Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Monday, November 2nd today students will learn about regional differences Bellringer How many biological categories of race are there? From Human Geography textbook What two languages are spoken in Brussels? (Page 172) Why did some northern Belgians oppose the Frenchification of Flanders? (Page 173) List five Romance languages (Page 174) What is federalization? (Page 175) In what country can you be charged a large fine for using English words? (Page 176) What three languages have more speakers than English does? (Page 177) What are Canada’s two official languages? (Page 178) What are the three non-English languages that are most commonly spoken in American homes? (Page 179) Why has mutual intelligibility been rejected as a core criterion of language? (Page 180) List the three states where soda is called pop and soda (Page 181) From Anthropologists Disagree About Race and Bones What dispute has occurred over the Kennewick man? How do social geographers define race? Why do some scientists reject the concept of race? From hot dog video How have hot dog restaurants helped maintain uniqueness of locations? How do hot dogs differ regionally? Closing Bellwork What change did President Obama announced towards Syria? What are drones? What role does the FAA want to play in drone ownership? Anthropologists Disagree About Race and Bones By HREF MAILTO, WILLOW.LAWSON, and WILLOW LAWSON When an ancient skeleton was unearthed in the Pacific Northwest four years ago, some anthropologists said the skull didn’t resemble modern American Indians, spurring speculation that Indians weren’t the only, or even the first, people to arrive in the Americas. Some said the bones looked Asian. Others said they were Caucasian, or even Neanderthal. But just how much can the framework of the body tell about the person who lived inside of it? That question now holds particular consequence after a lengthy custody battle between scientists and Indian tribes over the skeleton. The tribes, lead by the Umatilla, claimed the Kennewick Man as an ancestor. They recently won that battle in a ruling by the Department of the Interior under a federal law that gives Indian tribes the right to claim all pre-European human remains if they are able establish cultural affiliation. Bruce Babbit, the Secretary of the Interior, said two years of study by his department persuaded him that the bones should be returned to tribes, who have said they’ll rebury the bones. But a lawsuit filed by eight anthropologists for the right to study the remains is pending against the federal government. Scientists have studied the biological concept of race for centuries, most infamously to find differences of intelligence or character they thought corresponded with skin color. Although such theories have since been disproved and exposed past European scientists’ feelings of superiority, today’s anthropologists still closely analyze skeletons for the tiny differences — mainly in the skull and femur bones — to detect where a person’s ancestors came from. Forensic anthropologists, experts in skeletons that do work for law enforcement agencies, say they are extremely accurate at deciphering the signs that identify a dead person’s bones as African, Caucasian, Asian or American Indian. “We produce as much accuracy in race as we do with sex and age,” says George W. Gill, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Wyoming and one of the eight anthropologists who are suing the federal government in the Kennewick case. Gill is an expert in assessing race from skeletons. His methods for combining several skeletal traits to evaluate ancestry are widely used in the field of forensic anthropology. Using measuring tools called calipers — with adjustable pieces that slide or spread apart to measure length or thickness — forensic anthropologists take hundreds of measurements from a skeleton to assess race. Social geographers define race based upon bone structure as well as skin color. But some scientists say bone measurements can’t determine race because race, to begin with, isn’t real. Norman Sauer, a professor at Michigan State University and a colleague of Gill’s recognizes that different physical characteristics in humans corresponds to where they or their ancestors came from. But he doesn’t buy the concept of race, which he characterizes as a false method of categorizing humans. He says this is a difficult concept for people to grasp. “You might ask, if races don’t exist, than why are forensic anthropologists so good at identifying them?” says Sauer. That’s because, he says, humans have invented race and it has endured as a concept in society, but can not be defined biologically. Sauer believes traits that show how a person is related to a larger population group are not the same as race, which he says is a system of classification that has no sharp, defining lines. Instead, he says, human differences should be seen as a continuum with gradual change, rather than a few distinct groups. “If you were to walk from Europe to Africa, where do you put the line?” asks Sauer. “All of the change is gradual. The lines are historical and political. It’s in people’s minds.” Recent genetic evidence seems to bolster Sauer’s claim that race is all in the mind. Scientists involved in the sequencing of the human genome say they think their work will prove that race can’t be seen in our genes. “What we’ve shown is the concept of race has no scientific basis,” Craig Venter, the head of Celera Genomics, said in June. Celera announced the near completion of the sequencing of the human genome this summer, along with the publicly-funded Human Genome Project. Gill agrees that racial differences are fluid, but he says that doesn’t mean the differences don’t having meaning for scientists. Gill says the reason for the shift in thought about race is that anthropologists, especially cultural anthropologists are uncomfortable about acknowledging racial differences because it might be seen as implying a kind of hierarchy. “I wish we could move on beyond [terms like Caucasoid] and use new terminology that reflects the complexity of the field,” says Gill. He says it is the complexity of human variation and its geographical ties that make archaeological finds like the Kennewick Man important to study.