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117 Cards in this Set
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Biology anthropology
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physical anthropology; human biological diversity in time and space, with focus on biological variation; focus on 1) human evolution as shown in fossil record (paleoanthropology), 2) human genetics, 3) human growth and development, 4) human biological plasticity, and 5) biology/evolution/behavior/social life of monkeys/apes/primates
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Cultural anthropology
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study of human society and culture; describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains social and cultural similarities and differences; engage in ethnography (providing info on a culture) and ethnology (examines results of ethnography)
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Archaeological anthropology
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reconstructs, describes, and interprets human behavior and cultural patterns through material remains; study of prehistory; excavation
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Linguistic anthropology
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studies language in its social and cultural context, across space and over time, including interrelations between language and culture
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What does it mean for anthropology to be Holistic?
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Anthropology is holistic because it is a study of the whole of the human condition: past, present, and future; biology society, language and culture
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all-encompassing
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culture includes all forms of culture—both high culture and popular culture (comic books and book-award winners)
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integrated
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it is an integrate, patterned system; if one part changes, all other parts are affected; also integrated by sharing core values that distinguish one culture from other cultures
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learned
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human cultural learning depends on symbols (signs that have no necessary or natural connection to the things they signify); transmitted through observation
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shared
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culture transmitted in society, interacting with many
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symbolic
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bestowing meaning on a thing or event, to grasp and appreciate such meaning; usually linguistic
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acculturation
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exchange of cultural features that result from continuous first hand contact; parts of cultures change but they remain distinct (ex: Pidgin English)
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diffusion
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borrowing of traits between cultures
Direct – two cultures trade or wage war Forced – when one culture subjugates another and imposes customs on dominated group Indirect – when items/traits move from A to C via B w/o direct contact between A and C |
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independent invention
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process by which humans innovate, creatively finding solutions to problems
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assimilation
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process of change that a minority ethnic group may experience when it moves to a country where another culture dominates
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enculturation
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process by which a child learns his or her culture
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revitalization movements
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social movements that occur in times of change, in which religious leaders emerge and undertake to alter or revitalize a society
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emic
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investigates how local people think
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etic
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how anthropologists view the local culture; what they see as outsiders as important
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cultural relativism
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viewpoint that behavior of one culture should not be judged by the standards of another culture
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ethnocentrism
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tendency to view one’s culture as superior and to apply one’s own cultural values to judge the behavior and beliefs of others raised in other cultures
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romanticism
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opposite of ethnocentrism, elevating other cultures above your own
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fieldwork
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spending a year or more in another society, living with local people and learning about their way of life
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key consultants/informants
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people who by accident, experience, talent, or training can provide the most complete or useful information about particular aspects of life
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genealogical method
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well-established ethnographic method; procedures by which ethnographers discover and record connections of kinship, descent, and marriage, using diagrams and symbols
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longitudinal research
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long-term study of a community, society, culture, or other unit, usually based on repeated visits
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Mead/Freeman Debate basics
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“nature vs. nurture”, Mead believed that the teen angst and rebellion in American teens were due to the repressive sexual nature of American society and these were absent in Samoan culture, which was more sexually open; Freeman called doubts to her original research and her nurture theory, choosing to believe his own biological nature theory
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Participant Observation
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characteristic ethnographic technique, taking part in the events one is observing, describing, or analyzing
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call systems
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systems of communication among nonhuman primates, composed of a limited number of sounds that vary in intensity and duration; tied to environmental stimuli
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creole/pidgin language
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pidgin (based on English and native languages, develop in situations of acculturation, when different societies comes into contact and must devise a system of communication); Creole (matured pidgin language with developed grammatical rules and native speakers, in which Creole is their first language)
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cultural transmission
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basic feature of language; transmission through language
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diglossia
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existence of “high” (formal) and \“low” (familial) dialects of a single language (ex: German)
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displacement
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linguistic capacity that allows humans to speak of things and events that are not present
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focal vocabulary
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set of words and distinctions that are particularly important to certain groups (those with particular foci of experience/activity), such as types of snow to Eskimo or skiers
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historical linguistics
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subdivision of linguistics that studies language over time
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Kaluli "hardening of language"
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viewed as a form of development into an adult for children; “soft” is considered helpless language used to beg and whine; toddlers learn “hard” language to ask for things, this way they will begin to share
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kinesics
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study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures, and facial expressions
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lexicon
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vocabulary, dictionary containing all the morphemes in a language and their meaning
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protolanguage
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language ancestral to several daughter languages
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productivity
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the ability to use the rules of one’s language to create new expressions comprehensible to other speakers; basic feature of language
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style shifts
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variations in speech in different contexts
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Symbolic Capital/Domination
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ex: linguistic practices that properly trained people may convert into economic and social capital; value of a dialect depends on the extent to which it provides access to desired positions in the labor market; even people who don’t use the prestige dialect accepts its authority and correctness, its “symbolic domination”; linguistic forms, which intrinsically lack power themselves, take on the power of the groups they symbolize
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Cultural Capital
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non-financial assets that involve educational, social, and intellectual knowledge provided to children who grow up in non-wealthy but highly-educated and intellectually-sophisticated families
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Culture of Terror (Bourgois)
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cruelty as an integral part of running Ray’s illegal business, regular displays of violence in order to prevent rip-offs by colleagues, customers, and professional hold-up artists
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Ethnicity
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identification with and feeling part of, an ethnic group and exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation
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Race
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an ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis
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Discrimination
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policies and practices that harm a group and its members
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Prejudice
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devaluing (looking down on) a group because of its assumed behavior, values, capabilities, or attributes
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Phenotype
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an organism’s evident traits, the “manifest biology”—physiology and anatomy, including skin color, hair form, facial features, and eye color
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Racial categories in Japan:
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- 10% of Japan’s population are minorities (aboriginal Ainu, burakumin, children of mixed marriages, and immigrant nationalities like Korean)
- racial attitudes are like “intrinsic racism”—belief that a (perceived) racial difference is sufficient reason to value one person less than another - valued = pure Japanese who share “the same blood” - “not us” = minority, cultural mechanisms are used to keep minorities “in their place” like residential segregations and taboos on “interracial marriages - burakumin – 4 million outcasts like the Indian untouchables – perceived to have a biological basis, residentially segregated, considered unclean, ancestors were a part of an outcast group who did unclean jobs—they still do so in the present, class-stratified |
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Racial categories in Brazil:
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- no hypodescent despite history of slavery, no racial aversion
- racial identity is flexible, an achieved status - racial terms are based on physical characteristics (which change frequently) - Brazilian settlers came without wives, recognized their mixed children as heirs, mixed offspring were allowed to fill important roles in society so no hypodescent rule was developed |
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Racial categories in U.S.
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- each person acquires racial identity at birth due to hypodescent rule
- to be considered Native American, one ancestor out of eight or four may suffice |
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Hypodescent
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a rule that automatically places the children of a union or mating between members of different socioeconomic groups in the less privileged group
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Multiracial Category
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attempt at adding a “multiracial” category to the American census for people of multiple races to check rather than the minority box that is according to hypodescent rules
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Multiculturalism
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view that cultural diversity in a country as something good and desirable
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Anthropometry
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measurement of human body parts and dimensions, including skeletal parts (osteometry)
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Molecular Anthropology
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Uses genetic analysis (of DNA sequences to assess evolutionary links; through this, evolutionary distance among living species can be estimated
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Osteology
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study of bones
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Paleoanthropology
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study of human evolution through the fossil records, human paleontology
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Paleopathology
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study of disease and injury in skeletons from archaeological sites
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Taphonomy
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study of the processes that affect the remains of dead animals
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Relative dating
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time frame in relation to other strata or materials rather than absolute dates in numbers
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Absolute Dating Techniques
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dates in numbers; carbon 14 – technique used to date organic remains, measures radioactive decay of 14C to 12C, with death, the absorption of 14C stops, takes 5,730 years for half of 14C to change to nitrogen, by measuring the proportion of 14C, can measure the fossil’s date of death, but the short half-life makes measurements of organisms older than 40,000 years difficult to estimate; potassium-argon – 40K is a radioactive isotope that breaks down into argon-40 (gas), half-life is 1.3 billion years, can only be used to measure inorganic remains like rocks or minerals, older = better, can measure volcanic activity
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Systematic survey
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provides regional perspective by gathering information on settlement patterns over a large area
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Excavation
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scientists recover remains by digging through layers of deposits that make up a site
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Uniformitarianism
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belief that explanations for past events should be sought in ordinary forces that continue to work today
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Analogies
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similarities arising from a result of similar selective forces; traits produced by convergent evolution
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Homologues
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similarities that organisms of the same taxon have jointly inherited from a common ancestor, similarities used to assign them in the taxon
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Balanced Polymorphism
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2 or more forms, such as alleles of the same gene that maintain a constant frequency in a population from generation to generation; those with heterozygous sickle cell anemia genes are better suited to survive malaria-stricken areas in Africa
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Catastrophism
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belief that extinct species were destroyed by fires, floods, and other catastrophes; after each destructive event, God created again, leading to contemporary species
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Dominant
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allele that masked another allele in a heterozygote
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Recessive traits
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genetic trait masked by a dominant trait
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Gene Flow
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exchange of genetic material between populations of same species through direct or indirect interbreeding
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Genotype
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organism’s hereditary makeup
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Homozygous
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possessing identical alleles for a particular gene
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Heterozygous
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having dissimilar alleles of a given gene
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Independent Assortment
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chromosomes are inherited independently of one another
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Mutation
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change in the DNA molecules of which genes and chromosomes are built
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Natural Selection
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Darwin & Wallace; process by which nature selects the forms most fit to survive and reproduce in a given environment
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Skin color variation
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due to differing cell production of melanin in skin; higher levels are produces by the melanin cells of darker-skinned which offers more protection against UV rays of sun (protect against sunburn and skin cancer); melanin cells of lighter-skinned produce less to screen out less of the sun to get more of the vitamin D and prevent rickets, which can be detrimental to women and interfere with childbirth
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Random Genetic Drift
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change in allele frequency due to chance, not natural selection; most common in small populations
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What basic “trends” distinguish primates from other mammals?
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- grasping due to opposable thumbs, leading to bipedality
- smell to sight, evolution shifted the brain’s focus on smell and devoted more to sight - nose to hand, evolution shifted the brain’s sense of feeling from the nose to the hand - brain complexity, more focus on memory, thought, and association, proportion of brain size to body size is bigger than most animals - parental investment, offspring receive more learning opportunities, learned behavior becomes an important part of primate adaptation - sociality |
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In what general ways have prosimians evolved in different ways than anthropoids?
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- Prosimians are also in the primate order, but are a different suborder. They managed to survive to present day because some were nocturnal, thereby not competeing with the anthropoids, which were active in the day. Examples are lemurs of Madagascar. Their diets and times of activity differ from anthropoids.
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What three prosimians did we talk about?
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- lemurs
- tarsiers - lorises |
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Basic social characteristics of gibbons
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live in primary groups (permanently bonded male and female and their pre-adolescent offspring)
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social - orangutans
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tend to be solitary, tightest social units consist of females and preadolexcent young, males forage alone
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social - gorillas
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live in social groups consisting of multiple males and females and their offspring, mostly 10-20 although 30 is possible, tend to have stable membership, each troop has a silverback male that denotes full maturity and is usually the only breeding male
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social - chimps
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communities of up to 50 chimps, they regularly split up into smaller groups of a mother and her offspring, a few males, males and females and young, and occasionally solitary animals
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social - bonobos
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live in female-centered, peace-loving, and egalitarian communities, males are bonded closely to their mothers for life, use sex to avoid conflict
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What kind of a habitat did our distant chimp ancestors inhabit? (what kind of habitats are there? e.g.. arboreal, terrestrial, nocturnal, diurnal)
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- arboreal (living in trees), diurnal (active during the day)
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General differences between arboreal and terrestrial primates?
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- arboreal: smaller to reach greater variety of foods in trees and shrubs, lithe, agile to escape predators
- terrestrial: large to intimidate, more marked sexual dimorphism - also sexual dimorphism (marked differences in male and female anatomy and temperament) |
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What is brachiation?
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- hand-over-hand movement through the trees
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What do examples of primate homologies indicate?
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- we all share a common ancestor
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Which monkeys have flat noses and which have sharp noses?
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- Old World have sharp noses
- New World have flat noses |
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Which monkeys have prehensile tails? Which do not?
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- New World monkeys have prehensile tails
- Old World monkeys do not |
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And which primates have no tails at all?
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- Apes, humans
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Of the non-human primates, with which do we share the most recent common ancestor?
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- great apes – chimpanzees and gorillas
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Features of mosaic evolution in hominins (defining features of the hominin line?)
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- bipedalism (upright two-legged locomotion)
- brains, skulls, and childhood dependency; brain and skull grows rapidly in child development - tools - teeth, adaptation to the savanna with its fibrous vegetation made big back teeth an advantage |
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Causes and effects of increase in brain size?
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- cause: tendency toward larger brain size due to natural selection
- effect: larger birth canals, most of brain and skull development occurring after birth |
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Causes and effects of bipedality
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- cause: adaptation to open grassland or savanna habitat, the ability to see over long grass, to carry items back to home base, to reduce the body’s exposure to the sun’s radiation, to act as a look-out for predators when foraging, reduce the heat from the sun and catch the breeze
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Basic early hominin chronology/ taxonomy (know the basic order of appearance, not exact dates). When does it begin? When does the Homo genus appear?
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1) Ardipithecus (5.8 mya) – scant fossil record, bipedal, ape-like features
2) Australopithecus anamensis (4.2 mya) – new hominin genus, larger than Ardipithecus, large back molars, bipedal 3) Australopithecus afarensis (3.8-3 mya) – large back molars but ape-like canines, brain size similar to chimps, bipedal, “Lucy,” discovery that vipedalism preceded increased brain size 4) A. africanus (3-2.5 mya) – gracile (slighter skeletal features), trend toward larger back molars -> suggestion that environment included a lot of heavy duty chewing 5) A. Boisei (2.6-1.2 mya?) – found in East Africa, part of Robust Australopithecines, was robust as well 6) A. Africanus (2-1 mya?) – found in South Africa, part of Robust Australopithecines, much larger features, evolved a “sagittal crest,” very flared cheek bones, head structure supported significant muscle for chewing 7) Homo habilis (2 to 1.7 mya) – only found in Africa, resembles Robust Australopithecines, they were moved into the Homo genus due to discovery of the Oldowan tools 8) Homo erectus (1.7 mya to 300,000 BP) – brain size dramatically increased, more fine tuned tools (Acheulian), used fire, first to be discovered outside of Africa (also in) because of mirgration to Europe and Asia 9) Archaic Homo Sapiens (300,000 to 28,000 BP) – found in Africa, Europe, and Asia, brain size comparable to modern humans 10) Neanderthal mystery (130,000 – 28,000 BP) – found first in Germany’s Neander valley, large features, adapted to cold environments, large cranial capacity, very advanced Mousterian tools, lived in shelters, buried their dead 11) Homo sapien sapiens (130,000 to present) |
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Which hominins lived only in Africa, and which was the first to migrate out of Africa? Where did they go?
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- Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, and Homo habilis were only in Africa
- Homo erectus was the first to migrate out of Africa, into Europe and Asia |
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Rough outline of evolutionary prehistory of robust and gracile Australopithecus
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- robust came from gracile, however both had significant sexual dimorphism
- gracile had slighter skeletal features, trend toward larger back molars, suggesting that their environment required heavy duty chewing, such as very fibrous vegetation - robust had much larger features, developed a sagittal crest, flared cheek bones, very large molars, large lower jaws, head structure supported significant muscle chewing |
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What skull characteristics distinguish the “robust” from “gracile” Autralopithecines
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- robust: sagittal crest, large lower jaw, flared cheek bones, larger features
- gracile: large back molars |
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What is a sagittal crest? Zygomatic arch? What do they suggest about diet?
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- sagittal crest: ridge of bone running lengthwise along the skull, indicates expectionall strong chewing muscles
- zygomatic arch: bone above the cheek - they suggest a heavily fibrous vegetation diet that required a lot of chewing |
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Did Homo overlap with other hominins?
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- Homo overlapped with the Australopithecines, particularly A. robustus and A. Boisei
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Which hominin species are associated with Oldowan tools? Acheulian? Mousterian? Which
Basic Neanderthal characteristics (broadly, what is the Neanderthal debate about?) |
- H. Habilis – Oldowan tools
- H. Erectus - Acheulian - Neanderthals – Mousterian - Neandethals had large features, were adapted to cold environments, had large cranial capacity, had very advanced tools compared to H. erectus, lived in shelters, bured their dead - Neanderthal debate: some believe that they are a separate species from Homo sapiens because the anatomical differences between the two are so big and because the Neanderthals exhibited cultural behaviors completely unlike others in the Homo genus; however, the discovery of Lucy’s baby, which died 3,000 years after the disappearance of Neanderthals, exhibits Neanderthal traits, suggesting they were a part of his ancestry; however genetic studies have found that we are all desciended from a group that came fron Africa 150,000 years ago, when the Neanderthals were already in Europe, appears that humans and Neanderthals evolved independently |
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Multiregional Evolution Theory
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- Multiregional Evolution theory: gradual evolution of modern humans based on gene flow, modern humans are a result of a slow transformation into the contemporary form
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Out of Africa Theory
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- Out of Africa theory: based on mtDNA, modern humans are a new hominin species evolved in Africa 130,000 years ago, spread out, and replaced/killed/colonized the other living archaic H. Sapiens, and H. Neanderthals
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Broad Spectrum Revolution
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- Kent Flannery; period of time during which a wider range or broader spectrum of plant and animal life was hunted, gathered, collected, and fished; revolutionary because in the Middle Easte, led to food production—human control over the reproduction of plants and animals
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Natufian culture
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- widespread Middle Eastern culture, dated between 12,500 and 10,500 BP; subsisted on intensive wild cereal collecting and gazelle hunting and had year-round villages
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“sedentism”
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- settled (sedentary) life; preceded food production in the Old World and followed it in the New World
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Precipitating factors of domestication in the Middle East?
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- warmer, more humid conditions that led to increased area of wild wheat and barley, allowing a longer harvest season with larger available foraging area
- drier conditions led to a decrease in wild cereal habitats, leading the Natufians to try to maintain productivity by trying to cultivate their own fields - Natufians needed a place to store all of their grain, sedentary village life began as a result; also the existence of animals and basic plants nearby were further encentives - population pressure to produce - movement of people, animals, and products between zones; people carrying seeds to new regions |
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What phases did food production go through?
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- After the Ice Age, there was greater regional and local variation in climatic conditions. In Hilly Flanks, this led to sedentism; the Natufians had year-round villages and collected wild cereals and hunted gazelles. At this time, there was an expanded altitude range of wild wheat and barley in 3 zones. Around 11,000, there was a second climate change to drier conditions. Natufians had to transfer wild cereals to well-water areas, where they started cultivating. Food production began in the piedmont steppe, rather than in the optimal zones. In the hilly flanks, wild wheat grew in abundance, people now needed to stay close to store their grain. Prior to domestication, favored Hilly Flanks had the densest human population. This pressure forced people in marginal zones to become food producers
- Middle Eastern economies grew more specialized toward crops and herds. 7000 BP, irrigation systems were developed with improvements in 6000 BP. |
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How many places was it agriculture independently invented?
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Seven: Eastern United States, Mesoamerica, Sub-Saharan Desert, Andean region, Middle East, Southern China, Northern China
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What is domestication?
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- process by which a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control
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Basic differences between the invention of agriculture in the Old World and the New World?
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- Old World: domestication occurred in the marginal zones, where there was dependable rainfall
- New World: domestication occurred in South America’s tropical lowlands, maize domestication took place in Mexican lowlands |
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What are the costs and benefits of food production?
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- reduction of plant diversity
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