Ch. 1 -- Encountering The Past

Question 1

Adapted

Answer 1

The state of being biologically capable or culturally prepared to survive in a given environment

Question 2

Anthropological linguistics

Answer 2

Subfield of anthropology that focuses on language

Question 3

Anthropology

Answer 3

The study of humanity

A broad social science with varied foci on human biological and cultural adaptations, human origins, and biological and cultural evolution as well as modern cultures

Question 4

Archaeological site

Answer 4

A place where people lived and/or worked and where the material objects that they made, used, lost, or discarded can yet be recovered and analyzed

Question 5

Archaeology

Answer 5

The study of humanity through the analysis of the material remains of human behavior: the study of the things that people made and used in the past and that have fortuitously preserved

Archaeologists often focus on human cultural evolution

Question 6

Artifact

Answer 6

Any object manufactured by a human being or human ancestor

Usually defined further as a portable object like a stone speak point or clay pot to distinguish it from larger more complex archaeological features

Question 7

Catastrophist

Answer 7

An adherent to the perspective that he current appearance of the earth can be best explained as having resulted from a series of natural catastrophes

Question 8

Creationist

Answer 8

One who believes that the universe, the earth, life, and humanity are the product of the creation of an all-powerful God

Question 9

Cultural evolution

Answer 9

Posits ordered change through time among cultures

Cultures change in response to changes in their physical and cultural cultural environments, as well as through the development of new technologies

Question 10

Culture

Answer 10

The invented, taught, and learned patterns of behavior of human groups

The extrasomatic (beyond the body or beyond the biological) means of adaptation of a human group

Question 11

Erosion

Answer 11

The disintegration and transportation of geological material by wind, water, or ice

Question 12

Ethnographer

Answer 12

Cultural anthropologist who lives among a group of people or a cultural group. Interacts with them on a daily basis, often for an extended period of time, observing their behavior

Question 13

Ethnology

Answer 13

The comparative study of culture

Question 14

Evolution

Answer 14

Systematic change through time of biological organisms or human cultural systems

Question 15

Forensic anthropologist

Answer 15

A biological anthropologist who specializes in the identification of the human skeleton, often in the investigation of a crime

Question 16

Holistic

Answer 16

Relating to or concerned with complete systems rather than with individual parts

Question 17

Integrative

Answer 17

Serving to integrate or favoring integration

Question 18

Multilineal evolution

Answer 18

The view that there are many pathways of change a culture may take over the time span of its existence

Cultures experience ordered change, but there is no single pathway that all cultures take

Question 19

Natural selection

Answer 19

The process proposed by Darwin for how species evolve

Those individuals in a species that possess advantageous characteristics are more likely to survive and pass down those characteristics than are other individuals that do not possess those advantages

Question 20

Paleoanthropology

Answer 20

Anthropological study of the evolution of our species

Paleoanthropologists study the skeletal remains and cultures of ancient hominids

Question 21

Primate

Answer 21

Members of the taxonomic order Primates

Animals possessed of grasping hands and feet, stereoscopic vision, and relatively large brains (in proportion to body size). Most, but not all primates have nails instead of claws, tails, and an arboreal adaptation

Question 22

Primatologist

Answer 22

A person who studies primates: prosimians, monkeys, or apes

Question 23

Stratigraphic

Answer 23

Related to the geological or cultural layer in which something has been found

Stratigraphic layering represents a relative sequence of geological time and/or cultural chronology

Question 24

Stratigraphy

Answer 24

Related to the geological or cultural layer in which something has been found

Stratigraphic layering represents a relative sequence of geological time and/or cultural chronology

Question 25

Three-age system

Answer 25

Chronological breakdown of the history of human culture into a Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age

(J.C. Thomsen)

Question 26

Uniformitarianism

Answer 26

The belief that the appearance of the earth could best be understood as resulting from the slow action of known processes over a very long period of time

Allowed for a great age of the earth

Question 27

Unilineal evolution

Answer 27

The no longer accepted view that all cultures change or evolve along the same pathway, usually one of increasing complexity

Question 28

Weathering

Answer 28

The decomposition and disintegration of rock, usually at or near the earth’s surface

Question 29

Adaptation

Answer 29

Mode or strategy for survival

Can be a physical characteristic or cultural behavior