August 5, 2015
Brian Wood, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, has been awarded an NSF “RAPID: Time Critical Preservation of Hunter-Gatherer Ethnographic Data” Award. The aim of this project is to compile, preserve, and enable the analysis and publication of important ethnographic data collected by Dr. Frank Marlowe and his students among Hadza hunter-gatherers of northern Tanzania. This team’s work has resulted in seminal publications focusing on foraging, cooperation, mating preferences, parental care, reproduction, material culture, ethnoarchaeology, and economic preferences. While conducting his quantitative ethnographic research, Dr. Marlowe also unobtrusively filmed the Hadza and captured dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of film depicting the Hadza engaged in a variety of daily activities. Owing to his commitment to long-term research, Dr. Marlowe was able to film rarely occurring events that have never been reported in any format, film or otherwise. We have immediate need of funding because Dr. Marlowe has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and support from the NSF will enable direct consultations with him to proceed at the earliest possible time, while he is still able to provide key information. Unfortunately, about 1/3 of the quantitative ethnographic data that Marlowe collected, and none of his filmed materials, have been published or distributed. Support is requested for travel expenses while consulting with Dr. Marlowe, data management, data archiving, data entry, film logging, and limited film editing.
Professor Wood received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2010 and joined the Yale faculty in 2012.