IntroductionThe Land and People of Kodi

Hoskins, J. K.

doi:10.1525/california/9780520080034.003.0001

Cited by 6 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…This is consistent with limited existing genetic evidence, almost entirely from haploid loci, which suggests that the two most distant villages diverged no more than 4,875 years ago ( Lansing et al 2007 ), and that incoming farming groups, with ultimate Asian ancestry ( Soares et al 2016 ), began mixing with preexisting local Melanesian populations on Sumba ∼4,085 years ago (95% confidence interval 3,716–4,484; Xu et al 2012 ). This view is consistent with oral history, which holds that the modern communities of Sumba all derive from a single ancestral village on the island’s northern coast, close to the modern village of Wunga ( Hoskins 1993 ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Small Traditional Human Communities Sustain Genomic Diversity over Microgeographic Scales despite Linguistic Isolation

et al. 2016

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At least since the Neolithic, humans have largely lived in networks of small, traditional communities. Often socially isolated, these groups evolved distinct languages and cultures over microgeographic scales of just tens of kilometers. Population genetic theory tells us that genetic drift should act quickly in such isolated groups, thus raising the question: do networks of small human communities maintain levels of genetic diversity over microgeographic scales? This question can no longer be asked in most parts of the world, which have been heavily impacted by historical events that make traditional society structures the exception. However, such studies remain possible in parts of Island Southeast Asia and Oceania, where traditional ways of life are still practiced. We captured genome-wide genetic data, together with linguistic records, for a case–study system—eight villages distributed across Sumba, a small, remote island in eastern Indonesia. More than 4,000 years after these communities were established during the Neolithic period, most speak different languages and can be distinguished genetically. Yet their nuclear diversity is not reduced, instead being comparable to other, even much larger, regional groups. Modeling reveals a separation of time scales: while languages and culture can evolve quickly, creating social barriers, sporadic migration averaged over many generations is sufficient to keep villages linked genetically. This loosely-connected network structure, once the global norm and still extant on Sumba today, provides a living proxy to explore fine-scale genome dynamics in the sort of small traditional communities within which the most recent episodes of human evolution occurred.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 83%

Small Traditional Human Communities Sustain Genomic Diversity over Microgeographic Scales despite Linguistic Isolation

et al. 2016

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“…In West Sumba, for instance, buffalo horns are normally displayed on the veranda of household or ancestral houses. They are also found on the interior posts of these houses where they can be seen from outside through the open doorway (Hoskins, 1993b: 202–03; Keane, 2010: 202). The most impressive examples are the well-known tongkonan kinship houses of the Toraja in Sulawesi, whose fronts are decorated with vertical stacks of dozens of horns, reflecting the number of feasts over several generations within the group (Nooy-Palm, 1979: 231–40; Waterson, 1993: 84–85).…”

Section: Feasts Buffaloes and Bucranium Displays In South-east Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Janet Hoskins was told by a Sumbanese informant, ‘if you want to see my life, the lives of my ancestors, the things that they did, look at the row of horns in front of my house. The greatness of the past can be measured there, the size of our feasts and spread of our name’ (Hoskins, 1993b: 202). The exclusive use of a permanent material (stone) for tomb construction and bucrania carvings in West Sumba, as opposed to organic material for houses, is part of that strategy of long-term commemoration (Keane, 1997: 208–23).…”

Section: What Do Bucrania Do?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bucrania are propitiatory agents. In Naga villages, the skulls of sacrificed mithun automatically bring ‘aren’ (prosperity and favour of the spirits) and will ensure good crops and many children to the household (Mills, 1926: 205, 257; Hoskins, 1993b: 237–38). Carvings of mithun heads on the morung men's houses are believed to make their members wealthy (Odyuo, 2013: 16).…”

Section: What Do Bucrania Do?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…comm. 2013) but the holding of feasts and the ritual display of bucrania are a way to show the ancestors (who are constantly watching the living) that the appropriate ritual sacrifices have been made according to the tradition and their wishes (Mills, 1926: 288; Waterson, 1988: 57; Hoskins, 1993b: 237–38). By displaying such evidence, the living also expect gratitude from their kin dead or ancestors in return, for example in the form of good crops (J. Koubi pers.…”

Section: What Do Bucrania Do?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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What Are Bucrania Doing in Tombs? Art and Agency in Neolithic Sardinia and Traditional South-East Asia

Robin¹

2017

Eur. j. archaeol.

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The interior of Neolithic tombs in Europe is frequently decorated with carved and painted motifs. In Sardinia (Italy), 116 rock-cut tombs have their walls covered with bucrania (schematic depictions of cattle head and horns), which have long been interpreted as representations of a bull-like divinity. This article reviews similar examples of bucranium 'art' in the tombs of three traditional societies in South-East Asia, focusing on the agency of the motifs and their roles within social relationships between the living, the dead, and the spiritual world. From these ethnographic examples and the archaeological evidence in Sardinia, it is suggested that bucrania in Neolithic tombs were a specialised form of material culture that had multiple, cumulative effects and functions associated with social display, memory, reproduction, death, and protection.

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Real-Time Mapping With Global Positioning Systems Devices in a Mixed Methods Toolkit for Studying Social and Environmental Change

Fowler

2023

Journal of Ethnobiology

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To explore the process through which people develop knowledge about socioecological change, this article describes a mixed-methods toolkit containing a technique for making maps in real time while moving through landscapes. The quantitative component of the toolkit is grounded in ethnobiologists’ embeddedness in place-based communities and harnesses the power of global positioning systems (GPS). As GPS-wielding ethnobiologists engage in participatory mapping by moving through landscapes with their research collaborators, we can use handheld devices and simultaneously communicate with satellites in outer space to produce maps in real time. Within the existing, large inventory of ethnobiological methods, using handheld GPS devices can be combined with other types of data-collecting techniques to enhance studies of interactions in more-than-human landscapes. Moreover, mapmaking implements movement trace, a tactic for interpreting space-time cultures and documenting grounded experiences with socioecological change. By bringing together interests in the disciplines of ethnobiology and qualitative geographic information systems (GIS), this article describes methods that make it possible to explain the space-time culture that guides people to move through their homelands and to communicate about their experiences even as they work toward integrating and directing the changing circumstances of their lives.

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IntroductionThe Land and People of Kodi

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Small Traditional Human Communities Sustain Genomic Diversity over Microgeographic Scales despite Linguistic Isolation

Small Traditional Human Communities Sustain Genomic Diversity over Microgeographic Scales despite Linguistic Isolation

What Are Bucrania Doing in Tombs? Art and Agency in Neolithic Sardinia and Traditional South-East Asia

Real-Time Mapping With Global Positioning Systems Devices in a Mixed Methods Toolkit for Studying Social and Environmental Change

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