Final Exam Studying Flashcards
Agency
The capacity of a person to think for themselves and control their life choices.
Anthropological Perspective
Evolutionary, holistic, and comparative methods applied to the study of humans.
Cultural Adaptation
A belief or behaviour that allows an organism with culture (especially humans) to better thrive in its environment.
Cultural Relativism (Boas)
All cultures are equally valid and each can be understood only in its own context.
Ethnocentrism
Evaluating other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one’s own culture.
Emic
Insider’s view
Etic
Outsider’s view
Enculturation
The process by which child learns his or her culture
Ethnicity
Shared culture, language, and history.
Race
A term used to describe varieties or subspecies of a species; inaccurately used to refer to human differences
Worldview
The way a group understands and interprets the world; includes all aspects of its culture.
Biological Anthropology
Looking at humans as biological organisms, including evolution and contemporary variation.
Includes human biology, Primatology, Palaeoanthropology, and forensic anthropology.
Examples of applied biological anthropology: DNA analyst, epidemiologist, ergonomics (product developer)
Cultural Anthropology
The study of living people and their cultures, including variation and change.
Examples of applied cultural anthropology: business (market research), poverty reduction, community development, disaster planning/management.
Linguistic Anthropology
Study of communication, mainly among humans, including origins and contemporary variations
Examples of applied linguistic anthropology: Supporting Indigenous language efforts, forensics linguistics
Archaeology
The study of past human cultures through their material remains.
Examples of applied archaeology: cultural resource management, museums, historical sites, and historic preservation.
Applied Anthropology
Anthropology put to use.
Involves the use or application of anthropological knowledge to help solve sovial problems or to shape and achieve policy goals.
Anthropological methods, theory, and perspectives to solve human problems.
Dependence Training
A type of enculturation in which the family unit is prioritized over the individual.
Independence Training
A type of enculturation in which the individual is prioritized over the family unit.
Attributes of Dependence Training
Extended families
Collective/Communal
Sharing of resources
Attributes of Independence Training
Nuclear families
Modernization/Industralizatist countries where moving to cities for jobs is required
Individualistic
Lens of Anthropology
- Holistic
- Evolutionary
- Comparitive
- Qualitative
- Focused on linkages
- Focused on change
- Done through fieldwork
Maladaptive
Cultural practices that are harmful or not productive for a culture’s survival in the long run.
Ex. Female Genetal Mutation
Measuring Adaptive vs. Maladaptive (x5)
Health
Demographics
Goods + Services
Order
Enculturation Efficiency
American Anthropological Association (AAA) Code of Ethics
Anthropological work is dependent on trust
Weigh the possible impacts of the work and strive to do no harm.
Participant Observation
Method in which the anthropologist lives among a people for an extended period of time.
Methods of Participant Observation (x6)
Formal interviews
Informal interviews
Life histories/Oral histories
Case studies
Kinship Data
Photography
Ethnoecology
Looks at the interactions of a group of people has with its natural environment.
Focus on Indigenous concepts of food, medicine, or ritual.
Culture
The learned things that people:
Cognition: What we think
Behaviour: What we do
Artifacts: What we have
Attributes of Culture (x4)
Learned
Shared
Symbolic
Holistic
Contemporary Exigency of Anthropology
1) Help people suffering from epdiemics, natural disasters, and conflict
2) Research and planning for sustainability, climate change, food security and space exploration
Human
At minimum, Homo sapiens, alhtough most anthropologists define it as any member of the genus homo or biological family Homininae.
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)
The collective and cumulative knowledge that a group of people has gained over many generations living in their particular ecosystem.
May be used positively or negatively (when removed from context)
Example Components of Culture that Interact
Subsistence, diet, technology, communication, settlement patterns, economic systems, social systems, political systems, ideology, arts, health, and healing.
Archaeological Record
Starting as early as 3.5 million years ago (2.5 million years ago) until (in BC) 1846.
Varied definitions.
The material remains of the human past and present, through evolutionary, holistic, and comparative perspectives.
Artifact
Objects that have been deliberately and intelligently shaped by human or near-human activity.
Ecofact
Plant and animal remains used to make inferences about palaeo-environments and diet.
Botanical and faunal.
Assemblage
A group of artifacts related in some way - usually by being found in the same context.
Feature
A nonportable object or patterning created by people and recognized archaeologically, such as a fire hearth.
Site
Any location where there is physical evidence of past human activity.
Foodways
The methods, knowledge, and practices regarding food in a particular society.
Garbology
Archaeological inquiry into current/contemporary waste disposal practices.
Helps with real behaviours versus ideal behaviours in sample collections.
Helps with sustainability issues.
Midden
A discrete accumulation of refuse, stratified cultural deposits.
Absolute Dating
Dating specific ages or age ranges.
Radio-carbon dating, potassium-argon dating.
Relative Dating
Dating based on “younger” and “older” than.
Typology, stratigraphy, association.
Archaeological Biases
Affect what is considered important to study and how evidence is interpreted.
Inorganic materials, abandoned trash sites, male bias, East Africa and Europe.
The Palaeolithic
Upper Palaeolithic: measured in tens of thousands of years - Homo Sapiens
Middle Palaeolithic: measured in hundreds of thousands of years - Neanderthals/Homo Sapiens
Lower Palaeolithic: measured in millions of years - hominid development
Major Cultural Developments of the Lower Palaeolithic
First evidence of culture, in the form of tools (oldowan)
Probable control of fire, dependence on hunting, and meat eating, acheulean hand ax.
Stratigraphy
Examines accumulation of sediments in layers (strata).
Relating to law of superposition.
Radio-Carbon Dating
All living things contain carbon-14. The rate it decays at begins at the instant of death and is known.
Best for dating ecofacts less than 50, 000 years old.
Archaeological Visibility
Influenced by factors like presrevation conditions and landscape visibility.
Ethnoarchaeology
Uses both archaeological and ethnographic research to study present-day societies in order to understand the formation of archaeological sites.
Finding Paleoanthropological Sites
Looking in places where human remains have already been found (Great Rift Valley - East Africa)
Targeting sites where sediments from the time period of interest are exposed.
The Human Fossil Record
Interpretation of history based on data of collected remains
The assemblage of remains (very little in total)
Why do teeth preserve the best?
Contains dentin in the enamel.
Mandible preserves second best because it is thick.
Taphonomy
Study of what happens to organic remains after death.
Knowledge of natural/cultural causes that leave behind physical attributes to fossils.
Hominins
All members of Homo genus and taxa with evidence of habitual bipedalism that emerged since split of common ancestors with chimps/bonobos.
Major Cultural Developments of the Middle Palaeolithic
Advances in stone tool technology (lithic), territorial expansion.
Spears
Perhaps deliberate burials, art, and jewlery.
Advancement into northern latitudes.
Major Cultural Developments of the Upper Palaeolithic
Undisputed evidence of burials, art, and jewlery.
Invention of the atlatl.
Atlatl
Throwing spear
Invented in the Upper Palaeolithic.
Modes of Studying Palaeolithic Diets (Neanderthals)
Ecofacts (the foods)
Artifacts (the means)
DNA (blood on tools, plaque on teeth)
Coprolites
Neolithic
New Stone Age
10,000 to 5,000 years ago
Hearth
A discrete area where people controlled fire.
Base Camps
Discrete areas with physical evidence that people were temporarily occupying a place for resource processing or habitation.
Artifacts and ecofacts (specific patterns), butchering activities, lithic tools and bones.
Habitation Sites
Areas with physical evidence indicating that people were living there, at least temporarily.
May include evidence for processing sites.
Resource Processing Sites
Areas where physical remains indicate that people were harvesting (hunting, gathering, scavenging) and/or processing resources (for food or artifact manufacture).
Coprolites
Preserved (human) feces.
Good indicator of diet.
Factors Enabling Territory Expansion
control/use of fire
bipedalism
social systems
clothing
Types of Tools Found
Lithic (stones for cutting)
Oldowan
Acheulean
Sharpened sticks/spears
Atlatl
Bows and arrows
Venus Figure Interpretations
Sexual objects
Ritual, charm, totem
Art, self-portrait
Consequences of Controlling Fire (x6)
Territory expansion
Consumption of food (biological changes)
Ritual and religion
Social interactions, communication
Technological advances (materials and tools)
Subsistence actvities (burning feilds and time spent at habitation sites)
Neolithic Revolution
Settlement of North America
Transition to Food Production
Settlement and Technology
Social and Political Systems
Writing and Art
Agriculture
Intensive Cultivation
A farming technique that can support a large population, using advanced tools and irrigation, and requiring more preparation and maintenance of the soil.
Prehistory
Referring to the time period vefore written records or human documentation.
Places writing systems on a pedastol.
Issues of chronology - when was writing actually started.
Harmful terminology rooted in colonialism
Pastoralism
Domestication of animals
Small variety of animals - maintaining variety of plants.
Larger, more permanent settlement.
Horticulture
Domestication of plants
Small variety of plants, large variety of animals.
Larger, more permanent settlement.
May include Swidden Cultivation and crop rotation through migration.
Advantages of Domestication
A food surplus to increase the carrying capacity of a region.
A more sedentary lifestyle so that people can use/accumulate more goods.
The food surplus and sedentary lifestyle can encourage food storage for food shortages
Disadvantages of Domestication
Less leisure time than a foraging lifestyle.
People tend to have poorer nutrition and more diseases.
A larger population and sedentary lifestyle increases the likelihood of interpersonal conflict.
Consequences of Domestication
Reduced mobility
Creation of surplus and demand cycle
Foraging
Wide variety of foods
Social activity with small egalitarian groups
Mobile (Seasonal sites)
Symptoms of Domestication of Plants
Usable part of the plant is larger
Lost natural dispersal mechanism
Usable part of the plant is clustered
Genetic change
Loss of dormancy
Plants ripen simultaneously
Less self-protection (thorns, toxins)
Symptoms of Animal Domestication
Smaller animal size
More complete skeletons in the faunal assemblage
High percentage of young male animals in assemblage
High percentage of old females in the assemblage
Pastoralist Community
Tribe w/ Big Man
Villages each have an official/unofficial Big Man
fewer than a few thousand people.
Leadership achieved
Semi-sedentary.
Nomadic
Sexual division of labour
Horticultural Community
Chiefdom
Smaller groups, similar to tribe.
Larger groups (chiefdom) using a strict heirarchy (having more objects) based on heredity.
Taxes of goods or labour is paid to leader.
Populations could reach tens of thousands.
Sedentary locations; relocating when local resources are exhausted.
Sexual division of labor.
General and balanced reciprocity.
Swidden Cultivation
Agricultural Community
States
Living in large settlements (sedentary)
Connected by roads, trades, etc.
Social inequalities
Evidence of infrastructure
Redistribution allowing for specialization
Government
Taxes (redistribution of resources)
Military
Associated with market economy
Foraging Community
Bands
Low social density
Sexual division of labor
Egalitarian
Lack of specialization and ownership
Cooperative and operating within reciprocity.
Nomadic
Fertile Crescent
Modern day Syria and Northern Iraq
Birth place of agriculture and sedentism (living in one place for a long time).
Coastal Migration Route/Kelp Highway
People came down from Beringia along the coast of Alaska and British Columbia.
Using boats and walking along the coast line.
Ice-Free Corridor Route
A separation of two glaciers divding, creating an ice-less path towards the south.
North Atlantic Route
Solutrean Hypothesis
Traveling across the North Atlantic southward down the glacian environment of eastern Canada .
Beringia
A large, ice-free area connecting northern Asia to northwest North America during the last ice age.
Ceramics
Baked clay (pottery) beginning in the Upper Paleolithic.
Result of food surpluses and the creation of cities.
Not suited for nomadic lifestyle - bulky, heavy, fragile.
Mesopotamia
First considered state (civilization).
Agricultural base
State-level political orginization.
Monumental architecture
At least one city
Writing (cuneiform)
Ancient One/Kennewick man
Discovered on Columbia River in 1996.
Radiocarbon dating 9800 years old.
Found on military property, traditionally Native American land (Umatilla).
Were the oldest human remains found in North America.
Assumed to be a settler, perpetuating white-supremacist conspiracy theories, and preventing ownership/rights to remains and data.
State
Lots of people living together in two or more large settlemetns (connected by roads, trade, etc.)
Evidence of infrastructure
Reliance on food producers
Jobs
Government to manage resources
Taxes to redistribute goods
Military forces (protection and policing)
NAGPRA
Native American graves Protection and Repatriation Act
Federal US law that provides the protection and return of Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony.
Return to lineal descendents, to the tribe on whose land they were discovered or to the tribe that has the closest cultural affiliation and which makes a claim.
Occam’s Razor
The explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct.
Bioarchaeology
The study of human remains in archaeological context.
Study of any biological remains from an archaeology site.
Pareidolia
Ancient phenomenon where triggers evolved pattern recognition loops in the brain.
Recognizing images out of things that they aren’t.
Tuned to find faces.
Has affects on archaeological findings - fossilised fragments of ammonites resemble bison.
Rosetta Stone
A slab of basalt on which are inscribed three different kinds of writing; providing the key for deciphering Egyptian heiroglyphs.
Explanations for the collapse of Civilizations
Ecolgoical
Social/Political
Ideological
City
A settlement having at least 5,000 residents.
Empire
When one state dominantes or exercises control over others.
Identified by the commingling of cultural traditions and connecting road systems.
Repatriation
The return of the cultural property, often referring to ancient or looted art, to tehir country of origin or former owners (or their heirs).
Pseudoarchaeology
Archaeological claims or conclusions which are fake, fraudulent or fantastical and not rooted in Science or History.
Assumptions, conclusions based on elimination.
Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI)
Sort by species, than by unique element.
Industrialism
Methods of producing food and goods using highly mechanized machinery and digital information.
World Heritage List
List, maintained by UNESCO, of cultural and natural heritage sites that have outstanding universal value.
Benefits and problems exist (p. 175-176).
Experimental Archaeology
Recreating hypothesized situations to test theories.
Ex. Eating a whole shrew to see how many bones survive the digestion process.
Subsistence
Food procuremnet; basic food needs for survival
Modes of Exchange
Reciprocity
Redistribution
Market Exchange
Economic Anthropology
How goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed.
Concerned with foodways and natural resource distribution.
Social Density
The measure of interpersonal conflicts caused by number of people in community.
Less with foraging communities.
Reciprocity
Social rules governing the specialized sharing of food and other items.
Gifts create a social, political, and economic relationship that is relatively fragile.
Generalized Reciprocity
A form of specialized sharing in which the value of a gift is not specified at the time of exchange, nor is the time of repayment.
Leveling Mechanism
A social and economic obligation to distribute wealth so that no one member of a group accumulates more than anyone else.
Cargo System
A political and religious system among the Maya in which adult males must serve the community in a volunteer position for at least one year.
An example of a leveling mechanism.
Swidden Cultivation
Slash-and-burn
Preparing a plot of land by clearing fast-growing trees and other plant material from an area and burning the debris directly in the plot.
Ash provides soil nutrients.
Social Distance
How well people know each other, or live alongside one another.
Minimal social distance increases reciprocity.
Redistribution
Goods and money flow into a central entity (governmnet or religious institute) which organizes and allocates them back to the citizens.
Means of taxes and tribute are used.
Tribute
Items that are required by a central governing body at regular intervals, in addition to or in lieu of taxes.
Food items or material goods.
Market Economy
Law of supply and demand sets the rates for food and other goods, which must be traded or purchased according to a set price.
Based on the use of money.
Special-Purpose Money
Only used to measure the value of things in the marketplace.
Only use is symbolic in market.
Multipurpose Money
Commodity money
Practical items that can both be used to symbolically measure market prices as well as having a practical use.
Negative Reciprocity
The seller decieves the buyer as to the real value of the object.
Functions of Industrialist Foodways (x7)
Organization and management
Power of machinery
Effectiveness of chemical inputs
Monoculture and GM crops
Confined animal feeding operations (CAFO)
Negative effect on environment.
Associated with a market economy.
Nutrition Transition
The shift in diet and associated health problems (including obesity) related to using industrialist foodways.
Related:
Decrease level of nutrition
Emphasis on quantity of food
Domestication decreasing health and dental hygiene
Rise of unproven fad diets.
Balanced Reciprocity
A form of exchange in which the value of goods is specified as well as the time frame of repayment.
Subsitence Strategy Affects
Carrying capacity
Mobility
Social distance and density
Development of social mechanisms
Family Types
Nuclear (neolocal)
Extended (descent)
Universal Kinship Rules
- Kinship systems involve structures that support the care of infants and children.
- Marriage exists in different forms.
- Gendered labour that plays out in kinship arrangements.
- Rules about incest.
Affinal
Related by marriage.
Consanguineal
Related by blood.
Nurturance
Non-blood relationships based on mutual caring and attachment.
Fictive
Includingnon-blood relations in the family with all the expectations of a blood-related family member.
Individualist Family Structure (x6)
Individual as primary unit.
Emphasis on happiness, fulfillment, self-expression.
Early independence encouraged
Variable roles, achieved status
Spousal bond emphasised
Autonomous decisions expected
Collectivist Family Structure
Family as primary unit
Family relationships, responsibiities, and harmony
Continued interdependence on family
Heriarchical family roles, ascribed status
Parent-child bond emphasised
Collective decisions for family and children
Marriage
Social process that:
Transforms status
Regulates sex
Perpetuates social patterns
Creates relationships between the kin of partners
Symbollically marked
Purposes include:
Sex, Labor, Children
Exogamy
Marrying outside one’s own group
Endomagy
Marrying within one’s own grop
Homogamy
Marrying someone of similar background (social status, aspirations, and interests)
Unilineal Descent
Only one line of descent is recognized.
Matrilineal and patrilineal.
Bilateral Descent
Tracing of descent equally through both parents.
Patrilineal Descent
Kinship is traced through the male line.
Men control power and prroperty.
Pastoralist and agricultural economies.
Typically patrilocal (family settles in husbands home)
Matrilineal Descent
Kinship is traced through the female line.
Women control land and products
Associated with horticultural economies
Typically matriloca.
Not a mirror image of patrilineality
Neolocal Residence Patterns
A residence pattern in which a husband and wife move to their own houshold after marriage.
Gender
A person’s internal experience of their identity as male, female, both, or neither, as well as the expression of that identity in social behavior.
Polyandry
The marriage practice of having two or more husbands at the same time.
Polygamy
The marriage practice of having two or more spouses.
Polygyny
The marriage practice of having two or more wives at the same time.
Serial Monogamy
The marriage practice of taking a series of partners, one after the other.
Sexual Orientation
The romantic or sexual attraction to another person.
Sexuality
Romantic or physical attraction to another person.
Two-Spirit
An indigenous person who identifies as a thrid-gender occupying a role between males and females with characteristics of each.
Bride Price
When the husband’s family compensates teh bride’s family for essentially “losing” a daughter.
Including the support, labor, and bearing children for thehusband’s family line.
Dowry
When the bride’s family essentially gives the newlyweds or the husband’s family her share of an inheritance, depending on the cirumstances.
Walking-With
A decolonial activity that requires one to honour Indigenous paradigms in a way that is built on reciprocity and mutuality, walking and listening, talking and doing.
Two Eyed Seeing
Being able to find commonalities between Indigenous and settler Anthropological terminology to carry-out Indigenized research that is recognized by the Settler Anthropological community.
Health Literacy
An individual’s ability to access, understand, evaluate, and communicate information to promote, maintain and improve health in various life course settings.
Social Activism Aligned Research
Conducting research with the intention of promoting positive social change, or investigating an issue prevalent to oppressed communities.
Practice and action
Social stratification
The ranking of members of society into a hierarchy
Discrimination
Systemic racism, race, gender, colorism, etc.
Naturalising Discourses
Discourse that has become commonsensical even though it has actually been framed by the values and beliefs of a given social group.
Intersectionality
A metaphor for understanding the ways tha tmultiple forms of inequality compound themselves and create obstacles not often understood among conventional ways of thinking.
Social Mobility
The ability of members of society to rise in social class
Ascribed Status
A social role of a person that is fixed at birth
Achieved Status
A social role a person achieves due to work and opportunity
Caste
A hierarchical system based on birth; most commonly associated with Hindu India
Class
A form of social stratification based on differences in wealth and status.
Guilt Culture
A culture that focuses on one’s own sense of right and wrong and the punishment that can result from breaking the rules.
Internalized controls
Impulses that guide a person toward right behavior based on a moral system.
Power
The ability to compel another person to do something that he or she would not do otherwise.
Prestige
The positive reputation or high regard of a person or other entity merited by actions, wealth, authority, or status.
Ranked Society
A society in which prestige and authority are inherited through families
Shame Culture
A culture in which conformity to social expectations stems from wanting to live up to others’ expectations
Sodality
Group that brings people together through common concerns, age, or interests
Racialization
Conscious labelling of an individual or group on teh basis of traits within the context of social heirarchies.
Racism
Ideology present throughout all aspects of society
Colorism
System of social identities negotiated situationally along a continuum of skin colours between white and black.
Can be explicit or implicit.
Community-based Participatory Research
Researchers and community members collaborate as equal partners in all steps, goals related to social change.
Engaged Anthropology
Working collaboratively, rather than hierarchically with people.
Public Anthropology
Study of the stuff tha tpeople outside of academia care about.
Coercive
Changing someone’s behavior through physical force (stick)
Persuasive
Chanign someone’s behaior thorugh argument. Specifically, a reward. (carrot)
Internalized Controls
Impulses that guide a person toward right behvior based on a moral system.
Externalized Controls
Rules that regulate behavior by envouraging conformity to social norms; may be negative (punishments) or positive (rewards).
Uncentralized System
A political system with no cnetralized governing body in whcih decisions are made by the community.
Cultural Materialism
Elman Service
How a society’s organization is based on environment-specific adaptations.
(forms in response to what adaptations are necessary to survive)
Anthropology of Religion
Study religions, institutional, Indigenous, new Age, and secularism.
Study how they intersect with identity, politicis, rituals, economics, and beliefs.
Supernatural
Describes those aspects of life that re outside a scientific understanding and that we cannot measure or test; religious.
Rituals
A symbolic practice that is ordered and regularly repeated.
Rites of Passage
Rituals makring life’s important transitions from one social or biological role to another.
Syncretism
A synthesis of religious belief systems.
Example: Modern postural yoga
Religion
A set of beliefs and behaviors pertaining to supernatural forces or beings that transcend the obervable world.
Religious Revitalization Movement
A process by which an oppressed group seeks supernatural aid through the creation of new ritual behaviors.
Animism
The belief that spirit beings can inhabit natural objects. These objects are understood to be that spirit.
Animatism
The belief that supernatural forces reside in everyday things. These forces are not understood as physical beings and are impersonal.
Predeterminism
All events of history, past, present and future have already been decided or are already known.
Anthropocene
Beginning in the 1950s
The geological and environmental era in which humans have drastically and undeniably altered the planet as a whole.
Sometimes placed with the beginning in the industrial revolution.
Closed-loop System
A system that has finite reources and cannot sustain indefinite growth.
Community-based Participatory Research
Researchers and community members collaborate as equal partners in all steps, goals related to social change.
Environmental Racism
A form of systemic racism whereby communities of colour are disproportionately burdened with health hazards.
Food Sovereignty
The people who produce, distribute, and consume food also control the mechanisms and policies of food production and distribution.
Globalization
The integration of economic, social, political, and geographic boundaries in complex chains of interconnected systems and processes.
On food: Complex network means high-income countries benefit, where producing low-income countries suffer
Three Pillars of Sustainability
Social (ability of social systems to provide for the needs of their people to a healthy standard)
Environment
Economic (ability to support indefinite growth)
Concentric Model of Sustainability
Demonstrates the need of the environment as underlying to social and economic sustaimability.
Participatory Action Research (PAR)
The community’s needs and goals are identified through a process of participant observation and consultation.
External impacts can be analyzed, and solutions are found collaboratively
Determinism
The limitations of the environment determine people’s behavior.
Locavore
A diet that emphasizes foods produced in one’s local community.
Flexitarian
Seeking out fresh and ethically sourced foods without following a strict set of rules.
Seventh Generation
Haudenosaunee peoples believe that people today are stewards of future resources of the plane for the seventh generation to come.
Tragedy of the Commons
Cattle herders in the feild who get more cattle for themselves.
Not universally applicable.
Cultural Ecology
Based on the idea that people and culture are shaped by, and depend on, the specifics of their environment.
Food-getting directly affects all aspect of life - culture core
