Material culture
Physical objects, artifacts or items
Non-material culture
Beliefs, values, languages or customs
Subculture
A group of people within a larger society or culture who share a distinct set of beliefs different from the main culture
Modern culture
Originates in economically developed regions and is constantly changing
Folk culture
Homogenous and has a strong sense of community
Ethnocentrism
Judging a culture by your own culture’s standards
Cultural relativism
Judging a culture by its own standards
Sequent occupancy
The mark a society or group has left on the cultural landscape over time
Human characteristics of a place
Birth rate, age distributions, languages, religions
Physical characteristics of a place
Rivers, mountains, vegetation, climate, man-made structures
Placelessness
When a place lacks unique characteristics and identity
Relocation diffusion
The hearth shrinks as a result of the physical movement of people to another place
Expansion diffusion
The spread of a cultural trait from one place to another through person-to-person contact
Contagious diffusion
In all directions without regard to social class, religions or other factors
Hierarchical diffusion
Diffuses from a power source typically
Reverse hierarchical diffusion
Diffusion starts at the bottom and spread upwards
Stimulus diffusion
An idea, trait or innovation spreads from one culture to another but changes to better fit the local culture
Lingua franca
A language used to communicate between people who speak different languages
Creolization
Two cultures or languages come together t create a third one, typically due to colonization
Diaspora
The dispersion of any people from their original homeland, often due to forced migration
Cultural divergence
A culture can split into two different cultures due to a lack of interaction, usually due to barriers within a culture such as linguistics or politically
Cultural convergence
The more often cultures interact, the more likely they are to become similar and merge into one
Universalizing religions
Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism
Ethnic religions
Hinduism, Judaism
Isogloss
A distinct boundary defined by linguistic differences
Important language families
Sino-Tibetan and Indo-European
Syncretism
When two or more cultures evolve or change over time in a similar manner but remain culturally distinct (ex. Sikhism has both Hinduism and Islam but developed into its own religion)