Lecture 1/2 Flashcards
introduction to biological anthropology, evolutionary theorists
What is biological anthropology
scientific study of humankind as on variety of animal among many, as living beings who’s intention on conception is to be born, become sexually mature, find am ate, reproduce, grow old, and die.
Variation
observable differences within a class of objections, the source may be genetic or environmental or both in interaction
What are features of a human that make us human?
bipedalism, clavicle, 5 digits, opposable thumb that can be used in a unique way, culture, complex thinking, self aware that we are humans and we will die
Who are humans closest relatives?
Chimps and baboons
What is vasovagal syncope?
emotionally triggered daunting when the parasympathetic system acts instead of the sympathetic nervous system and causes a drop in HR, BP,
benefits to fainting
reboot the system
Tachycardia
sympathetic nervous system - increased heart rate
Bradycardia
parasympathetic nervous system - decreased heart rate
Anthropology is devised into what subcategories?
biological, cultural, linguistic, applied, archeology
Franz Boas
He created the 4 field approach in anthropology, was rejected by Edward Taylor and Lewis Morgan regarding culture
Cultural Relativity: understand other premises of their own culture you must adopt and perceive the natives point of view to understand culture.
Studied the head and skull size which is called craniometry
biological potential is not a fixed entity - depends on the environment
Helped discover Eugenics - true breeding of a species, eliminating the groups that are not as much as wanted in efforts to improve human kind.
What is culture?
primary means by which humans adapt to their environment and represents learned behaviours and symbols that allow people to live in groups. Life characteristics of a particular human group or society
How do we incorporate culture
Learning through interaction, integrating, sharing tradition, rules, and appreciating maintain culture, symbols like language which we only have the innate capacity to understand symbols, encompassing - culture is everything, it permeates the human condition from top to bottom
How is culture both adaptive and maladaptive
Adaptive - allows humans to change in ways that allows them to survive, live in larger groups, and create a surplus of food.
Maladaptive - susceptible to disease, enacting violence, social hierarchies, intense labor, measles, anthrax
Name 3 other things that culture is
always changing, contested (always challenging certain ways to do things and to find different ways), and material
What is micro culture?
microculture is cultures within a culture, they can have their own languages, symbols, expectations within their smaller group
Bronislaw Malinowski
Worked in New gunia and Trobriand islands
Functionalism: social practices could be explained by their capacity to satisify particular biological needs, there are rules about living and dying
Said the only way to understand culture is through participant observation - being a participant within a culture in order to understand cultural norms and taboos
Cultural taboos
rigidly expressed in areas of biological needs like eliminating bodily functions, who to mate with, when to mate, where to have offspring mature, how to raise offspring. They are rules of society that ensure you belong.
Mary Douglas
Purity and Danger
Wrote a book on the abominations of leviticus, had things categorized if you were an organism in the water you were a fish with fins and or scales, if you were an organism on earth, you were flesh with four legs, claws, and a terrestrial animal, if you were firmament you were an organism in the air you had feathers. If you were organisms that were in this category but didn’t have the proper feature you were considered and abomination, example is a snake that has scales but doesn’t live in the water, Bat flies in the air but has fur.
Classification using the abominations of leviticus
Rules and arrangements for defining the world, identifying and instance of something, and defining the relationships between different categories
Simple: is, is not an animal
Complex: qualities are attributed that are not directly related to the animal, ie: dog is compassionate, loyal, friendship.
Heroduts
philosopher that wrote about how the Greece fought off the Persians twice. He wanted to express that society was a certain way in Greece and that is why they were able to fight off the Persians (a very very strong society)
Sima Qian
astrologer that wrote about how there was a time before us that didn’t live like us, they would make items out of stone then get buried with stone, then it changed to bronze and buried with bronze and now items are made out of iron and we are buried with iron.
Heraclitus
things are never the same, they are always in the state of FLUX
uses the river analogy, there is always a river with water there but the water that is there is never the water that was there before although it looks like it is, the water is always flowing.
World today does not equal world tomorrow
Artistole
static and hierarchal and that the hierarchy went from simple to complex, (dirt, rocks, plants, animals, humans, angelic beings, God)
Uses the horse analogy that we see different perceptions of the horse to be small, brown, black but that is just our own perception of the world, when it reality it is just a horse and has always been a horse.
does not believe in evolution, the world is the same as how it started.
Plato’s cave
Prisoners in a cave only had a flame so they could only see the shadow within the cave, then one escaped and saw the real world but couldn’t explain it to the rest of the prisoners because their perception of the world is just that it was shadows.
