ANT 100 Exam 1

Anthropology

a diverse field that encompases what it means to be human

Utilize holistic, comparative, and relative approaches to account for many human cultures

*the study of people

Diachronic

study of humans through changes and development through time

Synchronic

study of humans that emphasizes the contemporary state of human society with little or no time

*change across space

Biological (Physical) Anthropology

study of human cultures based on biology and behaviors of humans, their extinct ancestors, and non-humans primartes

Cultural Anthropology

study of human cultures in the present through participation, observation, and interview of living people

Linguistic Anthropology

study of human language

Archaeology

study of human cultures in the past using artifacts to interpret past human culture and behavior that would otherwise be unknown

Culture

collection of learned behaviors, ideas, languages, and traditions

Emic

perspective that incorporates a subjective and informed perspective in which the anthropologist participates

*active participant

Etic

view that refers to an objective and detached perspective

*strictly observing

Holistic

all encompassing, many different angles

Ethnocentrism

The tendency to use one’s own culture as the standard, leading to the judgment of other cultures as inferior, abnormal, or immoral

“my culture is better than yours”

Aristotle

created foundational concepts that would go on to affect early thinkers who would in turn influence early anthropologists

Great Chain of Being

linear hierarchy that ranks all organisms

The higher on the chain, the closer you are to god

The “Other” and Barbarians

idea that “you are either like ua or not like us and therefore barbarian”

Ussher & Lightfoot

They were able to find the age of the Earth using the bible as a reference

Humanity was created around 4004 B.C., around 9:00 A.M.

Isaac de la Peyrere

argued that humans existed before Adam and that different races came from separate creations

Spanish seized his book, recorded the information within it, then burned his book

Thomas Hobbes

describes we give up authority to the government for order

descries man’s life before government as nasty, brutish, and short

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

theorized the idea that there is a social contract between the government and the people

places that have widespread poverty also have some equality

Christian Thomsen

helped order collection of artifacts

Formulated Age System:

• Stone Age: stone, wood, bone, primitive materials

• Bronze Age: copper or bronze

• Iron Age: Use of iron instead of bronze

Catastrophism

idea that the world shaped and punctuated events (floods) which were responsible for the demise of extinct species (supported by French & Georges Cuvier)

Uniformitarianism

geological processes observed in the present are the same as those that occurred in the past (supported by English & James Hutton)

Adam Smith

believed that individuals will indirectly promote the good of society, economies will self-organize

Coined laissez-faire: “let it be” & hands-off (no government intervention)

Thomas Malthus

populations rise geometrically while resources rise linearly, populations rise too quickly

argued for reduction of aid to the poor from the government

*limit on available resources

*carrying capacity: maximum number of people that a specific local environment and its resources can support

Cultural Imperialism

the practice where a dominant country or group imposes its own culture, values, language, and customs onto a less powerful community

1859

Publication of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

Discovery of Brixham Cave in Devonshire, UK

Charles Darwin & Alfred Wallace

co-discovered the theory of natural selection and published it together

Natural Selection

positive response to environmental changes

Favorable changes/adaptations survive through reproduction; unfavorable traits die off

Charles Lyell

Provided the deep geological time scale and stratigraphic framework required to understand human evolution and archaeological history

developed a uniformitarianism view

La Chapelle-aux-Saints

limestone cave in France famous for yielding a nearly complete neanderthal skeleton discovered in 1908

Neanderthals

closest extinct human relatives

Social Darwinists (Spencer Tylor, Morgan)

people who have the idea and view that applies biological concepts of natural selection and “survival of the fittest” to human societies, social classes, and politics

Sir Edward Burnett Tylort

father of cultural anthropology

First person to hold a chair in anthropology at the University of Oxford

idea that some cultures are primitive compared to others

Herbert Spencer

coined the term “survival of the fittest”

argued that societies naturally evolve from undifferentiated chords into highly specialized, complex civilization with distinct institution

Lewis Henry Morgan

Early American anthropologist & social darwinist

First president of the Association for the Advancement of Academic Science)

Created a 3-stage model similar to Thomsen

• Savager: no culture

• Barbarism: some culture, lacking structure

• Civilization: Peak society

Social Darwinism

people who have the idea and view that applies biological concepts of natural selection and “survival of the fittest” to human societies, social classes, and politics

Social Darwinism = Unilineal social evolution

based on the idea of linear social evolution

savagery, barbarism, civilization

Samuel Morton

Argued for multiple creators of man (races)

classified people by cranial shape —> Phrenology

claimed people from English & German ancestry were more intelligent/superior

Scientific Racism

pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to justify or support racism & racists beliefs

Myth of the Moundbuilders

ethnocentric and racist idea that those fantastic structures (the mounds) couldn’t have been built by these savages (Native Americans)

Thomas Jefferson

did not believe the myth

Excavated a mound on his property, took detailed notes (never published), looked at the skulls, and found the mound builders were Native Americans

was plantation owner, so likely his slaves did the excavation and analysis

E.C. Squier and E.H. Davis

published more research into the mounds of MS and in the Ohio Valley

Provided one of the 1st classification to distinguish burial mounds, temples, etc.

Believed that NAs were not capable of building the mounds

Cyrus Thomas

worked for Smithsonian in the Bureau of American Ethnology

Found similarities between moundbuilder artifacts and modern NA

• used this to dispel the myth

Bureau of American Ethnography

research organization created by the U.S. Congress in 1879 to study the history, languages, and cultures of Native American tribes

Salvage Ethnography

documenting & recording the practices of cultural beliefs of groups threatened with assimilation or extinction

Bronisław Malinowski

Studied the exchange system of the Trobriand Islanders

Founder of modern Cultural Anthropology

Kula Ring

revolutionized anthropological theories of economics, reciprocity, and social bonding for all stages of civilizations

Functionalism

ever aspect of society contributes &. depend on every other aspect of that society to create a stable, functioning unit

*society as a stable functioning unit

Franz Boas

founded the 1st Anthropology department/program in North America

Conducted the immigrant study —> historical particularism

Ethnocentrism V.S. Cultural Relativism

judges another culture by the standards of your own

trying to understand a culture on its own terms

The Immigrant Study

Franz Boas analyzed skulls of immigrants and noticed the there are generational differences, meaning race does not indicate skull structure, but it is possible nutrition does impact skull size

Historical Particularism

in order to understand the people you have to understand the history of those people

Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Zora Neale Hurston

students of Franz Boas’s anthropology program who would spread out across the U.S. starting more anthropology programs

Alfred Kroeber

U.C. Berkeley Anthropologist

Worked with Issi, the “last wild Native American”

theorized that geography matters to culture

Culture Areas

a specific geographic region where different societies share a similar way of life and common cultural traits

Julian Steward

Cultural Ecology: study of how humans cultures interact with, adapt to, and shape their natural and social environment

environment matters to culture

Leslie White

part of the Socialist Labor Party

*Evolution of technology matters to understand culture

Culture Historians

study of the past by examining everyday attitudes, belies, rituals, art, and the symbolic meaning behind human experiences

Lewis Binford

Processual Archaeologist: an approach to archaeology that seeks to explain cultural change by studying the underlying environmental, social, and economic systems rather than just describing artifacts

wants to a record to reconstruct what happened

National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA)

Section 106: Any project that takes federal dollars needs to be surveyed for any artifacts before the development of that land

Section 110: Any federal building needs updated surveys

Processual V.S. Post-Processual Archaeologists

treats archaeology as an objective, scientific method to explain general patterns of cultural changes

views archaeology as subjective and interpretive, focusing on individual meaning, symbolism, and power

National American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)

federal human rights and heritage law requiring federally funded institutions and federal agencies to reatriate specific Native American cultural items and human remains to rightful descendants and tribes

Structure of a scientific paper (IBMRDC)

Intro: the question

Background: Who has tried to answer this before? What were their steps? etc.

Method: How did you do it? Was it different from those before you?

Discussion: What do your results mean?

Conclusion: How do these findings help answer your question? What are the next steps?

Problem-Oriented Research

Ethnographic research often focused on investigating a particular issue & conflict

Ethnography

strategy to observe & analyze the artifacts & interactions of people to create a description of societies, written by an anthropologist

Qualitative V.S. Quantitative V.S. Mixed Methods

use of interviews, hands-on experience, participation

use of numbers, facts, statistics

combination of both approaches

Cultural Consultant

community leaders who become central to ethnographic research as cultural guides, mentors, and translators

Life histories

focuses on individual stories

a person recounts their experiences in detail

Surveys

asking the same set of question to a selected group, often in a questionaire

Informed Consent

an ethical & necessary step where anthropologists explain the goals, methods, funding, outcomes, and potential risks & benefits

Ensures its ethical & participation is voluntary

Direct Historical Approach

technique of working backward in time from a known historical period to the unknown segment

Uses artifacts, stratigraphy, and law of superposition to reconstruct the order of things

Artifact

objects made or used by people

Stratigraphy

analysis of the superimposed layers on an archaeological site

Law of Superposition

layer of sediment & rock that shows older layers are below the rock layer that are above them

lower = older

higher = younger

Relative Dating

is this item older or younger relative to this other item

Seriation

method used to relatively date artifacts and arrange them

Radiometric Dating

technique to find the absolute age of rocks, minerals, and organic remains by measuring the decay or radioactive isotopes

Experimental Archaeology

reverse engineering archeological records

Ethnoarchaeology

study of living societies to help interpret material remains and answer questions about the past

Processual V.S. Post-Processual Archaeology

treats archaeology as an objective scientific method to explain general patterns of cultural change

archaeology views it as subjective and interpretive, focusing on individual meaning, symbolism, and power

Experimental Archaeology

reverse engineering archaeological records

Garbology

modern day archaeology, studying what people put into their trash

Power

the ability to influence, shape, or direct the thoughts, decisions, and behaviors of others through means ranging from physical force to subtle persuasion

Hegemony

occurs when there is leadership or dominance, especially by one country or group over others

Historic Archaeology

sub discipline that combines physical artifacts with written, oral, and visual records to study past societies

Indigenous Archaeology

the study of cultural heritage “by, for, and with” Indigenous people to decolonize the discipline and respect tribal sovereignty

Ancestry

sense of one’s biological heritage

Population

set of organisms in the same region that can mate and produce offspring

Microevolution V.S. Macroevolution

any change in gene frequency in a population between generations

Large-scale evolutionary changes and patterns that occur at or above the species level over geological time

Genetic Ancestry

shared biological history as defined by genetic similarities

Phenotype

physical expression of a genetically influenced feature (eye color)

Carolus Linnaeus

Created a nested hierarchy for organisms

• kingdom —> phylum —> class —> order —> family —> Genera —> Species

Jean Bapiste Lamark

argued organisms can change in response to environments, and the ability to activate this change when current forms become obsolete (law of use and disuse)

early attempt to explain variation; law of use and disuse

Fitness

an organism’s ability to survive, find a mate, and pass its genes on to the next generations

Bleanding V.S. Particulate Inheritance

offspring inherit a smooth, intermediate physical combination of their parents’ traits

concept that traits are passed from parents to offspring through discrete, unchanging units (genes & alleles) rather than by blending together like fluids

Gegor Mendel

Conducted a plant experiment with peas

Traits are not blended from one generation to the next

dormant/recessive particles

Genes

basic unit of genetic information

Alleles

expression of trait through different gene segments & structures

Polygenic Variation

occurs when a single physical trait is controlled by the additive or cumulative effects of multiple genes

Multifactor Variation

refers to how multiple independent variables or factors jointly influence the total observed variance or outcome in statistical, genetic, or experimental settings