Anthropology Overview Quiz

Anthropology Overview

• Anthropology is the academic discipline that studies humanity from a broad biological and cultural perspective.
• Four major subfields of anthropology: Biological/physical, Archaeology, Cultural, and Linguistics.
• Biological/physical anthropology compares human anatomy/behavior, including primate species, genetic variation, and biological evolution.
• Archaeology excavates material remains (historic and prehistoric) to reconstruct human lifestyles and ways of life.
• Cultural anthropology examines differences and similarities in contemporary and historical cultures, including causes and consequences of societal change and globalizations impact.
• Linguistic anthropology examines relationships between language and culture, understanding language's role in shaping perceptions and thoughts.

Learning Objectives

• Four subfields of anthropology and their primary interests are listed.
• Comparison of anthropology with other fields, also studying humanity, is discussed.
• The meaning and importance of holistic, comparative, and relativistic perspectives is explained.
• Practical uses of anthropology to solve human problems are expanded upon.
• Practical applications and roles within cultural, medical, and corporate anthropology are explained.
• Historical view of anthropology and its changes are described.
• The importance of the concept of cultures and their components is discussed.
• The relationship between cultural knowledge and individual behavior is discussed.
• The methods used to study contemporary and past cultures are noted.
• The main ideas of 19th-century unilineal evolutionists are explored, including applying evolutionary ideas to cultures and arranging them in a sequence.
• How American historical particularism and British functionalism challenged unilineal evolutionism has been discussed.
• The reasons why contemporary anthropology does not have a single unifying theory are presented.
• Theories of incest taboos are analyzed, including four main hypotheses: "Marry Out or Die Out," "Peace in the Family," "Inbreeding Avoidance," and "Familiarity Breeds Disinterest."
• Different patterns of marriage customs are explained.
• The forms of marriage, classified by number of spouses (polygyny, monogamy, polyandry, and group marriage, are examined.
• The importance of the kinship in creating relationships, organizing activities (economics, politics, military, ritual, etc), and maintaining cultures in premodern cultures is addressed.
• Two main forms of unilineal descent are described (matrilineal and patrilineal), along with the kinship groups resulting from them.
• Two primary forms of nonunilineal descent (bilateral and cognatic) are explained, along with the cultural construction of kinship and its associations with terminological systems (such as Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, and Omaha).