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What are the four fields?
- Biological: study of evolution through the fossil record and contemporary studies
- Cultural: study of culture of contemporary peoples
- Linguistics: study of language in realtion to people
- Archaeology: study of material and written record
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Who was the American father of Anthropology?
- Franz Boaz (1858 -1942) at Columbia University, 1896
- Anti-race
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What is the Modern Synthetic Theory?
Random mutation that are beneficial become more prevalent and lead to evolution of the species
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What are the four evolutionary processes? How do they affect gene frequency?
- Mutation: Increases
- Gene Flow: Increases freq within a population, decreases freq between
- Genetic drift: decreases freq within a population, increases between
- Natural selection: increases or decreases
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What is uniformitarianism?
- Theory by Sir Charles Lyell, proposes that processes occur gradually
- against Cuvier's catastrophism
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What is the theory of Inheritance of Aqcuired Characterics?
- By Lamarck, first theory for organic evolution
- living things biologically adapt to their environments and pass on these acquired traits to their offspring via "subtle fluids"
- Use it or lose it
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Darwin?
Survival of the fittest
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What did Gregor Mendell discover?
- Principle of segregation: an individual gets one half of an allele from each parent
- dominant vs recessive
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What is the oldest common ancestor between hominids and humans?
- Australopethicus africanus (~3-7 mya)
- "Lucy" "Taung Child"
- foramen magnum is beneath the skull
- small cranial capacity
- gracile (not robust)
- no evidence of tool making
- distintive dentition (molars)
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What distinguishes hominids from primates?
bipedal locomotion
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The first hominid to use tools?
- Homo habilis "handy man"
- Oldowan tools (crude cobbles with flakes chipped out)
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The first hominid to migrate out of Africa?
- Homo erectus
- "Turkana Boy"
- extensive tool making (Aecheulean), possible hunting
- large brain
- most likely could not speak (lack of thoracic canal)
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Why is Homo neanderthalensis different from Homo sapiens?
- shorter and more robustly built
- adapted for cold weather and more physical lifestyle
- biological evolution vs cultural evolution
- retromolar space
- sloping foreheads, elongated braincases, robust faces, continuous browridges, occipital bun
- Mousterian tools (flakes produced by Levallois technique)
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What are the different stone tool traditions?
- Oldowan: crude cobble with flakes chipped out (2-2.5 mya)
- Aecheulean: larger, more sophisticated, bifaces, cores (1-1.5 mya)
- Mousterian: flakes produced by Levallois technique (200,000-40,000 ya)
- Aurignacian: made from flakes, mainly blades and composite tools, H. sapiens (40,000-12,000 ya)
- Clovis Point: composite tools used as projectile points (18,000-12,000 ya)
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Relative dating vs chronometric dating?
- Relative: age by comparison to other objects
- Chronometric: gives precise date
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What are some relative dating techniques?
- Stratigraphy: study of the sequence of geologic strata deposited by wind/water
- Contextual seriation: age by comparison of pottery styles and complexity
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What are some chronometric dating techniques?
- Potassium-Argon dating: 100,000-billions of years; dates volcanic ash
- Radio-carbon dating: ~50,000yo, organic specimens
- Dendrochronology: present - 8,000yo, climate reconstruction and structure age
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What are the three approaches to cultural anthropology?
- Positivism: the traditional approach based on the natural sciences that believes there is a reality that can be known and understood through a single, appropriate set of scientific methods; focuses on material items that can be observed using our five senses
- Reflexive: means thinking critically about the way one thinks, reflecting on one’s own experience and taking ethical or political factors into account
- Dialectic Fieldwork: the process of building a bridge of understanding between anthropologists and informants so that each begins to understand the other
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Define the following archaeological terms:
site
artifacts
features
matrix
assemblage
survey
excavation
sampling
- site: a place where material remains of past human activities
- Artifacts: objects that have been deliberately and intelligently created by human activity
- Features: the non-portable material remains of the past such as structures, pits, etc.
- matrix: the depositional environment (sand, clay, and silt) in which artifacts and features are found
- assemblage: consists of the artifacts and structures from a particular site from the same time and place
- survey: a physical examination of a geographical area in which promising sites may be found; usually a preliminary step
- Excavation: the systematic uncovering of archaeological remains by removing soil, dirt and other debris
- Sampling: strategically and statistically selecting portions of a site for excavation
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What are subsistence strategies?
- Different ways in which different people from different time periods and cultures produce food to meet their needs
- Small dcale foragers
- complex foragers
- herders
- farmers
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What are the four ways societies can be organized?
- Band: less than 50 people, foragers, egalitarian
- Tribe: bigger than a band, farmers or herders, generally egalitarian but may have a chief with more prestige
- Chiefdom: larger than a tribe, socially stratified society, chief and family members enjoy extra priveleges
- State: political economic ideological entity, stratified society, government and social works/services, craft production, writing
- Empire: when one state takes over another
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What period does domestication mark?
- Neolithic or New Stone Age (10,300 ya)
- ended Pleistocene (2.5mya - 11,000ya) aka Ice Age
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What was the first animal to be domesticated?
Dog
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What are the four types of plant domestication?
- Wild plant-food procurement: intereference with wild plant growth by burning or foraging
- Wild plant-food production: maintaining wild plant production by cutting, transporting, or modifying soil
- Cultivation: deliberately clearing land, planting seeds, and transforming vegetation composition and structure
- Agriculture: establishing agroecosystems and fully domesticated plants
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What are the six types of animal domestication?
- Random hunting: hunters kill animals as they find them; no attempt to control
- Controlled hunting: select certain individuals for harvesting (ex young males) to protect population
- Herd following: hunters migrate with herds to keep harvesting
- Loose herding: animals are controlled and selectively bred but still allowed to migrate to seasonal pastures
- Close herding: herders move constantly with herd or confine to pasture
- Factory farming: human involvement in every part of life (feedlots)
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