Anthropology Exam 1 Ch. 1, 8

Coevolution

The dialectical relationship between biological processes and symbolic cultural processes, in which each makes up an important part of the environment to which the other must adapt.

Human Agency

The exercise of at least some control over their lives by human beings

Cultural Relativism

Understanding another culture in its own terms sympathetically enough so that the culture appears to be a coherent and meaningful design for living.

Holism

Perpective on the human condition that assumes that mind and body, individuals and society, and individuals and the environment interpenetrate and even define one another.

Holism

Characteristic of the anthropological perspective that describes, at the highest and most inclusive level, how anthropology tries to integrate all that is known about human beings and their activities.

Informants

People in a particular culture who work with anthos and provide them with insights about their way of life, and called respondents, teachers, friends

Archaeology

Cultural anthro of the human past involving the analysis of material remains left behind by earlier societies

Evolution

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 consideration change over time

Ethnology

Comparative study of two or more cultures

Comparison

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 human past.

Ethnography

Anthropologist's written or filmed description of a particular culture

Fieldwork

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

Sex

Observable physical characteristics that distinguish two kinds of humans, females and males, needed for biological reproduction.

Ethnocentrism

Opinion that one's own way of life is natural or correct and, indeed, the only true way of being fully human.

Bicultural Organism

Organisms (in this case human beings) whose defining features are codetermined by biological and cultural factors

Paleonthropology

Search of fossilized remains of humanity's earliest ancestors

Culture

Sets of learned behavior and ideas that human being acquire as members of society. Human beings use culture to adapt to and to transform the world in which they live.

Culture

Sets of learned behaviors and ideas that humans acquire as members of society. Humans use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which they live.

Races

Social groupings that allegedly reflect biological differences.

Symbol

Something that stands for something else

Applied Anthro

Specialists who use information gathered from the other anthropological specialties to solve particular cross cultural problems

Linguistic Anthro

Specialty of Anthro concerned with the study of human languages

Cultural Antrhop

Specialty of Anthro that shows how variation in the beliefs and behaviors of members of different human groups is shaped by sets of learned behaviors and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society-- that is, by culture

Medical Anthro

Specialty of anthro that concerns itself with human health, the factors that contribute to disease or illness and the ways that human populations deal with diseases or illness

Biological anthropology (physical)

Specialty of anthropology that looks at human beings as biological organisms and tries to discover what characteristics they share.

Anthropology

Study of human nature, human society, and the human past. Anthropology is holistic, comparative, field based, and evolutionary.

Language

System of arbitrary vocal symbols used to encode one's experience of the world and of others

Gender

The cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex.

Primatology

The study of non human primates, the closest living relatives of human beings.

Racism

The systematic oppression of now socially defined "races" by another socially defined race that is justified in terms of the supposed inherent biological inferiority of those they rule.