Exam 1 Flashcards
(123 cards)
1
Q
How is anthropology different from other disciplines?
A
Broader in scope both historically and geographically
More holistic in approach
2
Q
Anthropology definition
A
The study of human variation and diversity across time
3
Q
Holistic approach
A
Approach that studies many aspects of a multifaceted system
4
Q
Cultural anthropology subdivisions
A
Archaeology, linguistics, ethnography
5
Q
Physical anthropology subdivisions
A
Biological, medical, primatology, human evolution
6
Q
Biological/physical anthropology
A
Study of humans as biological organisms, dealing with the emergence and evolution of humans and with contemporary biological variation among human populations
7
Q
Human paleontology
A
Study of the emergence of humans and their later physical evolution
8
Q
Human variation
A
study of how and why contemporary human populations vary biologically
9
Q
Hominins
A
Prehumans
10
Q
First possible documented human ancestors
A
4 mya in Africa
11
Q
Primate suborders
A
- Prosimians
2. Anthropoids
12
Q
Cultural anthropolgy
A
Study of cultural variation and universals in the past and present
13
Q
Archaeology
A
Branch of anthropology that seeks to reconstruct the daily life and customs of peoples who lived in the past and to trace and explain cultural changes. Often lacking written records for study, archaeologists must try to reconstruct history from the material remains of human cultures
14
Q
Prehistory
A
Time before written records
15
Q
Historical archaeology
A
Studies the material remains of recent peoples who left written records
16
Q
Anthropological linguistics
A
The anthropological study of languages. 3 major areas: 1. Historical 2. Descriptive 3. Sociolinguistics
17
Q
Historical linguistics
A
Study of how languages change over time
18
Q
Structural/Descriptive linguistics
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The study of how languages are constructed
19
Q
Sociolinguistics
A
Study of cultural and subcultural patterns of speaking in different social contexts
20
Q
Ethnology
A
Study of how and why recent cultures differ and are similar
21
Q
Ethnography
A
Description of a society’s customary behaviors and ideas
22
Q
Ethnographer
A
Person who spends some time living with, interviewing and observing a group of people to describe their customs
23
Q
Ethnohistorian
A
Ethnologist who studies how the way of life of a particular group of people have changed over time
24
Q
Cross-cultural researcher
A
Ethnologist who used ethnographic data about many societies to test possible explanations of cultural variation to discover general patterns about cultural traits - what is universal, what is variable, why traits vary and what the consequences of variability might be
25
Applied/Practicing Anthropology
Branch of anthropology that concerns itself with applying anthropological knowledge to achieve practical goals, usually in the service of an agency outside the traditional academic setting
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Anthropology Age
Comparatively young discipline
| First department was at University of Rochester in 1879
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Laws
Associations or relationships that almost all scientists accept
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John Whiting
Long postpartum sex taboo in societies with low protein diets
Adaptive in tropical areas, babies are vulnerable to kwashiorkor
Long nursing, delay in weaning contributes to survival
Association
29
Theory
More complication than an association and contains a series of statements
Cannot be proved but are rejectable through falsification
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Theoretical orientation
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General attitude about how phenomena are to be explained
Evolutionism
Race theory
Boasian anthropology
Ecological approachs
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31
Edward B Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan
Believed that most societies pass through a series of universal stages from simple to complex
Victorian England as pinnacle
Savagery > barbarism > civilization
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What marks the levels of savagery?
Upper: bow and arrow
Middle: fishing and fire
Lower: subsistence based on fruits, nuts
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What marks the levels of barbarism?
Upper: iron tools
Middle: domestication of plants and animals/irrigation and agricultural
34
What marks civilization?
Writing
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The stages of religion?
Non-religious > polytheism > monotheism
36
The stages of promiscuity?
Sexual promiscuity > polygamy > monogamy
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Family Organization/Form Stages
1. Promiscuous horde
2. Group of brothers married to a group of sisters and brother-sister matings
3. Group marriage
4. Loosely paired male and female
5. Husband-dominant family (polygyny)
6. Civilization (monogamy)
38
Race Theory
The reason human cultures differed in their behaviors was because they represented separate subspecies of humans or races. Members therefore incapable of being civilized
Ultimately discredited
39
Francis Galton
Eugenics
Created family tree
Related to Darwin
40
Hernstein and Murray
The Bell Curve
| There are racial differences in IQ and that should be taken into account in social policy
41
Franz Boas
Didn't believe that universal laws governed all of human cultures and was against armchair anthropologists
Opposed to race theory
Ushers in modern anthropology
Cultural relativism and four-field approach
42
Edward Sapir, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead
Relationship between culture and personality
| Basic personality in every culture that is produced by primary institution
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Ruth Benedict
Patterns of Culture
Kwakiutl (Dionysian): Individualistic, competitive, egotistic
Zuni (Apollonian): moest and restrained
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
44
Margaret Mead
Coming of Age in the Samoa
-Female adolescence and freedom compared to repression of sexuality in the United States
Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies
-Male and female personality traits across cultures
-Culture determines behavior
45
Functionalism
The theoretical orientation that looks for the part that some aspect of culture of social life plays in maintaining a cultural system
46
Bronislaw Malinowski
Father of ethnography and field methods
Fieldwork among Trobriand Islanders
All customs and institutions are integrated, interrelated change in one aspect affects another
47
Culture is an adaptive strategy to meet what?
```
Basic needs such as:
Nutrition
Reproduction
Shelter
Protection from enemies
Maintenance of bodily health
Affection, emotional security
```
48
Ethnographic realism
Malinowski
| Present an accurate, objective, scientific account of a different way of life
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Radcliffe-Brown
Various aspects of social behavior maintain a society's social structure rather than satisfy individual needs
Structural-functionalism
50
Social Structure Brown
Total network of existing social relationships in a society
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Julian Steward
```
Cultural ecology (analysis of culture and environment)
Cultural adaptation involves natural selection
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52
Natural selection
Nonrandom differential survival and reproduction of individuals
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Human behavioral ecology
Adaptive significance of behaviors and adaptations
54
Clifford Geertz
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Interpretation of Cultures
Interpret native's point of view
Thick and rich descriptions to understand meaning and meaning-making
Enculturation
Humanistic not scientific discipline
```
55
Enculturation
Individuals internalize a previously established system of meaning and symbols which defines their worlds
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Interpretive Approachs
Not reliant on traditional scientific methods but on qualitative methods
Everything is subjective - not possible to measure human behavior in objective and unbiased ways
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Feminism in Anthropology
Women were "invisible" in early fieldwork (subservient positions)
Colonialization and capitalism marginalizes women in a traditional society
Males dominated much of the development of the field
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Postmodernist Approaches
All knowledge is subjective and shaped by political power relations
Another tool used by dominant powers to control others
59
Michel Foucault
Those in power shape the way accepted truths are defined
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Operational definition
A description of the procedure that is followed in measuring a variable
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Measure
Compare something with other things on a scale of variation
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Sampling universe
The list of all cases
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Human Relations Area Files (HRAF)
Indexed, online and growing collection of ethnographies on more than 285 societies
64
Contingency Table
Table to show statistical association between variables
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P-value or probability
Likelihood that the observed result or a stronger one could have occurred by chance
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Cultural lag
Change in one aspect of culture takes time to produce change in another aspect
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Types of research can be classified according to which two criteria?
1. Spatial scope of a society
| 2. Temporal scope
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Ethnography
Fieldwork in a particular culture
| Description and analysis of a single society
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Ethnology
Cross-cultural comparison
| Comparative study of ethnographic data, society and culture
70
Participant-observation
Living among the people being studied - observing, questioning and (when possible) taking part in the important events of the group
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Complete participant
Researcher conceals his or her role in data collection
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Participant as Observer
Role of the researcher is known and the individual actually participates in the events being studied
73
Observer as Participant
Primary role is observer with a degree of participation
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Non-participant/complete observer
No social interaction
| Researcher is observing without participating in the situation
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Fieldwork
Firsthand experience with the people being studied and the usual means by which anthropological information is obtained
76
Informants
Knowledgeable people who are willing to work with you
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Emic perspective
View of the culture by someone within it
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Systematic methods
Mapping, house-to-house censuses, behavioral observations, focused interviews with a sample of informants
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Regional controlled comparison
Anthropologists compare ethnographic information obtained from societies found in a particular region (share similar histories and environments)
Generating explanations and testing them
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Worldwide comparisons
Used to test explanations
Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) of 186
eHRAF World Cultures
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Ethnohistory
Consists of studies based on descriptive materials about a single society at more than one point in time
82
Culture History
A history of the cultures that lived in a given area over time. Until the 1950s, building such cultural histories was a primary goal of archeological research
83
Major goals of Archaeological Research
1. Description/reconstruction of what happened in the past
| 2. Testing specific explanations about human evolution and behavior
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Artifact
Anything made or modified by humans
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Lithics
Stone tools from the past
| Most common artifact
86
Ecofacts
Natural objects that humans have used, such as the remains of animals eaten by humans or plant pollens found on archaeological sites
87
Features
Artifacts of human manufacture that cannot be removed from an archaeological site
Hearths, storage pits, buildings
88
4 Kinds of Evidence Archaeologists Use
1. Artifacts
2. Ecofacts
3. Features
4. Fossils
89
What features are the most common?
Pits
90
Living floors
Feature
Soils are often compacted through human activity and are full of minute pieces of garbage that become embedded in the floow
Midden: large or deep area
91
Sites
Known or suspected locations of human activity in the past that contain a record of that activity
Volcanic activity is most dramatic example
92
Stratified
Archaeological deposit that contains successive layers or strata
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Pedestrian survey
Finding sites on foot
94
Remote sensing techniques
Finding sites using geological techniques
95
Relative dating
Used to determine the age of a specimen or deposit relative to another specimen or deposit
96
Absolute data
Chronometric dating
| Used to measure how old a deposit or specimen is in years (absolute age)
97
Chain of Being
All living things were linked to one another in a chain
98
Fixity of species
All organisms were fixed and unchangeable and created by god
99
Carolus Linneaus
Classification
Fixity of species
Published Systems of Nature
Developed binomial systems of nomenclature
100
Lamarck
Coined term biology
| Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics
101
Zoonomia
Published by Darwin's grandfather
Book of Poetry in 1794
Postulated that all species descended from a common ancestor
102
Georges Cuvier
Catastrophism and fixity of species
103
Catastrophism
Extinct species were destroyed by fires, floods and other catastrophes
104
Lyell
Father of modern geology
Principles of Geology 1837
Uniformitarianism
105
Alfred Russell Wallace
Research in Amazon, southeast Asia
Believes Asia is cradle of humanity
On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type 1858
Joint paper with Darwin at Linnaean Society of London
106
Herbert Spencer
Cultural Evolution
| Survival of the Fittest
107
Principle of Psychology
1855
Herbert Spencer
Mental conditions based on chemical/physical properties
108
Principles of Biology
1864
Herbert Spencer
Collaborates with Thomas Huxley, argues for direct environmental influences on the organism and a tendency toward equilibrium
109
Principles of Sociology
1877
Herbert Spencer
Compares society to a living organism, super organic (exceed the individual), function, structural differentation, system, homeostasis
110
Darwin's Three Major Works
1. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
2. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex
3. The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals
111
3 Conditions of Natural Selection
1. Variation of individuals
2. Heritability
3. Differential reproductive success
112
Normalizing Selection
Removes harmful genes that arose by mutation
113
Balancing Selection
Heterozygous combination of alleles is positively favored even though a homozygous combination is disfavored
114
Gregor Mendel
Falsified popular blending theory of inheritance
115
Mendel's Laws
1. Unit Inheritance
2. Segregation
3. Independent Assortment
116
Wright Effect
Genetic Drift
117
Example of Founder's Effect
Pitcairn Island and HMS Bounty
118
Cline
The gradually increasing or decreasing frequency of a gene from one end of a region to another
119
Behavioral Ecology
How all kinds of behavior are related to the environment
120
Sociobiology
systematic study of biological causes of behavior
121
Evolutionary psychology
How evolution may have produced lasting variation in the way humans behave, interact and perceive the world
122
Dual-inheritance theory
How beneficial cultural traints might be selected for an transmitted
123
E.O. Wilson
Genetic component of behavior
| Defined sociobiology
