Founded in 1992, the Paleoanthropology Society states that their “central goal is to bring together physical anthropologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, geologists, and a range of other researchers whose work has the potential to shed light on hominid behavioral and biological evolution.” I thought this was interesting as it did not explicitly promote a pure paleoanthropology agenda upfront, but rather it noted the relationship between a lot of professionals towards one common goal of understanding humans and human variation across time.
Immediately it is evident that the broader themes of anthropology including studying that human variation would be incomplete without the addition of paleoanthropology. Paleoanthropology is concerned with the origins and development of early humans, or at least anatomically modern humans. Oftentimes, they assess old fossils, artifacts, and bones to create their theory of origin and add to the story of human evolution and life as we know it. The Paleoanthropology Society notes that it “recognizes that paleoanthropology is multidisciplinary in nature,” and the techniques these professionals use draw from fields like paleontology and cultural anthropology to develop their ideas, but the true skills of examining biological evidence comes from the anthropologist at heart. Things like dating methods and excavations are highly scientific, but not unusual for the average paleoanthropologist. Drawing from other sciences, paleoanthropology has many fields of interest and applicable knowledge to the greater field of anthropology. Understanding past humans can help us better understand ourselves. Additionally, being able to scientifically prove or disprove any differences in humans could settle a lot of emotional and political debate surrounding these ideas. Locating origins in humanity has a uniting factor.
The Paleoanthropology Society’s website was quite simple and because of that, a little frustrating to navigate as there was not a lot of information on it. It was clear it was geared towards those in the field, and not to educate those who had questions about it. Because of this, I thought I would take advantage of the information that was available on the organization’s website. This included their journal and dissertations. I followed the link to the organization’s current journal issue, which publicizes articles, book reviews, and abstracts from their meetings from professionals, faculty, and students of all levels. I thought it would be interesting for this blog post to look at one of these journal publications and provide a direct example of how this subfield contributes to the greater good and understanding of anthropology as a whole. One of the articles, “40,000 Years of Ochre Utilization in Timor-Leste: Powders, Prehensile Traces, and Body Painting” caught my eye due to my prior knowledge of ochre use and the application to understanding how humans paint our bodies nowadays. Authors Langley and O’Connor explain that the findings at this Island Southeast Asian site provided clues to the exact pigment our ancestors used to express themselves or their beliefs, as well as the tools they used to process that pigment, suggesting a certain level of intelligence. At 40,000 years ago, our hunter-gatherer relatives left clues these professionals found and understood as some of the earliest and most exact processing tools in this location. This goes to show how the study of past humans is important to our understanding of how we got to where we are now, as well as seeking out the similarities between what we used to think of as unintelligent cavemen and ourselves. For those who are interested, here is the link to the article (which is a pdf): http://www.paleoanthro.org/media/journal/content/PA20190082.pdf
I find it really fascinating that the Paleoanthropology Society is so collaborative in nature. It really does take a village of experts from all sorts of varying fields to discover new things about our evolutionary history as beings on this planet. From our reflections on these subfields, it is evident that anthropology is a field that is inherently diverse. To draw focus to the intriguing article you pointed out, this article is a perfect example of paleoanthropology. They examined remains of ancient peoples [the ochre pigment, the tools they used] to reconstruct past human cultural behaviors [ancient body painting] which further shed light on the evolution of the human form [the suggestion of intelligence]. Our ancestors definitely do deserve a lot more credit for their advancements than they have been given in the past. This is the purpose of the subfield of paleoanthropology.
Samantha,
I really resonate with that end point you made in your reply to my post where you stated that our ancestors deserve more credit than they may have been given. I do agree that we have gotten better with this notion of giving credit where it is due, and specifically for the advancements our ancestors did very well make, but I still think that the general public has myths or misconceptions about the lack of intelligence of our ancestors. I think that these subfields, like you say, work also to bust these myths and prove that life as we know it now with all our competencies, technologies, and other advancements did not occur overnight and started with the very people you and I are discussing now!
The information about the Paleoanthropology society is so insightful. I like how you described the work of a Paleoanthropologist and their relations to anthropology. Paleoanthropology is a combination of multidisciplinary. The Paleoanthropology society goal is to create a society that is safe, free of threats, harassment or assaults and one that is accommodative to all members regardless of their age, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities, religion or expression, marital status among other demographics. The society should not use these demographics to judge others. Finally, a community that is free of inequalities and where everybody is given equal opportunities to thrive.
There are limitations to the Paleoanthropology society website, as you mentioned. Regrettably, it does not contain a lot of information about anthropology. The content on the blog is also lacking in such information to do with archival contents on past humans and how they influenced the human behaviors and activities that are present in contemporary society.