Chapter 1

Question 1

**Anthropology

Answer 1

The study of human nature, human society, and the human past.

Question 2

**Holism

Answer 2

A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that describes how anthropology tries to integrate all that is known about human beings and their activities at the highest and most inclusive level.

Question 3

**Comparative

Answer 3

A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to consider similarities and differences in as wide a range of human societies as possible before generalizing about human nature, human society, or the human past.

Question 4

**Evolution

Answer 4

A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to place their observations about human nature, human society, or the human past in a temporal framework that takes into consideration change over time.

Question 5

**Culture

Answer 5

Sets of learned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society. Human beings use culture to adapt to and to transform the world in which they live.

Question 6

**Biocultural Organisms

Answer 6

Organisms (in this case, human beings) whose defining features are codetermined by biological and cultural factors.

Question 7

Races

Answer 7

Social groupings that allegedly reflect biological differences.

Question 8

Racism

Answer 8

The systematic oppression of one or more socially defined races by another socially defined race that is justified in terms of the supposed inherent biological superiority of the rulers and thesupposed inherent biological inferiority of those they rule.

Question 9

**biological anthropology (or physical anthropology)

Answer 9

The specialty of anthropology that looks at human beings as biological organisms and tries to discover what characteristics make them different from other organisms and what characteristics they share.

Question 10

primatology

Answer 10

The study of nonhuman primates, the closest living relatives of human beings.

Question 11

paleoanthropology

Answer 11

The search for fossilized remains of humanity’s earliest ancestors.

Question 12

**cultural anthropology

Answer 12

The specialty of anthropology that shows how variation in the beliefs and behaviors of members of different human groups is shaped by sets of learned behaviors and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society-that is, by culture.

Question 13

Sex

Answer 13

The cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex.

Question 14

Gender

Answer 14

Observable physical characteristics that distinguish two kinds of humans, females and males, needed for biological reproduction.

Question 15

Fieldwork

Answer 15

An extended period of close involvement with the people in whose language or way of life anthropologists are interested, during which anthropologists ordinarily collect most of their data.

Question 16

Informants

Answer 16

People in a particular culture who work with anthropologists and provide them with insights about their way of life. Also called respondents, teachers, or friends.

Question 17

Ethnography

Answer 17

An anthropologists written or filmed description of a particular culture.

Question 18

Ethnology

Answer 18

The comparative study of two or more cultures.

Question 19

Language

Answer 19

The system of arbitrary vocal symbols used to encode ones experience of the world and of others.

Question 20

**linguistic anthropology

Answer 20

The specialty of anthropology concerned with the study of human languages.

Question 21

**Archaeology

Answer 21

A cultural anthropology of the human past involving the analysis of material remains left behind by earlier societies.

Question 22

applied anthropologists

Answer 22

Specialists who use information gathered from the other anthropological specialties to solve practical crosscultural problems.

Question 23

medical anthropology

Answer 23

The specialty of anthropology that concerns itself with human health-the factors that contribute to disease or illness and the ways that human populations deal with disease or illness.