Module 1: Anthropology - Quick Reference Notes

American Culture: Structure and Environment

  • SUPERSTRUCTURE

    • Worldview

    • Value Independence, Individualism

    • Self-expression, Choice, Freedom, Convenience and Personal Responsibility

  • SOCIAL STRUCTURE

    • Social Organization

    • Representative Democracy

    • Individual Rights & Laws

    • Love Marriage, Nuclear Families

    • High Mobility

  • INFRASTRUCTURE

    • Economy

    • Industrial / Post-industrial

    • High Division of Labor

    • Consumerist Market Economy

  • ENVIRONMENT

    • Capitalist Global Economy takes the whole earth as its environment

The four fields of anthropology

  • Sociocultural anthropology = living societies; ethnography (e.g., Wesch with the Nekalimin in New Guinea)

Ethnography in key ethnographers

  • Margaret Mead and two Samoan girls (1926) – Coming of Age in Samoa

  • Michael Wesch and Nekalimin man

The four fields of anthropology (summary)

  • Sociocultural anthropology = living societies; ethnography

  • Biological anthropology = human evolution, modern primates, human variation, disease

  • Linguistic anthropology = language and language use

  • Archaeology = past cultures

  • Note: classes about and professors for all four fields at JMU

Anthropological archaeology

  • The “past tense” of sociocultural anthropology

  • Archaeology done to answer anthropological questions

Goals of anthropological archaeology

  • Reconstruct culture histories (what happened when)

  • Look for patterns in development of human institutions (cross-cultural similarities)

  • Understand unique attributes of individual cultures (differences)

  • Find and understand factors that determined the course of human history

  • Apply knowledge of the past to present-day problems

The challenge: translating material remains to lived past

  • 1) Remains are partial, fragmentary, and often disturbed by later cultures

  • 2) Reason from Evidence → Inferences about past behavior

  • 3) Inferences are theories; disagreement possible

  • 4) We can never REALLY KNOW what happened

What is evidence? What is inference?

  • Evidence: objective data such as site layout, maps, replicable data (counts/weights), dates (radiocarbon), stratigraphy

  • Inferences: statements about past human behavior

Example: an inference about subsistence

  • Inference: “Rabbits, especially jacks (Lepus spp.), dominate the faunal assemblages from all time periods and probably comprised the bulk of all animal protein consumed by the Hohokam” (Masse 1991)

  • Question: How valid is this inference? What alternative inferences exist?

Evaluating the inference and alternatives

  • Assumptions: bone quantity on sites directly reflects protein intake

  • Alternative: other animals used for food were butchered away from sites; large animal bones may be rare on sites

  • Evidence to consider: processing marks, context, distribution of bones, use-wear on bones, tools, fur, etc.

Revised interpretation considerations

  • If rabbits were abundant because bones were used for tools or fur for clothing, expect evidence of processing and secondary use

  • Alternative inference: rabbits abundant due to consumption; verify with processing evidence and context