Anthropology Test
Define anthropology
The study of humans (origins, behaviour, physical/social development)
Human Culture
The ways of living in a group (traditions, inventions, beliefs, values)
Anthropology focuses on humanity as a whole
“Why do human beings behave the way they do?”
Types of cultural anthropology
1. Social Anthropology
2. Archaeology
3. Linguistic Anthropology
Social Anthropology
Study of human society and cultures. Social anthropologists try to understand how people live in societies and how they make their lives meaningful.
Why do people do what they do? How are societies organized?
Archaeology
Study of past humans and cultures through material remains. It involves the excavation, analysis and interpretation of artifacts, soils, and cultural processes.
Linguistic Anthropology
Study of language in context, revealing how people's ways of communicating interact with culture, history, and social life.
Types of physical anthropology
1. Paleoanthropology
2. Forensic Anthropology
3. Primatology
Paleoanthropology
Study of human evolution through the fossil and archaeological records.
Forensic Anthropology
Study of human skeletal remains for law enforcement agencies to help with the recovery of human remains.
Primatology
Study of the behavior, biology, evolution, and taxonomy of nonhuman primates.
Questions that cultural anthropologists would ask
- Why is there social and political inequity?
- How does language affect and express culture?
- What can we learn about a culture from what people leave behind?
5 Schools of Cultural Anthropological Thought
1. Cultural Relativism
2. Functional Theory
3. Cultural Materialism
4. Feminist Anthropology
5. Postmodernism
Cultural Relativism
An anthropologist cannot compare two cultures because each culture has its own internal rules that must be accepted
Functional Theory
The importance of interdependence among all things within a social system to ensure its long-term survival
Cultural Materialism
Materials and conditions within the environment influence how a culture develops, creating the ideas and ideology of a culture
Feminist Anthropology
Looks at how cultures determine gender roles, try to debunk gender myths and show how our ideas about gender are culturally constructed (created by the culture and not biology)
Postmodernism
It is the belief that it is impossible to have any “true” knowledge about the world. Postmodernism rejects the idea of objective truth. What we “know” about the world is our own construction, created by society
Research tools of cultural anthropologists
Unstructured interviews
Semi-structured interviews
Structured interview
Counting people, photographs, and mapping
Unstructured Interviews
Between an anthropologist and an informant. Test initial ideas and can lead to a greater understanding of the topic. No deception between the interviewer and the interviewee.
Semi-Structured Interviews
Limited amount of time in a community and need to use their time efficiently. questions in advance and end up with reliable qualitative data. Not a strict set of questions, more like an outline.
Structured Interviews
Set of questions that do not change. Very clear on the topic and other information is available. Does not need a relationship between interview and interviewee. Can be conducted by non-experts. Does not allow for changing circumstances within the interview. I.e. open-ended questions.
What topics are ethnologists concerned with
Marriage customs, kinship patterns, political and economic systems, religion, art music and technology
How do ethnologists study culture
Ethnologists study culture through participant observation, in some cases living with a group and participating in their culture, taking extensive notes.
Ethnologists use this to write an ethnography or written account of the culture.
Types of Linguistic Anthropology
1. Historical Linguistics
2. Structural Linguistics
3. Sociolinguistics
Historical Linguistics
Compare the similarities and differences of language structures so they can understand how languages are related and how people migrated in the past
Structural Linguistics
Views language as self-contained, and self-regulating in a semiotic system (a set of rules and procedures for making meaning from signs) whose elements are defined by their relationship to other elements within the system
Sociolinguistics
How language serves and is shaped by the social nature of human beings. It also explores how people use language within their culture to express status and context
Hominin
Human fossils are classified as hominins, which is a human ancestor. Hominins typically have all human features or a mixture of human and ape features
Radiometric Dating
It determines the age of the object/fossil by measuring the amount of radioactivity it has.
Bipedalism
Locomoting on two legs
Forensic Anthropology
Help legal agencies to identify human remains after mass disasters, wars, homicides, suicides, or accidental deaths.
Forensic Anthropology as a career
Forensic anthropologists have spent years studying human bones and fossils. Police will ask them to examine bones to help them solve a case
In Canada forensic anthropology is often a part-time job because they only collect evidence, they are not necessarily involved with the detective work and it can take weeks and sometimes months to process all the evidence
3 Principals of Natural Selection (Charles Darwin)
1. Variation: Every species has a lot of variety within it
2. Heritability: Individuals pass on traits to their offspring
3. Environmental Fitness: Individuals who are better adapted to their environment will produce more offspring and pass on traits to the next generation
Tools
show intelligence