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Department Grad Slam Results
1st Place and “People’s Choice Award”: Hugh Radde, et al., Sexual Harassment Among California Archaeologists
2nd Place: Carmen Hové, Immune Modulation During Pregnancy for Women in a High Pathogen Environment
3rd Place: Elisabeth Rareshide, Outside of the Reach of the Mission Bell: Chinigchinich Ritual Practice among the Tongva during the Mission Period in Alta California (AD 1769-1834)
Spring Proseminar: Cristine Legare
The Evolution and Ontogeny of Cultural Learning
CRISTINE H. LEGARE, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin
Humans display a wide repertoire of socially acquired and transmitted behaviors that vary substantially across populations. Information is accumulated and transferred within and across generations through the process of cumulative culture. What are the evolved psychological mechanisms that underlie cultural learning and how do they develop over the course of ontogeny? In a systematic program of mixed-methodological, comparative, and cross-cultural research, I study the human capacities to learn, create, and transmit culture, to shed light on the cognitive and cultural evolution of our species. The propensity for social learning provides the foundation for cumulative culture, and is both early developing and universal. Selective social learning mechanisms also afford the capacity to flexibly respond to diverse ontogenetic contexts and cultural ecologies. I describe the global diversity in childrearing practices, and present evidence for continuity and variability in the psychological capacities that enable cultural learning.
Spring Proseminar: Douglas J. Kennett
Climate Change and Sociopolitical Cycling in the Maya Region
DOUGLAS J. KENNETT, Professor and Department Head Department of Anthropology & Institute for Energy and the Environment, Pennsylvania State University
Climate scientists predict major changes in global temperature and precipitation in the next century and it is not yet known how our complex societies will respond. Interdisciplinary archaeological research provides a laboratory for exploring the inherent complexities of societal response in the face of climate change over long periods of time with potential relevance to present and future societies. The episodic formation, consolidation and breakdown of preindustrial states occurred in multiple contexts worldwide during the last 5,000 years and were contingent upon interacting endogenous economic, demographic and political mechanisms. In some instances, there is support for climate change stimulating integration or inducing sociopolitical fragmentation in these complex systems. Kennett will present the results of an on-going interdisciplinary project focused on the cyclical nature of societal response to climate change during the last 2,000 years in the Maya region.
Continue Reading Spring Proseminar: Douglas J. Kennett
Exploring Farming, Foraging, and Daily Life in the Moche World
Analysis of data from recent excavations reveals how shifts in ancient agricultural strategies influenced the development of political complexity in the Moche world.
Lecture by Dana Bardolph, Ph.D. Candidate, UCSB Department of Anthropology
Sponsored by the Santa Barbara County Archaeological Society
Continue Reading Exploring Farming, Foraging, and Daily Life in the Moche World
Exploring Farming, Foraging, and Daily Life in the Moche World
Analysis of data from recent excavations reveals how shifts in ancient agricultural strategies influenced the development of political complexity in the Moche world.
Lecture by Dana Bardolph, Ph.D. Candidate, UCSB Department of Anthropology
Sponsored by the Santa Barbara County Archaeological Society
Continue Reading Exploring Farming, Foraging, and Daily Life in the Moche World
Graduate Student Jonathan Malindine in Current
A UCSB scholar examines the evolution of wooden halibut hooks carved by native people of the Northwest Coast...
Continue Reading Graduate Student Jonathan Malindine in Current
Professor Lynn Gamble Receives Award
Congratulations to Professor Lynn Gamble on her recent book award for her edited book, First Coastal Californians, published by School for Advanced Research (SAR). Lynn's book won first place in the New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards for Anthropology/Archaeology in 2016.
This book will also be on display and for sale at next week's World Anthropology Day Open House Event, so make sure to take a look!
Continue Reading Professor Lynn Gamble Receives AwardThis book will also be on display and for sale at next week's World Anthropology Day Open House Event, so make sure to take a look!
