anthropologist

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Facing 9 Years in an Iranian Prison, He Made a Run for It

It was 'very cold, very long, very dark, and very scary,' says UK-Iranian academic Kameel Ahmady of escape

(Newser) - A British-Iranian anthropologist facing almost a decade in an Iranian prison after speaking out against female genital mutilation and child marriage has made a daring escape. Kameel Ahmady tells the BBC he fled across Iran's mountainous border on foot upon learning his fate was as good as sealed. Ahmady,...

Introducing the 'World's Dullest Culture'

The Baining of Papua New Guinea ban kids from playing

(Newser) - A Papua New Guinea group known to anthropologists as "the dullest people on Earth" do everything they can to discourage children from playing, writes Peter Gray at Psychology Today . The Baining—who have caused at least one frustrated anthropologist to give up studying them—are small-scale farmers almost entirely...

Flirting Tips From The Natural World

How animals get physical and emit good scents

(Newser) - Trying to attract a beautiful, hunky, or otherwise desirable biped? Zoologists and anthropologists at the Natural History Museum in London have a few tips drawn from the natural world, the Telegraph reports:
  • Make Men Work. Male bower birds build nests. Birds of paradise stage flamboyant courtship displays. So let men
...

Young Chimps Play With 'Dolls'
Young Chimps
Play With 'Dolls'
Dec 22, 2010 2:00 AM CST

Young Chimps Play With 'Dolls'

Girl chimps treat sticks like infants, boy treat them like weapons

(Newser) - If you have any juvenile chimps on your Christmas list, a new study has made your shopping a breeze. Researchers have observed wild chimps using sticks as toys, and boy and girl chimps treat the sticks very differently, CNN reports. Young female chimps appeared to treat the sticks like dolls,...

Anthropologist Levi-Strauss Dead at 100

French ethnologist introduced structuralist theory

(Newser) - Claude Levi-Strauss, widely considered the father of modern anthropology for work that included theories about commonalities between tribal and industrial societies, has died. He was 100. The French intellectual was regarded as having reshaped the field of anthropology, introducing structuralism—concepts about common patterns of behavior and thought, especially myths,...

Anthropologist: Modern Male Is 'Worst' Man Ever

We're not as robust, Aussie argues in new book

(Newser) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is such a girly man by Neanderthal standards that some caveman's wife could have kicked his ass in arm wrestling, an Australian anthropologist argues in his new book. In fact, Peter McAllister calls modern males the "worst" men in history, at least when it comes...

6 Stories