anthropology chapter 1 and 2
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beanie1143 on September 6, 2011
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84 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 anthropology | the study of humankind in all times and places |
| holistic perspective | a fundamental principle of an anthropology, that the various parts of human culture and biology must be viewed in the broadest possible context in order to understand their interconnections and interdependence |
| ethnocentrism | the belief that the ways of one's own culture are the only proper ones |
| culture-bound | theories about the world and reality based on the assumptions and values of ones own culture |
| applied anthropology | the use of anthropological knowledge and methods to solve practical problems, often for a specific client |
| medical anthropology | a specialization in anthropology that brings theoretical and applied approaches from cultural and biological anthropology to the study of human health and disease |
| physical/biological anthropology | the systematic study of humans as biological organisms |
| molecular anthropology | a branch of biological that uses genetic and biochemical techniques to test hypotheses about human evolution, adaptation, and variation |
| paleoanthropology | the study of the origins and predecessors of the present human species |
| biocultural | focusing on the interaction of biology and culture |
| primatology | the study of living and fossil primates |
| developmental adaptations | long period of human growth and development in genetic makeup of population; allows the environment to shape human body |
| physiological adaptations | short-term changes in response to a particular environmental stimulus |
| forensic anthropology | subfield of applied physical anthropology that specializes in the identification of human skeletal remains for legal purposes |
| cultural/social anthropology | the study of customary patterns in human behavior, thought, and feelings; focuses on humans as culture-producing and culture-reproducing creatures |
| culture | a society's shared and social transmitted ideas, values, and perceptions, which are used to make sense of experience and generate behavior and are reflected in that behavior |
| ethnography | a detailed description of a particular culture primarily based on fieldwork |
| fieldwork | the term anthropologists use for on-location research |
| participant observation | in ethnography, the technique of learning a people's culture through social participation and personal observation within the community being studied, as well as interviews and discussion with individual members of the group over an extended period of time |
| ethnology | the study and analysis of different cultures from a comparative or historical point of view, utilizing ethnographic accounts and developing anthropological theories that help explain why certain important differences or similarities occur among groups |
| linguistic anthropology | the study of human languages |
| discourse | an extended communication on a particular subject |
| archeology | the study of human cultures through the recovery and analysis of material remains and environmental data |
| bioarcheology | the archeological study of human remains, emphasizing the preservation of cultural and social processes in the skeleton |
| cultural resource management | a branch of archaeology concerned with survey and/or excavation of archeological and historical remains threatened by construction or development and policy surrounding protection of cultural resources |
| empirical | based on observations of the world rather than on intuition or faith |
| hypothesis | a tentative explanation of the relationships between certain phenomena |
| theory | in science, an explanation of natural phenomena, supported by a reliable body of data |
| doctrine | an assertion of opinion or belief formally handed down by an authority as true and indisputable |
| artifact | any object fashioned or altered by humans |
| material culture | the durable aspects of culture such as tools, structures, and art |
| fossil | the preserved remains of plants and animals that lived in the past |
| soil marks | stains that show up on the surface of recently plowed fields that reveal an archaeological site |
| middens | a refuse or garbage disposal area in an archaeological site |
| grid system | a system for recording data in three dimensions from an archaeological site |
| datum point | the starting, or reference, point for a grid system |
| relative dating | in archeology and paleoanthropology, designating an event, object, or fossil as being older or younger than another |
| absolute/chronometric dating | in archeology and paleoanthropology, dates for archaeological or fossil materials based on solar years, centuries, or other units of absolute time |
| sites | places containing archaeological remains of previous human activity |
| key consultants/informants | members of the society being studied who provide information that helps the researchers understand the meaning of what they observe |
| informal interview | an unstructured, open-ended conversation in everyday life |
| formal interview | a structured question-answer session, carefully notated as it occurs and based on prepared questions |
| eliciting devices | activities and objects used to draw out individuals and encourage them to recall and share information |
| Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) | a vast collection of cross-induced ethnographic, biocultural, and archaeological data catalogued by cultural characteristics and geographic location |
| informed consent | formal recorded agreement to participate in the research; federally mandated for all researcher in the United States and Europe |
| globalization | worldwide interconnectedness, evidenced in global movements of natural resources, trade goods, human labor, finance capital, information, and infectious diseases |
| state | political organized territories that are international recognized |
| nation | socially organized bodies of people who share ethnicity |
| primates | the group of mammals that includes lemurs, lorises, tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans |
| mammals | the class of vertebrate animals distinguished by bodies covered with fur, self-regulating temperature, and females milk-producing mammary glands |
| species | the smallest working unit in the system of classification; populations or groups of populations capable of interbreeding and producing fertile viable offspring |
| genus | in the system of plant and animal classification, a group of like species |
| taxonomy | science of classification |
| analogies | in biology, structures possessed by different organisms that are superficially similar due to similar function; without sharing a common developmental pathway or structure |
| homologies | in biology, structures possessed by two different organisms that arise in similar fashion and pass through similar stages during embryonic development, though they may possess different functions |
| natural selection | the evolutionary process through which factors in the environment exert pressure, favoring some individuals over others to produce the next generation |
| genes | portions of DNA molecules that direct the synthesis of specific proteins |
| law of segregation | the Mendelian principle that variants of genes for a particular trait retain their separate identities through the generations |
| law of independent assortment | the Mendelian principle that genes controlling different traits are inherited independently of one another |
| chromosomes | in the cell nucleus, the structures visible during cellular division containing long strands of DNA combined with a protein |
| DNA | deoxyribonucleic acid; the genetic material consisting of a complex molecule whose base structure directs the synthesis of proteins |
| chromatid | one half of the X shape of chromosomes visible once replication is complete; sister chromatids are exact copies of each other |
| alleles | alternate forms of a single gene |
| genome | the complete structure sequence of DNA for a species |
| mitosis | a kind of cell division that produces new cells having exactly the same number of chromosome pairs, and hence copies of genes, as the parent cell |
| meiosis | a kind of cell division that produces the sex cells, each of which has half the number of chromosomes found in other cells of the organism |
| homozygous | refers to a chromosome pair that bears identical alleles for a single gene |
| heterozygous | refers to a chromosome pair that bears different alleles for a single gene |
| genotype | the alleles possessed for a particular trait |
| phenotype | the observable or testable appearance of an organism that may or may not reflect a particular genotype due to the variable expression of dominant and recessive alleles |
| dominance | the ability of one allele for a trait to mask the presence of another allele |
| recessive | an allele for a trait whose expression is masked by the presence of a dominant allele |
| hemoglobin | the protein that carries oxygen to the red blood cells |
| polygenetic inheritance | two or more genes contribute to the phenotypic expression of a single characteristic |
| population | in biology, a group of similar individuals that can and do interbreed |
| gene pool | all the genetic variants possessed by members of a population |
| evolution | changes in allele frequencies in populations; also known as microevolution |
| mutation | chance alternation of genetic material that produces new variation |
| genetic drift | chance fluctuations of allele frequencies in the gene pool of a population |
| founder effects | a particular form of genetic drift deriving from a small founding population not possessing all the alleles present in the original population |
| gene flow | the introduction of alleles from the gene pool of one population into that of another |
| adaptation | a series of beneficial adjustments to the environment |
| sickle-cell anemia | an inherited form of anemia caused by a mutation in the hemoglobin protein that causes the red blood cells to assume a sickle shape |
| clines | gradual changes in the frequency of an allele or trait over space |
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