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Anthropology
the study of the human species and its immediate ancestors
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Holistic
Encompassing past, present, and future; biology, society, language, and culture
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Culture
Traditions and customs transmitted through learning, that form and guide the beliefs and behavior of the people exposed to them
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Society
Organized life in groups
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Adaptation
the process by which organisms cope with environmental forces and stresses.
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Foraging
hunting and gathering of nature's bounty
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Food Production
an economy based on plant cultivation and/or animal domestication
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General Anthropology(AKA "Four-Field" Anthropolgy)
anthropology as a whole: cultural, archaeological, biological, and linguistic anthropology
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Biocultural
combining biological and cultural approaches to a given problem
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Cultural Anthropology
the comparative, cross-cultural, study of human society and culture
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Ethnography
fieldwork in a particular cultural setting
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Archaeological Anthropology
the study of human behavior through material remains
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Ethnology
the study of sociocultural differences and similarities
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Paleoecology
the study of interrelations among living things in an environment from the past
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Excavating
involves digging through a succession of levels at a particular site
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Human Ecology
studies ecosystems that include people; focuses on the ways in which human use of nature influences and is influenced by social organization and cultural values
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Prehistory
period of time before the invention of writing
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Biological (aka Physical) Anthropology
the study of human biological variation in time and space
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Linguistic Anthropology
the study of language and linguistic diversity in time, space, and society
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Sociolinguistics
the study of language in society
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Paleoanthropology
human evolution as revealed by the fossil record
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Science
field of study that seeks reliable explanations, with reference to the material and physical world
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Psychological Anthropology
studies coss-cultural variation in psychological traits
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Applied (aka Public) Anthropology
using anthropology to solve contemporary problems
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Theory
a set of ideas formulated to explain something
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Association
an observed relationship between two or more variables
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Cultural Resource Management
deciding what needs saving when entire archaeological sites cannot be saved
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The truth of a scientific statement is confirmed by ___ ___.
deciding what needs saving when entire archaeological sites cannot be saved
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Hypothesis
a suggested but as yet unverified explanation
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Explicandum
dependent variable
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Law
a general principle/relationship
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What most characterizes anthropology among disciplines that study humans?
It is holistic and comparative
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What is the most critical element of cultural traditions?
their transmission through learning rather than through biological inheritance
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Over time, how has human reliance on cultural means of adaptation changed?
Humans have become increasingly more dependant on them
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___ anthropology was largely shaped by early American anthropologists' interests in Native Americans.
Four-field
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The study of nonhuman primates is of special interest to which subdiscipline of anthropology?
biological anthroplogy
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The Scientific Method
characterizes any anthropological endeavor that formulates research questions and gathers/uses systematic data to test hypotheses
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Anthropology is unique among other social sciences in its emphasis on both ___ and ___ perspectives.
holistic and cross-cultural
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Enculturation
the process by which culture is learned and passed down through generations
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Symbol
something (verbal or nonverbal) that stands for something else
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Core Values
key, basic, or central values that integrate a culture
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Hominid
any fossil or living human, chimp, or gorilla
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Hominins
all the humsn species that have ever existed
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Universal
something that exists in every culture
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Generality
culture pattern or trait that exists in some but not all societies
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Particularity
distinctive or unique culture trait, pattern, or integration
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National Culture
cultural features shared by citizens of the same nation
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Subcultures
different cultural traditions associated with subgroups in the same nation
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International Culture
cultural traditions that extend beyond national boundaries
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Ethnocentrism
judging other cultures using one's own cultural standards
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Human Rights
rights based on justice and morality beyond and superior to particular countries, cultures, and religions
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Culture Rights
rights vested in religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous societies
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Cultural Relativism
idea that to know another culture requires full understanding of its members' beliefs and motivations
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Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
an indiginous group's collective knowledge and its applications
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Diffusion
borrowing of cultural traits between societies
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Acculturation
an exchange of cultural features between groups in firsthand contact
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Independent Invention
the independent development of a cultural feature in different societies
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Globalization
the accelerating interdependence of nations in the world system today
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The "psychic unity" of humans, a doctrine that most anthropologists accept, state that ___.
although individuals differ in their emotional and intellectual tendencies and capacities, all human populations have equivelant capacities for culture
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"Culture is contested" means that
different groups in society struggle with one another over whose ideas, values, goods, and beliefs will prevail
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In anthropology, methodological cultural relativism is not a ___ position, but a ___ one.
moral / methodological
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There were at least seven different regions where agriculture developed; therefore, agriculture is an example of ___ ___ (a mechanism of cultural change).
independent invention
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According to Leslie White, culture, and therefore, humanity, came into existence when humans began to use ___.
symbols
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The term ___ refers to any fossil or living human, chimp, or gorilla, while the term ___ refers only to any fossil or living human.
Hominid / Hominin
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Unlike human rights, ___ ___ are vested not only in individuals but in groups, including indiginous peoples and religious and ethnic minorities.
Cultural Rights
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Interview Schedule
form (guide) used to structure a formal, but personal, interview
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Questionnaire
form used by sociologists to obtain comparable information from respondents
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Genealogical Method
using diagrams and symbols to record kin connections
developed specifically because of the importance of kinship and marriage relationships in nonindustrial societies
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Key Cultural Consultant
Expert on a particular aspect of local life
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Life History
of a key consultant; a personal portrait of someone's life in a culture
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Emic
research strategy focusing on local explanations and meanings
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Cultural Consultants
people who teach an ethnographer about their culture
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Etic
research strategy emphasizing the ethnographer's explanations and categories
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Longitudinal Research
long-term study, usually based on repeated visits
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Survey Research
the study of society through sampling, statistical analysis, and impersonal data collection
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Sample
a smaller study group chosen to represent a larger population
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Random Sample
a sample in which all population members have an equal chance of inclusion
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Variables
attributes that differ from one person or case to the next
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Complex Societies
large, populous societies (i.e. nations) with stratification and a government
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Unilinear Evolutionism
idea (19th century) of a single line or path of cultural evolution
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Historical Particularism
(Boas) idea that histories are not comparable; diverse paths can lead to the same cultural result
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Functionalism
approach focusing on the function of sociocultural practices in social systems
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Synchronic
(studying societies) at one time
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Diachronic
(studying societies) accross time
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Configurationalism
view of culture as integrated and patterned
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Cultural Materialism
(Harris) idea that cultural infrastructure determines structure and superstructure
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Superorganic
(Kroeber) the special domain of culture, beyond the organic and inorganic realms
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Symbolic Anthropology
the study of symbols in their social and cultural context
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Interpretive Anthropology
(Geertz) the study of a culture as a system of meaning
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Agency
the actions of individuals, alone and in groups, that create and transform culture
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Political Economy
the web of interrelated economic and power relations in society
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One of the significant changes in the history of ethnography is ___
larger numbers of ethnographies are being done about people in Western, industrialized nations
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In anthropology, the crisis in representation refers to ___.
questions about the role of ethnographer and the nature of ethnographic authority
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Structuralism
a theoretical approach that aims to discover relations, themes, and connections among aspects of culture
has been faulted for being overly formal and for ignoring social processes
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