Chapter 1 - What is Anthropology & The History of Evolutionary Thought

Question 1

What are the 7 subfields of Physical Anthropology?

Answer 1

Osteology (study of skeletal material both inside and outside archaeological contexts)

Forensic Anthropology (the study of anthropology in a legal context)

Medical Anthropology (the study of human health and disease, healthcare systems, and biocultural evolution)

also, Nutritional anthropologists (study diet, cultural practices, physiology, and health.)

Molecular Anthropology (uses information from genetic material of living people to answer questions about how people developed in the past, and where variability originates from, also studies non-human primates to compare genetic material)

Paleoanthropology (study of anatomical and behavioural evolution as revealed in the fossil record)

Paleoprimatology ( the study of the evolutionary history of FOSSILIZED non-human primates (trying to find the earliest levels of human evolution and where homo sapiens originated)

Primatology(the study of non-human primates)

Question 2

What is Physical Anthropology?

Answer 2

Physical Anthropology is the study of human biology within the framework of evolution, with an emphasis on studying biocultural interactions.

Question 3

What is biocultural evolution?

Answer 3

Interactions between biology and culture in evolution. Over time, culture influenced many aspects of our biology, and likewise, aspects of our biology influenced cultural practices.

Question 4

What is Culture?

Answer 4

Culture - Behavioural aspects of human adaptation, including technology, traditions, religion, and social rules. Culture is a set of learned behaviours transmitted from one generation to the next by NONBIOLOGICAL means.

Question 5

Name the four main subfields of Anthropology.

Answer 5

Cultural Anthropology
Linguistic Anthropology
Archaeology
Biological Anthropology or Physical Anthropology

Question 6

What is Cultural Anthropology and what is an Ethnography?

Answer 6

Cultural Anthropology is the study of patterns of belief and behaviours found in modern and historical cultures. An Ethnography is a detailed descriptive study of human societies, traditionally the study of a non-Western society.

Question 7

What is Linguistic Anthropology?

Answer 7

Linguistic anthropology focuses on the relationship between human speech and language and different aspects of culture. Linguistic anthropology also explores the origins of language.

Question 8

What is Archaeology? (One of the major subfields of anthropology)

Answer 8

Archaeology is the study of earlier cultures. It is overall more focused on cultural remains of humans in the past, such as cave paintings or pottery, rather than human skeletal remains. (Osteology is the study of bones, paleoarchaeology is fossilized humans, bioarchaeology is stuff related to humans in archaeological context)

Question 9

Define the two subdivisions of Archaeology.

Answer 9

Prehistoric Archaeology is the study of human culture BEFORE written record. (cave people, hunter-gatherers)

Historic Archaeology is the study of human culture AFTER written record (Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia)

Question 10

Define the first two subdivisions of Archaeology.

Answer 10

Prehistoric Archaeology is the study of human culture BEFORE written record. (cave people, hunter-gatherers)

Historic Archaeology is the study of human culture AFTER written record (Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia)

Question 11

Define the third subdivision of archaeology.

Answer 11

BIOARCHAEOLOGY. It is the study of human and animal remains in an archaeological context. Animal remains are also studied to gain information about human behaviour, like the remains of domesticated animals. (difference between paleontology and bioarchaeology is that paleontology is FOSSILS, and bioarchaeology is other stuff too that isn’t fossilized)

Question 12

The FOURTH subdivision of archaeology???

Answer 12

Cultural Resource Management - the safeguarding of archaeological sites to preserve the past.

Question 13

What are all four subdivisions of archaeology?

Answer 13

Prehistoric Archaeology (before written record)
Historic Archaeology (after written record)
Bioarchaeology (study of human/animal remains as it relates to archaeology)
Cultural Resource Management (preservation)

Question 14

What is the difference between Paleoanthropology, Bioarchaeology, Osteology, and Paleontology)

Answer 14

Paleoanthropology - The study of fossils as it relates to anthropology

Bioarchaeology - The study of human remains from archaeological sites, including domesticated animals

Osteology - the study of bones

Paleontology - the study of fossils

Question 15

What did people believe in the 19th century in relation to the history of animals and the earth?

Answer 15

• God made the earth relatively recently
• changes to the earth’s surface are the result of large catastrophes like earthquakes and floods - CATASTROPHISM
• fixity of species - living things do not change through time
• fossils can be explained away

Question 16

What is Uniformitarianism?

Answer 16

Uniformitarianism is the principle that states that geologic processes that occur today are similar to those that have occurred in the past, James Hutton and Charles Lyell

Question 17

What is Catastrophism?

Answer 17

Catastrophism is the belief that the earth’s surface was shaped by natural disasters and catastrophes, popularized by Georges Cuvier

Question 18

Define “Natural Selection”

Answer 18

Genetic changes in the frequencies of certain traits in populations due to differential reproductive success between individuals.

Question 19

Define “Natural Selection”

Answer 19

Genetic changes in the frequencies of certain traits in populations due to differential reproductive success between individuals.

Question 20

Who popularized catastrophism?

Answer 20

Georges Cuvier

Question 21

Who were the two people who popularized uniformitarianism?

Answer 21

James Hutton first suggested that the earth was a self-regulating system, then Charles Lyell argued that geological processes today were the same as those in the past, and proposed the idea of “deep time,” which provided the necessary time frame for geological processes to shape the earth.