Anthropology: Physical and Cultural

Functions of Marriage

• Defines social relationships for the survival and socialization of children

• Marriage defines rights and obligation of the two parties in terms of sex, reproduction, work, and social roles

• Marriage creates new relationships between families and kin groups

Types of Marriages

• Monogamy: 1 partner

• Polygamy: Multiple partners

• Polygyny: 1 husband and multiple wives

• Polyandry: 1 wife and multiple husbands

• Arranged marriage: Set up by someone other than the individuals getting married

Lineage vs Clan

• Lineage: All relatives can be traced back to one common ancestor

• Clan: Several lineages in a bilineal society where people are related but most often not directly

Patterns of Descent

• Matrilineal: Kinship tracing back to mothers

• Patrilineal: Kinship tracing back to fathers

• Bilineal: Kinship tracing to both parents

• Religious Lineage: Religion passed on through maternal/paternal kinship (ex. Judaism)

Purposes of Family

• Coresidence

• Economic cooperation

• Reproduction & enculturation

• Property

Functions of Names

• Surnames bear meaning (ex. Smith)

• Naming converts “anybodies” into “somebodies”

• Can covey societal ideals

Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection

Individuals with adaptive traits—traits that give them some advantage—are more likely to survive and reproduce (ex. Skin colour is darker in areas closer to the equator, therefore lighter skin is an adaption to areas such as Northern Europe, with less access to Vitamin D)

Race

• Social construction

• Genetic variations exist within races rather than than between them (more similar amongst each other than different against similar race groups)

Sociolinguistics

• Slang & Dialect

• Emphasis on norms, exceptions, context, and how the language is used

• Explores the way that language maintains a social role (dictionary being updated with new words & slang & variations)

Structural Linguistics

• Language based off signs

  • Signified & signifier

  • (Ex. hand gestures)

Historical Linguistics

• Describe and account for observed changes in languages

• Recontrust the pre-history of laguaged to determine their relatedness

• Develop general theories about how and why language changes

• Describe the history of speech

• Study history of words

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

• Language shapes culture

• Difficult to determine if culture influences language or if language influences culture as they both act upon each other to a certain extent

• Things of greater importance are talked about more frequently, and therefore have more words commonly associated with it that are used to describe it

• If there isn’t a word for something, it does not exist in the culture, and is therefore not talked about (Ex. in Morocco, there is no word for pedophelia, therefore it is not discussed despite high rates of child sex tourism)

Origins of language

• 2 million - 100,000 years ago

• Evolution of hypoglossal canal and hyoid bone allows for speech

Body language

• Unwritten rules of proximity

• Gestures that mean different things in different cultures (plays a key role in when cultures interact)

• Eye contact (can be desirable or discouraged)

We communicate through…

• Chemical (pheromones): What we see and hear

• Audio (sounds): Spoken language

• Visual: Eyes or light-sensing organs

Diffusion vs Assimilation vs Innovation

Diffusion:

• Movement/Migration of culture from one population to another

• Border diffusion takes place when the culture blend based on close proximity

Assimilation:

• Inclusion/absorption of one culture into another more dominant culture

Innovation:

• Combination of 2 ideas to create a new one

Margaret Mead

• Criticized for often drawing conclusions without a broad spectra of evidence

• Studied the people of Oceania

Ruth Benedict

• Came up with the “patterns of culture” theory

• Generalized individuals within the same culture

Cultural Values

• Judgements of good vs bad

• Formally/Informally taught

• Aesthetic judgements, preference in arts

• Cultural Materials (ex. Wedding costume, clay containers)

Cultural Universals

• Communication

• Ethical/justice system

• Right and responsibility by age and gender

• Myths

• Clothing

• Family structure

• Sexual regulations

• Food

Why aren’t human cultures the same?

• Ecological differences: Physical environment tailors to what the culture exhibits. (Ex. desert people’s culture is different from rainforest culture)

• Encounters with other cultures: Imitation, adaptation, resisting

• Internal change: Change over time by themselves with societal and human progression

Human Culture

• Exists in the abstract only

• Contains subcultures

• Constantly changes

• Adapts but not perfectly 

• Contains conflicts

Religion

• Supernatural connection

• Organized society

• Connection to supernatural world beyond materialistic world

• Promotes proper behaviour and explains the soul’s fate after death

• Answers philosophical questions

Functions of Religion

• Provides explanations to the unknowns

• Emphasizes social unity

• Provide comfort for death, harm and injustice

• Provides principles for life which foster security 

• Provides guidance through stages of life through rites of passages

Origins of Religion

• Explanatory/rationaliting 

• Self-actualizing 

• Social control bias

Types of Religions

• Shamanic: First Nations 

• Communal: Shared notions in a community (ex. Christianity)

• Olympian: Worship multiple Gods/Incarnations (ex. Hinduism)

• Monotheistic/Ecclesiastic: Worship only one God (ex. Judaism)

Artifacts

Materials used by a culture, become part of physical anthropology. Often it is attributed to religion.

Culture vs Religion

• Culture: Societal views that derive from customs (affected by geographical location)

• Religion: Beliefs deriving from holy text(s) (not affected by geographical location)

Modernity

• Anatomical: looking the same as modern society (ex. Larger brain)

• Behavioural: behaving the same as modern society (ex. Morals and ethics)

The “isms”: Origins of Anthropological Thought

• Colonialism: rooted in the efforts of western efforts to better understand the lands it was colonizing. Enforced their views and oppressed cultural groups. 

• Antiquarianism: pre-dated form of archaeology, large scale

• Scientism the effort to separate culture from reality and discover objectivity

• Holism: the recognition that human cultures are all interconnected

Primatology

• Studies primates (any mammal having flexible hands and feet with opposable first digits, good eyesight, and, in the higher apes, a highly developed brain)

• Explores the similarities and differences/patterns in their behaviour and our

Paleoanthropology

• Study of modern humans in relation to their ancient ancestors (hominids), and how we have evolved in terms of…

  • Evolution

  • Skeletal Anatomy

  • Geology

  • Archaeology

Biocultural Evolution

• The adaptation/evolution of humans to adapt to their surrounding environment

• Clothing (humans are not made to survive in the arctic, but clothing allows us to survive)

Archaeology

• Studies the physical remains through excavation of a past culture

• Allows us to…

  • Establish chronological sequences of events

  • Understand spatial relationships between different cultures

  • Understand evolution/extinction

    • Types of Archaeology:

      • Prehistoric: Bones, ecology, historical society

      • Historic: Writing, language, written documentation

Cultural Ecology

• The study of human adaptations to social and physical environments (ex. Food and water supply)

• Overlooks factors such as religion

Postmodernism

• Aspects that have evolved to be of greater importance in concurrence with the modern world

• Factors such as gender ideology, religion, myths

Marxism

• Communism

• Examines the division of labour

Similarities between chimpanzees & humans

• Ability to develop culture

• Affectionate

• Omnivorous

• Vocal chords (allow for communication)

• Care for others (parent-child relationship)

• Desire to teach others

• Live in communities

• Aggressive behaviour

• Make tools

Primate traits

• Nails instead of claws (allows for better grasping of tree limbs)

• Small body size (rodent sized)
  Large eyes with 3d vision (allows for depth perception)

• Lack of emphasis on the snout (relied more on vision than smell)

• Large brain 

• Heterodont teeth (allows for a varied diet)

Bipeds

Walk on 2 legs

Primates often have over 300 members in their communities because…

• Protection with power

• Greater access to food (as multiple members collect food for all of them)

• Raising offspring as a community

Louis Leakey

• Helped discover that human evolution was centered in africa instead of asia as was previously assumed

Jane Goodall

• Studied chimpanzee behaviour

• First person to observe chimpanzees making tools (which was previously only thought to be something humans could do)

• Observed social interactions between chimpanzees

Birute Galdikas

• Studied orangutans and their similarities to humans

• Spent 50 years in the forest living with orangutans and apes to study and save them from extinction

Mary Leaky

• Found the bones of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania

  • Allowed for us to understand the early human species in terms of toolmaking

Dian Fossey

• Studied the mountain gorilla behaviour

• Campaigned against gorilla poaching

• Published “Gorillas in the Mist” which includes her scientific study of gorillas

• Was murdered

Relative Dating

• Stone tools were found at the deepest point (oldest), followed by bronze and iron tools above it (recent)

• Established the 3-age system, dividing the ancient world into the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age

Radiometric Absolute Dating

• Dates the remains of living things to around 50,000 years ago (Ex. tree rings)

  • Issues: Decay rates may differ from object to object, or may decay at a rate that is not expected

Stone significance in tracking artifatcs

• Surrounding rocks assign a time period to the artifact

• Help identify location/time period/external affecting factors

Aquatic Ape Theory

 Spending time in water caused the evolution of primates from quadruped to early biped (because quadrupeds had their head in the water). However, this theory lacks evidence.

Neanderthal Theory of Extinction

• Multiregional Continuity Theory: All hominids evolved into Homo Sapiens

• Replacement Theory: The Neanderthals were replaced (killed) by AHs populations

New World Monkeys

• Wide nose nostrils facing up

• 1 extra premolar

• Have prehensile tail

• Complete arboreal lifestyle

Old World Monkey

• Narrow nose nostrils facing down

• Sharp molars, 1 less premolar

• Lack of a prehensile tail

• Both arboreal and terrestrial lifestyles

Prosimians

• Long snouts

• Large eyes

• Small body size (mouse-cat size, 5-10kg)

• Nocturnal

• Diet favours insects but also includes plants and fruit

Apes

• 30 million years ago

• Evolved into the genus Homo which later evolved into Homo Sapiens, or Humans

• Lack a tail

• Both arboreal and terrestrial lifestyles

• Long arms (tree swinger)

• Simple molars

• Large body size (10-30kg)

Bering Land Bridge

The ancestors of today's Native Americans reached North America by walking across the Bering Land Bridge and made their way southward by following passages in the ice as they searched for food.

AHS Types

Australopithecines → Homo Habilis → Homo Erectus → Homo Sapiens Sapiens

Neanderthals

• Had heavily built, heat-conserving bodies

• Cranial capacity exceeding that of AMHss

• Heavily stressed teeth and bones indicating heavy use of the body as a tool, starvation, and frequent injury

• Simple stone tools

AMHss

Modern humans

AHs

Archaic Homo Sapiens

Variation

differences between each species

Heritability

 traits passed onto offspring

Environmental fitness

adaptation to external environment

Adaptation

 undergo to adjust to their environment

Catholic Interpretation of Natural Selection

 Humans were made in the image & likeness of God, no two humans are the same. God blesses each person with a unique set of talents and abilities to serve him.

Colonialism

rooted in the efforts of western efforts to better understand the lands it was colonizing. Enforced their views and oppressed cultural groups.

Antiquarianism

pre-dated form of archaeology, large scale

Scientism

the effort to separate culture from reality and discover objectivity

Holism

 the recognition that human cultures are all interconnected