Social Sciences

Abstract: The Neolithic Revolution, also called the Agricultural Revolution, marked the transition in human history from small nomadic bands of subsistence foragers to larger, more permanent, settlements of farmers. A satisfactory explanation for our ancestors’ decision to ‘settle down on the farm’ has eluded the academic community. One approach, informed by the Demographic Transition Model (DTM), proposes that the demographic signal of the Neolithic Demographic Transition (NDT), an increase in fertility, can be detected preceding the adoption of agriculture. Although promising, the exercise falls short of clearly articulating a mechanism that precipitated the pre-agricultural rise in fertility. I set out an alternative in which demographic pressure runs in the opposite direction. Specifically, noting that adult survivorship rose through the Paleolithic, and if hunting and gathering is density-dependent enough to hold the intrinsic rate of increase near zero, I argue that rising survivorship in the Upper Paleolithic must have been absorbed by falling fertility. The compensation need not stop at the replacement point. An overshoot drives r (the growth rate) below zero, and agriculture is then adopted as a rescue by populations that can recognize the need to adapt and that have dependable harvestable resources within reach. On this account, sedentism releases a fertility constraint that was already binding, which is why the NDT looks like a step change at the transition even though its cause precedes it.

Abstract: We re-examine Maynard Smith and Szathmáry’s thesis that ‘human societies and language’ represent a major transition in evolution based on changes in the storage, transmission, and translation of information. We argue that they understated the scope and significance of the transition associated with humans, the most consequential effects of which lie in the translation of large quantities of non-genetic information to structure in the form of artificial creatures (automata) that mimic living organisms. Humans evolved three specialized anatomical features related to the storage, transmission, and translation of non-genetic information (enlarged brain, vocal tract, and hands) that function in concert to compute the solutions to problems of adaptation through an evolutionary computational process with non-genetic information. We treat artifact production sequences dating to 3.3–0.025 million years ago as algorithms and apply algorithmic information theory to measure the amount of information translated to structure (‘program size’). We find that the transition linked to humans is an extended and nonlinear process that may be subdivided into phases based on trends in artifact production program size and algorithmic complexity. The transition will be complete when self-reproducing automata begin to evolve independently of the organisms that generated them.

Abstract: “Tertulias” (Spanish for “conversational gatherings”) was a study to test a novel peer support group intervention with the purpose of reducing depression and social isolation, and increasing empowerment and resilience, for participants who were women immigrants from Mexico. Tertulias integrated group shared reading (SR) and arts-based research (ABR) activities as novel components of the peer support model being tested. Tertulias was a large, randomized control trial involving 252 participants followed over 12 months, which fills a key gap in SR and ABR research. Results demonstrate that these two practices resulted in unique outcomes that would not have been obtained using traditional health promotion approaches and they revealed novel insights that would not have been able to be discerned using standard research techniques, including using standard community-engaged research techniques. Here, we describe SR and ABR in the outcomes of the study and what we learned about them as novel community practices. The experience of Tertulias with using and integrating SR and ABR demonstrates the valuable potential of these two approaches, used alone or together, for enhancing social connectedness among participants, deepening our understanding of the process and outcomes, and for strengthening community practice in the context of Community-Engaged Research.

Abstract: Bride price (caili) has become one of the most debated features of contemporary Chinese marriage. Rising payments, a surplus of unmarried men, and public controversy over the "commodification" of marriage have generated a large and multidisciplinary literature. This paper reviews 46 publications from 1990 to 2026 drawn from demography, economics, sociology, gender studies, law and media studies. The literature is organized into five themes: (1) demographic foundations of the marriage squeeze; (2) economic explanations and consequences of marriage payments; (3) gender, family and women's position; (4) historical and cultural transformation of marriage customs; and (5) rural governance, law and public discourse. The review shows that most explanations converge on a market logic in which sex-ratio imbalance and competition for brides raise payments, while newer work emphasizes women's agency, class and regional variation, and the moral politics of bride price. Gaps remain in causal identification, urban–rural and regional comparison, men's experiences, and evaluation of policy interventions. A research agenda is proposed.

Abstract: From the “global land grab” to ‘green grabbing” and the “global water grab”, dispossession has been increasingly recognized as a prominent feature of our times. Yet it has also long featured in colonialism and state-building. Its ubiquity is not confined to specific geographies. Understanding its contours can therefore benefit from both a diachronic and comparative perspective. This paper embarks on such an undertaking through a comparative analysis of dispossession across three continents, bringing Native American studies into dialogue with postcolonial/global South literatures and history with anthropology. We use this birds-eye view of the phenomenon to ask, “How similar and persistent are techniques of dispossession over distinctive geographies and temporalities?” While context and contingency always shape the contours of history, the paper finds the organizing logics and techniques of dispossession to have a remarkable degree of persistence and commonality over space and time. We conclude by drawing out these parallels and looking at the variable ways that human communities have framed and enacted relations to place as a way to de-naturalize constructs that have long masqueraded as solutions to this phenomenon.

Abstract: Recent attempts at petroglyph dating have focused on measuring the manganese accumulation in the rock varnish coating that develops in a motif groove after it was engraved, under the assumption that this amount is systematically related to age. These efforts reflect the basic need for chronological control for both heritage management and research purposes. Despite the wide availability of portable X-ray florescence devices and their ability to take non-destructive field measurements of manganese, these applications have not examined the nature or location of the manganese being analyzed. Significant amounts of manganese associated with petroglyphs derive from sources other than the post-engraving rock varnish coating, including the weathering rinds underlying varnish, isolated patches of inherited varnish that were not completely removed during petroglyph engraving, and silica glazes. Significant amounts of manganese also may be removed by microcolonial fungi that, in our samples, dissolve between 22-60% of a rock varnish coating. Until the manganese accumulation petroglyph dating approach is able to distinguish manganese subtractions from acid-producing fungi and additions from non-varnish sources from varnish sources, it cannot provide accurate age estimates.

Abstract: This study examines social media communication in Kenya to assess how dryland pastoral concerns are represented in national climate policy dialogues. Approximately 80% of Kenya’s land area consists of drylands that support pastoral livelihoods, yet recurring droughts and increasingly variable rainfall threaten these social‐ecological systems. Although Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action) emphasizes adaptation, progress is typically measured using national indicators that may overlook local priorities. We analyzed digital communications from pastoral nongovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, newspapers, and government agencies using an adaptation pathways framework to examine links among climate risks, governance, and decision‐making. Five themes emerged: water security, rangeland degradation and mobility, climate communication, gender and social inclusion, and climate finance. Kenya has developed relatively strong national climate policies, but social media reveals a persistent implementation gap between national policy and local pastoral priorities. Pastoral communities consistently emphasize Indigenous and local knowledge, women’s leadership, community participation, and locally appropriate adaptation strategies. Social media provides a novel source of evidence for identifying these local priorities and informing more participatory, place‐based climate adaptation.

Abstract: Haitian women did not wait for the advent of modern contraceptive methods to manage their fertility. They developed strategies of resistance in the face of multifaceted patriarchal surveillance and medical neocolonialism. This study explores the regenerative and restorative practices underlying both the exclusive use of and the return to natural contraception. Methods: As part of a survey on fertility management in Haiti, I conducted remote interviews with six women and one man (the husband of one of the women surveyed) living in rural areas. Lasting between 60 and 90 minutes, the interviews were conducted in Haitian Creole using a semi-structured approach from June 18 to July 1, 2024. The responses to the various questions were recorded on the participants’ phones, with the exception of two interviews, which were recorded on my laptop (Windows Voice Recorder). Results: The study highlights that the exclusive use of and return to herbal contraceptives are primarily due to the negative effects of chemical contraceptive methods on marital relationships and the sexual and physical health of rural women. Conclusions: This study has the merit of showing that traditional healers and their clients do not confine themselves to a passive role in the face of patriarchal, marital, and religious scrutiny, among other forms of oversight. Contrary to biomedical and colonial prejudices, many of them are well informed about the existence of certain modern contraceptive methods and the negative consequences of these methods on their physical, psychological, and sexual health.

Abstract: The digitalisation of Indigenous medicinal knowledge constitutes a qualitatively new form of bioprospecting — one that operates through artificial intelligence, open-access repositories, genomic databases, and state-led data infrastructure rather than field collection alone. This article examines this transformation through the Rakhain community of Bangladesh, whose plant-based and non-plant healing heritage occupies a structurally vulnerable position at the intersection of biodiversity law, data governance, and digital capitalism. Drawing on long-term ethnographic engagement with the Rakhain community (2004–2024), Indigenous Gnoseology (Chowdhury, 2026a), reciprocal methodology (Chowdhury, 2026b), and the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance (Carroll et al., 2020), the article argues that existing legal regimes are insufficient without community-centred digital sovereignty. A Rakhain Digital Healing Sovereignty Framework is proposed, grounded in collective consent, tiered knowledge classification, sacred secrecy, reciprocal benefit sharing, and post-research accountability.

Abstract: Agriculture and cultural heritage generate knowledge in similar ways as they are both rooted in land-based, intergenerational, and tacit forms of transmission. This is complicated when generative AI systems are used to replicate these forms of knowledge but often struggle to fully capture relational forms of knowing. As generative AI becomes increasingly more ubiquitous in society, it becomes more important to understand not only how this technology is being used within these respective fields of study but also how it represents these bodies of knowledge. To this effect, this paper uses a case study approach to examine how generative AI like ChatGPT responds to questions related to farming and cultural heritage. Utilizing Critical Discourse Analysis and autoethnography, we critically interrogate ChatGPT prompts that require an understanding of relational knowledge. We show the limitations of ChatGPT and the need to honour relational knowledge practices.

Abstract: Professional practice in clinical and educational contexts frequently operates under a “naive realist” assumption: that professionals and subjects inhabit an identical world, accessible through standardized metrics. This presumes that the professional’s sensory capture constitutes an objective baseline rather than a specific, stabilized interface. We argue that no practitioner—particularly in mental health or education—can legitimately assume that their perceptual field equates to ontological reality. This error drives a systematic structural failure we term epistemic appropriation: the professional’s fundamental inability to conceive that the Other inhabits a legitimately different perceptual reality. Drawing on the Trace & Trajectory Framework (TTF) and Interface Theory of Perception, we provide formal tools to map what critical literature terms “minoritization” and “epistemic injustice.” Epistemic appropriation operates through three complementary manifestations: flattening (the dominant agent’s geometric collapse of the Other’s autonomous identity space into a marginal subset of their own navigational terrain); internalization (the subalternized agent’s coerced construction of self-access routes through dominant-compatible positions); and trajectorial refraction (resistance operations that disrupt the appropriation cycle—counter-exonymy and autonymy exemplify this mechanism). We model this asymmetry endogenously through an Asymmetry Function (gasym) that specifies how differential stabilization dynamics produce navigational inequality: massive institutional recurrence generates configurations whose elevated maintenance costs are collectively distributed and rendered phenomenologically invisible through mimetic naturalization, thermodynamically overwriting fragile autonomous trajectories that bear their full maintenance burden without collective support. Critically, intersubjectivity occurs not through shared ontological space but via transductive coupling—systematic correspondence between distinct navigational interfaces, where asymmetry resides not in the coupling mechanism itself but in the differential Transductive Coupling Costs imposed by exchange protocols and historically saturated semiotic patterns. This formalization distinguishes epistemic appropriation from internalized oppression, provides operational indicators for detecting these dynamics in professional practice, and makes implicit ontological erasure analytically tractable.

Abstract: Humans tend to mark their presence and thus their lands by naming charismatic places such as mountains, canyons, rivers, and lakes. Toponyms is the term for marking places with names. In doing so, cultural groups claim the lands and the recognition of their presence through names in their language and behaviors reflecting their culture. When other cultures occupy these lands, they similarly mark them with their own place names, thus replacing earlier names and evidence of occupation. A conflict of toponyms occurs when one cultural group uses their power to maintain a superior attachment to the land. This chapter uses six toponym ethnographic studies to understand the origins of debates between Native American and settler colonial peoples in North American. Research findings from these studies define both the importance of toponyms to cultural groups and possible resolution of heritage conflicts. All studies have been reviewed and approved for public use for place interpretations, visitor education, and culturally appropriate man-agement by funding agencies and participating Native American tribes and pueblos.

Abstract: To further elucidate the relative weight of various factors in shaping women’s fertility in low birth-rate societies like China, the author proposes an evolutionary framework of planned reproductive behavior and a series of its propositions about the second-child intentions and behavior, the key to understanding low-fertility behavior. Such propositions receive substantial support from the dominance analysis of the longitudinal data from a sample of one-child mothers in China. All nuclear-family members were complete stakeholders of reproduction: The fertility attitude of the mother’s husband, i.e. husband-specific injunctive norms, made the largest contribution to fertility intention, followed by her own and firstborn’s attitudes. Among incomplete stakeholders, the injunctive norms from parents were more important than those from peer relatives and friends in predicting fertility intention, but the opposite held for descriptive norms, i.e. actual number of children. Regarding the actual fertility behavior followed over 2.5 years, fertility intention was the dominating predictor of it; fertility attitudes of all three nuclear-family members were equally important predictors; by contrast, the injunctive norms from all incomplete stakeholders were of no importance. Perceived challenge in investing in children was an important predictor of both fertility intentions and behavior, but other constraints only became important at the latter stage. The study articulates the theoretical underpinnings of the collective decision-making in family reproduction through a behavioral ecology lens, suggests cultural evolution of fertility by horizontal transmission of new pronatalist norms in current China, and has potential implications for population policies in low-fertility societies.

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This article examines the emergence of post-GDP civilizational indicators in Africa through the lens of informal economies, relational wellbeing, and pluriversal epistemologies. Conventional economic metrics erase the complexity and creativity of African livelihoods, particularly the informal, communal, and spiritual dimensions that sustain resilience across rural and urban lifeworlds. Drawing from anthropology of value (Graeber), wellbeing theory (Nussbaum, Sen), pluriversal philosophy (Santos, Escobar), and African relational ethics, the paper conceptualizes wellbeing as a multidimensional constellation encompassing ecological embeddedness, relational solidarity, capabilities, meaning-making, and community resilience. Informal economies—often dismissed as “unproductive”—are in fact crucial laboratories for post-GDP thinking. Empirical insights from Kinshasa, Lagos, Dakar, and Kigali show the emergence of hybrid value systems based on cooperation, digital micro-innovation, spiritual cohesion, gendered care networks, and ecological reciprocity. These dynamics provide fertile ground for a new generation of African indicators centered on regenerative value, relational flourishing, and community capabilities. The paper introduces the concept of Pluriversal Wellbeing Matrices (PWM)—a methodological and conceptual tool for capturing Africa’s post-GDP prosperity landscape, integrating ecological data, socio-cultural relations, informal economic creativity, and spiritual foundations of resilience.

Abstract: Domestication involves the close co-existence of two different organisms, with at least one subjected to artificial selection. Humans domesticated numerous plants and animals. It is said that domestication by humans is a gradual process, starting with managing some aspects of other organisms' existence and ending with control over their reproduction through selecting traits that meet human needs. This selection results in a “domestication syndrome” that produces altered behaviour, anatomy, and physiology in domesticates (e.g., tameness, smaller brains, longer lactation in animals, and differing size and properties of fruits in plants). Archaeologically documented human domesticates date back to the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene (around 12,000 years ago). However, signs of changes in human populations indicating different methods of exploiting environmental resources date back to the transition from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Upper Palaeolithic (about 50-40 thousand years ago). At this time, there is also a shift in human populations, indicating self-domestication (reduction in cranial capacity, gracilisation of the body, neotenisation). This paper discusses the possibility that human self-domestication was linked to the management of herds of large mammals during the Late Pleistocene being an initial step towards domestication. However, this idea lacks firm support based on the available archaeological evidence.

Abstract: This study reviews the ontological and worldview dimensions of the Williche indigenous people who inhabit the coasts of the Chiloé archipelago in southern Chile, whose effects are beneficial for coastal human, but also for non-human populations in the intertidal zone and on the beach. These dimensions act by mediating people's behaviour when implemented as a long-standing traditional custom in a practical way (e.g. gathering or fishing), mitigating the potential negative impacts on the environment. Although there exist regulations that protect these areas, their cultural heritage and ancestral techniques, they differ substantially from the actions and effects of other territorial actors aimed at the exploitation of nature. This research simultaneously employs a methodology based on classical ethnographic techniques and an autoethnography carried out by one of the authors of this article, who identifies herself as Wapiche, a Williche islander.

Abstract: Higher education inculcates in students an enduring curiosity about the world. Accomplishing this goal requires helping undergraduates recognize that learning is a social process occurring within multiple communities of practice. Each of these collectives provides different lenses through which aspects of reality are illuminated, none encompassing all there is to know about a subject. Students thus appreciate that learning is an open-ended processes driven by a curiosity that is never satisfied. Knowledge resulting from that process is forever being refined, a project to which undergraduates can contribute. Appreciating the many ways of knowing the world requires engaging meaningfully with these distinct communities. This is best done by participating directly in the work and lives of multiple such collectives. Field schools provide excellent opportunities in which students come to perceive, think about, and act in worlds constituted by the communy of archaeologists and that comprised of people hosting and participating in the investigations. We use our experiences directing an archaeological field school in northwest Honduras from 1983-2008 to illustrate how we used this learning environment to help undergraduates make original contributions to knowledge of the area’s past while rethinking who they are and what they are capable of achieving.

Abstract: The rapid advancement of biogerontology, particularly through interventions like senolytic therapies and stem cell rejuvenation, is transforming the prospect of radical life extension and even biological immortality from science fiction into a plausible future scenario. This impending paradigm shift necessitates a profound re-examination of existential psychology, which has traditionally posited awareness of mortality as the fundamental source of life's meaning, motivation, and authenticity. This article argues that the psychological phenomenon of death awareness would not simply vanish with the elimination of biological finitude. Instead, it would undergo a critical functional transformation. It proposes the concept of an "existential alarm clock," a reconstituted internal mechanism that shifts from serving as a chronological limit to acting as a qualitative regulator of existence. In a state of immortality, this alarm would awaken the individual from the unique perils of an endless lifespan: existential apathy, identity stagnation, and the "bad infinity" of undifferentiated time. The article analyzes the mechanisms of this alarm—triggering identity crises, combating profound boredom, and stimulating self-transcendence—and explores its vast social, cultural, and ethical implications. It concludes that, paradoxically, a continued dialogue with the concept of death remains a crucial condition for a meaningful and authentic life, even in the context of biological immortality.

Abstract: This contribution examines the anthropological concept of ambiguity through the foundational work of Arnold Van Gennep and Victor Turner on liminality, originally applied to traditional societies and ritual contexts. Liminality, derived from the Latin limes meaning threshold, refers to a state of being betwixt and between social roles, spaces, and times, characterized by ambiguity and transformation. Van Gennep’s tripartite model of rites of passage—separation, liminal phase, and incorporation—is illustrated with ethnographic examples, while Turner’s contributions highlight the dynamic and transformative nature of the liminal phase as a condition of social possibility and change. Extending beyond the ritual sphere, Mary Douglas successfully relocated the concept of liminality into the everyday life of Western societies. She linked ambiguity to notions of purity and pollution, emphasizing how phenomena that defy clear categorization—represented metaphorically by the viscous, neither liquid nor solid—challenge social order and create discomfort. This contribution thus situates liminality not only as a key concept for understanding social transitions in traditional rituals but also as a powerful analytical tool for exploring ambiguity and social boundaries in contemporary life.

Abstract: Braga was known as Bracara Augusta during the Roman period and artifacts recovered include ceramic building materials (CBM) with animal footprints. This study provides one of the largest samples of CBM with prints that has been analyzed. These marks offer a means to understand the environment of the tilery, the animals present, and the everyday life of those who worked and lived in the area. In this study, 152 tiles were examined with 420 prints of humans, dogs, cats, sheep, and goats. The only wild animals were represented by a few wild bird prints. The human prints included both bare foot and shoe prints. Dogs are the most common prints found and were from small and medium sized dogs. Only a few cat prints were present but help us to understand the spread of this domesticated animal. The presence of domesticated sheep and goats suggests small settlements and farms once existed near the tilery. The sheep and goats provided meat, milk, and wool for spinning and garments. The rain cycles and the presence of prints from young sheep and goats, suggest that production relating to forming and drying tiles started in the spring and ended in early fall.