GW Researchers Defend Species Status of "Hobbit"

The current issue of Research & Discovery, the magazine about research at GW, features the work of three University paleoanthropologists who analyzed the skull of the three-foot-tall hominid from the island of Flores and concluded that it merited status as a new species.

GW postdoctoral scientist Adam Gordon, Hominid Paleobiology doctoral candidate Lisa Nevell, and University Professor of Human Origins Bernard Wood published their analysis in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March. They used six cranial measurements to analyze the Flores skull and compare it to other hominids.

For the GW feature story, visit:
http://www.gwu.edu/~magazine/2008_research_fall/docs/feat_headcase.htm

A PDF version of the PNAS article, "The Homo floresiensis cranium (LB1): Size, scaling, and early Homo affinities," is on Dr. Wood's home page: http://home.gwu.edu/~bwood/#pubs

Undergraduate Spotlight: Lauren Deal '09 Wins National Paper Prize

Lauren E. Deal (BA Anth 2009) has been awarded the Annual Student Essay Prize from the Society for Linguistic Anthropology for her paper "Fat Birds and Intercostals: Ideologies of Science and Poetry in Bel Canto Singing."

Lauren's paper is partly based on her 2007 research, funded by the GW Anthropology Department's Lewis N. Cotlow Fund, on vocal pedagogy in Buenos Aires and Washington, DC. She compared the use of figurative language in voice training within the cultural contexts of Argentina and the U.S.

Lauren will officially receive the award at the Society's business meeting in San Francisco next week. The SLA is meeting concurrently with the 107th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in which she is also a participant. Lauren is part of an invited poster session on "First Rites: Innovative Undergraduate Research."

The SLA awards two Student Essay Prizes a year, one to an undergraduate and one to a graduate student. Winning papers must be original and based on research conducted by the author. They are evaluated on the basis of clarity, significance to the field, and substantive contribution and must be judged suitable for submission to the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology.

Faculty Spotlight: Ilana Feldman

Ilana Feldman, professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, has received the seventh annual Cultural Horizons Prize from the Society for Cultural Anthropology for her article “Difficult Distinctions: Refugee Law, Humanitarian Practice, and Political Identification in Gaza.” The article appeared in Cultural Anthropology in February 2007.

To read more, visit the Columbian College website:
http://www.gwu.edu/~ccas/newsletter/Vol1Issue5Feldman.html