'Sailing away from the safe harbour' thoughts...

For all biological anthropologists, osteologists or osteoarchaeologists who have not heard of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology I am providing a link where you can sign up and become a member of this organisation. Yup, and it is so worth joining! All you ambitious people with millions of ideas will be able to present your papers and simply broaden and share your knowledge!

here's the link: http://www.babao.org.uk/

xx

While studying anthropology, I notice a lot of interesting things. One of them are different styles of writing ethnographies by different anthropologists. I am not generalising of course, but for example I noticed that British authors seem to be a bit detached and tend not to express their emotions or opinions on particular approaches of the studied culture. American authors on the other hand, sometimes get emotionally involved and become very closed with the native inhabitants of the place they are studying. I find both styles very inspiring...

Well, yes as I already mentioned in one of my previous notes, I have visited the beautiful country of Turkey. More specifically, I went to Istanbul. And yes I had the most awesome time ever. I absolutely loved the place. The geographical location and history make Istanbul a great spot for all who love learning new things and of course travelling. My anthropological studies influence nearly all my approaches and wherever I go, I tend to look at things differently. And that’s how it was this time. I could not stop thinking about the Muslim religion – Islam. I encountered so many interesting rituals, such as the prayers broadcasted from mosques 5 times a day! This in particular made me shiver  Then some others cultural approaches of the Turkish – such as the male and female differences in day-to-day actions or even types of clothing. I am starting to think I would be exciting to write my own ethnography, I would however like to work with some African indigenous peoples. We’ll see. Anyway, yup Turkey was amazing and I am finding it so hard to get used to the reality in England, especially that I have my final exams coming up soon… I don’t even want to think about them!!! Argh…

xxx

Sorry about the short notes, but I was in Turkey and didn’t have much time to write properly. I have found the last two notes quite interesting, so thought I would put them here.

“A recent study found that the romantic cliche of children disobeying their parents' choice for what type of person they should marry to be true.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/04/10/DI2008041002354.html?nav=rss_nation/science

Right, this is probably the craziest thing I’ve heard recently. Some anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University “has used new reconstructions of Neanderthal vocal tracts to simulate the voice. He says the ancient human's speech lacked the "quantal vowel" sounds that underlie modern speech.” This is quite amazing, I am stunned by the things modern humans are able to create.

Do visit the link below in order to read the whole article, it’s worth it.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/dn13672-neanderthals-speak-out-after-30000-years.html?feedId=online-news_rss20

Peter and I went to Port Lympne on Wednesday. I guess it was one of the spontaneous decisions, having been there before myself I told Pete all about it, and he seemed pretty amazed by the fact that you can go on a safari a kind of a real one… African Experience it’s called…
I do not support captivity ideas at all, I find them cruel and freedom-depriving, Port Lympne however is not a typical zoo, it’s a Park that has unbelievably lots of space and really has got this nice feeling to it. What I absolutely love about that place is of course, that endangered species of animals are bred there and released into their natural habitats. Even though I am always quite sceptical about this due to lives led differently in captivity and wilderness (such as people feeding animals, choosing mating partners, providing medical care etc., these you see are unavailable to the animals in the wilderness), stunningly staff at Port Lympne have successfully put animals back in the wild (animals are monitored and there is evidence they are mixing well with the indigenous inhabitants of their land, which is great). Every single species that visitors can observe has a note displayed somewhere outside their occupied area that informs of what numbers are left in the wild or if they’re extinct in the wild and all sorts of other information. It’s so good that Port Lympne spreads the awareness of dangers and ecological issues.
There is one more thing that I definitely need to mention, namely the gorillas. There was this metal box on the wall and had three holes on the top. I have no clue what the box contained, it could have been probably either water or some kind of a liquid food. Anyway, what happens is the gorillas want to get this something out of the box, but obviously they find it quite difficult to do this. Well, read carefully, we actually saw a gorilla pick up a stick, put it through the hole in the box, take it out with the food on the other end and consume it!!! I have never seen primates use tools in reality. I’ve only seen a few documentaries where chimps were using rocks to crack nuts open. I was absolutely stunned…

Yup, we had a great time!

xx

I’m sure you all have heard of Fairtrade products and know what this approach is about. I feel quite proud in a way of people that want to make difference in the world. We all enjoy having nights out with friends – drinking and eating. Not everyone, probably thinks even for a moment, how some products are made. But not in a literal, technological way, but what workers sometimes go through while producing the product. For example, farmers of Third World countries, live in terrible conditions that a lot of wealthy people cannot even imagine. It annoys me so much that some of the products I consume hide upsetting life stories. This is the reason why I support Fairtrade entirely. I admit that I’ve always drunk coke, but have recently decided to try my best to support Fairtrade approach. Fairtrade products are more expensive, but at the end of the day – aren’t they worth the price? By buying the products we can help these farmers with conditions of their day-to-day lives (their whole family’s)…. On the subject of coke, I attended an “Echo-Logik” party the other day (held at my university) organised by Conscious Consumers (love this name!) which had a beautiful aim – promoting Fairtrade! There I had a chance of trying the Ubuntu Coke, an alternative to the regular coke! And what is my impression? – no difference in taste at all, and on top of that it feels so good drinking it, because gives you an awareness of helping others, being fair. One can costs around £1, but again is totally worth the money. And I don’t really drink that much coke anyway, so once a week is not going to hurt anyone so I encourage you all to look for Fairtrade marks on shelves, and get at least 1 product, because it will make the difference. Fairtrade products are more expensive because:
- “the aim of Fairtrade is to pay a fair price to the producer and this usually means paying more;
- the aim of Fairtrade products has to include the cost of providing an international inspection system that can guarantee the Fairtrade standards are being met;
- the volume of Fairtrade sales is still relatively low compared to conventional products so there are not sufficient economies of scale to bring prices down substantially” (Canterbury City Council “Fairtrade Guide 2008”)

Are you a conscious consumer? Try to make the difference!

xxx

Will it ever be absolutely possible to create computer systems that are entirely alike humans? This is definitely not an easy question with a straightforward answer. Maybe I should distinguish here between - "is it possible" and "if it is possible then whether it will be a negative or positive invention". Well I don't regard myself a computer expert and probably never will, thus I have no idea how them clever people will make a human intelligent design. But, observing what is possible in today's world, it wouldn't surprise me if in tens or hundreds of years, there were robots walking around, sharing the world with Homo sapiens. Whether these would be exactly the same as humans is of course hard to define, but in my personal view - they won't. Human mind is extremely unique, we think in spontaneous ways and are able to give opinions, express emotions. To me, computers are represented by symbols and numbers; they are programmed to follow precise rules.

But we shall see...

xx