Radical Anthropology

Can the #Martu help to save the #quoll

#Indigenousknowledge #conservation

https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/indigenous-knowledge-helps-guide-conservation-of-australias-endangered-northern-quoll/

Thea is a trained ethnographer and social anthropologist researching fields such as cosmology, rituals, power objects, and human-animal relations among the hunter-gathering Hadza of Northern Tanzania. She is a museum curator with special focus on African cultural heritage at the National Museums […]

For the Hadza, the future is made by women in an earthen child: a clay-born baby that rebirths society and connects generations of women through spiritual relations. Regenerating the future is not a task for women alone. Thea traces honey love letters and sharing practices in a hunting and […]

Anthropologist Thea Skaanes talks on her research with the Hadza on a future of belonging, connection, and togetherness

Is creating relations/relationships an increasingly lost skill? How can we create a future not only for ourselves but a future of belonging, connection, and togetherness? Who […]

A fired clay doll (olanakwiko) made for a young woman to be cared for as a child Photo: Thea Skaanes

✨Tues Mar 17, 18:30 (UTC London)🌘
Thea Skaanes
Regeneration of self and the community among the Hadzabe

All welcome
LIVE in LG11, Bentham House, 4-8 Endsleigh Gardens, WC1H 0EG
**NB venue change this night only**
ZOOM ID 952 8554 1412 passcode Wawilak

The Late Pleistocene Megafauna: Huge Animals that Used to Roam the Earth Not so long ago, huge mammals weighing more than 1,000 kg existed practically all over the world. We call these giants the Pleistocene megafauna because they lived in a time period called the Pleistocene and were almost completely extinct around 11,700 years ago. These mammals lived on Earth for millions of years and were very important to almost all land-based ecosystems. However, natural climate change and humans decreased their ability to survive. Today, we find fossils of Pleistocene megafauna all over the world, including bones, hair, droppings, and even footprints. Scientists dig for these fossils to learn more about these animals and why they went extinct. Studying these ancient animals also gives scientists important information that helps them understand the risks that today’s living animals face in our world.

Nice kids frontiers piece on #Pleistocene megafauna

https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2024.1225865

The Bushmen know better than this church.
When missionaries kept calling their tricksters 'devils' they thought quietly to themselves: 'Nah, that Jesus Christ their on about, he's a trickster'.

Front cover of Chris Knight and Jerome Lewis' forthcoming book shows three gesticulating figures in red, dancing, arguing or discussing?

✨Tues Mar 10, 18:30 (UTC London)🌗
Chris Knight and Jerome Lewis
The Revolutionary Origins of Language

All welcome
LIVE in Daryll Forde Room, 2nd Floor, UCL Anthropology Dept, 14 Taviton St, WC1H 0BW
ZOOM ID 952 8554 1412 passcode Wawilak

Keith Flint's devil-horned bench defended by Braintree reverend Some are questioning if the Satanic detail is appropriate in a Christian place of worship.

🤣
The Church sups with the #Devil!

Catch up you yahweh old and new testament bros. Go look at all those horny tricksters, Trois Freres, the Bushman Eland Bull (is a menarcheal girl), Cernunnos, the lust goes on...!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y5lqp1dnvo

Standing fox. Beatus of Liébana, Commentaria in Apocalypsin (the ‘Beatus of Saint-Sever’), Saint-Sever before 1072. BnF, Latin 8878, fol. 14r. #medieval #MedievalArt

Standing fox. Beatus of Liébana, Commentaria in Apocalypsin (the ‘Beatus of Saint-Sever’), Saint-Sever before 1072. BnF, Latin 8878, fol. 14r.
#medieval #MedievalArt

‘No middle ground’: Israelis back Iran war, despite taking mounting hits Most Israelis back war, a poll suggests, as genocidal rhetoric returns, and opponents face threats and violence.

Anti-war activists in Israel describe the violent atmosphere against protests

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/10/no-middle-ground-israelis-back-iran-war-despite-taking-mounting-hits?traffic_source=rss

I definitely withdrew from the project. Too troubling.

Paper here
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/arcm.70120

A study reveals that the symbols were placed in accessible and visible areas for large groups, dismantling previous theories about their function. The **El Castillo cave** , in Puente Viesgo (Cantabria, northern Spain), is one of the most important prehistoric sanctuaries in the world. On its walls, the men and women of the Upper Paleolithic left a record of their presence. But what exactly did they intend when they placed their hand on the rock and blew red pigment to leave their imprint forever? An international team of scientists has applied for the first time a combination of 3D technology, geographic information systems (GIS), and statistics to answer this question. And the conclusions, published in the journal _Archaeometry_ , change what we thought we knew. The research, led by Olga Spaey (CNRS–University of Bordeaux), analyzed the 77 **negative hands** that dot the Cantabrian cavity. And it did so with a novel approach: instead of limiting themselves to looking at the walls, they virtually reconstructed the cave floor as it was more than 20,000 years ago, calculated the physical effort required to reach each symbol, and simulated the light of a torch to determine how many people could view them at the same time. The results are, in some ways, surprising. _The hands were not hidden in inaccessible recesses nor did they mark dangerous areas_ , the study explains. _They are located in areas of easy access and could be seen by a large audience at the same time_. On average, each hand could be observed by 16 people simultaneously. In some points, such as the famous _**Ceiling of Hands**_ , the figure rises sharply: up to 31 individuals could contemplate most of the symbols without moving from their spot. (A) View of the Gallery of the Discs where the discs accompany the visitor in direction of the last hand stencil of the cavity. (B) View of a hand stencil and discs together on the Ceiling of the Hands. (C1) View of the restricted passage, excavated in modern times. (C2) View of the 3D model with the recent anthropic changes highlighted in blue. (C3) View of the same area with the ground levels reconstructed on basis of historical archival documentation and geomorphological study. Credit: O. Spaey et al. 2025 To reach these figures, the team did not simply walk through the cave with a flashlight. They used high-precision 3D models and calculated the “difficulty of access” meter by meter. _We quantified the energetic cost of moving through the cave, combining two forms of locomotion: walking on flat areas and climbing on slopes_ , they explain in the article. Then, based on experimental studies of lighting in the Paleolithic, they simulated the reach of a wooden-torch flame (2.99 meters) and analyzed, from each stable point in the cavity, which hands were visible and how many people could fit to see them. The analysis did not stop at the macroscale. The researchers also examined the exact position of each hand, the **posture that the artist had to adopt** to paint it, and the orientation of the fingers. And here another relevant finding emerged: the comfort of the performer was not the priority. What mattered was the chosen place on the wall. Thus, there are 12 hands made from a squatting or seated position, 19 slightly leaning, 30 between leaning and upright, 10 upright, and six for which the artist had to raise themselves above the ground. * * * **Follow us on Google News** and be the first to read the latest news on archaeological and scientific discoveries. * * * But if the objective was to be seen, **why are some hands so high or so low?** The answer, according to the authors, points to a **symbolic complexity** greater than previously thought. Most of the hands follow a natural pattern: the left hands are usually oriented toward the 10 and 2 positions on a clock (facing toward the center of the body of the person who made them), which suggests a relaxed and repetitive gesture. However, two examples break all the rules and offer fascinating clues. (A) Situation of hand stencil 64 on the map of cave. (B) Rock-art survey of hand 64. (C) General picture of the area, where the situation of hand 64 is framed. (a) Detail of hand 64. (D) Orientation of all determinable hand stencils of the cave, with hand 64 emphasised. Credit: O. Spaey et al. 2025 The first is **hand number 64**. To paint it, the artist inserted their entire arm into a chimney-like crevice in the rock, an awkward and uncomfortable posture. The result is a hand that seems to emerge from the wall itself, as if coming out of another world. _Instead of the easiest position, Paleolithic people deliberately chose this uncomfortable placement, which could be the consequence of specific symbolic reasons_ , the research notes. The authors recall that some archaeologists have interpreted certain figures as **representations of the myth of primordial emergence** , according to which humans and animals came out of the earth through caves. The second case is **hand number 9**. This one is located in a wide gallery, but hidden behind a thin panel of rock. Only 5.8 people could see it at the same time, the lowest figure in the entire cave. _It is a discreet hand in a public space_ , the scientists summarize. This duality has led the team to propose a more nuanced classification than the simple division between “public” and “private” spaces used in traditional archaeology. ## Subscribe to our newsletter Receive our news and articles in your email **for free**. You can also support us with a **monthly subscription** and receive exclusive content. Type your email… Sign up They now speak of _public spaces with prominent motifs_ (the majority) and _public spaces with discreet motifs_ (such as hand 9), in addition to restricted-access private spaces, which exist in El Castillo for other types of figures, but not for the hands. ## Paleolithic road signage? One of the classic debates about negative hands is whether they functioned as topographic markers, that is, as **signals to guide visitors through the underground labyrinth**. The researchers’ answer is nuanced. On the one hand, they rule out that they served as a guiding system from the entrance: there are no hands at the beginning of the cave, and if a visitor followed the hands, they would miss most of them. (A) Location of hand 9 on the cave map. (B) General image of the area, with the location of hand 9 highlighted. (C) Detail of the position of hand 9 on the 3D model. (D) Detail of the location of hand 9 on the textured three-dimensional model. (E) Photograph of hand 9. Credit: O. Spaey et al. 2025 However, when calculating the _least-cost path_ (the easiest route to traverse the cave), they discovered that practically all the hands are located along the main pathways. And above all, in the **Gallery of Hands** something exceptional occurs. This gallery narrows until it becomes a very tight passage. Well, the hands do not stop before that difficult passage; on the contrary, they continue on the other side. _The hypothesis of crossing the narrow section of the Gallery of Hands seems much more coherent_ , they state. If someone wanted to reach the hands at the end without passing through there, they would have to take a much longer and more complicated detour. In addition, once the passage is crossed, a long row of **red discs** (painted dots) accompanies the visitor to the final hand, in the **Gallery of Discs**. The discs are made with the same technique and color as the hands and belong to the same period (Gravettian, between 33,000 and 25,000 years before present). For this reason, the authors propose a suggestive hypothesis: _The hands (and possibly also the discs) could be figures that mark important symbolic spaces and suggest links between the motifs, creating a graphic ensemble that, in order to be appreciated, requires traveling along a specific route_. In other words, they did not mark the entrance path, but they did **organize the internal route once one was already in the sacred area**. One of the most innovative methodological aspects of the study is that it did not limit itself to analyzing the cave as it is today. The team, which includes geologists, reconstructed the Paleolithic landscape of El Castillo. And they verified that failing to do so leads to significant errors. For example, in the **Ceiling of Hands** , if the current floor is used (with modern stairs and uneven levels), it is estimated that 11 people could clearly see the panel. But with the reconstructed floor, the figure rises to 15, 30% more. _It implies that this method of analysis, which requires extensive preliminary work and critical thinking, yields results that could not be obtained with traditional methods_ , they conclude. The study also took into account the possibility that the hands were not all contemporaneous. Although most are attributed to the **Gravettian** , if they were painted over several centuries, the later artists saw the earlier hands and decided to place theirs in relation to them, which gives coherence to the ensemble. Finally, the scientists open the door to new social interpretations. The high visibility and the capacity to host large groups suggest that the creation or use of these symbols involved the community, not only isolated individuals. This fits with recent morphometric studies that identify hands of adults, but also of adolescents and children in the **Ceiling of Hands**. _The data obtained invite us to consider the creation or use of these motifs by large groups_ , they conclude. And although the mystery of their ultimate meaning remains, we now know much more about how people related to them: they were not secret messages for a few initiates, but shared symbols, placed to be seen and, in some cases, to surprise the viewer by making a hand emerge from the rock or **pointing the way toward the deepest part of the mountain**. The research will continue. The team plans to extend this same analysis to other caves with hands, such as Gargas, in France, to determine whether these spatial dynamics are repeated or whether each sanctuary had its own rules. * * * **SOURCES** **Spaey, O., I. Intxaurbe, I. Urrestarazu-Porta, et al**. 2026. _Mapping Palaeolithic Imprints: Spatial Analysis of Hand Stencils in El Castillo Cave (Spain) Through Geomatic Techniques_. Archaeometry 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.70120 * * * READ MORE ABOUTCantabria Paleolithic Parietal art Prehistoric Caves Rock Art Spain

An examination of the positioning of hand prints and their visibility in El Castillo Cave likely to be for community gatherings.

https://www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2026/03/prehistoric-hands-and-discs-in-a-cantabrian-cave-guided-a-sacred-route-through-the-cavern-archaeologists-discover/

Please advise on difficult question:
What would you do if you were invited to talk about science very close to your heart and research in a documentary film (made by pretty clearly nonZionist director) but sponsored by corporation with record of complicity in Apartheid Israel, working on illegal […]

Men have had their shot,,
And look at where we've got!

https://genius.com/Ivor-cutler-and-linda-hirst-women-of-the-world-lyrics

Another man really worth listening to with the great song 'Women of the World take over...because we haven't got long!'
Sung with the lovely Linda Hirst #IWD

https://youtu.be/BfONxAeuOPg?si=hFyA7BTkg1cfpG7h

A couple of men worth listening to on #IWD
https://youtu.be/VT-mk2HOsNo?si=_5xi0uUMMhVyCZuP

BBC Radio 3 🎶 #NowPlaying Bot (@BBC3MusicBot@mastodonapp.uk) 201K Posts, 0 Following, 460 Followers · Unofficial. Likes are NOT automated! Providing #NowPlaying information for #BBCRadio3. This account is mostly unattended. However, feedback is welcome - please use the contact information above. You can also find almost all the tracks played on #BBC Radio 3 on this 🪄 automagic Spotify playlist 👇 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/43G0sEtGZRcaNqjVTIqrTd Under the same profile, there are also individual playlists for all shows and for many other 📻 stations. #fedi22 tfr

But lots of lovely women's music on Radio 3

https://mastodonapp.uk/@BBC3MusicBot

RE: https://c.im/@RadicalAnthro/116170289277256727

We don't do 'International Women's Day' ONCE a year 🙄
we do the science of women's revolutionary invention of culture EVERY day, and especially at dark 🌑!

RE: https://c.im/@RadicalAnthro/116170289277256727

This BBC piece has very little idea on language origins!
If you'd like some good ideas, come hear Chris and Jerome on Tuesday.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20260303-listen-to-stone-age-chat-the-lost-languages-of-ancient-humans

RE: https://c.im/@RadicalAnthro/116170289277256727

This BBC piece has very little idea on language origins!
If you'd like some good ideas, come hear Chris and Jerome on Tuesday.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20260303-listen-to-stone-age-chat-the-lost-languages-of-ancient-humans

The mass stranding and death of 55 whales on the Isle of Lewis in 2023 was caused by the mammals’ loyalty to their pod, notably to a female having a difficult birth.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/06/mass-stranding-whales-scottish-beach-report

'researchers from the University of Papau, spoke with local elders from the Tambrauw and Maybrat clans - some of whom have only had contact with the modern world since the 1960s.

Identification of the species would not have been possible without their help, according to Rika Korain, a Maybrat […]

Three Little Boars. Gaston Phoebus, Le Livre de la chasse, Paris ca. 1407. NY, Morgan, MS M. 1044, fol. 1v. #medieval #MedievalArt

Three Little Boars. Gaston Phoebus, Le Livre de la chasse, Paris ca. 1407. NY, Morgan, MS M. 1044, fol. 1v.
#medieval #MedievalArt

RE: https://oldfriends.live/@paul/116179755247089226

The discussion down in the comments on this extraordinary video by Afroman is gobsmacking and revealing. So many people's experiences of unlawful enforcement in their own homes. He has sure done the community a service!

Radical Anthropology seminars Radical Anthropology brings indigenous rights activists, environmentalists, feminists and others striving for a better world together with people of all ages who just want to learn about anthropology.

@fluffykontbiscuits it is on Tuesdays, next Tues Mar 10.

We always do Tuesday evening
Here is the UCL listing
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/social-historical-sciences/anthropology/events/anthropology-research-seminars/radical-anthropology-seminars

Meet Tatu and Loulis—the last of the 'talking' chimpanzees In the 1960s and '70s, a group of chimpanzees astonished the world by learning sign language. Only two remain, and one question still lingers: Was it worth it?

A piece on the last two of the #ASL signing #chimpanzees Tatu and Loulis

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/chimpanzee-sign-language-experiments

Why Trump is losing the war Here are the reasons this is going so badly

https://www.owenjones.news/p/why-trump-is-losing-the-war

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise cloud communications.

@fluffykontbiscuits
Invite link
https://ucl.zoom.us/j/95285541412?pwd=LjI5yIagplvPmFXVwSnLbDbV1xUiep.1