On Wednesday, January 22, HRAF President Carol Ember visited the Columbia Climate School to make a presentation titled Cultural Adaptations To Natural Hazards and Resource Stress for the Research Seminar Series.

Launched in 2020, the Climate School at Columbia University is the nation's first climate school. The Climate School’s vision is a healthy planet that enables just and prosperous societies to thrive.

Carol's presentation featured the findings from grant-supported interdisciplinary cross-cultural research looking at the effects of climate-related hazards on culture. This research uses the anthropological record to test theories about how societies living in hazard-prone environments may have adapted their cultures to deal with climate-related and other resource stressors. Carol also discussed preliminary findings from recent research comparing possible effects of food-destroying hazards with nonfood-destroying hazards.

Click here for the Columbia Climate School seminar info

Our HRAF 2024 in Review & 2025 Preview summarizes our highlights from the previous year, as well as what you can expect to see from HRAF over the next 12 months.

Topics featured include:

• HRAF's 75th Anniversary
• Culture & Tradition Updates
• eHRAF Updates
• Staff Updates
• Best of 2024
• HRAF Research & Publications
• Explaining Human Culture
• Conferences & Events
• HRAF Membership Updates
• HRAF Global Scholars

We look forward to a new year with new developments across our eHRAF databases as well as our open access resources.

We encourage you to follow us on our social media channels and to sign up for academic research updates through the HRAF Academic Quarterly.

Click here to read our Year in Review and New Year Preview

In honor of our 75th anniversary, we are pleased to feature video recordings from members of the broader HRAF community. This month we are featuring a video from Manvir Singh, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis.

Manvir directs the Integrative Anthropology Lab, which combines evolutionary, cognitive, and sociocultural methods and theory to understand the nature and origins of human behavior, particularly ubiquitous sociocultural traditions such as shamanism, witchcraft, story, and music. He has written on topics including evolution, cognitive science, and cultural diversity. Manvir is the author of Shamanism: The Timeless Religion. He also writes essays for non-academic audiences, including The New Yorker.

A graduate of Brown University, Manvir earned a Ph.D. in Human Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University where he is affiliated with the Culture, Cognition, Coevolution Lab. In a cross-cultural study of song carried out by the Natural History of Song Project, Samuel Mehr, Manvir Singh, and colleagues (2018) found that people across sixty countries were able to reliably infer whether songs were used for dancing, for soothing babies, or for healing the ill after listening to only 14-second sound bytes.

Click here to watch the video from Manvir Singh

The American Anthropological Association is officially celebrating Anthropology Day on February 20, 2025. This a day for anthropologists to celebrate our discipline while sharing it with the world around us.

On Friday, February 21, the Human Relations Area Files at Yale University will host an event in celebration of Anthropology Day. This will be the sixth annual Anthropology Day celebration hosted by HRAF in collaboration with undergraduates from the University of Connecticut. Matthew Longcore, Director of Membership and Outreach at HRAF, teaches Anthropology at UConn and is the faculty advisor for the UConn Stamford Anthropology Society.

UConn students have been invited to New Haven for a day exploring anthropology and cross-cultural research. There will be a presentation from President Carol Ember followed by a discussion about the Melvin Ember Internship with current interns.

The day will conclude with a visit to the Yale University Art Gallery. February 21st is opening day for David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive, a major traveling retrospective exhibition that spans the seven decades of work of photographer David Goldblatt who captured scenes of life in South Africa under apartheid and post-apartheid.

Click here to read about Anthropology Day 2025

On Wednesday, January 22, HRAF President Carol Ember visited the Columbia Climate School to make a presentation for the Research Seminar Series titled Cultural Adaptations To Natural Hazards and Resource Stress.

Launched in 2020, the Climate School at Columbia University is the nation's first climate school. The Climate School’s vision is a healthy planet that enables just and prosperous societies to thrive.

Carol's presentation at the Columbia Climate School featured the findings from grant-supported interdisciplinary cross-cultural research that has used the anthropological record to test theories about how societies living in hazard-prone environments may have adapted their cultures to deal with climate-related and other resource stressors. She also discussed preliminary findings from recent research that has compared possible effects of food-destroying hazards with nonfood-destroying hazards.

Click here for the Columbia Climate School seminar info

Our HRAF 2024 in Review & 2025 Preview summarizes our highlights from the previous year, as well as what you can expect to see from HRAF over the next 12 months.

Topics featured include:

• HRAF's 75th Anniversary
• Culture & Tradition Updates
• eHRAF Updates
• Staff Updates
• Best of 2024
• HRAF Research & Publications
• Explaining Human Culture
• Conferences & Events
• HRAF Membership Updates
• HRAF Global Scholars

We look forward to a new year with new developments across our eHRAF databases as well as our open access resources.

We encourage you to follow us on our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkedIn) and to sign up for academic research updates through the HRAF Academic Quarterly.

Click here to read our Year in Review and New Year Preview

In honor of our 75th anniversary, we are pleased to feature video recordings from members of the broader HRAF community. This month we are featuring a video from Manvir Singh, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis.

Manvir directs the Integrative Anthropology Lab, which combines evolutionary, cognitive, and sociocultural methods and theory to understand the nature and origins of human behavior, particularly ubiquitous sociocultural traditions such as shamanism, witchcraft, story, and music. He has written on topics including evolution, cognitive science, and cultural diversity. Manvir is the author of Shamanism: The Timeless Religion. He also writes essays for non-academic audiences, including The New Yorker.

A graduate of Brown University, Manvir earned a Ph.D. in Human Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University where he is affiliated with the Culture, Cognition, Coevolution Lab. In a cross-cultural study of song carried out by the Natural History of Song Project, Samuel Mehr, Manvir Singh, and colleagues (2018) found that people across sixty countries were able to reliably infer whether songs were used for dancing, for soothing babies, or for healing the ill after listening to only 14-second sound bytes.

Click here to watch the video from Manvir Singh

The American Anthropological Association is officially celebrating Anthropology Day on February 20, 2025. This a day for anthropologists to celebrate our discipline while sharing it with the world around us.

On Friday, February 21, the Human Relations Area Files at Yale University will host an event in celebration of Anthropology Day. This will be the sixth annual Anthropology Day celebration hosted by HRAF in collaboration with undergraduates from the University of Connecticut. Matthew Longcore, Director of Membership and Outreach at HRAF, teaches Anthropology at UConn and is the faculty advisor for the UConn Stamford Anthropology Society.

UConn students have been invited to New Haven for a day exploring anthropology and cross-cultural research. There will be a presentation from President Carol Ember followed by a discussion about the Melvin Ember Internship with current interns.

The day will conclude with a visit to the Yale University Art Gallery. February 21st is opening day for David Goldblatt: No Ulterior Motive, a major traveling retrospective exhibition that spans the seven decades of work of photographer David Goldblatt who captured scenes of life in South Africa under apartheid and post-apartheid.

Click here to read about Anthropology Day 2025