Ethnoarchaeological research at highland Maya hunting shrines documents the material remains of interactions between two types of animate beings: humans and the forest. When either active agent enters the others’ domain there are accompanying ceremonial activities to assuage the inherent danger, often leaving physical traces in the material record. These traces, if found in the archaeological r...

New (14)C dates from Oaxaca, Mexico, document changes in religious ritual that accompanied the evolution of society from hunting and gathering to the archaic state. Before 4000 B.P. in conventional radiocarbon years, a nomadic egalitarian lifeway selected for unscheduled (ad hoc) ritual from which no one was excluded. With the establishment of permanent villages (4000-3000 B.P.), certain ritual...

toos fertile plain, located between two mountain ranges hezarmasjed and binalood, has attracted different ethnic groups through ages due to environmental conditions, and has provided a proper ground for human inhabitation and continuation of life since oldest times. discovery of handmade tools dated to lower paleolithic age in the middle of the plain and banks of kashaf river (kashaf rud), exis...

A number of functions have been proposed for cached Clovis points. The least complicated hypothesis is that they were intended to arm hunting weapons. It has also been argued that they were produced for use in rituals or in connection with costly signaling displays. Lastly, it has been suggested that some cached Clovis points may have been used as saws. Here we report a study in which we morpho...

Work was conducted among traditional, subsistence whale hunters in Lamalera, Indonesia, in order to test if strict biological kinship or lineage membership is more important for explaining the organization of cooperative hunting parties ranging in size from 8 to 14 men. Crew identifications were collected for all 853 hunts that occurred between May 3 and August 5, 1999. Lineage identity and gen...

Most online feedback mechanisms publish unbiased statistics (usually averages) of past ratings. Such mechanisms fail in environments where the same seller sells products of many different qualities, such as marketplaces of used cars and collectibles. This paper presents a novel feedback management mechanism that succeeds in facilitating efficient transactions in such settings. One particularly ...

BACKGROUND Some Mayan peasant-hunters across the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico still carry out a hunting ritual -Loojil Ts'oon, Loj Ts'oon or Carbine Ceremony- in which they renew the divine permission for hunting in order to continue deserving the gift of prey after a period of hunt. Thus they are granted access to game by the gods and the Lords of the Animals, particularly the spirit/evil-wind ...

Ethnographic accounts demonstrate that hunting rituals for many Indigenous Peoples are meant to ensure the abundance and availability of game animals. This article shows that, among Tau-Buhid, itself is a ritual where human-spirit relationships fundamental their lifeworld. “Ritual-hunting” puts need meat secondary humans' relationship with spirit world. Ritual-hunting cannot be realized without...