Intro to Anthropology
The four subfields of anthropology
Physical/Biological, Archaeology, Linguistics, and Cultural
This basic unit of genetic information is made up of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA
Genes
This term refers to the locations of artifacts, features, and sites in space and time
Provenience
According to the film "Human Origins" where do our earliest ancestors come from?
East Africa
This term refers to appearance represented by the allelic composition of a gene
Phenotype
This is the term for the study of the way of life of one particular society, its subsistence, kinship patterns, economics, politics, and religion --
Ethnography
This phenomenon occurs when only a few individuals populate a new area and changes in the gene pool result purely from chance
Founder effect
What are the different types of dating techniques used in archaeology?
Relative dating (ex: stratigraphy)
Absolute Dating (ex: carbon dating)
This term refers to a social construction rather than a biological classification, as all humans have the same chromosome number, basic genetic composition, and are all the same species
Race
This term refers to the concept that all cultures are equal and comparable, and no culture is inferior or superior
Cultural Relativism
This is the term for the comparative study of two or more societies
Ethnology
This distinctive characteristic of Lucy or Australopithecus afarensis that make her an ancestor in our evolutionary process include
Bipediality
Archaeology, as a discipline, has gone through a number of stages in its development. What are these stages?
Speculation, historical or cultural particularism, processual, and post-processual
What types of information can we look at to determine how our ancestors lived?
Skeletal remains, artifacts/tool use, ecofacts such as faunal or botanical remains.
This problematic term refers to the idea that societies progress in stages from savagery to barbarism to civilization
Unilineal Evolution
Lewis H. Morgan's major contribution to Anthropology includes
Unilineal evolution
These five factors affect population biological genetics --
1) mutations 2) natural selection 3) genetic drift 4) sexual selection 5) gene flow
What are some of the characteristic changes to societies and landscapes that occurred with agriculture and the domestication of plants? (name 2)
People settle in one location, territorial control of land, division of labor in terms of gender, increase in kinship relations, beginning of ancestor cults and cemeteries.
The film "Beneath Kentucky's Fields and Streets" covers these four time periods
1) Frontier period
2) the Antebellum period
3) the Civil War period
4) the Industrial period
This term refers the allelic composition of a gene
Genotype
Franz Boas' major contribution to Anthropology includes
Cultural Relativism
What are the basic postulates (three) of evolution by means of natural selection?
1. Ability of a population to expand is infinite while resources are limited.
2. Organisms vary in their physical traits. These variations allow some to survive and reproduce more successfully.
3. Traits are passed from parents to offspring.
State-level complex societies have which characteristics in common (name 5)
Centralization of power
Communication network
Monopoly on the use of violence
Agrarian/pastoral/marine intensive subsistence base
Writing or other forms of accounting systems
Specialization of labor
Ranking or hierarchical ordering of classes
Ideological belief in one creator god with lesser ranking gods
Redistribution and tribute
Territorial control based on partitioning
According to the film "Human Origins," bipediality is important for these three adaptive traits
1) Keeps the body cooler
2) Better means of transportation in open areas
3) Frees the hands to carry things or to forage/use tools
This basic principle in archaeology and geology helps to determine the time of deposition of artifacts or strata
Uniformitarianism