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Item Introduction: ʿAjamī literacies of Africa: the Hausa, Fula, Mandinka, and Wolof traditions(Brill) Rodima-Taylor, Daivi; Robinson, David; Shereikis, RebeccaItem Field laboratories for non-invasive wildlife and habitat health assessment and conservation(Oxford University Press, 2021) Knott, Cheryl; Scott, Amy M.; O'Connell, Caitlin A.; Susanto, Tri Wahyu; Kane, Erin E.; Wich, Serge A.; Piel, Alex K.Item Sociality predicts orangutan vocal phenotype(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2022) Lameira, A.R.; Santamaría-Bonfil, G.; Hardus, M.E.; Galeone, D.; Gamba, M.; Knott, Cheryl; Morrogh-Bernard, Helen; Nowak, M.G.; Campbell-Smith, Gail; Wich, Serge A.In humans, individuals' social setting determines which and how language is acquired. Social seclusion experiments show that sociality also guides vocal development in songbirds and marmoset monkeys, but absence of similar great ape data has been interpreted as support to saltational notions for language origin, even if such laboratorial protocols are unethical with great apes. Here we characterize the repertoire entropy of orangutan individuals and show that in the wild, different degrees of sociality across populations are associated with different 'vocal personalities' in the form of distinct regimes of alarm call variants. In high-density populations, individuals are vocally more original and acoustically unpredictable but new call variants are short lived, whereas individuals in low-density populations are more conformative and acoustically consistent but also exhibit more complex call repertoires. Findings provide non-invasive evidence that sociality predicts vocal phenotype in a wild great ape. They prove false hypotheses that discredit great apes as having hardwired vocal development programmes and non-plastic vocal behaviour. Social settings mould vocal output in hominids besides humans.Item Can listeners assess men's self-reported health from their voice?(Elsevier BV, 2021-03) Albert, Graham; Arnocky, Steven; Puts, David A.; Hodges-Simeon, Carolyn R.Men's voices may provide cues to overall condition; however, little research has assessed whether health status is reliably associated with perceivable voice parameters. In Study 1, we investigated whether listeners could classify voices belonging to men with either relatively lower or higher self-reported health. Participants rated voices for speaker health, disease likelihood, illness frequency, and symptom severity, as well as attractiveness (women only) and dominance (men only). Listeners' were mostly unable to judge the health of male speakers from their voices; however, men rated the voices of men with better self-reported health as sounding more dominant. In Study 2, we tested whether men's vocal parameters (fundamental frequency mean and variation, apparent vocal tract length, and harmonics-to-noise ratio) and aspects of their self-reported health predicted listeners' health and disease resistance ratings of those voices. Speakers' fundamental frequency (𝑓ₒ) negatively predicted ratings of health. However, speakers' self-reported health did not predict ratings of health made by listeners. In Study 3, we investigated whether separately manipulating two sexually dimorphic vocal parameters—𝑓ₒ and apparent vocal tract length (VTL)—affected listeners' health ratings. Listeners rated men's voices with lower 𝑓ₒ (but not VTL) as healthier, supporting findings from Study 2. Women rated voices with lower 𝑓ₒ and VTL as more attractive, and men rated them as more dominant. Thus, while both VTL and 𝑓ₒ affect dominance and attractiveness judgments, only 𝑓ₒ appears to affect health judgments. Results of the above studies suggest that, although listeners assign higher health ratings to speakers with more masculine 𝑓ₒ, these ratings may not be accurate at tracking speakers' self-rated health.Item Sacred landscape and cultural astronomy on the Marcahuasi Plateau, Peru(2022-10-07) Carballo, David M.; Ruzo, Luis Octavio; Zheng, Qi; Kassakian, Peter; Aveni, AnthonyThe Marcahuasi plateau, in the highlands of Huarochirí Province, Peru, is touristed today for its landscape of evocative stone formations and archaeological remains. We present ethnohistorical documentation of the cultural salience of stone features and celestial alignments to the inhabitants of the region and propose that such notions extend to the prehispanic era at Marcahuasi. Although most formations likely are wholly natural features, a preliminary analysis involving Monte Carlo simulation with analysis of statistical significance of astronomical alignments suggest the plateau combines elements of a “natural” landscape and at least partially modified “cultural” monuments that were part of an animated Andean cosmology.Item Mesoamerican urbanism: indigenous institutions, infrastructure, and resilience(SAGE Publications, 2022-07-12) Carballo, David M.; Feinman, Gary M.; López Corral, AurelioMesoamerica was the most urbanised landscape of the precolonial Western Hemisphere, and urban dwellers there shared many cultural commonalities. They also varied significantly regarding what social institutions they emphasised, what forms of urban infrastructure they created, their fiscal financing and systems of governance, as well as how they managed ecological resources and risk. In this paper, we provide a comparative analysis of Mesoamerican cities using a database of archaeological indices of Indigenous urban characteristics. We report positive correlations between the longevity of cities in our sample and more collective institutions of governance, higher population densities, and more shared and equitably distributed forms of urban infrastructure. The study draws on Indigenous knowledge and practices to assist the target-based approach of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and New Urban Agenda and provides insights into how certain urban institutions and infrastructure can foster greater resilience and equity in the face of ecological and cultural-historical perturbations.Item Big Gods and big science: further reflections on theory, data, and analysis(Informa UK Limited) Turchin, P.; Whitehouse, H.; Larson, J.; Cioni, E.; Reddish, J.; Hoyer, D.; Savage, P.E.; Covey, R.A.; Baines, J.; Altaweel, M.; Anderson, E.; Bol, P.; Brandl, E.; Carballo, David M.; Feinman, G.; Korotayev, A.; Kradin, N.; Levine, J.D.; Nugent, S.E.; Squitieri, A.; Wallace, V.; François, P.Item Confronting ethical challenges in long-term research programs in the tropics(Elsevier, 2021-01) Seidlera, R.; Primack, Richard; Goswami, V.; Khaling, S.; Devy, M.; Corlett, R.; Knott, Cheryl; Kane, E.; Susanto, T.W.; Otali, E.Ecologists and conservation biologists conducting long-term research programs in the tropics must confront serious ethical challenges that revolve around economic inequalities, cultural differences, supporting the local communities as much as possible, and sharing the knowledge produced by the research. In this collective article, researchers share their experiences and perspectives in dealing with the ethical issues that arise during research activities and cannot be ignored.Item Post-release survival rates and welfare of rehabilitated vervet monkeys in Malawi(Animal Behavior Society, 2021-08-01) Angley, Laura Patricia; Mikulski, Nick; Sievert, Olivia; Salb, Amanda Lee; Schmitt, Christopher A.Research on primate rehabilitation-release (R&R) is limited, and released troop mortality is generally high. We investigated factors affecting survival and welfare of a rehabilitant troop of vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus rufoviridis) released in Malawi in 2016. Using 9 months of pre- and post-release data from the Lilongwe Wildlife Trust (LWT) and linear modeling, survival analysis, and social network analysis, we considered several potential factors influencing survival. The LWT troop survival rate was 36% and results suggest high ranking individuals, juveniles, and highly socially connected individuals were more likely to survive. Mortality patterns suggest released troops may benefit from platform feeders that encourage greater canopy use, more time at the release site before the rainy season when predation is more common, and predator-awareness training. Future studies using behavioral diversity to assess welfare should use detailed ethograms to capture unique behaviors. LWT’s extensive pre- and post-release monitoring provides vital insight into the troop’s survival. Other rehabilitation centers should follow this strategy to help improve primate R&R programs.Item Mamadou Lo, Un aspect de la poésie “Wolofal” Mouride: l’éducation morale et spirituelle de l’Aspirant (al Murid) dans la production de Sëriñ Mbay Jaxate(Brill, 2021-09-01) Ngom, FallouThe book’s author, Mamadou Lo, has a dual education. He is as well versed in the Senegalese French-based education system as he is in the Murid Islamic education system. He has served as a humanities teacher in the Senegalese education system and as an Education and Training Inspector until his retirement. He is one of the early members of the Hizbut Tarqiyyah, a Murid organization born out of the Murid students’ organization called Dahira des Étudiants Mourides de l’ucad (Université Cheikh Anta Diop), which was founded in the 1980s. He joined the organization in the 1990s.Item Communication, computation, and governance: a multiscalar vantage on the prehispanic Mesoamerican world(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2022-03) Feinman, Gary M.; Carballo, David M.Writing has often been put forth as one indicator of civilization. This correspondence dovetails with the even broader cross-species expectation that the degrees of social complexity and levels of computational communication should closely correlate. Although in a general sense across human cooperative arrangements, a basic relationship between these variables undoubtedly exists, more detailed and fine-grained analyses indicate important axes of variability. Here, our focus is on prehispanic Mesoamerica and the means of computation and communication employed over more than three millennia (ca. 1500 BCE-1520 CE). We take a multiscalar and diachronic analytical frame, in which we look at 30 central places, six macroregions, and Mesoamerica as whole. By unraveling elements of “social complexity”, and decoupling computation from communication, we illustrate that institutional differences in governance had a marked effect on the specific modes and technologies through which prehispanic Mesoamerican peoples communicated across time and space. Demographic and spatial scale, though relevant, do not alone determine time/space diversity in media of computational communication. This article is part of the theme issue “Evolution of Collective Computational Abilities of (Pre)Historic Societies”.Item Birth canal shape and fetal rotation in Australopithecus and Neandertals(Wiley, 2021-03-04) Laudicina, Natalie M.; Cartmill, MatthewItem Bringing multilateralism back in: ending the war in Afghanistan is not a one-nation job(USIP Afghan Peace Process Issues Paper, 2021-03-15) Barfield, Thomas J.; Nojumi, NeamatThe United States’ unilateral deal with the Taliban in February 2020 needs to be expanded if it is to achieve success. Because the war in Afghanistan was never purely a domestic one, only a multilateral international agreement can end it and simultaneously empower Afghan stakeholders to determine their country’s future governance. A dual-track United Nations-led mediation platform, bolstered by a collaboration between Washington and Brussels, offers the best means to achieve this end. At the international and regional level, its goal would be conflict management: to end outside support for any faction unwilling to take part in the domestic peace process and to pledge support for any final negotiated peace agreement acceptable to a majority of the Afghan people. Since neither the Afghan government nor the Taliban can win a war or dictate the structure of a future constitutional order without such outside support, this would lay the groundwork for lasting conflict resolution within Afghanistan itself.Item Governance strategies in precolonial central Mexico(Frontiers Media SA) Carballo, David M.Among the Indigenous polities of precolonial Mesoamerica, the Aztec empire, headed by a confederation of three city-states, was the largest recorded and remains the best understood, due to its chronicling in Spanish and Nahuatl texts following the Spanish-Aztec war and colonial transformation to New Spain. Yet its political organization is routinely mischaracterized in popular media, and lesser-known contemporaries and predecessors in central Mexico exhibit variability in governing strategies over time and space of interest to comparatively oriented scholars of premodern polities. Common themes in governance tended to draw from certain socio-technological realities and shared ontologies of religion and governing ideologies. Points of divergence can be seen in the particular entanglements between political economies and the settings and scales of collective action. In this paper, I review how governance varied synchronically and diachronically in central Mexico across these axes, and especially in relation to resource dilemmas, fiscal financing, the relative strength of corporate groups versus patron-client networks, and how rulership was legitimated.Item Community engagement zine for youth in MexicoCarballo, David M.; Dominguez, Edith; Rivero, Santino; Mena, Pedro Rafael; Hernández Sariñana, D.; Carballo, David M.Self-published zine done in collaboration with Mexican artists and text creators, funded by Whiting Foundation Public Engagement Grant, aimed at community engagement around Teotihuacan archaeological site.Item Agropastoral economies and land use in Bronze Age Western Anatolia(Informa UK Limited) Marston, John M.; Çakırlar, Canan; Luke, Christina; Kováčik, Peter; Slim, Francesca G.; Shin, Nami; Roosevelt, Christopher H.Item Censorship, foreclosure, and the three deaths of Fengzhen(HAU-N.E.T, 2021-11-10) Weller, Robert P.This article draws on Judith Butler’s distinction between censorship and foreclosure, and on Saidiya Hartman’s work about how to narrate the silences of the slave trade, to explore two photographs. The first is a dismembered and reassembled family photograph that suggests a distinction between present absences and totally absent ones. The second opens up the case of the three deaths of the goddess Fengzhen caused by China’s very rapid urbanization: first as a woman, then as a deity’s statue-body, and finally as the photographic center of a ritual. In both photographs the silences of censorship and foreclosure create forms of haunting that help reveal their different structures of power. The focus on the haunting power of the silenced also shows the importance of adding the nondiscursive world to the more discourse-centered analysis of Butler and Hartman. The discussion emphasizes the difficulties of writing about the silences of censorship and foreclosure without breaking them, and suggests some possibilities through invocation, evocation, and a bypassing of the “archive” through the continuing presence of the absent.Item Overnight urbanization and changing spirits: disturbed ecosystems in Southern Jiangsu(University of Chicago Press, 2021-11-09) Weller, Robert P.; Wu, KepingThree Chinese cases involving ghost attacks, the increase of spirit mediums, and innovations in the forms and objects of temple worship suggest how nonequilibrium ecology, broadly conceived, can clarify processes of urban change. They extend Ingold’s call for “ecologies of life” by clarifying how latent potentials become manifest and how new symbiotic assemblages can be created in disturbed ecosystems. These cases arise from the rapid urban expansion in wealthy parts of China, accompanied by the resettlement of many villagers into high-rise buildings, wiping out farms, village temples, and rural graves and making earlier forms of social organization impossible. The territorially based religion described in much of the anthropological and historical literature has thus become increasingly untenable. Contrary to many expectations, the expanding urban edge at our field sites in southern Jiangsu cities has fostered an especially creative zone of innovation.Item Archaeological perspectives on the Spanish-Aztec War on its quincentennial(Society for American Archaeology, 2021-05-28) Carballo, David M.; Alcantara, Keitlyn; Lopez Corral, AurelioItem New perspectives on migration into the Tlajinga district of Teotihuacan: a dual-isotope approach(Cambridge University Press (CUP)) Buckley, Gina M.; Carballo, David M.The city of Teotihuacan (AD 1–550) was a major multiethnic urban center that attracted migrants from as far away as west Mexico and the Maya region. Past research in the Tlajinga district at Teotihuacan using oxygen isotopes from human remains estimated that nearly 30% of the population of Tlajinga 33, a single apartment compound, were migrants. This study takes a dual-isotope approach (87Sr/86Sr and δ18Op) to reevaluate the proportion of in-migration at Tlajinga and includes data from two additional apartment compounds, Tlajinga 17 and 18 (n = 23). New results indicate that migrants comprised ~45% of the Tlajinga population. Previously acquired radiocarbon dates combined with mortuary and isotope data suggest that immigration to Tlajinga was highest during the first centuries of compound occupation. Nevertheless, migration was a continual process throughout its history. Additionally, a new finding suggests that residents of Tlajinga 33 ingested foods with higher 87Sr/86Sr ratios than did those of Tlajinga 17 and 18. We hypothesize that the incorporation of imported lime for the nixtamalization process skewed the 87Sr/86Sr ratios of human remains, a potentially important finding for future studies at Teotihuacan.