MAR 2 o1997
Department of Anthropology

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THE ANTHROPOLOGY NEWSLETTER
Vol. 2,2, No. 5
March 1997
I

Fall 1997: Schedule booklets for the Fall 1997 semester should be available on
March 17. Here is what the Department of Anthropology is offering next fall:
46.101 Introduction to Anthropology
46.102 Anthropology & World Problems
46.200 Principles of Cultural Anthropology
46.210 Prehistoric Archaeology
46.220 Human Origins
46.290 Race & Racism
46.31 O Aztecs & Mayas
46.333 Ethnic Identity in the United States
46.470 Anthropological Thought & Theory
46.480 Religion & Magic
All of these courses satisfy the Group B distribution requirement for the social
sciences. In addition, the following courses satisfy the university's diversity
requirement: 46.102, 46.200, 46.290, 46.310, 46.333, and 46.480. 46.102,
Anthropology & World Problems, also meets the Values, Ethics & Responsible
Decision-making requirement of General Education.
Dr. Wymer will be on sabbatical during the Fall 1997 semester.

Note to Majors: 46.470, Anthropological Thought & Theory, is a required course for
all anthropology majors.

Race & Racism: This course studies race from an anthropological point of view, that
is, from holistic and cross-cultural perspectives. It takes the view that the concept of
race and racial categories are culturally constructed, rather than being objective
biological realities. In order to support this point of view, the biological nature of race
is explored through the investigation of human evolution and archaeology, while the
sociocultural aspect of race is considered through the comparative study of racial
categories in societies from around the world. Among the topics considered are: the
biological definition of race as distinct from the cultural definitions of race; the evolution
of the species Homo sapiens and the origin of physical variation in modern human
populations; the development of anthropological thought about race and racism; the
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relationship between physical differences and mental capacities; and the definition of
racial categories in a number of modern societies. The goal of this course is to allow
students to think about race and racism in new ways and to reflect upon their own
understanding of these topics. 46.290 is offered at MWF at 1 by Dr. Aleto.

Aztecs & Mayas: 46.31 O looks at the prehistoric cultures of Mesoamerica, the area
that encompasses central and southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and
northern Nicaragua. Archaeological, ecological, and historical evidence are utilized to
reconstruct the complex and spectacular cultures that developed there over a period of
more than 3500 years. The course pays most attention to the two great civilizations of
Mesoamerica: the Maya, best known for their magnificent art and their sprawling ·cities
hidden in dense jungles, and the Aztecs, infamous for their bloody religion and their
great empire. In addition, the important cultures that preceded the Mayas and Aztecs
are investigated. These include the Olmecs, who produced sculptures of their rulers
weighing over 40 tons, and the Teotihuacanos, who built the largest pyramids in the
Americas. This course is also offered by Dr. Aleto, who will illustrate the course
material from his extensive collection of slides built up over years of personally visiting
sites in Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala. 46.31 O is offered on TuTh 12:30-1 :45.

Ethnic Identity in the U.S.: This course will explore the role of ethnicity in North
American society. Concepts of ethnicity, assimilation, pluralism, and identity will be
analyzed. Special attention will be paid to cultural, political, economic, and symbolic
aspects of ethnic identity. The course will survey the literature on ethnicity in the
United States as well as critique the significant theoretical approaches in the field.
Each class will be conducted as a seminar, and students will be encouraged to
participate in discuissions and presentations. Individual, self-chosen projects will be
part of the course responsibility of each student. The course will be taught by Dr.
Dauria, who conducted field research on Italian and Hispanic immigrants in upstate
New York.
Religion & Magic: The cross-cultural study of religious behavior has fascinated
anthropologists since the beginnings of the discipline in the second half of the 19th
century. Nearly every human culture seems to believe that something supernatural
exists beyond the realm of the ordinary human senses, and furthermore, also believes
that this supernatural entity is intricately involved in the everyday activities of humans.
Indeed, most tribal and peasant cultures were sacred societies in which virtually every
act was suffused with some supernatural implication or meaning. Knowing that the
supernatural is at hand, humans have tried to influence those powers to their benefit,
beseeching through prayer, manipulating through magic, and placating through ritual.
46.480 looks at the breadth and diversity of religious experience cross-culturally to
note the many ways humans deal with the supernatural as well as the common
threads running through religious belief. A wide variety of topics will be discussed.
including witchcraft (and the kinds of cultures in which it occurs), the interpretation of
myth, magical healing, concepts of death and life after death, and revitalization
movements, those transformations of culture that occasionally threaten to shake a

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society's values to their core. 46.480 is taught by Dr. Minderhout and will be offered
Tuesday evenings from 6:30-9:30.

Early Humans In the Americas: One of the long standing debates in the
archaelogy of the Americas has been about when humans first arrived in the Western
Hemisphere. Researchers generally agree that the first Americans arrived in this
hemisphere from Asia, using a land bridge that crossed the Bering Strait which today
separates Alaska from Russia. At various times in the past, when the climate was
colder than it is today, much of the northern part of the Western Hemisphere was
covered in snow and ice, the so-called "ice ages." During these periods, a great deal
of water was captured in the glaciers covering the land; the result was that the ocean
levels dropped, exposing the continental shelves and relatively shallow areas such as
the Bering Strait. While researchers agree on the means by which humans first came
to the Americas, they disagree on when this occurred.
One point on which almost every archaeologist agrees is that there is solid
evidence for humans in the Americas by 11,500 BP (Before Present). Those humans,
called Paleolndians by anthropologists, were nomadic foragers, hunting wild animals
and gathering wild plants. They used a characteristic stone projectile point called a
Clovis point; the points are named for an archaeological site near Clovis, New Mexico.
Clovis points have been discovered at a number of sites in the Americas, all
radiocarbon dated at around 11,000 to 11,500 years ago. Many archaeologists
believe that the Clovis point people represent the first Americans, that there is no
convincing evidence for any human occupation in the Americas before 11,500 BP.
Other archaeologists are convinced that they have uncovered evidence of significantly
earlier cultures. Several of these sites are from South America.
For example, in 1976, University of Kentucky archaeologist, Tom Dillehay,
discovered a site in south-central Chile which he called Monte Verde. The Monte
Verde site is unusual in that it is located in a bog; most evidence of early Americans
comes from arid sites, as for example, in the American Southwest. However, Monte
Verde was not a bog when humans left the artifacts Dillehay discovered in 1976. Then
it was an open-air camp along a shallow stream. The peat bog formed later in time and helped to preserve the site. The lack of oxygen in the water-saturated bog
inhibited decay, and as a result, a number of features were discovered which are
otherwise seldom preserved. These include the wooden foundations of huts, food pits
including plant remains, wooden artifacts, and even a hunk of mastodon flesh. One of
the most interesting discoveries was a child's footprint, neatly preserved near a hearth .
Dillehay found evidence for two different residential areas. In one area, huts were
made by laying out wooden timbers in a rectangular pattern; these timbers apparently
held down the ends of animal hides which were draped over a framework of poles.
The other area featured a different kind of structure made of poles stuck into the
ground. There is some .evidence of specialization between the two structures, with
different kinds of tools and different animal and plant remains associated with each.
The plant and animal remains suggest that the Monte Verde people foraged in thirteen

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different ecological zones.
There are many hearths at the site, yielding abundant samples of charcoal for
radiocarbon dating. The first dates obtained for the site indicated it was 13,000 years
old; this has since been refined to 12,500, or 1000 years earlier than any Clovis site.
In addition, consider the location of the site. It is one thing to have early Americans in
New Mexico at 11,500 years ago; it is quite another to have them in southern Chile at
12,500 years ago. Paleolndians had neither pack animals nor mechanical means of
transportation; they walked to southern Chile, meaning that they would have had to
enter this hemisphere earlier than 12,500 BP.
And Dillehay was not done with the surprises the Monte Verde ~ite held. When he
excavated below the 12,500 occupation level, he found additional evidence of human
habitation at the site from an even earlier time period. The earlier site, located five feet
below the 12,500 BP level, is much more poorly preserved and consists of three
hearths and some stone tools. Radiocarbon dates from this level revealed an age of
33,000 BP! Dillehay has been very careful in making claims about the earlier site,
referring to the hearths as "apparent" and noting that the tool evidence is scanty.
Nevertheless, he also points out that four of the 24 tools recovered show signs of wear,
with evidence of scraping and cutting. He also notes the five feet of soil separating the
two sites was undisturbed and sterile, that is, devoid of any evidence of humans.
Therefore, he does not believe that the older site could have been more recent
materials that happened to filter down to an older level.
Proponents of the Clovis culture have been slow to accept Monte Verde as a
legitimate pre-Clovis site. One of the most vocal critics of pre-11,500 evidence has
been Vance Haynes of the University of Arizona. Haynes is an archaeologist with
professional training in geology. His background in geology has led him to be highly
critical of the claims made by other archaeologists who don't have the same level of
geological expertise. Time and again, Haynes has "debunked" claims of pre-Clovis
sites by pointing out errors in analysis, usually with regards to geological
interpretations. For example, he showed that the "stone tools" associated with the
Tule Springs site in Nevada, a site supposedly 28,000 years old, were actually rocks
broken by hoofed animals that were coming to the spring for water. Or at the Calico
site, believed by Louis Leakey to be at least 18,000 years old - and probably much
older, Haynes pointed out that the stone tools being discovered were naturally
occurring geological phenomena. Claims for pre-Clovis sites have generally faltered
in the face of closer scrutiny. In some cases, the initial radiocarbon dates turned out to
be incorrect; in other cases, the artifacts discovered had been washed into lower strata
by some natural process. In still other instances, Clovis proponents believe that dates
at supposedly early sites have been skewed by contaminants of some sort. The
Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in western Pennsylvania, for example, (described in the
March 1995 issue of ANTHROPOS) is believed by some archaeologists to be at least
19,000 years old, but Haynes argues that the radiocarbon dates there have been
thrown off by runoff from coal deposits at the site.

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Thus, Dillehay faced significant opposition when he first published his findings from
Monte Verde. Haynes and other Clovis proponents dismissed the research as
improbable, figuring either that the unusual location of the site was throwing off the
analysis or that what Dillehay had discovered were really natural, rather than manmade, features. To overcome his critics' doubts, Dillehay continued to work at the site,
carefully analyzing his finds and getting collaborating radiocarbon dates. But he also
took a more unusual step. In January, he arranged to bring his staunchest critics including Haynes - to Monte Verde. Dillehay is quoted in a New York Times article in
February as saying, "Most archaeologists had always thought there was a pre-Clovis
cuHure out there somewhere, and I knew that if they would only come to the site and
took at the setting and see the artifacts, they would agree that Monte Verde was preClovis." And he was right. As Dr. Alex Barker, chief curator of the Dallas Museum of
Natural History said after viewing the site, "While there were very strong voiced
disagreements about different points, it rapidly became clear that everyone was in
fundamental agreement about the most important question of all. Monte Verde is real.
It's old. And it's a whole new ball game."
What was agreed to was the antiquity of the 12,500 year old occupation at Monte
Verde. Dillehay still has too little information about the earlier occupation to make as
strong a claim about it. But even the 12,500 BP occupation pushes back human
existence in the Americas a thousand years.
Now, a thousand years may not seem like a big deal, given the overall antiquity of
humankind or geological time in general, but in this case, a thousand years requires
some rethinking about the process by which humans came to the Americas. The
problem has to do with access to the Western Hemisphere via the Bering Strait.
Geologists have known for some time that glaciers blocked passage into the interior of
the Western Hemisphere from roughly 20,000 BP to 13,000 BP. Both before and after
this period there were ice-free corridors that would have allowed much easier access
to the hemisphere. Clovis proponents have long pointed to these facts as evidence for
their views. If humans could have obtained access to the hemisphere only 13,000
years ago, then a Paleolndian/Clovis occupation in the American Southwest at 11,500
made sense, given the probable pace at which nomadic humans cover territory. Since
there was no reliable evidence for humans in the hemisphere at 20,000 years ago, the
glaciers seemed to confirm the position of Clovis as the first archaeological culture in
the Americas.
But if humans were in southern Chile 12,500 BP, there needs to be a
reinterpretation of the Bering Strait data. One possibility, of course, is that the first
Americans came across the Strait at 13,000 BP and then moved very quickly into
South America, but the pace of that journey seems improbable. Another possibility is
that humans really came to the hemisphere 20,000 BP, with the confirming sites yet to
have been found. But archaeologists are reluctant to endorse a hypothesis for which
there is so little (uncontested) hard evidence. Instead, in the wake of Monte Verde,
some archaeologists are now wondering if there haven't been some serious

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misinterpretations of Paleolndian culture.
As noted earlier, Paleolndians have always been seen as nomadic foragers. In
particular, they have been seen as specialized big game hunters. Clovis sites have
often been found in association with the remains of large mammals such as woolly
mammoths. Large herd mammals were abundant_in the Americas during the period
before 10,500 years ago, and the theory has been that Paleolndians followed and
exploited those herds. But what if Paleolndians - or some of them, anyway - were
maritime cultures, exploiting the seashore for foods such as shellfish. A maritime
culture could have used boats to move along the Pacific coastline, thus skirting the icelocked land areas. The Monte Verde people were certainly familiar with coastal
environments, since remains at the site include shellfish from the Pacific coast, thirty
miles away. If this hypothesis is reasonable, proof may be hard to obtain. Because of
all the water captured in those glaciers, the ocean levels were lower 13,000+ BP.
Evidence for an early maritime culture in the Americas may be under water today.

Ras Tafari: Reggae music. Bob Marley and the Wailers. Long dreadlocks. These
are all popular symbols that most Americans recognize as being associated with a
group of people from the Caribbean nation of Jamaica called the Rastafarians. In fact,
Rastafarians have become such a familar stereotype that Jamaica routinely uses
pictures of them in advertisements for tourism, amd probably most Americans
associate them with general images of Caribbean life. But few Americans know much
about the Rastafarians beyond their music, and there are a great many
misconceptions about them. Anthropological studies of the "Rasta-men" show that
there is a great deal more to the movement than reggae music and long hair.
To begin with, Ras Tafari is a Jamaican religious movement that dates back to the
1930's. Originally Ras Tafari was one of several movements spawned by the activism
of the African-American reformer, Marcus Garvey, born in Jamaica in 1887. Garvey
was an outspoken critic of colonialism and white racism. He is probably best known
- for his advocacy of a "return to Africa" for African-Americans. Garvey believed in the
common experience of black people world-wide and urged the formation of a "Negro
Nation" in Africa, free of colonial restraints. This new black nation, once freed of
colonialism, would become a self-supporting giant of which all black people could be
proud. Through his Universal Negro Improvement Association, formed in Kingston,
Jamaica in 1914, Garvey sought to raise the status of African-Americans, while
promoting the need to emigrate to Africa to prepare for the emergence of the new
black nation.
Garvey's movement was not popular with Jamaican authorities, who tried to repress
it. In 1914, Jamaica was a British colony, and English people had a monopoly of
economic ·and political power on the island. The colonial authorities had already dealt
with a long-line of African-American uprisings on the island and so were hardly
sympathetic to Garvey's words; it is sajd that most black Jamaicans did not support his
movement either. In 1916, Garvey left Jamaica for the United States, where he was to

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receive a somewhat more sympathetic audience, at least among African-Americans.
Before he left, however, he addressed his Jamaican followers and reportedly said
"Look to Africa for the crowning of a black king. He shall be the redeemer." Garvey's
departure left his Jamaican followers adrift. Many had looked at Garvey as a
messianic figure and were disappointed that he had apparently abandoned them.
Given Garvey's departing words and the vacuum of leadership his departure
some
produced, the crowning of Haile Selassie as king of Ethiopia in 1930 seemed to _
black Jamaicans as the fulfillment of a prophecy. Ethiopia was the one African nation
that had successfully resisted European colonialism and maintained its
independence. Haile Selassie's coronation was widely publicized in Western media,
and it was not lost on Garvey's followers in Jamaica that representatives of all the
European powers attended his coronation and recognized Selassie's rule. Thus,
some of Garvey's followers looked to Haile Selassie as both their political and spiritual
redeemer, the person destined to create a proud African power to which Caribbean
blacks could migrate. Before assuming the imperial name of Haile Selassie (which
means "Might of the Trinity,") the new king's name had been Ras Tafari. (In Amharic,
"Ras" is a title akin to "Duke", while Tafari was the family name of the king.) In
Jamaica, a small group of former Garveyites constructed a new belief system around
the Ethiopian king, calling themselves Ras Tafarians.
The new religious movement was built around six basic beliefs. The first was that
Hane Selassie was the living embodiment of God. Ras Tafarians usually refer to their
deity as "Ja Ras Tafari," with the "Ja" supposedly associated with the Hebrew Jehovah
or "Yahweh." Ras Tafarians apparently see their god as a spiritual being that
manifested itself in the human person of Haile Selassie during his lifetime. During
Selassie's long reign, Ras Tafarians came to believe that he was immortal. Sel~ssie's
death at the hands of assassins of 1975 was resisted by the Ras Tafari movement for
many -years; today, Ras Tafarians are more likely to say that the spirit of Haile Selassie
is still alive and among them. Garvey's words had seemed to point to the Ethiopian
king. as a likely messiah. This belief was reinforced by Selassie's claimed title as the
Lion of Judah. Ras Tafarians point to a passage in the book of Revelations (5:2-5) in
the New Testament which says "And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud
voice: Who is worthy to open the book, amd to loose the seals thereof? And no man in
heaven, nor in earth ... was able to open the book, neither to look thereon ... And one
of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of
David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof." To Ras
Tafarians, this passage reinforces Haile Selassie's place as a redeemer - one who
breaks the seals.
(In his lifetime, Haile Selassie was certainly aware of the adoration of the Ras
Tafarians. Ras Tafarians both visited Ethiopia and wrote long letters to Selassie
asking for his support. Selassie pointedly ignored these contacts. Ras Tafarians who
made it to Ethiopia were denied any audience with him; they were told that Selassie
was a devout Coptic Christian who saw other religions as pagan. Ras Tafarians were

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also repeatedly denied the right to emigrate to Ethiopia, and those few who arrived in
the country were politely turned away.)
The second basic belief, as expressed by one informant, is "The Black person is
the reincarnation of ancient Israel, who at the hand of the White person, has been in
exile in Jamaica." RasTafarians believe that the god of the Old Testament is black,
and they point to two Old Testament references to prove their point. The first is Daniel
7:9: "And I beheld till the thrones were cast down and the Ancient of days did sit,
whose garment was white like snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool: his throne
was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire." The second reference is from
Jeremiah 8:21: "For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black;
astonishment hath taken hold of me." These passages show that Rastafarians read
and take comfort from the Bible, but they are selective in their use of it. Rastafarians
believe that the Bible was originally written in Amharic, the language of Haile
Selassie's ethnic group in Ethiopia and that the current version is a deliberate
misrepresentation of the original by white people who have conspired to keep blacks
ignorant and downtrodden. Rastaraians, however, believe that they have discovered
important keys which open up the true hidden meanings of the Bible, and they read
Bible passages and discuss them in their services. In general, Rastafarians see more
value in the Old Testament than the New. To them, Jesus Christ was one of several historical figures, along with Moses and Elijah, who manifested the spirit of Ja on
earth; Haile Selassie was the most recent of these "avatars." No special divinity is
assigned to Jesus, and the New Testament is thought to have been maliciously edited
by white people to excise all the references to blacks.
The third basic belief is that blacks are superior to whites. Not only is god black, but
the first great human civilization - Ethiopia - was black as well. Rastafarians will say
that black culture had already reached the pinnacle of civilization while whites were
still primitive savages. Marcus Garvey had also emphasized these points, though he
made reference to Egypt: "After we had already fathomed the mystery of the stars and
reduced the heavenly constellations to minute and regular calculus they were still
backwoodsmen, living in ignorance and blatant darkness." (quoted in IlliL
Rastafaraians by Leonard Barrett, Beacon Press 1977.) However, Rastafarians are
not anti-white. While whites are seen as the oppressors of blacks, individual whites
are accepted on their merits, and some sources report that whites have become ·
Rastafarians.
The fourth belief is that Jamaica is a hopeless hell, while Ethiopia is heaven.
Rastafarians point to the general poverty of blacks in Jamaica, especially by contrast to
both the Jamaican power structure and the thousands of tourists who flood into the
country each winter. Jamaican political independence in 1962 was not seen by
Rastafarians as a switch from white to black rule. Rather, the elected leaders of
Jamaica are dismissed as "mulattos" or "white blackmen" who continue to enslave the
majority. For these reasons, Rastafarians choose to not participate in the institutions
and rituals of modern Jamaica. They refuse to vote, join political parties or unions,

9.
send their children to school, or pay taxes. Most Rastafarians live as squatters on
public land - often landfills - and work at unskilled positions only long enough to raise
some cash for their immediate needs. Rastafarians do not generally turn to violence
against the oppressor society, but rather accept its existence as inevitable.
Meanwhile. paradise, in the form of Ethiopia, beckons. Older Rastafarians remain
convinced that they will return to Africa one day, where they will live lives of ease and
comfort. Rastafa.rians maintain their own classrooms for their children where the
children are taught about the movement and African cultures. Many younger
Rastafarians, however, have come to believe that the return to Africa will never
materialize and that more Jamaicans need to be converted to Ras Tafari in order for
Jamaica to become a better place for blacks to live.
The fifth belief is that Haile Selassie - in spirit - is preparing the way for blacks to
return to Africa. The emperor visited Jamaica in 1966, setting off a frenzy of
anticipation by Rastafarians, believing that he had come to prepare for their migration.
In fact, Selassie avoided the Rastafarians in 1966, and, as reported earlier, refused to
meet their delegations to his own country.
Finally, Rastafarians believe that one day black people will rule the world.
Rastafarians interpret the prophecies contained in Daniel 2:31-42 to refer to them,
particularly the passage referring to "the stone hewed out of the mountain without
hands." The stone is Africa, and subsequent references in the passage are said to be
the European cofonizers of Africa, all falling before the rise of black Africa. An
alternative explanation given by some Rastafarians is that whites will one day
obliterate themselves in a nuclear holocaust, but blacks will somehow survive.
As for the highly visible symbols of Ras Tafari - reggae music and dreadlocks, for
example ~ there are clear explanations in the belief system. The justification for long
hair is from Leviticus 21 :5: "They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither
shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in their flesh."
Rastafarians also point to the Biblical story of Samson whose strength was in his long
hair. There is also the suggestion that long hair reinforces the Rastafarian's image of
themselves as lions, from Selassie's Lion of Judah. Some Rastafarians try to imitate
the gait of a lion as they walk. The long hair came to be called "dreadlocks" from the
Jamaican use of the word "dread" to refer to rebellion or defiance of authority;
Rastafarians often refer to each others as "dreads." Incidentally, Rastafarians are often
seen as dirty by people outside the movement because of their unkempt appearance
and squ_alid living conditions, but Rastafarians also believe that they should wash
each day in "natural herbs."
Another feature of the Rastafarian lifestyle is the use of marijuana, called "ganja" or
more simply, "the herb," within the movement. The reference to marijuana as "the
herb" is important, given their reading of Genesis 1: 12: "And the earth brought forth
grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed

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was in itself, after his kind, and God saw that it was good." Another key passage is
from the 104th Psalm, verse 14: "He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb
for the service of man." Rastafarians say that ganja is god's chosen plant, and they
use it both in group rituals and individually for meditation. The official doctrine of Ras
Tafari is that ganja is a sacred plant which should not be used to excess. This is
consistent with other Rastafarian taboos against drinking alcohol or smoking
cigarettes. They say that alcohol creates violence, while ganja creates peace. The
fact that Jamaican authorities periodically attempt to stamp out Rasta ganja use or
destroy fields of marijuana that Rastafarians maintain in the more rural areas of the
island is seen as proof of the oppressive nature of the Jamaican power structure.

Music has always been a part of Rastafarian rituals, particularly drumming. A strong
drumbeat accompanies Rastafarian ceremonies, and in the 1960's, Oswald Williams
(also known as Count Ossie, a figure who became legendary among Rastafarians), is
said to have originated the distinctive beat that has become reggae. Count Ossie
created a Rastafarian musical group, 'The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari", which
became the first to have reggae music recorded. Since the 1960's, reggae music has
spread throughout the Caribbean as well as to other parts of the world, including the
United States and Great Britain. There are thousands of reggae enthusiasts and many
reggae performing groups as well, very few of which are Rastafarians.
That leads to the final point. Not everyone who wears dreadlocks, smokes ganja,
and listens to reggae music is a Rastafarian. There are a great many Rastafarian- .
wannabes. In particular, many people have been lured to the Rastafarian movement
in Jamaica by the combination of warm weather, an inexpensive lifestyle, and
abundant marijuana. To add to the confusion, true Rastafarians tolerate the presence
of pretenders in their midst probably to a greater degree than most religious
movements. But to be a true Rastafarian, someone has to have the "art" of Ras Tafari,
the spiritual knowledge of god or Ja. The British anthropologist Sheila Kitzinger wrote
that "(Rastafarians) stress the need for inward grace, not outward symbols. 'Art" is the
inherent ability to know the things of God, to see through the apparent to the real, to
discern between the false and true, and to communicate this knowledge. A man may
discover it in himself after living the major part of his life in dissolute unawareness - 'in
the flesh pots.' It was there all the time, but he did not know it. When a man expounds
doctrine excellently, prays movingly, or argues a point convincingly, his listeners call
out, 'Art! Mighty art! Rastafari!"' (1971 :586).

This Just In: In the last month, Rutgers paleoanthropologists, Sileshi Semaw and
John W.K. Harris, have announced the discovery of the world's oldest stone tools.
Discovered in excavations in Ethiopia between 1992 and 1994, the stone tools are of
the Oldowan type, first discovered by Mary Leakey in the 1960's at Olduvai Gorge in
Tanzania. The previously oldest known stone tools dated to 2.3 to 2.4 million years
ago. Using potassium-argon techniques, these latest finds were dated to 2.52-2.6
million years ago.

11.
BU Anthropology News: Professor Faith Warner presented a paper at the
American Ethnological Society meetings which were held in Seattle, March 6-9.
Professor Warner's paper was entitled "Negotiating Resistance: Hegemonic
Contradictions in Q'eqchi' Ethnic Revitalization," and was based on her research in
southern Mexico.