Download An Introduction to Physical Anthropology -- notes (doc)

[Open Slide Show: Craic Talk]
Hello all. Thank you for inviting me to give a craic talk. For this talk I will take the opportunity
to tell you about what I do. More specifically why I got into it in the first place. Without further
ado let’s get into it.
I am an anthropologist.
[Slide: Four fields]
To start off I’m going to give you a broad definition of anthropology. There are two jokes you
need to know about anthropologists.
1) Anthropology is something people study when they want to study everything.
2) Anthropologists are so socially awkward they designed a field where they could make a
living at observing people, and never have to figure out how to interact with them.
I’m being unkind to my people, but those are our stereotypes.
The idea is to study humans and to identify as many factors (internal, external, tangible, and
intangible) that inform or influence our behavior. Anthropology does involve a lot of observation
in order to figure why humans behave certain ways (scientifically, emotionally, religiously,
spiritually, athletically, socially, politically, economically, violently, sexually and so on).
Anthropology is broken down into four fields:
Cultural: human organization (Why/how is someone from Tunisia different than someone from
Germany)
Linguistic: Which is about various forms of communication over time and space.
Archaeology: The goal of which is to reconstruct past social organization and behavior from
remnant cultures.
And
Biology/physical: human form evolutionarily (which is what I do).
Before I go further down the garden path I want to introduce you to a concept that is important to
anthropological study and a favorite concept of mine. Cultural relativism.
[Slide: Cultural Relativism]
Basically, there is no good nor bad in human actions, just different behaviors that serve a purpose
and may or may not have harmful consequences. The purpose behind adapting such an attitude is
to enable us to research and try to understand groups and cultures without imposing our values,
prejudices, or biases on them and thus avoid comparing them to ourselves. We don’t want to
fetishize difference or establish superiority.
This idea is easier to apply when tying to understand the social organization and history of say
Australian aborigines. It get’s much more difficult when you consider a group like the Nazis.
Cultural relitatism doesn't pardon or ignore the Nazi party's atrocities, but focuses on How they
executed those acts, and try to understand why. Coincidentally Dr. Mengele (the angel of death
of Auschwitz; Used children in concentration camps for various scientific tests among other
heinous things) had doctorates in medicine AND anthropology. This is part of my academic
legacy people.
[Slide: Physical anthropology]
Physical anthropology also known as biological anthropology
This study can cover all of human history (our ancestors appeared in the fossil record around 6-7
million years ago), or recent past (20th century), or present (forensic skeletal cases).
The biological aspect: is to study the morphological development and change and degradation.
The cultural aspect: is to understand the human body and how it has been used/abused
politically, religiously, culturally, racially, scientifically etc.
No we’re going to a darker place! Anthropology has a sorted morally questionable history, which
I hinted at with the Nazi trivia.
Before the 20th century much of anthropology was quite racist. Let’s climb along the darker
branches of my field’s family tree Shhhhhall we?
[Slide: Organization]
The great chain of being is a beautiful concept in some ways. All God’s creatures are connected
at some level. Religiously the order was defined by how close each creature was to God. It also
made hierarchy the guiding principle in scientific inquiry. Organization of beings came to be
based on superiority.
I use Arthur Lovejoy’s (1936) definition of the Great Chain of Being: Which involves three
components. Plentitude = Gods wisdom is diversity in species, Continuity = there are no gaps
between species, always a continuous progression. And Gradation = lowest beign to highest
being.
This superficial hierarchy has been used for ages:
Karl Linnaeus 1758 was the one that named humans homo sapiens. He also designated the
different human groups. For example:
Homo sapiens americanus. reddish, ambitious, and erect; hair
black, straight, thick; wide nostrils, scanty beard; obstinate, merry, free;
regulated by customs .
H.s. asiaticus. sallow, melancholic (black bile), stiff; hair black; dark eyes; severe,
haughty, avaricious; covered with loose garments; ruled by opinions.
H.s. africanus. black, phlegmatic (phlegm), relaxed; hair black, frizzled; skin silky; nose
flat; lips tumid; women without shame, they lactate profusely; crafty, indolent,
negligent; anoints himself with grease; governed by caprice.
H.s. europeaus. white, sanguine (blood), muscular; hair long, flowing; eyes blue;
gentle, acute, inventive; covers himself with close vestments; governed by laws.
Notice these human classifications were descriptions of behavior linked with appearance.
Anthropological science was motivated by trying to find a quantifiable/empirical means to
demonstrate the social worth of individuals. In other words, demonstrate that physical attributes
were indicative of behavior and intellectual capability and the capacity to be civilized.
Related to the Great Chain of Being came another concept: recapitulation theory. This was
proposed by Earnst Heckel, who stated that we pass through every evolutionary stage before we
reach our final, most evolved, form. In his own words, “The lower races… are psychologically
nearer to the mammals (apes or dogs) than to civilized Europeans; we must, therefore, assign a
totally different value to their lives” –Ernst Haeckel, 1905
These concepts explained that different populations were not equal and provided the framework
in which the earliest anthropological science was conducted.
From this foundation came my favorite fake science: Criminal anthropology.
[Slide: Criminal Anth]
Criminal anthropology derives its foundations from trying to classify human groups based on a
hierarchy with empirical data. It is the idea that you could measure human bodies to distinguish
criminals from normal people; the inferior from the superior.
Ceasar Lombroso was the father of criminal anthropology. He was Italian and conducted his
research during the 19th century. He was not a racist man per say. His motivation was that every
person who runs a foul with the law should be tried on a case-by-case basis. On their own merits
and that blanket sentences based on the crime itsself was not fair. Sounds great right?
His way of determining a person’s criminality was based on their physical and behavioral
attributes, which correlated to their propensity to commit a crime.
He “discovered” his understanding of differentiating criminals from society at large based on
cadaveric examination. His theory, which became popular, was that criminals were atavistic
beings (that is criminals were primitive or evolutionary throw backs). To Lombroso the existence
of criminality was explained anatomically the enormous jaws, high cheek-bones, prominent
brows, solitary lines in the palms, extreme size of the orbits; also insensibility to pain, extremely
acute sight, tattooing, excessive idleness, love of orgies. He even “discovered” the whore’s toe
(pay attention this will come up later!)
The anomalies exhibited by criminals often related to animals and were evident in the lesser
races: A criminal was indicated if they had a scanty beard with the general hairiness of the body,
prehensile foot, cheekpouches, flattened nose, elongaged skull similar to apes and Africans.
Another criminal type displayed excessive size of the orbits, which, combined with the hooked
nose, so often imparts to criminals the aspect of birds of prey or like certain Native Americans or
South-Eastern Europeans.
The major research Lombroso conducted to the measurement of many physical features of Italian
prisoners; both living prisoners and skeletal remains. He measured skulls, height, weight, muscle
attachments on various long bones. Depending on the crime an individual committed he would
relate the propensity to commit that crime to the physical features they had.
He conclusions, though, were shall we say questionable: For example: “The skulls of criminals
have no characteristic cephalic index (meaning there is no skull shape or size unique to
criminals), but tend to an exaggeration of the ethnical type prevalent in their native countries
(which is to say that someone that has an odd shaped head is criminal—talk about highly
subjective judgments being made)”
-- What got me into Phys anth and why it’s important/has lasting effects
[Slide Eugenics]
Criminal types, inferior types, anthropology provided the scientific process with which to
segregate and discriminate on a large scale that can’t be disputed easily because it is “objective
science”
Only it wasn’t objective science. Many of the “tests” Nazis used, such as a blood test to see how
Polish a person was, were not actually conducted. It was a superficial assessment or based on
documentation that Nazis usually singled out the Poles, Jew, Gypsies, Gays, and so on.
[Slide Interplay of science and culture]
You may be wondering at this point, how could this stuff happen?! It is evident that the science
was flawed. For instance, if you bother to correct for body size you will find males do not have
greater cranial capacity (a measure for intelligence) than females. Lombroso, while measuring
physical attributes of criminals did not measure non-criminals to compare to…
Yet this science became popular nonetheless because it had political or religious utility. It fit the
colonial agenda “We need to civilize the savages...they’re children and don’t know better… oh
and look at the land and resources these poor inferior people happen to be inhabiting…”.
Physical anthropology gave an indisputable objective basis from which to validate dominion.
This flawed science was debunked, in a large part to the backlash against the Nazis as it happens.
But prejudices and belief in fake science still persists today. “It’s in you blood…” “You were
born that way/it is in your DNA/You’re prone to violence/addiction” “Kenyan’s have extra
muscles in their legs therefore they can run fasters and always win the Olympics” “Black people
are better at basketball.” Colonialism is over. How is this fallacious stuff still around?
Culture! That’s how. Science, politics, and popular media worked in concert and made fake
science fact in the public realm.
[Slide: popular literature]
I’m just going to use examples from literature to show how criminal anthropology permeated
common knowledge. You could make the same arguments with art, theater, movies, TV, radio,
advertisements etc.
Zola’s The Beast in Man: He was an avid reader of Lombroso as it turns out. And used
Lombroso’s description of the born criminal to create his character Jacques Lantier. Basically
that he has lots of sex then murders his partners after the fact. Lombroso ended up criticizing
Zola because the criminal features of Zola’s characters were that of a murderer not a rapist,
which apparently were different. Jacque was brutish and big in build and therefore murderous,
had he been agile and devious in the face then he could have been a rapist type.
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment: Raskolnikov as the occasional criminal (he has a sense of guilt
after committing a murder). Raskolnikov tends to insanity in his egotism and jealousy. Had epileptic fits.
Big brutish man.
Tolstoy has examples of both the born criminal and the occasional criminal: The
Kreutzer-Sonata (1889) of the jealous, cruel, cold-blooded Posdnichev who kills his wife
because he feels that her adultery is a form of violation of his property right which has to be
redressed. Posdnichev's description of his deed makes him a specimen of the born criminal rather
than one who commits a crime of passion. The Power of Darkness (1888) must be praised, too,
for its portrayal of the insane alcoholic in the character of Nikita who feels such a strong remorse
that he cannot do otherwise than confess to the murder of his child.
Shakespeare’s MacBeth: Lady Macbeth explains her husband's behavior: " My lord is often thus,
and has been from his youth…the fit is momentary. MacBeth’s A neurosis resembling epilepsy
is proof of the moral insanity of the born criminal who is at once devious in his pretense at
honesty.
What these authors were writing about was important at the time. In different ways these stories
brought up the issue of victimization and circumstance. How responsible for a crime was a
person. If a person could feel guilt, then they were an occasional criminal and a victim of their
baser needs and would have to grapple with the physical impairments that predisposed them to
atavistic behavior. If they didn’t feel guilt there was no hope for them. At this stage, no one was
explicitly talking about the environment’s influence on criminal activity. Blame always came
back to the individual and whether they had the breeding to embrace the civilized parts.
And so permeated the public’s mind. And otherwise fallacious science has survived and
continued to reemerge.
Now let’s get to some even better stuff with Sherlock Holmes
[Slide: Sherlock Stories]
Twisted lip: a beggar with deformities.
Cardboard box: Holmes's eye identifies these ears by another absolute criterion: gender. The
difference between a man's ear and a woman's is perceived by Holmes as a professional
difference that apparently is based in anatomy, since Holmes notes that "the male ear" was of a
type "common among sailors" (195). ( Thomas 1994 672)
The Sign of Four may offer the most obvious case in point, as there Holmes identifies the
murderer as an aborigine from the Andaman Islands by examining the splay-toed footprint and
the clearly unEnglish thorn the suspect left at the scene of the crime ( Thomas 1994 670)
Yellow face:
Stories like these Like the flood of scientific writing on criminology that appeared in England
during the 1890s, these fictions of criminality link questions of personal identity and physiology
with questions of national identity and security in ways that redefine the relation of an
individual's body with the body politic. (Thomas 1994 655)
Holmes is referred to by Watson in the very first of The Adventures as "the most perfect
reasoning and observing machine that the world has ever seen"; and his methods are presented to
us as unassailable because they are machine-like in their scientific objectivity, uncontaminated
by the detective's emotional involvement or cultural bias. Thomas 1994 656)
[Slide: End]
You will find that the anthropologists you meet will often qualify what they say. Or bring up the
point that there are no simple explanations of behavior. This form of rhetoric and conversation
comes from having to correct the legacy of abuse and racism that was established by
anthropological research.