Art: Very Old School

There have been many interpretations on the cave art found in the Lascaux Caves, but all of them revolve around animals and specifically those that were sketched on to these walls. One of the ideas is that the painters drew them almost as a “how to” schematic for hunting, deduced from observing the fact that specific parts of the animal were marked with arrow like symbols or slashes. Another theory is that the painters were big fans of the mythical world, that is there culture might have been heavy on shamanism and putting a lot of religious belief in these animals, or what is known as totemism. Yet there is still another explanation to why the painters drew what they did and this one revolves around the idea that they were constructing some sort of calendar to document time. They documented time by using the proposed unit of a season (e.g. summer), and would chronologically depict biological development of the animal with changes in morphological structures. This also could have helped them categorize which animals were reproductively ready.

This heavy emphasis on animals, and the total absence of the human species, shows that the painter’s culture was heavily influenced by animals, and specifically the cow and horses. Just as some churches glorify Jesus Christ on the stained glass windows, the painters here glorified the animals.

These paintings give us insight to our aspects of these painters’ lives. For example, they indirectly let us know about the craftsmanship of these skillful artists, that back then were just exiting the cycle of evolution from our early primate ancestors to our early human species. To draw these paintings in the first place they would have had to develop the tools to do them, and such tools have been found and show the advancement and the intrinsic quality of those tools, like the lamp.

The innovation of the lamp was accomplished due to the fact that these early drawers had some difficulties to face. Here, the lamp was made to aid them in the underground, dark caves and illuminated their canvases.

No matter what time era you analyze or what type of art you think is the best, they all serve one common purpose and that is to document what is happening during the time of conception of the art work. Either it be early renaissance art or early cave sketches of horses, artists have indirectly and unconsciously helped document time. Another purpose all art serves is to help convey and express what was of concern during their time.

 

This type of art, known as performance art performed by people like Marina Abramovic, this helps to functions once again as another time point in the history of humans and marks the era of modernism and contemporary art. She also conveys important ideas of our time such as the imbalance of power between males and females, and conveys the idea of attention in here very last work, “The artist is present.” However, this type of art has no specific culture except those who are interested by what goes against “the norm.” This both includes those that love the unusual, and those that believe that what she does, does not fit what is accepted in society today. This type of art, performance art that is, opens up a lot of possibilities to explore one’s status and role in both society and with their self. 

must watch, James Franco even participated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trw9vYV_g6c&feature=related&noredirect=1

Power Seen in Yanomama Tribe

Humans have evolved to such great extents, and we have made many advances however as our primitive ape ancestors took the first steps to humanness, modern day Homo sapiens still hold on to some of their primitive traits; violence. With violence, comes murder and this is seen in all different races and cultures. Our Western culture primarily perceives violence as punishable by date (note that not all states have accepted the death penalty, only 34 states have), and our perspective can be seen in different cultures from the French, circa French Revolution, to the modern day Yanomamo. Violence is perceived the same way in all culture; bad, however the thing that differs is the punishment for the violence and the mechanisms behind it. When we look at the Yanomamo we see that they, along with our Western culture, believe that violence and murder is worthy of punishment, but what differs is how that punishment is dealt. Our Western culture primarily believes in the death penalty, and those that don’t, believe in life servitude in correctional facilities. The Yanomamo people treat individuals who have committed acts of violence with hostile intent, just as some American states wish to carry out the death penalty. However the main difference is that, where all of Western culture believes that whoever committed the crime should be the only one guilty and dealt the punishment, the Yanomamo culture believes that kin to the individual who committed the act of violence can be held accounted for and have their lives taken. Where we find the death penalty, or jail rightful, they find that murder for vengeance to be viable.

The murders for vengeance, or revenge killings, all starts out with an individual’s kin passing away, either by direct murder or by indirect methods such as sorcery of shaman. The individual, possessing primitive traits of aggression, contemplates on who is guilty of this death. Once that individual has someone in mind or knows exactly who did it, he seeks out for revenge and kills of that individual or group. However, these revenge killings are almost circular in nature, in that they will always come back to haunt the murder. The individual or group that the grieving Yanomamo killed off will have kin that will then seek vengeance and this process will continue until one or the other starts to back off, and accept the status of cowardice.

Those who commit these revenge killings go through a ritual known as a unokaimou and are then known as unokais, which is translated by Chagnon to “those who have killed.” You could imagine that in an environment where vengeance is a common act, building some sort of reputation could help you ward off future murders. Thus by gaining the title of unokais, you start to develop the reputation of someone who should not be taken so lightly. In addition to building a reputation to protect yourself, the title of unikais can help attract more women, by the means that unikais can offer protection, and thus increase the unikais reproductive success. However, to first develop this status of unikais one has to kill, and in the Yanomamo culture those who kill are destined to die by the grieving Yanomamo’s hand and the only question to ponder is when? Non-unikais have just as much advantage as unikais in that they are not faced with the great possibility of being vengefully killed, and thus can in turn have great reproductive success as well.

In actuality, there are some benefits of revenge killing seen by Chagnon in the Yanomamo tribe. Revenge killing has increased the closeness and size of kin. Kinship has been benefited from revenge killing by having more kin to be there for the grieving individual and support him in his turn to seek vengeance. The more kin they have in support for them, the more likely the revenge killing will take place. However, with so much of the Yanomamo marriages occurring within the family, the harder it is for the Yanomamo to decide whether the revenge killings to be carried out if there family was in another community and murdered. Thus their social and political structure is now affected as well. The Yanomamo have no systematic social or political structure, the closet they come to having some distinction in power is when an individual acquires the title unikais or the leader of a community, a patas. Marriage and reproduction is greatly affected by revenge killings, and by Chagnon’s observations, is governed by it. Those who acquire the unikais status, given to only those who have successfully carried out killing another for vengeance, are high prized by the women in the Yanomamo tribe, and are more sought out for than non unikais.

With steps towards humanness, we still held on to our primitive traits of violence. In our modern society killing another human being is one of the worst and frightening things a human is capable of. True, no one is born with the intention to kill, however sometimes people are put into situations where previous genetic and environmental effects have wired their brain to respond to this situation by murder, or in the case of the Yanomamo revenge killings. This is why we have laws for such acts. These laws do not only act as a deterrent to stop people from committing a murder but they also punish those who have somehow managed to bring themselves to commit such a crime.

Matrilineal Descent Kinship

Kinship

For this weeks assignment I decided to interview the person who has not only given me half of their chromosomes, but in addition their mitochondrial DNA, my mother! The reason why I decided to analyze kinship through the matrilineal descent path was not because I share more genetic information with her but that I know that she comes from a huge family and it would be fun to see how far I could delve into it. My mother was born in Yerevan, Armenia, at the time of her birth she didn’t know it, but she would be the oldest of the 5 offspring. My mother was born to a working class family and today is still in a working class family, but hopefully with my advancement into medical school that soon will change!

As an insider, trying to play the role of an outsider, it was hard to develop some sort of professionalism between me and my mother during this interview because we are very aware of exactly what is happening in each other’s lives. However, there were still things I had no idea of. As my mother began to tell me about her parents, my grandparents, and their siblings she started to mention those who were deceased. The thing was I had no idea who she was talking about, because I have met all my grandparents’ siblings. The human brain has evolved to predict outcomes, and this sent me and my brain in a state of confusion. It turned out the reason why I never knew about my grandfather’s sister was because she passed away at an early age of 5 years. However, I tried to not let that bother me, because to her she seemed to have accepted it. The honest truth is if I was in the same situation with someone I was not familiar with I would most likely not be so distort about it, so I feel like there was some bias involved during this interview.

With this interview, my assumptions turned out to be true. For example, my immediate family is very close with each other and with extended family members. Just as we today spend Christmas with family from 4 generations, my mother’s childhood memories were ones where she celebrated holidays with all family members and still with family from many different generations. Coming from rural country, the majority of Armenians are from the working class, and my mother’s family was not an exception. Some family members have been living on their own, independent farms (reflecting the subsistence agricultural pattern), some have jobs and live in the city, and some live far away from the city. Even though there was some bias on my side when I was interviewing my mother, it didn’t seem that my mother had a bias towards one side of the family. She respectfully and accurately recalled all of her family members, age of death, and her childhood memories. According to my mother, it seems that there are almost no differences but only similarities in the lifestyle among the different family members. All of the family recalled by my mother were born and raised in Armenia, during their lifetime. They all shared similar patterns of lifestyle like patrilocal residence to a point (which even my mother participated early in her marriage). Another pattern that seems to be similar throughout all generations is that family size tends to be on the larger side. The only difference that my mother can point out is the difference between the younger and older generations. With her being part of the middle of the 4 generations, she fairly understands both the younger generation and the older generation, and she let me know that the older ones do see things that they don’t necessarily like however they do see things that make them proud to be part of this kinship.

Since birth family has been a major factor in every decision I have made in my life, especially when I decided to go off to UC Davis to earn my B.S. however as much as I am involved with my family I sadly do not know ever person very well. I know back to my grandparents’ siblings but nothing before that due to obvious reasons; age! Still, the relatives I know, I socialize with them equally from both my father’s and mother’s side of the family. In my immediate family, my father has always had the final say and I am certain that this is because of where my parents came from. A common aspect of Armenian culture is a heavy reliance on the male figure of the family, this arises from our strict morals and ethics. This leads to the question of how different genders are perceived. Looking through my kinship and family, I have personally noticed that females are subjected to abide by different standards than the males, even in everyday interactions; greetings! When males greet another male we are innately drawn to shake the other’s hand and even give a kiss on the cheek whereas males treat females more subtly or sometimes even passively by hugging or simply saying hello, respectively. However, as the generation of American-Armenians starts to grow, this general trend of the male figure having the last word is starting to diminish and now we are adopting the trend of compromising and possessing equal status. Something to note here is that those who marry into the family still come from the same background and culture so they are not treated differently, however the adaption of emotions has led to all human beings having their own opinions of one another. 

Subsistence and Economy

Part 1: Different Subsistence Patterns

a)      Pros/Advantages

§         Agriculture

                                                              i.      With the rise of agriculture and farming techniques, individuals were able to stabilize in one area and grow, leading to greater reproductive fitness and advancing from primitive methods to modern techniques.

                                                            ii.      Were able to grow enough food to feed the community and were able to even have a surplus of food, for emergency situation like when there are unfavorable conditions for harvest

                                                          iii.      Food supply is continuous as long as they keep harvesting and conditions are favorable

§         Hunting and Gathering

                                                              i.      With hunting and gathering, the communities tend to be very small, therefore there are a lot less mouths to feed, meaning the work put in to find the food does not impede on the amount of food/energy gathered.

                                                            ii.      With these communities not having so many “extra” people, all are equal in status and ranking.

                                                          iii.      Their food supply will always be available until they either hunt down all of it in the area and use it up

b)      Cons/Disadvantages

§         Agriculture

                                                              i.      With the rise of agriculture, farmers in the beginning would hire slaves to do the manual labor, and this then formed a community where individuals were not equal in status and ethical issues arose. This can still be seen today as farmers still hire immigrants to do the hard manual labors while we flourish the fruits of their labor.

                                                            ii.      Sometimes the habitat that the individuals live in experience unfavorable conditions for farming meaning that these communities are taking a risk in maybe not having food during that season

                                                          iii.      With farming, there are greater factors that can damage the harvest, like insects/pests, plant and livestock disease, environment (i.e drought, winter, not enough sun light), etc.

                                                          iv.      Much more work needs to be put into taking care of harvest and livestock

§         Hunting and Gathering

                                                              i.      Individuals living in such communities will not have enough energy or food supple to be able to advance and grow like agriculture communities, leading to a low reproductive fitness

                                                            ii.      They can use up all the food supple from one area, thus leading to them living a nomadic lifestyle and always being unsure if the next location will be abundant in any type of food supply

                                                          iii.      With this nomadic lifestyle they increase their risk of predator attacks, sickness, and death

c)      Which one is healthier?

§         There are many factors to take into consideration to determine which of the two subsistence patterns are healthier, but at the end is has to be agriculture. The reason why we are all here today, with prolonged life expectancies is because of the rise of farming and being able to manage our own livestock. If we also just take a look into the food supply itself, agriculture is healthier in many aspects. For example, true, protein is a major source of energy and is need for normal development however our bodies are designed to utilize certain enzymes to breakdown proteins and fats, and these enzymes come from vitamins that are sometimes only found in vegetables and byproducts from live stock (eg. Vitamin D from milk). In addition, agriculture developed systematic methods to grow and harvest crops and livestock so this allowed enough food so malnutrition was not a concern. However, there are some drawbacks because livestock were raised within the community humans were more susceptible to disease. Still, we overcame that boundary and are now here today because someone realized they can grow their own food.

d)     The reason why early humans decided to transition from hunter and gathering methods to acquiring food to an agriculture lifestyle is due to many factors. One of the simple factors I can think of is that some individuals were just not good at hunting, plain and simple. Those who could not catch their own food risked their reproductive fitness, so a new method was established, instead of going to the food they brought the food to them. Another reason might have been that there was just not enough food to go around. This lead them to devise another way to produce more food to greater increase their reproductive fitness.

Part 2: Different Economies

a)      With the rise of agriculture, communities were able to harvest and collect a surplus of food. This lead them to utilize and develop another technique other than farming; trading. They traded food for tools, clothes, livestock, and weapons, however the important thing here is that it is because of the extra food that these communities harvested that allowed them to trade. Therefore, the statement that there is a direct correlation between surplus of food and trading holds true. Not only is the surplus of food used as trading items, but the surplus of food is what has helped advance the community to the stage of utilizing trade. With hunter and gathers we do not see settled, advanced communities developing their culture, however with agriculture people have the resources now to settle down and grow into advance communities with more developed cultures and economic systems.

b)      Other than benefiting from acquiring items that you typically don’t have access to, trading provides social benefits as well. One benefit developed from trading between two different communities is the formation of closer bonds between them. Having these two different cultures trading and bartering allows for them to get to know and understand one another. This will further lead them to become allies, and further develop and advance. Another beneficial factor that comes with trading is the development of one’s self. Unlike in today’s modern society where the main form of transactions are carried out online, early humans 12,000 years ago and still in other places around the world today, transactions were and are carried out through human-to-human interactions. This type of social interaction leads to one’s self developing personality, and skills in interacting with people.

c)      With the advancement of society and culture due to agriculture and trading, humans did not only reap the benefits, but also the negative aspects that came with trading. Looking specifically at the social aspect, one obvious problem is jealousy. Still, today different communities are not satisfied with what they have, and even what they get out of the trade that is carried out. As this jealousy continuous, cultures start to form enemies due to the jealousy of the other culture’s resources. Another negative social aspect that came with development of trading was a shift in status. With trading, those who did not have enough to trade became peasants, but those who had things to trade became powerful.

d)     With the rise of agriculture, humans 12000 years ago started to develop and advance. This growth then led to the development of trading and bartering. With agriculture there is only so much one community can harvest per year, therefore communities started to seek other communities that possessed items that they did not. With having a surplus of food, and other communities having none, humans realized that this surplus did not have to go to waste and could have more value to other communities that were lacking in food supplies. This led to trading between communities and those who developed farming techniques before others would have an advantage because they where the ones who would set out and trade for things that would help advance their community.