AnthropologyMatters

Paper originally presented at he 2022 Society for American Archaeology Annual Meetings, held in Chicago, Illinois on April 1. Here we observe that one of the hallmarks of altered states of consciousness (ASC) produced by entheogens is seeing spirals and the feeling that one is spinning through a vortex to travel to another realm—perhaps deep into the earth or far out into the cosmos. Lewis-Williams and Pearce (2005) call this spinning “transcosmological travel” and provide firsthand ethnographic accounts of it. ASC also commonly includes the feeling of partly or fully transforming into another animal. Previously we have discussed Casas Grandes shamanic journeys based on tobacco using male smoker effigy jars and female effigy jars, but here we focus on Casas Grandes bird and snake effigies. We suggest these vessels reflect transcosmological travel in features such as the spiraling snake and bird effigy jars. We explore the cosmological significance of both transcosmological travel and its association with macaws and snakes, which served as axis mundi (gateway) animals in Casas Grandes cosmology.

Paper presented at the 2022 Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting (Chicago, March 30 thru April 3). Authors: Todd L. VanPool, Christine S. VanPool, Laura Lee, and Paul Robear We discuss Altered States of Consciousness (ASC), which can take many forms, ranging in intensity from daydream-like experiences to visions in a catanionic state. Trance, often initiated using entheogens, is a particularly common form of ASC found through time and around the world. While entheogens are commonly used, trance states can be initiated without their use, and even when they are used, entheogens are generally only a part of the trance experience. As a result, trance experiences, especially in religious contexts such as shamanism, cannot be reduced to the impact of entheogens, but instead reflect the influence of the social setting, other ritual paraphernalia such as noisemakers, the individual’s own physiological state, and culturally-derived expectations of the experience. Here we compare the nature of trance-states produced with and without entheogens focusing on ritual body postures and the use of sound induction (sound driving) as discussed by Felicitas Goodman and Michael Harner. We tie ritual body postures to the Medio period Casas Grandes culture (AD 1200 to 1450) and other archaeological cultures and evaluate the potential impacts of entheogens and other ritual activities in the North American Southwest, West Mexico, and Mississippi culture areas.

Human violence is a part of human evolution. Here we discuss the application of game theory to the evolution of violence and warfare. This discussion is based in large part on Ian Morris's discussion in Chapter 6 of _War: What is it good for?_ and Richard Dawkin's _The Selfish Gene_. It is part of a series of videos focused on the Anthropology of Warfare.

Religious pilgrimages to Paquimé, Chihuahua, Mexico were central to the political and religious system during the Medio period (AD 1200 to 1450). We discuss the ways that Paquimé elites made their site a "place worth visiting". This was originally recorded for Anthropology Day 2021. This presentation summarizes aspects of the following article: https://www.academia.edu/41536725/Van... VanPool, Todd L., and Christine S. VanPool. "5 Paquimé’s appeal." Cognitive Archaeology: Mind, Ethnography, and the Past in South Africa and Beyond (2019).