Higham James P, Dominy Nathaniel J
Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, New York 10003.
Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2018 Aug;166(4):783-790. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.23620.
In 1972, Sherwood Washburn, one of the forerunners of biological anthropology, gave an invited address during the 4th Congress of the International Primatological Society in Portland, Oregon, in which he expounded his vision for the field of primatology. His address was published the following year in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and titled: "The promise of primatology." In this centennial commentary, we revisit Washburn's "promise", 45 years on. His address and article discuss the constraints acting on the field, including a positioning of the discipline across different kinds of university departments, and within the social sciences, which he viewed as a mixed blessing. Prescient aspects of Washburn's address include a focus on the need to study communication multimodally, and a hope that the study of mechanisms would become foundational within the field. We discuss new promising aspects of primatology, focusing on technological advances in a number of areas highlighted by Washburn that have ushered in new eras of research, and the increasingly large number of long-term field sites, which see the discipline well-set for new developmental and longitudinal studies. We find much to admire in Washburn's keen foresight, and natural intuition. Washburn hoped that primatology would repudiate the notion that "the social should be studied without reference to the biological." In this regard, we consider much of Washburn's promise fulfilled.
1972年，生物人类学的先驱之一舍伍德·沃什伯恩在俄勒冈州波特兰市举行的第四届国际灵长类动物学协会大会上发表了特邀演讲，阐述了他对灵长类动物学领域的展望。他的演讲于次年发表在美国《体质人类学期刊》上，标题为《灵长类动物学的前景》。在这篇百年评论中，45年后的今天，我们重温沃什伯恩的“前景”。他的演讲和文章讨论了该领域所面临的限制因素，包括该学科在不同类型大学院系中的定位，以及在社会科学中的定位，他认为这是一把双刃剑。沃什伯恩演讲中具有先见之明的方面包括强调需要进行多模态交流研究，以及希望对机制的研究能成为该领域的基础。我们讨论了灵长类动物学新的有前景的方面，重点关注沃什伯恩所强调的一些领域的技术进步，这些进步开启了新的研究时代，以及越来越多的长期野外研究地点，这使得该学科为新的发展性和纵向研究做好了充分准备。我们对沃什伯恩敏锐的远见和天生的直觉钦佩不已。沃什伯恩希望灵长类动物学能摒弃“研究社会时不考虑生物学因素”这一观念。在这方面，我们认为沃什伯恩的许多展望已经实现。
