ANTH 101 Exam 1 Note Sheet PDF

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Domains of Anthropology are culture, material, human remains, people, language, historical texts and primates/hominids Culture is a collection of reciprocal and individual traits among groups of people that come together due to a historical accident Anthropologists explore human societies, cultures and physical diversity over time and space Anthropologic Perspective o Holistic: Integrate all that is known about humans o Comparative: examine similarities and differences o Field Based: collect data and get direct contact o Evolutionary: Examine biological and cultural change Culture is the central concept of anthropology o Consists of beliefs, traditions, customs and ideas that humans learn as members of society o Humans adapt and transform using culture o Material culture: artifacts representing culture Biological Anthropology o Biological variation and diversity among humans Paleoanthropologists examine human and non-human primate evolution (thru fossilized remains) Cultural Anthropology o explore cultural diversity o use ethnology and ethnography to study humans

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Myths: sacred stories about the world that reveal history & truth o Not applicable to fables and stories o Myths favoring western world views and positivist narratives following Edward said are considering orientalist  E.B. Tylor  Myths as Science  Bronislaw Malinowski  Myths as social Charters (justified the world as it is)  Claude Levi-Strauss  Myths as Structure o Looked for underlying themes in all myths o Used comparative structure – found all myths have same fundamental structure – they aren’t fictional  Types and Categories of Myths o Cosmic Narratives  Beginnings of universe, world structure, unique versions worldwide, mythical and natural creatures, commonly united by use of water o Heroic Adventures  Gods, proto-humans, mediate trouble, resolve eternal conflicts o Nature  explain natural events and assign function to the unexplainable --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Evolutionary Theory – how species change over time o Explains all species share a common ancestry o Proof in biological variation, genetics & fossil records  Pre-Darwin o Essentialism (Plato)  Living creatures exhibit an unchanging nature (essence)  Each organism is distinct from others – favors a creator o Great Chain of Being (Aristotle)  God is the creator and creatures are ranked in a hierarchy based on closeness to God o Catastrophism (Georges Cuvier – through fossils)  Species become extinct because of natural disasters and new species replace the extinct

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This is done by the divine creator  emerges during the Enlightenment (18th C.) o Uniformitarianism (Charles Lyell – through geology)  Same natural processes that affect the world today worked in past  uniformity of creation is continuous o Transformational/Lamarckian Evolution (JeanBaptiste de Monet de Lamarck)  Organisms transform directly in response to changing environments and these acquired characteristics are passed down to offspring  Species: group of living organisms of similar individuals who are capable of exchanging genes and producing viable offspring  Natural Selection: Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace – species varied and evolved over time causing descent with modification but all species share an ancestral species. o Progeny inherit traits that made their parents fit and survival of the fittest o Traits shaped by natural selection for the function they currently perform are adaptations (any useful trait) o Traits that were shaped by natural selection for one function but used for another are exaptation’s  Norm of Reaction is a way of displaying phenotypes for a genotype in different environments o Different genotypes produce same phenotype and same genotypes can product different phenotypes --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hominin: Humans and their immediate ancestors o Earliest evidence dates to end of Miocene (7-5.3 mya) and includes dental and cranial pieces o Hominin Characteristics – bipedal, large brain, toolmaking behavior  Behavioral Shift – hominins spend more time on ground and exploit different resources o Humans are habitual and obligate bipedals  Hypotheses about the origin of bipedalism o Ecological: better view of surroundings o Energetic Efficiency: thermoregulatory model – reduces heat gain and increases heat loss o Dietary; resource availability affected by group sixe, body size and means to retrieve food o Sexual Selection: male provisioning for female and offspring – suggests monogamy but history disagrees  Skeletal Adaptations: reduced spinous process, anterior foramen magnum, S-shaped vertebrae, double arched foot, larger lumbar vertebrae, basin pelvis, angled femora, adducted big toe  Language: Broca’s area – spoken language (motor)  Wernicke’s Area – perception of language (sensory)  Lithic technology o Oldowan (2.4-1.6 mya Africa): earliest were unifacially worked and later were bifacially worked  Used by A. garhi, H. habillis, H. erectus o Acheulean (1.76-100k): used by homo erectus --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Humans belong to the anthropoids and haplorrhines primate category  Cladistic taxonomies divide primates in strepsirhines (wet nose - lemur) and haplorrhines (simple nose –tarsiers & humans)  New World Anthropoids o Platyrrhines (flat nose): evolved separately from Old World anthropoids, all members are monkeys and arboreal, some are prehensile (grasping) tails o Catarrhines (sharp nose): monkeys and hominoids (humans), arboreal and terrestrial, no prehensile tails

 Neanderthals and modern Homo sapiens interbred  Hominoids: All modern and extinct great apes (ape’s closer to Divergence between modern humans and Neanderthals diverged humans than monkeys and humans closest to chimps) 440-270,000 years ago  Chimps have patriarchy & erotic bonobo have matriarchy o Neanderthals extinct b/c out competed by humans o Since the Congo River caused separation as a species, ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------they have no gene flow between them  Humans become anatomically modern 200,000 years ago  Ethnoprimatology: focuses on complex interconnections among human and nonhuman primates  Hallmarks of human behavior are identified through symbols o Studies human and non-human interaction in the  In archaeological record, the first signs of symbolism appeared 100,000 years ago (Blombos cave – shell beads, 77,000 ya) “Anthropocene/Holocene”, current geological epoch  Myths transmit language and symbols which form social o Rejects notion that humans are separate from networks. Art records deeds of alphas (supernatural; beings) but environment or that non-human primates exist outside humans are gammas (subordinates) the sphere of human influence ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dating Terminology  Paleoanthropology: concerned with fossil hominids. o B.P.  years before present, present in 1950 Understand how, when and where modern humans evolved o B.C./A.D.  based on Christian calendar  Hominin Evolution o Pre-australopiths (6-4.4 mya) – earliest possible o B.C.E./C.E.  Before Common Era/Common Era  Relative dating: Arrangement of material finds in a sequence to hominins (1st- Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, Ardipithecus) identify younger vs older objects  Ardipithecus ramidus (Ardi) is significant o Seriation, Stratigraphy, Obsidian Hydration because he lived in woodlands instead of savannah (norm)  Absolute Dating: Defines how old an artifact is using scientific  D. Johanson found Lucy-fossil remains of A. instruments or methods that provide a definite age range afarensis (3.9-3 mya, bipedal and climb, o Radiocarbon (as 14C decays, ratio diminishes), highly dimorphic) uranium series, potassium-argon, dendrochronology  Dimorphic means difference in size (tree rings measure time), optically stimulated of females and males Luminescence (measure buried quartz age & feldspar o Australopiths (4.2-1.2 mya) –Diverse forms (1st biped) bearing sediments & measure amnt radiation released) o Genus Homo (2.0 - now) –tool users & several species  Law of Superposition: Earliest strata are typically the deepest  Obsidian Hydration: determine age by measuring thickness of  Useful Terms (these decrease as primates become modern) moisture of volcanic metal (obsidian) o Facial Prognathism: the degree to which the face ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------projects in front of the brain case  Holism: characteristic of anthropological perspective that o Sectorial Premolar Complex: combo of canine and first describes how anthropology tries to integrate all that is known premolar teeth that from sharpening apparatus about humans and their activities o Diastema: space between two teeth (not all humans  Ethnography: written/filmed description of a particular culture have this)  Ethnology: comparative study of 2 or more cultures o Post-canine Megadontia: big back teeth (molars)  Globalization: reshaping of local conditions by powerful global o Parabolic dental arcade (humans) versus U-shaped forces on an ever-intensifying scale dental arcade (apes)  Applied Anthropology: Information gathered from other o Gracile (smooth muscle attachments) versus Robust anthropological specialties is used to solve practical cross(thick muscle attachments, bony projections  cultural problems common in ancestors)  Ethnocentrism: evaluation of other cultures according to o Lumper: categorize based on similarities (less) preconceptions from one’s own culture o Splitter: categorize based on differences (more  Aptation: the shaping of any useful feature of an organism, categories) regardless of origin  Laetoli Footprints (3.5 mya) – found in Laetoli by Leakey and  Pangenesis: theory that suggests an organism’s physical traits prove bipedalism are passed by generations in multiple distinct particles given off ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------by all parts of the organism  Robust Australopiths (later than the gracile)  flared zygomatic  Homology/homoplasy: when species converge from similar (dish face) for chewing harder foods, larger cranial capacity environments or common ancestry  Australopithecus Garhi: (2.5 mya) larger teeth, small brain,  Stereoscopic vision: the visual field of each eye of 2-eyed long legs, sagittal crest, FIRST TOOL MAKER animal overlaps with other, producing depth perception  Genus Homo: brain size of 600cc or more, possess language,  Mosaic Evolution: Pattern that shows how different traits of an manufacture stone tools, human-like precision grip organism may evolve at different rates o Homo habilis (2.4-1.5 mya): “handy man”, earliest  Taphonomy: study of the process that objects undergo in the homo (H. rudolfensis: bigger in face, size & brain) course of becoming part of the fossil and archaeological records o Homo Erectus: earliest hominin to leave Africa (1.8  Honing Complex: large, sharpened canines cut food (primates) mya)  oldowan tool users, carnivores, various  humans have non-honing chewing habitats  Denisovans (230-30,000 ya): Pleistocene hominin species who  >100 lbs., 5’6”, sexually dimorphic, shared common ancestor with Neanderthals and their current robust/heavily built, 700-1250 cm, thick genome resembles modern humans from New Guinea cranium, large body  Pleistocene: Cenozoic era (2 mya)  early humans and giant  Made the Acheulean Hand axe mammals now extinct  Anatomically Modern Humans (arise in Africa): more gracile anatomy, prominent chin, small teeth, rounded skull ...