Michael A. Little

Cattle Raiding, Cultural Survival, and Adaptability of East African Pastoralists

Since the late 1970s, cattle raiding with automatic weapons has escalated among nomadic herding societies in northern East Africa. We examine the impact of AK47 raiding on the adaptability of Karimojong agropastoralists in northern Uganda. Most notably, raiding is linked to a loss of population resilience in Karamoja, measured in increased mortality of young children and of adult males in their prime reproductive years and decreased female fertility. AK47 raiding has acted both directly and indirectly as a Darwinian stressor in this population, compromising longstanding adaptive strategies and intensifying selection pressure. We briefly discuss similar effects of recently altered patterns of raiding among related Turkana pastoralists in Kenya. We then consider the process by which this traditional cultural institution was modified in the interests of preserving cultural identity. We conclude nonetheless that cattle raiding with automatic weapons constitutes singularly maladaptive cultural behavior in contemporary pastoralist societies. Indeed, it represents the single greatest threat to their biobehavioral resilience and ultimately may have profound evolutionary costs in terms of pastoralists survival.

Energy reserves and parity of nomadic and settled Turkana women

Members of the Turkana tribe include settled and nomadic peoples who reside in the southern part of Turkana District in the semiarid region of northwest Kenya. Nomadic Ngisonyoka Turkana keep livestock (camels, cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys), subsist principally on livestock products, and move camps frequently in search of forage for the livestock; settled Turkana cultivate foods along the principal rivers. Both nomadic and settled Turkana are subject to limited food resources on seasonal and long‐term bases. Protein from meat, blood, and milk is sufficient in the diet, but food energy is limited, as are body fat reserves. Previous work has documented a decline in maternal adiposity with age in a large sample of the relatively lean nomadic women, and a negative association of fat stores with parity in a smaller sample of nomadic women. The problem of maternal depletion of fat energy reserves as a function of female reproductive history is explored in this study through anthropometry in a relatively large sample (N = 312) of nomadic and settled women. Both nomadic and settled women displayed some parity‐related losses in fat stores. The relationship was stronger in the nomads, even after controlling for age.

Coca Chewing and High-Altitude Stress: Possible Effects of Coca Alkaloids on Erythropoiesis [and Comments and Reply]

Andean Indians who chew coca seek to alleviate symptoms of hunger, thirst, fatigue, cold, and pain. A complete explanation of cocas use should account for these motives. The distribution of coca chewing in the Andes is shown to parallel that of polycythemia. Coca chewing is more common in higher altitudes, with men consistently chewing more than women and children, and chewing is especially common amongst mineworkers. Since androgens stimulate erythropoiesis and estrogens depress it, men at any given altitude are also more susceptible to polycythemia than women. Mineworkers are polycythemic because of silicosis. The debilitating effects of viscous blood from polycythemia are more consequential than the increased ability of the blood to transport oxygen. Clinical manifestations of polycythemia include fatigue and headache, some of the very symptoms which coca chewers seek to alleviate by their use of the drug. A physiological mechanism is suggested by which cocaine and ecgonine, the active ingredients in the coca leaf, may suppress erythropoiesis, thereby helping to alleviate these symptoms. Since evidence exists that, when nutrition and disease are taken into account as influencing factors, coca chewers have lower hematocrits than controls, it is likely that coca use provides specific medicinal relief for chronic polycythemia.

Coca Chewing and High-Altitude Stress: A Spurious Correlation [and Comments and Reply]

Because the main present-day centres of coca chewing are in the high altiplano regions of Peru and Bolivia, it has been widely assumed that the habit evolved primarily as a response to the stresses of life at high altitudes. When archaeological, ethnohistorical, and botanical sources of evidence are considered, a different emphasis emerges. Before the European conquest, coca was chewed everywhere from Nicaragua to Chile and at all altitudes. This pattern goes back to at least 2000 B.C. in coastal Peru and Ecuador and has considerable time-depth elsewhere. Even today, coca taking is linked not primarily with high-altitude life, but with the survival of traditional Indian culture. Apart from its role in indigenous culture, coca is everywhere regarded as a stimulant conferring resistance against hunger, thirst, and fatigue, none of which is specifically a high-altitude problem. Pharmacological data confirm that coca acts as a general stimulant by preventing the removal of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline from its site of action. This action resembles the effect of drugs used in medicine to treat depression and, more distantly, the action of caffeine-containing beverages such as coffee.

Human Population Biology in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

Human population biology can be identified as the biocultural study of living humans from evolutionary, historical, populational, developmental, biomedical, and anthropological perspectives. Biological anthropology really “came of age” during the second half of the twentieth century, after the end of World War II. Human population biology, as a subfield of biological anthropology, was a part of this “scientific maturation” of the discipline. Contributions to the postwar transformation of living population studies were (1) wartime studies of military personnel exposed to novel environments, (2) an increase in young academic professionals with new ideas, (3) a decrease in both racist (racialist) attitudes and interest in race typology, and (4) the explosion of research and literature on human biology and behavior.

Blood Pressure and Lifestyle on Saba, Netherlands Antilles

During the 20th century, infectious disease morbidity and mortality generally waned whereas chronic degenerative diseases posed a growing burden at the global level. The population on Saba, Netherlands Antilles has recently experienced such an epidemiologic transition, and hypertension was reported to be extraordinarily high, although no prevalences have been reported and relationships with lifestyle factors associated with rapid modernization have not been explored. In this study, a medical and demographic questionnaires, as well as body composition and blood pressure measures were collected from 278 Saban men and women aged 18–91 years. When age and sex adjusted, 48% of the population was hypertensive. Age, BMI, and Afro‐Caribbean descent were all associated with higher blood pressures. In a second phase, 124 individuals of the 278 were invited to receive a longer questionnaire on individual exposure to modernizing influences such as travel and education. Higher blood pressure was associated with having lived in fewer different places in the past; those who stayed only on Saba or Statia had higher blood pressures than those who had also lived in more modernized areas. However, this was no longer statistically significant after adjustment for age and BMI. Lifestyle incongruity was positively associated with higher blood pressure in that those with more discord between material wealth and income were more likely to be hypertensive, and this remained statistically significant after adjustment for age and adiposity. In summary, hypertension is highly prevalent on Saba and tended to be associated with greater age, adiposity, Afro‐Caribbean ancestry, and lifestyle incongruity. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2009.

Raymond Pearl and the Shaping of Human Biology

Abstract Raymond Pearl (1879–1940) was a significant figure in the field of biology. He founded the journal Human Biology and almost single-handedly promoted and established the scientific discipline of human biology. His scientific versatility was one of his most important features during the first four decades of the 20th century, and he played a major role in developing the fields of biodemography, human population biology, human life-cycle and life span approaches, fertility, growth, the biology of longevity and senescence, and mortality. He was one of the earliest biologists to combine biometric analyses and experimental studies to explore the dimensions of human biology. Pearl also was broadly educated in the arts, music, literature, history, the classics, and science. His writing was sophisticated and often witty, and his views were sometimes provocative and controversial. His network of colleagues and friends among the literary and science worlds was substantial. The following biographical memoir of Raymond Pearl is designed to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the founding of his journal Human Biology and is a tribute to this great scientist. Pearls sudden death at age 61 truncated a scientific career that was one of the most productive of the 20th century.

A Half Century of High-Altitude Studies in Anthropology: Introduction to the Plenary Session

Until 50 years ago, high‐altitude terrestrial research was conducted largely within the realm of environmental physiology, where interests were focused on physiological mechanisms and mountain exploration. Scientists from the United States, Europe, and Peru had developed sophisticated physiological models of adaptation and acclimatization to the hypoxia of high altitude, but very little research had been conducted on permanent residents, particularly natives of high altitude in the two major regions of the world—the Andes and the Himalayas. In 1962, Raul T. Baker initiated a project at the Pennsylvania State University to explore the responses of indigenous Peruvians to the major stresses at altitude: hypoxia and cold. Approaches to this early research were anthropological in perspective and centered on population‐level studies with an evolutionary approach. Studies were conducted by applying a combination of physiological experimental methods, simulated field experiments, and extended anthropological field observations. Early hypotheses at this time were that heredity played a major role in the adaptive complexes in native high‐altitude residents. These early hypotheses were later modified to incorporate or replace the genetic hypotheses with developmental adaptation models. A half century of research within anthropology and research in other fields has presented a vastly more complex and integrated picture of high‐altitude adaptation in native residents. Recent studies incorporate physiology and oxygen transport, population and molecular genetics, reproduction, growth, and development. The history and current status of high‐altitude research and its anthropological applications are treated in papers from this plenary symposium. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 25:148–150, 2013.

Reproductive Function in Nomadic and Settled Women of Turkana, Kenya

More than 300 nomadic and settled women provided first morning urine samples for three consecutive days. Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a marker for pregnancy, and luteinizing hormone (LH) and pregnanediol glucuronide (PdG), markers of ovarian cyclicity, were determined in the field using solid phase enzyme immunoassays. We also interviewed the women about their reproductive histories, health, and diet, and made measurements of body mass and composition. Reproductive status of each woman was deduced from the results of the hormonal assays, supplemented with information from reproductive and menstrual histories.

Evidence-Based Staffing in High Schools: Using Student Achievement Data in Teacher Hiring, Evaluation, and Assignment

ABSTRACT Recent research has demonstrated that elementary school leaders, under pressure to meet benchmarks set by state and federal governments, have begun “staffing to the test,” moving to tested grades and subjects teachers whose previous students made substantive learning gains. This is particularly true in lower-performing schools or schools that recently experienced a drop in performance, as measured by the grade they received from the state accountability system. What is not known, however, is how widespread this phenomenon has become. Moreover, little is known about whether and how performance data is used by administrators of high schools, where scheduling complexity is amplified by graduation requirements, larger enrollments, and credentialing requirements that mandate teachers to be certified in all the subjects that they teach. By surveying high school principals in Florida and Texas, this article attempts to fill this gap.