Shared Flashcard Set

Details

ANP 131 exam 1
Introduction to Anthropology
140
Anthropology
Undergraduate 1
05/19/2009

Additional Anthropology Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
anthropology
Definition
The study of human kind in all times and places.
Term
holistic perspective
Definition
A fundamental principle of anthropology: that the various parts of human culture and biology must be viewed in the broadest perspective possible context in order to understand their interconnections and interdependance.
Term
culture-bound
Definition
Theories about the world and reality based on the assumptions and values of one's own culture.
Term
applied anthropology
Definition
The use of anthropological knowledge and methods to solve practical problems, often for a specific client.
Term
physical anthropology
Definition
Also known as biologocal anthropology. The systematic study of humans as biological organisms.
Term
molecular anthropology
Definition
A branch of biological anthropology that uses genetic and biochemical techniques to test hypotheses about human evolution, adaptation, and variation.
Term
paleoanthropology
Definition
The study of the origin and predecessors of the prsent human species.
Term
biocultural
Definition
Focusing on the interaction of biology and culture.
Term
forensic anthropology
Definition
Applied subfield of physical anthropology that specializes in the identification of human skeletal remains for legal purposes.
Term
primatology
Definition
The study of living and fossil primates.
Term
cultural anthropolgy
Definition
Also known as social or sociocultural anthropolgy. The study of customary patterns in human behavior, thought, and feelings. It focuses on humans as culture-producing and culture-reproducing creatures.
Term
culture
Definition
A society's shared and socially transmitted ideas, values, and perceptions, which are used to make sense of experience and which generate behavior and are reflected in that behavior.
Term
ethnography
Definition
A detailed description of a particular culture primarily based on fieldwork.
Term
fieldwork
Definition
The term anthropologists use for on-location research.
Term
participant observation
Definition
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.
Term
ethnology
Definition
The study and analysis of different cultures from a comparitive or historical point of view, utilizing ethnographic accounts and developing anthropological theories that help explain why certain important differences or similarities occur among groups.
Term
archaeology
Definition
The study of human cultures through the recovery and analysis of material remains and environmental data.
Term
cultural resource management
Definition
A branch of archeology 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.
Term
linguistic anthropology
Definition
The study of human languages, looking at their structure, history and/or relation to social and cultural contexts.
Term
empirical
Definition
Based on observations of the world rather than on intuition or faith.
Term
hypothesis
Definition
A tentative explanation of the relation between certain phenomena.
Term
theory
Definition
In science, an explanation of natural phenomena, supported by a reliable body of data.
Term
globalization
Definition
Worldwide interconnectedness, evidenced in global movements of natural resources, trade goods, human labor, finance capital, informaion, and infectious disease.
Term
linguistic, cultural, archaeology, physical
Definition
What are the four fieds of anthropology?
Term
Clyde C. Snow
Definition
One of the best known forensic anthropologists.
Term
Franz Boas
Definition
The "founder" of anthropology, recognized the dangers of ethnocentrism, and promoted anthropology as a human science but also as an instument to combat racism and prejudice around the world.
Term
Matilda Coxe Stevenson
Definition
A pioneering "founder" of anthropology as well as the Women's anthropological Society, an advocate for women's rights in the 1800s, and one of the first women in the world to receive a full-time official position in science.
Term
enculturation
Definition
The process by which a society's culture is transmitted from one generation to the next and individuals become members of their society.
Term
society
Definition
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.
Term
gender
Definition
The cultural elaborations and meanings assigned to the biological differentiation between the sexes.
Term
subculture
Definition
A distinctive set of standards and behavior patterns by which a group within a larger society operates, while still sharing common standards with that larger society.
Term
ethnic group
Definition
People who collectively and publicly identify themselves as a distinct group based on various cultural features such as shared ancestory and common origin, language, customs, and traditional beleifs.
Term
ethnicity
Definition
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.
Term
pluralistic society
Definition
A society in which two or more ethnic groups or nationalities are politically organized into one territorial state but maintain their cultural differences.
Term
symbol
Definition
A sign, sound, emblem, or other thing that is arbitrarily linked to something else and represents it in a meaningful way.
Term
social structure
Definition
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.
Term
infrastructure
Definition
The economic foundation of a society, including its subsistence practices and the tools and other material equipment used to make a living.
Term
superstructure
Definition
A society's shared sense of identity and world-view. The collective body of ideas, beliefs, and values by which a group of people makes sense of the world-its shape, challenges, and oppurtunities-and their place in it. This includes religion and national ideology.
Term
ethnocentrism
Definition
The belief that the ways of one's own culture are the only proper ones.
Term
cultural relativism
Definition
The idea that one must suspend judgment of other people's practices in order to understand them in their own cultural terms.
Term
Bronislaw Malinowski
Definition
Argued that people everywhere share certain biological and psychological needs and that the ultimate function of all cultural institutions is to fulfill those needs.
Term
1.food and procreation(biological needs) 2.law and education(instrmental needs) 3.religion and art(integrative needs)
Definition
The three fundamental levels of needs that Malinowski outlined must be resolved by all cultures.
Term
characteristics of culture
Definition
It is learned, shared, dynamic, based on symbols, and integrated.
Term
urgent anthropology
Definition
Ethnographic research that documents endangered cultures; also known as salvage ethnography.
Term
advocacy anthropology
Definition
Research that is community-based and politically involved.
Term
multi-sited ethnography
Definition
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.
Term
ethnographic fieldwork
Definition
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.
Term
key consultant
Definition
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.
Term
quantitative data
Definition
Statistical or measurable information, such as demographuc composition, the types and quantities of crops grown, or the ratio of spouses born and raised within or outside the community.
Term
qualitative data
Definition
Nonstatistical information such as personal life stories and customary beliefs and practices.
Term
informal interview
Definition
An unstructured, open-ended conversation in everyday life.
Term
formal interview
Definition
A structured question/answer session carefully notated as it occurs and based on prepared questions.
Term
eliciting device
Definition
An activity or object used to draw out individuals and encourage them to recall and share information.
Term
digital ethnography
Definition
The use of digital technologies (audio and visual) for the collection ,analysis, and representation of ethnographic data.
Term
ethnohistory
Definition
A study of cultures of the recent past through oral histories, accounts of explorers, missionaries, and traders, and through analysis of records such as land titles, birth and death records, and other archival materials.
Term
doctrine
Definition
An assertion of opinion or belief formally handed down by an authority as true and indisputable. Also known as dogma.
Term
Human Relations Area Files (HRAF)
Definition
A vast collection of cross-indexed ethnographic and archaeological data catalogued by cultural characteristics and geographic locations. Archived in about 300 libraries (on microfiche and/or online)
Term
idealist perspective
Definition
A theoretical approach stressing the primacy of superstructure in cultural research and analysis.
Term
materialist perspective
Definition
A theoretical approach stressing the primacy of ifrastructure (material conditions) in cultural research and analysis.
Term
informed consent
Definition
Formal, recorded agreement to participate in research.
Term
acculturation
Definition
The often disruptive process of culture change occurring in traditional societies coming in contact with more powerful state societies, in particular industrialized or capitalist societies.
Term
mammal
Definition
The class of vertebrate animals distinguished by bodies covered with fur, self-regulating temperature, and in females milk-producing mammary glands.
Term
primate
Definition
The group of mammals that include lemurs, lorises, tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans.
Term
species
Definition
The smallest working unit in the system of classification. Among living organisms, species are populations or groups of populations capable of interbreeding and producing fertile viable offspring.
Term
genus, genera (pl.)
Definition
In the system of plants and animal classification, a group of like species.
Term
taxonomy
Definition
The science of classification.
Term
analogies
Definition
In biology, structures possessed by different organisms that are superficially similar due to similar function;without sharing a common developmental pathway or structure.
Term
homologies
Definition
In biology, structures posessed by two different organisms that arise in similar fashion and pass through similar stages during embryonic development though they may possess different functions.
Term
hominoid
Definition
The taxonomic division superfamily within the old world primates that includes gibbons, siamangs, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans.
Term
hominid
Definition
African hominoid family that includes humans and their ancestors. Some scientists, recognizing the close relationship of humans, chimos, bonobos, and gorillas, use the term to refer to all African hominoids. They then divide the family into two subfamilies: the Paninae (chimps, bonobos, and gorillas) and the Homininae (humans and their ancestors).
Term
hominin
Definition
The taxonomic subfamily or tribe within the primates that includes humans and our ancestors.
Term
notochord
Definition
A rodlike structure of cartilage that, in vertebrates, is replaced by the vertebral column.
Term
natural selection
Definition
The evolutionary process through which factors in the environment exert pressure, favoring some individuals over others to produce the next generation.
Term
gene
Definition
A portion of the DNA molecule containing a sequence of base pairs that is the fundamental physical and functional unit of heredity.
Term
law of segregation
Definition
The Medelian pronciple that variants of genes for a particular trait retain their seperate identities through the generation.
Term
law of independent assortment
Definition
The Medelian pronciple that genes controlling different traits are inherited independently of one another.
Term
chromosome
Definition
In the cell nucleus, the structure visible during cellular division containing long strands of DNA combined with protein.
Term
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA
Definition
The genetic material consisting of a complex molecule whose base structure directs the synthesis of proteins.
Term
codon
Definition
Three-base sequence of a gene that specifies a particular amino acid for inclusion in a protein.
Term
ribonucleic acid (RNA)
Definition
Similar to DNA but with uracil substituted for the base thymine. Transcribes and carries instructions from DNA from the nucleus to the ribosomes where it directs protein syhthesis. Some simple life forms contain this only.
Term
transcription
Definition
Process of conversion of instructions from DNA into RNA.
Term
ribosomes
Definition
Structures in the cell where translation occurs.
Term
translation
Definition
Process of conversion of RNA instructions into proteins.
Term
genetic code
Definition
The sequence of three bases (a codon) that specifies the sequence of amino acids in protein synthesis.
Term
enzyme
Definition
Protein that initiates and directs chemical reaction.
Term
allele
Definition
Alternate form of a single gene.
Term
genome
Definition
The complete structure sequence of DNA for a species.
Term
mitosis
Definition
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.
Term
meiosis
Definition
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 organisms.
Term
homozygous
Definition
Refers to a chromosome pair that bears identical alleles for a single gene.
Term
heterozygous
Definition
Refers to a chromosome pair that bears different alleles for a single gene.
Term
genotype
Definition
The alleles posessed for a particular trait.
Term
phenotype
Definition
The observable or testable appearnece of an organism that may or may not reflect a particular genotype due to the variable expression of dominant and recessive alleles.
Term
dominance
Definition
The ability of one allele for a trait to mask the presence of another.
Term
recessive
Definition
An allele for a trait whose expression is masked by the presence of a dominant allele.
Term
hemoglobin
Definition
The protein that carries oxygen in the red blood cells. 
Term
polygenetic inheritence
Definition
When two or more genes contribute to the phenotypic expression of a single charcteristic.
Term
population
Definition
In biology, a group of similar individuals that can and do interbreed,
Term
evolution
Definition
Changes in allele frequencies in populations;also known as microevolution.
Term
gene pool
Definition
All the gentic variants possessed by members of a population.
Term
Hardy-Weinberg principle
Definition
Demonstrates algebraically that the percentage of individuals that are homozygous for the dominant allele, homozygous for the recessive allele, and heterozygous should remain constant from one generation to the next, provided that certain specified conditions are met. 
Term
mutation
Definition
Chance alteration of genetic material that produces new variation.
Term
genetic drift
Definition
Chance fluctuations of allele frequencies in the gene pool of a population.
Term
founder effect
Definition
A particular form of genetic drift deriving from a small founding population not possessing all the alleles present in the original population.
Term
gene flow
Definition
The introduction of alleles from the gene pool of one population into that of another. 
Term
adaptation
Definition
A series of beneficial adjustments to the environment.
Term
altruism
Definition
Acts of selflessness or self-sacrificing behavior.
Term
stabilizing selection
Definition
Natural selection acting to promote stability, rather than change, in a population's gene pool.
Term
sicle-cell anemia
Definition
An inherited disease cause by a mutation in the hemoglobon protein that causes the red blood cellc to assumea moonlike shape.
Term
macroevolution
Definition
Evolution above the species level.
Term
speciation
Definition
The process of forming new species.
Term
isolating mechanism
Definition
A factor that seperates breeding populations, thereby preventing genee flow, creating divergent subspecies, and ultimately (if maintained) divergent species.
Term
cladogenisis
Definition
Speciation through a branching mechanism whereby an ancestral population gives rise to two or more descendant populations.
Term
anagenisis
Definition
A sustained directional shift in a population's average characteristics.
Term
derived
Definition
Characteristics that define a group of arganisms that did not exist in ancestral populations.
Term
ancestral
Definition
Characteristics possessed by an organism or group of organisms due to shared identity.
Term
convergent evolution
Definition
In biological evidence a process by which unrelated populations develop similarities to one another due to similar function rather than shared ancestry.
Term
continental drift
Definition
According to the theory of plate tectonic, the movement of continents embedded in underlying plates on the earth's surface in relation to one another over the history of lfe on earth.
Term
adaptive radiation
Definition
Rapid diversification of an evolving population as it adapts to a variety of available niches.
Term
preadapted
Definition
Possessing charcteristics that, by chance, are advantagous in future environmental conditions.
Term
homeotherm
Definition
An animal that maintains a relatively constant body temperature despite environmental fluctuations.
Term
isotherm
Definition
An animal whose body temperature rises or falls according to the temperature of the surrounding environment.
Term
k-selected
Definition
Reproduction involving the production of relatively few offspring with high parental investment in each.
Term
r-selected
Definition
Reproduction involving the production of large numbers of offspring with relatively low parental investment in each.
Term
arboreal hypothesis
Definition
A theory for primate evolution that proposes that life in the trees was responsible for enhanced visual acuity and manual dexterity in primates.
Term
visual predation
Definition
A hypoyhesis for primate evolution that proposes that hunting behavior in tree-dwelling primates was responsible for their enhanced visual acuity and manual dexterity.
Term
molecular clock
Definition
The hypothesis that dates of divergences among related species can be calculated through an examination of the genetic mutations that have accrued since the divergence.
Term
nocturnal
Definition
Active at night and at rest during the day.
Term
arboreal
Definition
Living in the trees.
Term
diurnal
Definition
Active during the day and at rest at night.
Term
Prosimii
Definition
A suborder of the primates that includes lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers.
Term
Anthropoidea
Definition
A suborder of the primates that includes New World monkeys, Old world monkeys, and apes (including humans).
Term
grade
Definition
A general level of biological organization seen among a group of species, useful for constructing evolutionary relationships.
Term
Platyrrhini
Definition
An anthropoid infraorder that includes New World monkeys.
Term
Catarrhini
Definition
An anthropoid infraorder that includes Old World monkeys, apes, and humans.
Term
Strepsirhini
Definition
In the alternate primate taxonomy, the suborder that includes the lemurs and lorises without the tarsiers.
Term
Haplorhini
Definition
In the alternate primate taxonomy, the suborder that includes tarsiers, monkeys, apes, and humans.
Term
dental formula
Definition
The number of each tooth type (incisors, canines, premolars, and molars) on one half of each jaw. Unlike other mammals, primates possess equal numbers on their upper and lower jaws so the dental formula for the species is a single series of numbers.
Term
sexual dimorphism
Definition
Within a single species, differences in the shape or size of a feature for males and females body features not directly related to reproductions such a body size or canine tooth shape and size.
Supporting users have an ad free experience!