© 2008 the mcgraw-hill companies, inc. 1 what is anthropology?
TRANSCRIPT
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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What Is Anthropology?
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Overview
– How we originated.– How we have changed.– How we are changing still.
• Anthropology confronts basic questions of human existence and survival.
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Anthropology is holistic
– Past, present, and future– Biology– Society– Language– Culture
• Interested in the whole of the human condition
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Four subfields
• Cultural anthropology – examines cultural diversity of the present and recent past.
• Archaeology – reconstructs behavior by studying material remains
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• Biological anthropology – study of human fossils, genetics, and bodily growth and nonhuman primates
Four subfields
• Linguistic anthropology – considers how speech varies with social factors and over time and space
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Human Adaptability
• Culture – traditions, customs and innovations that govern behavior and beliefs– Distinctly human– Transmitted through learning
• Society – organized life in groups
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Adaptation, Variation, and Change
• Adaptation – process by which organisms cope with environmental forces and stresses
• Humans adapt using biological and cultural means
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– Foraging sole basis of human subsistence for millions of years
– Only took few thousand years for food production – cultivation of plants and domestication (stockbreeding) of animals
Adaptation, Variation, and Change
• Rate of change accelerated during the past 10,000 years
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– More recently, spread of industrial production profoundly affected human life
– Today’s global economy and communications link all contemporary people, directly or indirectly, in modern world system
Adaptation, Variation, and Change
• First civilizations arose between 6000 and 5000 B.P. (Before the Present)
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Table 1.1 Forms of Cultural and Biological Adaptation (to High Altitude)
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General Anthropology
– Sociocultural (cultural anthropology)– Archaeological– Biological– Linguistic
• Academic discipline of anthropology includes:
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Four-field Approach
• Developed in U.S.
– Early American anthropologists studying native peoples of North America combined studies of customs, social life, language, and physical traits
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General Anthropology
• Sound conclusions about “human nature” cannot be derived from studying a single nation, society, or cultural tradition
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Cultural Forces ShapeHuman Biology
– Culture key environmental force in determining how human bodies grow and develop
– Cultural standards of attractiveness and propriety influence participation and achievement in sports
• Biocultural – inclusion and combination (to solve a common problem) of biological and cultural perspectives and approaches
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Cultural Anthropology
– Ethnography – Fieldwork in a particular culture; provides account of that community, society, or culture
– Ethnology – cross cultural comparison; the comparative study of ethnographic data, of society and of culture
• Describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains social and cultural similarities and differences
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Table 1.2 Ethnography and Ethnology – Two Dimensions of Cultural Anthropology
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Archeological Anthropology
– Artifacts (e.g., potsherds, jewelry, and tools)– Garbage– Burials– Remains of structures
• Study of human behavior and cultural patterns and process through material remains
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Archeological Anthropology
– Archaeological record provides unique opportunity to look at changes in social complexity over time
• Archaeologists use paleoecological studies to establish ecological and subsistence parameters within which given groups lived
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Archeological Anthropology
– Historical archaeology combines archaeological data and textual data to reconstruct historically known groups
– Rathje’s garbology shows what people report may contrast with real behavior
• Archaeologists also study the cultures of historical and living people
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Biological Anthropology
• Study of human biological variation in time and space
• Includes evolution, genetics, growth and development, and primatology
• Draws on biology, zoology, geology, anatomy, physiology, medicine, public health, osteology, and archaeology
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Biological Anthropology
• Special interests:
– Paleoanthropology – human evolution as revealed by the fossil record
– Human genetics– Human growth and development – Human biological plasticity– Body’s
ability to change– Primatology – study of biology, evolution,
behavior, and social life of primates
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– Historical linguists – reconstruct ancient languages and study linguistic variation through time
– Sociolinguistics – investigates relationships between social and linguistic variation [anthropological linguistics:] to discover varied perceptions and patterns of thought and practice in different cultures
Linguistic Anthropology
• Study of language in its social and cultural context across space and time
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Anthropology and Other Academic Fields
– Systematic field of study or body of knowledge that aims, through experiment, observation, and deduction, to produce reliable explanations of phenomena with reference to the material and physical world
• Anthropology is a science
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Anthropology and Other Academic Fields
– Encompasses study of and cross-cultural comparison of languages, texts, philosophies, arts, music, performances, and other forms of creative expression
– Form of knowledge is often intersubjective
• Anthropology is an art
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Anthropology and Other Academic Fields
– Share an interest in social relations, organization, and behavior
– Originally, sociologists focused on industrial West
• Anthropology and Psychology– Malinowski contended that cultural context
molds individual psychology
• Cultural Anthropology and Sociology
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Science, Explanation, and Hypothesis Testing
– Explains how and why the thing to be understood (the explicandum) is related to other things in some known way
– Associations – observed relationships between two or more measured variables
• Scientists strive to improve understanding by testing hypotheses that suggest explanations of things and events
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Science, Explanation, and Hypothesis Testing
– Explanatory framework, containing a series of statements, that helps us understand why (something exists or happens in a particular way)
– Theories suggest patterns, connections, and relationships that may be confirmed by new research
A theory is more general
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Science, Explanation, and Hypothesis Testing
– Theories cannot be proved; we evaluate them through the method of falsification
– Theories that are not disproved are accepted because the available evidence seems to support them
– Associations usually state probabilistically with two or more variables that tend to be related in a predictable way, but there are exceptions