Anthropology Unit 3
Terms
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- Dating that gives a specific age, year, or range of years for an object or site.
- Absolute dating
- Here, the fact that the features of human languages bear no direct relation to their meanings but are agreed-on symbols
- Arbitrary
- a puff of air released from the mouth after saying a consonant
- Aspiration
- A radiometric dating technique using the decay rate of a radioactive form of carbon found in organic remains
- Carbon dating
- A geographic continuum in the variation of a trait. A gradual change in the variation over a geographic area.
- Cline
- Communication systems of all nonhumans, where there may be communication through meaningful signs, but all meanings are specific. Thus, there is a finite amount of things that may be communicated
- Closed communication system
- Words that are similar in two or more languages as a result of common descent
- Cognates
- Concentric circles created in rock from the shockwaves caused by flint knapping. They may be studied to determine where the blow struck and in what direction.
- Conchoidal shells
- What starts or stops the flow of sound created by a vowel
- Consonant
- The result of pidgin languages passed down to the next generation; a formal language with larger vocabulary, more complex grammar, and more consistency than its original pidgin language.
- Creole
- The study of the structure of language in general and of the specific variations among languages
- Descriptive linguistics
- The movement of cultural ideas and artifacts among societies. Cultural borrowing
- Diffusion
- The ability to communicate about things and ideas not immediate in space or time
- Displacement
- Here, the two levels of human language: units of sound and units of meaning that those units of sound are combined to create
- Duality
- Natural or human-made casts of the inside of a skull; the cast reflects the surface of the brain and allows us to study the brains of even extinct species.
- Endocasts
- Restricting marriage to members of the same culturally defined group
- Endogamy
- Interpreting archaeological data through the observation of analogous activities in existing societies.
- Ethnographic analogy
- The study of the meanings of words, especially as they relate to folk taxonomy
- Ethnosemantics
- A method employed by archaeologists commonly known as “digging.†It takes into account both time and space, i.e., how far down something was uncovered in relation to other artifacts
- Excavation
- The process of understanding ancient skills and technologies by reproducing them.
- Experimental archaeology
- Like our consonants
- Explosive consonant
- The process of making stone tools
- Flint knapping
- A subfield of anthropology applied to legal matters. Usually involved in the identification of skeletal remains and the assessment of time and cause of death.
- Forensic anthropology
- The innate capacity of humans to speak grammatically correctly
- Generative grammar
- The time needed for one-half of a given amount of a radioactive substance to decay
- Half-life
- The archaeology of a society that has written records
- Historical archaeology
- Consonant that makes use of “clicks,†like in Ashanti
- Implosive consonant
- Human communication by means of shared symbols
- Language
- A set of secular rules governing the behavior of individuals and institutions within a society
- Legal systems
- A scholar of language, although he or she does not need to speak it
- Linguist
- Ritual acts through which people attempt to control the supernatural
- Magic
- A Polynesian word referring to a force possessed by a person, a place, or a nonliving thing.
- Mana
- The pigment largely responsible for human skin color
- Melanin
- Specialized skin cells that produce the pigment melanin
- Melanocytes
- Originally applied to King David of the Jews, meaning one who had great holiness and power
- Messiah
- A unit of meaning in a language; it may or may not be a word
- Morpheme
- A language that displays duality and productivity, making the system almost infinitely creative
- Open communication system
- A unit of sound in a language; Probably 250 phenomes around the world, although only about 25-30 are used in each language
- Phenome
- Languages developed when groups of two cultures come into intimate contact with one another and the two groups need to communicate
- Pidgin
- Variations in phenotypic traits that are the results of genetic variation
- Polymorphisms
- A radiometric dating technique using the rate at which radioactive potassium, found in volcanic rock, decays into stable argon gas
- Potassium/argon (K/Ar) Dating
- A full-time, trained religious specialist who can interpret the supernatural and petition the supernatural on behalf of humans
- Priest
- If undisturbed, when excavated, the topmost layer is the most recent and the bottommost is oldest
- Pristine stratigraph
- Here, the ability of human languages to generate limitless numbers of meanings
- Productivity
- In biology, the same as subspecies. In culture, cultural categories to classify and account for human diversity
- Races
- Judging an individual solely on his or her racial affiliation
- Racism
- Referring to the decay rate of a radioactive substance
- Radiometric
- Ritual performed by chimpanzees observed by Jane Goodall that involves them throwing themselves down hills during violent thunderstorms. This ritual demonstrates a possible form of supernatural belief in chimps.
- Rain display
- Translating a complex set of phenomena into a single entity such as a number
- Reification
- Dating that indicates the age of one item in comparison to another.
- Relative dating
- A system of ideas and rules for behavior based on supernatural explanations
- Religion
- Populations of a species that are completely isolated from one another but have not yet become truly separate species.
- Semispecies
- A part-time, supernaturally chosen religious specialist who can manipulate the supernatural
- Shaman
- Rituals that attempt to control the supernatural for evil purposes
- Sorcery
- The study of layers
- Stratigraphy
- Physically distinguishable populations within a species; the concept is falling from use
- Subspecies
- Something, a force or power or being, that is outside the known laws of nature
- Supernatural
- Rules of word order in a language
- Syntax
- An exploratory, usually small excavation made to establish the presence or absence of an archaeological site.
- Test Pits
- phonemic; what changes the phonemic value of a word
- Tonality
- Process of transforming verbal utterances into meaning
- Transformational grammar
- Flow of sound
- Vowel
- Collective interpretation of, and response to, the natural and cultural environments in which a group of people lives; their assumptions about those environments and the values derived from these assumptions
- Worldview
- Author of 1969 article “How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?â€; his article was very controversial as he attempted to explain why American black children on average scored 15 points lower than American white children on IQ tests. He cl
- Arthur Jensen
- Psychologists who first taught American Sign Language to a chimp, Washoe.
- Beatrix and Allen Gardner
- Anthropologist who described the development of cultures and society by their fulfillment of humans’ needs
- Bronislaw Malinowski
- Linguists who proposed model of how a closed communication may develop into an open one
- Charles Hockett and Robert Ascher
- Anthropologist who said religion is a “distinctive symbolic expression of human life that interprets man himself and his universe, providing motives for human action.†He sees role of religion “as explanatory, and in many ways psychologically reass
- Edward Norbeck
- Members of the Holiness Church, found mainly in Appalachia and the Southeast. They feel if they believe strongly enough, the Holy Ghost enters their bodies, making them immune to dangers such as ingesting poisons or snakebites.
- Holy Ghost People
- Archaeologists who studied gravestones in New England
- James Deetz and Edwin Dethlefsen
- Anthropologist who claims no correlation between complexity of language and complexity of society.
- Jared Diamond
- A preserved man found in an Alpine glacier from about 5300 years ago
- Ice Man
- Old World archaeologist who studied Maiden Castle, practically reconstructing every detail.
- Mortimer Wheeler
- An archaeologist who has examined many sites in East Africa and manufactured similar tools
- Nick Toth
- A famous linguistic anthropologist who studied the power of the rules on language and developed specific theories of the development of language in children
- Noam Chomsky
- Archaeologist and founder of the garbology movement; his project originated in Tucson, Arizona and revolved around the fact that much could be revealed about a person and his or her culture through his or her garbage
- William Rathje
- A deeply stratified location at which Prof. Bellis worked
- Koster, IL
- A Celtic hill fort in southern England that was attacked by Roman emperor Vaspasian. Studied and recreated by Sir Mortimer Wheeler
- Maiden Castle