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Anthro 101 pt 1

Terms in this set (49)

Cultural Anthropology
describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains social and cultural similarities and differences
Ethnography vs. Ethnology
Ethnography: fieldwork in a particular culture
Ethnology: comparative study of ethnographic data
But more than survival of the fittest, natural selection is the natural process that leads to
differential reproductive success.
Which of the following best describes biological anthropology?
the study of human biological diversity
For natural selection to work on a particular population,
there must be variety within that population.
Which of the following perspectives emphasizes how cultural forces constantly mold human biology?
biocultural perspective
Which of the following was observed in the Bahia, Brazil, development project in which sailboat owners got loans to buy motors, as described in Chapter 3?
Ambitious young men increasingly sought wage labor.
What do anthropologists mean when they say culture is shared?
Culture is an attribute of individuals as members of groups.
Applied anthropology
The use of anthropological knowledge and methods to solve practical problems, often for a specific client.
As humans organize their lives and adapt to different environments, our abilities to learn, think symbolically, use language, and employ tools and other products
rest on certain features of human biology that make culture, which is not itself biological, possible.
People in the United States sometimes have trouble understanding the power of culture because of the value that American culture places on the idea of the individual. Yet in American culture,
individualism is a distinctive shared value, a feature of culture.
This textbook's survey of the major theoretical perspectives that have characterized anthropology highlights all of the following EXCEPT
the theoretical and methodological shift from complexity to models that simplify human diversity.
As investigators who illustrated the functionalist approach in anthropology, both Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown performed ethnographic research focused on
the role of cultural traits and practices in contemporary society.
We have learned that reliance on culture has increased in the course of human history. Yet the fact and mechanisms of evolution remain a key part of our human present and future because
people haven't stopped adapting biologically.
The example of the sickle-cell allele demonstrates a key aspect of evolution through natural selection, in that
adaptation and fitness are in relation to specific environments; traits are not universally adaptive or maladaptive.
Although Darwin became the best-known evolutionist, the idea of evolution had been around well before him. Darwin's key contribution was to propose a mechanism that drives evolution, which is known as
natural selection.
Which of the following illustrates some of the dangers of the old applied anthropology (i.e., the ways that Anthropology was used in its earliest period)?
anthropologists aiding colonial expansion by providing ethnographic information to colonists
How are cultural rights different from human rights?
Cultural rights are vested in groups, not in individuals.
How are the four subfields of U.S. anthropology unified?
Each subfield studies human variation through time and space.
________ refers to the specialized set of terms and distinctions that are particularly important to certain groups.
Focal vocabulary
Ethnography is the
fieldwork component of cultural anthropology.
Over time, humans have become increasingly dependent on which of the following in order to cope with the range of environments they have occupied in time and space?
cultural means of adaptation
A holistic and comparative perspective
most characterizes anthropology when compared to other disciplines that study humans
An anthropologist wants to study the changes in agricultural practices after a recent national policy change (only 5 years ago). Which method is most appropriate?
...
Which of the following best describes microevolution?
genetic changes in a population without speciation
Which excavation technique provides more information about the context of the artifacts, fossils, or features discovered?
digging through the strata (layers) one at a time
What is the term for an expert on a particular aspect of a culture?
key cultural consultant
Kinds of work applies anthropologists do
- applying the tools of forensic anthropology to work with police, medical examiners, the courts, and international organizations to identify victims of crimes, accidents, wars, and terrorism
- using the tools of medical anthropology to work as cultural interpreters in public health programs
- working for or with international development agencies, such as the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development
- helping the Environmental Protection Agency address environmental problems
An anthropologist has just arrived at a new field site and feels overwhelmed with a creepy, profound feeling of alienation, of being without some of the most ordinary, trivial (and therefore basic) cues of his culture of origin. What term best describes what he is experiencing?
Culture shock
Which of the following research methods is a distinctive strategy within anthropology?
Ethnography
What is the term for the ability to create new expressions by combining other expressions?
productivity
Which of the following statements about medical anthropology is TRUE
This growing field considers the biocultural context and implications of disease and illness.
Which of the following statements about chimpanzee call systems is NOT true?
Like language, they include displacement and cultural transmission.
Which of the following statements about enculturation is FALSE
A.
It is the process by which culture is learned and transmitted across generations.
B.
It occurs through a process of conscious and unconscious learning.
C.
It is the exchange of cultural features that results when two or more groups come into consistent firsthand contact.
D.
It may involve direct teaching.
E.
It results in internalization of a cultural tradition.
It is the exchange of cultural features that results when two or more groups come into consistent firsthand contact.
Systematic survey and excavation
are the two major components of fieldwork in archaeology and paleoanthropology.
People must eat, but culture teaches us what, when, and how to do so. This is an example of how
culture takes the natural biological urges we share with other animals and teaches us how to express them in particular ways
Regarding human capacity for culture, anthropologists agree that
although individuals differ in their emotional and intellectual capacities, all human populations have equivalent capacities for culture.
Something, verbal or nonverbal, that stands for something else is known as a
Symbol
Which of the following is a cultural generality?
nuclear family
In anthropology, cultural relativism is not a moral position but a methodological one. It states that
to understand another culture fully, we must try to understand how the people in that culture see things.
All of the following are characteristic field techniques of the ethnographer
longitudinal analysis of data sets gathered from state-sponsored statistical agencies.
Anthropology is a science, yet it has been suggested that anthropology is among the most humanistic of all academic fields. This is because
of its fundamental respect for human diversity.
What are the four subdisciplines of anthropology?
biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, cultural anthropology, and archaeology
If an anthropologist proposes an explanation for something but it has yet to be verified, he or she has made a(n)
hypothesis.
Which of the following is an example of independent invention, the process by which people in different societies have innovated and changed in similar but independent ways?
agriculture
Culture can be adaptive or maladaptive. It is maladaptive when
cultural traits, patterns, and inventions threaten the group's continued survival and reproduction and thus its very existence.
What is the process by which children learn a particular cultural tradition
enculturation
A key feature of language that helps explain anthropologists' continued interest in studying it is that it
is always changing.
There are two meanings of globalization: globalization as fact and process, and globalization as ideology and contested policy. What is the primary and neutral meaning of globalization as it is applicable to anthropology?
the spread and connectedness of production, communication, and technologies across the world
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