Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations Copyright (c) 2013 Boise State University All rights reserved. http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs Recent documents in Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations en-us Fri, 24 May 2013 12:06:15 PDT 3600 Toward an Integrated Theory of Social Norms http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/98 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/98 Wed, 13 Feb 2013 12:41:49 PST The main question I am interested in exploring is how social norms are related to indigenous Siberians' narratives about the environment, their strong sense of fairness in distributing food, and other elements of their social life. During the research I conducted within the project Home, Hearth, and Household in the Circumpolar North, I saw a great deal of indigenous knowledge about proper behavior surrounded our three focal metaphors. I realized that there must be a way to conceptualize traditional knowledge (narratives) without objectifying it in a way that some physical scientists do when working on the topic of climate change in the Arctic. Traditional knowledge in this view is less a record of climate or a blueprint for sustainable harvesting of a species, than a way that people promote the social strategies that have been successful for their ancestors.

]]> John P. Ziker Resilience of Domestic Groups and Communities on the Lower Enisei River Throughout the Twentieth Century http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/97 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/97 Fri, 07 Dec 2012 14:54:54 PST This paper discusses flexibility in subsistence and exchange strategies and family and community structures in an indigenous community on the lower Enisei River in north-central Siberia. An analysis of available data on mobility, resource use, and social and economic exchanges contributes to understanding the factors that affect resilience of indigenous domestic groups and communities in the region. The historic flexibility of economic strategies and related social structure is described on the basis of data from the 1926/27 Polar Census. Data from the author's 1997 visit to the area (the Tukhard community) illustrates very similar strategies and variation in deployment of these strategies. New patterns of organization are discussed in relation to the issues of community resilience and indigenous rights.

]]> John P. Ziker Recent Discoveries of Pictographic Rock Art in the Rupununi Savannahs of Southern Guyana http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/96 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/96 Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:38:39 PST Mark G. Plew Archaeological Test Excavations at the North Fork Overhang (35-ML-1325), Owyhee River, Southeastern Oregon http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/95 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/95 Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:34:08 PST This paper reports on test excavations at the North Fork Rockshelter (35-ML-1325) located along the North Fork of the Owyhee River in southeastern Oregon (Figure 1). The site was recorded during a cultural resources inventory of the North Fork of the Owyhee River Canyon, its major tributary canyons, and portions of the canyon rim during 2004 (Plew, Jacobs and Willson 2005). Site 35-ML-1325 was the only rockshelter containing cultural deposits found in the canyon. Though some evidence of vandalism was noted, much of the site upon our initial visit appeared to be relatively intact. To assess the nature and extent of damage and the potential for more extensive mitigation, test excavations were conducted in July 2005 by Boise State University under a cost-share agreement with the Vale District Bureau of Land Management.

]]> Mark G. Plew et al. A Collection of Crescents from the Alvord Desert Area, Southeastern Oregon http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/94 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/94 Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:15:00 PST Mark G. Plew The Third Lake Cache, St. Louis County, Minnesota http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/93 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/93 Fri, 17 Aug 2012 13:44:25 PDT Susan C. Mulholland et al. Assigned Territories, Family/Clan/Communal Holdings, and Common-Pool Resources in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, Northern Russia http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/92 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/92 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:42:03 PST This paper describes an indigenous hunting/fishing/trapping economy in the Taimyr Autonomous Region, northern Russia, and traces the continuities and developments in property since the collapse of the Soviet command economy in 1991. Indigenous relations to hunting grounds and renewable resources are discussed with ethnographic case material from Dolgan and Nganasan communities. Land tenure is analyzed in terms of inclusive and exclusive property and informal and formal resource management. The asymmetric growth and distribution of common-pool territories and private holdings is a central issue. A number of factors when examined together appear to favor common property and traditional management including ancestral frames of morality and access, crosscutting kin relationships, principles of ownership and mutual aid, cooperative hunting, sharing of meat and fish, as well as migration patterns of prey species and relative increases in the cost of freight transport since 1991. In addition, private holdings often make commercial sales and generally have better access to urban centers, while they are more closely regulated through land, tax, and environment offices of local government.

]]> John P. Ziker Anthropology of Eurasia, Postsocialism and Beyond http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/91 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/91 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:39:14 PST The four books reviewed here represent a range of studies and approaches dealing mainly with identity in postsocialist Russia, a growing trend in the anthropological literature on the Former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.1 Within the current period of expansion, anthropologists specializing in this geographical area have been initiating research on topics relevant to a wider audience, moving slowly away from postsocialist change per se. To varying degrees, these four books digress from postsocialism and link up to mainstream topics. The books range in difficulty from ethnography suitable for undergraduate courses (Kerttula) to texts appropriate for the graduate level (Ssorin-Chaikov). Topically, the books cover the issues of economy (Kertulla and Humphrey), politics (Ssorin-Chaikov and Smith), and identity (Humphrey, Kerttula, Smith, and Ssorin-Chaikov). Geographically, the books deal with the Russian Far East (Kerttula), Central and Southern Siberia (Ssorin-Chaikov and Humphrey), and Central Russia (Smith and Humphrey).

]]> John P. Ziker Property, Hunting, and Food Sharing in the Taimyr Autonomous Region ( North-Central Siberia ) http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/90 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/90 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:34:22 PST John P. Ziker Food Sharing at Meals: Kinship, Reciprocity, and Clustering in the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug, Northern Russia http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/89 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/89 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:32:45 PST The presence of a kinship link between nuclear families is the strongest predictor of interhousehold sharing in an indigenous, predominantly Dolgan food-sharing network in northern Russia. Attributes such as the summed number of hunters in paired households also account for much of the variation in sharing between nuclear families. Differences in the number of hunters in partner households, as well as proximity and producer/consumer ratios of households, were investigated with regard to cost-benefit models. The subset of households involved in reciprocal meal sharing is 26 of 84 household host-guest pairs. The frequency of reciprocal meal sharing between families in this subset is positively correlated with average household relatedness. The evolution of cooperation through clustering may illuminate the relationship between kinship and reciprocity at this most intimate level of food sharing.

]]> John Ziker et al. Tsentral'naia Taimyrskaia Nizmennost' v 1926-27 gg.: Samosoznanie I Sezonnyi Tsikl Peredvizheniia Korennykh Narodov http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/88 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/88 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:26:13 PST John P. Ziker Costly Punishment Across Human Societies http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/87 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/87 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:24:14 PST

Recent behavioral experiments aimed at understanding the evolutionary foundations of human cooperation have suggested that a willingness to engage in costly punishment, even in one-shot situations, may be part of human psychology and a key element in understanding our sociality. However, because most experiments have been confined to students in industrialized societies, generalizations of these insights to the species have necessarily been tentative. Here, experimental results from 15 diverse populations show that (i) all populations demonstrate some willingness to administer costly punishment as unequal behavior increases, (ii) the magnitude of this punishment varies substantially across populations, and (iii) costly punishment positively covaries with altruistic behavior across populations. These findings are consistent with models of the gene-culture coevolution of human altruism and further sharpen what any theory of human cooperation needs to explain.

]]> John P. Ziker The Social Movement of Meat in Taimyr, Northern Russia http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/86 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/86 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:20:04 PST Continuities in social, economic, and religious organisation of the formerly nomadic Dolgan and Nganasan in northern Russia are described, along with the process by which key values and norms are perpetuated. Kinship, communal property concepts, and delayed reciprocity are integral to local resource allocation and resource management. Benefits of sales to outsiders are funnelled into local networks, a practice that should continue if traditional strategies are to thrive.

]]> John P. Ziker Subsistence and Food Sharing in Northern Siberia: Social and Nutritional Ecology of the Dolgan and the Nganasan http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/85 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/85 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:12:26 PST Traditional foraging activities and extensive food sharing are critical to the contemporary nutritional well-being of Dolgan and Nganasan people in the Taimyr Region, Russia. Despite recent economic transformations geared toward free-market capitalism in the post-socialist era, since 1991, a native communal resource-management regime has developed. This article outlines the social and nutritional significance of subsistence and food sharing within a remote indigenous community in Arctic Siberia. Empirical data on procurement processes and relationships, along with data on food distributions and rationales, are discussed. These data are relevant to questions about food sharing and its significance in hunting-and-gathering economies and the evolution of human sociality.

]]> John P. Ziker Stress, Alcohol, and Demographic Change in Northern Siberia http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/84 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/84 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:08:37 PST Ust-Avam is an indigenous community of about 700 individuals 300 km north of the Arctic Circle on the Taimyr Peninsula in Siberia (Russia). The community is located at the tundra-taiga transition in the Central Taimyr Lowlands. Ust-Avam is ethnically mixed with Dolgan, Nganasan, and a small minority of non-native newcomers. I have conducted ethnographic work there since 1992.

The Dolgan population includes Sakha, Evenk, and Russian "tundra peasant" ancestries. Dolgan families traditionally practiced reindeer pastoralism, in combination with game hunting, fishing, trapping, and mercantile trading. The Nganasan traditionlly hunted wild reindeer herds. They rejected Russian Orthodox missionaries, unlike the Dolgan. After 250 years as subjects of czarist Russian, the Dolgan and Nganasan were incorporated intot he planned economy under the Soviets beginning in the early 1930s. As permanent settlements were built most adults came to work at state-managed rural enterprises, schools, the post office, and village administration. As a result of development, by the 1970s residents of Ust-Avam had lost their domestic reindeer (and their ability to travel independent of technology and fuel supplies).

The collapse of the USSR in the 1991 significantly affected Taimyr economy. In Ust-Avam, most working-aged adults were laid off their jobs in 1993. From 1993 to 1997, I documented drastic decreases in fertility rates and increases in mortality due to alcohol (Ziker 2002). Native community members across Siberia blamed uncontrolled sales of alcohol and binge drinking for many of the deaths.

]]> John P. Ziker Пожар-Tent' Nenetses `на западной стороне реки Enisei: Экономия пропитания, образ жизни, и социальная организация http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/83 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/83 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:00:16 PST John P. Ziker et al. Subsistence and Residence in the Putoran Uplands and Taimyr Lowlands http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/82 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/82 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:10:10 PST John P. Ziker Epilogue: From Indigenous Demographics to an Indigenous Demography http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/81 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/81 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:08:19 PST There has always been a close association between enumeration, the classification of peoples and state power. Demographers working with indigenous populations find themselves at the intersection of these forces. Demographic arguments have often been marshalled when settler states have an interest in taxation, in 'protecting' rural minorities or enfranchising populations to vote in ethnically stratified parliaments. At the start of the twenty-first century there are now populations on all inhabited continents making claims to indigenous status, and with each of those claims some sociological and demographic representations of their entitlements in each place. The workshop and the dialogue which leads to this volume have aimed at the broader goal of sketching out what might be called an indigenous demography. Although the context of the indigenous situation in each place is important, the contributions here show that there are also commonalities which make it a good time to introduce a new field.

]]> Per Axelsson et al. Microdemographics and Indigenous Identity in the Central Taimyr Lowlands http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/80 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/80 Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:02:43 PST Identity systems in indigenous and small-scale societies are known to include kinship and marriage systems, exchange networks and larger solidarities, such as lineages, clans and regional groups (Fox 1984; Stone 2000). Human identities can be hierarchically embedded on multiple layers and associated with language and national citizenship, and anthropologists have documented how various identities can be employed depending on social context. When governments become involved in enumerating people with complex identities, census categories are not necessarily congruent with native views.1 In other words, ways of recording identity and related demographic and economic descriptions are subject to the biases of those people conducting the enumeration. These anomalies are both appealing to scholars of demography and particularly important for indigenous populations. In any case, demographic sources, if sufficiently detailed, have the potential to illuminate indigenous kinship or other identity connections, add to family oral histories, and document traditional land-tenure patterns. Demographic details can also provide indices of population health through time and inform debates about dynamic relationships between states and indigenous populations.

]]> John P. Ziker Changing Gender Roles and Economies in Taimyr http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/79 http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/anthro_facpubs/79 Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:47:43 PST This article is an inquiry into the extent to which, and how, roles of men and women in indigenous communities in north-central Siberia have changed along with the changing economic and political context from the 1917 Communist Revolution to the post-Soviet era. The starting point for this investigation is archived data from the 1926/27 Polar Census of Siberia. Fieldwork conducted in the region in the 1990s and 2000s provides comparative materials. During this 80-year period, the development of centralized settlements and regional urban areas brought increasing professionalization of traditional economic activities and greater involvement of the indigenous population in civil service work. As a result, the flexibility of gender roles in the indigenous pre-Soviet economy was sacrificed in favor of work in state companies and organizations that followed gender contracts imposed following the general Soviet model. In the post-Soviet period, following the collapse of the Soviet planned economy greater flexibility in gender roles has been observed, along with increasing importance of informal exchange networks and reliance upon hunting, fishing and trapping as key inputs to local economies.

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