- •Questions and Answers about Anthropology
- •Q: When did people first settle in the Americas and where did they come from?
- •Q: Before a money system was developed, how was trade conducted between people and different nations?
- •Q: Has the field of anthropology changed in recent decades?
- •Q: How do archaeologists determine whether animals were wild or domesticated?
- •Q: Do archaeologists really have adventures like Indiana Jones’s?
- •Q: How do scientists determine weather conditions of the past?
- •Q: Why are archaeologists interested in simple things?
- •Q: When and where did civilization begin?
- •Q.We take for granted the use of heat and fire to destroy contaminants in our food. How did it come to pass that that early man decided to “cook” his food? What necessitated it?
- •I don’t think anything necessitated cooking food. I think it simply happened as a logical extension of the domestication of fire, which was vital both for protection and as a hunting weapon.
- •Q: Why were the Maya so interested in astronomy?
- •Q: When were the Dead Sea Scrolls written and why?
- •Q: When and why was Stonehenge constructed?
Questions and Answers about Anthropology
Noted anthropologist Brian Fagan of the University of California at Santa Barbara, one of the world’s leading authors on anthropology and archaeology, answers a wide range of questions about early humans. Fagan explores such issues as when did people first migrate to the Americas, did the Anasazi practice cannibalism, what archaeological sites in the United States are open to tourists, and how should students prepare for a career in archaeology. Fagan also discusses human evolution, the Maya, Easter Island, Neandertals, and the theft of antiquities. In addition, he considers how real-life archaeologists compare with Hollywood’s Indiana Jones.
Q: When did people first settle in the Americas and where did they come from?
A: The first human settlement of the Americas is a highly controversial subject, with little agreement among experts. Everyone agrees that the first Americans were fully modern humans and that they arrived in the Americas from northeast Asia. Many people believe they crossed from Siberia into Alaska across the Bering Land Bridge, a dry elevated region that joined Siberia and North America during the late Ice Age when sea levels were much lower than today. Other scientists argue that the first settlers coasted along the land bridge in canoes, then paddled southward into what is now the United States. A minority of scholars argue that the first Americans arrived a very long time ago, perhaps as early as 40,000 years ago. However, most experts believe that first settlement took place toward the end of the Ice Age, perhaps as early as 15,000 years ago. Within 3,000 to 4,000 years, small numbers of hunter-gatherers had settled throughout the Americas.
Q: Before a money system was developed, how was trade conducted between people and different nations?
A: From at least 30,000 years ago, perhaps earlier, different individuals and communities exchanged exotic raw material, such as tool-making stone, ornaments, such as seashells, and other prestigious objects. The trade was carried out as barter, the exchange of one item for another. Some of the exchange was conducted within a framework of ritual and formal relationships between individuals exchanging important objects. The volume of exchange picked up markedly after the beginnings of farming 12,000 years ago.
In time, standardized clay tokens were used to inventory the contents of baskets, as well as the contents of loads carried over long distances. These inventories developed into the first written script some time after 4000 bc. Formal writing was well established in Mesopotamia by 3100 bc, and in Egypt by about the same time.
Q: How can anthropologists engaged in fieldwork avoid influencing the people they seek to study?
A: The only way anthropologists can avoid influencing the people they study is to stay studiously neutral and objective, as an outsider looking in. This is incredibly difficult to achieve. Anthropologists must avoid any emotional involvement with their subjects, however slight. Otherwise, their objectivity is compromised.
Q: Why do archaeologists and geneticists sometimes reach different conclusions about human evolution?
A: Although they are both considered anthropologists, archaeologists and physical anthropologists specializing in genetics examine very different types of evidence to study human evolution. Archaeologists deal with fossil bones and artifacts, which are rare and are only found at a few locations. Sophisticated dating methods used by archaeologists help place surviving fossils and artifacts in a chronology that can inform conclusions about the course of human evolution.
Physical anthropologists who specialize in molecular genetics, in contrast, draw on enormous samples of genetic material in living human beings. They study mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), or mtDNA, a type of genetic material that mutates very quickly. By analyzing the mtDNA of two populations, geneticists can determine whether the populations are closely related. Based on an estimate of the rate of expected mutation in the mtDNA, they can calculate when the two populations shared a common ancestor, the so-called Mitochondrial Eve.
Despite some differences of opinion among scientists in both fields, there is broad consensus that modern humans evolved in Africa between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago.