Anthropology Terms
Terms
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- When an organism has physical traits and behaviors that allow it to survive in a particular environment
- Adapted
- Variants of a gene that code for different expressions of a trait
- Alleles
- The chief components of proteins
- Amino acids
- Specialized sweat glands that secrete an odorous substance thought to be sexually stimulating
- Apocrine glands
- Adapted to life in the trees
- Arboreal
- A specialist in the subfield of anthropology who studies the human cultural past and the reconstruction of past cultural systems
- Archaeologist
- Any object that has been consciously manufactured
- Artifact
- Selection for reproductive success in plants and animals that is directed by humans (also see selective breeding)
- Artificial selection
- Reproducing without sex, by fissioning or budding
- Asexually
- Ideas that are taken on faith and cannot be scientifically tested
- Belief systems
- A specialist in the subfield of anthropology who studies humans as a biological species
- Biological Anthropologist
- Walking on two legs
- Bipedal
- Moving using arm-over-arm swinging
- Brachiating
- A classification system based on order of evolutionary branching rather than on present similarities and differences
- Cladistics
- When both alleles of a pair are expressed in the phenotype
- Codominant
- A specialist in the subfield of anthropology who focuses on human cultural behavior and cultural systems and the variation in cultural expression among human groups
- Cultural Anthropologist
- Studying another culture from its point of view without imposing our own cultural values
- Cultural relativity
- Ideas and behaviors that are learned and transmitted. Nongenetic means of adaptation. The extra-somatic adaptive process used by hominidae. Total way of life of a group of people.
- Culture
- The molecule that carries the genetic code
- Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
- Here, the period after birth during which offspring require the care of adults to survive
- Dependency
- An old term for what we now call biological evolution
- Descent with Modification
- Active during the day
- Diurnal
- Individual differences in power, influence, and access to resources and mating
- Dominance hierarchy
- The allele that is expressed in a pair of unlike alleles
- Dominant
- The science that studies the network of relationships within environmental systems
- Ecology
- A specific set of environmental relationships. A unit of study within ecology
- Ecosystem
- In nonhuman mammals, the period of female fertility or the signals indicating this condition
- Estrus
- In biology, the idea that species change over time and have a common ancestry
- Evolution
- Here, the splitting up of a population to form new populations
- Fission
- A system of classification based on the relationships among cultural categories for important items and ideas
- Folk taxonomy
- Remains of life-forms of the past
- Fossils
- Genetic differences between populations produced by the fact that genetically different individuals established (founded) the populations
- Founder Effect
- The genetic change caused when genes are passed to new generations in frequencies unlike those of the parental generations
- Gamete sampling
- The cells of reproduction, which contain only half the chromosomes of a normal cell
- Gametes
- The cultural categories and characteristics of men and women
- Gender
- The exchange of genes among populations through interbreeding
- Gene flow
- All the genes in a population
- Gene pool
- Technically, those portions of the DNA molecules that code for the production of specific proteins
- Genes
- Genetic change based on random changes within a speciesÂ’ gene pool; includes fission and the founder effect, and gamete sampling
- Genetic drift
- The alleles possessed by an organism
- Genotypes
- Massive sheets of ice that expand and move
- Glaciers
- Cleaning the fur of another animal, which promotes social cohesion
- Grooming
- The place occupied by a species; the species’ “address”
- Habitat
- To attach a handle or shaft
- Haft
- Having two different alleles in a gene pair
- Heterozygous
- Assuming an interrelationship among the parts of a subject
- Holistic
- Modern human beings and our ancestors, defined as the primates who walk erect
- Hominids
- Having two of the same allele
- Homozygous
- A cultural rule that prohibits sexual intercourse or marriage between persons defined as being too closely related
- Incest taboo
- Native; refers to a group of people with a long history in a particular area
- Indigenous
- The incorrect idea that traits acquired during an organismÂ’s lifetime can be passed on to its offspring
- Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics
- A specialist in the subfield of anthropology who describes the characteristics of human language and studies the relationships between languages and the cultures that speak them
- Linguistic Anthropologist
- A mutation with extensive and important physical results
- Macromutation
- A set of cultural rules for bringing men and women together to create a family unit and for defining their behavior toward one another, their children, and society
- Marriage
- Any spontaneous change in the genetic code
- Mutation
- Evolutionary change based on the differential reproductive success of individuals within a species
- Natural selection
- The environment of an organism and its adaptive response to that environment
- Niche
- Active at night
- Nocturnal
- The family unit made up of parents and their children
- Nuclear family
- Referring to the sense of smell
- Olfactory
- The ability to touch the thumb to the tips of the other fingers on the same hand
- Opposability
- The period when an egg cell matures and is capable of being fertilized
- Ovulation
- The study of past life-forms using fossil remains and their geological contexts
- Paleontology
- The chemical or physical results of the genetic code
- Phenotype
- A chemical substance secreted by an animal that conveys information and stimulates behavior responses
- Pheromones
- The traditional name for biological anthropologist
- Physical Anthropologist
- The geological period from 1.6 millions to 10,000 years ago characterized by a series of glacial advances and retreats
- Pleistocene
- Referring to a society in which a man may have multiple wives
- Polygynous
- Having the ability to grasp
- Prehensile
- Molecules that make cells and carry out cellular functions
- Proteins
- Scientifically testable ideas that are taken on faith, even if tested and shown to be false
- Pseudoscience
- Walking on all fours
- Quadrapedal
- An allele that is only expressed if present in a like pair
- Recessive
- The molecule that, in two forms, translates and transcribes the genetic code into proteins
- Ribonucleic acid (RNA)
- Physical differences between the sexes of a species not related to reproductive functions
- Sexual dimorphism
- The evolution of a new species
- Speciation
- A group of organisms that can produce fertile offspring among themselves but not with members of other groups
- Species
- Three-dimensional vision; depth perception
- Stereoscopic
- Layers; Here, the layers of rock and soil under the surface of the earth
- Strata
- The study of the earthÂ’s strata
- Stratigraphy
- A classification using nested sets of categories
- Taxonomy
- A general idea that explains a large set of factual patterns
- Theory
- The method of inquiry that requires the generation, testing, and acceptance or rejection of hypotheses
- Science
- The process of conducting scientific inquiry
- Scientific method
- Proposed explanations for natural phenomena
- Hypothesis
- The process of developing a general explanation from specific observations
- Induction
- Suggesting specific data that would be found if a hypothesis were true
- Deduction
- Strands of DNA in the nucleus of a cell
- Chromosome
- The holistic, scientific study of humankind
- Anthropology
- When a new form of adaptive strategy emerges in evolutionary process it often leads to a geologically sudden increase in the number of species evolving from the original form into new and separate species with that new strategy. When this is seen in the
- Adaptive radiation
- A theory based on Biblical information that held that natural disasters were responsible for the many extinct life forms found in the geological record
- Catastrophism
- The term which describes the attitude held by a person or a group of people that his/her/their own culture is superior to all others
- Ethnocentrism
- The notion that evolution is leading onward and upward to some higher and more perfect form
- Evolutionary progressionism
- In the medieval period, the system by which scholars classified the living animals by ranking them from the simplest at the bottom to the most complex at the top.
- Ladder of life (Chain of being)
- A way to explain natural or cultural phenomena in a culture’s context
- Myth
- Evolutionary change relatively quickly between stable periods
- Punctuated equilibrium
- When bisexual animals mate, it can be observed that members of a given species may show marked tendencies to favor certain traits in the opposite sex; when this preference shapes the evolving species’ genotype and in turn phenotype, we call this proces
- Sexual selection
- A group of people who are organized to live productively together by sharing a common culture
- Society
- Goal oriented; Evolution is not this
- Teleological
- The contemporary of Darwin who formulated a theory of evolution much the same as his
- Alfred Russell Wallace
- The man who, using the genealogies of the Bible, calculated that the earth was created in the year 4004 B.C.
- Archbishop Usher of Armagh
- The father of modern geology
- Charles Lyle
- The monk who sorted out the process of genetic inheritance, determining such processes as dominance, recessiveness, etc.
- Gregor Mendel
- The man who developed a theory that stated that any organism would pass on to its offspring any characteristics acquired by it during it efforts in life
- Jean Baptiste de Lamarck
- The man who developed a population growth model for world populations that predicted serious crisis level of growth and food shortages, and whose work helped Darwin envision his theory of evolution
- Thomas Malthus
- Swedish botanist who is the father of modern taxonomy
- Carl von Linné (Carolus Linnaeus)