Lecture 2 Flashcards
When was anthropology developed
during the Age of Enlightenment (14th-17th century)
Describe the origins of anthropology
Prior to formalization: religious texts were the only source of information on ancient human past (Archbishop James Ussher:4004 BC, Rabbinical estimates: 3700 BC)
Origins of Museums
“Cabinets of curiosities”
Created by aristocracy of Europe
Private collections of natural and cultural objects
Not scientific based
Only accessible to elites
What was the British Museum
First public museum founded in 1753
Many items taken without permission of the groups who owned
them or the national governments
* British were the colonial power in the region
* Increased calls for repatriation
* Stemming from both Indigenous groups and nations
Who was Charles Darwin
Put forward the idea of human evolution
Introduced the idea of natural selection
What is natural selection
- Populations have a diversity of traits
- Some traits more advantageous to survival in a particular environment
- What traits are advantageous can change with environmental change
- What is best adapted changes – no such thing as a “superior” trait
What is evolutionism
- Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881)
- Conducted fieldwork in North America
- League of the Iroquois (1851)
- Unilineal evolution
- Cultures pass through progressive stages
- Stages are marked by technological and social structures
Progress through the stages is inevitable
ethnocentrism - Three stages
Three stages of evolutionism
Savagery: Fire, bow and arrow, pottery, Nomadic hunter/gatherer subsistence
Barbarism: Agriculture, animal domestication, metalworking, sedentary
Civilization: Alphabet, writing, state society
how did evolutionism justify colonialism and assimilation
- Not cultural genocide
- Aiding the inevitable advancement of culture to its highest form
How did we depart from evolutionism
- Later theorists departed from the concept of inevitable unilinear
cultural development - Began to adopt ideas of cultural relativism
- Salvage anthropology
What is cultural relativism
- Examining cultures on their own terms and not within a predetermined
ranking system - Recognize the uniqueness of individual cultures
What is salvage anthropology
- Anthropologists viewed Indigenous societies as “living laboratories”
where they could potentially understand European culture history - Thought that Indigenous societies would disappear
- Needed to be recorded
Who was Franz Boas
- Franz Boas (1858 - 1942)
- “Father of American
Anthropology” - Baffin Island
- Northwest Coast
What is historical particularism
- Originated in United States
- Relativism
- Culture is unique
- Culture and culture change not result of inevitable evolutionary
progression: Traits develop for any number of reasons, independent invention, stressed role of diffusion - Focus on historical inquiry
- Limited to a culture or a cultural area
- Understood culture and traits through reconstruction of history
- Original fieldwork
- Insider (emic) perspective
- Data collection
- Basis for conclusions - not preconceived theories
- Avoid generalizations and comparisons
- Favored “Thick Description”
How was archaeology developed
- Occurred concurrently with the development of anthropological
theory - Earliest excavations took place at mound features in what is now
the eastern United States - 18 to 230 metres in diameter, up to 18 metres high
- Speculated that they were constructed by the Lost Tribe of Israel
- Excavated by Thomas Jefferson
- Proof of Indigenous origin
- Mississipian Culture
- Burials or locations of prominent residences or religious sites
how do the indigenous cultures view time
Non linear
* Events are stressed over creating a chronology
* Cyclic and interwoven – no distinct differences between the past, present and
future
* Continuity in time connects present individuals with ancestors and the unborn
* Bridges the physical and spiritual world
* Relationships and responsibilities exist between the living, the deceased, and
those to be born
How do western science and archaeology see time
- Western science and archaeology is based in linear time
- Everything is placed in a set sequence and chronology
- Prior to 1950 in North American archaeology objects were placed
in relative chronologies - After 1950 with the development of radiocarbon dating it was
possible to place a calendar date onto organic objects - Bone, wood, charcoal
- Provide a date on when the plant, animal, or individiual died
- Before Present (BP) – before 1950
Current archaeological evidence places human occupation of
North America potentially began about _______ years ago. How did they get there
24, 000
Alaska and Yukon
Migrating from Asia across the Bering Land Bridge
When was Saskatchewan occupied
10, 000 years ago
What is the Clovis theory
- Dominant concept in North American archaeology
- Clovis peoples first to arrive in the continent
- Associated with Clovis style spear point – first found near Clovis, New
Mexico - Concept has been challenged by earlier dates from sites in
southern North America and South America - Contend that the early dates from these sites are due to:
- Contaminated radiocarbon dates
- Dates obtained from bone or charcoal that was not deposited due to
human activities
What is Ice free corridor migration
- Postulates that humans traveled through the gap between the
Laurentide and Cordilleran Ice sheets - Present-day Alberta
- Advocated by Clovis First theorists
- Question as to if it was navigable during the period of initial
human migration
Describe coastal migration
- Groups moved along the ice-free shoreline of Alaska and British
Columbia south - Aided by the lower sea levels
- Sites now covered by water
- Isostatic rebound
Describe the solutrean hypothesis
- European populations from the Solutré region in France crossed
over to eastern North America on Atlantic pack ice - About 21,000 years ago
- Based on the similarity in design between Clovis points in North
America and Solutrean points - Proposed in the 1970s
What is the controversy of the first human migrations in north america
- Issue is the long period of time between the two point styles
- Solutrian points appeared about 21,000 years ago, but the oldest
Clovis points are about 11,500 years ago - Similarities likely due to independent invention in two different
regions - Has been adopted by white supremacist groups as evidence that
their ancestors are the original inhabitants of North America
describe the early precontact period
after clovis
* Following the initial colonization of North America regional
cultural variations develop
* Groups adapt to varied landscapes they inhabit and the local
resources that are available to them
* Traditional knowledge based upon observing and responding to
the seasonal life cycles of their regions
