Book Review of, The Evolution of Human Cooperation: Ritual and Social Complexity in Stateless Societies

Reviewed: The Evolution of Human Cooperation: Ritual and Social Complexity in Stateless Societies . CHARLES STANISH , 2017. Cambridge University Press , Cambridge . xiii + 336 pp. $110.00 (hardcover), ISBN 978-1-107-18055-0. In this significant book, Stanish builds a model of how complex stateless societies solve collective action problems to benefit their members in the absence of coercive leadership--not in the absence of leadership but in the absence of coercive leadership. The model is framed by game theory, which is recast as anthropological game theory, and collective action theory, making the claim that humans are conditional cooperators. Crucial to successful and sustainable cooperation is a ritualized economy : an economy with rules of co-operative economic behavior

Comments on the Emergence and Persistence of Inequality in Premodern Societies

The author discusses the development and persistence of permanent inequality in human societies. He comments on an article which undertakes inequality in premodern societies and proposed that intergenerational wealth transmission is the reason for the evolution and persistence of inequality, mentioning the three categories of wealth including material, relational, and embodied

Alien Registration- Ames, Kenneth L. (Lagrange, Penobscot County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/7742/thumbnail.jp

A marine reservoir effect ΔR value for Kitandach, in Prince Rupert Harbour, British Columbia, Canada

Prince Rupert Harbour (PRH), on the north Pacific Coast of British Columbia, contains at least 157 shell middens, of which 66 are known villages, in an area of approximately 180 km. These sites span the last 9500 yr and in some cases are immense, exceeding 20,000 m surface area and several meters in depth. Recent archaeological research in PRH has become increasingly reliant on radiocarbon dates from marine shell for developing chronologies. However, this is problematic as the local marine reservoir effect (MRE) remains poorly understood in the region. To account for the MRE and to better date the Harbour’s sites, we propose a ΔR of 273 ± 38 for the PRH area, based on our work at the site of Kitandach (GbTo-34), a massive shell midden-village centrally located within the Harbour. We followed the multiple paired sample approach for samples from speci fic contexts and ensured contemporaneity within the groups of marine and terrestrial materials by statistically assessing for outliers using the χ2 test. Taking together, the results for this and previous studies, it appears the MRE was fairly constant over the past 5000 yr

Finding and Dating Cathlapotle

The people of the Cathlapotle town played a significant role in the fur trade era history of the Lower Columbia River, including Lewis and Clark’s visit on March 29th, 1806. Archaeologists and others have sought the town’s location for years. Long-term research has established that archaeological site 45CL1 on the US Fish and Wildlife Refuge near Ridgefield, Washington is Cathlapotle. This determination is based on the close match between site details with various ethnohistoric accounts of Cathlapotle. The site was occupied by ca. AD 1450 and probably moved there from another nearby location. It was abandoned sometime in the 1830s or 1840s. This chronology is based on 54 radiocarbon dates, historic trade goods including glass beads and ceramics, and documentary accounts

Kennewick Man: Cultural Affiliation Report, Chapter 2: Review of the Archaeological Data

Portland State University Professor Kenneth M. Ames was one of 18 distinguished scholars chosen to investigate and report on the cultural affiliation of the Kennewick human remains. This report reviews the extant archaeological record for the Southern Columbia Plateau

Estimating marine reservoir effects in archaeological chronologies: Comparing ΔR calculations in Prince Rupert Harbour, British Columbia, Canada

The best method for quantifying the marine reservoir effect (MRE) using the global IntCal Marine13 calibration curve remains unresolved. Archaeologists frequently quantify uncertainty on MRE values as errors computed from single pairs of marineterrestrial radiocarbon ages, which we argue significantly overstates their accuracy and precision. Here, we review the assumptions, methods, and applications of estimating MRE via an estimate of the additional regional offset between the marine and terrestrial calibration curves (ΔR) for the Prince Rupert Harbour (PRH) region of British Columbia, Canada.We acknowledge the influence on ΔR of MRE variation as (1) a dynamic oceanographic process, (2) its variable expression in biochemical and geochemical pathways, and (3) compounding errors in sample selection, measurement, and calculation. We examine a large set of marine-terrestrial pairs (n = 63) from PRH to compare a common archaeological practice of estimating uncertainty from means that generate an uncertainty value of ±49 years with a revised, more appropriate estimate of error of ± 230 years. However, we argue that the use of multiple-pair samples estimates the PRH ΔR as 273 ± 38 years for the last 5,000 years. Calculations of error that do not consider these issues may generate more inaccurate age estimates with unjustifiable precision

Social Media #FTW!: The Influence of Social Media on American Politics

Social media has transformed politics in America. Its effect has impacted the way candidates campaign for the presidency, Members of Congress operate their offices, and advocacy organizations communicate with policymakers and supporters. Social media allows politicians and organizations a method to connect directly and without filters with people across the country, assemble a constituency, and solicit their support at a reduced cost and greater reach than traditional media. Social media is not simply the next in a line of communications technologies: it has changed everyday activities and connected people in a manner never before possible. The rise of smartphone technology has enabled this trend since people can access the Internet almost anywhere making a mobile device a potential organizing and fundraising tool. Social media has transformed politics in America because it creates an instantaneous multi-directional public dialogue that offers the ability to rapidly analyze the data and learn from the findings on an unprecedented scope

Holocene Settlement History of the Dundas Islands Archipelago, Northern British Columbia

As this article demonstrates, the Dundas Islands have been home to humans for at least eleven thousand years. This occupation was at times very extensive; this relatively small group of islands was likely home to a population of several thousand people by about two thousand years ago. While geographically on the “outer shores” of Northern Tsimshian traditional territory, these islands were in no way marginal as locations for settlement. We outline the settlement history of the archipelago by presenting the results of the Dundas Islands Archaeological Project, including the radiocarbon dating program results combined with data from three previous small-scale surveys (Archer 2000; Haggarty 1988; Inglis 1975). We discuss different types of habitation sites and chronological trends in their occupation to argue that the Dundas Islands have been near-continuously occupied for at least the entire Holocene and that this was central, not peripheral, to the broader history of human occupation in the region