HRAF News Vol. 2020-2
Love Actually Is All Around
Love is in the air this month! If you're the romantic type, don't miss our popular post on attitudes towards kissing around the world. More into self-love than romance? Our post on cross-cultural perspectives of female beauty will boost your confidence. Finally, forget "puppy love": our love for puppies might be the most unconditional human universal of the heart.

HRAF also extends a heartfelt welcome to two community colleges - College of the Desert and Pima Community College - who have joined us through the HRAF Community College Initiative as new members of eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology .
Our latest additions to Teaching eHRAF come from Matthew Longcore , our member services manager who also teaches Anthropology at the University of Connecticut. This semester Matthew is teaching eHRAF in two UConn courses, ANTH 1000W Other People’s Worlds and ANTH 1500 Great Discoveries in Archaeology. The syllabi and eHRAF assignments for each course are shared here .

In this course, students submit a research paper using eHRAF World Cultures. The paper should address a specific cultural behavior or topic and a related research question. The instructions can be found here .

Students are required to use eHRAF Archaeology and make team presentations in PowerPoint on topics from stories featured by National Public Radio (NPR). The presentation format is here .

Speaking of puppy love, Valentine's Day isn't just for humans. The unconditional love that we share with our pets is featured in our latest post titled

The human love of pets is a powerful and global phenomenon. There is a growing trend for pet owners to consider their "fur babies" to be full members of their families; to dote upon them as they would children or romantic partners, both emotionally and financially; and to thereby develop strong bonds of dependency, love, and support. 

Using data from eHRAF Archaeology and eHRAF World Cultures, this post looks at pet ownership from its prehistoric origins to the present day alongside anthropological theories on human-animal relationships in order to better understand our fondness for furry friends around the world.

We are now accepting applications for the 2020 HRAF Internship in Honor of Melvin Ember , President of HRAF from 1987 to 2009. The intent of the internship is to learn about cross-cultural research through practical experience. This is a paid internship with reimbursement for travel.

Internship candidates must already have the right to work in the United States at the time of application and have (or will have) graduated from college by the beginning of the internship.

Preference will be given to candidates who plan on graduate study in anthropology or a closely related field, or have already started graduate school.

Candidates should gave strong
statistical analysis skills and a record of academic accomplishment.

The application deadline is April 1, 2020.

Can we learn from indigenous people how to manage bushfires? Our recent post explores new research with seemingly opposing points of view.

Australian researchers posit that land management techniques focused on intentional setting of fires date back to ancient Aboriginal peoples about 50,000 years ago. In contrast, researchers in the United States argue that there is no evidence of this practice among pre-colonial Native Americans in New England, and that the practice came after European contact. 

It is important to underscore that these studies are regional in focus, and therefore have limited scope for making any broad cross-cultural generalizations. Our two databases, eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology, are both ideal for further research on this subject. Together they cover a broad range of cross-cultural topics on contemporary as well as past societies.

HRAF at Yale University| hraf.yale.edu