Week 1 Flashcards
What is anthropology?
Study of human kind, culture, evolution, and adaptation
What are their two major goals?
- Understanding uniqueness and diversity
- Discover fundamental similarities
Cultural anthropology
- study of culture, customs, beliefs, and traditions
- study of differences in culture
- includes studying other primates to look for clues about our ancestral origins
Holistic approach
looks at it as a whole
- biological perspective
- cultural perspective
- broad time frame
Holism and applied anthropology
- needs training in all 4 fields
- links to: socio, psych, econ, poli sci, and history
Applied research
sometimes called the 5th field
-offers practical solutions to cultural problems
Quadripartite approach
four field approach
- physical anthro
- archaeology
- linguistics
- cultural anthropology
Physical Anthro
- theory of evolution
- origin of humans
- primatology
- geneti inheritance
- PHYSICAL ADAPTATION
Darwin
(physical anthro)
survival of the fittest
Leakey’s
(physical anthro)
founds skulls and found ancestors
Jane good wall
(physical AND cultural anthro)
the monkeys
Participation/observations method
Cultural anthro
- definition and aspects of culture
- race as a social construct
- race and adaptation
- participation/observation
Franz Boas
(cultural)
-CULTURAL RELATIVISM
Cultural relativism
looking at a culture with an open mind. not looking at a culture through what you know.
- do not be quick to judge
Margaret Mead
Dev. stages are different depending on the culture
Biological evolution
how the humans species has changes physically over time
Study of primatology
primates (apes, chimps as ancestors of humans)
Genetic inhertican
why we have certain physical characteristics from our ancestors
Evolutions
refers to change or transformation over time
Archeology vs. Historians
archeology deals more with prehistoric, historic, classical, biblical, underwater, modern “trash”
Linguistic anthro
How language is used.
- relationship between language and culture
- how humans acquire language
historical linguistic
study of how languages change over time and how they are related
Descriptive or structural linguistics
Study how contemporary languages may differ
Sociolinguistics
study how language is used in social context
