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Questions and Answers
What does the word 'Anthropology' come from?
What does the word 'Anthropology' come from?
Sociocultural anthropologists exclusively study past human behaviors.
Sociocultural anthropologists exclusively study past human behaviors.
False
What is the main focus of archaeology within anthropology?
What is the main focus of archaeology within anthropology?
The scientific recovery, analysis, and interpretation of material remains of human groups from the past.
Match the type of anthropology with its focus:
Match the type of anthropology with its focus:
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What do forensic anthropologists primarily do?
What do forensic anthropologists primarily do?
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Ethnographers produce comprehensive studies known as ethnographies to document societies.
Ethnographers produce comprehensive studies known as ethnographies to document societies.
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Which school of thought emphasizes the belief that the mind functions on binary opposites?
Which school of thought emphasizes the belief that the mind functions on binary opposites?
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Cultural Materialism focuses on the physical and economic factors that influence culture.
Cultural Materialism focuses on the physical and economic factors that influence culture.
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What is the primary focus of Postmodernism in anthropology?
What is the primary focus of Postmodernism in anthropology?
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Match the following schools of anthropological thought with their descriptions:
Match the following schools of anthropological thought with their descriptions:
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What is the main focus of paleoanthropology?
What is the main focus of paleoanthropology?
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Primatologists exclusively study human behavior.
Primatologists exclusively study human behavior.
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What do physical anthropologists aim to understand about humans?
What do physical anthropologists aim to understand about humans?
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Match the fields of physical anthropology with their focus:
Match the fields of physical anthropology with their focus:
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Which characteristic is NOT commonly shared among primates?
Which characteristic is NOT commonly shared among primates?
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All primates, including humans, rely heavily on their sense of smell.
All primates, including humans, rely heavily on their sense of smell.
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What is the function of the clavicle bone in primates?
What is the function of the clavicle bone in primates?
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Match the primate feature with its description:
Match the primate feature with its description:
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Which aspect does NOT define culture?
Which aspect does NOT define culture?
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Cultural anthropology only studies past cultures.
Cultural anthropology only studies past cultures.
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What is the primary focus of ethnology?
What is the primary focus of ethnology?
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Cultural anthropology includes the study of _____, which involves the adaptation of one culture to another.
Cultural anthropology includes the study of _____, which involves the adaptation of one culture to another.
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Match the branches of anthropology with their focuses:
Match the branches of anthropology with their focuses:
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What is the main difference between patrilineal and matrilineal kinship systems?
What is the main difference between patrilineal and matrilineal kinship systems?
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Arranged marriages have a higher divorce rate than traditional marriages in Canada and the U.S.A.
Arranged marriages have a higher divorce rate than traditional marriages in Canada and the U.S.A.
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Name one function of marriage according to the discussed content.
Name one function of marriage according to the discussed content.
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Match the following marriage types with their descriptions:
Match the following marriage types with their descriptions:
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What does the term 'worldview' refer to in the context of culture and behavior?
What does the term 'worldview' refer to in the context of culture and behavior?
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Culture allows humans to adapt to their physical environments faster than evolutionary changes occur.
Culture allows humans to adapt to their physical environments faster than evolutionary changes occur.
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What is one effect of air conditioning on community interactions?
What is one effect of air conditioning on community interactions?
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Match the following terms with their descriptions:
Match the following terms with their descriptions:
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What was one significant development in early human evolution?
What was one significant development in early human evolution?
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Homo sapiens originated in multiple locations across Africa.
Homo sapiens originated in multiple locations across Africa.
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Match the following terms with their descriptions:
Match the following terms with their descriptions:
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Name some current trends with regard to marriage? Provide some reasons for these trends. (4 marks)
Name some current trends with regard to marriage? Provide some reasons for these trends. (4 marks)
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How might technology affect human behaviour? (2 marks)
How might technology affect human behaviour? (2 marks)
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What were some of the changes that happened as our economic systems and culture moved from a foraging society to an agricultural society?
What were some of the changes that happened as our economic systems and culture moved from a foraging society to an agricultural society?
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Study Notes
Anthropology
- Anthropology comes from the Greek words anthropos, meaning "human", and logos, meaning "word" or "study of".
- Anthropology is the study of all aspects of human behaviour.
Sociocultural Anthropology
- Sociocultural anthropologists record and study lifeways that are now mostly extinct.
Archaeology
- Archaeologists specialize in the scientific recovery, analysis, and interpretation of the material remains of human groups who lived in the past.
- Archaeology often deals with cultures that existed before the invention of writing (prehistory).
- Historic archaeologists examine the evidence of later, complex civilizations that produced written records.
- Archaeologists study artifacts that people have left behind instead of living people.
Linguistic Anthropology
- Linguistic anthropologists examine similarities among contemporary languages to identify many language families and past relationships between human populations.
Ethnographers
- Ethnographers produce ethnographies which are detailed descriptive studies of human societies.
- In cultural anthropology, an ethnography is the study of a non-Western society.
- Ethnographies cover a range of topics, like: religion, ritual, myth, use of symbols, subsistence strategies, technology, gender roles, child-rearing practices, dietary preferences, taboos, medical practices, and so on.
Physical Anthropology
- Physical anthropologists mainly focus on human physical variation.
- Physical anthropologists look at how modern species have come to their current state.
- The discovery of several Neanderthal fossils in the 1800s raised questions about the origins and antiquity of the human species.
Forensic Anthropology
- Forensic anthropologists identify the skeletal remains in cases of natural disasters or other situations where a human body has been found.
- Forensic anthropologists are involved in cases with important legal, historical, and human consequences.
- For example, forensic anthropologists were prominent in the identification of the skeletons of the Russian imperial family (the Romanovs), executed in 1918.
- Forensic anthropologists have also helped with missing soldiers and the aftermath of September 11, 2001.
Functionalism
- Focuses on how social structures contribute to the stability and functioning of society
- Views society as an organism with interconnected parts that work together
- Emphasizes social harmony and the importance of shared values and beliefs
Structuralism
- Emphasizes the underlying structures and patterns that organize human thought and culture
- Suggests the mind functions based on binary opposites, leading to a framework for understanding the world
- Explores how these structures influence social and cultural phenomena
Cultural Materialism
- Argues that material conditions, such as technology and resources, shape culture and social organization
- Recognizes the influence of economic factors on social practices and beliefs
- Emphasizes the importance of adapting to the material environment
Diffusionism
- Focuses on the spread of cultural traits and innovations between different societies
- Examines how cultural exchange and interaction shape cultural development
- Highlights the role of cultural borrowing and adaptation in shaping societies
Evolutionism
- Views cultures as evolving along a linear progression from simple to complex
- Believes societies progress through stages of development based on cultural advancements
- Emphasizes the notion of cultural superiority based on the complexity of a culture
Postmodernism
- Challenges traditional assumptions about objective reality and grand narratives
- Emphasizes the subjective nature of knowledge and the importance of multiple perspectives
- Questions the notion of a single, universal truth
Relativism
- Promotes the idea that different cultures should be understood and valued on their own terms
- Rejects judgments about the superiority or inferiority of cultures
- Emphasizes the importance of cultural sensitivity and respect for cultural diversity
Physical Anthropology
- Physical anthropologists explore human origins, evolution, and what makes humans unique.
Major Fields of Physical Anthropology
- Paleoanthropology
- Forensic
- Primatology
- Human Variation or Biological
Paleoanthropology
- Paleoanthropologists study the fossil remains of ancient humans and their primate ancestors.
- They work with various specialists, like geologists and paleozoologists, to understand past environments.
Primatology
- Primatologists study primates, including apes, monkeys, and humans.
- Their focus is on the behavior and abilities of primates, particularly great apes, which offer insights into our earliest human ancestors.
Human Variation or Human Biology
- This field examines physical differences and similarities among existing human populations.
- Their research focuses on human diversity, genetic inheritance patterns, adaptation to environmental challenges, and other biological characteristics of Homo sapiens.
### Primate Similarities
- Primates share similarities that differentiate them from other animals.
- Primate brains are larger relative to body size, supporting flexible learning, complex communication, and a longer time to mature.
- Primates have forward-facing eyes, allowing for overlapping visual fields and 3-D vision.
- Primates rely more heavily on sight than smell, resulting in reduced snouts and noses with smaller olfactory brain regions.
- Primates possess varied teeth, allowing them to consume diverse foods like gums, leaves, fruits, roots, nuts, insects, and meat.
- Primates retained the clavicle bone, stabilizing the shoulder for side-to-side arm movement, unlike other mammals with front-to-back motion.
- Most primates have nails instead of claws, along with skin ridges (fingerprints) on their fingers and toes for better grip.
- Primates have opposable thumbs and toes, allowing for grasping, except in humans who have lost the grasping foot due to bipedalism.
- Humans have a more precise and dexterous precision grip compared to other primates.
Bipedalism
- Bipedalism separates humans from other primates.
- Bipedalism allowed human ancestors to carry food to safe eating areas, increase walking efficiency, and free hands for tool use.
Anatomy of Bipedalism
- Humans maintain balance while walking by keeping the head positioned in the midline of the body, upper body weight over the pelvis, and a stable leg supporting body weight.
- The human foramen magnum is located beneath the skull for balance and upright head positioning.
- Apes have a backward-angled foramen magnum.
- Human spines have multiple curves for balance while ape spines lack a lumbar curve, leading to forward weight distribution.
- The human pelvis has twisted iliac blades and differently positioned gluteal muscles, allowing for balancing while standing on one foot.
- Ape iliac blades are not twisted, leading to pelvic rotation during bipedal walking.
- The human femur angles inward for efficient walking, supporting body weight at the midline, while ape femurs are straight.
- The human knee is more stable for walking with a flatter tibia top, while ape knees are more mobile for climbing.
- Human big toes are enlarged and aligned with other toes for balance, while ape big toes are divergent for grasping branches.
- Humans have two arches in their feet: a transverse arch distributing weight, and a longitudinal arch distributing weight, absorbing shock, and pushing weight forward.
- Ape feet have a single transverse arch.
Brain Development
- Humans have large brains relative to their body size, about three times larger than expected based on body size.
- Brain expansion is hypothesized to be driven by complex survival skills, tool development, hunting, language, and social structures.
- Brain size significantly increased between 2 million and 700,000 years ago with Homo erectus, and again between 500,000 and 100,000 years ago with Homo sapiens.
Culture Definition
- Culture encompasses the actions, creations, and beliefs of people.
- Culture includes daily routines, rituals, and abstract concepts.
- Culture is learned and passed down through generations.
Components of Culture
- Food, clothing, and housing styles
- Modes of transportation
- Defense mechanisms
- Education and language
Culture as a System
- Cultural Anthropology
- Encompasses the totality of ideas, values, behaviors, and attitudes shared by a society.
- Includes both the past and present.
- Cultural Anthropology Branches
- Ethnology
- Involves extended immersion to meticulously observe a culture.
- Linguistic Anthropology
- Studies language structure, history, and usage.
- Archaeology
- Investigates past cultures by excavating and reconstructing physical remnants.
- Ethnology
Cultural Factors
- Assimilation
- Process of individuals adopting the customs and values of a dominant culture.
- Acculturation
- Cultural exchange between groups, where individuals adopt aspects of each other's cultures.
- Diffusion
- Spread of cultural practices, ideas, or objects from one place to another.
- Multiculturalism
- Coexistence and acceptance of diverse cultures within a society.
Kinship Systems
- Matrilineal: Tracing ancestry through mothers.
- Patrilineal: Tracing ancestry through fathers.
- Bilineal: Tracing ancestry through both mothers and fathers.
- Most Canadians trace their ancestry in a bilineal way.
Lineage vs. Clan
- Lineage: Male relatives traced back to a common ancestor.
- Clan: Groups of lineages with members related but not always able to trace exact relationships.
Marriage
- Nearly all cultures have the institution of marriage.
Functions of Marriage
- Defines social relationships for childcare and socialization.
- Defines rights and obligations of partners around sex, reproduction, work, and social roles.
- Creates new relationships between families and kin groups.
Forms of Marriage
- Monogamy: One partner.
- Polygamy: Multiple partners.
- Polygyny: One husband, multiple wives.
- Polyandry: One wife, multiple husbands.
- Arranged marriage: Marriage set up by someone other than the marrying couple.
Marriage Trends
- Divorce rate in Canada and the US is low for arranged marriages (5-7%).
- Husbands are not the only breadwinners.
- Divorce is easier to attain.
- More couples are choosing not to marry.
- More couples have children outside of marriage.
- Common-law relationships are more frequent and accepted.
- Same-sex marriage is becoming more common.
- Interfaith and interracial marriage is more frequent.
- Fewer couples choose to have children.
Culture and Behaviour
- Culture influences behaviour by shaping worldview through physical environment and social structures
- Culture helps people adapt to their environment more quickly than evolution
- Examples of adaptation: Inuit people in the Arctic, using traditional methods and adapting to new technologies like snowmobiles and nylon parkas
Technology and Culture
- Technology influences culture through adoption and diffusion
- Early humans used stone tools and fur clothing
- Modern societies have advanced technologies like airplanes, cell phones, and genetic engineering
- Air conditioning changed building design, living patterns, and social interactions
Language and Culture
- Understanding language is key to understanding culture
- Words can have different meanings even within the same language
- Body language varies across cultures, with gestures and personal space norms changing
Economic Systems and Culture
- Economic systems produce and distribute resources
- Societies have evolved from foraging to agricultural, industrial, and postindustrial
- Foraging societies are hunter-gatherers with a nomadic lifestyle, sharing resources and valuing equality
- Agricultural societies emerged with farming, leading to settled communities, social classes, and specialized jobs
- Industrial societies rely on wage labour, with the Industrial Revolution as a key turning point
- Postindustrial societies are characterized by service sector jobs, information as a product, and a globalized economy
Culture and Behaviour
- Culture influences perceptions and behaviour
- Cooley’s Looking Glass Theory posits “perception is reality"
- People behave based on their perception of how others perceive them
Homo sapiens Evolution Timeline
- The earliest known human ancestor, Sahelanthropus, emerged approximately six million years ago.
- Homo sapiens emerged over five million years later, after a period of evolution among various human species.
- H. sapiens originated in Africa, with diverse groups evolving in relative isolation before intermingling and exchanging genes and tools.
- The oldest recovered DNA of an early human relative comes from the Sima de los Huesos ("Pit of Bones") in Spain, dated to 430,000 years old, revealing the oldest known Neanderthals.
- Genetic analysis suggests a common ancestor for modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans living between 550,000 and 750,000 years ago.
- Homo heidelbergensis, a species dating back 700,000 to 200,000 years ago, is considered a possible common ancestor, with an African lineage leading to Homo sapiens and a European branch leading to Neanderthals and Denisovans.
- The oldest Homo sapiens remains discovered to date are found at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, dating back 300,000 years, exhibiting a mix of modern and archaic facial features.
- Other early Homo sapiens fossils come from Florisbad, South Africa (around 260,000 years old), the Kibish Formation in Ethiopia (around 195,000 years old), and Herto, Ethiopia (around 160,000 years old).
- Fossils from Ngaloba, Tanzania, dated to 120,000 years old, display both archaic and modern traits.
- Debate continues regarding the definition of Homo sapiens fossils due to varying combinations of archaic and modern features.
- A significant shift in tool technology occurred around 300,000 years ago, with the emergence of the Middle Stone Age, featuring refined stone tools and projectile points.
- Evidence suggests that distinct groups of humans evolved and potentially shared these tool technologies.
- The presence of sophisticated stone blades in India, dated to 250,000 years ago, suggests independent invention or early migration of modern humans outside Africa.
- Fossils and genetic evidence indicate that modern humans were present in the Middle East as early as 177,000 to 194,000 years ago.
- Evidence from Qafzeh, Israel, suggests a long presence of humans in the region, dating back 100,000 to 130,000 years ago.
- Evidence from China places Homo sapiens in the region between 80,000 and 120,000 years ago, with a 100,000-year-old jawbone from Zhirendong exhibiting archaic traits.
- The Apidima skull fragment in Greece, potentially dating back over 200,000 years, offers controversial evidence of early Homo sapiens migration outside Africa.
- A major migration out of Africa commenced 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, with descendants populating various regions of the world.
- Interbreeding between early African humans and other archaic hominid species occurred, but their lineages eventually faded out.
- The extinction of other human species, including Homo floresiensis, Neanderthals, and Denisovans, left Homo sapiens as the sole surviving human species.
- Neanderthals, who once inhabited Eurasia, vanished around 40,000 years ago, with limited evidence suggesting survival in enclaves until 29,000 years ago.
- Denisovans, with limited fossil evidence, are thought to have interbred with humans in Papua New Guinea as recently as 15,000 years ago.
- Despite the genetic contributions of other human species, Homo sapiens remains the sole surviving human lineage, and the reasons for the extinction of other human species remain unclear.
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