lecture 5 Flashcards
world renewal rituals
what are the structural-functional factors in societal stability and solidarity
religion
kinship
economy
law
marriage
T/F Evolutionism is accepted by anthropology as an explanatory framework in the 20th century
False: cultural change is not linear therefore it cannot be an explanatory framework
T/F mid-20th century accepted evolutionary explanations instead of evolutionism
true:
a perspective in the 1950s, which remains influential today, views culture as adaptive. this means there is no inherent progress nor directionality to cultural evolution, only change in response to external forces. cultural change is multilinear.
what is gene-culture co-evolution
how human behavior is a product of two evolutionary processes: genetic evolution and cultural evolution.
aka dualinheritance theory
T/F the evolution of cognitive fluidity in modern humans enabled supernatural belief systems
true
what is the lascaux: positioning of animals
animal figures and signs being attributed to specific sectors based on themes and shapes
1950s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s interpretations of the rock art
1950s
- Emperaire (person)
- interpreted rock as symbolic representations of ontology of the makers
- examine the way species are grouped on cave walls
- Lascaux table
1980s
- researchers began systematically relying on oral traditions to contextualize rock art
- Vastokas (Trent) Early pirnoeer
-focused on understanding rock art within the landscapes it occupied
- a greater consideration of the intrinsic experiential qualities of rock art sites and the materiality of their surface
1990s - 2000s
- rock art often depicts other-than-humans who were seen as intermediaries between spiritual realms and the physical world
MODERN
- multifunctional
Early Holocene climate change involved four critical effects that create conditions for cultural change
1.) reduction in climatic variability
2.) increase in CO2
3.) increase in rainfall
4.) increase in temperature
Pleistocene Epoch ___ million to __ BP
2.5 million to 11,700 BP
Holocene Epoch ____ years BP to
11,700 to today
what’s the significance of the Human Cultural Change from 11,700 BP
- expansion of diets to include more small seeded plants foods
- use of plant processing and storage technologies
- development of larger settlements
- corresponds with development of more elaborate ritual systems
What is the relationship between population size and complexity of social
organization
- increasing social and political complexity is largely driven by population growth
- increased food security and decreasing mobility gives rise to high birth rates + community population sizes
- once a threshold reached some form of integrative structure is needed to maintain group cohesion (or social groups will splinter)
- costly religious activities orchestrated by charismatic religious leaders are commonly cited integrative structures
what are simple hunter-gatherers
strongly egalitarian, and religious activity is non-coercive (low risk of non-participation)
what are complex hunter gatherers
they are transegalitarian or have institutionalized hierarchies and religious activities may become coercive (high risk of non-participation)
______ may act or compete to advance their own interests and those of their near kin at the expense of others
Aggrandizers
Organized collective rituals provide these three things
1.) which aggrandizers can establish/exhibit power
2.) reinforce social cohesion and solidarity (enabling the maintenance of larger populations)
3.) increase the individual risk of non-participation
The costly signaling theory of religion proposes that
costly rituals function as hard-to-fake signals of commitment to the group
Evolutionary perspectives suggest that participation in
collective rituals may serve important communicative
functions by signaling practitioners’ commitment to the
community and its values.
what are World Renewal Rites
May take the form of ritualized labour for
monument construction for tracking the annual or
multiyear movements of (sun,
moon, constellations); and ceremonies marking
important moments
Seasonal rituals are
collective activities where
charismatic aggrandizers can reinforce authority and
power.
The Hopewell Culture
- 2200 - 1300 B.P. (200 BC to AD 700)
- Multiple communities of hunter-gatherers
living in high biomass areas, enabling high
population densities - Early evidence of aggrandizers and
religious elites marshalling human labour for the construction of religious monuments - Hopewell religion is characterized by
a focus on world renewal activities
orchestrated by religious elites. World renewal activities were based on detailed astronomical
observations focused on cyclical movements of the moon and sun.
Hopewell Mound Group
- massive earthwork complex
- Large enclosure contains 29 burial
mounds of religious elites. - Two interior earthworks, one was the largest known to have
been built by Hopewells
The Ohio Hopewell were
mobile foragers, that gathered foods and
collected some
weedy plants as they moved between upland rock shelters and large
earthwork complexes over the course of the year. (Yerkes 2002:
239
The Hopewell Problem
We can satisfactorily explain what and how, but we haven’t satisfactorily explained why.
Religious labour seems wasteful from a fitness standpoint
Why would hunter-gatherers engage in such expensive undertakings?
Why mobilize labour to construct monuments that may have involved
hundreds of thousands of person-hours
These are autonomous dispersed family-based communities with ephemeral
leadership (at best, managerial leaders who operate by consensus)
OBSERVATIONS
1. Participation provides more advantages than costs.
2. Advantages: risk reduction; access to community resources;
increased propensity of reciprocity; psychological comfort.
3. Costs: Retribution, social censure and increased risk arising
from reduced access to an expanded social network;
psychological stress from removal of ideological activity
Feasts and Community Rituals
Great Circle was a monumental Hopewellian
woodhenge: an enormous wooden post circle
composed of nearly 100 substantial timbers,
flanked by an earthen bank and causewayed
ditch
