[MUSIC] Each speaker
will get two questions. Generally speaking,
I will ask one and then Francesco will ask one. But to begin with, I'm going
to ask two to Francesco. The first question Francesco is, is there any relationship between the use of ornamentation and the emergence of counting on numerical record keeping? Well, probably there
is one because we also know that at least
in the upper Paleolithic, personal alignment was traded and sometimes they travel a lot. So one can think that when
people was exchanging beads, they also had mean to
quantify the beads, which does not mean
necessarily counting. Because, of course, there are other ways to quantify things. Counting in fact, is a
quite complex concept, but certainly there is a quantification involved when
the beads were exchanged. There is certainly a link, and there are
ethnographic examples, for example from California, showing that there
is some form of quantification involved
in exchanging beads, particularly when they
are exotic. The trouble. Excellent, thank
you. Next question. There is a question for Brea, in which the person say, there are examples of self harm, which would lead to
scarification in non human primates
and other animals. Is a question I will be particularly curious
about bonobo and chimps. They were asking if
there are examples of that or they were talking
about that in general? In some cases under extreme
duress or extreme anxiety, there are cases sometimes
of animal self harming. I believe that we do
have examples of this amongst chimpanzees as well. But I would generally call this a different type of origination, or meaning with this
type of modification. Because while it does result in a form of scarification, again, it's not exactly as we're
seeing in humans as a cultural marker or expressing
some kind of information, either to yourself or
to others, and instead, this is more so of a response to distress or
something of that nature. While we do have some
of examples of it, I'm not quite sure that
it would fall under the same definition
of body modification. The next question is for John. What are the most effective
identification methods in archaeology for distinguishing intentional from unintentional dental
modifications? There's a second part. What is the estimated margin of error associated with those
methods? [LAUGHTER] Estimated margin of error, that's a very good one. In our recent book chapter
in the Oxford Handbook, we basically say you want to use every source of information
you possibly can, and every type of intentional or unintentional
dental modification that you find is going to
have a variety of different ways that you
can tease it apart. There are margins of error
and part of the reason we put these hypotheses
out in the literature, and we don't necessarily
say what they are 100% concrete is because it
gives some room to breathe, and other researchers a possibility to talk
about it some. Actually Brea's talk brought up a really good
point about that too, and part of the
problem with finding these issues in the
deep past is that, maybe we aren't looking
for them to begin with, and that's partially an
issue of just the types of questions we've historically asked as paleoanthropologists. Some of us that have maybe a more anthropological
lens or more of a bio-archaeological
lens that also work on Pleistocene concepts and
topics bridge these gaps, and that's where
some of my work on Pleistocene intentional
dental modification has come into play. The best lines of evidence. Brea also mentioned
patterns are really nice. This is one of the
things when you have really large
skeletal collections and you can start
looking at patterns within larger groups
and populations, you can have a more
concrete notion of whether or not these things are definitive or more
likely intentional. Unfortunately, in some of these really rare
first case scenarios like the ones I talked about, you put the hypothesis out and you see if it stands
the test of time. That's the primary way we do it. Then in terms of the dental
modification in particular, we're always trying to
rule out various forms of dental wear that can occur through
idiosyncratic behaviors. These can be anything
from using your teeth as tools or even trauma, tooth loss occurs through
injury and so on. We have to go ahead and
rule all of these out. Margins of error, they exist. We try to be as honest
with it as possible and provide a differential
diagnosis when we're working on the
skeletal material that has fewer skeletons or
fewer samples to work with. The next question is for
Rosemary and Mason America. The question is, is there any
further evidence suggesting that permanent ear
modification function as status symbols? Or is it rather the materials
of the ornament that speaks to social hierarchies
of the Mayan people. First, it's important to
realize that ear modification, ear piercing is general
throughout Mason America. It's not specific
to the Maya or to any specific cultural
linguistic group. In that wide span
of time that we have what the visual
art is showing us, and also in the classic
Maya case language, because there's actual
texts that talk about people wearing ear
ornaments is that, wearing an ear ornament
is a marker of adulthood, it's not a marker of status. The status distinctions
come with the material, and possibly even the size of the flare that is
created on front. There's a big flat panel. There, we can say that wearing
jade ear spools later, once there's metal working, wearing gold ear
spools is a sign of distinction from those who
wear primarily fired clay, bone, shell, or other
kinds of stone. The next question is for Shauna. The questions are extending in length so we are
at a paragraph now. So by the time we get to Paul, we could be really in trouble. The question for Shauna is, since not every mercy
girl has lip plates, are there any indications
past or present for increased reproductive fitness
in those with lip plates? Is there any societal
stigmatization towards mercy women who choose
not to wear lip plates? Thanks. The first question. When it comes to this idea of increased
reproductive fitness, this is, I think, more rhetorical than
anything today. I think in the past, however, there was this association with lip plates and bride wealth, and for cattle wealth. But today, it's really more rhetorical when women
talk about a girl with a lip plate attracting
more bride wealth. We have to remember, I did mention this in my
presentation actually, that bride wealth is
actually fixed in Mason. This idea that a lip plate will attract more cattle
is actually not accurate. But it's also not entirely
inaccurate to say that a girl with a labret might
attract a good husband, a good cattle keeper
who may be able to pay that bride
wealth upfront. Someone who is considered poor in the sense that they
don't have all of the bride wealth
together to marry, may not attract a girl with a large lip plate who is also associated with being
from a good family. I think today it's more
rhetorical since people will say, you don't have a lip plate, you won't attract
a good husband. But in fact, every
girl will go on to marry and every girl will eventually get the same
amount of bride wealth, which is 38 cattle
and a Kalashnikov. Whether that is distributed
over time or paid up front is how you determine then cattle wealth in the sense. It's one of those myths that you'll hear that a girl
with a large lip plate, or the larger the lip
plate, the more cattle. That's just not the case. But this also runs into the other question
of stigmatization. I think there is social
pressure within mercy, and I think more so in
the past than today, for a girl to pierce
and stretch her lip. If you didn't pierce
and stretch your lip, you would be referred to
as short, like a warthog. If you have a nice
large labrett, you would be celebrated
as being tall, like an eland or you would
even gain heroic status. It's in the discourse
that is used that this stigmatization
does come out. But I think the real
stigma today is what how outside
view lip plates. That's where the real
social pressure comes now to abandon the practice. Thank you. We have a very
good question for Ellen. The question is, are there any genital modifications
that are known to affect reproductive success
and evolutionary fitness? I don't think that evolutionary
fitness is an issue here. I once wrote an article called, because someone had
raised the issue that female genital cutting was
a maladaptive practice. I argued that I
don't think it is, because what it takes for
a practice to continue is simply that it doesn't harm fitness and people will
continue doing it. It doesn't necessarily
have to improve fitness. When you look at
some of the cases, I did some work
with the new air in Southern Sudan who had
very high rates of childbearing and they
did not do any practices with female or male
culture circumcisions. Yet, in the North of Sudan, people had smaller families, but also very large families. In the comparison, you could
see that in South Sudan, the death rate was
higher for children and infants at the time that
we did this survey. For the North, it was
fairly good survival, so people were having
very large families even when the vast majority of
women had infibulations. I think it would be a very difficult case to
say that it harms that. Now that's not to say it never harms someone's reproduction
because individuals may very well have
injuries or scarring or infections that cause them to lose or reduce
their fertility. Yes, it's possible, but on a population basis, I think you would be hard
pressed to find evidence that it's damaging to
any large extent. Can I just take
this opportunity, since I have the microphone, to correct one thing in
my talk I was talking about the spread in the adoption of female
genital cutting. I said something about when
Islam had sometimes spread to a culture that practiced
or did not practice it. I think I misspoke. I meant places where female genital cutting
was practiced. Very often, Islam was capable
of syncratizing that, bringing it into Islam and
saying, yes, it's okay, and it shows that
we are committed to the sexual propriety that
is expected of Muslims. In case anybody heard
that and wondered why I said it the way
I did, I misspoke. I meant cultures with these
practices. Thank you. The next question's to Ryan. The question is, what you
described with foot binding is the ending of a
heritage practice due to Christian missionaries? To what extent is their
influence regrettable or wrong? I suppose the answer to
that would have to depend on one's moral assumptions, one's normative theory, which certainly wasn't
part of the talk. The reports of those who are
foot bound are routinely, those girls that had
a terrible time of it and most of the time it
seems to be very unwilling. I wouldn't suggest that
it's obviously wrong. On the other hand,
one might argue, well, just as is done, by the way, as I'm sure, Ellen knows in scenarios
of genital cutting that it's a cultural
practice that we should leave alone
and respect and so on. If pushed I would argue, in defense of the
cessation of the practice but it's important to
note that it wasn't merely as it were, started the fire, but through this really interesting
social mechanism of foot binding societies, ethnically han
folks were able to subscribe and ensure that their offspring would
be able to marry. That was just crucial. The Christian
missionaries did play a really important role and
the role was necessary, it seems at the time, but it was not the most important
causal or social role in ending the practice. We have a question
for Matt Lodder. The question is, is
there any concern about historical biases of gathering most of the data from
urban metropolis? Yeah, this is something that I've written about a bit anyway, trying to access even
the tattoo history of the urban metropolis
is hard enough. To know what's going
on underneath clothing and outside of very, very major centers is very, very difficult
indeed particularly, the further you go
back in history. What I think we need to do, and I've developed some
methodologies to do this, is figure out ways to look at existing
non urban datasets, things like prison and military datasets and see if you can unpick some dirty
history from those. But the other thing
to say is when we're talking about the stuff
we're talking about today, which is the
mainstream industry, where actually the story is about the more visible
end, almost by exclusion. The thing that I
want to try and do, and I think this goes to some degree with what
Paul's doing as well. Actually, Paul and I work
together quite a lot, as you may have noticed with
the overlaps of our talks. Is to do what we can do and fill the big bits
of the story in first, which are also fairly
unrepresented. Then try and figure out what's
going on at the margins. But it's a good and
important question. Well, the next question is
for Paul. It's a long one. In our highly
individualistic society, your clients come in under their own volition
and motivation. This is in stark contrast to many traditional societies where piercings are
culturally embedded. Do you think that this affects the degree of
invasiveness or types of piercings that are sought individualistically
compared to those that are group norms. Just going to test some of my undergraduate
anthropology here. We all operate under
cultural pressure. Rosemary is nodding yes, and she was one
of my professors. We all operate under
cultural pressures. We want to be careful about thinking that somehow it's absent with us here in the West, or somehow we have like free
choice and that they do not. That's the other thing. It's
a really big generalization we want to talk about. It's easier to
answer those things when we talk about specifics. The more specific we are
with those questions, the less generalized it is. There I can give you an exact
answer if that makes sense. Here in the West, some
families will per baby's ears. That's actually
really contentious in the professional Western
body piercing world, it is cultural consent. There are people that I
respect a lot that believe, well, it's your baby, and if you want to
pierce it's ears, and that's part of your
cultural practices, and you have a right to do that. Then we have other folks, piercers and
families that think, no, the child needs to
be able to consent. That's just talking
about ear piercing. I think it's interesting to note that I did a lot of
behind the scenes work on organizing the piercing
community in the UK in 2015. They were faced with as
many western countries, there had been
regulations put on the books because
it's pretty easy to pass regulations that are to
protect folks such as women. There was a law put on
the books in the UK, the Anti Female Genital
Mutilation Act. I'm giving as long of an
answer as the question, because they did not
question their own biases. They adopted the United
Nations language. In that language it
said that any harm, because we can go into that in depth as
well. Just set word. Any harm to the vulva
constituted mutilation. The problem with that of course, is it passed unanimously very easily because we aren't
talking about our bodies, we're talking about those
bodies, their bodies. We're not talking about female genital piercing
that's done for dormant, except it's in the regulations. All of a sudden in 2015, all heck breaks loose
and the NHS starts classifying female
genital piercing as female genital mutilation. It skews the records there
and it makes front page news. It brings up this question
of what is consent? What is body autonomy? Again, someone that may be on this panel once said like
this is why they don't ask anthropologists
on the talk shows because they never [LAUGHTER]
quick easy answers. Quick easy answers are usually
not very good answers. I hope I expanded
your thought on that. If I didn't answer
your question. We have a long question that
is addressed to all of us, not to somebody in particular. Please listen
carefully, all of you. The question is, the emphasis
of the symposium speakers today a centered on cosmetic and aesthetic
aspects of body modification. However, evolutionary
biologists are particularly interested in the physiological
systemic correlates of body modification. For example, immune, endocrine, gastrointestinal,
reproductive, etc. Can the speakers address specific significant
physiological responses induced by the particular forms of body modification
represented? I suppose one thing
we might point to is the effect on sexuality, or the effect on
sexual response. Since that might
also have an effect on the success of sexuality or the interest in sexuality or the stability
of relationships that have some survival
value for children. That might be one
approach to it. I think other things
like tooth evulsion. I've just been struck by how many of the things we've talked about today are still in
ethnographic presence. I have seen people living
without their teeth and I have seen a woman give birth on her 13th birth,
be reinfibulated. The fact that we have seen
still much of those things, I think we know that there
are many health effects because those often in this
case of circumcisions, Those are often put
forward, as Paul mentioned, as these comments on
harm that have caused the World Health Organization to say it should all be banned, male circumcision as well. They don't argue for
male circumcision, but we can talk about potential
harms for that as well. It would be, it seems to me a
very difficult thing to do, the work that would fully
answer this question. Because part of the effect of the negative
outsider attitude is that these things have to be
banned rather than studied. To get the human
subjects clearance to do the research that would enable us to really answer a lot of questions
about concretely, how harmful is X or Y
is extremely difficult. I don't have a solution to that. Maybe the others have
something to say as well. It's a longstanding theory, perhaps even a trope, that some traditional peoples
will engage in activities, rites of passage, injuries, as a way of either strengthening
the immune system, or this is real or imaginary. Again, I don't know how
you go about proving it. Or as a way of the fact that you are
surviving these ordeals would show some of strength. It's either a way of
strengthening or proof of strength and mate desirability. Again, I don't know how much those necessarily hold up today, but they're well told. I do know that a colleague
of ours, Christopher Lynn, has done quite a
bit of work looking at tattooing and immune
system response. He's done studies with
participants from the US, but also participants from somewhere in the South Pacific. Have generally
found that there is a slight increase in
immune system response to trauma for individuals that have quite a few tattoos
and have spent quite a while in the
tattooing booth, I guess we could call it. It's not as though it's a major increase in
immune response, but that there is a slight
increase for those that have undergone this
quite a few times. If that is something
you're interested in, definitely look up
Christopher Lynn and his research for sure. It's interesting
because Shameless Plug, I do a podcast and I did a whole episode
about limbs work. I just wanted to say that evolutionary psychologists
have different papers have argued that tattoos make people both less and
more reproductively fit. Take what you will. But I
have serious concerns about evolutionary
psychology as a set of methods because you can
seem to use it to come to entirely opposite
conclusions [LAUGHTER] if you want to do that. This was a really
fascinating question. Thank you, to the
person who asked that. Just by way of foot binding. I just wanted to share one fascinating paper and
theoretical biology that hypothesized the
process of foot binding led to extreme disuse of a
variety of nerves in the feet. Sometimes those nerves were more or less severed
in the process through the foot binding process or through medical consequences of the foot binding
process [NOISE]. Megeach 1997 in the
journal Medical Hypotheses has a paper that addresses
the viewer's question. The paper's title is, does
cortical reorganization explain the enduring popularity of foot binding in Medieval, China. It's really fascinating. This is theoretical, but it's
interesting and suggestive. In the brain, within the
lateral central gyrus, there are the
somatosensory cortices and one of them is the
primary somatosensory cortex. Within this area,
there are linkages to all the bodily
organs that mediate any sensory inputs the tongue, the face, any skin, as well as other parts of
the body tucked between the two hemispheres is a part of this sensory map [NOISE]. It happens that the toe and feet are adjacent
to the genitals. According to Megeach,
he hypothesizes, I brought it up to give
you a little quote. He says, as time passes, foot bound girls,
feet would atrophy. The receptors of signals from these areas would de-afronate. This quote resulted in
under utilization of the foot areas of the
somatosensory and motor cortices. Which in turn led to
cross activation between the redundant foot cortex and adjacent genital areas
in women's brains. You're probably familiar
with stories in which those who lose a sense gain some extra potency
in using other senses. In some ways this
hypothesis model in that. Basically because receptors
in the brain for feet and toes are adjacent in this primary
somatosensory cortex to receptors in the genitals. This person hypothesizes
that there is likely to be a connection between the widespread sexualization
of foot binding, the erotization of the practice. I think we can
probably move on to the next question which
is for Francesco. Humans and Neanderthals
diverged over 500,000 years ago and the earliest
evidence for body modification is
younger than that. Is there any evidence that Neanderthals modified
their bodies, and if so, was it a shared behavior or
independently evolved? There are no real proof that Neanderthal
modified their body. But there are no proof that
modern human living in Africa modified their body at the same time while
Neanderthal were living. But what I mentioned in my presentation is that
there are evidence of use of red pigment
in Europe as in Africa. Starting at the same time
around 300,000 years ago, quite a lot of
evidence of use of black pigment by
Neanderthal after 60,000. Basically, it's very possible
that Neanderthal modified their bodies and that
modern human in Africa, perhaps 300, 200,000 years
ago, modified their body. In fact, I think that probably there was
modern human as we see now, that they are not really
modified their body. I would not consider that something that is
necessarily linked with a biological divide between these populations but rather to specific cultural context. In particular [inaudible]
in different regions. You have the next question. Yes. Is a question for Shauna. They say are the lip
plates becoming more decorated in recent years
to appeal to tourists? Were they previously not decorated or not
decorated at all? Yes, they were decorated in the past just with
in size decorations. But the real beautiful
lip plates in the past had a shiny surface. That's not to say that
I think it is more than modern invention, The nude in sized lip plates, because from elderly
women's stories, they will often refer to a
lip plate that is gilgili, with a shiny surface. Polished, shiny surface as
being the most beautiful. But there's no real
historical evidence on what the decorative
patterns were like. But they will talk about the decorative patterns today as being far more decorative than in the past with
polka dots and so on and in the past
it was just in size designs with white
clay over top of that. Thank you. The next
question is for Brea. I think if the question
for John was a curve ball, this one probably counts
as an under arm toss. With the Australian
nose bone dated to 46,000 can
ethnographic data such as have original oral
tradition help with generating hypotheses for interpreting
prehistoric evidence? We may have to cut
you off on this one Brea after about half an hour. [LAUGHTER] Yes. Absolutely, especially with, as you stated there, the generation of
hypotheses that we can then look for in the
archaeological record. Particularly when we're talking about incorporation
of oral history, a lot of things that
are talked about in folk tales and
oral histories, you can find evidence for them fairly distant in the past, so I think they ate. We can't take it
as a one for one, as though something
that you see in the ethnographic present
or the historical past. The recent historical
past is exactly what we were going to see tens of
thousands of years ago. However, the generation
of a possibility based on the oral history or the ethnographic record
or modern day practices, taking that as a baseline for
a hypothesis that you can then look and test with
archaeological materials. Absolutely, that's
something that I very thoroughly advocate for, using this indigenous knowledge and this indigenous history to interpret and understand and test ideas about the past. I think that that's
absolutely a way that academia and
scholarship in these areas. I think that's the
way forward for sure. I'll cut myself off there, I could talk a lot longer. If you ever want to talk more fully about
that, I'd love to. But yeah, I think that gets
the main points there. We have a question for John. The question is,
could the loss of teeth during fighting have inspired dental ablation
as a form of display? I think this is one of
those things that's going to be really difficult
to say yes or no to. It's one of those
things where you could suppose almost any reason
for losing a tooth and another reason for
someone to say that looks cool or that looks
horrible or whatever. There are lots of hypotheses
regarding why you would potentially intentionally
remove a tooth or teeth, but I haven't seen anything
specifically about traumatic injuries through
interpersonal conflict being one of those results. In that regard, I don't know of much
evidence where we have tooth loss in the
front of the mouth that, especially in the
deep past could be related to trauma very easily. A lot of the trauma
that we see is going to be like pari fractures. Injuries to your arms
from defending yourself, or lots and lots of injuries
actually to the skull. I don't know any studies that have been able
to correlate, say, these injuries and on your skull to injuries
in the mouth. In fact, going back to one
of the first question. Well, the first question
that was posed to me about what are the
best forms of evidence, often when you have full
skeletons and you're trying to make arguments that
ablation occurred at all. You look for injuries in
the face and the arms as a way of ruling out that the teeth were
lost due to trauma. Then that said, teeth are traumatically
removed sometimes, but this is very intentional
and usually it's done with some tool where you put it directly on the tooth
and you knock it out. Some of the best examples
come from actually Hawaii and these are practices that have
to do with mourning. These are adults that are getting this done
rather than say, the rites of passage that
we look at in a lot of other cultures where
the tooth removal is closer to puberty. I don't know of any cases
where we can directly relate it to interpersonal violence and generally we
try to rule it out. I hope that answers
your question. Thanks, John. This
next one is for Ellen. The question is if
both female and male genital modifications or some type of social
signaling is the advertised through
other various means, considering that presumably
only a small number of people are seeing
the genitals? I have always thought
that this issue about what the genitals look
like is an interesting one. A lot of people do argue that it's more aesthetically
pleasing. Today as I mentioned, there's a big push for genital cosmetic surgery to make your genitals
look a certain way. Well, there are cultures where the genitals are more
visible during certain ages. Often women's
genitals are covered even in places where
the breasts are not. There'll be some covering of the genitalia for mature women. It's not like a lot of
people are seeing them, but the key people
who are seeing them, or who has judgment
on the genitalia, would be the sexual partner. In some cultures where virginity is a particularly
important thing, there will be other witnesses, like a mother in law or
someone else who has to attest to the intactness
of the hymen, or the intactness of the infibulation of the labia in the case of
infibulated women. I think that the question of, are there other
signals about it? Yes. In a society where people have lived together
their whole lives, like in a small community, in a pastoral or
agriculturalist society, people know when a circumcision has occurred because a
celebration is held. Everybody remembers
when someone's son or daughter was cut, because there will have
been some celebration. The child in the
case of little boys in some of the rural areas
of Sudan where I've been, they wear a little
crown and carry a sword for a couple of weeks, and it's a big deal made out of the fact that they
are now circumcised. In the case of
infant circumcision, where it's part of
religious traditions like the Jewish tradition, that's also a very well known, well marked ritualized thing. I think the ritual marks
it and the knowledge that people have of each other
keeps that showing. I'm trying to think
of other examples. I think in the case
of males, however, there were in ancient times much more exposure of
the male genitalia. It just wasn't that
covered in many cultures, so people did look at the male genitalia and there's one illustration we found for our article that we wrote
for the handbook that shows defeated men in battle, they're killed now, but their circumcised penises are being collected to be counted, showing that they are the ones who had the circumcisions,
were the enemies. Sometimes, I think the male genitalia may be
more visible, and of course, in the case of boys and sharing the view of
each other's bodies, I think it's not unusual for
people to show that off. But again, I think there's
a lot of confusion about how obvious that
is because often, like a female sexual partner of a man may not know if he's circumcised or not
if she doesn't actually see his penis
until it's erect, in which case, it could be a retracted foreskin
or an absent foreskin. They don't look that
different since there's so much
variation in genitalia. I hope that answers
the question. I'm not quite sure what other
markers would be indicated. We don't usually wear a sign saying I am or I am
not circumcised. For those of us who
work on this issue in contemporary societies and
people are wearing clothing, it's impolite to ask
very straightforwardly. It might come up in
conversation when people tell you about their
childhood experiences, but you don't generally
know by looking at somebody like you would in
the case of foot binding, where it is extremely harmful to gait to one's ability
to move around. The question of harm, it's such a tricky one. I'm pleased to hear people
trying to problematize it because what one person might consider harm and
lack of consent, another person might consider absolutely essential to
their spiritual well being. I don't think there's
a very clear answer, and I don't want to
be misunderstood. I do think there are
some pretty severe forms of female genital cutting
that I would really like to see go away or be modified over time because I think
they can be hurtful. But I don't think
the answer is to call them harm and
to outlaw them with brutal punishments and jail time for parents
and that thing. I don't think that's effective. Thank you. I like the
idea of counting penises. I will ask you the
reference for that. The next question is
for Paul King, say, do pierced people have an outsider term for
unpierced people? That would depend on context,
place, time, speaker. In general, in western
communities today, not as strong as, say, in the tattoo community where there's a
larger distinction. The thing that's
interesting about piercing is whether it's regulations, county, state, or
national level, or individuals when
you talk to them, there's a huge
cognitive disconnect of the ear being part of
the body [LAUGHTER]. It's like, I'm talking to people all day long and they're talking
body piercing, and then you say ear piercing, it's, well, that's
something else. Literally, in regulations
and everything, you'll see this delineation, the ear is magically
floating outside the body. If you get an
infection in the ear, it's not going to affect the
body. Of course, it does. I find very anecdotally daily correcting people in a gentle and loving
way when they're like, oh, I don't have any piercings, I just have my ear pierced. Informing them that, no, you actually are
a pierced person. You have body piercings and
ear is part of the body. Thanks, Paul. Next
question is for Rosemary. Take a deep breath
for this, a long one. How do the notions of the
shaping of cultural form and the readable body
manifest themselves in other specific fields of
archaeological anthropology? Can this thinking be
applied to other groups? Yes. That's a very simple thing. This is actually not
just a suggestion that Mesoamerican people are somehow different than all other humans. What we're hearing in all
of the talks that we're given is the specific ways
in different times and places that human populations determine what constitutes
a human person, a bounded, interpretable
human person. When Bria is talking
about possibly engaging with Australian Aboriginal people's contemporary concepts, the reason we want to
do that is because in any of these historically
grounded populations, the way that people
think about what's part of a body and what's
not part of a body, are ears part of the body, or are ears singled
out for reasons that are specific to a Euro
American discourse? Hair. Anthropologists
have pointed this out for generations, that hair has an
uncanny relationship to bodies in some societies,
but not in others. Is your hair really
part of your body or is it a extra bodily substance? Where does the body boundary
exist is something that's produced as a form of knowledge
in every human society. As scholars, we need to
present ourselves in front of each historical example without
presuming the naturalism, either that a body is automatically the skin
and what's inside it. Or that the body modifications that we're seeing even have the same significance. I think that's something
that's very important that Paul has emphasized. There are some things
that I would say are pretty extraordinarily
common, defining a surface. That there's some attention to delimiting
surfaces for bodies, something we could
potentially say tattooing is often part of. But there's also
distinctions there as well. My argument would be that
for every human society, we need to ask these
same questions. Certainly, I've benefited from reading about other non
Mesoamerican societies, often ones that are
better documented and having a richer ethnographic
context for these practices. Thank you. The next
question is on the Chinese food binding
is quite longer. It says, the theories
you presented seem to deal more with the
continuation of food binding, as opposed to origin modification that causes
a severe immobilization. Food binding or head binding appear to need
seasonable freeing of time from economic
survival requirements and support system
to both modify, and then care for the person. Would the better theory of origin account for the
necessary element? I think the two main
competing theories have attempts to
answer questions about the origins as maintenance and
cessation of the practice. [NOISE] In the case of
the labor market theory, the explanation of the origin of the practice has to do with
the fact that it appears to have been originating in areas of China that were known for
textile production, and that meant that it was
a labor market feature, so girls could be put
to work at spindles, effectively making money
for parents in those areas. The [NOISE] competing
explanation, in a more evolutionary vein, suggests that origins
are likely to have arisen when they
did and where they did, in part because
[NOISE] they began in the imperial capital
and among elites. [NOISE] As the person who asked the question
mentioned that the significant
body modifications [NOISE] like foot binding, that require time care, support, and indeed
they were very costly. [NOISE] It was quite
different than performing a modification on your skin and leaving it
alone for 80 years. It required multiple forms of maintenance each
week and this is why, according to the
evolutionary theory, the practice originated among very elite sectors of
the social environment. Thanks Ryan. This is a joint
question for Paul and Matt. Do you believe there
is a benefit to the distinctions between
the two practices, piercing and tattooing? To what extent should they
be seen as separate legacies or opposingly as
historically intertwined? You should never ask Paul
and I joint question, because we've once given a four hour response to a single question
[LAUGHTER] together. When someone asks a question, we're in the same room.
You go first, Paul. Absolutely. Distinctions
need to be made. We would benefit by
making distinctions between all sorts and all
forms of body modification. Looking at specificity, I
think, yields certain insights. But also, looking at the same
things cross culturally. There's benefits with insights so it's not an either or for me and seeing the connections. Particularly in the time period that Matt and I are looking at, we're talking like
especially 19th, 20th centuries where tons
of technologies and types of communication and types
of reporting of these, we see the overlaps. There was an artificial
separation that Matt talked about in
his presentation that I'll let him maybe touch on more because we could give
a whole presentation. Just 1977 separation. There did seem to
be natural overlap. A Venn diagram is a really
great way of looking at this. People just in the tattooing, people just in the piercing, and then there's an overlap
of people in the boat. That's enough out of
me. Thank you. Matt. I think what's interesting is these two things have
been lumped together, most particularly as I touched upon in my talk in that
Modern Primitives book. But the way that they're
lumped together by academics and often
by mainstream culture is quite problematic. Because it misses
the specificity of the difference in
these communities and where they
themselves diverge. But then at the same
time, of course, again as both Paul
and I talked about, there are moments when
they come back together in ways that neither side of that equation are
particularly comfortable with [LAUGHTER]. Cultural forces have certainly in the post professional
piercing era, like post late 1970s, brought these two
practices together into a fairly singular
cultural phenomenon. But I think it's
more intresting. The differences between
the two communities. As Paul said, where those Venn diagrams don't
overlap is I think, more interesting
and more insightful from a historical
perspective than, a lot of the work that's
been done to date, which tends to treat them
as entirely overlapping. I think one of the things that both Paul and I fight against is both people saying that tattooing and piercing
are coextensive entirely. But also people that say that
they're entirely separate. Because actually there are these really interesting figures who find themselves in
the same publications, even though a decade
[LAUGHTER] earlier they were entirely divergent. It's interesting
historiographical question as much as anything
else I think. Sorry, if I may
just [OVERLAPPING]. Buckle up guys, this is
how it starts [LAUGHTER]. Sorry. In some ways, I think it's
even more interesting to look at how we lump
together the categories. When we're talking
about tattooing, we have to take
into consideration the context of the
people, the place, and time but even where
tattoos are on the body. Like hands, like
20, 30 years ago, this was a job breaker, hope you have a company because you're never
going to work again. There's one, forgive me, the sociologist is
escaping my memory, but they talked about public
versus private signifiers. Things like neck
and hands are very public and they're
signifying responses from other people very
differently than say something like what would
be considered the most private would
be the genital area. Looking at the
differences within, I think is very telling. The last thing I'll say is there was a report that was done by really great researchers
and they even included a body piercer but the
very question being asked, there was a problem in
the research question. They were looking at what were self-reported responses to female genital piercing practices
in Western communities. They were looking at, do you like a female
genital piercing? Do you not like it?
How is the healing? The thing is there are so
many different types with so many different
types of healing that affect so many types
of sexual response. Some are more dormant,
some are like, no, certainly this
is for pleasure, that when it was overly
simplified in that manner, too far-reaching and
generalized of a question, as someone who does
consider and is considered an
expert in piercing, what they yielded
was almost not very useful other than in
the most generic way. Lots of people with
vulvas seem to like their piercings but
it didn't get into the specificity of like
no, not all genital, just like not all
what I choose to call Ellen female
genital alterations, traditional
practices, not all of those are the same
and they don't all yield the same
consequences or benefit. Getting into the specificity of what these alterations are, I think is really
important. Thank you. Tearing is a medium, not a phenomenon and I
think piercing is too. We have a question
for McCauley Brea. The question is about
the finger amputation. Say, how do we know they are finger amputation and not people born without those digits? Perhaps is disability overlooked in the archaeological archive? Disability is
absolutely overlooked in the archaeological record. That is for certain. In the case of
finger amputation, we look for specific markers. Let's take the woman from
Mozac, Copa, and Crimea. We have evidence of cut
marks on the finger bones, the phalanges that remain. We have evidence of cut marks. We also have evidence of healing on the bones
of bone remodeling, suggesting that it wasn't something that was present since birth and instead was
something that happened, and then there was
healing afterwards. When we are looking at cases of finger amputation in
the archaeological record, that is generally the types of things that we'd
be looking for. In terms of things like the
incomplete hand images, within this
100-year-long debate, some of the hypotheses
that have been put forth, and still many people believe, is that we do have
different forms of pathology or sometimes
congenital conditions as well. That's definitely still within the landscape of scholarship
that's being discussed. But when we do have
skeletal remains, we look for specific markers of a finger being intentionally
removed rather than something that might have been missing since birth or some other form of pathology or disability.
Thank you though. Thanks, Brea. I've got
a question for Shauna. Do the mercy have a practice
of kissing in their culture? If so, how do those with lip plates show or engage
in affectionate displays? The answer is no, it's not a kissing culture. Displays of affection
are very much, well, flirting is by
grabbing a girl by the arm. This is the main
form of flirting. If you're a girl who's
donning a large, beautiful lip plate, again, Mercy rather
they will say, she's able to scare off men, and she's so strong that she
can smash them on the wrist with her big fighting bracelets to deter them because of course, she's such a proud girl
that she will only attract those but
displays of affection no, has nothing to do with kissing,
not a kissing culture. We have a question for Ellen. The question is,
can you comment on the ethnographic evidence
Africa as well as Australia, that male sub incision increase sexual pleasure for
female as well as male? I don't know of information about sexual pleasure
for males in Australia. That's not my area of expertise and I haven't
come across that. I do think that the idea
is often talked about that some aspects of female
genital cutting may have an effect on
male sexual pleasure. It's one of those
contentious things that some research with men in
countries where their wives are infibulated will
say that there's been a lot of harm done
to their penises by the struggle to break infibulations during
first intercourse or to, and maintaining
sexual relationships with someone with a
very tight vulva. On the other hand, there's also a belief that some
men really like that and so the woman for example, who I saw have her 13th
birth and be re-stitched. She and her friends
were telling me that they really like to be tightly stitched
because their husbands love it and they'll give them an extra gold bracelet
when they resume sex. They sometimes exaggerated
to themselves and to others that this was a very sexually
desirable thing to do and yet the research
by men and women with men has sometimes reflected that they have very different
attitudes toward that. It's definitely not one thing. We know how complex sex is. It's a psychological thing. It's engaged in what
you're expecting. What you have grown up thinking is beautiful or desirable. I don't think we can
make that comment. As for the effect
of sub-incision, my reading about it, I know there are
some men who are intentionally doing
to themselves now, and perhaps they have some
testimonials about it, but for the basic effect of
it is to widen the penis. Now, if that has a pleasant
effect on some women, that may be the case but we also know that there
are many women for whom a large penis is extremely painful
and uncomfortable. A friend of mine who's a
gynecologist was telling me how sometimes a woman who has a residual
hymen that's tight will find sex with some men
very uncomfortable, whereas others are
perfectly fine. Individual differences. I don't know that
we have any data on patterns of how
that affects people. But again, I've never met any men who I've
been able to talk to, who've had sub incisions, perhaps some of the
rest of you have. Thanks, Ellen. That's
great. Next question is actually for Francesco. The question is, are
there patterns in how ornamentation was
used differently? Or what types of
ornamentation were used to signify within-group social status as compared to affiliation within a specific
tribe or cultural group? That is a very good question. Well, of course, it depend on the period because for a more
recent period, we have more evidence, but if we talk about
the Paleolithic. We may assume that some
ornament, for example, we have cases with
burials in which we have primary burial
with exotic ornament. For example, in a case called
the Singer Mel Riviere is a burial with
15,000 years old. In this period there is no
red year in the region. This lady is covered with more than 70 red year
canine that was traded and at the site to these
ornaments are almost not present and there
are other types of ornament made of
local raw material. This is a case in which
we may assume that this lady had access to a
large number of exotic items. These exotic items were
more important to identify her social status than for identify the ethnic
affiliation of the people. When we do a
statistical analysis of very large area like
indignation and degravation, we see sometimes quite
elaborated ornament that are only found at one site. While there are
other ornaments that are widespread
within the region. We may assume that those type of elaborated ornament
that you only find at one site may be being worn by people having a
special social status, while the other
were used by more, let's say, ordinary people. Thank you. I think the
next question is with you. Yes, oh it's for John. In your research, you explained the
challenges of creating a universal
classification system for intentional
dental modification. Can you please elaborate on
the advantages that would be gained by having such a system, a
classification system? It's a great question. Actually, on that book chapter, Kenneth Tremblay wrote
a lot about that. He summarized a lot of universal or attempts
at universal systems. What I think it gets back to is pretty much responses from
almost everyone here today, which is universal systems aren't necessarily as useful as they are to look at individual
cultures times spaces. Individuals a context is
everything in these cases. We can make these
comparative frameworks. We can use maybe
ethnohistoric data from one region or another
to help inform us of possibilities when
we're then looking at prehistoric cases for which we don't have direct
access and so on. But making a universal system to describe the types
of modification. You could qualitatively do it, but you would lose probably
most of the meaning for those specific cultures and
so on or even individuals. It's useful to an extent. We can use very general
terms such as shaping, filing, inlays, Labrett. These give us cues, things that we can
talk about and we can all agree upon and
know what we're talking about in terms of an overarching
classification system that could get us somewhere in terms of talking about origins
or dispersals or so on, I don't think it's a useful. Thank you, John. Next
question is for Ryan. Is there anything specific about foot binding that can lead to increased risk
of osteoporosis? Yeah, the correlation between the two conditions is
pretty well known. The mechanism is maybe
a little up for grabs. There are a few
things that happen for folks who've
been foot bound. One is like extreme
muscular atrophy, so disuse of variety of muscles
in the posterior chain is reduced and the result is the bone mineral density
changes as a result. That's generally thought
to be a principal cause of osteopathic conditions
consequent of foot binding. Thank you. Well, there is a short
question for poking, but in fact it is a
very big question. The question is, what
do you think cause the revival of piercing
in modern cultures? Well, let's pick a couple. Let's narrow that down, and then I can actually make
it a pretty easy answer. If we're talking about
the more current revival, which I would mark
from around the 1950s. If we look at English
speaking populations, I would say the ear piercing
of Queen Elizabeth. Prior to that, there were
more conservative views, particularly with
the folks that would identify as white or
prosperous ear piercing, it goes through cycles
and prior to that, it was not in vogue for upstanding young white women
to have their ears pierced. When you have Queen Elizabeth
having her ears pierced, which in that place
and time meant it was world news like it
was around the world. Why does she have
her ears pierced? Because it's the crown
jewel in the crown jewels don't care anything about
trends or fashions or whatever. It's simply like you are the custodian of the crown jewels and if you're
going to wear them, node, you're not going to change them to clip ones there. Node for pierce, you have
to get your ears pierce. Arguably the wealthiest, most prominent above
any critique of class. Once Queen Elizabeth
has her ears pierce, then and this isn't
hypothetical. I'm not the first one
to comment on it. Like you see jewelers
who were very, at that time in the UK
were writing about like, oh my God, like
it's off the hook. We're getting all
these demands for these young women that want to have their ears pierced and then you have like
Time Magazine in the States talking
about this new fad, this new trend among college girls getting their ears pierced and then you have like, later issues of Time
Magazine talking about how the younger sisters of the older college girls
were wanting to have their ears piers and the
next thing by the late '60s, early '70s, it's normative, it's part of the culture. Then you have other
things going on with sexuality and gay rights, and then you find males having their ears peers and then the '80s males
having both ears peers. You can see that trajectory of how that grew from
Queen Elizabeth. Thanks Paul. This
question is for Bria and being
follicly challenged, it's appropriate for
me to be asking, are there any modifications that involve killing of
hair follicles? I mean removal of hair is
very common cross culturally. Forehead hair, eyelashes, eyebrows, men plucking
out their beards, like all of those things are quite common cross culturally. I'm actually not aware of traditional methods
to kill hair follicles. Obviously today
there are methods, laser methods, and
all of those things, but I've never come
across anything that wasn't like a new
modern technology to kill hair follicles. Though of course as has
already been mentioned, any modifications to the hair in trends in removing
it in styling it, that has been very, very common cross culturally all throughout the
past and today. Thank you. Well, we are moving
now to the last question. We are quite close to the end of the question
and answer session. The last question
will be for Hellen. Question is major
international organization, as you recall, condemned the genital
modification, especially regarding consent. How does age play a role
in body modification and what does consent
mean at various ages? Thank you for asking
that question. This is a very important one. I think even in the discussion
that I made of sexuality, a lot of times people
will say, well, but I don't want to make
sex painful for my wife. They want to have a good
life for each other. The issue of consent is the very big one in
this whole issue. Right now, I'm working with an international
group of scholars. We've been trying to
come to terms with a lot of these questions is how can we have both respect for cultural
heritage practices, particularly those
that people think are part of their
religious tradition, that they think God is
expecting them to do this? This is such a powerful
thing for people, it's not easy to let go of something that you believe
God expects you to do. One of the things, a lot of
times they try to argue, or the organizations who
are against practices, will try to help people see that there's debate about that and maybe God didn't really
say this or whatever, but they get into
theological arguments. But the issues of informed consent to changes to one's body and
bodily integrity. I think cut across these
practices throughout time and the fact that people do them to children
is a problem. That is I think the real
sticking point is when, if an adult wants to
pierce themselves or circumcise themselves
or be infibulated, we probably would agree that there's not a whole
lot the rest of us, no matter how much we
dislike it can do about it. It's their decision about
what they do with their body. But in some of the
activists today, like in Sierra Leone, who are defending women's rights to have the initiations
of the Bondo society, that's a debate among
the circumcisers. At what age should people be allowed to do this and
be able to give consent? Does consent have
to be part of it? I think the growing consensus among those of us who
work on this is that those are really
important issues. I really don't like
the idea of children having their genitals
cut against their will. The ear piercing is another controversy
as Paul pointed out. But that's so minor
in some ways compared to the things that might have long term medical consequences
like infibulation. I do think consent
is a key issue. When I turn that around
and apply it to boys, I think the same thing, I had to make that
choice in my family. I said, how can I not approve
of this for girls and go ahead and watch children in
my own family being cut? We made decisions not to cut. But in the West, doctors
don't know about the growth or the development of the healthy penis
that's not cut. They're just not used to it. More and more now they are. But in the past they became
worried about phimosis and we have to forcibly retract the penis of a three year
old. Well, no, you don't. But that's part of the effect of this custom being so
powerful that people really don't apply the
consent and age issue to males in the
same way that they insist on applying
it to females. I've come to problematize them. I think change is
going to happen through a lot of these
discussions about the issue of, what is really the
right thing to do to minimize the
harm and maximize the choice that adults
will have for how they want to live their lives
and carry their bodies. I guess I've expressed my feeling that these
are key questions. I don't have all the answers. I know it's very
difficult to talk to some people who believe God, expects it of them and expect
them to agree with you that age and consent are
the most important things. But I guess I feel like a lot of young adults or teenagers, probably 16 year
olds are capable of deciding a lot of things about whether they go
through initiation. But the international
standard is 18, but it's not applied to boys. Thank you. We are
running out of time, but Matt, do you want
to say something? I see you raised up your hand. Yeah. Because this is
a really live issue. Just in November
last year, 2023, the Australian Criminal the New South Wales
Criminal Court had to deal with
an issue of this, where someone was convicted as part of a suite
of other things, of practicing female
genital mutilation in a woman. [OVERLAPPING] Deity bora practices, and
also the adult practices. This was a body modifier who was convicted and his case
got overturned on appeal because the
Australian court said actually the
text of that statute says women can't have
their genitals altered. But they ruled in his favor
in the appeal to say actually the statute only
applies to adults. But it's a really live
issue about where consent works and
what that you have. Not in America so much, but certainly in English
jurisprudence systems. In England, in Australia, and in Canada it's really
the issue [OVERLAPPING] In the United States as well, we've had major things
about this with the Deity Bora practitioners
in particular. But again, the male and
female inconsistency requires more discussion. Well, thank you to both of you. I've been asked to give some word of conclusion
at the end of the question and answer period. I would like to take
the opportunity, before handling things to Pascal Gagneux to thank the
CARTA director for accepting our proposal and
all the CARTA staff for the continuous help they provided in the last few months. I would also like to thank the sponsors of this symposium, the colleagues who have
accepted our invitation and gave such a clear and well
illustrated presentation. As well as the public that
has attended this symposium, and particularly the attendants, like me, from Europe, who will watch their screen
at night after a long week. Of course, also to all those who asked a very pertinent question. As Mark as already
mentioned at the beginning, all the authors of the
today presentation and many others are
also co-authors of the Oxford Handbook of Archaeology and Anthropology
of Body Modification edited by France Manning, who is also listening
to us and myself, which we hope to see published before the end of the year. France Manning and I not only hope that you will
read this book, but also are trying to
organize on this topic. At the very end
of November 2024, a workshop in Paris, probably at the [inaudible] Call for abstract will be sent
in a couple of months, or you are all warmly
invited to come. On the scientific
part, of course, it's challenging in two
minutes left to draw a firm conclusion from what we have heard and a lot
has already been said. However, it is clear in my view that today presentation
underscore the significant role
permanent body modification played in shaping individual, social, and cultural
identities throughout history, historical, and present times. They are an intrinsic aspect
of the human experience. The diverse and rich range of practices in which they
manifest themselves suggest that any
potential drawbacks to physical fitness
are outweighed by the profound benefits
of self expression and sense of belonging to a
community with shared values. Well, that said, I will ask the CARTA Executive
Director Pascal Gagneux to present some
conclusing remarks. Thank you again, all of you. Thank you very much
to the two co-chairs and all the speakers
for fascinating talks. It's clear there is
much that we all need to explore and understand better
about this phenomenon. It's my turn to thank
the audience as well. I'd like to remind
the audience that if you look forward to
future symposia like that, we rely on your support. Please, if you enjoy
today's presentation, if that added value to your day and your insights into
the human phenomenon, feel free to scan this QR
code and support CARTA. We have two symposia that
are coming up in the spring, we have a symposium
that we co sponsor with the Institute for
Human Origin at ASU, Arizona State
University, which will celebrate the 50th anniversary
of the discovery of Lucy. Then in October, this will
be a virtual symposium. In October, we will have
an in person symposium at the Saw Institute on construction on how humans
came to construct their world. It will be on architecture. That will be in person, and stay tuned for the details. We very much hope to see you virtually in April
and in person, if you're anywhere in Southern California
at the Saw Institute. Thank you all very much. [MUSIC]
