Good news, but still gotta do the work

It's been a wild ride this semester. In the last couple of weeks, I've been working on a research paper for Human Osteology Lab, and I finally finished it (the night before it was due, of course). You can read Bipedal Adaptations in the Hominid Pelvis here.

I'm studying for the final exam in the same course, but that hasn't stopped me from celebrating my good fortune: I won the Spring 2007 Undergraduate Research Assistantship Award from the School of Human Evolution and Social Change here at Arizona State University!

My research proposal was one of two chosen from a large field of entries, so I consider it a high honor. I'll be continuing to work with Dr. John F. Martin, investigating the connections between the sex ratio at birth and birth order in Africa. It's not a fortune, but the award will pretty much pay for my tuition and books this coming semester.

Hopis and Navajos Settle Land Dispute?

The front page of Friday's Arizona Republic proclaimed the great news: "Hopis, Navajos End 40-year Land Dispute." When I saw it, I couldn't wait to read it. I had written a paper on the subject as part of an Indians of the Southwest course, and was well aware that no resolution had been found after more than 100 years of territorial disputes between these two groups.

Unfortunately, the news isn't as good as I had hoped. It is true that the two tribes have signed an accord establishing land use guidelines for the disputed area, but legislation which implements the agreement is far from becoming law.

Here's a quick background (for a more detailed look, try this short paper on the topic, also available as a PDF):

The Hopi have lived in villages atop Mesas in northern Arizona for centuries. The Navajo arrived in the region much later, and their subsistence strategies (e.g., herding livestock) involved the use of much more land area than the Hopi. They were also more numerous, and spread quickly to occupy millions of acres of land by the late 1800s, fully encircling the Hopi.

The Hopi repeatedly complained to the U.S. government about Navajo encroachment on the lands they had used for centuries, and a number of acts, lawsuits, and court rulings attempted to resolve the conflict.

Even so, two areas of dispute remained: 1. The Hopi wanted access to sacred (non-residential) ceremonial sites spread across the western portion of the now-expanded Navajo reservation; and 2. A small group of Navajo families still resided within the boundaries of the Hopi reservation, and refused to leave.

In 1966, BIA Commissioner Robert Bennett declared a freeze on all development within the two disputed areas, even prohibiting maintenance of existing buildings or infrastructure. This is what the article refers to as the "Bennett Freeze." In spite of numerous attempts since then to resolve these issues, very little has changed, and the freeze is still in place.

Okay, back to today. Even though the two sides have signed an agreement to put and end to the dispute, there are still dissenters who may fight the outcome. Also, legislation is required to fund the $50 million escrow account and actually lift the freeze. As noted in the article, a bill introduced by Rick Renzi last summer would do all of this, but it has only been approved by subcommittee, and is a long way from becoming law. J.D. Hayworth fought for years to get a bill passed to lift the Bennett Freeze, all without success.

I'd like to point out an inaccuracy in the article (even the title): It is not a 40-year dispute. Yes, it has been 40 years since the Bennett Freeze was put in place, but the dispute began with Hopi petitions to the U.S. government in the early part of the 20th century, and they filed a lawsuit in 1934 against the Navajo Tribe to regain access to the ceremonial sites. So the dispute is at least 72 years old, and actually much older.

One more detail: The Bennett Freeze was lifted in 1992 when the court finally ruled on the 1934 lawsuit. The ruling was seen as a loss by the Hopi, since they did receive access to the land where their village of Moenkopi has existed for hundreds of years, but lost access to the ceremonial sites. The Hopi appealed, and in 1995 the U.S. 9th Circuit granted them access to the ceremonial sites and also reinstated the freeze (So the freeze was actually lifted for threee years, only being reinstated 11 years ago).

Not so fast there, pardner.

I met with my mentor the other day (all undergraduate anthropology majors at ASU have a randomly-assigned mentor) to discuss my future. As you might know from a previous post, I've been feeling a certain urgency to get moving toward grad school, so I thought I would float a few of my ideas with Dr. Schwartz.

He listened to my concerns and my ideas, and then said what he had already told me six months earlier: "You need to figure out what you want to do, and then go for it."

*sigh*

He's right, of course. I pointed out to him that even though I like the idea of doing something in Anthropology that can make a difference (e.g., Medical Anthropology), it still didn't excite me as much as reading about new discoveries such as the Olmec writing or the Dikika child.

So, even though I feel as though I must apply to graduate school Real Soon Now, perhaps I'm being a little hasty. I've decided to continue on at ASU for a while, taking interesting courses and hoping I get that one big inspiration. I have already pre-registered for next semester, signing up for two courses:

• ASM 246 Human Origins (taught by Donald Johanson!)
• ASB 362 The Neolithic Revolution and Its Consequences

My wife will shoot me if I don't drop one of them (she feels that a full-time job, three kids, one wife, and an ongoing research project with Dr. Martin means I can only handle one course at a time), so I better figure out which one has to go. If I win the Lotto between now and then however, I might actually add another course!

I can still change my mind, of course... applications are not due at NAU until February 15th.

Elephants join an exclusive club

I read with great interest this news item from Science Magazine's website: Jumbo Reflections.

It seems that researchers have run some experiments where they put a full-length mirror (which in this case is pretty darned big) in the elephant pen at the Bronx Zoo, and led three female Asian elephants up to it.

All of them seemed to recognize themselves, but one more than the other: After seeing her reflection, she reached the tip of her trunk up to her own face and touched a white mark the researchers had placed there... in a spot she could not have seen it otherwise. Until now, only humans, apes, and dolphins have demonstrated self-recognition.

The researchers propose that self-awareness is a necessary prerequisite for empathy and altruism, behaviors possibly seen in elephants.

The most startling idea in the new article for me was this:

If the findings can be replicated in other elephants, it would be a striking example of convergent evolution, Gallup¹ says. "In evolutionary terms, primates and elephants separated an awfully long time ago," he says, but social intelligence evolved in both lineages.

The complete report is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

See a movie of Happy looking at herself in the mirror (the camera is behind the mirror).

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1. Gordon Gallup, Jr. is an evolutionary psychologist at the SUNY Albany, and previously published a paper on self-recognition in Chimpanzees.

Medical Anthropology in the Spotlight

Medical Anthropology is a rapidly growing field, with more and more programs popping up at Universities around the country (Arizona State's SHESC has just proposed a new Ph.D. program in Social Science and Health). It is becoming clear that culture, health, and health care are highly interconnected in both developing and industrialized countries, and it is exciting to see it receiving attention outside of the field of Anthropology.

That's why I think the most recent issue of the journal PLoS Medicine is such a treat! The theme of this issue is "Social Medicine in the 21st Century," and it features research articles and essays which examine the importance of considering the cultural and social effects on health and health care.

The Research Articles are going to keep me busy for a long time. I'm particularly interested in one piece which examines the impact to Tuberculosis care in the aftermath of armed conflict , and I also can't wait to read the article which looks at the connections between health and socioeconomic status in India.

There is an incisive opinion essay by Arthur Kleinman and Peter Benson which emphasizes the need for medical providers to have "cultural competency." Here's the opening paragraph:

It is clear that culture does matter in the clinic. Cultural factors are crucial to diagnosis, treatment, and care. They shape health-related beliefs, behaviors, and values. But the large claims about the value of cultural competence for the art of professional care-giving around the world are simply not supported by robust evaluation research showing that systematic attention to culture really improves clinical services. This lack of evidence is a failure of outcome research to take culture seriously enough to routinely assess the cost-effectiveness of culturally informed therapeutic practices, not a lack of effort to introduce culturally informed strategies into clinical settings.

The authors go on to outline their recomendations for a systematic approach to including cultural knowledge and context into everyday medical practice.

Kepe in mind that you can read all of the articles in PLoS Medicine in their entirety, as it is an online, open-access journal. Check it out.

The Clock is Ticking...

It's the Fall semester of 2006, and I'll still have three Anthropology courses remaining after it's over (Linguistics, another Physical Anthro course, and an elective). At the rate I'm going, even taking Spanish in the summers, I'm on track to graduate with my B.A. in the Fall of 2008.

By that time, my older daughter will have finished half of her Sophmore year in college, and my youngest will be only six months away from college. I'll be 47. And a half.

Could it be that I need to accelerate things?

The truth is, I do not need to have a B.A. in Anthropology to begin a Masters. By December, I'll have 37 credit hours in Anthropology, and sufficient coursework in the various fields to satisfy the entrance requirements of pretty much any graduate program.

So how can I begin my graduate work earlier?

I have found three options, all of which would allow me to begin my graduate studies in the Fall of 2007 (one year from now, not two or three):

• Arizona State University - I know it's a long shot, but I'm no ordinary student. At least it's conveniently located! I'll need three letters of recommendation and excellent GRE scores.
  

• Northern Arizona University - It's a second-tier (mayber third?) program, only offering a Master of Arts. It would be one hell of a commute, but since they offer each of their grad courses as 3-hour sessions on a single day, it's do-able.

• University of North Texas - Now that's a tough commute! Just kidding... they have begun the nation's first Online Masters in Applied Anthropology. You visit campus for a couple of days at the beginning to meet the faculty and other students, and then again to defend your internship report. They claim it will be equivalent to their on-campus program.

All three options require me to do the following by the end of December:

1. Write a statement of purpose. Yikes! I don't know if I want to do Medical Anthropology, Archaeology, or something else entirely. How can I write one of these?
2. Get letters of recommendation. this could be tough, since not enough professors know me well enough... yet.
3. Take the GRE. It's offered in October, so I better take a sample test this weekend.
4. file all the appropriate applications with each institution's Graduate College, as well as with each Anthropology department.

There's more, of course, but these are the big items.

Even if I'm succcessful in getting my self accepted to at least one of these programs, it's still a long road. I can count on taking at least three years for the Masters, which means I would begin work on a Ph.D. at age 49... I better get started.

That was fast... the semester has already begun.

It was nice to have the summer off, but now it's back to the quest.

This semester, I'm taking Human Osteology from Dr. Gary Schwartz. We've already had three lectures and one lab, and I'm loving it. I simply had no idea what was going on inside of bones! These puppies are extremely complex, dynamic systems, and we tend to think of them as being so static.

I'll probably end the semester ready to change my area of emphasis within Anthro again... or maybe even decide to major in Biology, or go to Med School! It's all quite exciting.

Here's a quick osteo-factoid: You have a completely new skeleton every ten years.