Introduction to Anthropology

Anthropology Overview

• Anthropology studies the culture and biology of humans and their closest relatives, such as non-human primates (monkeys, apes).

Four Field Discipline

• Socio-cultural Anthropology studies patterns of beliefs and behavior in modern and historical cultures.
• Linguistic Anthropology focuses on human speech and language, including sign language and gestures.
• Archeology studies earlier cultures through the analysis of material remains from past societies.
• Biological Anthropology (Physical/Evolutionary Anthropology) examines the biological and behavioral characteristics of humans, primates, and ancestors.

Central Arguments

• Race is a human invention and a social construct, not a biological reality.
• Human biological variation is real (skin tone, weight, hair types) but cannot be defined biologically.
• "Race" cannot explain human variation due to low between-group variability and high within-group variability.

Human Variation

• People associate race with physical traits, and race has traditionally been tied to hierarchy and power.
• Religion and social status are occasionally treated as more important than race.

Colonialism

• Colonialism is when a country exercises political/economic control over another region, involving exploitation and settlement.
• Western European colonialism began in the 15th century.

Neo-Colonialism

• Neo-colonialism modernizes aspects of colonialism.
• Modern conservation programs and tourism can be forms of neo-colonialism.

Race as a Concept

• Racial slavery in the U.S. colonies was established in the late 1600s/early 1700s.
• Laws separated Africans and their descendants, restricting their rights and mobility, and reducing them to permanent slavery.
• Differences with whites were exaggerated to justify slavery, dehumanizing slaves.

Ethnocentrism

• Ethnocentrism is the belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group or culture; ethnocentric beliefs are part of racism.

Craniometry

• In ~1839, U.S. physician Samuel Morton attempted to rank intelligence based on skull size and concluded that Caucasians had the largest skull size.
• Later analysis found that Morton excluded skulls that didn't fit his expectations.
• In 1842, Swedish anatomist Anders Rezius introduced the cephalic index (skull width divided by its length).
• "Race scientists" began to use this measure, believing it could assess race and intelligence.

"Types of Mankind"

• In the 1850s Nott and Gliddon attempted to explain human variation (they were polygenists).
• Polygenists believed that people of different races were of different species.
• They categorized people of different races into different species and insisted that cognitive ability was unevenly distributed among the races
• They used "scientific" justifications for slavery and notions of racial inferiority.

Humans and Intelligence

• There are no differences in intelligence by race and skull/brain size does not determine intelligence.
• The variation in human skull size correlates with body size.

Charles Darwin

• Charles Darwin published "The Origin of Species" in 1859 which refuted the idea of races as separate species.
• Darwin was a monogenist who believed that all humans belonged to one species, and variation was caused by natural selection.

Natural Selection

• Natural selection is the differential contributions of individuals to the next generation based on their ability to survive and reproduce.
• Fitness is the ability to survive in an environment and pass on genes.
• A selection pressure is a factor that influences reproductive success in individuals.

Human Body: Climate Adaptation

• Temperature can act as a selection pressure.
• Allen's Rule indicates that body shape is more linear in warm climates and more rounded and compact in cold climates, with shorter extremities in cold climates.
• Much of human variation is a result of natural selection, with human traits falling on a continuum.

Early Zoos and Museums

• Early interest in human variation led to "human collections," where people were put on display.
• In 1897, polar explorer Robert Peary brought 6 Inuit people from Greenland to the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Eugenics

• Francis Galton (1822-1911) founded the eugenics movement: the science of improving the human population through selective breeding.
• Eugenics mistakenly believed behavior was inherited and fixed, and that social class was determined by genetics.
• Encouraged mating between individuals with "desirable" traits (those who were privileged and had education).
• They mistakenly expected that all traits would be shared by all members of the same group, extending to "racial" traits based on simple Mendelian inheritance.

Genetic Terms

• Phenotype: observable characteristics
• Genotype: genetic constitution of an individual organism.
• Allele: alternate form of a gene
• Mendelian traits: controlled by two alleles at one locus
• Homozygous: possessing two copies of the same allele ("TT" or "tt")
• Heterozygous: possessing two different alleles (“Tt)
• Dominant allele: the allele that is expressed in a heterozygote.
• Recessive allele: the allele that is not expressed in a heterozygote.

Eugenics Movement

• Eugenics believed immigrants to be racially inferior and a biological threat to the nation, discouraging "interbreeding".

Franz Boas

• Father of modern American anthropology
• Studies cranial development of immigrants and their U.S.-born children
• Features vary from one generation to the next due to environment
• Challenged prevailing ideas about race in the early 1900s.

Genetic Drift

• Random fluctuations in a gene pool over time.
• Rare traits can be lost, especially in small populations.

Mutation

• Any change in the DNA sequence (e.g., albinism).

Gene Flow

• Exchange of genes between populations
• Requires migration plus interbreeding
• Causes populations to become more similar genetically.

Nonrandom Mating

• Endogamy: mating within a particular culture or group
• Positive assortative mating: the mating of individuals sharing some common trait

Ancestry

• Each person has a multitude of ancestors from various locations.

History of Intelligence Tests

• Alfred Binet (French psychologist) developed the first intelligence test in 1905 to identify students with low academic achievement.
• The intelligence quotient (IQ) was calculated as: (“mental age” / chronological age) x 100

Intelligence Tests at Ellis Island

• Psychologist Henry Goddard used tests to identify non-Nordic populations as "undesirable"

IQ Tests and Race

• Used to fuel racist dogma throughout 1900s
• Segregation arguments were bolstered by low scores from African Americans.
• Higher scores were achieved by African Americans attending schools in the North than rural whites in the South

Admixture

• Formation of a hybrid population through the mixing of 2 ancestral populations.
• No evidence that intelligence increases with the degree of white ancestry.

"The Bell Curve"

• Book in which psychologist Richard Herrnstein and political scientist Charles Murray claim the existence of inherited racial differences in intelligence.

"The Mismeasure of Man"

• Written by Stephen Jay Gould
• Criticized the idea that there are racial differences in intelligence
• Efforts to rank human intelligence by race is a form of biological determinism.

Biological Determinism

• Attributes differences in human behavior and ability solely to biology and genetics
• Ignores the role of social factors and environment.

Factors Explaining Differences in Educational Performance by Race

• Past educational and life opportunities/experiences.
• Socioeconomic status: affects the quality/ status of education and is often divided along “racial” lines
• Cultural attitudes (family, community, etc.) about education

"White" as a Racial Category

• First legal use of the term was in a 1691 Virginia statute that expanded the range and severity of punishment for inter-racial marriage/sexual relations
• Definition of who belonged kept changing…
• “Ethics” = Latinos, Asians, African Americans, and Native peoples
• White = Pan-European ancestry
• White = An “unmarked” racial category
• Represents the “normal” standard against which others are measured

Miscegenation

• Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924 prohibits marriage between whites and non-whites
• Mildred Jeter and Richard loving won agains the act in 1967; it was shut down by the Supreme Court

Standards of Beauty

• Preference for lighter features in many cultures is a remnant of slavery and colonialism

Amendments of the Constitution

• 1865: 13th Amendment outlaws slavery
• 1868: 14th amendment grants citizens to all persons born or naturalized in the United States
• 1870: 15th Amendment gives African American men the right to vote
• 1880s - 1960s : jim crow laws

Segregation

• Enforced separate public spaces

1896: Plessy V. Ferguson

• A black man (Homer Plessy) boards a “whites only” train car to challenge segregation Laws; he's arrested
• U.S. Supreme Court rules against him, stating that states may provide “separate but equal” facilities

1944: Mendez V. Westminster

• Mexican-American children denied enrollment at “white” school Sue; U.S District court rules in their favor.

1954: Brown V. Board of Education

• Supreme Court rules that school segregation violates the 14th amendment

Social Security

• Created under Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935
• Excluded 2 occupations (agricultural workers and domestic servants.

Native Americans

• Policies Designed to enforce assimilation to erase Native American cultural practices.

Recognizing tribes as sovereign nations ended in 1871 with the Indian Appropriations Act

Japanese in America

• 1942: Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive order 9066

Terminology

• Disenfranchise: to deprive a person, group,etc of the right to vote or other rights of citizenship
• Marginalize: to put or keep someone in a powerless or unimportant position within a society or group

Human Variation is Continuous

• Majority of human traits cannot be easily classified into distinct categories
• Skin color, height are polygenic / continuous traits
• Hair color, height, eye color

Skin Color Differences

• Light skin absorbs about 20% of visible light.
• Black skin absorbs about 80% of the visible light.
• Darker skin has a different kind of melanin (type of skin pigmentation)
• Having darker skin makes you less likely to burn.

Sunlight and Nutrition

• UV radiation breaks down Folate (a type of B vitamin)
• Black skin helps protect against folate degradation/break down
• Interferes with Vitamin D production in skin.

Humans and Vitamin D

• Vitamin D is needed for proper calcium absorption.

Human Skin Color

• Skin color is the result of needing to absorb enough UV light to make Vitamin D, but not so much UV that Folate levels drop low enough to harm reproduction.
• Populations with the highest levels of pigmentation are in the tropics (around the equator); lighter skin found In Northern latitudes.

Human Evolution

• It is believed that when body hair was lost, human skin darkened.
• As humans moved out of Africa into Europe and Asia dark skin posed a problem.
• In cold locations, lighter skin allowed sufficient Vitamin D synthesis.
• Past Habitat Determined Skin Color

Red Blood Cells (RBCs)

• Carry oxygen to the body’s cells.
• Contain hemoglobin (Hb).
• Abnormal sickled RBCs don't carry oxygen effectively to the tissues.

Sickle Cell Disease

• RBCs become sticky, rigid, and block blood flow
• This is important because having sickle cell RBCs protects against malaria. Malaria parasite is passed through their saliva

Balanced Polymorphism

• Definition: when more than one allele (or gene) is maintained in the population due to heterozygote advantage HS is the best genotype to have in malarial areas