Anthro general terms

Anthropology

Study of the human species and its immediate ancestors across time and space

Adaptation

A trait or change that helps an organism survive and reproduce in its environment (anthropology studies adaptation, variation and change)

Physical, archaeology, linguistic, cultural

The four subfields of anthropology

Physical (biological) anthropology

Subfield studying human biological variation in time and space: evolution, genetics, growth, plasticity, primatology

Primatology

Study of the biology, evolution, behavior and social life of monkeys, apes and prosimians

Paleoanthropology

Study of hominid and human life through the fossil record

Archaeology

Subfield studying human behavior and cultural patterns through a culture's material remains

Linguistic anthropology

Subfield studying primate communication, the origin of language and how languages are related and change

Cultural anthropology

Subfield studying human society and culture, describing and explaining social and cultural differences and similarities

Ethnography

Detailed account of a particular community, society or culture, based on fieldwork

Ethnology

Comparison and analysis of the results of ethnography across cultures

Paleontology

Study of ancient life (before the Holocene, 12,000 years ago) through the fossil record

Taphonomy

Study of the processes that affect remains after death: fossilization, burial conditions, scavenging, butchering

Archaeological site

Basic unit of analysis in archaeology: any location that yields evidence of past human activity

Feature

Non-portable evidence of human activity, such as a hearth, storage pit, house floor or refuse pit

Ecofact

Natural remains found at a site, such as plant and animal remains

Survey

Archaeological step of locating and mapping sites, aided by GPS, GIS and remote sensing

Excavation

Archaeological step of digging systematically while recording where finds lie (context)

Principle of Superposition

In undisturbed layers, the oldest layer is on the bottom and the youngest is on top

Stratigraphy

Study of rock/soil layers; basis of relative dating

Relative dating

Dating that says only whether something is older or younger than a reference point (stratigraphy, artifact and fossil types)

Biostratigraphy

Dating by fossils: strata containing similar fossils are of similar age (index fossils are short-lived, fast-evolving and widespread)

Absolute dating

Dating that gives a specific calendar interval (radiocarbon, potassium-argon, dendrochronology)

Radiocarbon dating

Absolute method measuring decay of C-14 into N-14 in organic material; half-life 5,730 years

Half-life

Time required for half of a radioactive isotope to decay

Potassium-argon dating

Absolute method using decay of K-40 to Ar-40 (half-life 1.25 billion years); only for sites under volcanic ash, e.g., East African sites

Dendrochronology

Absolute dating by tree-ring patterns, since trees record annual environmental variation

Catastrophism

Idea that Earth's features were shaped by sudden, catastrophic events (Cuvier)

Creationism

Belief that species were created in their present form and do not change

Uniformitarianism

'Present is key to the past': natural processes observable today operated the same way in the past (Hutton, popularized by Lyell)

Evolution

Change in the genetic makeup of a population over generations

Natural selection

Differential survival and reproduction of individuals whose traits fit their environment better

Genotype

An organism's genetic makeup

Phenotype

An organism's observable traits, produced by genotype plus environment

Gene pool

All the genes (alleles) present in a population

Mutation

Change in DNA; the ultimate and most important source of new genetic variation

Sexual reproduction

Source of variation that shuffles existing genes into new combinations

Gene flow

Movement of genes between populations through migration and interbreeding

Genetic drift

Random change in gene frequencies, strongest in small populations

Microevolution

Small changes within a population over time; descent with modification

Macroevolution

Large-scale evolutionary change, including the origin of new species

Speciation

Formation of a new species

Reproductive isolation

Populations can no longer interbreed; key to speciation

Punctuated equilibrium

Species stay stable for long periods, then change rapidly in short bursts, often with speciation

Primate

Mammal with grasping hands and feet, sight over smell, primitive body plan and dental formula 2.1.2.3 or 2.1.3.3

K-selected

Primate reproductive strategy: few offspring, heavy parental investment, long life

Hominoid

Member of the superfamily that includes apes and humans

Hominid

Humans and African apes and their immediate ancestors (as defined in your slides)

Hominin

Member of the human lineage after the split from chimps; all human species, living and extinct, excluding chimps and gorillas

Ape

Primate with no tail, larger body and brain, upright posture, short muzzle, long life and dependent young

Brachiation

Arm-over-arm swinging through the trees (Dryopithecus, 'king of swing')

Adaptive radiation

Rapid increase in the number of related species after an environmental change

Arboreal theory

Primate traits (better vision, dexterous hands) evolved for life in expanding forests eating fruit, nuts and insects

Visual predation theory

Primate traits evolved for hunting insects by sight, favoring visual acuity and grasping

Gigantopithecus

Largest primate ever: 10 ft, 1,200 lb, China and Vietnam, ground-dwelling tough-plant eater (5 mya-250,000 years ago)

Molecular clock

Uses constant accumulation of random mutations to estimate the chimp-human split at about 5-8 mya

Bipedalism

Habitual walking upright on two legs; the key early hominin trait (by about 7-6 mya)

Freeing hands for tools

Bipedalism theory weakened because bipedalism (7 mya) came long before stone tools (2.5 mya) and chimps use tools without being bipedal

East Side Story

Bipedalism theory of adapting to tall grassland; weakened because earliest bipeds lived in woods and chimp fossils appear in the same Rift Valley

Carrying food

Bipedalism theory that walking upright let hominins carry and share food; but other primates rarely share

Thermoregulation

Bipedalism theory that upright posture kept hominins cool in hot, open environments; possibly very important

Feeding posture

Bipedalism theory: stand to reach low branches, then walk upright between trees to save energy

Sexual dimorphism

Body-size difference between males and females (A. afarensis males about twice the size of females)

Gracile

Lightly built hominin form (Australopithecus): smaller molars and jaws, lighter skull

Sagittal crest

Bony ridge on top of the skull anchoring chewing muscles in Paranthropus

Participant observation

Ethnographer takes part in the community's life, and in doing so slightly changes what is being studied

Culture shock

Feelings of alienation from being in an alien setting and lacking the ordinary cues of one's own culture

Holistic ethnography

Intensive study of all aspects of local life through long-term residence and participant observation (Malinowskian approach)

Interview schedule

Ethnographer asks questions face to face and writes the answers; open-ended, unlike a questionnaire filled out by the respondent

Total sample

Interviewing every household (159 in Arembepe) instead of sampling, possible because the village was small

Sockeye salmon (Hendry)

Lake-beach and river populations became reproductively isolated in about 13 generations; beach males deeper-bodied, river males slender, river females bigger

Threespine stickleback

Fish that lost heavy armor in lakes within about six generations; Schluter showed mates evolve to prefer new traits

Bighorn sheep

Trophy hunting of the biggest rams made rams and horns smaller, because runts passed on more genes

Atlantic cod

Fishing favored fish that stayed small and matured young, so average cod shrank before the 1980s crash

Tai chimpanzees

Rain forest chimps of Ivory Coast that crack nuts with hammerstones and hunt red colobus monkeys cooperatively

Hammerstones

Stone and branch tools Tai chimps use to crack nuts (never seen at Gombe); females crack panda nuts more often than males

Gombe chimps

Savanna chimps studied by Jane Goodall; use twigs for termites, hunt independently but at the same time, rarely coordinate (7%)

Savanna hypothesis

Idea that climate drying turned forest to open habitat about 3 mya, driving cooperative hunting and food sharing in hominids

Forest challenge

Boesch's argument: dense forest favored complex behavior (19 tool uses vs 16 at Gombe), so hominization may have begun independent of drying

5 to 7 mya

Time of the first hominid, estimated by molecular clock and confirmed by radiometric dates; location must be Africa

Thick enamel

Hominid trait (apes and fossil apes mostly thin, except the orangutan lineage); not clear what the ancestral condition was