Anthropology Chapter 16, 11, 17, 2, 14
broad spectrum revolution
Beginning around 15,000 BP in the Middle East and 12,00 BP in Europe, during which a wider range, or broader spectrum, of plant and animal life was hunted, gathered, collected, caught, and fished.
Ideology
Beliefs and values concerning the distribution and use of power in society
Edward Burnett Tylor
Best known for his definition of culture
Diffusion
Borrowing of traits between cultures: Direct, Indirect, Forced, Unforced. [Mechanism of Cultural Change]
Market Principle
Buying, selling, and valuation based on supply and demand.
Manioc
Cassava; tuber domesticated in the South American lowlands.
Chiefdom
Group in the 1000's. Kin based society with inequality. Permanent political structure. A transitional form between tribes and states. Organized as permanent, but can rise or fall. The closer the chief is to founding ancestors, the greater his prestige. Another word for Chief: Khan
State
Specialized functions for state control: Population control, Judiciary control, law enforcement, fiscal systems. Control through boundaries: Provinces, districts, counties and parishes.
Focal vocabulary
Specialized sets of terms and distinctions that are particularly important to certain groups
Benefits of Food Production
Spinning and Weaving, Pottery and Brick Making, Smelting and casting metals, Trade and Commerce, Large Structures.
Phonemics
Studies only the significant sound contrasts of a given language
Hegemony
Subordinates comply by internalizing rulers' values and accepting the "naturalness" of domination (Gramsci, 1971 - Anarchist) Make subordinates believe that they will eventually gain power. (to convince someone that their natural role is to be subordinate) To separate or isolate people while supervising them closesly
Enculturation
The process by which a child learns his or her culture. (What you learn first)
Kinesics
The study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures, and facial expressions.
Phonology
The study of sounds used in speech [Structure of Language]
Morphology
The study of the forms in which sounds combine to form morphemes. [Structure of Language]
Sapir and Whorf
Argued that different languages cause speakers to think in different ways.
Noam Chomsky
Argued that the human brain has limited rules for language, so all languages have a common structure.
Neolithic period
(10,000 BCE - 5000 BCE) New Stone Age. A period of time in human history characterized by the development of agriculture and permanent settlements. Domesticated farming.
Correlation
(Association; when one variable changes, another does, too.) Variables are factors that are linked and interrelated, such as food intake and body weight, such that when one increases or decreases, the other tends to change, too.
Intellectual Property Rights
(IPR) An indigenous group's rights to their collective knowledge and its applications.
Culture
As Edward Burnett Tylor stated, "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." [Culture is learned and shared]
Nabta Playa
A center for herders in southern egypt for many years. Full of megalithic structures and included an african cattle complex.
Typology
A description of ways (Similar to taxonomy)
Lexicon
A dictionary containing all morphemes (words) and their meanings. [Structure of Language]
Potlatch
A festive event and exchange system among tribes of North Pacific Coast. Some tribes still practice the potlatch. Potlatches traditionally gave away food, blankets, pieces of copper, or other such items. The idea behind this was the more you give the higher position you have.
Fertile Crescent
A geographical area of fertile land in the Middle East stretching in a broad semicircle from the Nile to the Tigris and Euphrates. [Farming started here]
Disease transmission
A major problem to food producing communities, with dense population and a sedentary lifestyle.
FOXP2
A mutated gene that helps explain why humans speak but chimps do not. Language has offered an adaptive advantages to humans.
Phoneme
A sound contrast that makes a difference or differentiates meaning.
Stratification
A structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic rewards and power in a society. 3 levels: Wealth (Economic Status), Power (Political Status), Prestige (Social Status) all three are not always correlated. (you could have one without the other)
Ethnocentrism
A tendency to view one's own culture as superior and to use one's own standards and values in judging outsiders. (I know what I believe is the best)
Big Man
A village head, except his authority is regional and may have influence over more than one village. Must be generous. Serves as temporary regional regulator to mobilize support.
The Yanomami
A village that believes that position of the village head is achieved; it comes with very limited authority. Must lead by example. Acts as a mediator. Must lead in generosity. Neglected Venezuelan indigenous people. Neglected by gov't. People want access to medical services and aid.
Power
Ability to exercise one's will over others
The Inuit
Aboriginal group of foragers located in the cold north.
Psychic unity of man
All human populations have equivalent capacities for culture.
Maize
Also known as corn, first domesticated in tropical southwestern Mexico around 8000 B.P.
Reciprocity
An exchange between social equals, normally related by kinship, marriage, or close personal ties. Dominant in egalitarian societies. Ethics of sharing is so strong that most foragers have lacked an expression for thank you.
Public Transcript
An open public interaction between superordinates and subordinates.
Teosinte
Ancestor or corn
Karl Marx
Author of the Communist Manifesto (1848)
Economic Antrhopology
Comparative study of economies as adaptive strategies. (What motivates people in different cultures to produce, distribute or exchange, and consume? Anthropologists view economic systems and motivations in a cross-cultural perspective.)
Daniel Cohen
Created typology of societies based on correlation between economies and social features
Acculturation
Cultural exchange resulting from extended contact. An exchange of features that results when groups come into consistent firsthand contact [Mechanism of Cultural Change]
Negative reciprocity
Dealing [trading] with people outside or on the fringes of the social system; filled with distrust.
Law
Defined rules relating to power, authority, crimes, etc. in a society.
Max Weber
Defined the three dimensions of social stratification: Wealth, Power, and Prestige.
Specialization
Development of skills in a specific kind of work
Cultural Universal Traits
Distinguish human from other species: Infant dependency, Year-round sexuality, complex brains, group living/family living, incest taboo/exogamy
Aculturation
Everything you learn for culture after enculturation.
Historical Linguistics
Examines the long-term variation of speech by studying protolangues and daughter languages. When languages disappear, cultural diversity is reduced. Of approx. 7000 remaining languages, some 20 percent are endangered (originally 12,000 languages)
Megalithic structures
Example: solstice calendars. Useful for planting. Made of large stones.
Balanced reciprocity
Exchanges between people who are more distantly related than are members of the same band or household. (equal value trade)
Hilly Flanks
Farming started in _____ _____ that had abundant wheat.
Differential access
Favored access to resources by superordinates over subordinates. This means that some men and women had privileged access to power, prestige, and wealth.
Costs of Food Production
Food producers typically work harder than foragers. Herds, fields and irrigation needs more care. Producers have more children. Malnutrition, Anemia, Stunting. Workload related stress
Old World Food production
For food production: Large animal domestication and plant domestication
New World food production
For food production: Plant domestication only.
Band
Foraging economies are usually associated with which type of sociopolitical organization? (Numbered 20 to 50 members. Egalitarian with no formal gov't. Related by marriage or kinship. Food foraging for economy. Not stratified. Disputes are often settled nonviolently.)
7 places farming started
Get all 7: fertile crescent. Meso-America, Eastern U.S., South Central andes.
Fallowing
Give the soil a chance to replenish naturally
Generalized reciprocity
Giving with no specific expectation of an exchange. (charity)
Globalization
Global power relations and cultural forms intersects with 'local cultures. Modern change. (Coca-cola used around the world)
Terracing
Great labor necessary to build and maintain this system of farming.
Tribe
Group in the 100's. Ranked society, with food production and small economy, typically pastoralists and horticulturalists. Members are considered descended from common ancestor. Somewhat egalitarian except the leaders.
Symbols
Signs that have no necessary or natural connection with the things for which they stand. Human cultural learning depends on the uniquely developed human capacity to use symbols. Natural biological needs can be expressed differently.
Pastoralists
Herders whose activities focus on such domesticated animals as cattle, sheep, goats, camels, and yaks. Use animals for resources.
Adaptive and Maladaptive Culture
Humans have biological and cultural ways of coping with environmental stress. Whats good for the individual isn't necessarily good for the group. Adaptive behavior that offers short term benefits may hurt the groups long term survival
Cultural Relativism
In order to understand another culture fully, we must try to understand how the people in that culture see things. (opposite of believing that your own culture is best)
Less work and a better diet
In recent times, many foraging groups have been exposed to the idea of food production but have never adopted it. Why?
Pastoralism
Includes: Pastoral Nomadism, Transhumance, Pastoralists
Human Rights
Individual rights based on justice and morality that cannot be terminated by any nation, culture, or religion.
Social Control
Informal means of social control include gossip, stigma, and shame. Belief in sorcery may also aid in social control [Part of a state system]
Sociolinguistics
Investigates relationships between social and linguistic variation, or language in its social context. Focuses on features that vary with social position and situation. Linguistic change does not occur in a vacuum but in society.
Alienation from the "Means of Production"
Ownership of land and tools not held by workers, Power held by few over many, Skills and knowledge not accessible to all. Tension between economic levels. Unequal access to wealth, power, etc. (Non-Industrial meets the Industrial society)
Non-Industrial Modes of Production
Land, Labor, Tools, Specialization
Semantics
Language's meaning system
Ifugao
Location in the Philippines where they used irrigation.
Subordinate
Lower, underprivileged, group in a stratified society
Pastoral nomadism
Members of pastoral society follow herd throughout the year
Gender Speech Contrasts
Men and Women have differences in phonology, grammar, and vocabulary as well as in the body stances and movements that accompany speech. In north america and Great Britain, women's speech tends to be more similar to standard dialect than is men's speech.
Mesolithic period
Middle part of the Stone Age beginning about 15,000 years ago [broad spectrum revolution]
The San
Modern Foragers: Live in desert area of southern Africa. Botswana moved the san outside their ancestral territory to create a wildlife area. Demonstrates how foragers affected by national governments
Cultivation continuum
Most cultivators incorporate practices and tools from both horticulture and agricutlure
Agriculture
Part of Cultivation: Requires more labor. Uses land intensively and continuously. Use animals as means of production. Long-term yield per area is far greater and more dependable than horticulture. Society tend to be more densely populated than horticultural ones. Gender inequality. Specialized economies. Often creates issues between gov't and people. Uses Terracing [More profitable]
Horticulture
Part of Cultivation: Use of simple tools. No permanent cultivation - fallowing, Slash-and-burn cultivation. Less mobile society. Live in larger group sizes. Status differences amongst group. (Specialization, Gendered labor, Some gender inequality) [Less profitable]
Transhumance
Part of group moves with herd; most stay in home village
Betsileo
People in Madagascar. Their educated youth are turning away from rice farming and often stealing cattle for export. (to feed their cash addiction)
Black English Vernacular
Phonological and grammitcal differences exist between the same culture.
Authority
Power sanctioned by society
Non-human primate communication
Recent experiments show that apes can learn to use, if not speak, true language. Chimpanzee eventually acquired a vocabulary of more than 100 hand signs. Koko, a gorilla, regularly uses 400 ASL signs.
Diglossia
Regular style shifts between "high and "low" variants of the same language. [Linguistic Diversity]
Cultural Generality
Regularities that occur in different times and place but not in all cultures: Diffusion, Invention, Nuclear family. Many cultures share a common language.
Foraging
Relies on natural resources for subsistence, rather than controlling plant and animal reproduction. Has survived mainly in environments that are not conducive to food production. Our species subsistence until 10,000 years ago. Typically, foraging groups are mobile. Live in Band-organized [small groups] societies. Egalitarian Society
Cultural Rights
Rights vested in ethnic or religious groups, not individuals.
Adaptive Strategy
System of economic production. Means of making a living; productive system.
Fiscal Control
Taxation, Redistribution, and who can/cannot produce. [Part of a state system]
Antonio Gramsci
Termed Hegemony
Honorifics
Terms of respect; used to honor the recipients. Americans tend to be less formal than other nations. The british have more highly developed set of honorifics
Agency
The ability to act. "yes I will or no I won't" The individual has power. [Part of the Practice Theory]
Displacement
The ability to talk about things that are not present
Syntax
The arrangement and order of words in phrases and sentences. [Structure of Language]
Productivity
The combining of two or more signs to create new expressions
Domestication
The conscious manipulation of plant and animal species by humans in order to sustain themselves. Squash seeds were found in early Andean Cultivation from 10,000 years ago.
Redistribution
The flow of goods into a center, then back out; characteristic of chiefdoms
Foraging band
The leader of this type of group has no means of forcing people to follow their decisions.
Cultural Particularity
Traits unique to a given culture. Cultural features not shares with others.
Anthropologist Elman Service
Typology of political organizations into bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states; none of them can be studied as self-contained form of political organization, because all exist within nation-states.
Superordinate
Upper, privileged, group in a stratified society
Call systems
Use a limited number of sounds that are produced in response to specific stimuli
Irrigation
Using water to feed a crop through man made canals. Not waiting for rain.
Style Shifts
Varying speech in different contexts [Linguistic Diversity]
Mode of Production
Way of organizing production; "set of social relations through which labor is deployed to wrest energy from nature using tools, skills, organization, and knowledge" (wolf, 1982) Non-Industrial and Industrial Modes
Smaller
What happened to animals after domestication. They got ____.
Larger
What happened to plants after domestication. They got ____.
Judiciary Control
What the laws are, how they are enforced, and who the judges are. Requires a system of enforcement and collection. [Part of a state system]
Independent Invention
When two or more cultures independently solve common problem in a similar fashion. [Mechanism of Cultural Change]
Egalitarianism
Which of the following is a characteristic of most foraging societies?
Hidden Transcript
a critique of power that goes offstage, where the power holders can't see it.
Industrialism
an economic system built on large industries rather than on agriculture or craftsmanship
Microliths
small stone tools usually produced from narrow blades punched from a core. Allowed them to go after different types of game. [Used in mesolithic period]
Phonetics
the study of speech - what people actually say in different languages.