Mead’s research, they came to many of the same conclusions that Mead had reached about Samoan sexuality and adolescent experiences.
New! ISSUE 11. Do Native Peoples Today Invent Their Traditions?
New! YES: Roger M. Keesing, from “Creating the Past: Custom and Identity in the Contemporary Pacific,” The Contemporary Pacific (Spring/Fall 1989)
New! NO: Haunani-Kay Trask, from “Natives and Anthropologists: The Colonial Struggle,” The Contemporary Pacific (Spring 1991)
Cultural anthropologist Roger M. Keesing argues that what native peoples in the Pacific now accept as "traditional culture" is largely an invented and idealized vision of their past. He contends that such fictional images emerge because native peoples are largely unfamiliar with what life was really like in pre-Western times and because such imagery distinguishes native communities from dominant Western culture. Hawaiian activist and scholar Haunani-Kay Trask asserts that Keesing’s critique is fundamentally flawed because he only uses Western documents—and native peoples have oral traditions, genealogies, and other historical sources that are not reflected in Western historical documents. Antrhopologists like Keesing, she maintains, are trying to hold on to their privileged position as experts in the face of growing numbers of educated native scholars.
ISSUE 12. Is It Natural for Adopted Children to Want to Find Out About Their Birth Parents?
YES: Betty Jean Lifton, from Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness (Basic Books, 1994)
NO: John Terrell and Judith Modell, from “Anthropology and Adoption,” American Anthropologist (March 1994)
Adoptee and adoption rights advocate Betty Jean Lifton argues that there is a natural need for human beings to know where they came from. Adoption is not a natural human state, she asserts, and it is surrounded by a secrecy that leads to severe social and psychological consequences for adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents. Anthropologists John Terrell and Judith Modell, who are each the parent of an adopted child, contend that the “need” to know one’s birth parents is an American (or Western European) cultural construct. They conclude that in other parts of the world, where there is less emphasis placed on biology, adoptees have none of the problems said to be associated with being adopted in America.
ISSUE 13. Are San Hunter-Gatherers Basically Pastoralists Who Have Lost Their Herds?
YES: James R. Denbow and Edwin N. Wilmsen, from “Advent and Course of Pastoralism in the Kalahari,” Science (December 19, 1986)
NO: Richard B. Lee, from The Dobe Ju/’hoansi, 3rd ed. (Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 2003)
Archaeologists James R. Denbow and Edwin N. Wilmsen argue that the San of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa have been involved in pastoralism, agriculture, and regional trade networks since at least 800. They imply that the San, who were hunting and gathering in the twentieth century, were descendants of pastoralists who lost their herds due to subjugation by outsiders, drought, and livestock disease. Cultural anthropologist Richard B. Lee counters that evidence from oral history, archaeology, and ethnohistory shows that the Ju/’hoansi group of San living in the isolated Nyae Nyae-Dobe area of the Kalahari Desert were autonomous hunter-gatherers until the twentieth century. Although they carried on some trade with outsiders before then, it had minimal impact on their culture.
New! ISSUE 14. Do Some Illnesses Exist Only Among Members of a Particular Culture?
New! YES: Sangun Suwanlert, from “Phii Pob: Spirit Possession in Rural Thailand,” in William Lebra, ed., Culture-Bound Syndromes, Ethnopsychiatry, and Alternate Therapies, vol. 4 of Mental Health Research in Asia and the Pacific (The University Press of Hawaii, 1976)
New! NO: Robert A. Hahn, from Sickness and Healing: An Anthropological Perspective (Yale University Press, 1995)
Physician Sangun Suwanlert from Thailand asks whether or not one particular illness he observed in northern Thai villages, called phii pob, corresponds to Western diagnostic categories or is restricted to Thailand. He concludes that phii pob is indeed a "culture-bound syndrome" that can only occur among people who share rural Thai cultural values and beliefs. Medical anthropologist Robert A. Hahn counters that the very idea of the so-called culture-bound syndrome is flawed. He contends that culture-bound syndromes are reductionist explanations for certain complex illness conditions—that is, explanations that reduce complex phenomena to a single variable.
ISSUE 15. Is Ethnic Conflict Inevitable?
YES: Sudhir Kakar, from “Some Unconscious Aspects of Ethnic Violence in India,” in Veena Das, ed., Mirrors of Violence: Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia (Oxford University Press, 1990)
NO: Anthony Oberschall, from “The Manipulation of Ethnicity: From Ethnic Cooperation to Violence and War in Yugoslavia,” Ethnic and Racial Studies (November 2000)
Indian social researcher Sudhir Kakar analyzes the origins of ethnic conflict from a psychological perspective to argue that ethnic differences are deeply held distinctions that from time to time will inevitably erupt as ethnic conflicts. He maintains that anxiety arises from preconscious fears about cultural differences. In his view, no amount of education or politically correct behavior will eradicate these fears and anxieties about people of differing ethnic backgrounds. American sociologist Anthony Oberschall considers the ethnic conflicts that have recently emerged in Bosnia and contends that primordial ethnic attachments are insufficient to explain the sudden emergence of violence among Bosnian ethnic groups. He adopts a complex explanation for this violence, identifying circumstances in which fears and anxieties were manipulated by politicians for self-serving ends. It was only in the context of these manipulations that ethnic violence could have erupted, concludes Oberschall. PART 5. Ethics in Anthropology
ISSUE 16. Should the Remains of Prehistoric Native Americans Be Reburied Rather Than Studied?
YES: James Riding In, from “Repatriation: A Pawnee’s Perspective,” American Indian Quarterly (Spring 1996)
NO: Clement W. Meighan, from “Some Scholars’ Views on Reburial,” American Antiquity (October 1992)
Assistant professor of justice studies and member of the Pawnee tribe James Riding In argues that holding Native American skeletons in museums and other repositories represents a sacrilege against Native American dead and, thus, all Indian remains should be reburied. Professor of anthropology and archaeologist Clement W. Meighan believes that archaeologists have a moral and professional obligation to the archaeological data with which they work. Such data are held in the public good and must be protected from destruction.
New! ISSUE 17. Did Napolean Chagnon’s Research Methods and Publications Harm the Yanomami Indians?
New! YES: Terence Turner, from The Yanomami and the Ethics of Anthropological Practice (Cornell University Latin American Studies Program, 2001)
New! NO: Edward H. Hagen, Michael E. Price, and John Tooby, from Preliminary Report (Department of Anthropology, University of California Santa Barbara, 2001)
Anthropologist Terence Turner contends that journalist Patrick Tierney’s book Darkness in El Dorado accurately depicts how anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon’s research among the Yanomami Indians caused conflict between groups and how Chagnon’s portrayal of the Yanomami as extremely violent aided gold miners trying to take over Yanomami land. Anthropologists Edward Hagen, Michael Price, and John Tooby counter that Tierney systematically distorts Chagnon’s views on Yanomami violence and exaggerates the amount of disruption caused by Chagnon’s activities compared to those of others such as missionaries and gold miners.
ISSUE 18. Do Museums Misrepresent Ethnic Communities Around the World?
YES: James Clifford, from The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Harvard University Press, 1988)
NO: Denis Dutton, from “Mythologies of Tribal Art,” African Arts (Summer 1995)
Postmodernist anthropologist James Clifford argues that the very act of removing objects from their ethnographic contexts distorts the meaning of objects held in museums. Exhibitions misrepresent ethnic communities by omitting important aspects of contemporary life, especially involvement with the colonial or Western world. Anthropologist Denis Dutton asserts that no exhibition can provide a complete context for ethnographic objects, but that does not mean that museum exhibitions are fundamentally flawed.
