Anthropology
Intro to social sciences
Participant observation ; the careful watching of a group, in some cases living with its members ,and participate in their culture
Schools of thought
Linguistics :
Paleoanthropology
Primatology
Human Variation
Skin colour, eye colour, blood type, gender
Functional theory
what can you learn? Age, gender, height, weight, how and when they developed
The study of human ancestors based on evidence from the distant evolutionary past
evidence is in fossils
EXAMPLE: Lucy skeleton remains
Psychology
The idea that every belief , action, or relationship in a culture functions to, set the needs of individuals. Ex: Ceremonial exchange of an item representing economic, social and political functions.
Sociology
Historical linguistics -compares the similarities and differences of language structures to better understand how languages are related and how people migrated in the past. Example: The language of Canada's aboriginal population can be traced to 5 majour culture areas in Canada
The systematic study of people's thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
The assumption that personality is moulded by biological factors and prior experiences
fossils can prove and disprove theories
PALEO WARS : revealing or sharing new discoveries
Cultural Materialism
Materials influence how our culture develops, if it's not of value to the culture or society it will not exist. Ex: The cow in India is sacred due to agracultural value.
Cultural Anthropology
Berger is like "yo give the people the informaction right away " and white is like "no it's just for the scientific community so we can be certain before sharing to the public"
The study of cultures and customs of human beings
Heritability- individuals pass on their traits to their off spring
Feminist Anthropology
The study of development, structure and functions of human society
The assumption is that individual acts can only be understood when compared with the acts of similar individuals
How cultures determine gender rolls. Ex: The amount of freedom women have is tied to their contributions to the food supply.
White is linear which means that he believes that each species is on a continuum (one species follows the next)
The assumption is that the culture where someone lives influences their mindset
research methods
Structural Linguistics - the study of how sounds are put together to convey meaning. All human children are born with internal, universal rules for grammar and learn rules from mothers tongue. Example: proper grammar "doesn't matter". I ain't got no shoes , I ain't got none either.
Post Modernism
A theory that influences a number of duciplines, including anthropology.-rejects the idea of objective truth. What we know is created by our society. Ex: Global Metal
Berger is a branch theory, so he believes that each specie could have co existed in similar times
Infrastructure-society's material resources-technology, population, available land etc. The structure-A society's familial, political, economic, and social systems. The Superstructure- A society's ideas, values, symbols, and religion
Variation- Every species has a lot of variety within it
Sociolinguistics- the study of how people use language within their culture to express status and context. Example: you talk to your friends in a different way than you talk to your teacher, different tone, vocabulary or body language
The American Anthropological Assosciation (AAA) states that race does not exist as a scientific category. More genetic variation exists within races than between them.
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-Observe in natural and lab settings
-Ex. Jane Goodalll living with apes
Differences between humans and other primates:-can walk on two legs for long periods of time. -can adapt to bipedalism. -longest infant depemdancy (humans). -symbolic spoken language and physical ability of speech -develop beliefs -live in groups/pairs
structured; Have set questions, non-experts can ask the questions, limited time frame.
Counting people, photographs, and mapping; Map physical location, count all the people they are studying, draw. conclusions on society.
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unstructured interviews; no pre-established questions, a lot of time.
semi-structured; few weeks, few flexible questions
Ethnology; the study of the origins and cultures of different races and people
Depending on where you live your skin colour may or may not have an advantage. Ex. Darker skins provides protection from ultraviolet rays, which can cause skin cancer. One way it wouldn't be an advantage is, there are mainly fair skinned Amazonian Indians and Southeast Asians living at the same latitudes as dark skinned Africans
language:
-It is possible to teach non-human primates to use language
ex. Savage-Rumbaugh teaching Kanzi to use graphic symbols
-language is still more limited for apes
similarities:
-bond between mother and infant that is important for survival
-longest infant dependency of any mammals
-societies have dominant hierarchies
-male aggression for food
-grooming one another
-Use of bodies to communicate
-similar body structures
The ways they grouped their information: White is trying to clump all the bones of a time period into one group, Australopithecus, while Berger notices the inconsistencies between the bones and how being catagorized in that group doesn't work because the differences suggest another group
Cultural Relativism
Anthropologists cannot compare two cultures because each culture has its own internal rules that must be accepted. Ethnocentric-believing that one's own culture is superior to all others. Ex: Ninteenth century European culture thinking that they are better than other cultures.
⤵️ The study of human languages and how they affect and express different cultures
Radiometric dating: a process that is used to determine the age of an object based on measuring the amount of radioactive material it has