Food taboos are known from virtually all human societies. Most religions declare certain food items fit and others unfit for human consumption. Dietary rules and regulations may govern particular phases of the human life cycle and may be associated with special events such as menstrual period, pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, and – in traditional societies – preparation for the hunt, battle, wedding, funeral, etc. On a comparative basis many food taboos seem to make no sense at all, as to what may be declared unfit by one group may be perfectly acceptable to another. On the other hand, food taboos have a long history and one ought to expect a sound explanation for the existence (and persistence) of certain dietary customs in a given culture. Yet, this is a highly debated view and no single theory may explain why people employ special food taboos. This paper wants to revive interest in food taboo research and attempts a functionalist's explanation. However, to illustrate some of the complexity of possible reasons for food taboo five examples have been chosen, namely traditional food taboos in orthodox Jewish and Hindu societies as well as reports on aspects of dietary restrictions in communities with traditional lifestyles of Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and Nigeria. An ecological or medical background is apparent for many, including some that are seen as religious or spiritual in origin. On the one hand food taboos can help utilizing a resource more efficiently; on the other food taboos can lead to the protection of a resource. Food taboos, whether scientifically correct or not, are often meant to protect the human individual and the observation, for example, that certain allergies and depression are associated with each other could have led to declaring food items taboo that were identified as causal agents for the allergies. Moreover, any food taboo, acknowledged by a particular group of people as part of its ways, aids in the cohesion of this group, helps that particular group maintain its identity in the face of others, and therefore creates a feeling of "belonging".

/pdf/food-taboos-their-origins-and-purposes-2k9dx5nzsy.pdf

Food taboos: their origins and purposes.

Gebruikssporen-analyse van vuursteen is een vrij jonge tak van wetenschap, welke in Nederland tot voor kort niet werd beoefend. Het hier gepresenteerde onderzoek kan beschouwd worden als een aanzet ten einde in deze leemte te voorzien. Aangezien het tot op heden gepubliceerde gebruikssporenonderzoek een weinig systematisch beeld vertoont met betrekking tot gevolgde procedures en interpretaties van de resultaten, bevat de onderhavige studie een uitgebreide verhandeling aangaande methoden en technieken (hoofdstuk 2). Kort samengevat houdt gebruikssporen-analyse het volgende in. Ten gevolge van gebruik ontstaat slijtage op vuurstenen werktuigen. Deze slijtage kan vier vormen aannemen: gebruiksretouche. afronding van de werkrand, glans en krasjes. Binnen de gebruikssporen-analyse zijn twee onderzoeksrichtingen te onderscheiden: de macro-analyse die zich voornamelijk bezig houdt met gebruiksretouche, en de microanalyse die zich concentreert op het bestuderen van glans en krasjes. Bij deze laatste onderzoeksrichting spelen de factoren gebruiksretouche en afronding evenzeer een rol, zij het van ondergeschikte betekenis. Een macro-analyse levert een indicatie van de relatieve hardheid van het bewerkte materiaal, terwijl met de micro-analyse een nadere precisering van de aard daarvan mogelijk is. De huidige studie is gebaseerd op de micro-analytische benaderingswijze; de analyses werden verricht met behulp van een opvallend-licht microscoop (vergrotingen: 50-560x).

/pdf/the-wear-and-tear-of-flint-principles-of-functional-analysis-4hij8sz11d.pdf

The wear and tear of flint : principles of functional analysis applied to Dutch Neolithic assemblages

We analyzed the role of taboos for the protection of species listed as "threatened" by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and also for species known to be endemic and keystone The study was limi 

The Relations Among Threatened Species, Their Protection, and Taboos

Part 1: Viking Age Scandinavia People, Society and Social Institutions. Living Space. Technology and Trade. Warfare and Weaponry. Pre-Christian Religion and Belief. Language, Literature and Art Part 2: The Viking Expansion The British Isles. Continental Europe and the Mediterranean. The Baltic. Russia and the East. The North Atlantic Part 3: Scandinavia Enters the European Stage The Coming of Christianity. The Development of Nation States (riki)

The Viking World

The aim of Artefacts as Categories is to ask what we can learn about a society from the variability of the objects it produces. Dr Miller presents a comprehensive analysis of the pottery produced in a single village in central India, drawing together and analysing a whole range of aspects - technology, function, design, symbolism and ideology - that are usually studied separately. Central to the analysis is the contention that human categorisation processes mediate in the production of all artefacts and that artefacts therefore constitute an essential and much-neglected 'silent' source of evidence which complements the abundant studies of linguistic categories. Using the concepts of 'pragmatics', 'framing', and 'ideology', the author points to the insufficiency of many ethnographic accounts of symbolism and underlines the need to consider both the social positioning of the interpreter and the context of the interpretation when looking at artefacts.

Artefacts as Categories: A Study of Ceramic Variability in Central India.

The cosmic zygote: cosmology in the Amazon basin.

The Cosmic Zygote: Cosmology in the Amazon Basin

This paper inventories and illustrates the great range of cultural factors that constrain aesthetic and technical styles It also offers some comments on the nature of style itself The paper is organized broadly into three parts: (1) a definition of style and a discussion of its hierarchical nature; (2) a listing of the multiple social and technological variables that condition stylistic output; and (3) an analysis of the ideational factors that articulate style with self and society on the mythic and structural levels

Style, Society, Myth, and Structure

Ancient Borinquen: Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Native Puerto Rico

The geometric decorative art of the Shipibo Indians, Peruvian montana, is produced by women balanced between a cultural imperative for personal innovation and submission to the constraints of traditional style. The experimental commissioning of painted Shipibo textile samplers using a rule-based approach reveals that additional variables in the Deetz-Longacre hypothesis associating female stylistic uniformity with matrilineal descent and matrilocal residence, such as the number of elements and rules used and the higher position in a hierarchy of complexity such solutions occupy, contribute to aesthetic micro-acculturation. That is done in the Shipibo case in a way that belies the presupposition that the mother is always the most important mentor in a girl's art, while supporting this archaeological theory's prediction that a group of coresiding females produces relatively homogeneous art. [ethnoarchaeology, art-style analysis, Deetz-Longacre hypothesis, South American Indians, Peru, Shipibo]

https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1525/aa.1980.82.1.02a00030

Art and Residence Among the Shipibo Indians of Peru: A Study in Microacculturation

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