Chapter Two Flashcards
Anthropology has long been concerned with…
the study of culture
What are the characteristics of culture? (3)
- learned
- shared
- symbolic
What are the two basic ways to study culture?
- ideational perspective: culture as ideas (or symbols of shared ideas, knowledge, and meanings)
- adaptation perspective: culture as adaptation (or response to the material parameters of life such as technology, subsistence, settlement, social organization)
Describe the Kwakwaka’wakw Potlatch from an ideational and adaptation perspective. (4)
- competitive feasts of complex indigenous fishing-hunting-gathering societies in the Pacific Northwest Coast
- high-ranking family/families host a multi-day feast that expresses conspicuous consumption
- ideational: goal is to express the idea of prestige; who has it and who doesn’t
- adaptation: goal is to spread wealth, gain allies, gain labor; increased prestige offers material benefits for rank-and-file villagers
Science is…
a systematic body of knowledge about a field
What are the characteristics of a scientific approach? (6)
- empirical and objective
- systematic and explicit
- logical
- explanatory and predictive
- self-critical and based on testing
- public
What are the steps of the scientific method? (6)
- define a question
- establish one or more hypotheses
- empirical implications of the hypotheses or deriving predictions as logical consequences
- collect appropriate data through observation and/or experimentation
- test the hypothesis by comparing these data with expected implications
- reject, revise, and/or retest hypotheses as necessary
Who made the ancient North American mounds found in the colonial frontier? (4)
- colonial settlers/farmers: lost race
- Ephraim Squier/Edwin Davis: Aztecs
- Thomas Jefferson: Indians/Indigenous groups
- Cyrus Thomas: Indians/Indigenous groups
Describe the different aspects of scientific reasoning. (5)
- hypothesis: idea proposed as an explanation of some phenomenon
- inductive reasoning: working from specific observation to more general ideas or hypotheses
- deductive reasoning: reasoning from theory to predict specific observational or experimental results; expressed as “if … then” statements
- testability: degree to which one’s observations and experiments can be reproduced
- implications of the hypothesis must be measurable in some way with the same results obtained by different observers
What are some characteristics of science? (4)
- scientific method is cyclical, not linear
- scientific cycle begins and ends with facts
- science is subject to false starts, dead ends, preconceived notions, and cultural biases
- the goal of science is to create knowledge
What is theory?
explanation for observed, empirical phenomena
What is low-level theory?
observations and interpretations from objects archaeologists collect and excavate in the field; essentially transforming objects such as artifacts, features, and ecofacts from archaeological investigations into data
What is middle-level theory?
hypothesis that links archaeological measurement with human behavior or natural processes that made them
What is high-level theory?
theory that seeks answers to the big “why” questions in archaeology
What is culture history?
describing things and answering questions of “when” and “where”
