Anthropology: Physical and Cultural

• Defines social relationships for the survival and socialization of children

• Marriage defines rights and obligation of the two parties in terms of sex, reproduction, work, and social roles

• Marriage creates new relationships between families and kin groups

• Monogamy: 1 partner

• Polygamy: Multiple partners

• Polygyny: 1 husband and multiple wives

• Polyandry: 1 wife and multiple husbands

• Arranged marriage: Set up by someone other than the individuals getting married

• Lineage: All relatives can be traced back to one common ancestor

• Clan: Several lineages in a bilineal society where people are related but most often not directly

• Matrilineal: Kinship tracing back to mothers

• Patrilineal: Kinship tracing back to fathers

• Bilineal: Kinship tracing to both parents

• Religious Lineage: Religion passed on through maternal/paternal kinship (ex. Judaism)

• Coresidence

• Economic cooperation

• Reproduction & enculturation

• Property

• Surnames bear meaning (ex. Smith)

• Naming converts “anybodies” into “somebodies”

• Can covey societal ideals

Individuals with adaptive traits—traits that give them some advantage—are more likely to survive and reproduce (ex. Skin colour is darker in areas closer to the equator, therefore lighter skin is an adaption to areas such as Northern Europe, with less access to Vitamin D)

• Social construction

• Genetic variations exist within races rather than than between them (more similar amongst each other than different against similar race groups)

• Slang & Dialect

• Emphasis on norms, exceptions, context, and how the language is used

• Explores the way that language maintains a social role (dictionary being updated with new words & slang & variations)

• Language based off signs

  • Signified & signifier

  • (Ex. hand gestures)

• Describe and account for observed changes in languages

• Recontrust the pre-history of laguaged to determine their relatedness

• Develop general theories about how and why language changes

• Describe the history of speech

• Study history of words

• Language shapes culture

• Difficult to determine if culture influences language or if language influences culture as they both act upon each other to a certain extent

• Things of greater importance are talked about more frequently, and therefore have more words commonly associated with it that are used to describe it

• If there isn’t a word for something, it does not exist in the culture, and is therefore not talked about (Ex. in Morocco, there is no word for pedophelia, therefore it is not discussed despite high rates of child sex tourism)

• 2 million - 100,000 years ago

• Evolution of hypoglossal canal and hyoid bone allows for speech

• Unwritten rules of proximity

• Gestures that mean different things in different cultures (plays a key role in when cultures interact)

• Eye contact (can be desirable or discouraged)

• Chemical (pheromones): What we see and hear

• Audio (sounds): Spoken language

• Visual: Eyes or light-sensing organs

Diffusion:

• Movement/Migration of culture from one population to another

• Border diffusion takes place when the culture blend based on close proximity

Assimilation:

• Inclusion/absorption of one culture into another more dominant culture

Innovation:

• Combination of 2 ideas to create a new one

• Criticized for often drawing conclusions without a broad spectra of evidence

• Studied the people of Oceania

• Came up with the “patterns of culture” theory

• Generalized individuals within the same culture

• Judgements of good vs bad

• Formally/Informally taught

• Aesthetic judgements, preference in arts

• Cultural Materials (ex. Wedding costume, clay containers)

• Communication

• Ethical/justice system

• Right and responsibility by age and gender

• Myths

• Clothing

• Family structure

• Sexual regulations

• Food

• Ecological differences: Physical environment tailors to what the culture exhibits. (Ex. desert people’s culture is different from rainforest culture)

• Encounters with other cultures: Imitation, adaptation, resisting

• Internal change: Change over time by themselves with societal and human progression

• Exists in the abstract only

• Contains subcultures

• Constantly changes

• Adapts but not perfectly 

• Contains conflicts

• Supernatural connection

• Organized society

• Connection to supernatural world beyond materialistic world

• Promotes proper behaviour and explains the soul’s fate after death

• Answers philosophical questions

• Provides explanations to the unknowns

• Emphasizes social unity

• Provide comfort for death, harm and injustice

• Provides principles for life which foster security 

• Provides guidance through stages of life through rites of passages

• Explanatory/rationaliting 

• Self-actualizing 

• Social control bias

• Shamanic: First Nations 

• Communal: Shared notions in a community (ex. Christianity)

• Olympian: Worship multiple Gods/Incarnations (ex. Hinduism)

• Monotheistic/Ecclesiastic: Worship only one God (ex. Judaism)

Materials used by a culture, become part of physical anthropology. Often it is attributed to religion.

• Culture: Societal views that derive from customs (affected by geographical location)

• Religion: Beliefs deriving from holy text(s) (not affected by geographical location)

• Anatomical: looking the same as modern society (ex. Larger brain)

• Behavioural: behaving the same as modern society (ex. Morals and ethics)

• Colonialism: rooted in the efforts of western efforts to better understand the lands it was colonizing. Enforced their views and oppressed cultural groups. 

• Antiquarianism: pre-dated form of archaeology, large scale

• Scientism the effort to separate culture from reality and discover objectivity

• Holism: the recognition that human cultures are all interconnected

• Studies primates (any mammal having flexible hands and feet with opposable first digits, good eyesight, and, in the higher apes, a highly developed brain)

• Explores the similarities and differences/patterns in their behaviour and our

• Study of modern humans in relation to their ancient ancestors (hominids), and how we have evolved in terms of…

  • Evolution

  • Skeletal Anatomy

  • Geology

  • Archaeology

• The adaptation/evolution of humans to adapt to their surrounding environment

• Clothing (humans are not made to survive in the arctic, but clothing allows us to survive)

• Studies the physical remains through excavation of a past culture

• Allows us to…

  • Establish chronological sequences of events

  • Understand spatial relationships between different cultures

  • Understand evolution/extinction

    • Types of Archaeology:

      • Prehistoric: Bones, ecology, historical society

      • Historic: Writing, language, written documentation

• The study of human adaptations to social and physical environments (ex. Food and water supply)

• Overlooks factors such as religion

• Aspects that have evolved to be of greater importance in concurrence with the modern world

• Factors such as gender ideology, religion, myths

• Communism

• Examines the division of labour

• Ability to develop culture

• Affectionate

• Omnivorous

• Vocal chords (allow for communication)

• Care for others (parent-child relationship)

• Desire to teach others

• Live in communities

• Aggressive behaviour

• Make tools

• Nails instead of claws (allows for better grasping of tree limbs)

• Small body size (rodent sized)
  Large eyes with 3d vision (allows for depth perception)

• Lack of emphasis on the snout (relied more on vision than smell)

• Large brain 

• Heterodont teeth (allows for a varied diet)

Walk on 2 legs

• Protection with power

• Greater access to food (as multiple members collect food for all of them)

• Raising offspring as a community

• Helped discover that human evolution was centered in africa instead of asia as was previously assumed

• Studied chimpanzee behaviour

• First person to observe chimpanzees making tools (which was previously only thought to be something humans could do)

• Observed social interactions between chimpanzees

• Studied orangutans and their similarities to humans

• Spent 50 years in the forest living with orangutans and apes to study and save them from extinction

• Found the bones of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania

  • Allowed for us to understand the early human species in terms of toolmaking

• Studied the mountain gorilla behaviour

• Campaigned against gorilla poaching

• Published “Gorillas in the Mist” which includes her scientific study of gorillas

• Was murdered

• Stone tools were found at the deepest point (oldest), followed by bronze and iron tools above it (recent)

• Established the 3-age system, dividing the ancient world into the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age

• Dates the remains of living things to around 50,000 years ago (Ex. tree rings)

  • Issues: Decay rates may differ from object to object, or may decay at a rate that is not expected

• Surrounding rocks assign a time period to the artifact

• Help identify location/time period/external affecting factors

 Spending time in water caused the evolution of primates from quadruped to early biped (because quadrupeds had their head in the water). However, this theory lacks evidence.

• Multiregional Continuity Theory: All hominids evolved into Homo Sapiens

• Replacement Theory: The Neanderthals were replaced (killed) by AHs populations

• Wide nose nostrils facing up

• 1 extra premolar

• Have prehensile tail

• Complete arboreal lifestyle

• Narrow nose nostrils facing down

• Sharp molars, 1 less premolar

• Lack of a prehensile tail

• Both arboreal and terrestrial lifestyles

• Long snouts

• Large eyes

• Small body size (mouse-cat size, 5-10kg)

• Nocturnal

• Diet favours insects but also includes plants and fruit

• 30 million years ago

• Evolved into the genus Homo which later evolved into Homo Sapiens, or Humans

• Lack a tail

• Both arboreal and terrestrial lifestyles

• Long arms (tree swinger)

• Simple molars

• Large body size (10-30kg)

The ancestors of today's Native Americans reached North America by walking across the Bering Land Bridge and made their way southward by following passages in the ice as they searched for food.

Australopithecines → Homo Habilis → Homo Erectus → Homo Sapiens Sapiens

• Had heavily built, heat-conserving bodies

• Cranial capacity exceeding that of AMHss

• Heavily stressed teeth and bones indicating heavy use of the body as a tool, starvation, and frequent injury

• Simple stone tools

Modern humans

Archaic Homo Sapiens

differences between each species

 traits passed onto offspring

adaptation to external environment

 undergo to adjust to their environment

 Humans were made in the image & likeness of God, no two humans are the same. God blesses each person with a unique set of talents and abilities to serve him.

rooted in the efforts of western efforts to better understand the lands it was colonizing. Enforced their views and oppressed cultural groups.

pre-dated form of archaeology, large scale

the effort to separate culture from reality and discover objectivity

 the recognition that human cultures are all interconnected