Anthropology Exam 1

Linguistics

study of language; learning new languages and writings

Archaeology

study of human artifacts; totems, masks, tools

Biology

scientific studies about different ethnicities

Cultural

integrating yourself into the community of natives to understand

Relativistic

feature where you’re thinking about the actual contexts of the community

Empirical

observations; genuine experiments and not just thinking, but going into it

Adaptational / Evolutionary

understanding the past and how we came to be how we are

Comparative

comparing one’s own culture w/ others HUMANISTICALLY (differences and similarities)

Holistic

trying to understand human society in all its complexity

Anthropology

study of humans

Cultural Relativism

culture is rlly just a social construct

Ethnocentrism

entails the notion that one’s own culture is superior to everyone else

How is cross-cultural comparison valuable?

reduce ethnocentric bias, discover trends, celebrate uniqueness, reflect more analytically

Armchair Anthropology

theories made about cultures w/o firsthand observations (ONE GOOD THING IS PPL ASK QUESTIONS)

Franz Boas

father of anthropology

EX: he lived w the Inuits (holistic)

Bronilaw Malinowski

created participant observation and functionalism

EX: Magical Thinking (Trobiand Islanders)

Functionalism

all cultures are valid bc they serve basic needs

Sociology

systematic study of society

Thomas Hobbes

opposer to small villages; believed there was a right kind of community

Off the Veranda Approach

getting off the couch and going to see the communities and integrating themselves into it

James Frazer

saw human thought as evolving from magic to religion to science

CONTRIBUTION: one of the first to compare cultures broadly

FLAW: armchair anthropology, ethnocentric

E.B. Tylor

gave first definition of culture

CONTRIBUTION: cultural anthropology

FLAW: ethnocentric

Ruth Benedict

argued each culture has its own pattern

CONTRIBUTION: showed culture shapes behavior 

Jared Diamond

argued environment explains why societies developed technology faster than others

CONTRIBUTION: gave non-ethnocentric (rare) explanation for global inequality

FLAW: oversimplifies complex histories

EMIC

within the culture, not analytical but holistic

ETIC

outside the culture, not holistic but analytical

Inductive

data to theory

Deductive

theory to data

Prehistorical Archaeology

studying the human past without writing through their remains

Underwater Archaeology

studying submerged archaeological sites

Historical Archaeology

studying the human past in societies that have written documents

Archaeology of contemporary life

the study of the material culture of the recent past

Primatology

the study of non-humans members of the order of mammals called primates, to which humans also belong to

Paleoanthropology

the study of human evolution based on the fossils record

Forensic Anthropology

uses anthropological knowledge to identify human remains at crime scenes, battlefields and sites of possible human right violations

Historical Linguistics

the study of language over time

Enthnography of Communication

the description of contexts that make human communication effective and meaninful

Sociolinguistics

the study of relationships among language variation and social context

Cultural Anthropology

describes / analyzes the beliefs people have about their social and material worlds

Medical anthropology

applied and theoretical area of study that draws on all four subdisciplines to understand the interrelationship of health, illness and culture

How does anthropology interpret the transition from hunters and gatherers to agricultural societies?

• Not straight progression from simple to complex

• Different societies transitioned at different paces

• agriculture brought new challenges and benefits

Difference between anthropology and other social sciences

Anthropology is holistic, uses participant observation and studies all parts of life while other social sciences only use surveys or data

The value of cross-cultural comparison

helps challenge assumptions and shows many valid ways of living

Applied anthropology

application of anthropological theories, methods, and findings to solve practical problems

Classical Evolutionism

all societies progress through the same stages from primitive to civilized

Social Evolutionism

broader idea that human societies change and develop over time

Psychic Unity

idea that all humans share same basic mental capacity

Diffusionism

explained cultural similarities as the result of cultural traits spreading between societies

Materialism

focuses on material conditions shape human behavior and culture

emerged as a reaction to cultural relativisim

1. the real physical world sets constraints

2. human behavior is part of nature

Marvin Harris

american anthropologist known for cultural materialism