Concepts of race in the Historicography of northeast Africa
Recent accounts of the proto-history of Africa use data from physical anthropology, but also concepts of race which physical anthropologists in general have abandoned as unsatisfactory; the paper seeks to explain this phenomenon sociologically. Late nineteenth-century political and sociological trends helped to produce patterns of thought which can no longer be regarded as affording adequate explanations of social processes. These patterns combined idealism, or the method of contrasting ideal types, with pseudo-Darwinism, which sought the origins of political development in the interaction of differently endowed groups. In African ethnography of the early twentieth century such concepts led to the view that the continent was inhabited by two groups, Caucasoids and Negroids, and by mixtures of the two which remained mixtures, to be analysed as such. The Caucasoid and Negroid types were regarded as absolute and universal, represented equally in the biological, linguistic, cultural and political aspects of man.
Temporal Variation in Prehistoric Nubian Crania
Much of the earlier work on the prehistory of Sudanese Nubia has emphasized discontinuity between early Nubian populations. However, recent investigations suggest the converse that a remarkable degree of cultural and biological continuity exists among indigenous Nubian groups, perhaps as far back as the Paleolithic. Thus, cultural and biological differences between Nubian populations can be most effectively perceived as the result of in situ evolutionary development. The present analysis has two major purposes: (1) to describe the morphological differences in the craniofacial complex between indigenous Nubian populations extending from the A-Group (c. 3,400 B.C.) through the Christian (c. 1,500 A.D.) horizons; and (2) to account for these differences within an evolutionary framework. The multiple discriminant analysis of radiographically derived variables revealed a trend from a substantially lower and more elongated cranial vault to a shorter and taller vault throughout the almost 5,000 year time span. Associated with this pattern was a tendency for the face to become more inferiorly-posteriorly located with respect to the vault in the latter groups. Finally, the masseter and temporalis muscles underwent a reduction and slight relocation through time. We speculate that this trend may be associated with behavioral changes associated with transition from a hunting and gathering to a totally agricultural subsistence
Negotiating the cultural and economic outcomes of sport heritage attractions: the case of the National Baseball Hall of Fame
ABSTRACT Contemporary museums must balance their roles as commercial entities and repositories of various, and often dissonant, heritages and histories. Sports museums in particular often have clear commercial and nostalgic aims, particularly through tourist visitation, though the extent to which they represent more challenging narratives remains unclear. This paper examines how one of the most famous sports museums in the world, the National Baseball Hall of Fame (NBHF) in Cooperstown, New York, balances its dual role as tourist attraction and repository of baseball's sometimes checkered past. It was found that different sections of the museum provide greater or lesser degrees of engagement with more controversial issues, although the commercial outputs and appeal of the museum remains clear throughout. Utlimately, the NBHF demonstrates that balancing veneration and critique in collections can be commercially prosperous, and can provide a template for other sport and popular culture museums who may be wary of incorporating more challenging narratives in their exhibits. Furthermore, the symbiotic relationship between the Hall of Fame and the village of Cooperstown, particularly in creating and maintaining cultural and economic outputs, requires further exploration.