anthro final

artifacts can be both

things AND symbols

social organization

the rules and structures that govern relationships within a group of interacting people

group

social unit

status

social position

roles

appropriate behavior patterns for each status

some social groups are

residential (like households, bands, villages)

religious groups or other belief systems are

non-residential

residential

limited spatially, authority is informal and not permanent

nonresidential

transcend spatial boundaries, authority is formal and permanent

political organization

a society’s formal and informal institutions that regulate a population’s collective acts

sex

biologically determined, limited number

gender

culturally determined, unlimited number

gender role

the culturally prescribed behavior associated with each gender

gender ideology

the culturally prescribed values assigned to the task and status of each gender

skeletal remains

workload and isotopes

“biodistance”, DNA, isotopes

how do we reconstruct what different genders did in the past?

• - skeletal remains

• - ethnoarchaeology

ethnoarchaeology

stronger analogy with cultural link or explanation of why

kinship

socially recognized network of relationships through which individuals are related to one another by ties of descent and marriage

3 forms of kinship

• bilateral descent

• patrilineal descent

• matrilineal descent

bilateral descent

relatives are traced equally from both the mother and father side

nuclear family is the most important unit

patrilineal descent

ancestry is traced through the male line

matrilineal descent

ancestry is traced through the female line

lineages can be clustered into

clans

clans can be grouped into

moieties

moieties

two groups of clans that perform reciprocal ceremonial obligations for one another

status

rights, duties, privileges, powers, liabilities, and immunities that accrue to a recognized and named social position

ascribed status

assigned at birth, inherited

achieved status

earned by possessing certain qualities or by accomplishments

egalitarian societies

no individual weilds absolute power over others

ranked societies

contain an established hierarchy of social status

how do we reconstruct social status in the past?

• mortuary remains

• diet and nutrition: faunal remains

• architecture (style and space)

• presence of exotic goods

direct acquisition

when a person/group goes directly to another to trade

down-the-line trade

goods are traded outward from a source area from group to group

sourcing artifacts

• obsidian and xray fluorescence

• ceramics and instrumental neutron activation analysis

• petrographic analysis

artifacts can be symbolic

gender roles, kinship, status, trade, etc.)

cognitive aspects of culture

values, ideas, and beliefs

cognitive archaeology

study of all aspects of ancient culture that are the product of the human mind

symbol

an object or act that by cultural connection stands for something else through which it has no necessary connection

religion

a social institution containing a set of beliefs about supernatural beings and forces and how people relate to them

ritual

a succession of discrete behaviors that must be performed in a particular order under certain circumstances

examples of religion and ritual

• dorset people in the arctic

• stonehenge

• durrington wells

• upper paleolithic cave art

• shaman

lab sciences =

repeated experiments

historical sciences =

past case studies

necessary conditions

conditions that must exist for change to occurs

sufficient conditions

minimal conditions needed for change to occur

unilineal cultural evolution

belief that human societies have evolved culturally along a single developmental trajectory

comparative method (1800s)

idea that the world’s existing peoples reflect different stages of human cultural evolution

John Lubbock

armchair archaeologist, author

social darwinism

extension of the principles of Darwinian evolution to social phenomena

Franz Boas

father of american anthropologyh

historical particularism

each culture is unique, opposite of unilineal

band

a small egalitarian group made of foragers and families that is pretty mobile

tribe

larger, foraging/horticulture/pastoralism, sedentary villages, egalitarian

chiefdoms

ranked, large, agriculture, sedentary, hereditary rank

state

ranked, very large, agriculture, sedentary large sediments, class differentiation

shifts from egalitarian to ranked societies because of…

agriculture

oasis theory

animal domestication due to climate change, V. Gordan Childe

hilly flanks theory

people became familiar with wild plants, Robert Braidwood

materialist paradigm

external factors that affected behavior