Exam 1 - History of Anthropology

Who wrote On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection? and what was it about?

Alfred Russell Wallace and Charles Darwin. It was a paper presenting their idea of natural selection to the Linnaean Society of London in July 1858.

Who also came up with natural selection?

Alfred Russell Wallace.

Who wrote A General View of Positivism?

Auguste Comte

Who wrote The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection OR The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.

Charles Darwin

Who wrote The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex and what was it about?

Charles Darwin. Darwin here pursued the emergence of Homo sapiens that he deferred in On the Origin of Species twelve years earlier.

How did Darwin come up with his principle of natural selection?

Earlier in the 19th century, Charles Darwin set off on his HMS Beagle expedition to the the Galapagos Islands. There, based on earlier discussions with his colleagues (including Charles Lyell and Alfred Wallace) and observations of the Galapagos fauna (most notably the Galapagos finches), he formulated his principle of natural selection.

Who is William Smith and how did he invent Stratigraphy?

English postmaster and amateur hydrologist hired to drain the swamps in the Sussex region of England. He noticed that road and train cuts exposed layers of rock and soil, or STRATA, and that some of these strata contained marine fossils whereas others had terrestrial fossils. Obviously, some areas that are now land were once under water.

History of Anthropology in the 19th century?

In the first half of the 19th century scholars were also finding evidence that human civilization had also changed over time. Evolution.

The 19th century theorists were ethnocentric. What does that mean?

Their assessment of the developmental stages of other societies was heavily biased by their assumption that contemporary Western culture represented the pinnacle of evolutionary achievement.

Unilineal Evolution Per Marx/Engels 1) How many stages of cultural evolution and what they entail? 2) Similar to Morgan, these stages focused on...?

1) 1. Primitive Communism: shared property, hunting-gathering, proto-democracy 2. Slave Society: class appears, statism, agriculture, private property 3. Feudalism: aristocracy, theocracy, hereditary class, nation states. 2) Property rights as a critical aspect of evolution.

Unilineal Evolution Per Lewis Morgan 1) What are the three stages of cultural evolution and what do they entail? 2) These are mostly what kind of traits? 3) Morgan was really interested in what two things? 4) Civilized societies had residues of...?

1) 1. Savagery: fire, bow and arrows, and pottery 2. Barbarism: domestication of plants and animals 3. Civilization: alphabet, writing, nuclear families. 2) Technological traits. 3) Property rights and family organization. 4) Our barbaric past (e.g. ghosts).

Franz Boas 1) "The Father of...?" 2) What is Historical Particularism? 3) What did Boas argue? 4) Historical particularism dominated anthropology until the second half of the 20th century and was important to...? 5) Rejected that race was...? 6) Rejected that all cultures would inevitably...?

1) American Anthropology. 2) A reaction to unilinear cultural evolution that says that there's many paths a culture can take, not just one towards advancement. 3) Boas argued that effort should be directed to exploring each culture in great detail, to understand its history and present condition. There are countless paths a culture may take, not just one unilinear course. 4) The development of American Anthropology. 5) A biological concept. 6) Reach the involved state of European Culture.

Lewis Henry Morgan 1) Principle founder of...? 2) Who did he study? 3) What did he write? 4) His pros? 5) His cons?

1) Scientific Anthropology. 2) The Iroquiois of western New York state. He also undertook a field study of the Iroquois Confederation. 3) League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois and Ancient Society Or Researches In The Lines of Human Progress From Savagery, Through Barbarism To Civilization. 4) Advocate for Seneca and Native American land rights. Strong argument for monogenism, kind of invented ethnography, started kinship studies. 5) Equivocated on slavery, argued assimilation was only practical solution for Native Americans.

What is an Intellectual Tradition? 1) History of...? 2) Chain of reasoning that can't be separated from the...? 3) Ideas do NOT develop in...?

1) Shared ideas. 2) Larger Cultural Milieu. 3) Isolation.

History of Anthropology in the 18th century?

1) Stratigraphy - William Smith 2) Uniformitarianism - James Hutton

What did Auguste Comte think?

He thought societies follow laws just like the physical world. They change (grow up) just like humans do, and pass through three stages: 1) Theological (causality in the supernatural) 2) Metaphysical (causality in abstract concepts) 3) Positive Stage (empirically verified causal explanations)

Who came up with the term "evolution" and coined the phrase, "survival of the fittest?"

Herbert Spencer

Who wrote Principles of Biology?

Herbert Spencer

Who was Christian Thompsen and what did he come up with?

Hired by the Director of the National Museum of Denmark to help order their large collection of artifacts. Formulated the 3-Age System around 1825: Stone Age - weapons and implements were made of stone, wood, bone, or some other material (little or no metals). Bronze Age - weapons and cutting implements were made of copper or bronze. Iron Age — use of iron in place of bronze

Who wrote The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State: In Light of the Researches of Lewis H. Morgan

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Who wrote League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois and why was it important?

Lewis Henry Morgan. It is considered one of the earliest objective ethnographic works.

Difference between Monogenesis and Polygenesis?

Polygenesis is the idea that there are multiple evolutionary lines sharing common ancestors or that there were separate creations. Monogenesis is the idea that there is only one evolutionary line with recent common ancestors or that there was one creation.

Who wrote Primitive Culture and Anthropology?

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor

How many stages of human social evolution were there according to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels?

Six stages of evolution (but three were more or less hypothetical future conditions).

What is the concept of human social evolution termed?

Social Darwinism

What is uniformitarianism?

Specifically: cyclical processes of sedimentation and erosion. The main point: The Earth is old and has undergone major changes. These changes are constant through time.

What did Sir Edward Burnett Tylor do?

Systematizes Spencer's ideas along with ideas borrowed from unifromatarianism and defines three stages of cultural evolution through which all societies pass: savagery, barbarism, and civilization. Places emphasis on religion as major marker of evolutionary stage (sound familiar?). Came up with Cultural Diffusionism.

What did Herbert Spencer believe?

That simple cultures developed into complex, differentiated societies.

What did James Hutton come up with?

Uniformitarianism.

Who invented stratigraphy?

William Smith.

Are there any other animals in the stone age?

Yes, certain primates.

What is cultural diffusionism?

the principle that different groups can have similar cultural forms and technologies.