Jonathan Marks tells archaeologists to "put down those beers"

Biological anthropologist Jonathan Marks writes some of the more insightful and entertaining works in anthropology today. Check out his website for his publications. (By the way, are YOUR publications posted online???).  I particularly like his book reviews; they are concise and pithy, often containing some real zingers that put people and ideas in their place.

I just read his outstanding book review essay on seven books on cultural evolution by evolutionary psychologists and others:

Marks, Jonathan
    2012    Recent Advances in Culturomics. Evolutionary Anthropology 21:38-42.

If you have read some of these works applying biological models to cultural evolution, you will recognize the aptness of Marks' comments (such as the fact that decades ago anthropology solved many of the supposed problems they bring up).

Anyway, to the remarks on archaeologists and beers. Marks ends his essay arguing for the importance of distinguishing good science from bad science (a major theme in his publications), and the need to link anthropology to broader intellectual currents. Such linkages:

"will probably also require some archaeologists to put down those beers and get involved in building the intellectual bridges that will link the natural and social studies of human evolution." (Marks 2012:42).

I am all in favor of building these bridges (check out my past posts indexed with "Archaeology and other disciplines"), but do we really have to "put down those beers"  do do this? I write this from the Texas hill country, where I have very much enjoyed the ales from the "Real Ale" brewery in Blanco, TX.

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