SOAN 191 Final

Culture

Sets of learned behavior and ideas that human being acquire as members of society

Cultural Relativism

The idea that no culture is inferior or superior to another (don’t generalize cultures)

Holism

Cultures are complex

Understand cultures as part of a larger hole

Ethnocentrism

The opinion that one’s own way of life is natural or correct and, indeed, the only true way of being fully human

Comparativism

Comparing different cultures broadly and looking for patterns

Fieldwork

…

Participant observation

…

Reciprocity

Exchange without the use of money

Back and forth exchange of goods/services without the use of a currency

Small scale societies

Fosters values of sharing

Egalitarian

Builds a sense of obligation in others

Strengthen relationships

Establish prestige

Redistribution

Collection of products and values by a central authority

Distribution according to norms and legal principles

Practiced in chiefdoms, socialists systems

Aztecs, Soviet Union, U.S. tax system and social security

Market Exchange

Open exchange of products and services for money

Free market systems

Fosters competition

Social stratification

United States

Countries with capitalist or mercantilist economies

Ju’hoansi

Insulting the meat

Trobriand Islanders

Kula exchange

Generalized Reciprocity

Sharing when able, not when prompted

Balanced Reciprocity

Equal exchange

Precise exchanges

Affinal relationships

Related by marriage

Consanguineal relationships

Related to by blood

Endogamy

Marriage within the group

Ethnicity, class, religion, etc.

Exogamy

Marriage outside the group

Neolocality

Couple establishes a new household/family

Patrilocality

Couple lives with grooms family

Matrilocality

Couple lives with brides family

Monogamy

Marriage between two people

Most common form of marriage

Polygamy

Marriage between more than two people

Three forms: polygyny, polyandry, and group marriage

Polygyny

Man with more than one wife

Second most common form of marriage

Mormons practice this a lot but they actually banned this practice in 1860

Most common in Colorado, Utah, and Arizona

Polyandry

Woman with more than one husband

Very rare but it’s been documented among Inuit, in Nepal, Tibet, India, and Africa

Becoming increasingly rare

Bridewealth

Groom provides money in exchange for the bride’s hand in marriage

Bride service

Groom works for the brides family

Dowry

Brides family provides for the couple during the marriage

Nuclear family

Extended family

Blended family

Group marriage

Everyone is married to each other

Oneida community

More than 300 members at its peak in 1878

Work for the good of the group, everything is distributed equally

You cannot have an exclusive relationship, everyone is with everyone

Fraternal polyandry

Brothers marry the same woman

Common in agricultural societies because land is passed from father to son so keep the sons in the same household to avoid splitting the property

Four Types of Anthropology

Linguistic

Cultural

Biological

Archeology

Last Common Ancestor

Africa

5-6 mya

Bipedalism

Africa

4-5 mya

Ardipithecus ramidus

Africa

4.4 mya

Australopithecus afarensis

Africa

3.2 mya

Homo habilus

Africa

2.6-1.5 mya

Homo erectus

Africa, Asia, Europe

1.8-1.5 mya

Homo florensiensis

Indonesia

50-100 kya

Homo naledi

Africa

200-300 kya

Homo neadertalensis

Europe, Southwest Asia

130-40 kya

Homo sapeins

Africa

100-200 kya

Stone tools

3.3 mya

Agriculture

Began in Southwest Asia (Fertile Crescent)

10-13 kya

Class

Based on socioeconomic standing

Fluid and flexible (people can move up and down)

Example: U.S.

Caste System

Rigid categories

No mobility (a person is born into a particular class)

Endogamous

Example: India

Christianity

2.4 billion followers

Most widely practiced religion in the world, mostly due to colonialism

Dates to 30 AD

Jesus of Nazareth

Practiced in the Americas, Europe, Southern Africa, Australia

Thousands of denominations

Islam

2 billion followers

One of the fastest growing religions

Dates to 600 AD

Prophet Muhammed

Most widely practiced in northern Africa and the Middle East

Five Pillars:

1. Faith - recognition of God

2. Prayer - 5 prayers a day facing Mecca

3. Charity - Give earnings to charity

4. Fasting - Ramadan, sunrise to sunset, 28 days

5. Pilgrimage - Pilgrimage to Mecca at least once

Buddhism

500 million - 1 billion followers

Dates to 500 BC

Siddhartha Gautama

Emerged from a Hindu context so there are a lot of parallels and similarities between the two

The Middle Way → Nirvana: the goal of the Buddhist path of meditation and balance → a release from suffering

Ignorance, desire, and selfishness are the root of suffering

Most widely practiced in China, South East Asia, and Japan

Hinduism

1 billion followers

Dates to 2000 BC

Most widely practiced in India and Nepal

Doctrine of Reincarnation:

Soul moves from lower to higher lifeforms (karma)

Ultimate goal: Moksha → enlightenment, release from the cycle of life and death → soul joins the divine or higher reality

Judaism

14 million followers

Dates to 2000 BC → covenant between God and Abraham

Christianity and Islam have Judaic origins (Abrahamic religions)

Tanakh (Hebrew Bible)

• Torah → first five books of the Old Testament

• Nevi’im

• Ketuvim

Oldest cave art

Indonesia

51 kya

Art by intention

Artist made it with ideas in mind

Art by appropriation

Given an artistic meaning

Descriptive linguistics

Describing analyzing the features of language

Historical linguistics

The study of historical or dead languages as well as current languages

Investigating the interrelationships between earlier and later forms of languages

Information retrieved from the fossil/archaeological record and the historical record

Sociolinguistics

The study of the relationship between language and society

Phonology

The study of sounds made in speech

Phonemes: the smallest unit of sound

Most languages have around 30-40 phonemes

English has 44

Spanish has 24

Arabic 34

Morphology

The study of morphemes

Morphemes: the smallest unit of sound that charry meaning

Grammar

The entire formal structure of a language, including morphology and syntax

Glottochronology

Measures rate of change of languages

Core vocabularies change at a rate of between 14-19% per 1000 years

Language family

A group of languages descended from a single ancestral language

Linguistic relativity

The idea that language shapes and directs the way in which we view and think about the world around us

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Language provides a grid, or structure, that categorizes our world, channels our thoughts

Three main language families

1. Afro-Asiatic

2. Indo-European

3. Sino-Tibetan

Syntax

The rules for phrase construction and word order

Most common word orders:

• Subject, verb, object

• Subject, object, verb

• Verb, subject object

Afro-Asiatic

350 million speakers

Arabic (semitic)

Hebrew (semitic)

Somali

Indo-European

2.5 billion speakers

455 languages

English

French

German

Greek

Italian

Spanish

Hindi

Nepali

Sino-Tibetan

1.3 billion speakers

462 languages

Mandarin

Cantonese

Burmese

Tibetan