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| The study of human nature, human society and the human past |
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| A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that describes how anthropology tries to integrate all that is known about human beings and their activities at the highest and most inclusive level |
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| A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to consider similarities and differences in as wide a range of human societies as possible before generalizing about human nature, human society or the human past |
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| A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to place their observations about human nature, human society or the human past in a temporal framework that takes into considereation change over time. |
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| Sets of learned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society. Human beings use culture to adapt to and to transform the world in which they live. |
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| Organisms (in this case people) whose defining features are co determined by biological and cultural factors. |
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| 5 sub-fields of anthropology |
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Definition
Biological Anthropology
Cultural Anthropology
Anthropological Linguistics
Applied Anthropology
Archaeology |
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| Social groupings that allegedly reflect biological differences |
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| The systematic oppression of one or more socially defines "races" by another socially defines "race" that is justified in terms of the supposed inherent biological superiority of the rulers and the supposed inherent inferiority of those they rule |
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| Biological Anthropology (or Physical Anthropology) |
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| The specialty of anthropology that looks at human beings as biological organisms and tires to discover what characteristics make them different from other organisms and what characteristics they share |
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| The search for fossilized remains of humanity's earliest ancestors. |
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| The study of nonhuman primates, the closest living relatives of humans |
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| The shapes and sizes of bones and teeth |
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| The specialty of anthropology that shoes how variation in beliefs and behaviors of members of different human groups is shaped by sets of learned behaviors and ideas that human beings acquire as a member of society - that is, by culture. |
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| Non-western societies that have organized themselves into social groups whose members are considered "relatives" |
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| An extended period of close involvement with the people in whose language or way of life anthropologists are interested, during which anthropologists ordinarily collect most of their data |
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| People in a particular culture who work with anthropologists and provide them with insights about their way of life. Also called respondants, teachers or friends. |
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| An anthropologists written of filmed description of a culture. |
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| The system of arbitrary vocal symbols used to encode one's experience of the world and of others. |
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| The specialty of anthropology concerned with the study of languages. |
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| A cultural anthropology of the human past involving the analysis of material remains left behind by earlier societies. |
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| Specialists who use information gathered from other anthropological specialties to solve particularly cross-cultural problems |
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| Languages produced when speakers of unrelated languages are forced to speak with each other |
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| The long stretch of time before the development of writing. |
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| Portable objects modified by human beings |
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| The specialty of anthropology that concerns itself with human health - the factors that contribute to disease or illness and the ways that human populations deal with disease or illness |
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| The set of testable hypotheses that assert that human organisms can change over time and give rise to new kinds or organisms, with the result that all organisms ultimately share a common ancestry. |
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| The belief, derived from Plato, in fixed ideas, or "forms" that exist perfect and unchanging in eternity. Actual objects in the temporal world, such as cows or horses are sen as imperfect material realizations of the ideal form that defines their kind. |
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| A comprehensive framework for interpreting the word, based on Aritstotelian princples and elaborated during the Middle ages , in which every kind of living organism was linked to ever other kind in an enormous chain. An organism differed from the kinds immediately above it and below it on the chain by the lest possible degree |
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| The level of the lennean taxonomy in which different species are grouped together on the basis or their similarities to each other |
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1. For Linnaeus, a platonic "natural kind" defined in terms of it's essence.
2. for modern bioloigsts, a reproductive community of populations (reproductively isolated from others) that occupies a specific niche in nature. |
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| The notion that natural disasters are responsible for the extinction of species, which are then replaced by new species. |
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| The notion that an understanding or current processes can be used to reconstruct the past history of the earth. Based on the assumption that the same gradual processes of erosion and uplift that change the earth' surface today were the same in the past. |
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| Transformational Evolution |
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| Also called Lamarckian evolution; it assumes essentialist species and a uniform environment. Each individual member of a species transforms itself to meet the challenges of a changed environment through the laws of use and disuse and the inheritance of acquired characters. |
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1. Law or use or disuse: Organs are strengthened or weakened by use or disuse. (Use it or lose it)
2. Law of inheritance: Parents have characteristics that get passed down to children |
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| Darwins claim that similar living species must all have had a common ancestor. |
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| A two-step, mechanistic explanation of how descent with modification takes place: 1. Every generation, variant individuals are generated within a species due to genetic mutation and 2: Those variant individuals best suited to the current environment survive and produce more offspring than other variants. |
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1. The principle of variation. no two individuals are identical in all respects; they vary in size, colour, intelligence etc.
2. The principle of heredity. Offspring tend to resemble their parents.
3. The principle of natural selection. Different variants leave different numbers of offspring. |
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| The shaping of any useful feature of an organism, regardless of it's origin |
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| The shaping or useful features or an organism by natural selection for the function they now preform |
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| The shaping or a useful feature or an organism by natural selection to preform one function and the later reshaping or it by different selection pressures to preform a new function. |
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| A theory of heredity suggesting that an organisms physical traits are passed on from one generation to the next on the form of multiple distinct particles given off by all parts of the organism, different proportions of which get passed on to offspring via sperm or egg. |
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| The view that heredity is based on non-blending, single-particle genetic inheritance. E. Red and white flower experiment. |
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| A principle of Mendelian inheritance in which an individual gets one particle (gene) for each trait. (ex. 1/2 of the required pair) from each parent. |
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| Principle of independent assortment |
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| A principle of Mendelian inheritance in which each pair of particles (genes) separates independently of every other pair when germ cells (eggs and sperm) are formed. |
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| Describes a fertalized egg that receives the same particle (or allele) from each parent for a particular trait. |
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| Describes a fertilized egg that receives a different particle (or alelle) from each parent cell for the same trait |
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| Portion or portions of the DNA molecule that code for proteins that shape phenotypic traits. |
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| All the different forms that a particular gene might take |
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| Set of paired bodies in the nucleus of cells that are made of DNA and contain the hereditary genetic information that organisms pass onto their offspring |
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| The way body cells make copies of themselves. The pairs of chromosomes in the nucleus of the cell duplicate and line up along the center of the cell. The cell divides, each daughter cell taking one full set of paired chromosomes. |
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| The way sex cells make copies of themselves, which begins like mitosis, with chromosome duplication and the formation of 2 daughter cells. However, each daughter cell then divides again without chromosome duplication and, as a result, contains only a single set of chromosomes rather than the paired set typical of body cells. |
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| A portion of the DNA strand responsible for encoding specific parts or an organism's biological makeup. |
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| An inheritance pattern in which unrelated phenotypic traits regularly occur together because the genes responsible for those co-occurring traits are passed on together on the same chromosome |
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| The phenomenon that occurs when part of one chromosome breaks off and reattaches itself to a different chromosome during meiosis; also called incomplete linkage |
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| A pattern of phenotypic variation in which the phenotype (eg. flower colour) exhibits sharp breaks from one member of the population to the next. |
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| The phenomenon whereby many genes are responsible for producing a phenotypic trait, such as skin colour. |
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| A pattern of variation involving polygeny in which phenotypic traits grade imperceptibly form one member of the population to another without sharp breaks. |
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| The phenomenon whereby a single gene may affect more than one phenotypic trait. |
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| The creation of a new allele for a gene when the portion of the DNA molecule which it corresponds is suddenly altered |
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| DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) |
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| The structure that carries the genetic heritage of an organism as a kind of blueprint for the organisms construction and development |
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| The sum total of all the genetic information about an organism, carried on the chromosomes in the cell nucleus. |
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| The genetic information about particular biological traits encoded in an organisms DNA. |
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| The observable, measurable overt characteristics of an organism |
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| A table or graph that displays the possible range of phenotypic outcomes for a given genotype in different environments |
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| When an organism actively perturbs the environment or when it actively moves into a different environment |
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| The way people struggle, often against great odds, to excercise some control over their lives. |
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| A sub-field of evolutionary studies that devotes attention to short term evolutionary changes that occur within a given species over relatively few generations of ecological time |
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| A subfield of evolutionary studies that focuses on long-term evolutionary changes, especially the origins of new speciesand their diversification across space and over millions of years or geological time. |
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| A reproductive community of populations (respectively isolated from others) that occupies a specific niche in nature |
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| All the genes in the bodies of all members of a given species (or population of a species) |
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| The frequency of occurrance of the variants of particular genes (i.e. of alleles) within the gene pool |
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| A field that uses statistical analysis to study short-term evolutionary change in large populations |
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| Describes alleles that come in a range of different forms |
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| The gradual integration of genetic variation from population to population |
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| The creation of a new allele for a gene when the portion of the DNA molecule to which is corresponds to is suddenly altered. |
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| The exchange of genes that occurs when a given population experiences a sudden expansion due to in-migration of outsiders from another population of the species. |
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| Random changes in gene frequencies from one generation to the next due to a sudden reduction in population size as a result of disaster, disease or the out-migration of a small subgroup from a larger population |
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| Physiological flexibility that allows organisms to respond to environmental stresses, such as temperature changes |
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| A change in the way the body functions in response to physical stress |
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| The slow, gradual transformation of a single species over time |
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| A theory arguing that one species gradually transforms itself into a new species over time. Yet the actual boundary between species can never be detected and can only be drawn arbitrarily |
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| The birth of a variety of descendant species from a single ancestral species |
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| A theory claiming that most of evolutionary history has been characterized by relatively stable species coexisting in an equilibrium that is occasionally punctuated by sudden bursts of speciation, when extinctions are widespread and many new species appear |
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| A process in which natural selection in seen to operate among variant, related species within a single genus, family, or order |
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| The attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman animals |
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| Each species, as well as each group of related species, at any level in a taxonomic hierarchy |
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| Genetic inheritance due to common ancestry |
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| Convergent, or parallel, evolution, as when 2 species with very different evolutionary histories develop similar physical features as a result of adapting to a similar environment |
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| Any species' way of life: what is eats, how it finds it's mates, raises it's young, relates to companions and protects itself from preditors |
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| The sizes, shapes and number or teeth |
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| The ability to grasp, with fingers, toes or tail |
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| Describes animals that are active during the day |
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| Bipedal hominoid; the most advanced grade of primate, which includes humans and near humans, such as Australopithecus |
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| Physical differences between males and females |
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| The bones of the body, excluding the head |
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| A form of vision on which the visual field of each eye of a two-eyed (binocular) animal overlaps with the other producing depth perception |
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| Describes animals that are active during the night |
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| A phenotypic pattern that shows how different traits or an organism, responding to different selection pressures, may evolve at different rates |
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| Eating a wide range of plant and animal foods |
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| Gracile Australopithecines |
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| Members of the species Australopithecus Africanus that had small and lightly built faces |
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| Robust Australopithecines |
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| Members of several australopithecines species, dating from about 2.5 to 0.7 MYA, that had rugged jaws, flat faces and enormous molars. |
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| The species of large-brained, gracile hominids 2 million years old and younger |
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| A stone-tool tradition named after the Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania), where the first specimens of the oldest human tools were found (2-2.5 MYA) |
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| The study of the various processes that objects undergo in the course of becoming part of the fossil and archaeological record |
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| The species of large-brained, robust hominids that lived between 1.8 and 0.4 MYA |
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| A lower paleolithic stone-tool tradition associated with Homo erectus and characterized by the stone bifaces or hand axe. |
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| The name given to the period of Oldowan and Acheulean stone-tool tradtions in africa |
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| Hominids dating from 500,000 to 200,000 years ago that possessed morphological features found in both Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens |
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| The hypothesis that only one subpopulation of homo erectus, probably located in africa, underwent a rapid spurt of evolution to produce homo sapiens 200,000-100,000 years ago. After that time H. Sapiens would have multiplied and moved out of africa, gradually populating the globe and eventually replacing any remaining populations of H. Erectus or their descendants. |
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| Regional Continuity Model |
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| The hypothesis that evolution from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens occurred gradually throughout the traditional range of H. Erectus |
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| A subspecies of Homo Sapiens that lived in Europe and Western Asia 130,000-35,000 years ago |
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| A middle paleolithic stone-tool tradition associated with Neandertals in Europe and Southwestern Asia and with atomically modern human beings in Africa |
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| The name given to the period of Mousterian stone-tool tradition in Africa, 200,000-40,000 years ago |
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| Artifacts made by more recent populations that find their way into more ancient strata as the result of natural forces |
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| Anatomically Modern Humans |
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| Hominid fossils assigned to the species H. Sapiens with anatomical features similar to those of living human populations: Short and round skulls, small brow ridges, and faces, prominent chins and light skeletal build |
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| Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age (LSA) |
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| The name given to the period of highly elaborate stone-tool traditions in Europe in which blades were important 40,000-10,300 years ago |
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| Stone tools that are at least twice as long as they are wide |
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| Tools such as bows and arrows in which several different materials are combined (eg. Stone, wood, bone, ivory, antler) to produce the final working implement |
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| A cultural anthropology of the human past focusing on material evidence of human modification of the physical envoronment |
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| All material objects constructed by humans or near-humans revealed by archaeology |
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| Nonportable remnants from the past such as house walls or ditches |
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| The study of the way present-day societies use artifacts and structures and how these objects become part of the archaeological record |
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| The physical examination of a geographical region in which promising sites are most likely to be found |
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| Different ways that people in different societies go about meeting their basic material survival needs |
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| Small form of social organization, labour is divided by age, sex. All adults have roughly the same access to materials or social valuables |
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| Larger than a band, Members usually farm or herd. Sometimes is a chief that speaks for the group |
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| Special-purpose groupings that may be organized on the basis of age, sex, economic role and personal interest |
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| Chief and relatives have special priviledges |
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| A particular social position in a group |
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| A stratified society that possesses a territory that is defended from outside enemies with an army and from internal disorder with police. A state, which has a separate set of governmental institutions designed to enforce laws and to collect taxes and tribute, is run by an elite that possesses a monopoly on the use of force |
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| The study of archaeology sites associated with written records, frequently the study of post-european contact sites in the world |
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| A research approach that explores why woman's contributions have been systematically written out of the archaeological record and suggests new approaches to the human past that include such contributions |
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