Anthropology Exam 2

Material culture

The physical objects that people create, use, and modify within a society.

Site

Represents the geographic location with the remains of past activities.

Artifact

Portable objects made, used, or modified by humans/hominins.

Ecofact

Plant or animal remains that are byproducts of human/hominin activities.

Feature

Nonportable remnants of hominin activities, such as walls, ditches, or mounds.

Assemblage

A manmade positioning of objects.

Excavation

The process of systematically exposing, processing, and recording archaeological remains.

Survey

Identifying and mapping archaeological sites using mechanized, pedestrian, or geophysical survey.

Stratigraphy

The interpretation of the structures produced by the deposition of sediments in layers.

Relative Dating

Identifying a particular object as being older or younger in relation to some other object.

Seriation

Relative dating method based on the assumption that artifacts that look alike were made at the same time.

Processual archaeology

A scientific approach developed in the 1960s emphasizing the explanation of human behavior and culture.

Post

Processual Archaeology

Meaning making

The human process of creating and sharing interpretations of the world within a cultural framework.

Symbolic/Expressive Meaning

How expressive forms like art, play, and myth reflect and reshape the cultural world.

Social/Ritual Meaning

Meaning enacted collectively to make meaning public and sustain community through repetition.

Material/Embodied Meaning

Meaning inscribed in material things, dress, space, and bodily practices.

Belief

The ideas people hold about the unseen world (Orthodoxy).

Practice

The behaviors through which people engage the unseen world (Orthopraxy).

Ritual

Acts regularly repeated that embody group beliefs and create a sense of continuity or belonging.

Rite of Passage

A ritual that enacts a change of status from one life stage to another.

Liminality

An outsiderhood stage in a rite of passage key to achieving a new perspective on the community.

Communitas

A sense of camaraderie and common vision shaped by the shared experience of rites of passage.

Pilgrimage

A religious journey to a sacred place in search of transformation or enlightenment.

Magic

The use of spells and actions to compel supernatural forces to act in a certain way.

Imitative Magic

A ritual performance that achieves results by imitating the desired outcome.

Contagious magic

Power transferred from person to person through materials that maintain a magic connection.

Shamans

Part

Priests

Full

Achieved status

Social positions reached later in life, often as a result of an individual's own effort.

Ascribed Status

Social positions people are assigned at birth.

Kinship

System of social organization based on family ties formed through biological or spiritual substance.

Inuit System

Kinship system with unique terms for parents/siblings that groups all aunts, uncles, and cousins together.

Hawaiian System

Kinship system distinguishing by generation and gender; all cousins are called brother and sister.

Iroquois System

System where mother’s sister is "mother" and father’s brother is "father."

Neolocal

Residence pattern where a married couple sets up a household in a new place.

Patrilocal

Residence pattern where a couple lives with or near the husband’s father.

Matrilocal

Residence pattern where a couple lives with or near the wife’s mother.

Avunculocal

Residence pattern where a couple lives with or near the husband’s mother’s brother.

Bilateral descent

Descent traced through connections made through both mothers and fathers.

Unilineal descent

The formation of lineages traced through either the mother or the father.

Patrilineal descent

A unilineal descent system where relations are traced through males.

Matrilineal descent

A unilineal descent system where relations are traced through females.

Bifurcation

When kinship terms for the mother’s side differ from those for the father’s side.

Nuclear Family

A family made up of two generations: parents and their unmarried children.

Extended Family

A family spanning multiple generations that provides shared resources and support networks.

Bridewealth

Transfer of symbolically important goods from the groom’s family to the bride’s family.

Dowry

The transfer of wealth from parents to their daughter at the time of marriage.

Lineage

Members of a descent group who believe they can trace their descent from known ancestors.

Clans

Descent groups formed by members who believe they have a common ancestor.

Parallel cousins

Children of a person’s parents’ same

Cross cousins

Children of a person’s parents’ opposite

Endogamy

Marriage within a defined social group.

Exogamy

Marriage outside a defined social group.

Polygyny

A form of marriage where a man has more than one wife.

Polyandry

A form of marriage where a woman has more than one husband.

Monogamy

Marriage to only one person at a time.