Anthropology Review 2
Terms
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- 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
- Swedish botanist who is the father of modern taxonomy
- Carl von Linné (Carolus Linnaeus)
- 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
- 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 monk who sorted out the process of genetic inheritance, determining such processes as dominance, recessiveness, etc.
- Gregor Mendel
- The father of modern geology
- Charles Lyle
- 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 contemporary of Darwin who formulated a theory of evolution much the same as his
- Alfred Russell Wallace
- Goal oriented; Evolution is not this
- Teleological
- A group of people who are organized to live productively together by sharing a common culture
- Society
- 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
- The process of conducting scientific inquiry
- Scientific Method
- The method of inquiry that requires the generation, testing, and acceptance or rejection of hypotheses
- Science
- Evolutionary change relatively quickly between stable periods
- Punctuated equilibrium
- A way to explain natural or cultural phenomena in a culture’s context
- Myth
- 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)
- The process of developing a general explanation from specific observations
- Induction
- Proposed explanations for natural phenomena
- Hypotheses
- The notion that evolution is leading onward and upward to some higher and more perfect form
- Evolutionary progressionism
- 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
- Suggesting specific data that would be found if a hypothesis were true
- Deduction
- 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
- 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
- Technically, those portions of the DNA molecules that code for the production of specific proteins
- Genes
- The cultural categories and characteristics of men and women
- Gender
- The exchange of genes among populations through interbreeding
- Gene flow
- The genetic change caused when genes are passed to new generations in frequencies unlike those of the parental generations
- Gamete sampling
- Genetic differences between populations produced by the fact that genetically different individuals established (founded) the populations
- Founder Effect
- 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
- In nonhuman mammals, the period of female fertility or the signals indicating this condition
- Estrus
- The evolution of a new species
- Speciation
- In biology, the idea that species change over time and have a common ancestry
- Evolution
- 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
- Here, the splitting up of a population to form new populations
- Fission
- The cells of reproduction, which contain only half the chromosomes of a normal cell
- Gametes
- Layers; Here, the layers of rock and soil under the surface of the earth
- Strata
- Three-dimensional vision; depth perception
- Stereoscopic
- An old term for what we now call biological evolution
- Descent with Modification
- The geological period from 1.6 millions to 10,000 years ago characterized by a series of glacial advances and retreats
- Pleistocene
- A chemical substance secreted by an animal that conveys information and stimulates behavior responses
- Pheromones
- The traditional name for biological anthropologist
- Physical Anthropologist
- The study of past life-forms using fossil remains and their geological contexts
- Paleontology
- The period when an egg cell matures and is capable of being fertilized
- Ovulation
- The chemical or physical results of the genetic code
- Phenotype
- Physical differences between the sexes of a species not related to reproductive functions
- Sexual dimorphism
- Any object that has been consciously manufactured
- Artifact
- 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 family unit made up of parents and their children
- Nuclear family
- A classification system based on order of evolutionary branching rather than on present similarities and differences
- Cladistics
- The environment of an organism and its adaptive response to that environment
- Niche
- Active at night
- Nocturnal
- Evolutionary change based on the differential reproductive success of individuals within a species
- Natural selection
- 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
- Walking on all fours
- Quadrapedal
- Native; refers to a group of people with a long history in a particular area
- Indigenous
- An allele that is only expressed if present in a like pair
- Recessive
- Having two of the same allele
- Homozygous
- Moving using arm-over-arm swinging
- Brachiating
- A cultural rule that prohibits sexual intercourse or marriage between persons defined as being too closely related
- Incest taboo
- The incorrect idea that traits acquired during an organismÂ’s lifetime can be passed on to its offspring
- Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics
- The molecule that, in two forms, translates and transcribes the genetic code into proteins
- Ribonucleic acid (RNA)
- Molecules that make cells and carry out cellular functions
- Proteins
- Having two different alleles in a gene pair
- Heterozygous
- To attach a handle or shaft
- Haft
- The holistic, scientific study of humankind
- Anthropology
- Having the ability to grasp
- Prehensile
- Assuming an interrelationship among the parts of a subject
- Holistic
- Referring to a society in which a man may have multiple wives
- Polygynous
- A specialist in the subfield of anthropology who studies the human cultural past and the reconstruction of past cultural systems
- Archaeologist
- Scientifically testable ideas that are taken on faith, even if tested and shown to be false
- Pseudoscience
- Modern human beings and our ancestors, defined as the primates who walk erect
- Hominids
- Cleaning the fur of another animal, which promotes social cohesion
- Grooming
- Adapted to life in the trees
- Arboreal
- Specialized sweat glands that secrete an odorous substance thought to be sexually stimulating
- Apocrine glands
- The alleles possessed by an organism
- Genotypes
- Massive sheets of ice that expand and move
- Glaciers
- The place occupied by a species; the species’ “address”
- Habitat
- Selection for reproductive success in plants and animals that is directed by humans (also see selective breeding)
- Artificial selection
- Genetic change based on random changes within a speciesÂ’ gene pool; includes fission and the founder effect, and gamete sampling
- Genetic drift
- The chief components of proteins
- Amino acids
- Ideas that are taken on faith and cannot be scientifically tested
- Belief systems
- All the genes in a population
- Gene pool
- Studying another culture from its point of view without imposing our own cultural values
- Cultural relativity
- The molecule that carries the genetic code
- Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
- Walking on two legs
- Bipedal
- Variants of a gene that code for different expressions of a trait
- Alleles
- When both alleles of a pair are expressed in the phenotype
- Codominant
- Individual differences in power, influence, and access to resources and mating
- Dominance hierarchy
- When an organism has physical traits and behaviors that allow it to survive in a particular environment
- Adapted
- 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
- A specialist in the subfield of anthropology who studies humans as a biological species
- Biological Anthropologist
- The allele that is expressed in a pair of unlike alleles
- Dominant
- Strands of DNA in the nucleus of a cell
- Chromosome
- A general idea that explains a large set of factual patterns
- Theory
- Active during the day
- Diurnal
- A classification using nested sets of categories
- Taxonomy
- Reproducing without sex, by fissioning or budding
- Asexually
- Here, the period after birth during which offspring require the care of adults to survive
- Dependency
- The study of the earthÂ’s strata
- Stratigraphy
- A group of organisms that can produce fertile offspring among themselves but not with members of other groups
- Species
- BrideÂ’s family sends wealth to groom. They occur where location is overpopulated so that the process of marriage may be slowed down. Capitalist birth control.
- Dowry
- A portion of the brain involved in emotions such as fear, rage, and care for the young
- Limbic system
- Where money is used for exchange in place of goods and services
- Market System
- A social unit made up of a societyÂ’s men. Common in highland New Guinea
- MenÂ’s associations
- A symbolic representation of wealth. Used for exchange in place of actual products or services
- Money
- A marriage unit made up of only one husband and one wife
- Monogamy
- Refers to the religious system that recognizes a single supernatural being
- Monotheistic
- A portion of the brain involved in conscious thought, spatial reasoning, and sensory perception
- Neocortex
- Referring to societies that move from place to place in search of resources or in response to seasonal fluctuations
- Nomadic
- Minimal human family unit; Temporary units including the family of orientation as a child, and the family of procreation as an adult
- Nuclear family
- Belief that “the seed contains the plant”, that the evolution is contained within the original. Under unilinear evolution, civilization was contained in foraging. “In the beginning is the outcome”
- Orthogenesis
- The subsistence pattern characterized by an emphasis on herding animals
- Pastoralism
- A unilineal kinship system in which an individual is a member of the fatherÂ’s descent line
- Patrilineal
- The secular, nonkinship means of organizing the interactions within a society and between one society and others
- Political organization
- A marriage system with one wife and multiple husbands
- Polyandry
- A marriage system that allows multiple spouses
- Polygamy
- A marriage unit made up of one husband and multiple wives
- Polygyny
- Refers to a religious system that recognizes multiple supernatural beings, technically, multiple gods
- Polytheism
- The practice of prohibiting sex for a certain period of time after a woman gives birth for purposes of limiting the birthrate
- Postpartum sex taboo
- Technology developed to make food palatable and digestible by humans, i.e. a millstone
- Premastication
- A behavior containing most but not all of the characteristics of a cultural behavior; A precursor to culture which can be seen in primate populations
- Protocultural
- A primitive portion of the brain involved in self-preservation behavior such as mating, aggressiveness, and territoriality
- R-Complex
- Refers to a society that strives for equal distribution of goods and services but that achieves this through the use of recognized, often temporary, status differences
- Rank
- Where surplus goods are collected centrally and then given out to those persons in need of them
- Redistribution
- They share everything according to needs and work according to their abilities. May be seen in foraging communities
- Reciprocal economy
- A human settlement pattern in which people largely stay in one place year-round, although some members of the population may still be mobile in the search for food and raw materials
- Sedentary
- The presence of acknowledged differences in social status, political influence, and wealth among the people within a society
- Social stratification
- Process of learning a culture. Also known as enculturation
- Socialization
- System under which if a woman dies, her sister may replace her place in a marriage
- Sororate
- A political organization with one central authority governing all the individual subunits
- State
- How a society acquires its food
- Subsistence pattern
- Something that stands for something else, with no necessary link between the symbol and its meaning
- Symbol
- A political organization with no central leader but in which the subunits may make collective decisions about the entire group
- Tribe
- Harvest resources from animals that do the work
- Unearned Resource Use
- A kinship system in which an individual is a member of only one parentÂ’s descent line
- Unilineal
- Idea that there exists a natural tendency of progression. This progression includes the succession of foragers -> agriculture -> civilization. It is also completely false
- Unilinear evolution
- The collective interpretation of and response to the natural and cultural environments in which a group of people lives. Their assumptions about these environments and values derived from those assumptions
- Worldview
- Anthropologist who spent over 40 years studying a large population of chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve in Tanzania
- Jane Goodall
- Member of the National Institute of Mental Health that proposed the model for the triune (three-part) brain, consisting of the R-complex, limbic system, and neocortex
- Paul MacLean
- Author of American Anthropologist, in which he demonstrated how all cultures may be subjected to anthropological scrutiny.
- Horace Miner
- Soviet agronomist that proposed a method for growing plants not based on evolution and Mendelian genetics, but rather Lamarkian ideas about the inheritance of acquired characteristics. It was adopted by the communist regime and, because of this, the Sovi
- Trofim D. Lysenko
- A social unit made up of persons of approximately the same age; Groups in highly unilineal systems organized by age. Also, each generation has an identity and a bond from “hazing”. The older the generation, the more powerful
- Age sets/Age grades
- Farming using animal or mechanical labor and complex technologies
- Agriculture
- Everything has a soul
- Animistic
- Any object consciously manufactured. Usually refers to human-made objects, but now includes those made by other primates
- Artifact
- Giving with expectation of equivalent return; People will get supplies when they need them
- Balanced reciprocity
- Small autonomous groups, usually associated with foraging societies
- Bands
- A kinship system in which an individual is a member of both parentsÂ’ descent lines
- Bilateral
- The exchange of wealth from the groom to the bride’s family, i.e. cattle. Originally termed “bride price”, it was then noticed that marriages occurred even without this exchange and that even with the exchange the woman was free to leave the marriage
- Bride wealth
- A system of socioeconomic stratification in which strata are closed and a personÂ’s membership is determined by birth
- Caste
- A political organization made up of groups of interacting units, each of which has a chief or leader
- Chiefdom
- Cultures with an agricultural surplus, social stratification, labor specialization, a formal governments, rule by power, monumental construction projects, and a system of record keeping
- Civilization
- A system of socioeconomic stratification in which the strata are open and a person may move to a different stratum
- Class
- To arrange systematically. To put into words
- Codify
- The children of your fatherÂ’s sisters or motherÂ’s brothers. Often preferred marriage partners because they are not part of your lineage, but come from a similar family.
- Cross cousins
- Anew; from nothing
- Denovo
- Nuclear families that are connected over time
- Descent line
- When certain individuals within a society perform certain jobs. Usually refers to the different jobs of men and women
- Division of labor
- You inherit fatherÂ’s patrilineage and motherÂ’s matrilinage, but different trains from each lineage. For example, African culture may dictate that only men may inherit royalty, but royalty is inherited through the mother. Another example is that corpore
- Double descent
- An unmodified natural object used as a tool
- Ecofact
- The practice of not recognizing, and even eliminating, differences in social status and wealth
- Egalitarianism
- Process of learning a culture. Also known as socialization
- Enculturation
- Marry within kinship
- Endogamy
- Making value judgments about another culture from the perspective of oneÂ’s own cultural system
- Ethnocentrism
- Marry outside of nuclear family
- Exogamy
- The nuclear family to which you belong as a child, consisting of your parents and siblings.
- Family of orientation
- The nuclear family to which you belong as an adult, consisting of your spouse and offspring
- Family of procreation
- Another name for hunting-and-gathering
- Foraging
- Giving with no expectations of equivalent return
- General reciprocity
- Living in groups
- Gregarious
- Farming using human labor and simple tools
- Horticulture
- A subsistence pattern that relies on naturally occurring sources of food
- Hunter-gatherer
- When one state tries to take the land of another state
- Imperialism
- Sometimes recognized as a subsistence pattern characterized by a focus on mechanical sources of energy and food production by a small percentage of the population
- Industrialism
- The killing of infants
- Infanticide
- Hunting and gathering in an environment that provides a very wide range of food resources
- Intensive foraging
- Your membership in a family and your relationship to other members of that family. May refer to biological ties but in anthropology usually refers to cultural ties modeled on biological ones
- Kinship
- You cannot increase production by intensifying labor in a certain area
- Labor-extensive
- By increasing (intensifying) labor in a certain area, you increase production
- Labor-intensive
- When certain jobs are performed by particular individuals
- Labor specialization
- Widow inheritance; the process through which a man inherits his brotherÂ’s widow. The man may also inherit his brotherÂ’s land and is allowed to sleep with the widow, but all children of this relationship belong to the descent line of the deceased brothe
- Levirate
- Walked around and collected food similar to a hunter-gatherer. Averaged about 100-150 lbs of meat a day.
- George Schaller
- This society lives in a harsh environment which they cannot pretend to control. This leads to their worldview as being part of nature, not above it. This also contributes to their animistic spiritual beliefs, which can be seen in their begging forgivenes
- American Arctic/Eskimo
- About 10,000 years ago they discovered agriculture which gradually allowed them to have more control over the environment. As a result, they began to recognize a monotheistic god that has control over all natural phenomena, much like they have control.
- Southwest Asia
- Found in Angola, Namibia, and Botswana in South Africa, they had been a foraging society until very recently. Their name comes from the use of clicks in the language. They are regularly on the move, so nomadic. They live in small bands that average ten t
- San (Bushmen)
- Foragers with a large population and sedentary communities. Able to do this b/c of annual salmon runs. Held potlatches to try and get rid of everything to demonstrate how they didnÂ’t need it all.
- Kwakiutl of British Columbia
- A unilineal kinship system in which an individual is a member of the mother's descent line
- Matrilineal
- The children of your fatherÂ’s brothers or your motherÂ’s sisters. Under the Omaha kinship system, they are considered equivalent to siblings, and thus cannot be married under the incest taboo
- Parallel cousins
- Referring to the decay rate of a radioactive substance
- Radiometric
- A Celtic hill fort in southern England that was attacked by Roman emperor Vaspasian. Studied and recreated by Sir Mortimer Wheeler
- Maiden Castle
- A deeply stratified location at which Prof. Bellis worked
- Koster, IL
- 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 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
- An archaeologist who has examined many sites in East Africa and manufactured similar tools
- Nick Toth
- Old World archaeologist who studied Maiden Castle, practically reconstructing every detail.
- Mortimer Wheeler
- A preserved man found in an Alpine glacier from about 5300 years ago
- Ice Man
- Anthropologist who claims no correlation between complexity of language and complexity of society.
- Jared Diamond
- Archaeologists who studied gravestones in New England
- James Deetz and Edwin Dethlefsen
- 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
- 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
- Linguists who proposed model of how a closed communication may develop into an open one
- Charles Hockett and Robert Ascher
- Anthropologist who described the development of cultures and society by their fulfillment of humans’ needs
- Bronislaw Malinowski
- Psychologists who first taught American Sign Language to a chimp, Washoe.
- Beatrix and Allen Gardner
- 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
- 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
- Flow of sound
- Vowel
- Process of transforming verbal utterances into meaning
- Transformational grammar
- phonemic; what changes the phonemic value of a word
- Tonality
- An exploratory, usually small excavation made to establish the presence or absence of an archaeological site.
- Test Pits
- Rules of word order in a language
- Syntax
- Something, a force or power or being, that is outside the known laws of nature
- Supernatural
- Physically distinguishable populations within a species; the concept is falling from use
- Subspecies
- The study of layers
- Stratigraphy
- Rituals that attempt to control the supernatural for evil purposes
- Sorcery
- A part-time, supernaturally chosen religious specialist who can manipulate the supernatural
- Shaman
- Populations of a species that are completely isolated from one another but have not yet become truly separate species.
- Semispecies
- A system of ideas and rules for behavior based on supernatural explanations
- Religion
- Dating that indicates the age of one item in comparison to another.
- Relative dating
- Translating a complex set of phenomena into a single entity such as a number
- Reification
- 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
- Judging an individual solely on his or her racial affiliation
- Racism
- In biology, the same as subspecies. In culture, cultural categories to classify and account for human diversity
- Races
- Here, the ability of human languages to generate limitless numbers of meanings
- Productivity
- If undisturbed, when excavated, the topmost layer is the most recent and the bottommost is oldest
- Pristine stratigraph
- A full-time, trained religious specialist who can interpret the supernatural and petition the supernatural on behalf of humans
- Priest
- 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
- Variations in phenotypic traits that are the results of genetic variation
- Polymorphisms
- Languages developed when groups of two cultures come into intimate contact with one another and the two groups need to communicate
- Pidgin
- A unit of sound in a language; Probably 250 phenomes around the world, although only about 25-30 are used in each language
- Phenome
- A language that displays duality and productivity, making the system almost infinitely creative
- Open communication system
- A unit of meaning in a language; it may or may not be a word
- Morpheme
- Originally applied to King David of the Jews, meaning one who had great holiness and power
- Messiah
- Specialized skin cells that produce the pigment melanin
- Melanocytes
- The pigment largely responsible for human skin color
- Melanin
- A Polynesian word referring to a force possessed by a person, a place, or a nonliving thing.
- Mana
- Ritual acts through which people attempt to control the supernatural
- Magic
- A scholar of language, although he or she does not need to speak it
- Linguist
- A set of secular rules governing the behavior of individuals and institutions within a society
- Legal systems