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Seshat (project)
The Seshat: Global History Databank (named after Seshat, the ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom, knowledge, and writing) is an international scientific research project of the nonprofit Evolution Institute. Founded in 2011, the Seshat: Global History Databank gathers data into a single, large database that can be used to test scientific hypotheses. The Databank consults directly with expert scholars to code what historical societies and their environments were like in the form of accessible datapoints and thus forms a digital storehouse for data on the political and social organization of all human groups from the early modern back to the ancient and neolithic periods. The organizers of this research project contend that the mass of data then can be used to test a variety of competing hypotheses about the rise and fall of large-scale societies around the globe which may help science provide answers to global problems. The Seshat: Global History Databank claims to be a scientific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seshat Logo
Seshat ( egy, sš3t, under various spellings) was the ancient Egyptian Ancient Egyptian religion, goddess of writing, wisdom, and knowledge. She was seen as a scribe and accountant, record keeper; her name means "female scribe". She is credited with inventing writing. She also became identified as the goddess of accounting, architecture, astronomy, astrology, building, mathematics, and surveying. Origins Seshat is attested from the second Dynasty of Egypt, Second Dynasty, where she assists King Khasekhemwy with the "Rope stretcher, stretching the cord" ritual. Roles As the divine measurer and scribe, Seshat was believed to appear to assist the pharaoh in both of these practises. Seshat assisted the pharaoh in the "stretching the cord" ritual. This ritual is related to laying out the foundations of temples and other important structures in order to determine and assure the sacred alignments and the precision of the dimensions. She was also the "mistress of builders", and laid t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Group Cohesiveness
Group cohesiveness (also called group cohesion and social cohesion) arises when bonds link members of a social group to one another and to the group as a whole. Although cohesion is a multi-faceted process, it can be broken down into four main components: social relations, task relations, perceived unity, and emotions. Members of strongly cohesive groups are more inclined to participate readily and to stay with the group. Definition From Neo-Latin and French , in physics, cohesion means "the force that unites the molecules of a liquid or of a solid". Thereby, there are different ways to define group cohesion, depending on how researchers conceptualize this concept. However, most researchers define cohesion to be task commitment and interpersonal attraction to the group. Cohesion can be more specifically defined as the tendency for a group to be in unity while working towards a goal or to satisfy the emotional needs of its members. This definition includes important aspects of co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big History
Big History is an academic discipline which examines history from the Big Bang to the present. Big History resists specialization, and searches for universal patterns or trends. It examines long time frames using a multidisciplinary approach based on combining numerous disciplines from science and the humanities, and explores human existence in the context of this bigger picture. It integrates studies of the cosmos, Earth, life, and humanity using empirical evidence to explore cause-and-effect relations, and is taught at universities and primary and secondary schools often using web-based interactive presentations. Historian David Christian has been credited with coining the term "Big History" while teaching one of the first such courses at Macquarie University. An all-encompassing study of humanity's relationship to cosmology and natural history has been pursued by scholars since the Renaissance, and the new field, Big History, continues such work. Comparison with conven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harvey Whitehouse
Harvey Whitehouse is chair of social anthropology and professorial fellow of Magdalen College at the University of Oxford. Education and early career Whitehouse received his B.A. degree in social anthropology from the London School of Economics in 1985. He completed his PhD in anthropology at the University of Cambridge in 1990. Whitehouse is generally regarded as one of the founders of the cognitive science of religion field. After carrying out two years of field research on a 'cargo cult' in New Britain, Papua New Guinea, in the late 1980s, he developed a theory of " modes of religiosity" that has been the subject of extensive critical evaluation and testing by social anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, and sociologists. The theory of modes of religiosity seeks to explain the role of ritual in processes of group bonding and in the evolution of social complexity. Two modes are distinguished: imagistic and doctrinal. In the imagistic mode, collective rituals are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Turchin
Peter Valentinovich Turchin (russian: Пётр Валенти́нович Турчи́н; born 1957) is a Russian-American complexity scientist, specializing in an area of study he and his colleagues developed called cliodynamics—mathematical modeling and statistical analysis of the dynamics of historical societies. He is currently Editor-in-Chief at ''Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution''. , he is a director of the Evolution Institute. Early life and education Peter Turchin was born in 1957 in Obninsk, Russia, and in 1964 he moved with his family to Moscow. In 1975 he enrolled at Moscow State University's Faculty of Biology and studied there until 1977, when his father, Soviet dissident Valentin Turchin, was exiled from the Soviet Union. In 1980, Turchin obtained B.A. (''cum laude'') from New York University, and in his Ph.D. in from Duke University in 1985. Career Throughout his career Turchin has made contributions to various fiel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horizon 2020
The Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development, also called Framework Programmes or abbreviated FP1 to FP9, are funding programmes created by the European Union/European Commission to support and foster research in the European Research Area (ERA). Starting in 2014, the funding programmes were named Horizon. The funding programmes began in 1984 and continue to the present day. The most recent programme, Horizon Europe, has a budget of 95.5 billion Euros to be distributed over 7 years. The specific objectives and actions vary between funding periods. In FP6 and FP7, focus was on technological research. In Horizon 2020, the focus was on innovation, delivering economic growth faster, and delivering solutions to end users that are often governmental agencies. Background Conducting European research policies and implementing European research programmes is an obligation under the Amsterdam Treaty, which includes a chapter on research and technological development. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economic And Social Research Council
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), formerly the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). UKRI is a non-departmental public body (NDPB) funded by the UK government. ESRC provides funding and support for research and training in the social sciences. It is the UK's largest organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. History The ESRC was founded in 1965 as the ''Social Science Research Council'' (SSRC - not to be confused with the Social Science Research Council in the United States). The establishment of a state funding body for the social sciences in the United Kingdom, had been under discussion since the Second World War; however, it was not until the 1964 election of Prime Minister Harold Wilson that the political climate for the creation of the SSRC became sufficiently favourable. The first chief executive of the SSRC was Michael Young (later Baron Young of Dartington). Subsequent holders of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Templeton Foundation
The John Templeton Foundation (Templeton Foundation) is a philanthropic organization that reflects the ideas of its founder, John Templeton, who became wealthy via a career as a contrarian investor, and wanted to support progress in religious and spiritual knowledge, especially at the intersection of religion and science. He also sought to fund research on methods to promote and develop moral character, intelligence, and creativity in people, and to promote free markets. In 2008, the foundation was awarded the National Humanities Medal. In 2016 ''Inside Philanthropy'' called it "the oddest—or most interesting—big foundation around." Templeton founded the organization in 1987 and headed it as chairman until his death in 2008. Templeton's son, John Templeton Jr., served as its president from its founding until his death in 2015, at which point Templeton Jr.'s daughter, Heather Templeton Dill, became president. The foundation administers the annual Templeton Prize for achievem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gary Feinman
Gary M. Feinman (born 1951) is an American archaeologist, and the MacArthur Curator of Mesoamerican, Central American, and East Asian Anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. He was a part of the Valley of Oaxaca Settlement Pattern Project which focused on the evolution of the Monte Albán state and shifts in settlement in the region over three millennia. He has conducted research in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico for over 30 years, most recently in the lands of the communities Tlacolula, Mitla, Matatlán, and Ejutla. These studies focused on household excavations at three sites (Ejutla, El Palmillo, and the Mitla Fortress). Most recently, he excavated at Lambityeco in collaboration with representatives of the Mexican Institute of Anthropology and History. At Lambityeco, Feinman and colleagues have documented a large Classic-period ball court, which was not previously recorded during surface mapping of this site. The Field Museum of Natural History team al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Morris (historian)
Ian Matthew Morris (born 27 January 1960) is a British historian, archaeologist, and Willard Professor of Classics at Stanford University. Early life Morris was born on 27 January 1960 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. He attended Alleyne's High School, a comprehensive school in Stone, Staffordshire. He studied at the University of Birmingham, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1981. He undertook a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree at the University of Cambridge, graduating in 1985. His doctoral thesis was titled "Burial and society at Athens, 1100-500 BC". Career From 1987 to 1995, he taught at the University of Chicago. Since 1995, he has been at Stanford. Since joining Stanford, he has served as Associate Dean of Humanities and Sciences, Chair of the Classics Department, and Director of the Social Science History Institute. He was one of the founders of the Stanford Archaeology Center and has served two terms as its director. He has published e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts of the world. This "Neolithic package" included the introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement. It began about 12,000 years ago when farming appeared in the Epipalaeolithic Near East, and later in other parts of the world. The Neolithic lasted in the Near East until the transitional period of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) from about 6,500 years ago (4500 BC), marked by the development of metallurgy, leading up to the Bronze Age and Iron Age. In other places the Neolithic followed the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) and then lasted until later. In Ancient Egypt, the Neolithic lasted until the Protodynastic period, 3150 BC.Karin Sowada and Peter Grave. Egyp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosocial Behavior
Prosocial behavior, or intent to benefit others, is a social behavior that "benefit other people or society as a whole", "such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering". Obeying the rules and conforming to socially accepted behaviors (such as stopping at a "Stop" sign or paying for groceries) are also regarded as prosocial behaviors. These actions may be motivated by empathy and by concern about the welfare and rights of others,Sanstock, John W. A Topical Approach to Life Span Development 4th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Ch. 15, pp. 489–491 as well as for egoistic or practical concerns, such as one's social status or reputation, hope for direct or indirect reciprocity, or adherence to one's perceived system of fairness. It may also be motivated by altruism, though the existence of pure altruism is somewhat disputed, and some have argued that this falls into philosophical rather than psychological realm of debate. Evidence suggests that pro sociality is cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
