recent anthro exam 2

Gene flow

The movement of genetic material between populations.

Clinal variation

A continuous, gradual shift in gene frequencies across geographic regions.

Degree of genetic similarity shared across all human populations

Approximately $99.9\%$ identical.

Ancestral origin and timeline of early Homo sapiens

Roughly 30,000 individuals in sub-Saharan Africa between 250,000 and 200,000 years ago.

Materials used by anthropologists to recover ancient human DNA

Old bones, teeth, mummified soft tissue, and cultural objects.

Genetic effects of physical or social isolation on populations

Discourages gene flow and encourages genetic drift.

Stressor

A factor that disrupts normal or healthy physiological processes in the body.

Bergmann’s rule

The principle that warm-blooded mammals tend to have larger bodies in colder climates and smaller bodies in warmer climates.

Allen’s rule

The principle that warm-blooded mammals tend to have slimmer bodies and longer limbs in warmer climates.

Primary biological function of melanin

Protects skin from the damaging effects of ultraviolet (UV) radiation.

Extended evolutionary synthesis

An expansion of evolutionary theory incorporating mechanisms beyond natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, and gene flow.

Niche construction

The process by which an organism alters its environment, potentially influencing its own or other species' evolutionary trajectory.

Lactose tolerance / intolerance

The physiological ability or inability to digest lactose, the primary sugar found in milk.

Lactase persistence

A genetic adaptation that allows the continued production of the lactase enzyme into adulthood.

Language

A systematic, symbol-based signaling system used for communication.

Two primary modalities of human language

Spoken language and signed language.

Four key design features of human language

Discreteness, grammar, productivity, and displacement.

Discreteness (linguistic)

The structural property where distinct, separate units combine to communicate larger ideas.

Grammar

The set of structural rules governing how language units are combined into meaningful expressions.

Productivity (linguistic)

The capacity to generate an unlimited variety of novel messages from a finite set of linguistic elements.

Displacement (linguistic)

The ability to convey information about things not immediately present, including the past and the future.

Linguistic constituents

Structural components or syntactic units that combine with others to form a language's grammar.

Language rules

Patterns of linguistic use acquired naturally during language acquisition, predominantly without formal instruction.

Linguistic competence

An individual's internalized mastery of adult, mature grammar.

Communicative competence

The mastery of socially and culturally appropriate conventions for interaction.

Language ideology

Shared ideas, beliefs, and attitudes regarding language practices and the people who use them.

Linguistic relativity

The proposition that the structure and vocabulary of a language influence how its speakers think and perceive the world.

Speech community

A group of people sharing common linguistic values, standards, and communicative practices.

Sociolinguistics

The field of study analyzing the reciprocal relationship between societal structures and linguistic variation.

Code-switching

Alternating between two or more language varieties or dialects across different communicative contexts.

Diglossia

A situation within a single speech community where two distinct varieties of a language are used in differing social spheres.

Dialect

A distinct variety of a language associated with a specific regional or social collective.

Relationship between linguistic diversity and social power

Certain dialects and linguistic forms are socially valued above others, mirroring broader institutional hierarchies.

Communicative function of relational labels (e.g., 'friend', 'coworker', 'Auntie')

Signals expected interpersonal behaviors and delineates social boundaries.

Symbols

Signs whose connection to meaning is arbitrary, lacking an inherent physical link between form and concept.

Prosocial behavior

Voluntary actions intended to assist or benefit other individuals or groups, such as cooperation.

Social organization of pre-agricultural hunter-gatherers

Small, highly mobile, and predominantly egalitarian bands.

Egalitarian society

A social framework with relatively equal distribution of power, status, and access to resources.

Agriculture

A food-production strategy that developed independently across several distinct world regions during the Holocene.

Cultivation

The intentional process of selecting and managing wild plant species under human supervision.

Intensive agriculture

Cultivation employing draft animals, machinery, irrigation, or fertilizers to generate significant agrarian surpluses.

Domestication

The evolutionary process wherein human interventions intentionally or accidentally modify the genetic composition of a population.

Chronological timeline of the agricultural transition

Approximately 12,000 to 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic.

Sedentism

The lifestyle practice of establishing permanent, long-term habitation in a single location.

The Neolithic

The archaeological epoch marked by the adoption of settled farming and the domestication of plants and animals.

Scholar who coined the term 'Neolithic Revolution'

V. Gordon Childe.

Concept defined by the 'Neolithic Revolution'

The fundamental shift in human subsistence from mobile hunting-gathering to sedentary agriculture.

Oasis Theory

The model proposing that domestication emerged as humans, plants, and animals congregated around shrinking water sources during arid periods.

Hilly Flanks Theory

The model proposing that agriculture emerged in upland zones where wild ancestors of wheat and barley grew naturally in abundance.

Density-Equilibrium Model

The hypothesis proposing that population pressure in optimal environments forced groups into marginal lands, prompting farming to increase productivity.

Population pressure

The ecological strain resulting from a population reaching or exceeding its local carrying capacity.

Carrying capacity

The maximum population size an area of land can sustainably support under a given technological regime.

Three primary catalysts for the adoption of agriculture

Rising population density, climatic shifts, and improving technologies.

Climatic change at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition

Global temperatures warmed substantially as the Pleistocene closed and the Holocene began.

Cultural adaptation following the Younger Dryas

Sedentary groups responded to ecological changes by cultivating wild cereals to boost environmental productivity.

Key characteristics of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic

Demographic shifts and the cultivation of early domestic crops, including rye, lentils, and einkorn wheat.

First animal species domesticated in Southwest Asia

Goats and sheep, around 9500 BC.

Three primary methods of animal domestication

Constraining movement, regulating breeding, and controlling feeding.

Key socio-cultural consequences of early farming

Technological innovations, sedentary villages, trade networks, monumental architecture, organized religion, warfare, and social inequality.

Architectural correlation between house shapes and social organization

Round houses indicated egalitarian, communal arrangements; rectangular/square houses reflected modular, regimented, and compartmentalized organization.

Agricultural (Neolithic) transition

A prolonged, gradual shift toward food production and permanently settled village communities.

The Natufians

A population in the Fertile Crescent who settled near fields and cultivated wild cereals approximately 8,000 years ago.

Archaeological significance of Jericho

An early agricultural settlement composed of roughly 70 dwellings and 1,000 inhabitants, evidencing reliance on farming.

Epidemiological consequences of early agricultural settlements

Dense settlements, degraded sanitation, and close livestock contact accelerated infectious disease transmission.

Zoonoses

Infectious diseases that naturally transmit between vertebrate animals and humans.

Major infectious diseases associated with early farming populations

Tuberculosis, measles, smallpox, influenza, and bubonic plague.

Linguistic anthropology

The discipline utilizing linguistic history and reconstruction to evaluate ancient cultures, including Neolithic societies.

Cognates

Words across distinct languages that share an ancestral root and common origin.

Protolanguage

A reconstructed, hypothetical ancestral language from which historically documented languages derive.

State (political anthropology)

A centralized, hierarchical political apparatus possessing institutional power and the formal authority to enforce laws.

Hierarchical society

A social structure wherein individuals are stratified into ranked classes, orders, or grades.

Elites

High-ranking individuals in stratified societies who hold disproportionate access to wealth, resources, and authority.

Civilization associated with Karl Wittfogel’s irrigation theory

Ancient Egypt along the Nile River.

Carneiro’s circumscription theory

A framework explaining primary state formation as the product of environmental and geographic constraints combined with warfare.

Topographical features illustrating geographic circumscription in the Inca state

Steep Andean mountain barriers, exemplified by the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu.

Mesoamerican civilization associated with the Valley of Oaxaca

The Zapotec.

Urbanization

The socio-demographic process of city development, settlement consolidation, and population growth.

Hallmarks of the Urban Revolution

The growth of dense cities, systematic agrarian surpluses, craft specialization, and formalized record-keeping.

Socio-economic function of an agricultural surplus

Sustained non-food-producing specialists, civic officials, and growing urban populations.

Geographic location of the ancient city of Uruk

Southern Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq.

Historical significance of Uruk

An early Mesopotamian urban center central to the development of the Urban Revolution.

Geographic location of Harappa

The Indus Valley, in modern-day Pakistan.

Historical significance of Harappa

A major planned urban center that exemplified early urbanization within the Indus River Valley.

Economic behavior

Human social actions centered around the production, distribution, circulation, and consumption of material goods.

Household (economic unit)

A cooperative domestic unit that pools labor and material resources to satisfy everyday needs.

Reciprocity

A non-market mode of exchange involving mutual give-and-take governed by cultural expectations and social ties.

Exchange system

A structured cultural framework determining how goods, labor, symbols, and knowledge pass between social actors.

Foundational importance of food sharing in human evolutionary history

The primary form of reciprocity vital for nutritional risk buffering and collective survival.

Subsistence factors promoting food sharing among early humans

Unpredictable foraging and high-package food sources necessitated collective labor and division of tasks.

Role of language and identity in prehistoric food-sharing networks

Enabled the formation of alliances, social obligations, and safety nets extending outside immediate bands.

Generalized reciprocity

Exchange characterized by giving without calculating monetary value or demanding immediate return.

Balanced reciprocity

A direct exchange wherein a return of equivalent value is explicitly or culturally expected within a specified timeframe.

Barter

The direct trade of commodities or labor between parties without the intervention of money.

Negative reciprocity

An exchange orientation in which one party attempts to maximize personal gain at the expense of the other.

Three primary modes of economic exchange

Reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange.

Market (economic institution)

A physical or virtual setting where buyers and sellers exchange commodities, labor, and currency through price mechanisms.

Dual economic roles of money in market economies

Functions as a standardized medium of exchange and a unit of account.

Labor

Productive human exertion, spanning physical, social, emotional, and intellectual effort.

Capitalism

A market-oriented economy where private ownership of capital generates profit via wage labor and commodity consumption.

Commodification

The socio-economic process by which goods, labor, or ideas not previously traded become objects of market exchange.