Anthropology (Chapter 1: What Is Anthropology?)

Anthropology

The study of the human species and its immediate ancestors.

Holistic

Encompassing past, present, and future; biology, society, language and culture.

Culture

Traditions and customs transmitted through learning.

General anthropology

Anthropology as a whole: cultural, archaeological, biological, and linguistic anthropology.

Food production

An economy based on plant cultivation and/or animal domestication.

Biocultural

Combining biological and cultural approaches to a given problem.

Ethnology

The study of sociocultural differences and similarities

Cultural anthropology

The comparative, cross-cultural, study of human society and culture.

Ethnography

Fieldwork in a particular cultural setting.

Archaeological anthropology

The study of human behaviour through material remains.

Biological anthropology

The study of human biological variation in time and space.

Physical anthropology

Same as biological anthropology

Linguistic anthropology

The study of language and linguistic diversity in time, space, and society.

Sociolinguistics

The study of language in society.

Science

Field of study that seeks reliable explanations, with reference to the material and physical world.

Applied anthropology

Using anthropology to solve contemporary problems.

Cultural resource management

Deciding what needs saving when entire archaeological sites cannot be saved.

Theory

A set of ideas formulated to explain something.

Association

An observed relationship between two or more variables.

Hypothesis

A suggested but as yet unverified explanation.

What characterizes anthropology among disciplines that study humans?

It is holistic and comparative.

What is a critical element of cultural traditions?

Their transmission through learning rather than through biological inheritance.

Over time, how has human reliance on cultural means of adaptation changed?

Humans have become increasingly more dependent on them.

The fact that anthropology focuses on both culture and biology ...

allows it to address how culture influences biological traits and vice versa.

In Chapter 1, what is the point of describing the ways humans cope with low oxygen pressure at high altitudes?

To illustrate human capacities for cultural and biological adaptation, variation, and change.

Four field anthropology...

was largely shaped by early American anthropologists' interests in Native Americans.

The study of nonhuman primates is of special interest to which sub-discipline of anthropology?

Biological anthropology.

About practicing or applied anthropology, this is false.

It is less relevant for archaeology since archaeology typically concerns the material culture of societies that no longer exist.

What term is defined as a suggested but yet unverified explanation for observed things and events?

Hypothesis.

The scientific method...

Characterizes any anthropological endeavour that formulates research questions and gathers or uses systematic data to test hypothesis.