In «Ethnogenesis and Social Difference in the Andean Late Intermediate Period (AD 1100 - 1450): A Bioarchaeological Study of Cranial Modification in the Colca Valley, Peru,» published in Current Anthropology, Matthew C. Velasco examines how the prevalence and evolution of cranial modification practices during the Late Intermediate Period influenced
ethnic identity formation in Peru's Colca Valley.
Consider a partial list of developments since just World War II: a broad national decline in denominational loyalty, changes in
ethnic identity as hyphenated Americans enter the third and subsequent generations after immigration, the great explosion in the number of competing secular colleges and universities, the professionalization of academic disciplines with concomitant professional
formation of faculty members during graduate education, the dramatic rise in the percentage of the population who seek higher education, the sharp trend toward seeing education largely in vocational and economic terms, the rise in government regulation and financing, the great increase in the complexity and cost of higher education, the development of a more litigious society, the legal end of in loco parentis, an exponential and accelerating growth in human knowledge, and so on.