Exam Anthropology 1 Lecture Notes
1/17/08 (Chapter 1)
Anthropologists view many aspects of cultures; biological, social, cultural, linguistic Small, non-western societies usually studied due to contrast with western culture, easier to be more detailed in observations, Hx anthropology. o o o o Cultural Anthropology study of society and culture (largest sub-discipline) Ethnography-account of a community or culture via participationobservation Analyze and compare ethnographic studies Synthetic and generalizing
Archeology o Reconstructs/interprets human culture/societies via material remains. o Historical archeology, living people, ethnoarcheology, experimental
Physical Anthropology: o Studies human; genetics, growth and development, physical plasticity and adaptation, primatology, and evolution (paleo-anthropology),
Linguistic Anthropology Study human communication and language in social context, not as abstract code or grammatical system o Universal features of language, evolution of capacity for language, relation between language of the brain, reconstruction of ancient languages, study of language change, relation between language and thought
Adaptation o Studies cultural, genetic, long-term and short term physiological adaptations Anthropology is a science theories and facts open to revision based on evidence
1/17/08
Week 1, Class 2: Kottak, Chapter 1 -The object of anthropology and its holistic approach -The whole of humanity -We also study human beings in multiple ways -Anthropology is inherently comparative -Why is the study of small-scale, non-Western societies particularly attractive to anthropologists? -The subdisciplines of anthropology -What are they? -Why did the discipline develop in this way? -Cultural anthropology -Two main activities: -Ethnography -Ethnology -Archaeology (archaeological anthropology) -Reconstructs, describes, and interprets human behavior and cultural patterns through material remains -Physical or biological anthropology -Studies human biological diversity -Five special interests -Linguistic anthropology -Studies language in its social and cultural context -Some linguistic anthropologists do more general and universal work -Not everyone still believes in keeping the four subdisciplines together -Anthropology and other academic fields -Human adaptability--the theme of the text -What are the four means of human adaptation? What are some examples? -How does culture shape the human body? -Science
1/22/08
Week 2, Class 1: Kottak, Chapter 2 -Applied anthropology: the application of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems (23) -Political history of applied anthropology -Some applied anthropologists still work for powerful parties -Today, many applied anthropologists have a different political perspective -Helping the local--the powerless, the different--to survive or thrive -Helping others to help local peoples, or cultural and ethnic minorities -Different kinds of applied cultural anthropology -Medical anthropology -Development anthropology -Educational anthropology -Urban anthropology and urban planning -Anthropology and business -Medical anthropology -Three types of disease theories in world cultures -Development anthropology -Educational anthropology -Urban anthropology and urban planning -Anthropology and business -Applied archaeology or public archaeology -Disaster relief in New Orleans -Applied linguistic anthropology -Applied physical anthropology -Can you get a job with an anthropology degree?
1/24/08
Week 2, Class 2: Ethics and Methods in Archaeology and Physical Anthropology Kottak, Chapter 3
-Anthropological ethics -Anthropologists, like all scientists, have to be aware of the legal and ethical contexts in which they work -Especially true of work in other countries -Anthropologists must also do this in the U.S. -Especially when working with living human subjects or on animal research -The power divide at the heart of anthropology -Five main ethical concerns 1. Do no harm 2. Informed consent 3. Just compensation 4. Truthful and sensitive scientific reporting 5. Open and collaborative research -Connections between physical anthropology and archaeology -What do they have in common? -Often work together -Forensic anthropology -Low-tech tools used in archaeology and physical anthropology -High-tech tools -What about the methods used in primatology? -Most important studies occur in natural habitats -A lot of the equipment is the same as that used by cultural anthropologists -Focus on primate social systems and behavior -Anthropometry -Have any of you ever been studied through anthropometry? -Bone (or skeletal) biology -Osteology: the study of skeletal variation and its biological and social causes -What is paleopathology? -Use in criminal investigations (i.e., forensic anthropology)
-Molecular anthropology -Can assess the evolutionary distance between living species -Can also assess the genetic distance between living groups of people, as defined by shared genetic traits -For primatologists, molecular anthropology can identify parentage as well as kinship and breeding patterns in primate groups -Paleoanthropology -Studying human ancestors through fossil remains -Work through interdisciplinary teams -Survey -Useful for both archaeology and paleoanthropology -Surveys can provide information on population size and social complexity -Excavation -Different kinds of archaeology -Not all archaeologists rely equally on surveying and excavation -Experimental archaeology -Historical archaeology -Nautical archaeology -Ethnoarchaeology -Dating techniques in paleoanthropology and archaeology -What are the two main kinds of dating techniques? -Relative dating -Determining whether artifacts or remains in a site are younger, older, or chronologically equivalent to each other -Stratigraphy -Fluorine absorption analysis -Absolute dating -More precise dating, using exact numbers and dates -Radiometric -Carbon-14 dating -Used for organic remains -Carbon-14 is an unstable radioactive isotope -Decays into Nitrogen-14 -Half-life is 5,730 years -Plants take this isotope into them from the atmosphere -Animals then eat these plants -By measuring how much of this isotope is left in a fossil, scientists can tell how old it is -Animals stop taking it in when they die
-Scientists measure the proportion of regular carbon (which doesn`t degrade) and carbon-14 (which does) -The less carbon-14, the older the remain -Good for fossils 40,000 or less years old -After 40,000 years, not much carbon-14 is left -Potassium-40 is a better radiometric technique for older specimens, because its half-life is much longer -Half-life is 1.3 billion years -Possatium-40 breaks down into argon-40, a gas -Potassium-40 dating involves determining when rock was heated by volcanic activity (which allows argon-40 to be released) -When there is volcanic activity shown in a strata, scientists can date the strata and thus the fossils found in it (or above or below it) -If there isn`t much argon-40, the rock was heated a long time ago -Potassium-40 is not good for fossils less than 500,000 years old -There are a number of other radiometric techniques available -Uranium series, thermoluminescence, electron spin resonance -Too complicated to explain here -Dendrochronology -Tree-ring dating -One ring added every year -Counting rings tells us how old the tree is -The characteristics of rings also tell us about the climate of that year -Scientists recognize ring patterns for trees in a given region, and then extend the record of trees back many years -Bristlecone pine ring chronologies extend 8,500 years -Oak and pine ring chronologies in northern Europe extend more than 11,000 years -Detecting the ring patterns in wood from ancient buildings can thus tell us what year they were built -Not all tree species can provide this information
2/5/08
Week 4, Class 1: Human Variation, Adaptation, and Our Hunter-Gatherer Past Kottak, Chapter 5 Podolefsky and Brown, Readings 7 and 9
-Class exercise -In groups of two or three, think about how you would divide up the global population into genetically distinct groups, based on similarity -Groups of two and six -You yourself have to come up with the units -What were right answers? -ASK SOMEONE WHO WAS THERE, IF YOU WEREN`T! -Two major approaches to the study of human biological diversity -Racial classification -Identifying, understanding, and explaining specific differences -Major point -There are both genetic and phenotypic differences between people, as individuals and as groups -No one denies this -Clines -Gradual genetic shifts -There are gradual, rather than abrupt, shifts in gene frequencies between neighboring groups -Human biological differences are arranged as clines rather than races -Problems with race -Difference between a human race and a dog breed -A main problem with most racial classifications is that they are done on the basis of phenotype -If human groupings are to reflect common ancestry, they must be based on genetic, rather than phenotypic, characteristics -Skin color -A complex trait -Based on the amount of melanin, a chemical, in the skin
-Prior to the 16th century, the darkest people lived in the tropics -What are the adaptive advantages of dark skin? -What is the biological explanation for why northern Europeans are so light-skinned? -Noses -Thomson`s nose rule -Teeth -Which human group has the largest teeth? Why? -Size and body build -Bergmann`s rule -Allen`s rule -Phenotypical adaptation -Adaptive changes occur over an individual`s lifetime -Lactose tolerance -What is particularly important or useful about studying hunger-gatherers? -The lifestyles of contemporary hunter-gatherers are representative of the great bulk of human history and evolution, in terms of diet, exercise, and health patterns -By looking at hunter-gatherers, we get a window into much of human history, and the context in which Homo sapiens emerged as a species -Our bodies evolved to live a foraging lifestyle -What did the agricultural revolution do to human health and the human body? -Greater, rather than less, nutritional stress -Shorter stature -Higher infant mortality -More disease -Hunter-gatherer lifestyle -Health of foragers -Relatively free of the diseases of civilization -Breast-feeding -What do foraging--or at least non-industrialized--people have to teach us about this practice? -Does their way of doing it make more evolutionary sense? -Our way of doing it -More natural way to do it, as practiced by contemporary peoples in other circumstances (e.g., hunter-gatherers)
-The health effects of natural breastfeeding -For mother and child -Not just about breastfeeding, but contemporary growth and reproduction practices in general -Contemporary changes in maturation and birthing -So what`s the general moral of the story? -Don`t assume that our contemporary ways of doing things are necessarily the best -Pay attention to what other kinds of people do, in both the present and the past -Be open to the possibility that we could learn a lot from such peoples as huntergatherers, whose lifestyles are much closer to the conditions in which we evolved as a species -Evolution operates over thousands of years, and just because we`ve been doing something for generations, it doesn`t mean that it`s good for us
2/7/08
Week 4, Class 2: The Nonhuman Primates Kottak, Chapter 6 SLIDE 1 -Primatology -The study of nonhuman primates--fossil and living apes, monkeys, and prosimians--including their behavior and social life (103) SLIDE 2 -Why is primatology part of anthropology? -Helps us to understand the lives of early hominids -Members of the family that includes living humans and their extinct relatives and ancestors -We now know of many missing links between humans and apes -Helps us to understand what human nature might be -Are there behaviors and tendencies that are shared across all of the apes, for example? -How do humans differ, as a species? -Helps us to understand the origin of human culture -Tool-making, for example -What does making tools have to do with "culture"? -A kind of behavior that is not part of one`s genes, but learned from others in social life -Depending on objects outside of our bodies for survival -Extending our adaptive potential SLIDE 3 -Primate taxonomy -Primates are an order of the class Mammalia -Other orders include Carnivora (dogs, cats, foxes, etc.) and Rodentia (rats, mice, beavers, etc.) -One suborder is Anthropoidea -Apes -Monkeys -Humans -Broken into two infraorders -Platyrrhines (New World monkeys)
-Catarrhines (Old World monkeys, apes, and humans) -Another suborder is Prosimii -Prosimians -Lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers SLIDE 4 -Shared characteristics of all anthropoids (monkeys, apes, and humans) 1. Grasping -Five-digited hands and feet that can be used to grasp such things as branches -Useful because primates evolved as arboreal mammals -Some primates have opposable thumbs 2. Importance of sight rather than smell -Primates have adapted sight as their most important means of getting sensory information -Development of stereoscopic or depth vision 3. Importance of the hand rather than the nose -The main touch organ is the hand, not the nose -Useful for tactile information 4. Brain complexity -The ratio of brain to body size is larger than that of almost all other mammals -Increased capacity for memory and thought -The ability to learn from experience 5. Parental investment -Only one offspring born at a time -Young get more attention and opportunity to learn -Learned behavior is extremely important in primates` lives 6. Sociality -Primates tend to live together in groups -These groups are important in raising young SLIDE 5 -Similarities between humans and apes -Both belong to the same superfamily of Hominoidea, and are thus known as hominoids -Monkeys are in two other superfamilies -Anatomy -Brain structure -Biochemistry -Genetics -More than 98% of our genes are shared with chimps -Not much less with gorillas -Orangutans are pretty close, too
SLIDE 6 -The suborder Prosimii -The prosimians -Anthropoids split off from this group more than 40 million years ago -Live only in Africa and Asia SLIDE 7 -Lemurs -Only in Madagascar SLIDE 8 -Tarsiers -Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines -Used to be in Europe and North America, but went extinct (50mya) SLIDE 9 -Lorises -Africa and Asia -What looks different about them? How are they unlike monkeys and apes? -Usually active at night -Do not compete with monkeys and apes -Some have bigger snouts -Different hands -Smaller -Definitely less human-like SLIDE 10 -New World monkeys (platyrrhines) -All of them are arboreal -Many of them have prehensile tails -Central and South America SLIDE 11 -Monkeys that I`ve eaten SLIDE 12
SLIDE 13 -Woolly SLIDE 14 -Red howler SLIDE 15 -Capuchin SLIDE 16 -Saki SLIDE 17 -Squirrel SLIDE 18 -Dusky titi SLIDE 19 -Tamarin SLIDE 20 -Owl or night monkey -The only noctural monkey in the world SLIDE 21 -Old World monkeys -Have full color vision -Lacked by prosimians and most New World monkeys -Different teeth from New World monkeys -One less molar -Both terrestrial and arboreal species SLIDE 22 -Apes -Apes and humans are in the same superfamily, Hominoidea
-Great apes -Chimps, gorillas, orangutans -Lesser apes -Gibbons and siamangs of Southeast Asia and Indonesia SLIDE 23 -Gibbons -Live in southeast Asia, and most plentiful in Malaysia -Smallest of the apes -Almost completely arboreal -Not much difference between male and female body-type -They move by brachiation, or swinging by their arms from branch to branch -Human shoulder structure shows that we, too, evolved from this capacity -Mainly eat fruits -Sometimes insects and small animals -Live in permanent male-female pairs -Along with pre-adolescent offspring SLIDE 24 -Orangutans -Two different species live on two Indonesian islands -Marked sexual dimorphism -Physical differences between adult males and females -Males weigh more than twice as much as females -Larger than gibbons, smaller than gorillas -Eat mainly fruit, bark, leaves, and insects SLIDE 25 -Gorillas -One species, Gorilla gorilla -Three subspecies -Western lowland, eastern lowland, and mountain -Only 650 mountain gorillas, the largest primate species, survive -High sexual dimorphism -Females weigh half as much as males -Live mostly on the ground -Spend most of their time eating -Almost entirely vegetarian -green bulk vegetation rather than fruit -Live in troops of 10 to 20 individuals with one silverback -The only male that mates with the females SLIDE 26
-Chimpanzees -Two species -Pan troglodytes (common chimps) -Pan paniscus (bonobos) -Common chimps live in west, central, and eastern Africa -Bonobos live only in the Democratic Republic of Congo -Eat a lot of fruit -Eat some insects, eggs, and small mammals -Smaller and more arboreal than gorillas -Less sexual dimorphism than gorillas or orangutans -Very similar to that of humans -Bonobos -Unique in that they appear to be ruled by females -Social life is female-centered, peace-loving, and egalitarian -Strongest bonds are between females -Males get much of their social status from their bonds with their mothers -Have much more sex than other apes, and use it avoid conflict -Importance of lesbian sex, or genital-genital rubbing -Also male-male fondling -This usually precedes and follows tense events SLIDE 27 -What is the difference between human and nonhuman primates? -Do nonhuman primates learn, or is their behavior programmed by their genes? -They do learn, at least monkeys and apes -Examples of macaques washing sweet potatoes -Makes it much easier for adaptation to occur -I.e., it doesn`t have to be genetic -Do nonhuman primates use tools? -Some birds use twigs to get insects; beavers make dams; otters use rocks to break open shellfish -Do other animals make tools? -Some chimps specifically select certain kinds of rocks and certain kinds of trees on which to crack nuts -Some chimps crumple up leaves to make sponges that they can use to get water from difficult to reach holes -Other chimps manufacture probing sticks to extract termites from their holes -Do nonhuman primates hunt? -Yes, chimps do -Do nonhuman primates share and cooperate as humans do? -Probably not
-Early bands of hunting-gathering people didn`t have clear dominance relations, as do gorillas or baboons -It is much more important for humans to share and to curb aggression -Bonobos and chimps, however, do engage in some conflict-avoidance and cooperation behaviors -On the whole, humans cooperate much more -Among all other primates, the tendency is to forage individually, not to cooperate in group activities -In humans, groups work together, and there is a division of labor between male and female and young and old, for example -Do humans and nonhuman primates mate in the same ways? -No -In humans, a woman`s reproductive state is not physically apparent to potential mates -You don`t know when a woman is ovulating -So, humans mate throughout the year -Much more monogamy and long-term bonding -Human groups are also exogamous -Usually mate outside of a localized kin group -This creates bonds between groups, the building blocks of society -Humans maintain life-long ties with sons, daughters, and siblings -Do any other species have a female orgasm?
2/12/08
Week 5, Class 1: The Emergence of Homo sapiens Kottak, Chapters 8 and 9 SLIDE 1 SLIDE 2 -What makes us human? -In class exercise -Get together in groups and come up with at least four characteristics -Differentiate between those that can be detected in the fossil record and those that can`t -In your opinion, which characteristic is the most important, and why? SLIDE 3 -Hominin -Refers to the human line after it split off from the ancestral line of chimps -6-8mya -Hominid refers to the taxonomic family that includes humans, African apes, and their immediate ancestors SLIDE 4 -What characteristics define hominins as humans? SLIDE 5 -Bipedalism -Upright two-legged locomotion -This is the key feature -The recent debate on where to draw the line -The big brain theory -Brains evolved before anything else, constituting our essence as humans -Bipedalism preceded tool use and expansion of the hominin brain -More than 5mya -Adaptive advantages -Useful in a savannah or grassland environment -Forests receded in Africa, more than 5mya
-Some kind of global environmental change -Within Africa, the west remained humid and forested -Chimps evolved there -Within the east, the forests gave way to savannahs -Bipedal hominins evolved there -See over grass -Carry things -Low exposure to solar radiation -Walking on fours exposes us to 60% more radiation -Better for cooling off, too -Early hominins were still very good climbers -Later, of course, bipedalism enabled tool production and use SLIDE 6 -Brains -The earliest hominins had brains that were barely larger than those of chimps -Brain size gradually increased in hominin evolution -Increased rapidly with Homo -Challenges of big brains -Wide birth canals -Make it more difficult for upright locomotion -Long period of child growth and dependency -High energy consumption and protein needs SLIDE 7 -Tools -Some of the great apes do have limited tool-use -Branches, rocks, leaves, etc. -Hominins began to manufacture stone tools at least 2.5mya -H. habilis, well before H. sapiens -Perhaps the australopithecines, too -Bipedalism was an extremely important condition for this -Legs and feet became arms and hands SLIDE 8 -Teeth -Early hominins had extremely large back, or molar, teeth -Big teeth very important for consuming the tough and fibrous vegetation of grasslands -Apes have bigger and sharper front teeth -Good for eating fruits -Later, hominins lost their big back teeth -Humans have very small ones
-Evolution doesn`t just go in one direction SLIDE 9 -Hominin evolution -Map SLIDE 10 -Early hominins -Ardipithecus -Ardipithecus kadabba -Recognized as the earliest known hominin -5.8-5.5mya -First discovered in Ethiopia -Ape-like in size, anatomy, and habitat -Woodlands rather than grasslands -Hominin because it was clearly bipedal SLIDE 11 -Kenyanthropus platyops -flat-faced man` of Kenya -Flat face and small molars -Very different from Lucy, or Australopithecus afarensis -First found in 1999, unveiled later -3.5mya -Earlier, it was thought that there was only one kind of hominin from 3.8 to 3mya -No other fossils were found -What was the big discovery about human evolution that resulted from Kenyanthropus? -Humans have evolutionary lines like any other kind of animal -Not a straight trunk without branches -Adaptive radiation SLIDE 12 -The Australopithecines -Immediate predecessors of Homo -A genus: Australopithecus -Six separate species, in current classifications -From 4.2mya to 1.0mya -Some of them may have been able to make stone tools by 2.5mya
SLIDE 13 -A. anamensis -Bipedal hominin from northern Kenya -Fossils from 4.2mya 3.9mya -Large molars with enamel and also large canines -May be ancestral to A. afarensis SLIDE 14 -Lucy is the most famous australopithecine -Australopithecus afarensis -The most likely candidate for a direct ancestor of Homo -Descendents also split off into two now extinct species of australopithecines, which overlapped with Homo species -Discovered in Ethiopia by Donald Johanson in the 1970s -40% of a full skeleton -Extremely complete for a hominin find -3.0mya -Overall, A. afarensis lived from 3.8-3mya -In many ways, Lucy was very similar to an ape -Especially in terms of teeth and brain size -Small brain: 430cc -Large back teeth and jaws, for chewing savannah vegetation -Nevertheless, bipedal -We can see this from footprint traces in volcanic ash -Strong sexual dimorphism -Females were 3-4` tall; males up to 5` -Males weighed twice as much as females -Very different from later hominins in this regard SLIDE 15 -The gracile australopithecines -A. africanus -Perhaps 3.0-2.0mya? -Smaller and slighter -Could have been ancestral to later robust australopithecines or coexistent with them -Smaller canines than Lucy -Still, a lot of sexual dimorphism -Although not quite as much as Lucy -This australopithecine may have been ancestral to Homo -Still a lot of debate -Or, may have been ancestral to one of the robust australopithecines
SLIDE 16 -At least two species of Australopithecines, A. robustus and A. boisei, coexisted with early Homo from 2mya - 1mya -These australopithecines evolved to have very strong jaws and big teeth -Some of them were very large -The robust or hyperrobust australopithecines -Almost entirely vegetarian -Small brains -A. robustus--540cc -A. boisei--490cc -Bipedal SLIDE 17 -A. garhi -Discovered in Ethiopia in 1999 -2.5mya -May be a direct human ancestor, linking A. and H. -Also extensive evidence for stone-tool use with the fossil -Aimed at getting meat and marrow from big game -This represented a big dietary revolution from other australopithecines -Led to the invasion of new habitats? -Based A. on garhi, we know that australopithecines were tool-makers, with some kind of culture SLIDE 18 -Homo habilis -Perhaps the earliest member of our genus -Still some debate on this -Good dates for 1.8-1.7mya -From 2.4mya to 1.4mya -Just as small as Lucy -Limbs were ape-like -Big differences from australopithecines -Larger brain size -600-700cc -Tool-use was established SLIDE 19 -Homo erectus -Emerged 1.7-1.6mya
-Disappeared perhaps 300,000ya -Cranial capacity of 900-1000cc vs 600-700cc for H. habilis -Range of 800 to 1,250cc -Modern body shape -Taller -One 12-year old male specimen was already 5`5`` -Skulls changed because of hunting adaptation -Problems of fighting larger prey, and surviving -Protections against blows and falls -Within 100-200,000 years from H. habilis, H. erectus was very different -Not much difference between Lucy and H. habilis, aside from cranium and brain -A big jump in development -The speed of human evolution increased at 1.8mya -Perhaps the result of an environmental shift -Or an adaptive shift; i.e., dependence on tools and hunting -H. erectus tools were much more sophisticated than those of H. habilis -H. erectus skulls are still noticeably different from H. sapiens -Lower and more sloping forehead -Large, protruding brow -Thicker skull bones -Smaller cranial capacity -Larger face, teeth, and jaws -We don`t know if H. erectus spoke, but it`s a possibility SLIDE 20 -Homo erectus--out of Africa -By 1.7mya, early Homo was moving out of Africa -Into Asia and Europe -Some suggest that it did this as H. erectus -Others believe that H. ergaster, an intermediate species between habilis and erectus, moved out of Africa -As a hunter-gatherer, H. erectus could expand its range -Had to expand to find sufficient meat to power its big body and brain -Better adaptive potential -Better toolkit -Larger body -Could travel long distances -Could hunt bigger game -Elephants, horses, rhinos, giant baboons, etc. -Fire -From 800,000ya, or even 1.6mya -Enabled H. erectus to survive in more climates -Provided protection against predators
-Opened up dietary possibilities SLIDE 21 -Stone tools -Paleolithic (Old and Stone) age -From almost 2mya to 15,000ya -Lower (early), Middle, and Upper (recent) -Lower: H. erectus -Middle: archaic H. sapiens -Upper: anatomically modern humans (AMH) -First tradition: Oldowan (pre-Paleolithic) -Australopithecines and H. habilis? -Pebble tool -2.5-2.0mya -Simple core/flake design -The core itself can be used as a tool -Cutting and crushing -Lower Paleolithic -H. erectus -Acheulian tradition -Characteristic tool was the hand axe -Axe formed from the core -Flat, oval, and about 6 long -Far superior to pebble tools -Flakes shed with a hammerstone -Flakes themselves became increasingly important -Evolving body of tools with different functions -Digging, smashing, cutting, cleaving, etc. -Especially important for a greater focus on hunting SLIDE 22 -Archaic Homo sapiens -300,000-28,000ya -Probably originated in Africa -Moved to Europe and Asia -Maybe settled in Europe by about 50,000ya -Our fossil record is better for Europe, but that doesn`t mean that that`s where the evolution of early H. sapiens was occurring -Brain size was roughly equivalent to modern human beings -1,350cc -Skull -Became rounder to hold the bigger brain SLIDE 23
-The Neandertals (H. sapiens neanderthalensis) -130,000-28,000ya -First discovered in Western Europe -First found in the Neander Valley, in Germany -Now, similar fossils have been found throughout Europe and the Middle East -Similar fossils found in Africa and Asia -Physical characteristics -Well-adapted to cold climates in Western Europe -Stocky, large trunks, short limbs -Rugged skeletons and musculature -Big face and big nose -Big front teeth, big jaws, large brow ridges -Large brains: 1,400cc -Wore clothes, made elaborate tools, and hunted large game -Tools of the Middle Paleolithic -The Mousterian tradition -Levallois technique -Chipping uniform flakes from a core, and then working them for specific functions -Relation between neandertals and modern humans -Most scientists now believe that H. erectus split into two groups, one of which became Neandertals and the other of which became anatomically modern humans -May have happened 550,000ya -Modern humans are believed to have evolved in Africa and made it to Europe by about 50,000ya, where they encountered Neandertals -Eventually displaced Neandertals -Some scientists do believe that Neandertals mated with modern people or gave rise to them, but this is a minority position SLIDE 24 -Anatomically Modern Humans (AMHs) -130,000ya to the present -Perhaps 30,000 years earlier -Origin in Africa -Skulls -1,350cc -Long, broad midfaces, tall, narrow nasal bones, high round cranium -Very sophisticated tool kits -Greater economic specialization -Production of blades (twice as long as they are thick) from a core -Produced 15 times as much cutting edge from the same amount of material as the Mousterian tradition
-In general, there was greater functional specification and standardization of process and product -Art -Cave paintings from 36,000ya -Mainly animals -Magic and ritual for the hunt -Two theories on the emergence of AMHs -Out of Africa -AMHs evolved in Africa and then spread out, replacing more archaic humans in other locations -Multiregional evolution -Evolution occurred over a broad area, with groups beyond Africa sharing their genes through interbreeding and thus producing AMHs -There are some broad similarities in facial types between H. erectus ancestors and AMHs in Africa, Europe, northern Asia, and Australasia -If H. sapiens killed off or replaced local populations when they moved out of Africa, this wouldn`t occur -If there was an Eve, she must have arisen more than 200,000ya, as the Out of Africa proponents suggest SLIDE 25 -Homo floresiensis -From the small Indonesian island of Flores -In 2004, there was a report of a new species of human discovered there -H. floresiensis -Much more recent than H. erectus remains -Very small skull capacities -370cc, smaller than a chimp -H. erectus may have reached Flores by 840,000ya -On Flores, H. erectus evolved in relation to specific environmental constraints -This led to its miniature size, like that of other species on the island -Adult females were 3.5` tall -Had fire and tools more sophisticated than those of H. erectus -Much of the population was wiped out, apparently by a volcanic eruption, 12,000ya -Some groups may have survived until more recently -Modern human groups on the island still tell stories about little people who lived in caves SLIDE 26 -Review hominin evolution
2/21/08
Week 6, Class 2: Archaeology and the Emergence of Cities and States Kottak, Chapter 11
-Movie -Good view of archaeology -Different methods: -Surveying -Excavation -Experimental archaeology -Ethnoarchaeology -Historical archaeology -Copn, Mayan kingdom -Northwestern Honduras -Largest site in the SE part of the Maya area -29 acres -Populated until about 822ad -Key question: determining the scale and development of sociopolitical complexity -Band, tribe, chiefdom, state, empire (?) -Archaeology`s specialty -Look at long-term developments -Hundreds or thousands of years -How and why things turn into each other -Implicit evolutionary slant -How do archaeologists determine sociopolitical complexity? -Burials? -Architecture? -Regional or landscape features? -Sociopolitical organization -Egalitarian societies -Status differences not inherited -Status based on age, gender, and individual qualities and talents -Types of societies -Foragers -Bands and tribes -Tribes have settlements with clear leaders
-Ranked societies -Status differences are inherited -But, status differences follow a continuum without clear breaks between the highest and lowest -Types of societies -Horticulturalist, pastoralist, some foragers -Chiefdoms and some tribes -Chiefdoms depend upon unequal relations between grouped villages -Stratified societies -Status differences are inherited -Sharp and clear differences between different classes (e.g., nobles and commoners) -Types of societies -Agriculturalists -States -State: a form of social and political organization that has a formal, central government and a division of society into classes (229) -Mesopotamia by 5500bp -Earliest towns by 10,000ya -Jericho in Israel -Mesoamerica by 2500bp -Chiefdoms had privileged leaders, but they didn`t have sharp class divisions -Attributes or common features of (early) states -Territorial control -Productive farming economies -Especially in early states -Support dense and often urban populations -Systems for tax and tribute -Accumulates resources to support many specialists -States had rulers, militaries, and control over labor -Class stratification -I.e., elite, commoners, slaves -Large public buildings and monumental architecture -Record-keeping systems -Often a written script -Why did states emerge? -Increasingly productive agriculture -With better agriculture, food production could support large and dense populations -Increasingly complex division of labor -The social structure of food production itself became more complex -More time and labor were freed for other pursuits
-A large group of people could spend their time doing something other than farming, herding, or foraging -Divisions of labor require coordination -Systems of authority needed for regulation -More specific factors -Need to regulate hydraulic systems for agriculture -Necessity of securing and regulating irrigation in dry climates -Neither sufficient nor necessary -Increased conflicts -Development of long-distance trade routes -States arise at strategic locations -Where these cross, or where they have to pass -Places of supply or exchange -Places where trade could be halted -Once again, power on the basis of controlling a scarce resource -In general, there are three necessary conditions for the emergence of states (Carneiro) -Environmental circumscription (or resource concentration) -Scarcity and conflict -Need for control and administration -Increasing population -Connected to the first -Depends on intensified food production, too -Warfare -States especially begin when one chiefdom conquerors another, thus instituting heightened social inequality -Usually because of large populations and conflict over scarce resources -Why do states collapse? -Invasion, disease, famine, prolonged drought, excessive warfare, etc. -The Mayan decline -Declined around 1100ya (classic from 1700ya on) -Over-farming and environmental degradation -Massive malnutrition (e.g., 80% of skeletons at late Copn show iron deficiency) -Warfare among Mayan cities? -Archaeologists now believe that social, political, and military upheaval had as much, or more, to do with Mayan decline as ecological issues
2/26/08
Anth 1013 Week 7, Class 1: Methods in Cultural Anthropology Kottak, Chapter 12 and Podolefsky and Brown, 20-2 -Situating cultural anthropology -Review of physical anthropology and archaeology -The place of cultural anthropology in the discipline -By far the largest subdiscipline -Some departments only teach this -When someone says that they are an anthropologist, they often mean cultural anthropologist -Horace Miner on the Nacirema -Cultural anthropology makes the strange familiar, and the familiar strange -Ethnography -Ethnography vs. ethnology -firsthand personal study of local settings (262) -Traditionally with far-off small-scale societies -Objective of understanding the whole of a society -Do cultural anthropologists study human nature? How? -Only by studying the diversity of existing societies and cultures can we make general claims -We don`t use logic -We assume that our own culture limits our imagination -We forestall judgment -Basic cross-cultural tolerance and openness -Cultural relativism -More specifically, methodological relativism -Many cultural anthropologists question the very idea of human nature -The object of ethnography -Life as lived -Spontaneous, real-time, and context-enabled forms -Does this notion problematize the scientific quality of cultural anthropology? -Fieldwork techniques -Choosing a site
-Not mentioned by Kottak -Addressed by Sterk -Sites are usually chosen according to a pre-conceived research interest -Practical matters of where research can be done -Natural environment -Political environment -My experience with security concerns in Ecuador -Acceptance of researcher -Ability to aid researcher -Some sites are more fundable than others -Contemporary work in the Middle East -Also, will help you to get a job -Difficulties of working on Russian issues now -Importance of working with local experts, other anthropologists, and local gatekeepers -Participant-observation -deep hanging out -Pay attention to everything -Importance of developing familiarity, rapport, and trust -Learning the local language -Field notes -Personal diary -Interviewing -Structured and unstructured -Formal and informal -Difference from surveying in sociology, political science, economies, etc. -Census -Genealogies -Notation for recording kinship, descent, and marriage -In many societies, kinship and the family are the key determinants of social structure -Detailed work with key consultants (?) -Life-histories -Collection of biographies -Gives a very intimate and personal account of an individual -Recent trends in ethnographic research -Problem-oriented research -Longitudinal research -Team research -Large-scale research on modern social complexity
-The moral limits of participant-observation -Sterk on prostitution and AIDS -Participant-observation on street, in hotels, drug houses, etc. -Topics on methodology covered in article -Gaining access to the women -Developing relationships -In-depth interviewing -Leaving the field -Ethical complications -Bourgois on crack in Harlem -Dangers and difficulties of fieldwork -Doing research on people for whom you have little or no sympathy -Assumption: everyone has to have a sense of meaning in their lives -Bourgois tries to account for the structural conditions that lead many people to become the agents of their own oppression and destruction
2/28/08
Anth 1013 Week 7, Class 2: Culture Kottak, Chapter 13 Podolefsky and Brown, 26 and 27 -Video on Canela -Culture: Being Raised Canela -Watching this, what do you know about Canela culture? How might it be different from your own culture? Think of ten different things--ten different areas or topics of anthropological study--that could be investigated from what you`ve seen in this movie -What are some common senses or uses of the term culture in American society? -Culture -A culture is a system of symbols that allows us to interpret and act in the world -In a larger sense, culture refers to EVERYTHING that people learn or make, that they depend upon but that is not determined by their genotype -History of the idea of culture -Culture is learned -Enculturation -Culture is a system of symbols (or signs) -Exercise: twitch and a wink -A symbol is something that stands for something else in some capacity -Symbol and what it symbolizes -A signifier and what it signifies -Symbols are relatively arbitrary -signs . . . have no necessary or natural connection to the things they signify or for which they stand (280) -No connection between the word horse, for example, and a domesticated, odd-toed ungulate -Only humans have true symbols in this sense -Index, icon, and symbol -Culture is shared -It is a group-relative attribute
-Cultures are integrated -Culture changes -Cultures are not bounded -Culture is contested -Members of a group may not agree on the meanings of symbols -Ethnocentrism -People tend to naturalize their cultures -Ethnocentrism -What is the opposite of ethnocentrism? -Cultural relativism -Moral relativism -Methodological relativism -The moral limits of participant-observation research -Richard Lee, Eating Christmas in the Kalahari -What happened in this story? What were the key symbols? -Eugene Cooper, Chinese Table Manners: You Are How You Eat -Food, and how we eat, also forms a system of symbols -Chinese eating as a cultural system, a system of symbols -The general cultural message -In all these contexts the general pattern that emerges is one that centers on deference, in thinking first of the other, in suppressing one`s inclination to satiate oneself before the other has had a chance to begin, in humility. One yields to the other before satisfying one`s own urges. At the macro level of China`s great tradition, one finds such behavior characteristic of the chun-tzu, the individual skilled in the li (etiquette, rites, and ceremonies). He is one also skilled in the art of jang--of yielding, of accomplishing without activity, of boundless generosity, of cleaving to the li. There is even something of a Taoist resonance in all this, getting at things indirectly, without obvious instrumental effort (177)
3/4/08
Anth 1013 Week 8, Class 1: Race and Ethnicity Kottak, Chapter 14 Podolefsky and Brown, 29 and 31 -If anthropology is about studying human diversity, and cultural anthropology about studying how individuals vary as members of social or cultural groups, how do we define those groups? -What is the ethno in ethnography? -Which groups have distinct cultures? -Where does one group end and another begin? -Do members have to be conscious of the groups to which they belong? -The question of identity -Video clip on Bosnia -What differentiates these people from each other? -Why don`t they get along? -Do ethnicities change? Do they become more or less important over time? -Ethnic groups and ethnicity -Ethnicity -A form of identity based on cultural similarities and differences within a society or nation -The awareness of difference occurs at boundaries -Identifying with a certain group against another at the same level -An ethnic group is based on similarities of: -Religion -Language -History -Geography -Kinship -Race? -Markers of ethnicity -What does Hispanic mean? -Race -When an ethnic group is assumed to have a biological basis (distinctively shared blood` or genes), it is called a race (304)
-Jared Diamond, Race Without Color (29 of P and B) -When individuals willingly mate and produce viable offspring, they belong to the same species -Classification of a species into a subspecies or race is a much more messy affair -Race by resistance: example of sickle-cell anemia -Race by digestion: lactose-tolerance -Race by fingerprints -Race by genes -None of the classification schemes produced by the above traits line up with each other -The social or cultural construction of race -Races are social or cultural categories rather than biological ones -Why do we consider a child of one black parent and one white parent to be black? -Race and intelligence -There are no class- or culture-free means of testing intelligence -Most experts believe that environmental differences account for test performance, rather than genetic heritage -Nation -Traditionally meant the same thing as tribe or ethnic group -Now, nation is largely synonymous with state -Nation-state -Nationalities -Peaceful interethnic relations -Assimilation -Multiculturalism -What is the model in America? -Violent interethnic relations -Why do interethnic relations sometimes lead to violent fighting? Why don`t they always do this? -Kinds of problematic interethnic relations -Competition -Discrimination and prejudice -Forced assimilation -Ethnocide -Ethnic expulsion -Genocide -Race, racism, and racial privilege
-Peggy McIntosh, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack -Written by a white woman who has written a lot about male privilege, rather than white privilege -May not apply to San Antonio -Not a white dominant city, at least demographically -Also, a fairly integrated city (relative to Detroit or Chicago, at least) -What is white privilege? -an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was meant` to remain oblivious (198) -Race is not just about putting some people at a disadvantage--it also gives other people an advantage, a privilege -People are largely unconscious of the kind of advantage that their perceived race or ethnicity gives them -Interesting list of 26 privileges (198-9) -These things attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographical location, though of course all these other factor are intricately intertwined (198) -It`s not just that these are wrong or false, but that they give some people an advantage just because of their skin color -Some of the privileges are actually damaging or bad for the holder (e.g., allow them to be oblivious and ignorant), while others we would want for everyone (e.g., to expect decency and fair treatment) -Moral of the story -If these things are true, this is not such a free country, one`s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own (199) -Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already (200) -Your opinion on this? -What is your own vision of what this city, and the larger country, should become in terms of culture, race, and ethnicity?
3/6/08
Anth 1013 Week 8, Class 2: Language and Linguistic Anthropology Kottak, Chapter 15 Basso, To Give Up on Words Maltz and Barker, A Cultural Approach to Male-Female Miscommunication
-How long have we had language? -Some people believe neandertals had full language -Others disagree -What can we say about H. erectus? -Importance of language -Allows for the coordination of very complex social activities -Allows for the storage and transmission of immense amounts of knowledge -Allows us to record and remember the past, and to imagine the future -Overall, language makes us much more adaptive than any other animal -Linguistic anthropology -Studies language in its social and cultural context -Focus on comparison, variation, diversity, and change -Reconstructing ancient languages -Cultural revitalization projects -Nonhuman communication systems -Other primates have call systems -Sign language and nonhuman primates -Some apes have developed some ability to use American Sign Language -Nonhuman primates have never invented a language in the wild -The apes that have learned these systems have done it in artificial circumstances, working with humans -Nonhuman primates have never successfully taught their sign systems to their offspring or other individuals -Some scholars criticize attempts to teach apes ASL -Nonverbal communication -Humans, like other animals, communicate through nonverbal means
-Facial expressions, body stances, gestures, movements, etc. -Gender differences in nonverbal communication American society -What are they? -The structure of language -Phonology -Morphology -Lexicon -Syntax -Semantics -Language, thought, and culture -The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis -Sociolinguistics -Specifically focused on language in society -Relations between social and linguistic variation--how language use varies with social, economic, and political position -Linguistic diversity -Style shifts or code switches -Gender and speech -Language and status -Black English Vernacular (BEV) -Features -Standard English is not inherently superior to BEV -Historical linguistics -Studies long-term linguistic change -Can work to reconstruct past languages -The original language is the protolanguage -When dialects of a protolanguage are separated for a long period of time, they become distinct and mutually unintelligible daughter languages -Basso, the Apache, and Silence -When are Apache people silent? -What is the logic behind the Apache use of silence? -How does silence function in mainstream American society? -A Cultural Approach to Male-Female Miscommunication, Daniel N. Maltz and Ruth A. Barker -We should think about cross-sex communication in the same way that we think about cross-ethnic communication -There are different cultural conceptions among men and women about friendly conversation
-By the end of childhood, sociolinguists have shown that boys and girls have different ways of speaking -Maltz and Borker relate this to play differences between boys and girls -How do boys and girls play differently? -Girls` friendship and sociality, as learned and manifested in play -Boys` friendship -In their play, girls learn to speak in a certain way -In their play, boys learn to speak in a certain way -What kinds of differences do these ways of playing and speaking produce in adult male and female speech? -Women`s features -Men`s features -Because of these differences, men and women have a lot of miscommunication -Not about men consciously using their power or women manifesting their innate psychological difference (i.e., subordination, passivity, weakness) -Just different cultures -Is there any way to separate culture from how people speak and interact?