Anthropology Vocabulary Answers – Flashcards
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Anthropology
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The study of humankind in all times and places.
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Ethnocentrism
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the belief that the ways of one's own culture are the only proper ones
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Holistic Prospective
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A fundamental priciple of antropology: that the various parts of human culture and bio;ogy must be viewed in the broadest possible context in order to understand thier interconnections and interdependence.
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Culture - bound
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Looking at the world and reality based on the assumptions and values of one's own culture.
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Medical Anthropology
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a specialization in anthropology that combines theoretical and applied approaches from cultural and biological anthropology with the study of human health and disease.
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Physical Anthropology
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the systematic study of humans as biological organisms; also known as biological anthropology.
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Molecular Anthropology
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A branch of biological anthropology that uses genetic and biochemical techniques to test hypotheses about human evolution, adaptation, and variation..
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Applied Anthropology
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The use of anthropological knowledge and methods to solve practical problems, often for a specific client.
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Paleoanthropology
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the study of the origins and predecessors of the present human species; the study of human evolution
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Biocultural
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Focusing on the interaction of biology and culture
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Primatology
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the study of living and fossil primates
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Forensic Anthropology
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applied subfield of physical anthropology that specializes in the identification of human skeletal remains for legal purposes
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Cultural Anthropology
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also known as social or sociocultural anthropology. The study of customary patterns in human behavior, thought, and feelings. It focuses on humans as culture-producing and culture-reproducing creatures
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Culture
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A society's shared and socially transmitted ideas, values, and perceptions, which are used to make sense of experience and generate behavior and are reflected in that behavior
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Ethnography
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a detailed description of a particular culture primarily based on fieldwork
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Fieldwork
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The term anthropologists use for on-location research
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Participant observation
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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.
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Ethnology
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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.
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Linguistic Anthropology
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The study of human languages-looking at their structure, history, and relation to social and cultural contexts
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Discourse
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an extended communication on a particular subject.
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Archaeology
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the study of human cultures through the recovery and analysis of material remains and environmental data
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Bioarchaeology
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the archaeological study of human remains, emphasizing the preservation of cultural and social processes in the skeleton
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Cultural resource management
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a branch of archaeology tied to government policies for the protection of cultural resources and involving surveying and/or excavating archaeological and historical remains threatened by construction or development
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Empirical
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based on observations of the world rather than on intuition or faith
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Hypothesis
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A tentative explanation of the relationships between certian phenomena.
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Theory
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In science, an explaination of natural phenomena, supported by a reliable body of data.
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Doctrine
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an assertion of opinion or belief formally handed down by an authority as true and indisputable
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Informed Consent
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Formal recorded agreement to participate in the research. Federally mandated for all researchers in the United States and Europe
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Globalization
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worldwide interconnectedness, evidenced in global movements of natural resources, trade goods, human labor, finance capital, information, and infectious diseases
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Enculturation
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the process by which a society's culture is passed on from one generation to the next and individuals become members of their society
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Society
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an organized group or groups of interdependent people who generally share a common territory, language, and culture and who act together for collective survival and well-being
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Gender
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the cultural elaborations and meanings assigned to the biological differentiation between the sexes
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Subculture
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a distinctive set of ideas, values, and behavior patterns by which a group within a larger society operates, while still sharing common standards with that larger society
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Ethnic group
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People who collectively and publicly identify themselves as a distinct group based on cultural features such as common origin, language, customs, and traditional beliefs
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Ethnicity
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This term, rooted in the Greek word ethnikos (nation) and related to ethnos (custom), is the expression of the set of cultural ideas held by an ethnic group
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Pluralistic society
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a society in which two or more ethnic groups or nationalities are politically organized into one territorial state but maintain their cultural differences
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Symbol
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A sign, sound, emblem, or other thing that is arbitrarily linked to something else and represents it in a meaningful way.
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Social Structure
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The rule-governed relationships-with all their rights and obligations-that hold members of a society together. This includes households, families, associations, and power relations, including politics.
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Infrastructure
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The economic foundation of a society, including its subsistence practices and the tools and other material equipment used to make a living
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Superstructure
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a society's shared sense of identity and worldview. the collective bady of ideas, beliefs, and values by which members of a society make sense of the world- its shape, challenges, and oppurtunites- and understand their place in it. this include religion and mational ideology.
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Cultural adaptation
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A complex of ideas, activities, and technologies that enable people to survive and even thrive in their environment.
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Cultural relativism
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the idea that one must suspend judgment of other people's practices in order to understand them in their own cultural terms
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Urgent anthropology
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ethnographic research that documents endangered cultures; also known as salvage ethnography
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Advocacy anthropology
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research that is community based and politically involved
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Multi-sited ethnography
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the investigation and documentation of peoples and cultures embedded in the larger structures of a globalizing world, utilizing a range of methods in various locations of time and space
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Ethnographic fieldwork
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extended on-location research to gather detailed and in-depth information on a society's customary ideas, values, and practices through participation in its collective social life.
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Key consultant
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a member of the society being studied who provides information that helps researchers understand the meaning of what they observe; early anthropologists referred to such individuals as informants
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Quantitative data
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statistical or measurable information, such as demogrpahic compostion, the types and quantities of crops grown, or the ratio of spouses born and raised within or outside the community
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Qualitative data
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nonstatistical information such as personal life stories and customary beliefs and practices
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Informal interview
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an unstructured, open-ended conversation in everyday life
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Formal interview
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A structured question/answer session carefully notated as it occurs and based on prepared questions.
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Eliciting device
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an activity or object used to draw out individuals and encourage them to recall and share information
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Digital ethnography
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the use of digital technologies (audio and visual) for the collection, analysis, and representation of ethnographic data.
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Ethnohistory
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a study of cultures of the recent past through oral histories, accounts of explorers, missionaries, and traders, and analysis of records such as land titles, birth and death records, and other archival materials
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Human Relation Area Files (HRAF)
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A vast collection of cross-indexed ethnographic and archaeological data catalogued by cultural characteristics and geographic locations; archived in about 300 libraries.
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Idealist perspective
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a theoretical approach stressing the primacy of superstructure in cultural research and analysis
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Materialist perspective
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a theoretical approach stressing the primacy of infrastructure (material conditions) in cultural research and analysis
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Neandertals
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A distinct group within the genus Homo inhabiting Europe and Southwest Asia from approximately 30,000 to 125,000 years ago.
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Mousterian tool tradition
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The tool industry found among Neandertals in Europe and Southwest Asia, and their human contemporaries in northern Africa, during the Middle Paleolithic, generally dating from about 40,000 to 125,000 years ago.
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Upper Paleolithic
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The last part (10,000 to 40,000 years ago) of the Old Stone Age, featuring tool industries characterized by long slim blades and an explosion of creative symbolic forms
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Multiregional hypothesis
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the hypothesis that modern humans originated through a process of simultaneous local transition from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens throughout the inhabited world
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Recent African origins hypothesis
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the hypothesis that all modern people are derived from one single population of archaic Homo sapiens from Africa who migrated out of Africa after 100,000 years ago, replacing all other archaic forms due to their superior cultural capabilities. Also called the Eve or out of Africa hypothesis
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Language
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a system of communication using sounds or gestures that are put together in meaningful ways according to a set of rules
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Symbol
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A mark, sound, gesture, motion, or other sign that is arbitrarily linked to something else and represents it in a meaningful way.
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Signal
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an instinctive sound or gesture that has a natural or self-evident meaning.
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Linguistics
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the modern scientific study of all aspects of language.
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Phonetics
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The systematic identification and description of distinctive speech sounds in a language.
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Phonology
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The study of language sounds.
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Phonemes
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The smallest units of sound that make a difference in meaning in a language.
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Morphology
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The study of the patterns or rules of word formation in a language (including such things as rules concerning verb tense, pluralization, and compound words).
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Morphemes
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The smallest units of sound that carry a meaning in language. They are distinct from phonemes, which can alter meaning but have no meaning by themselves.
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Syntax
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The patterns or rules by which words are arranged into phrases and sentences.
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Grammar
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The entire formal structure of a language, including morphology and syntax.
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Language Family
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A group of languages descended from a single ancestral language.
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Linguistic Divergence
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The development of different languages from a single ancestral language.
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Glottochronology
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In linguistics, a method for identifying the approximate time that languages branched off from a common ancestor; based on analyzing core vocabularies.
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Core Vocabulary
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The most basic and long-lasting words in any language-pronouns, lower numerals, and names for body parts and natural objects.
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Linguistic Nationalism
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The attempt by ethnic minorities and even countries to proclaim independence by purging their language of foreign terms.
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Sociolinguistics
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The study of the relationship between language and society through examining how social categories (such as age, gender, ethnicity, religion, occupation, and class) influence the use and significance of distinctive styles of speech.
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Gendered Speech
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Distinct male and female speech patterns, which vary across social and cultural settings.
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Dialects
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Varying forms of a language that reflect particular regions, occupations, or social classes and that are similar enough to be mutually intelligible.
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Code Switching
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Changing from one mode of speech to another as the situation demands, whether from one language to another or from one dialect of a language to another.
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Ethnolinguistics
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A branch of linguistics that studies the relationships between language and culture and how they mutually influence and inform each other.
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Linguistics Relativity
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The idea that distinctions encode in one language are unique to that language
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Linguistics Determinism
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The idea that language to some extent shapes the way in which we view and think about the world around us.
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Gestures
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Facial expressions and body postures and motions that convey intended as well as subconscious messages.
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Kinesics
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A system of notating and analyzing postures, facial expressions, and body motions that convey messages.
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Proxemics
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The cross-cultural study of people's perception and use of space.
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Paralanguage
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Voice effects that accompany language and convey meaning. These include vocalizations such as giggling, groaning, or sighing, as well as voice qualities such as pitch and tempo.
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Tonal Language
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A language in which the sound pitch of a spoken word is an essential part of its pronunciation and meaning.
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Whistled Speech
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An exchange of whistled words using a phonetic emulation of the sounds produced in spoken voice; also known as whistled language.
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Displacement
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Referring to things and events removed in time and space.
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Writing System
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A set of visible or tactile signs used to represent units of language in a systematic way.
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Alphabet
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A series of symbols representing the sounds of a language arranged in a traditional order.
