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1980s in anthropology

timeline article

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 16, 2025
Entity authorityQ4579573 ↗
Source-derived summary

Timeline of anthropology, 1980–1989

Events

1984

"Turkana Boy" is discovered

1986

The Human Genome Project is launched

1989

The National Museum of the American Indian is founded in the U.S.

Publications

1980

Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali, by Clifford Geertz

The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America, by Michael Taussig

1981

In Vain I Tried To Tell You: Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics, by Dell Hymes

Nisa: The Life and Words of a Kung Woman, by Marjorie Shostak

1982

Europe and the People Without History by Eric Wolf

1983

Local Knowledge: further essays in interpretive anthropology by Clifford Geertz

1984

Muelos: A Stone Age Superstition about Sexuality, by Weston La Barre

1985

Sweetness And Power : The Place Of Sugar In Modern History, by Sidney Mintz

1986

Writing Culture, ed. by James Clifford and George E. Marcus

1988

Donald Brown's Hierarchy, History, and Human Nature was published.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1980s in anthropology” is timeline article. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through 1980s, anthropology and timeline, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1980, 1989, 1984, 1986—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, 1980s, anthropology and timeline is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “timeline article” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4579573. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1980, 1989, 1984 and 1986.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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  2. Expand the search: follow 1980s in anthropology primary sources, 1980s in anthropology archive and 1980s research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1980s in anthropology” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.