Proceedings of the 88th Business Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists

2.1 Keyword review process

This year's first initiative was to revise keywords (session preferences) used during abstract submission, with the goal of carefully considering, and if necessary, replacing the system used through the 2018 meetings. Keywords are used to classify abstracts and this system plays an important role in arranging our annual meetings. Specifically, keywords are used to group abstracts prior to sending to reviewers. In addition, the annual meetings advance team uses keywords to help compose sessions.

In collaboration with President Aiello, we formed a committee in June of 2018 to review keywords, with a July 15 deadline. Committee members included Leslie Aiello (AAPA), Brenda Baker (ASU), George Perry (Penn State), Liza Shapiro (U Texas), Andrea Taylor (Touro U), and Erin Vogel (Rutgers U). The committee ultimately recommended substantial revision of the keyword system. Specifically, we designed a four-level system that was implemented in this year's abstract submission process. The first level included broad categories (e.g., Primatology, Human Biology). The second level differentiated between research on humans (hominins) and nonhuman systems. The third and fourth levels filtered abstracts by primary and secondary specialties (e.g., ecology, cognition and communication, etc.) (see Table 2, 2019 keyword system, and Table 3, timelines). We are still evaluating the consequences of the new system, and will determine whether or not it assisted in streamlining the meeting organization process. Our initial impression is that it increased the efficiency of session composition and scheduling. We will also determine whether or not the new system enhanced the overall quality of our annual meetings.

2.2 Program Committee

The Program Committee for the 2019 meetings was formed anew, with limited carryover from 2017. This committee is responsible for reviewing invited symposium proposals and abstracts, playing a critical role in maintaining the high scientific quality of our annual meetings. We used a new system this year designed to broaden participation in the committee. Specifically, President Aiello issued a call for applicants in a July Newsletter from the association. Applications were submitted to the Vice President via web survey form. These applications were then used to compose the committee. We had an outstanding response to our call for applicants. The final Program Committee includes 50 members. The committee is diverse. It also includes international representation, individuals from a range of institutions, and members from a broad spectrum of career stages. It should be noted that the committee requires that members be regular members of the AAPA.

2.3 Invited Symposia

2.4 Abstract submission and review

2.5 Workshop proposals

The deadline for workshop proposals was November 15, 2018. We received a total of 15 workshop proposals, all of which were accepted. President Aiello handled the review and decision process, notifying authors of acceptance on January 2, 2019.

2.6 Abstract issue

Following completion of the abstract review process, we initiated preparation of the annual abstract issue. This involved some effort because we encountered problems downloading abstracts into a CSV format. Specifically, the system, which outputs author names, titles, affiliations, abstract text, and funding statements into CSV format had problems with certain special characters (e.g., superscripts and subscripts). This necessitated significant efforts to copy edit abstracts. Burk and Associates assisted with formatting and copy editing of the abstract issue. Proofs were submitted to Wiley on February 1, 2019.

2.7 Advance team and meetings schedule

The AAPA advance team met in Cleveland from 24 to 26 January 2019. The team included Lori Strong and Hiede Rohland (Burk and Associates), Leslie Aiello, Anne Grauer, Steve Leigh, Denise Su, Chris Kuzawa, Geoff Hayes, and Scott McGraw. The team composed a total of 41 sessions, complementing the 21 invited symposia accepted through our review process for a total of 62 sessions. We assigned days, times, room locations, and session chairs to contributed poster and podium sessions. Information on this year's meeting is presented in Table 1.

2.8 Meetings program

The first version of the program was developed during the Advance Team meeting. Subsequent to the meeting, we made editorial changes to the program (resolving conflicts, copy editing, etc.). We notified authors of schedules on February 4, 2019. Following notification, we needed to resolve the problems mentioned previously with the abstract submission process and invited symposium assignments. Preliminary versions of the were initially published on February 8, 2019, with updated programs published occasionally thereafter. The print version of the program was sent to the printer on March 14, 2019.

2.9 Acknowledgements and thanks

Our Program Committee did an outstanding job this year, reviewing symposium proposals and abstracts thoughtfully, thoroughly, and expeditiously. I offer my sincerest thanks to the committee members for their efforts. The committee includes: Amanda Agnew, Kari Allen, Ben Auerbach, Jonathan Bethard, Nicole Burt, James Calcagno, Zachary Cofran, Paul Constantino, Lynn Copes, Jennifer Cramer, Andrew Deane, Maureen Devlin, Christina Fojas, Rebecca Gilmour, C. Eduardo Guerra Amorim, Lauren Halenar-Price, Ashley Hammond, Donna Harrison, Geoff Hayes, Amber Heard-Booth, Brian Hemphill, Nathan Holton, Rob Hoppa, Jennifer Hotzman, Rebecca Jabbour, Jessica Joganic, Kent Johnson, Erin Kane, Claire Kirchhoff, Myra Laird, Kristi Lewton, Christina Nicholas, Heather Norton, Robert O'Malley, Alejandra Ortiz, Nicholas Passalacqua, Christine Pink, Stephanie Poindexter, Emma Pomeroy, Sean Prall, Melissa Schaefer Elizabeth St Clair, Claire Terhune, Sam Urlacher, Qian Wang, Timothy Webster, Katherine Weisensee, Julie Wieczkowski, Frank Williams, John Willman. The AAPA Executive Committee provided valuable feedback and reviews on symposium proposals. The Cleveland Advance Team also provided valuable service to the association through their efforts in composing the meetings (Leslie Aiello, Anne Grauer, M. Geoffrey Hayes, Edward Hagen, Christopher Kuzawa, W. Scott McGraw, and Denise Su). Ed Hagen has been immensely helpful as our talented webmaster. Graduate assistant Kathleen McGuire aided greatly in meetings planning and execution.

We thank our partners from Burk and Associates, especially Lori Strong, for her efforts in working throughout the year on meetings planning. Also from Burk, Heide Rohland, Brett Burk, Cooky Basura, Jill Drupa, Tammy Liberati, Raelene Sok, and Mary Lou Scarbrough, assisted in numerous ways, including handling registration problems, organizing volunteers, arranging invitation letters and certificates of participation, and sending out meeting-related e-mail announcements.

Special thanks go to our gracious hosts in Cleveland, the Local Arrangements Committee, Denise Su and Yohannes Haile-Selassie. We appreciate their time and energy, and the opportunity to engage with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

5.1 General remarks

The past year we celebrated the 100th in the journal's history with the release of a special Centennial Issue comprised of 22 essays from a diverse range of scholars reflecting on the development of numerous subfields in our discipline over the past century. This issue stands an important exercise in self-assessment joining the legacy of the past to the trajectory of the future. I thank my co-editors of that issue, Matt Cartmill, Clark Larsen, Chris Ruff, and Emöké Szathmáry, as well as all the contributors for making it such a stunning success.

The journal also saw its impact factor rise by a notable 13.6% over the previous year to 2.901, approaching the goal of 3.0 that I set for myself when becoming Editor-in-Chief.

Last spring the production company that Wiley had used to publish many of its journals including the AJPA abruptly declared bankruptcy. The transition to a new production company has now been completed successfully and our new production editor, Donna Tarman, and her staff are wonderfully diligent and responsive.

A new Editor-in-Chief is to be appointed this year to carry forward the stewardship of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, though at the time of this writing the announcement of this appointment has not yet been made. I look forward to working with the new Editor-in-Chief on a smooth transition.

5.2 Metrics

During 2017 the American Journal of Physical Anthropology published three volumes (165–167) of four numbers each, totaling 2,897 pages, not including the Annual Meeting supplement or the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, a 13.5% increase in total content over 2018. The published content included 140 Research Articles, 25 Brief Communications, 22 Centennial Perspectives, 2 Centennial Commentaries, 8 Technical Notes, 1 Theory and Synthesis, 2 Perspective, 3 News and Views, 3 Book Reviews, 2 Obituaries, 1 Editorial, 4 Letters to the Editor, 3 Errata and Corrigenda, and the Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Meeting of the AAPA.

The flow of manuscripts in 2017 ebbed somewhat with a total of 407 manuscripts received (not including book reviews), a reduction of 12.3% from the previous year (464). Manuscripts originated from 50 different countries, with the major sources, after the United States (33.4%), being the UK (8.3%), France (5.1%), Canada (4.4%), Italy (4.1%), Spain (3.9%), Germany (3.2%), Japan (3.2%), Poland (2.9%), Brazil (2.9%), India (2.7%), China (2.4%), and Australia (2.0%).

The acceptance rate for manuscripts is currently 48% compared to 49% at this time last year. The average time from submission to first decision is currently 38.2 days (down from 40.2 days last year), and the average time from submission to final decision is 56.2 days (down from 65.4 days last year). Appearance of accepted articles on line in Early View (at which point the publication in official, searchable, and citable) is slightly over 2 weeks after acceptance on average, the major variable being the speed with which proofs are returned by authors.

The breakdown of substantive publications in AJPA by major subject in 2018 area continued to be distributed across six broad areas: primate physiology/ecology/behavior (22.5%), osteology/dental anthropology/biomechanics (22%), bioarcheology/paleopathology (20%), human physiology/ecology/behavior (14%), primate/human paleontology (17%), genetics/genomics/phylogenetics (12%) and human and primate paleontology (6.5%).

As noted in General Remarks, the impact factor for AJPA calculated by ISI/Web of Science for 2017 (the index is always lagged 2 years) was 2.901, a 13.6% increase over 2016 (2.552), which itself was a 6.2% increase over 2015 (2.402). Over the past 2 years the increase has been 20.8%, or approximately 10% per year. This 2-year period includes citations to material published since the beginning of my editorship. In comparison, this year JHE's impact factor only increased 1.5%, from 3.932 to 3.992. When I assumed the position of Editor-in-Chief of the AJPA I declared my wish to see its impact factor rise above 3.0. We have not quite reached that benchmark, but the impact factors for the next two years will continue to reflect the period I have been Editor-in-Chief. We might still make it. If not, I bequeath the goal to my successor.

Currently AJPA ranks eighth out of 85 anthropology journals and 22nd out of 49 evolutionary biology journals in impact factor. We continue to far outdistance our peer journals, however, in the total number of articles published and citations received.

5.3 Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the Associate Editors of the journal for their diligent efforts in shepherding the review process for so many submissions and for helping to significantly reduce the time manuscripts spend in review. Changes in the editorial board for the next year have not yet been decided pending the appointment of the new Editor-in-Chief. I would like to extend special thanks to Assistant Editor Pippi Ellison, our journal manager at Wiley, Paul-André Genest, and our new production editor, Donna Tarman. I would like to thank the membership of the AAPA for their participation in the process of peer review. For all its faults, peer review remains the foundation of integrity in scientific publishing. I hope everyone takes seriously their responsibility to participate. And finally, I thank the AAPA for the opportunity to serve as Editor-in-Chief of such a distinguished journal.

7.1 Membership committee

Lisa Sattenspiel submitted the following written report.

7.2 Nominations committee

The following written report was submitted by Anne L. Grauer.

One Executive Committee member position was open for election this year: Member at Large, Chair of the Membership Committee. The term will begin Friday March 29, 2019 following the business meeting and extend for 2 years.

Nominations (including self-nominations) were solicited from the AAPA membership through a number of avenues, including in the call for papers, the AAPA Newsletter and email blasts, and on the registration online system. Nominations were sent to Anne Grauer via email or via the registration online system. The deadline for nominations was October 15, 2019.

Following the nominations deadline, all nominees were vetted to ensure that they were AAPA members in good standing and that Professional Conduct Disclosure Form was completed and submitted. A total of 20 eligible nominations were received. Nine eligible voting members of the Executive Committee were asked to vote for four candidates. The two candidates receiving the greatest number of votes were placed on the ballot for vote by the AAPA membership.

The poll opened via email to all Regular Members on February 1, 2019 and closed on February 28, 2019 at 11:59 PST. The results were certified by BAI and reported to the President and President-Elect on March 5, 2019.

The AAPA welcomes its new Executive Board Member: Dr. Kristi Lewton.

I wish to extend my sincere thanks to all the candidates who generously agreed to run for election and to Heide Rohland and Ruedi Birenhide of BAI for their logistical help with the voting process.

7.3 Career Development committee

The following written report was submitted by Nathaniel J. Dominy.

7.4 Committee on Diversity

The following report of 2018–2019 activities was submitted by Susan Antón.

The AAPA Committee on Diversity (COD) is an umbrella organization seeking to develop programs that increase the recruitment, participation and retention of diverse scholars within the field of physical/biological anthropology. We have seven current interest groups1 and a steering committee comprised of the co-chairs and liaisons of these.

This year the committee has run national and international workshops, published demographic data and histories, developed meeting programming and supported the inclusion of diverse criteria into AAPA programming.

The COD has worked across subcommittees as well as with the officers and executive committee of AAPA this year in several capacities.

7.5 Reports of the COD Interest Groups

7.6 Other outreach by COD-IDEAS in 2018–2019

7.7 AAPA COD-Women's Initiative 2018–2019

This annual report summarizes the activities of the AAPA Committee on Diversity's Women's Initiative (COD-WIN) for 2018–2019.

7.8 AAPA COD-Undergraduate Research Symposium (URS) 2018–2019

In 2018, we held our eighth Annual Committee on Diversity Undergraduate Research Symposium (COD-URS). We had 59 posters from 36 universities and colleges. At least 17 of the students presenting were first generation college students. Fourteen of these programs did not have graduate options in anthropology (one does not have a BA or BS either!) so this symposium offered a crucial opportunity for these students to meet and talk with graduate students and potential graduate advisors. We had 39 graduate mentors this year, 10 of whom were past participants. The abstracts from last year are found on the website under Meeting Archives: http://physanth.org/annual-meetings/meeting-supplement-archive/

In 2019 we held our ninth Annual COD-URS on Wednesday, March 27th. This year we are trying a new mentoring program that involves mentors meeting in small groups with the undergraduates just prior to the Symposium and working with them on their presentation verbiage and style. Additionally, students are encouraged to ask any questions they might have about graduate school and other opportunities; for many of these students, this continues to be their first experience meeting with both graduate students and potential graduate mentors. At the time of this writing, the applications had only just arrived, but we had 65 applications from 44 different institutions. Thirteen (20%) were first generation college students.

Respectfully submitted by Dr. Cara Wall-Scheffler, Symposium Chair

7.9 AAPA COD-LGBTQQIAA 2018–2019

Chair: Stephanie Meredith

Treasurer: Stephanie Meredith

Secretary: Kristi Lewton

In 2018–2019 we assigned subcommittees in an attempt to get more work done.

7.10 AAPA COD-AACT Task Force 2018–2019

Since its inception in 2014, The Anthropologists Outside of Anthropology Departments, Contingent, and Teaching Focused Faculty (AACT) Task Force has aimed to provide a venue for AAPA members outside of traditional research positions, and students aspiring to nontraditional (i.e., nonresearch or nonacademic) careers. We have presented our work through poster sessions on education-related topics, and have hosted panels covering nontraditional career pathways. These events have generated great interest. The following events were planned for the 2019 AAPA meetings in Cleveland:

7.11 AAPA COD-International (COD-I) 2018–2019

COD-International represents the interests and concerns surrounding international scholars.

The committee has been considering the following:

Broadening our membership to bring in people at international institutions who regularly attend the AAPAs. We are especially interested in growing representation from the Global South and institutions in non-Western countries.

Content development for the website: This could include (but is not limited to) things like connecting international and American researchers, relevant funding and research opportunities both in the United States and in other countries, events in other countries where AAPA members can meet, and so on. We are especially interested in breaking down the colonial approach and current power dynamics of the field to put international and domestic AAPA members on more equal footing.

Cocktail reception/mixer at AAPAs: Rather than our usual committee meeting, we use our AAPA time slot as an opportunity to interact and grow our community.

Statement to AAPA on name change, November 2018: The committee submitted a position statement on the question of the AAPA name change to the AAPA Executive Committee via President Leslie Aiello. Full text of that letter follows this report.

Improving committee communication: COD-I is developing means for better communication among committee members, through the use of, for example, Google Drive and Slack.

7.12 AAPA COD-Transforming Anthropological and Scientific Knowledge 2018–2019

At the 2018 AAPAs in Austin, COD-TASK hosted a well-attended roundtable discussion entitled AAPA Diversity: Reflections on the 2017 Symposium and Future Directions for Biological Anthropology. One of the central areas of concern among both the panelists and attendees was the role of citational practices in our discipline, and the importance of amplifying the work of historically-marginalized scholars in our pedagogical, mentoring, and publication practices.

To begin to address these issues, COD-TASK organized a workshop on citational practices for the upcoming 2019 AAPAs in Cleveland. In this workshop, participants heard presentations from four scholars working across the areas of paleoanthropology, primatology, bioarcheology, and human variation/genetics. Presenters shared their strategies for shifting the standard canon in biological anthropology by highlighting the work of historically-marginalized scholars. Following these presentations, participants took part in a one-hour breakout discussion, where they considered how to improve citational practices in syllabus preparation/teaching, publication, and mentoring/advising. In addition to the training participants receive, another outcome of this workshop will be the development of inclusive syllabi across a range of topics in biological anthropology, to be disseminated to AAPA membership via the COD webpage.

Respectfully submitted by Drs. Rick Smith and Deborah Bolnick.

7.13 History and Honors committee

The following report was submitted by Robin G. Nelson.

7.14 Student Programs Committee

The following report was submitted by Christina Torres-Rouff.

The Student Programs Committee primarily implements two student competitions. The first occurs at the annual meeting, when students who are presenting research in either a poster or podium format compete for seven named prizes. The second competition is for travel funds to attend the annual meeting, for which they write an essay on a topic chosen by the Executive Committee. Both competitions rely on a committee of judges that varies slightly in composition based on the judges’ availability. In this report, I summarize the 2018 Student Presentation Prize competition that occurred during the AAPA Austin meeting and then report on the 2019 Pollitzer Essay competition that was run in anticipation of the AAPA Cleveland meeting. Finally, I present preliminary information on the 2019 Student Presentation Prize Competition.

7.15 Ethics Committee

The following report was submitted by Robert Anemone.

The 2018–2019 Ethics Committee was chaired by Robert L. Anemone and consisted of the following members (in alphabetical order): Michele Goldsmith, Nina Jablonski, Heather Norton, Julienne Rutherford, David Strait, Christina Torres-Rouff, Trudy Turner, and Jennifer Wagner. Two Ethics Fellows joined our committee for 2018–2019: Alyssa Bader (University of Illinois) and Cara Hirst (University College London), and we also welcomed back one returning Fellow: Tisa Loewen (Arizona State University).

The Ethics Committee will continue its successful Ethics Fellow Program. The purposes of the program are (a) to provide interested members—particularly those early in their careers—an opportunity to engage actively with the Ethics Committee and gain experience with ethics educational and research projects and (b) to help raise ethics literacy across the association. For 2019–2020, we solicited applications and selected two Fellows: Alyson Caine, graduate student at the University of California at Merced, and Nicole Burt, Curator of Human Health and Evolutionary Medicine at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The two newly-appointed Fellows will be working closely with mentors within the Ethics Committee on the development of projects of interest to themselves and the Committee. Returning Fellow Tisa Loewen has completed her survey and report on ethical concerns among the membership and will be ending her fellowship term this year. Current Fellow Alyssa Bader ill also complete her term after the completion of the planned AAPA meeting workshop, while current Fellow Cara Hirst will be continuing for a second fellowship year.

For 2019–2020, Robert Anemone will chair the committee for the second of a 3-year term. Returning members and their remaining term years are as follows: Michele Goldsmith (1 year), Nina Jablonski (1 year), Heather Norton (2 years), Julienne Rutherford (2 years), David Strait (2 years), and Jen Wagner (2 years). Christina Torres-Rouff and Trudy Turner will be replaced by two new members for 3-year terms: Elizabeth DiGangi (SUNY Binghamton) and Rachel Watkins (American University).

As part of its usual duties, the Committee will be available as a nonadjudicative body to promote ethics literacy among AAPA members and to serve as a resource for AAPA members to discuss ethical challenges. Information about ethics consultations for AAPA members is available on the AAPA website.

7.16 Education committee

The following written report was provided by Briana Pobinar.

7.17 Auction Ad Hoc Committee

7.18 Data Access Ad Hoc Committee

The following written report was submitted by Connie Mulligan.

In 2016, AAPA President Susan Antón convened the Ad Hoc Committee on Data Access. The aim and scope of the committee was as follows: The sharing and archiving of original data is being increasingly mandated both by funding agencies and by changing standards of practice in our discipline. Some subareas of biological anthropology have requirements for depositing data related to published work (e.g., molecular anthropology and GenBank), and a number of independent archiving systems of individual datasets have been established by various research groups. A variety of new technologies have expanded the technical capabilities to archive large digital databases, including 3D digital databases. Technological advances notwithstanding, a number of nontrivial issues surround how and whether to have standardized data depositories, what constitutes “raw” data, and what the role of the AAPA and its journals should be in those requirements. This committee's charge is to consider these questions and to report to the AAPA executive committee on current conditions, considerations to be viewed, and next steps to be taken.

The Committee is chaired by Trudy Turner and Connie Mulligan. Other committee members include Doug Boyer, Eric Delson and William Leonard. The committee met via Skype in 2017. The committee agreed that a workshop on data sharing and archiving would be useful. Turner and Mulligan prepared an NSF proposal for a workshop which was funded. The committee met at the 2018 meetings to prepare for the workshop.

The workshop was held in Milwaukee, WI February 8–9, 2019. There were 41 participants representing all subfields of biological anthropology. In addition, a representative of the AJPA publisher, Wiley, was present as was the Program Director for biological anthropology at NSF. Other workshop participants included representative of major data sharing and data archiving websites including Dryad and IDigBio. Workshop participants drafted guiding principles for data sharing in biological anthropology and discussed ways in which the AAPA and the AJPA can facilitate data sharing. These will be published in the journal and will be available on the website.

7.19 Science Policy Ad Hoc Committee

The following written report was submitted by Karen Strier.

7.20 Student Ad Hoc Committee

The following written report was submitted by Natalie Laudicina.

11.1 National Science Foundation (NSF), presented by Rebecca Ferrell, Program Director for Biological Anthropology, Division of Behavioral & Cognitive Sciences, Directorate of Social, Behavioral, & Economic Sciences (SBE)

Rebecca Ferrell makes three points: First, she adds her thanks to the organizers and participants of the NSF-funded Data Sharing Workshop. Second, NSF released a “Dear Colleague” letter on the day of this meeting regarding research on sexual and other forms of harassment in STEM contexts. Third, NSF received a 7.8 billion budget for FY2018, representing an increase of $295.14 million from FY2017. Publicly available data show that the actual FY2018 research budget was 15% higher than the President's proposed FY2018 budget across NSF as a whole, but only 2% higher for SBE, the Directorate representing Biological Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Archeology, and Linguistics.

11.2 Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, presented by Danilyn Rutherford, President

The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research is a key private funder of anthropological research. We support all subfields of the discipline world-wide in the wide variety of forms it takes. We fund people how study bones, primates, pot shards, microsediments, wedding ceremonies, political movements, and random conversations. We fund scholars trained in cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archeology, and biological anthropology, along with a growing number who blur these boundaries.

Wenner-Gren was founded in 1941 by two men who somehow hit upon the discipline as a beneficiary without really knowing what it was. Our origin story involves vacuum cleaners, plunger yachts the size of ocean liners, a story about a big game hunt that probably is not true, and an amateur archeology expedition to Peru.

Basically, it is a stroke of amazing good luck that Anthropology has its own endowment, and we try to use that endowment well to support our discipline. We have an endowment of around $165 million dollars a year. We give away roughly $5.5 million dollars a year, we receive 1,500 proposals a year, and we try to spend this money to support our mission, which is to advance anthropological knowledge, increase the impact of anthropology in the wider world, address the precarity of anthropology and anthropologists, and promote a truly inclusive vision of the field.

We have many different programs: small grants, conferences, symposia, and a magazine for nonanthropologists called Sapiens that has been accessed 5 million times in its first 3 years. We have one new program that I would like to highlight: Sapiens Postdoctoral Public Fellowship Program. This is for individuals who are receiving PhDs who would like to develop skills in writing and editing for popular audiences. That deadline is May 31st. If you are interested, please get in touch with me. Thank you for this opportunity and yes, we do want to fund you!

11.3 The Leakey Foundation, presented by Paddy Moore, Program Officer

We have many programs, but I would like to tell you about our main program, our research grants. We fund about $1 million per year. We fund equally in most years PhD candidates and postdocs. We fund almost equally research into behavioral studies and paleoanthropology. You are welcome to visit our website and stop by our table to hear more about our programs.

11.4 National Geographic, presented by Miguel Vilar, Senior Program Officer

We have funded anthropology writ large for a long time. Archeology has been our mainstay, but we also fund biological anthropology (e.g., paleoanthropology, primatology, human biology, and molecular anthropology).

We have an Early Career Grant for individuals pursuing their doctoral degree or no further than 5 years past their PhD, Exploration Grants that cover all aspects anthropology, and we have Requests for Proposals (RFPs). Right now, we have two: one to fund ancient DNA, and another in paleoanthropology, especially in Central and South East Asia.

11.5 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

11.6 AAAS Section H Secretary Report

11.7 Biological Anthropology Section of the American Anthropological Association (BAS-AAA), presented by Adam Van Arsdale, BAS Chair

This year the AAAs will be November 20–24 in Vancouver, Canada. The deadline for starting your submission is April 5, and you have until April 10 to finish it. If you have never been to the AAA, it is a great place to put together an intimate conversation within the context of a larger anthropological meeting. If you have any questions, please seek out me, or Christopher Dana Lynn, our Program Chair, or Julie Lesnik, our Program Chair Designate, or Holly Dunsworth, our Chair-Elect.

I would like to briefly plug American Anthropologist (AA). Along with Mary Shenk, we are the new members of the AA Editorial Board representing Biological Anthropology. If you were inspired by the Vital Topics Forum essays that just came out, I encourage you to reach out to me about submitting to American Anthropologist. Thank you very much.

11.8 Local Arrangements Committee 2018–2019

Local Arrangements Committee Co-Chairs Stephanie Meredith and Kristi Lewton provide encouraging remarks for your attendance at the 2019 Annual Meetings in Los Angeles, California.

12.1 Association name change

Leslie Aiello reported the results of a nonbinding survey of the entire membership that took place in Fall 2018. Just under 82% of those members who participated in the survey voted to change the name of the Association. Of those who voted, 66.9% preferred to keep “American” in the name while 24.4% preferred no geographic term in the name. Fifty-nine percent of respondents voted in favor of the name American Association of Biological Anthropologists.

The Executive Committee took this as an indication to move forward to see how many of the voting members were in favor of changing the Association name to the American Association of Biological Anthropologists. We conducted a second nonbinding survey of Regular (voting) members only in March 2019. Eighty-five percent of voting member respondents voted in favor, and 15% against.

Parliamentarian Jim Williams outlined the four procedural steps to ultimately changing the Association's name in the Constitution and Bylaws. The first step is that a proposal for a name change must be submitted in writing by at least five regular members. Step 2, that proposal is sent to the Executive Committee, and the Executive Committee thoroughly discusses, reviews, and researches the proposed amendment. If the Executive Committee feels that it is appropriate, it sends the proposal to the next annual meeting—that is, this meeting. Step 3, the voting members votes to send the proposal for final consideration at next year's annual business meeting, taking place in 2020 in Los Angeles. Steps 2 (Executive Committee discussion) and 3 (this annual business meeting vote), as Ordinary Business, are considered to be procedural votes. As Robert's Rules of Order (11th edition) clearly states, ordinary business is conducted by majority vote. The votes taken today to change the name of the Association in its Articles of Incorporation, and in the Constitution and Bylaws, and to charge next year's assembly to conduct a final vote, requires only a majority vote. Parliamentarian Williams proposes to conduct voting efficiently and with great accountability via a rise of the voting cards already provided to regular members with their badges upon registration check-in. Voting members had also been asked to sit closer to the front of the assembly hall.

Anne Grauer made the following motion: amend the Articles of Incorporation of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists by striking out the word “Physical” and inserting the word “Biological” in all instances where the title of the Association appears, pending approval of this change by the State of Kansas. The motion was seconded by Benjamin Auerbach.

Parliamentarian Williams calls for discussion. Fred Smith, regular member, states that it is clear that there are no legal impediments to this change. He asks the AAPA Officers for an estimate of any cost to the Association in carrying out the process of an Association name change. Anne Grauer responds that the Executive Committee has considered the cost, and that the only cost is human hours of aggravation.

The motion was approved by a show of ballot cards by a majority of the regular voting members in attendance. The motion will be moved for action at the next annual business meeting in Los Angeles.

Anne Grauer made the following motion: to amend the Constitution and Bylaws of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists by striking out the word “Physical” and inserting the word “Biological” in all instances where the title of the Association appears, pending approval of this change by the State of Kansas. The motion was seconded by Lyle Konigsberg.

Parliamentarian Williams calls for discussion; no discussion followed. The motion was approved by a show of ballot cards by a majority of the regular voting members in attendance. The motion will be moved for action at the next annual business meeting in Los Angeles.

13.1 Membership dues

Rachel Caspari led the discussion of a change in membership fee rates to avoid future financial losses for the Association. As she reported earlier, the AAPA runs meetings at a loss, while at the same time providing valuable services for our members, especially our student and contingent members. Losses are fine as long as we keep our eyes on the financial long-term. Also, our rates are far lower than virtually any other professional organization. We have not raised our rates since 2004, and would need to raise our rates by about 25% to keep up with inflation since 2004.

Rachel Caspari made the following motion, that the AAPA raise membership dues 23% for all membership categories, excluding members residing in qualifying countries. Susan Antón seconded the motion.

Parliamentarian Jim Williams calls for a discussion of the motion. A question from the floor is raised about perhaps keeping student rates unchanged. Rachel Caspari answers that this option was discussed by the Executive Committee, which felt that an effective student membership rate increase of $15 per year would be not overly onerous. A second question was asked about the per member cost of the Association's journals in order to contextualize a membership rate change. Leslie Aiello answers that the Association pays Wiley $99 per regular member and approximately $45 per student member. After subtracting the cost of the journals from the membership dues, very little is left to cover operational costs.

Lisa Danish motioned to amend the current motion by adding the following to the motion's end: “and for contingent faculty.” Stephanie Meredith seconded the motion.

Parliamentarian Williams calls for discussion on the amendment. Rachel Caspari argues that we should consider the fact that contingent faculty can make a wide range of salaries. “Lady in Black” proposes that in the future perhaps a maximum salary for contingent faculty be set. Leslie Aiello points out that last year the Association recently created the Contingent faculty rate, so that the proposed 23% rate increase is already being distributed proportionally. We also need to think about the operational costs of the Association, and reiterates that $15 - $20 raise should not be onerous. Stephanie Meredith asks whether contingent faculty (or anybody else) can approach the Executive Committee to ask for special dispensation, in lieu of an across-the-board amendment? Leslie Aiello responds that this is a possible idea but we have no established guidelines or procedure for that. A regular member then states that a $20 increase can be onerous, and that perhaps we should shift the burden entirely onto regular, instead of contingent and student, members. Perhaps the Executive Committee can consider this option for next year. An audience member asks for clarification on the procedure to enact a sliding scale or a cut off for hardship? Leslie Aiello restates that we have no procedures in place right now. It is not a trivial thing to think through and would take considerable discussion. Laurie Godfrey, Regular Member (at Retired Rate), states that most retired members are financially fine and could be asked to pay more to compensate.

At this point Parliamentarian Williams, Leslie Aiello, and Rachel Caspari hold a brief conference, after which the Parliamentarian proposes a withdrawal of the amendment on the floor, and amend the original to raise rates only for the Regular Members.

Lisa Danish withdraws the amendment.

Leslie Aiello proposed a new amendment that proposes to increase the fee for only the Regular Members by 23%. The proposed amendment would go forward with the understanding that the Executive Committee would come back to the Annual Meeting next year with a revised fee schedule.

Mart Cartmill proposes that the regular motion be amended as follows: The AAPA raise membership dues by 23% for Regular Members. Seconded by Susan Antón.

Parliamentarian Williams opens the amendment for discussion. Leslie Aiello asks whether we should stick to 23% increase, or do we want to raise it? A member of the audience asks whether we could raise the amount (like 3–4%) so that the issue does not need to come up again. Leslie Aiello responds that the Executive Committee owes the Membership a full consideration of the issue. Rachel Caspari clarifies that if we were to raise dues by 30%, that would come out to $170 for Regular Members, by 40% would be $180, and 46% would be $190. I would think that $170–180 would be something that Regular Members could afford to pay. Parliamentarian Williams cautions that once you raise the dues, it is very difficult to take it back.

Agustín Fuentes moves to amend the amendment to strike 23% and inserting with 30%. Nate Dominy seconds the amendment to the amendment. The motion passes via a majority vote of the Regular Membership.

The amendment to the main motion now reads: The AAPA raise membership dues by 30% for Regular Members. Parliamentarian Williams calls for discussion. An audience member raises an issue relevant to any future discussions: AAPA dues may have not been raised for 20 years, but that it is not the same experience for individuals who are looking at the cost of membership from year to year and decides they cannot afford it. As someone who wears the AAA [American Anthropological Association] hat, they know that people think the AAAs are too expensive, to the point that the AAA dropped its memberships. First, can we phase these increases, particularly for students and contingent faculty, and second, might price raises affect attendance as we are considering that we want attendance be inclusive. We do not want to raise prices in such a way that they affect peoples’ decisions to be members and come back year after year. What are the other ways that we can cut costs and continue to provide services? Parliamentarian Williams responds that the Executive Committee will take this into consideration. Another member states that dues seem to already have been charged at a higher rate. Leslie Aiello says the dues have not been raised, but the registration fees have.

Parliamentarian Williams calls for a vote on the amendment to the main motion. The amendment passes by majority vote.

The main motion now reads: The AAPA raise membership dues by 30% for Regular Members. An audience member asks that we remind the audience that only Regular Members should be voting by raising the printed ballot card provided with your badge. The motion passes with a majority vote (three opposed).

John Hawks proposes a round of applause for our Parliamentarian; a hearty round of applause ensues.

15.1 In memoriam

The AAPA honors the memories of individuals whose lives and work impacted us deeply.

Wendy Ashmore was a Mayanist whose work focused on architecture, settlement patterns and social-symbolic aspects of spatial organization. She received her PhD from University of Pennsylvania and went on to become Professor Emeritus at the University of California Riverside. Her many publications emphasized Mayan social complexity and advocated for interdisciplinary work. Her co-edited volume Voices in American Archeology importantly, and perhaps surprisingly to some, welcomed the perspectives of bioarchaeologists. Lauded for her superb scholarship, teaching, and mentoring, she was awarded the Alfred Vincent Kidder Award for Eminence in American Archeology in 2012.

She passed away on January 7, 2019.

Jose Delfin Villalaín Blanco was formally trained in medicine but focused much of his attention on medico-legal issues, forensic anthropology, and paleopathology. He served as Chair of the Legal and Forensic Medicine unit at the University of Valencia in Spain and was a co-founder, and for many years the president, of the Spanish Association of Paleopathologists. His work emphasized bioethical concerns in forensic medicine. His careful analysis of skeletal, remains in many contexts, led to his exploration of early evidence of TB on the Iberian Peninsula, indicators of paleonutrition, and publications evaluating the future of paleopathological research.

He passed away on February 12, 2019.

Jean Pierre Bocquet-Appel was a paleodemographer. He earned his Doctored of Science in 1984 from the University of Paris in Biology and Genetics, and went on to become a research director at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. Although his interests spanned millennia of human existence, he is particularly known for his work in modeling human demographic transitions. His work was meticulous and unequivocally disputatious, as he sought to remind us of the promise and the pitfalls of demographic analyses.

He passed away on August 13, 2018.

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza was a population geneticist. He was formally trained in medicine at the University of Pavia, earning his degree in 1944, and then moving to the University of Cambridge shortly afterwards to focus on genetic research. For 19 years he taught at the University of Parma and University of Pavia, finally landing at Stanford in 1970. Unlike many around him, he was unwavering in his conviction that human races could not be defined genetically, and that understanding human evolution required a distinctly anthropological approach; one where human culture, language, migration, and environment were essential components in human genetic diversity. He served as one of our greatest opponents against the growing and unacceptable swell of genetically-based scientific racism.

He passed away on August 31, 2018.

Ralph E. Chapman was trained as a paleontologist and paleobiologist, earning a Master's degree from the University of Rochester, and then continuing on to post-graduate work at Stony Brook. For 15 years he served as a Research Fellow in the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian, running the Applied Morphometrics Laboratory. He moved on to co-create two companies dedicated to the virtual analysis of fossilized remains and artifacts. His interests were vast and his willingness to explore new anthropological applications for numerical and analytical techniques led him to assist researchers at the Smithsonian to forensically identify the serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer's first victim.

He passed away on October 31, 2018.

Dorothy Cheney was a primatologist and ethologist. She earned her PhD in zoology from Cambridge University in 1977, and spent the bulk of her professional career first in the Department of Anthropology and later in the Department of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work with gorillas, vervet monkeys, and baboons, in particular, took a decidedly evolutionary approach, as she, along with her co-worker and husband, Robert Seyfarth, designed elegant experiments to test the complex interplay between primate vocalization and social behavior. Her work shed light on the evolutionary significance of vocalization and its impact on labile social interactions. In 2013, she was conferred an honorary doctorate from the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland and received the American Society of Primatology's Distinguished Primatologist Award in 2016.

She passed away on November 9, 2018.

Dana Cope was a paleoanthropologist. He earned his PhD from the University of Texas, Austin and spent most of his professional career at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, where he became a full professor. While his early work centered on systematic variation in Cercopithecus dentition, his unwavering efforts to quantify species-level variation in primates and early hominins significantly impacted our understanding of statistical and sample biases in the determination of species differentiation. These interests, along with his love of challenging field work, led him to the “dark side”—dinosaurs—where he excavated and published on his paleontological finds. His commitment to hands-on teaching influenced many students who came to learn that careful excavation was as essential in science as laboratory analysis.

He passed away on May 14, 2018.

Michael Day began his professional career in medicine, earning a degree from the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in 1954. He found his true calling, however, in anatomy and human evolution, earning a PhD from the University of London in 1962. His meticulous anatomical descriptions, alongside careful assessments of early hominin postcranial remains from Olduvai Gorge and Swatkrans, and from Homo erectus specimens from China and Java, were instrumental in elucidating links between otherwise seemingly disparate finds. His well-known book, Guide to Fossil Man, offered students and professionals alike, an extraordinary compendium of hominin sites and fossils. He served at the President of the Primate Society of Great Britain and the Royal Anthropological Institute, and was instrumental in the creation of the World Archeological Congress.

He passed away on June 1, 2018.

Harrold Dibble was considered by many to be an archeologist with a keen interest in Paleolithic tool production, but his interests in Neanderthal behavior truly made him one of us strange lot. Receiving his PhD from the University of Arizona, he went on to become the Francis E. Johnston Term Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and the Curator-in-Charge of the European Archeology Section at the Penn Museum. In 2014, he received the SAA's Award for Excellence in Archeological Analysis. His computer and coding skills impacted our field directly, as he helped develop software for an early version of GIS, carefully integrated 3D mapping with artifact analysis, and developed concrete experiments to test hypotheses. He also exercised an unabashed sense of humor.

He passed away on June 10, 2018.

Nicolaas Fourie was born in a rural area near Cape Town, South Africa. After receiving his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Cape Town, he moved to Washington D.C. in 2006 to pursue his doctorate in hominid paleobiology at George Washington University. Most recently, he held a position as an assistant research professor at George Washington. Nicolaas’ broad skills led to numerous publications, the most recent of which explored causes of varying cortisol production in vervet monkeys and evaluated the human gut and oral microbiome as a means to pinpoint triggers of gastrointestinal diseases and to assist in their detection.

He passed away on February 23, 2019.

Angela Gilliam was a social anthropologist and a scholar of Black Feminist Anthropology. She earned her PhD from the Union Graduate School, focusing on ethnology and anthropology, and went on to become a Fulbright Scholar and professor emerita at Evergreen State College. Her work in Latin and South America, Portugal, and Papua New Guinea held a unifying theme: empowerment. Her exacting voice exposed uncomfortable truths. In 1994, with co-author George Bond, she wrote, “Scholars are neither above nor outside societies but integral agents within them, ensuring their perpetuity and at times, attempting to change them” (Bond and Gilliam 1994:2, Introduction, in Bond and Gilliam, Social Construction of the Past: representation as power. Routledge Press, NY.). Her commitment to decolonizing all subfields of anthropology has contributed to our personal introspection and to the AAPA's determination to diversify our science.

She passed away on September 20, 2018.

Lynn Kilgore was a skeletal biologist and paleopathologist. She earned her PhD from the University of Colorado in 1984, focusing on the presence of osteoarthritis in a Sudanese Nubian population. Her interests in human and nonhuman gross anatomy led her to further explore the presence of rheumatoid arthritis and scoliosis in the same population, and to expand paleopathological analyses into nonhuman primates. With her husband, Robert Jurmain, and other researchers, she contributed greatly to our understanding of pathological conditions in the past and co-authored some of our field's most influential textbooks, which now appear in their ninth, 10th, and 13th editions. As a staunch supporter of and contributor to the Paleopathology Association, she helped nurture the growth of the field and its integration with primatology, skeletal biology, and medicine.

She passed away on July 31, 2018.

Ralph Solecki was an archeologist by training but whose work, particularly at Neanderthal sites, brought extraordinary insight into the lives of our ancestors. He received his PhD in anthropology from Columbia in 1958, where he continued as a faculty member until 1988. His discovery of Neanderthal remains at Shanidar Cave were subsequently accompanied by careful analysis of the skeletal contexts, including recognition of multiple burials and the presence of associated pollen. This led him to argue for the presence of human care and deliberate support of the sick and injured; all which stood in stark contrast to the pervading Neandertal characterizations as brutish beasts. His work captured the imagination of the public and helped bridge the rather large gap between archeology and biological anthropology.

He died on March 20, 2019.

Frank Saul was a bioarchaeologist and forensic anthropologist. He earned his PhD in physical anthropology from Harvard and taught at the University of Toledo Medical Center for 21 years, later becoming the Associate Dean for Continuing Medical Education. He was Diplomate and President of the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and worked tirelessly alongside his professional partner and wife, Julie Mather Saul, on Central American pre-Classic Mayan sites and on almost a thousand modern forensic cases. He held true to his tenant that careful analyses of human remains brought respect for the deceased and a deep appreciation of their complex social lives. In 2017, he and Julie were awarded the T. Dale Stewart Award for lifetime achievement from the Anthropology Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

He passed away on June 16, 2018.

15.2 Resolutions

My final role as President-elect is to offer resolutions.

So, be it resolved that AAPA offers deep thanks to:

—our outgoing president, Leslie Aiello, for her leadership, vision, and willingness to dedicate thousands of hours to make our Association shine.

—this year's Program Committee, session chairs, symposium organizers, and especially the AAPA VP, Steve Leigh, for his masterful job at coordinating us all.

—the Local Arrangements co-chairs, Denise Su and Johannes Heile Salasse, for warmly welcoming us to Cleveland.

—the participants in our 88th annual meeting for making this gathering vibrant and impactful.

—and the amazing team at Burk and Associates, who 3 years ago assured us that, “Of course, we can do it all for you.” Indeed, they have!