Chpt 1- Final Flashcards
a uniquely human means of nonbiological adaptation, a repertoire of learned behaviors for coping with the physical and social environments
Culture
What are the three parts of culture?
- infrastructure
- superstructure
- structure
What are the three goals of Anthropology?
- holistic
- Global
- Comparative
what are the 4 subfields of Anthropology?
- Cultural Anthropology
- Biologicial Anthropology
- Linguistic Anthropology
- Archaeology
Fieldwork: participant observation, culture shock, ethnography & ethnology
Cultural Anthropology
Fieldwork: Human Biological variation, human evolution, primatology, human growth & development, and behavior, health & disease.
Biological Anthropology
Fieldwork: human linguistic variation, historical linguistics, evolution of language, ethnography of speech, socio-linguistics.
Linguistic Anthropology
Fieldwork: cultural history, reconstruct past life ways, study culture process, pattern of long term social change.
Anthropological Archaeology
The study of human past, combining the themes of time and change.
Archaeology
any object or item created or modified by human action
Artifact
a basic law of geochronology, stating that in any undisturbed sequence of rocks deposited in layers, the youngest layer is on top and the oldest on bottom, each layer being younger than the one beneath it and older than the one above it. - Law of things on top
The Law of Superposition
Potassium-Argon Dating Potassium-Argon dating is the only viable technique for dating very old archaeological materials. Geologists have used this method to date rocks as much as 4 billion years old. It is based on the fact that some of the radioactive isotope of Potassium, Potassium-40 (K-40) ,decays to the gas Argon as Argon-40 (Ar-40). By comparing the proportion of K-40 to Ar-40 in a sample of volcanic rock, and knowing the decay rate of K-40, the date that the rock formed can be determined.
Potassium -Argon Dating
40-K/40AR
half life- that breaks down into Argon
term for any human or ape, past or present characterized by teeth shape, absence of tail, and free swinging arms.
Hominoid
term for human, chimpanzee, & gorilla members of primates, both fossils & living forms.
Hominin
Old term sometimes used for humans and bipedal ancestors
Hominid
What are the biological skeletal differences between a general quadruped and a hominin biped?
The skeletal is designed for upright walking.
They walk on two legs as opposed to 4.
The brain is larger, we have a pronounced nose, small flat teeth and lack the large pronouncing canines. we lack fur and have more sweat glands than hair follicles.
the characteristics of being human.
upright posture
larger brains
short and broad ilium on humans/ long and narrow on chimpanzee
the use of tools
Australopithecus afarensis
4.2 -2.8mya- Hadar Omo Laetoli(site)
Cranial Cap- 380-500cc/ average was 400cc
3’6 at 50lb for female/ 100lb for males
large teeth, pointed canines, hint of crest
long arms, short thumbs, curved fingers and toes-bipedal.
is relatively rare. This is the form of bipedalism that is assumed as a regular (i.e., habitual) means of locomotion. Today, only humans and birds demonstrate habitual bipedalism. However, many early hominins (i.e., a classification term that includes modern humans and all their bipedal fossil relatives) show a combination of characteristics that indicate both habitual bipedalism and some arboreal behavior.
Habitual Biped
Suspensory behavior, exhibited by primates and sloths, is a form of arboreal locomotion or a feeding behavior which involves hanging or suspension of the body below or among the branches, rather than moving or sitting on top of the branches.
Arboreal Behavior
a method of assigning archaeological dates in calendar years so that an age in actual number of years is know or can be estimated. allows us to speak about how long ago events took place.
absolute dating
allows us to establish sequence of events, but don’t permit us to speak of duration, so no superposition, or cross-dating, magnetic reversal
relative dating
the oldest fossils
ardipitheus
how do we date sediments containing fossils?
arcaheofaunal dating and chronological type artifacts
an absolute dating technique based on the principle of decay of the radioactive isotope of potassium, also know as potassium-argon dating.
radiopotassium dating
A type of stone artifact produced by removing a piece from a core through chipping.
Flake
The process of making chipped stone artifacts; the striking of stone with a hard or soft hammer.
Flintknapping
A large, teardrop-shaped stone tool bifacially flaked to a point at one end and a broader base at the other.
handaxe
The mineralized bone of an extinct animal.
Fossil
The human method of locomotion, walking on two legs.
Bipedalism