Category Archives: Anthropology readings

“A sociometabolic reading of the Anthropocene: Modes of subsistence, population size and human impact on Earth”

Posted on by
CITATION:
Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Fridolin Krausmann and Irene Pallua. 2014.  The Anthropocene Review, vol. 1, no. 1: pp. 8-33.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
We search for a valid and quantifiable description of how and when humans acquired the ability to dominate major features of the Earth System. While common approaches seek to quantify Continue reading →

Early Cities and Other Urbanisms

Posted on by

Galata bridge in Istanbul, bridging east and west, old and new. By Moyan Brenn [CC BY 2.0)]

Urban landscapes provide useful spaces for thinking through the complexities of the Anthropocene. They are hybrid locations in which the social and ecological Continue reading →

“The Big Ratchet: How Humanity Thrives in the Face of Natural Crisis: A Biography of an Ingenious Species”

Posted on by
CITATION:
R. DeFries. 2014. New York: Basic Books.
BOOK WEBSITE:
ABSTRACT:

The human species has long lived on the edge of starvation. Now we produce enough food so that all 7 billion of us could eat nearly 3,000 calories every day. This is such an astonishing transformation as to Continue reading →

“From hominins to humans: how sapiens became behaviourally modern”

Posted on by
CITATION:
K. Sterelny. 2011. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, vol. 366, pp. 809–822.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
This paper contributes to a debate in the palaeoarchaeological community about the major time-lag between the origin of anatomically modern humans and the appearance of Continue reading →

“A Paleolithic Reciprocation Crisis: Symbols, Signals, and Norms”

Posted on by
CITATION:
K. Sterelny. 2014. Biological Theory, vol. 9, pp 65-77.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Within paleoanthropology, the origin of behavioral modernity is a famous problem. Very large-brained hominins have lived for around half a million years, yet social lives resembling those known from the ethnographic record appeared perhaps 100,000 years ago. Why did it take 400,000 years for humans to start acting like humans? Continue reading →

“Principles of Tsawalk: An Indigenous Approach to Global Crisis”

Posted on by
THIS POST IS PART OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE ANTHROPOCENE PROJECT—SEE THIS DESCRIPTION OF OUR SUBMISSION.
CITATION:
Umeek E. Richard Atleo. 2011. Principles of Tsawalk: An Indigenous Approach to Global Crisis. University of British Columbia Press.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
In Nuu-chah-nulth, the word tsawalk means “one.” It expresses the view that all living things — humans, plants, and animals — form part of an integrated whole brought into harmony through constant Continue reading →

“Diachronous beginnings of the Anthropocene: The lower bounding surface of anthropogenic deposits”

Posted on by

THIS POST IS PART OF THE SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE ANTHROPOCENE PROJECT—SEE THIS DESCRIPTION OF OUR SUBMISSION.

CITATION:

Edgeworth, M., deB Richter, D., Waters, C., Haff, P., Neal, C. & Price, S. J. 2015. The Anthropocene Review, pp. 1-26.

ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:

Across a large proportion of Earth’s ice-free land surfaces, a solid-phase stratigraphic boundary marks the division between humanly modified ground and natural geological deposits. At its clearest, the division takes the form of Continue reading →

“Futurologists Look Back”

Posted on by
CITATION:
Sassaman, Kenneth E. 2012. Archaeologies, 8, pp. 250-268.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
The gulf between indigenous and western experiences in the Americas may appear so vast as to obscure the relevance of knowledge about the ancient past to challenges of today. Yet, in imaging alternative futures, people of varied cultural dispositions find Continue reading →

“European Colonialism and the Anthropocene: A view from the Pacific Coast of North America”

Posted on by
CITATION:
Kent G. Lightfoot, Lee M. Panich, Tsim D. Schneider, and Sara L. Gonzalez. 2013. Anthropocene, Vol. 4, pp. 101-115.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
This paper argues that European colonialism from AD 1500 to the early 1800s marked a fundamental transformation in human–environment interactions across much of the world. The rapid founding of various colonial enterprises, particularly mission and managerial colonies, unleashed Continue reading →

“Fingerprint, bellwether, model event: Climate change as speculative anthropology”

Posted on by
CITATION:
Whitington, Jerome. 2013. Anthropological Theory, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 308-328.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:

The climate change fingerprint, bellwether and model event are three epistemic figures through which it may be possible to know the future through attention to specific material relations. They offer Continue reading →

“Forum: Archaeology of the Anthropocene”

Posted on by
CITATION:
Edgeworth, M., Benjamin, J., Clarke, B., Crossland, Z., Domanska, E., Gorman, A. C., Graves-Brown, P., Harris, E. C., Hudson, M. J., Kelley, J. M., Paz, V. J., Salerno, M. A., Witmore, C. & Zarankin, A. 2014. Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 1,1, pp. 73-132.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
What role will archaeology play in the Anthropocene – the proposed new geological epoch marked by human impact on Earth systems? That is the question discussed by thirteen archaeologists and other scholars from Continue reading →

“The onset of the Anthropocene”

Posted on by
CITATION:
Bruce D. Smith and Melinda A. Zeder. 2013. Anthropocene, Vol. 4, pp. 8-13.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
A number of different starting dates for the Anthropocene epoch have been proposed, reflecting different Continue reading →

“Shell middens and other anthropogenic soils as global stratigraphic signatures of the Anthropocene”

Posted on by
CITATION:
Jon M. Erlandson. 2013. Anthropocene, 4, pp. 24-32.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Evidence for aquatic foraging, fishing, and scavenging by hominins dates back at least two million years, but aquatic resource use intensified with Continue reading →

“Postcolonial Studies and the Challenge of Climate Change”

Posted on by
CITATION:
Dipesh Chakrabarty. 2012. New Literary History, Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 1-18.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
This article begins by describing how the figure of the human has been thought in anticolonial and postcolonial writing—as that of the Continue reading →

“Some Reflections on Heritage and Archaeology in the Anthropocene”

Posted on by
CITATION:
Solli, B., M. Burström, E. Domanska, M. Edgeworth, A. González-Ruibal, C. Holtorf, G. Lucas, T. Oestigaard, L. Smith and C. Witmore. 2011. Norwegian Archaeological Review. Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 40-88.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
ABSTRACT:
Are we now living in a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene? Geo-scientists discuss whether there is Continue reading →