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Deviant Burials

5/22/2016

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       Death is still something frightening to some. What does happen after we die? Do we go to heaven? Are we reincarnated? Or is there a chance for us to become the walking dead? The fear of the dead is more prevalent than the fear of death itself. This fear goes back ages, before modern zombie television shows and movies. In the following blog I will discuss ways cultures made sure their dead would not rise, the first recorded culture to take this fear seriously, and a culture in which had the mind set that the dead should not be feared.
       Necrophobia is the fear of dead bodies (necro: relating to death, phobia: extreme fear of). Like most phobias, whether it be the phobia of clowns or of heights, is an irrational fear. Once the body is dead, and I am meaning the second the blood stops pumping, unless certain measures are taken (a defibrillator for example), there is no chance of it coming back to life. But necrophobia is not just the fear of the dead, this fear can be of funerals, coffins, cemeteries; anything relating to death. It may sound silly when explained, but silliness could not have been further in the minds of those with this fear when dealing with the dead. Some would place huge boulders on the body to pin it down, some would spear the body to keep it in place, some would disembowel and dismember their dead, and in the case of Albert I, in 1225 his body was boiled and defleshed.
       As for the earliest known method to keep the dead in their graves comes to us from the ancient Greeks; who feared zombies. What the ancient Greeks would use were large amphora (“two handled ceramic vessel that was generally used for storing wine and olive oil”) which were “presumably intended to pin the individual to the grave and prevent it from seeing or rising.” They were also the first to use huge stones to weigh a body down as was seen when a burial of a child was found. That said there is evidence in the form of tablets inscribed with magical spells that some wished to resurrect the dead and have them do their bidding.
       
Long before the ancient Greeks existed a culture and way of life that did not fear the dead. This culture belonged to the ancient Egyptians. In one of my earliest blogs (http://anthropologicalconcepts.weebly.com/blog/-are-you-my-mummy) I described how the process of mummification took place. You can argue that the ancient Egyptians feared their dead because of the way they prepared their dead; from disemboweling them to wrapping them in tight linen. But we have to remember in the time before being wrapped there were priests who had to come daily to “feed the soul” of the dead pharaoh. Not only that, but when they were entombed in their grave, it was not seen as a sign of “beware,” but it was a sign for celebration. Celebration because their pharaoh was going into the afterlife and because to the ancient Egyptians their pharaoh was the embodiment of a god.
       Now, why after give or take 2100 years after the ancient Greek's necrophobia ways are we still afraid of the dead? I mean, in early Anglo-saxson history, they would behead their dead before burying them, and this was a time between 410 – 660 C.E. So why do we, some 1356 years later still fear our dead. Our fear may not be as extensive as to behead our dead or weigh them down with large stones, but we still fear our dead. The reason being, and which I think it always has been, the dead remind us of our mortality. They remind us that we will eventually expire...we will eventually die.
       Please feel free to comment on what you thought of the blog, or other physical anthropological subjects you would like me to cover.
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Alopecia

5/8/2016

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       You may know a number of people who suffer from alopecia; it may be your dentist, a co-worker, maybe even one of your parents. I spoke of this briefly in a previous blog (http://anthropologicalconcepts.weebly.com/blog/-getting-older), and what alopecia means, in layman terms, is hair loss. In the following blog I will discuss why it is more prone in specific ethnicities, why it is seen more in men and balding in women, why the body hair continues to grow while the head hair stops, and all in all why it happens.
       It may seem that those we see with alopecia are mostly of European descent, but why? It is strange that those of European descent have the fastest growing hair, but the men of this descent “have more hair loss above the forehead than other races. Asians, Native Americans, and men of African descent usually have less hair loss than Caucasians.” It has been theorized that European men make more dihydrotestosterone (DHT, which is a part of the hormone testosterone), which plays a big part of those of European descent having more body hair, but more prone to alopecia. This does make sense when comparing the hairy European to the less so, Asians for example, of which we do not see many balding Asian males. Although, that said, ethnicity is only part, a small part, of why someone would have alopecia; we have to take genetics, lifestyle, and how one takes care of their hair. An example is the alopecia with Afro-Caribbean hair. With those of this culture the hair requires constant pulling of the hair to achieve certain styles.

       Now as I stated in the opening I spoke of this condition in a previous blog, and in that blog I explained how the loss of hair in males is mostly a cause of the hormone testosterone, but there are cases of alopecia in females as well, which have a very small dose of this hormone (which is why females tend to have less body hair). When a man is going bald it is usually called “male pattern baldness,” but when a woman is going bald it is referred to “thinning” because they do no experience a complete loss of hair. The reasons for this “thinning” varies from stress to a hormonal fluctuation “such as post-partum or menopause.” But it can also be genetic. Women with the thinning of the hair will sometimes find that their mother and grandmother also has this “thinning.”

       In the case of genetics, this is the most common cause for male pattern baldness. It is believed that the mother is one that passes on this androgenetic alopecia because it is on the X chromosome (which is passed on from the mother), but in many cases of alopecia, the father is also suffering from male pattern baldness. Even though alopecia is found on the X chromosome, it is actually the fault of a male sex hormone named androgens. When a male becomes increasingly sensitive to androgens, they will experience hair loss. With all that said, even if the mother, the father, or even the grandparents do not have a case of alopecia, as long as there was any case in a family line it will come up again sooner or later.

       For this entire blog I have been explaining several causes and reasons for alopecia, but it all adds up to the question...why? There have been studies to answer this question, but at the end of it we know “how,” but that still leaves the “why?” An extended reasoning in how alopecia happens is that when, in male pattern baldness, the hair follicles become smaller and the growth phase of the hairs is reduced. This reduction the maximum length is shortened, and the same time the resting phase is lengthened. It becomes a cycle and the rest phase becomes the most prevalent. “Over time, the anagen (the growth) phase becomes so short that the new hairs do not even peek through the surface of the skin.”

       We may never know when or just why alopecia began. And unlike the things people experience when getting in old age that I discussed in the blog I linked above, alopecia can happen at any time. The most common is when you do get older, but it really can happen any time after puberty. I suppose you can group hair loss in the category of getting older, but...not that much older.

       Please feel free to comment on what you thought of the blog, or other physical anthropological subjects you would like me to cover.
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    A recently made anthropologist who has been set loose to study the humans of the then, today, what's to come, and beyond. 

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