Unit 2: Thinking like a Social Scientist

What are the 3 types

Archeologists: Discover human remains that may be more than 2,500 years old.

Cultural and social anthropologists: study culture and societies from around the world;

Archaeology: study of human societies through what they have left behind as their material remains;

Ethnography and ethnology: study and analysis of people from around the world through fieldwork and participant-observation

 Primatologists: Study the maternal relationship in primates.

Physical or biological: the study of human evolution and human biology;

Paleoanthropology: the study of human and primate evolution through the study of fossilized remains;

Primatology:study of primates including gorillas, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs;

Forensic anthropology: the study of human remains by applying anthropological expertise

Linguistic anthropology: the study of human language with specialized methods developed to record and analyze languages worldwide.

Where does the word anthropology come from?

the Greek words “anthropos” (humans) and “logia” (study).

Who is Charles Darwins and What are Darwins 4 condtions?

An Anthropologist

1. Individuals within a population differ; they are some different features in populations of the same animals.

2. Differences are passed from parents to offspring

3. Some individual are more successful at surviving and reproducing than others

4. Successful individuals succeed cause of traits that have inherites and will pass onto their offspring.

Who is Jane Goodall and what were her discoveries?

Primatologist who studies chimpanzees

• Chimpanzees make and use tools

• Chimpanzees hunt and eat meat

• Chimpanzees wage war

• Chimpanzees have strong mother/infant bonds

• Chimpanzees show compassion

What is physical anthropology

the social science dedicated to studying human beings from biological and behavioural perspectives. Physical anthropologists study human beings and human behaviour by examining primates and extinct hominid ancestors and determining how we, as a species, have adapted to our environment and have evolved into who we are today.

Cultural anthropology

the study of past and present societies and the language, traditions, customs, and behaviour that make them unique. Cultural anthropology also makes comparisons between societies to help understand human behaviour better.

What are the 7 aspects of culture?

1. Social organization: structure for how a group of people lives together. It is how a society divides up responsibilities, keeps order, and decides who is connected to whom so that daily life runs smoothly.

2. Language culture: studying how people’s language connects to their culture, including their beliefs, traditions, communication, and way of life.

3. Customs and Traditions: usual ways of behaving and beliefs that a group of people passes down through generations.

4. Arts and Literature: studying how people’s art, stories, music, and writing reflect their culture and way of life.

5. Religion: the study of people’s beliefs, rituals, and religious practices and how they influence their culture and way of life.

6. Form of Government: The way a society is organized and ruled, including who has power and how decisions are made.

7. Economic System: how a society produces, distributes, and uses goods and resources.

• Assimilation: occurs when groups with different heritages are absorbed into the dominant culture of a society.

• Acculturation: occurs when a minority group in a society adopts the main culture’s way of life, but still retains unique cultural markers of things like food, customs, language, etc.

• Diffusion: is the spread of cultural influence between individuals and groups. Diffusion can occur with things like food, language, clothing, customs, philosophies, religion, and technologies.

• Multiculturalism: is a belief that all cultures are of equal value. It can also be a policy that promotes and protects diversity in a culture by honouring multiple ethnicities, languages, religions, and cultural customs

Morality is the collection of social rules that uphold the good - like what to do with the dead.  

Ethics is the idea behind the rules - like one should honour the dead in some way. 

What’s Postmodernism?

The belief that truth is shaped by culture and society, and that anthropologists cannot be completely objective.