Chapter 1 - What is Anthropology?

Anthropology

• A discipline that explores human differences and the similarities through investigating our biological and the cultural complexity. 

Anthropos

• In Greek means “Human”

Logy

• The “The Study of”

Holistic 

• Covering a wider timeframe

• Focuses on more diverse global perspectives and time frames. 

Anthropologists 

• People who study humans and human conditions 

• But also: Biologists, sociologists, psychologists, and others also examine human nature and societies. 

4 Subdiciplines of Anthropology

• Cultural

• Linguistic

• Archaeology

• Anthropology 

Culture

• Everything shared and learned among people. 

• (Ex: Eating is shared) 

Sociocultural Anthropology 

• Cultural 

• Sociocultural Anthropology

Material Culture

• The physical products of human activities, such as tools, art, buildings, etc.

Subcategories of Archaeology 

Prehistoric Archaeology
Historic Archaeology
Bioarchaeology
Cultural Resource Management

Biological Anthropology

• Scientific method to develop theories about human origins, evolution, material remains, or behaviours. 

Cultural Anthropology

• Use of humanistic and interpretive approaches to understand human beliefs, languages, behaviours, cultures, and societies. 

• Focuses on the differences and similarities among living people and societies. 

Ethnography

• In-depth study of a cultural group. 

• When cultures share things and why. 

Linguistic Anthropology

• Study of languages 

• Relationship between language and culture 

• How people choose to use language and how it reflects in their actions.

Archaeology

Prehistoric Archaeology

The study of human history before written records, relying on material remains like tools, settlements, and monuments to understand past societies

Historic Archaeology

The study of the past that uses both material remains and written, oral, or visual records

Cultural Resource Management

• Safeguarding things from the process of human development and organization. 

• Rich source of work in archaeology. 

Bioarchaeology

Why do we need to do archaeology when they’re written records? 

Modern Human Variability

Paleoanthropology

Study of fossils, fossils of humans

Paleoprimatology

• Earliest phases of primary and human evolution, most ancient fossils.  

Primatology

Basic tenets of (19thCentury) Biblical Creationism

a.) the Earth was created by God relatively recently  (Oct. 22nd, 400 BC) 

b.) Catastophism: Large scale changes to the Earth’s surface are the product of major catastrophes (Ex: Noah’s Ark) 

c.) Fixity of Species: Living things don’t change through time. 

d.) Fossils can be explained in a way. 

The Great Chain of Being

• Organizing everything in the world of how close they are to God. 

• Understanding the line of God. 

Uniformitarianism

• The theory of the Earth’s features are the result of a long term-processes that continue to operate today as they did in the past. 

• “The present is key to the past” 

• Contrasts with Catastrophism

• Product of erosion, still in action today

James Hutton

• 1726-1797

• Modeled that the Earth as a self-regulating system 

• First person working towards a uniformitarism framework 

Sir Charles Lyell

• Popularized uniformitarianism 

• Wrote Principles of Geology (1830-1833) 

• Books read by Darwin

• Set a framework that led answers to how old the Earth may be. 

Adaptation

• A fit between the organism and an environment. 

• Both sharks and dolphins adapt and live in a water environment because they are similar. 

Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet Chevalier de Lamarck

• Inheritance of acquired characteristics. 

• Giraffe necks 

• (Ex: If you get a tattoo, your baby won’t get tattoo) 

• Incorrect, mostly, apart from epigenetics.

Thomas Malthus

• Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) 

• An economist, interested in the impacts of human economic growth. 

• If unchecked, populations can grow very quickly. 

• Populations cannot increase as quickly.

• Populations can increase exponentially but resources cannot. 

• Who will survive? Not everyone. 

Charles Darwin

• Wrote on the origin of species (1859) 

• The descent of man (1871)

• Voyage of the HMS Beagle, going around the world, 1831-1836 

• Galapagos, site of the adaptive radiation, the evolution of multiple species from a common less specialized ancestral species. 

Darwin’s finches

• An example of adaptive radiation

• The different finch species have features of their beaks that are suited to their particular diets. 

• Very wealthy, related to the Wedgewoods.

Alfred Russel Wallace

• Poor background

• Go on collecting trips to make money.

• Essay Tendency of varieties 

• Darwin and Wallace are co-founders of Natural Selection

Tenents of Natural Selection

a.) There will always be individuals that look different from others. 

• You’re more likely to look like your mom and dad, than anyone else. 

b.) Variations can be inherited. 

c.) Some variants are better adapted to deal with certain environments. (eg. polar bears because they have thicker coats). 

d.) If left unsupervised, a lot of organisms will produce more offspring than can survive. 

• Limit on resources

• Without that limit more organisms can produce more offspring. 

e.) Wooly coats

f.) offspring will have the adaptation of their parents 

g.) Overtime can lead to a change in variation. 

h.) over a long enough time frame this will make a large scale of changes including, speciation (one species, making more) 

Biblical Tenets of the 19th Century Biblical Creationism

• Earth was created by God recently 

• Large changes to the Earth is the product of major catastrophes (catastrophism) 

• Living things don’t change through time (fixity of species) 

• Fossils can be explained away

Neandrathal 1 Cranium

• 1st Human fossil to be recognized 

• Found in 1856