An international team of researchers, including from the University of Washington, has completed a 3D virtual reconstruction of a Neandertal thorax a model that indicates an upright individual with greater lung capacity and a straighter spine than today’s modern human.
As the discipline of American Indian Studies approaches its 50th year at the University of Washington, a new research center is in the works: the Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies, which is supported by multiple colleges and schools.
On a small island in Indonesia, University of Washington researchers found evidence of nutmeg as residue on ceramic potsherds and is estimated to be 3,500 years old — about 2,000 years older than the previously known use of the spice.
Radhika Govindrajan’s book “Animal Intimacies” started attracting attention before it was even available to readers. A University of Washington assistant professor of anthropology since 2015, Govindrajan specializes in animal studies, and in the politics and culture of the Central Himalayas, where much of the research for this book was conducted. “Animal Intimacies,” published in May 2018 by University of Chicago Press, recounts the varying relationships people have with animals — as companions, as sources of food and as performers of…
On a two-year stint teaching English in Beijing, Sasha Welland got her first glimpse of contemporary Chinese art. Not the antiquities so common in Western museums of Asian art, or the scroll paintings or ceramics or Buddhist sculptures, explains Welland, an associate professor in the University of Washington departments of anthropology and gender, women and sexuality studies. Rather, the art of China that was well underway at that point in the early 1990s was of a distinctly provocative style, gaining…
The University of Washington’s new minor in Oceania and Pacific Islander Studies debuts spring quarter. The 25-credit, interdisciplinary program is the result of a longtime effort to elevate the history and culture of an underrepresented, and often misrepresented, community.
Archaeologists are a little like forensic investigators: They scour the remains of past societies, looking for clues in pottery, tools and bones about how people lived, and how they died. And just as detectives might re-create the scene of a crime, University of Washington archaeologists have re-created the weapons used by hunter-gatherers in the post-Ice Age Arctic some 14,000 years ago. Looking for clues as to how those early people advanced their own technology, researchers also considered what…
When and how the first humans made their way to Australia has been an evolving story. While it is accepted that humans appeared in Africa some 200,000 years ago, scientists in recent years have placed the approximate date of human settlement in Australia further and further back in time, as part of ongoing questions about the timing, the routes and the means of migration out of Africa. Now, a team of researchers, including a faculty member and seven students…
Dementia affects millions of people around the world; the World Health Organization estimates 9.9 million new cases each year, and the total number of people with dementia is expected to nearly triple by 2050. And for every person with dementia, there are family members and friends who also experience their loved one’s decline. University of Washington anthropology professor Janelle Taylor started researching dementia about 10 years ago, after her father died and she and her siblings had to step up…
For years, scientists have discussed whether and how to share data from painstaking research and costly experiments. Some are further along in their efforts toward “open science” than others: Fields such as astronomy and oceanography, for example, involve such expensive and large-scale equipment and logistical challenges to data collection that collaboration among institutions has become the norm. Meanwhile, a variety of academic journals, including several in the Nature Research family, are turning their attention to another aspect of the research…
An international team of scientists, including one from the University of Washington, has announced the discovery of additional remains of a new human species, Homo naledi, in a series of caves northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. The find includes the remains of two adults and a child in the Lesedi Chamber of the Rising Star Cave system, expanding the fossil record originally reported from a different chamber of the cave in 2015. Details of the latest discovery are published…
As the World Health Organization steps up its efforts to eradicate a once-rampant tropical disease, a University of Washington study suggests that monitoring, and potentially treating, the monkeys that co-exist with humans in affected parts of the world may be part of the global strategy. Yaws, an infectious disease that causes disfiguring skin lesions and bone destruction — stems from a bacterium, Treponema pallidum, that also has been found in certain primates in Africa and Asia. The disease, treatable…
Maritime communities take various forms around the planet and through the centuries. Margaret Willson, affiliate associate professor of anthropology and Canadian Studies Arctic Program at the University of Washington, is the author of “Seawomen of Iceland: Survival on the Edge,” published in 2016 by University of Washington Press. UW Today asked Willson a few questions about the book, in advance of her talk Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. at Seattle’s Center for Wooden Boats. How did you get interested in…
New research indicates that people who had more infections as babies harbor a key marker of cellular aging as young adults: the protective stretches of DNA which “cap” the ends of their chromosomes are shorter than in adults who were healthier as infants.
Finding a long-buried outhouse might not sound exciting to most people, but to Sara Gonzalez and her crew, it was a holy grail of sorts. An assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Washington, Gonzalez led an archaeological field school this summer on a tribal reservation in northwestern Oregon. Gonzalez and a team of students and students spent six weeks working at an abandoned encampment where tribal members once lived and a former schoolhouse property about two miles away….
Four University of Washington researchers are among 347 new fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for 2015.
In most cultures, a woman’s small feet are seen as a sign of youth and fertility, but that’s not true of all cultures, including the Karo Batak on the island of Sumatra.
A UW anthropology student investigated how remembrance photography helps grieving parents, and how the practice’s resurgence could signal a change in the way death and dying are dealt with in our society.