anthropology exam 2

Franz Boas

Considered the founding father of American, four-field Anthropology; famous for a study of bodily form in immigrants that undercut the biological race concept and emphasized the role of culture in shaping the human body.

Dendrochronology

A type of absolute dating that involves comparing the pattern of tree rings in samples of archaeological wood to wood from trees whose exact ages are known. Depending on the type of wood, this method can estimate ages exceeding ten thousand years.

Hunter-Gatherer

A type of food procurement, where the majority of food resources are wild and acquired from the surrounding environment. Can also include domestication.

Agriculture

A type of food production, specifically a reliance on domesticated plants.

Pastoralism

A type of food production, specifically a reliance on herds of domesticated animals for their meat, blood, milk, and other resources.

Creole

A type of hybrid language, often the product of colonialism. Creoles are often combinations of European, African, and Native American languages that, over time and due to sustained interactions between peoples who speak distinct languages, develop into distinct languages of their own. An example is Haitian Creole (derived from French, Taino, Ewe, and other European and West African languages).

Obsidian

A type of volcanic glass that was used for blades and other ancient tools. Can also be analyzed to obtain absolute dates.

Empire

A union of dispersed territories, colonies, states and unrelated peoples under one sovereign rule.

Race

"A human population category whose boundaries allegedly correspond to distinct sets of biological attributes" (Schultz & Lavenda) - The problem is that races are assumed to have a biological basis.

Racism

"The systematic oppression of one or more socially defined 'races' by another socially defined 'race' that is justified in terms of the supposedly inherent biological superiority of the rulers and the supposed inherent biological inferiority of those they rule." (Schultz & Lavenda)

race

- A term used in biology to describe populations that are genetically and/or physiologically distinct, often equated to subspecies, and applied to a range of species. - A set of culturally constructed categories, which vary across cultures, and which do not capture or explain human biological variation, past or present.

Minority

A social group with less power than the dominant group and receiving unequal treatment. Often distinguished by physical or cultural traits (i.e. race or ethnicity)

Imagined Community

A socially constructed community that is rich in symbolism and tied to a real or desired homeland.

Tiwanaku

A state in South America that was established in what is now Bolivia around 1500 years before present.

Colonialism

1. The long-term political, economic, and social domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power. It often includes cultural domination with enforced cultural change. 2. The term also refers to a historical period from the 15th-20th centuries when European states (especially Great Britiain, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the United States) conquered and dominated the rest of the world.

Ethnicity

A social category identifying people with shared culture, language, dialect, food, religion, nationality, ancestry, homeland, etc. - The problem is that race and ethnicity are often confounded, confused, or used interchangeably.

folate

A B vitamin that is critically important for the neural tube development of embryos and early-stage fetuses.

rickets / osteomalacia

A condition marked by a softening and weakening of bones in children and adults due to a chronic Vitamin D deficiency.

Stonehenge

A famous example of monumental architecture, a circle of massive stones in what is now the United Kingdom, slowly constructed starting 5000 BP.

Stereotype

A fixed set of characteristics attributed to all members of a social category or group. Stereotypes often exaggerate or accentuate the group differences.

Intersectionality

A framework for examining the ways in which different parts of an individual's or group's identity are interconnected and overlapping, and which can have compounding positive or negative effects within that person's or group's cultural schemas.

Superposition

A geological principle that is also fundamental to archaeology: that in normal circumstances, stratigraphic layers form in a sequence where the deepest layers are the oldest, and the ones closest to the surface are the most recent

State

A kind of sociopolitical organization that involves large permanent settlements and a significant increase in (1) logistical complexity, (2) population control, and (3) stratified social inequality.

Blood Quantum

A measure of the amount of "Native" ancestry that Native Americans have, established by tribal documents and used by the United States federal government as a way to force Native Americans to "prove" their own heritage.

Excavation

A methodology used in archaeology to systematically uncover evidence of human activity in the past.

melanin

A molecule that is produced by special cells in the epidermis (upper layer of skin), which pigments the skin and is photoreflective of ultraviolet radiation.

eugenics

A movement dating to the early 20th century marked by efforts to "improve" humanity by limiting the reproduction of people with traits considered defective or undesirable. Led to the forced sterilization of thousands, primarily impoverished people of color, and was used to justify segregation policies well into the late 20th century.

Rhodes Must Fall movement

A movement of students and staff members at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, which called on the removal of a large statue of Cecil Rhodes, the British-born Prime Minister of the Cape Colony (now South Africa), and for the university to acknowledge and dismantle its colonial legacy.

Vitamin D

A nutrient that is critically important for absorption of calcium and proper mineralization of the bones and teeth.

Younger Dryas

A period of global cooling and drying that occurred 13,000-11,500 BP and is thought to have prompted the shift to food production (i.e., a reliance on agriculture and/or pastoralism).

Cultigen

A plant that can no longer disperse its own seeds, i.e. successfully reproduce, without human intervention. In this way, the plant species has evolved to be as dependent on humans as the humans are on it.

Sympathetic Nervous Response

A rapid, involuntary response to a perceived stressor or threat, which infuses the blood with oxygen and nutrients and directs the blood to the muscles. Also known as the "fight or flight" response, it represents a very old adaptation among animals including humans.

Mesopotamia

A region in what is now the Middle East where the first agriculturalists, and the first states, are found in the archaeological record.

Before Present (BP)

A scientific dating system (years before present), where 'present' is AD 1950.

Folk Biology

A set of ideas about plants and animals (including people) that members of a culture hold and share, and which may or may not correspond to evidence-based research in the science of biology.

Multiculturalism

A social and cultural ideal where minority groups are encouraged to maintain their cultural identities, languages, cuisines, and practices rather than assimilate to those of the majority group.

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

An 18th-century French naturalist (what we could call a biologist or general scientist) who first applied the term "race" to humans.

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach

An 18th-century physician who invented the term Caucasian and applied it to light-skinned people from Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. He (incorrectly) thought the origins of light-skinned people were the Caucasus Mountains in modern-day Russia after examining skulls from the region and declaring them the most beautiful of all the thousands of skulls he'd ever examined.

Prejudice

An antipathic attitude towards groups or members of groups based on often faulty generalizations (Allport 1954). Prejudice results from a combination of emotions and thinking

Saartije Baartman

An enslaved Khoisan woman who was convinced, under false pretenses, to travel from South Africa to England and France and put on display in a Colonial Zoo as the "Hottentot Venus." After her death, her remains were put on display in a museum until they were repatriated to South Africa in 2002 following a long and contentious court battle.

lactase

An enzyme that breaks down lactose, the primary sugar in milk.

Guaraní

An indigenous language in Paraguay that is spoken by Indigenous and non-Indigenous Paraguayans alike. It is also an oral language, in that there are almost no remaining writings in Guaraní after the 17th century, until advocacy groups began creating websites and search engines in Guaraní in 2013.

Absolute Dating

Any dating methodology in archaeology that enables a researcher to establish approximately how old an artifact or site is.

Relative Dating

Any dating methodology in archaeology that enables a researcher to establish than an artifact or a site is older or younger than another artifact or site.

neural tube defects

Birth defects involving the brain, spine, or spinal cord that occur during the first month of pregnancy, often caused by a folate deficiency.

Institutional Racism

Conscious or unconscious actions that lead to oppression and often include assumptions about people's behavior or motives. Examples include housing discrimination and employment discrimination

Colonial Zoos/Exhibitions

Large festivals (akin to state fairs) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that put indigenous people whose bodies, styles of dress, and cultures were considered "primitive" on display as "purely natural" ("natural" meaning uncivilized) populations for the curiosity and enjoyment of audiences who were primarily white Americans and Europeans.

population (cultural)

Culturally distinct subgroups among humans; given the complexity of culture, the boundaries between these populations are often blurred or overlapping.

Domestication

Human manipulation of the genes of plants and animals through selective "weeding and breeding", with the result that the plants and animals evolve to have more of the traits that humans want

Disturbance

In archaeology, anything that breaks up the sequential layers of soil and rock (strata); these are often holes dug for postholes, wells, walls or building foundations, irrigation canals, burials, or other important features for study. They can also be due to natural processes such as expanding tree root systems, animal burrows, or the cut-throughs of streams or rivers.

cline

In biology, a gradation in one or more characteristics within a species or other taxon, especially between different populations. Example: the distribution patterns for skin tone in indigenous human populations.

Monumental architecture

Non-residential architecture, which includes statues and buildings used for government, religious, and public purposes.

Catal Huyuk

One of the earliest towns in the archaeological record, dated to roughly 9,000 BP in what is now Turkey. Included densely-built neighborhoods

Jericho

One of the earliest villages in the archaeological record, dated to roughly 10,000 BP in what is now Jordan. Has evidence of long-distance trade, massive walls, storage, and a cemetery with elaborate burials.

Khoisan

One of the indigenous peoples of far southern Africa, including the modern nation of South Africa. Their language and DNA indicates extremely old lineages in this region, dating back many thousands of years.

population (biological)

Physically, genetically, and/or ecologically distinct subgroups within a species.

Settled vs. Extractive Colonies

Settled colonies were those intended for Europeans to live and create new societies, often replacing or displacing the existing people with the "excess population" of Europe; these were the minority of European colonies, and were created in places with environments most like Europe (North America, South Africa, Australia, East African highlands). Extractive colonies were those intended to extract goods and exploit natural resources, but there was no intention of setting up local European populations beyond military installations and administrative offices; these were the majority of colonies, and were created in places with more tropical environments (South America, sub-Saharan Africa, south & southeast Asia).

Cognitive Schema

Simplifications in thinking that guide how we perceive others and affect how we process social information.

Indigenous

Sometimes described as "Native," refers to the original occupants of a particular place; it can also be used to describe the culture of the people who have lived in a particular place the longest, even if (on a scale of many thousands of years) they were not necessarily the direct descendants of the very first humans in a particular place.

Structural Violence

Systemic violence embedded in social structures or social institutions and kills people slowly by preventing them from meeting their basic needs

Discrimination

Systems of inequality that stem from bias and prejudice and which oppress, marginalize, and devalue certain groups based on categories such as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.

"The White Man's Burden"

Taken from a poem by the famous English writer Rudyard Kipling, the phrase refers to the view among many in the United States that imperialism and colonialism was a noble act, Within this view, the assumed natural superiority of white people (at that time, white men) meant that they shouldered the responsibility of guiding the rest of the world toward progress and away from the primitive savagery assumed to be in their nature.

Caucasian, Caucasoid ("white")

Technically the people indigenous to the Caucasus Mountains of western Asia, but assumed to contain the ancestors of white Europeans and white North Americans, and now used interchangeably with "white"

Hypodescent

The "one drop rule" whereby anyone whose ancestry is a mix of white and non-white is automatically classified as a member of the non-white group. Extremely rare outside of the United States, and based on notions of the "purity" of white bloodlines being "contaminated" by non-whites.

photoreflectometer

a device for measure photoreflectance (or photoreflectivity). In this module, the device biological anthropologist Nina Jablonski used for measuring skin tone in humans.

plasticity

The ability of humans and other organisms to adjust to stressors in their environment such as hypoxia or extreme cold, especially during development.

lactase persistence

The ability to produce lactase past infancy, a uniquely human trait shared by approximately 30 percent of humans.

radioisoptope dating

The age of artifacts, bones, and other organic materials from an archaeological site is estimated by chemically analyzing the radioactive isotopes of elements, such as carbon-14 or potassium-40, and is based on the isotope's rate of decay (also known as their half life). Depending on the isotope, dates can be estimated in the tens of thousands, or millions, of years.

Implicit bias

Unconscious, unthinking, automatic reactions deeply embedded in a person's psyche. Not the same thing as prejudice although implicit bias can often be influenced by prejudice and widespread societal attitudes

Metropoles

The capital cities of European colonial powers, and the centers of the Colonial Imagination (see above).

Monte Alban

The capital of the Zapotec state, located in the Oaxaca Valley, and constructed approximately 2500 years before present.

photoreflectivity

The degree to which a surface (such as human skin) reflects vs. absorbs light along different wavelengths of the visible and non-visible spectrum. a.k.a. photoreflectance.

Colonial Imagination

The ways in which Europe's colonizing states viewed the places that they had colonized/were in the process of colonizing as positive. The rationales included assumptions that Europeans were bringing civilization to the "darkest corners" of the world, that they were bringing salvation to heathens through Christianity, and that they were bringing modern progress through education, medicine, hygiene, and technology. An important thing to remember about the Colonial Imagination is that the colonizers rarely bothered to learn anything about the cultures they regarded as primitive, backward, savage, and in need of saving.

19th Century "Classical" Race Categories

These were developed by European naturalists, and were assumed to describe biologically-distinct populations, or even subspecies, of humans based on stereotypes about their appearance (especially skin color), intelligence, and behavior.

Settlement hierarchy

The existence of different kinds of settlement within a territory that vary by size and function.

Stratigraphy

The horizontal layers, or strata, of soil and human occupation that are uncovered during systematic excavation, and which create a vertical glimpse of different periods in time.

lactose intolerance

The inability to digest lactose past infancy or childhood.

Australoid ("brown")

The indigenous people of Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, and the Pacific Islands and their European- or North American-born descendants

Native American ("red")

The indigenous peoples of North and South America

Inca

The largest indigenous empire in the Americas, found in the Andes mountains of South America roughly 500-600 years ago.

Primary context

The location and position of archaeological materials--artifacts, remains, and architecture-- that have not been altered since the materials were originally deposited

Teotihuacan

The name of both an ancient Mesoamerican state established around 2000 years before present and the capital city of that state.

Mongoloid ("yellow")

The peoples indigenous to northern-central and east Asia, and their European- or North American-born descendants

Negroid ("black")

The peoples indigenous to the African continent and their European- or North American-born descendants

Sedentism

The practice of settling into one location, with the goal of remaining there permanently.

lactose

The primary sugar in mammals' milk.

Repatriation

The return of artifacts and human remains to descent communities. In the US these are often (but not exclusively) those that are Native American or Black/African-American.

human populations comprised of distinct racial catagories have no more than 5% of all human genes in common

false

slash and burn techniques are commonly found in industrial agriculture

false

race, as a social category

has real consequences, even if popular conceptions of race have no reality in biology.

the earliest state-level society in the achreological record is founded in

mesopotamia in southwest asia

the distribution of skin tone in humans has been shaped by

natural selection, evolution, gene flow, adaptation to particular environment

the name of the cultural period in which the first signs of agriculture appear in the archeological record is called the

neolithic

phenotype

observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment.

Human genome

the complete set of genes (or genetic material), encoded as DNA within the 23 chromosome pairs in cell nuclei and in a small DNA molecule found within individual mitochondria

genome

the complete set of genes or genetic material present in a cell or organism.

genotype

the genetic constitution of an individual organism.

All humans living today belong to a single species, Homo sapiens, and share a common descent

true

Transhumance is something practiced by pastoralists

true

homo sapiens cannot be classified into discrete geographic categories with boundaries

true