ANTH 1000 - Ch. 18

Question 1

ecosystem

Answer 1

a system, or a functioning whole, composed of both the natural environment and all the organisms living within it

Question 2

cultural evolution

Answer 2

cultural change over time; not to be confused with progress

Question 3

progress

Answer 3

the notion that humans are moving forward to a better, more advanced stage in their cultural development toward perfection

Question 4

convergent evolution

Answer 4

in cultural evolution, the development of similar cultural adaptations to similar environmental conditions by different peoples with different ancestral cultures

Question 5

parallel evolution

Answer 5

in cultural evolution, the development of similar cultural adaptations to similar environmental conditions by people whose ancestral cultures were already somewhat alike

Question 6

culture area

Answer 6

a geographic region in which a number of societies follow similar patterns of life

Question 7

culture core

Answer 7

cultural features that are fundamental in the society’s way of making its living - including food-producing techniques, knowledge of available resources, and the work arrangements involved in applying those techniques to the local environment

Question 8

food foraging

Answer 8

hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plant foods

Question 9

carrying capacity

Answer 9

the number of people that the available resources can support at a given level of food-getting techniques

Question 10

Neolithic

Answer 10

the New Stone Age; prehistoric period beginning about 10,000 years ago in which peoples possessed stone-based technologies and depended on domesticated plants and/or animals

Question 11

Neolithic revolution

Answer 11

The profound cultural change beginning about 10,000 years ago and associate with the early domestication of plants and animals and settlement in permanent villages

Question 12

horticulture

Answer 12

cultivation of crops carried out with simple hand tools such as digging sticks or hoes

Question 13

slash-and-burn cultivation

Answer 13

an extensive form of horticulture in which the natural vegetation is cut, the slash is subsequently burned, and crops are thenm planted among the ashes; also knowns as swidden farming

Question 14

agriculture

Answer 14

the cultivation of food plants in soil prepared and maintained for crop production. Involves using technologies other than hand tools, such as irrigation, fertilizers, and the wooden or metal plow pulled by harnessed draft animals

Question 15

pastoralism

Answer 15

breeding and managing large herds of domesticated grazing and browsing animals, such as goats, sheep, cattle, horses, llamas, or camels

Question 16

peasant

Answer 16

a rural cultivator whose surpluses are transferred to a dominant group of rulers that uses the surpluses both to underwrite its own standard of living and to distribute the remainder to groups in society that do not farm but must be fed for their specific goods and services in turn

Question 17

agribusiness

Answer 17

large-scale businesses involved in food production, including farming, contract farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, distribution, processing, and marketing. Also known as corporate farming, it stands in contrast to smaller family-owned farms