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Results for anthropology:

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anthropology

CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The study of humankind, its culture and evolution, both extant and extinct. It consists of the subdisciplines physical anthropology, archaeology, anthropological linguistics, cultural anthropology, and social anthropology. Archaeology is sometimes regarded as a separate science rather than as a branch of anthropology. Social anthropology concentrates on patterns of behavior and institutions. Physical anthropology studies the physical (biological) characteristics as animals.

applied anthropology

CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The use of data and information from the four core subfields of anthropology to provide practical solutions to problems in society.

Biblical anthropology

CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The study of the anthropology of the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament to learn more about the nature, diversity, and similarity of biblical peoples.

biocultural anthropology

CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: A subdiscipline of anthropology and research strategy that integrates physical anthropology and archaeology to investigate prehistoric biological systems.

biological anthropology

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: physical anthropology
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: A subfield of anthropology dealing with the issues of human evolution and variation.

cultural anthropology

CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: A subdiscipline of anthropology emphasizing nonbiological aspects -- the learned social, linguistic, technological, and familial behaviors of humans; a term used in the Americas. Two important branches of cultural anthropology are ethnography (the study of living cultures) and ethnology (which attempts to compare cultures using ethnographic evidence). In Europe, the field is referred to as social anthropology. In the US, prehistoric archaeology is usually considered a subdivision of cultural anthropology.

ethnology

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: cultural anthropology
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The use of ethnographic data to study contemporary cultures; one of the four subdisciplines of cultural anthropology. The study of the varieties of the human race in a comparative analysis to understand how they work and why they change. Ethnology is a term more widely used in Europe, and encompasses the analytical and comparative study of cultures in general, which in American usage is the academic field known as cultural anthropology (in British usage, social anthropology).

linguistic anthropology

CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The study of the human use of language and how it is both developed by and culture and helps to develop meaning within culture.

paleoanthropology

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: human paleontology; palaeoanthropology
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The study of human origins and evolution as revealed by fossil remains; the study of the archaeology of the earliest human beings. Fossils are assessed by the techniques of physical anthropology, comparative anatomy, and the theory of evolution. It is a branch of anthropology.

paleopathology

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: palaeopathology, paleophysioanthropology
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The study of man's ills, diseases, diet, traumatic injuries, etc., by examination of human and animal remains. Such studies can determine life expectancy and population statistics, and contributory reason for the success or failure of a particular population. Most of the material studied is osteological, though soft tissue may be analyzed when preserved, as in of mummification or bog preservation. Some of man's ills -- fractures, malnutrition, dental decay, and some diseases -- leave their mark on his bones. Where his bones survive, evidence can be recovered which may reveal much about the conditions in which he lived, and died. Congenital malformations may show relationships between skeletons; diseases such as arthritis, tuberculosis, syphilis, and leprosy can be identified, as well as such conditions as bone fracture through injury. Evidence of war wounds and cannibalism have are also sought. The following groups of diseases have been regularly diagnosed in skeletons (both human and animals) from archaeological sites: (1) dental diseases; (2) diseases of the joints; (3) trauma (fractures and other injuries); (4) dietary deficiency diseases; (5) tumors; (6) inflammatory diseases: general inflammation and more specific conditions such as tuberculosis, leprosy and syphilis in man; (7) congenital deformities; and (8) endocrine disturbances. Study of the relative frequency of different diseases yields information about both the medical history and biology of ancient populations.

physical anthropology

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: biological anthropology
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: A subdiscipline of anthropology that views humans as biological organisms, studying human biological or physical characteristics and their evolution. Study includes fossil human beings, genetics, primates, and blood groups. It is one of the two major subdivisions of anthropology.

social anthropology

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: cultural anthropology
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The British equivalent of cultural anthropology.

sociocultural anthropology

CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: A subfield of anthropology dedicated to the scientific study of human culture and society in contemporary and historically recent human populations or the analytic study of culture and society.

structural archaeology

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: structural anthropology, symbolic archaeology, cognitive archaeology
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: A branch of archaeology based on the assumption that codes and rules, beliefs and symbolic concepts, produce human culture systems. It is a research perspective that views culture as the shared symbolic structures that are cumulative creations of the mind and is closely related to postprocessual archaeology. The objective of structural analysis is to discover the basic principles of the human mind as reflected in myth, art, kinship, and language. Structural archaeology is concerned with how people manipulate the meaning of material culture, embedded in structural codes, to make new meanings and statements.

symbolic anthropology

CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: A research perspective which gives prime attention to the role of symbols in society. Culture is a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms which are used to communicate and develop knowledge and attitudes. The function of culture then is to impose meaning on the world and make it understandable. The role of symbolic anthropologists is to try to interpret the guiding symbols of each culture. In this view, culture becomes a public phenomenon transcending the cognitive realization of any single individual. This field is based mainly on the work of Clifford Geertz.

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acculturation

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: (antonym: diffusion)
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: The adoption of a trait or traits by one society from another and the results of such changes. This is a consequence of contact between cultures, usually with one being dominant, and is a process by which a group takes on the lifeways, institutions, and technology of another group. There are two major types of acculturation: free borrowing where one society selects elements of another culture that they integrate in their own way, and directed change, where one group establishes dominance through military conquest or political control. Though directed change involves selection, it results from the interference in one cultural group by members of another. In anthropology, the change is considered from the point of view of the recipient society.

American Anthropological Association

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: AAA
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A professional organization for anthropologists with a special division for archaeologists. The association publishes American Anthropologist and Anthropology Newsletter. The Archaeology Division publishes the monograph series Archaeological Papers of the AAA.

Americanist archaeology

CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: Archaeology evolving in and practiced in close association with anthropology in the Americas.

anthropological archaeology

CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The tradition of archaeology that is derived from, and most strongly oriented toward, the larger field of anthropology.

anthropometry

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: n. anthropometer, anthropometrist; adj. anthropometric, anthropometrical; adv. anthropometrically
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: A subdiscipline of physical anthropology that involves the measurement of the human body to determine its average dimensions and the proportion of its parts at different ages and within different races, classes, or cultures. The measurement of the dimensions of man.

archaeology

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: archeology (from archaia"
CATEGORY: and "logos"
DEFINITION: science knowledge or theory)" branch The scientific study and reconstruction of the human past through the systematic recovery of the physical remains of man's life and cultures. Artifacts, structures, settlements, materials, and features of prehistoric or ancient peoples are surveyed and / or excavated to uncover history in times before written records. Archaeology also supplements the study of recorded history. From the end of the 18th century onwards, archaeology has come to mean the branch of learning which studies the material remains of man's past. Its scope is, therefore, enormous, ranging from the first stone tools made and fashioned by man over 3 million years ago in Africa, to the garbage thrown into our trash cans and taken to city dumps and incinerators yesterday. The objectives of archaeology are to construct cultural history by ordering and describing the events of the past, study cultural process to explain the meaning of those events and what underlies and conditions human behavior, and reconstruct past lifeways. Among the specialties in the field are: archaeobiology, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, and social archaeology. Modern archaeology, often considered a subdiscipline of anthropology, has become increasingly scientific and relies on a wide variety of experts such as biologists, geologists, physicists, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians. The methods appropriate to different periods vary, leading to specialized branches of the subject, e.g. classical, medieval, industrial, etc., archaeology.

band

CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A term in cultural anthropology describing the simplest type of human social organization consisting of a small number of nuclear families (30-50 people) who are informally organized for subsistence and security purposes. Bands are egalitarian and based mainly on kinship and marriage and the division of labor is based on age and sex. Bands may also be integrated into a larger community, usually called a tribe. Bands exist in sparsely populated areas and use primitive technologies (and are often hunters and gatherers) -- ranging from the desert-dwelling Australian Aborigines, the Pygmies of the Congo rain forests, and the Kaska Indians of the Yukon. Bands often moved seasonally to exploit wild (undomesticated) food resources.

Calendar Stone

CATEGORY: artifact
DEFINITION: A 20-ton, 4-meter wide carved monolith commissioned by the emperor Axayacatl in 1479, which symbolizes the Aztec universe. The populations of central Mexico believed that they were living in the fifth epoch of a series of worlds (or suns) marked by cyclical generation and destruction. The central figure of the stone is this fifth sun, Tonatuih. Surrounding this are four rectangular cartouches containing dates and symbols for the gods Ehecatl, Texcatlipoca, Tlaloc and Chilchihuitlicue who represent the four worlds previously destroyed and the dates of the previous holocausts -- 4 Tiger, 4 Wind, 4 Rain, and 4 Water. The central panel contains the date 4 Ollin (movement) on which the Aztecs showed that they anticipated that their current world would be destroyed by an earthquake. In a series of increasingly larger concentric bands, symbols for the 20 days of the month, precious materials, and certain stars are represented. The outermost band depicts two massive serpents whose heads meet at the stone's base. The Calendar Stone" is in the Museo Nacional de Antropología (National Museum of Anthropology) in Mexico City."

Casas Grandes

CATEGORY: culture; site
DEFINITION: A culture, river, and site in Chihuahua, northern Mexico. The town's name, Spanish for great houses refers to the extensive, multistoried ruins of a pre-Columbian town, which was probably founded in 1050 and burned around 1340, after which the abandoned valley lands were occupied by the Suma, who migrated in from the east. Ruins of this type are common in the valleys of the Casas Grandes and its tributaries. The earliest culture, also called the Viejo, was characterized by Mogollon-type pottery and pithouse dwellings. The following period, the Medio, had adobe houses. A third period, the Tardio, came after 1300 AD and was heavily influenced by Mesoamerica. The area was settled by the Spaniards in 1661/1662 and is now a national monument under the jurisdiction of the National Institute of Anthropology and History.

critical theory

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: Critical Theory
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A theoretical approach which was an attempt to adapt Karl Marx's ideas to an understanding of events and circumstances of 20th-century life. The relations between the assumptions and discoveries of a scholarly discipline and its ties to modern life are subject to examination, automatically relating the questions, methods, and discoveries of a science such as anthropology to those of the anthropologist's own culture. The theory claims that all knowledge is historical.

cultural diffusion

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: diffusion
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: In anthropology, the transmission or borrowing of certain culture traits from the group of origin into a foreign group; usually technological elements rather than those of social organization. This term defines the spread of ideas, traits, or people from one area to another -- not necessarily implying the movement of people, since trade and the adoption of new ideas from neighboring cultures are reasonable explanations of diffusion. The diffusion of new ideas can come, however, from the peaceful or warlike expansion of a population into new territory. The theory of diffusion was used in the past to explain the beginning of most new ideas: it was assumed that technological skills such as metalworking, or the building of large monumental structures, could only have begun in one place, whence they diffused to other areas. It is now clear, through the use of new dating techniques, that independent invention was certainly possible and probable for many new ideas.

cultural evolution

CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: A subdiscipline of anthropology that emphasizes the systematic change of cultural systems through time. The theory is that societal change can be understood by analogy with the processes underlying the biological evolution of species, which argues that human cultures change gradually throughout time as a result of a number of cultural processes.

Devon Downs

CATEGORY: site
DEFINITION: A limestone shelter in cliffs beside the lower Murray River in South Australia with a deposit rich in faunal material as well as stone and bone tools and dating to c 4000 BC. It was the first systematic archaeological excavation in Australia (1929). Interpretation of the stratigraphy and stone tool sequence at two sites introduced concepts of antiquity and cultural change in Aboriginal prehistory which had previously been denied in Australian anthropology.

dolichocephalic

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: dolichocranic
CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A term in physical anthropology term meaning long- and narrow-headed. On the cephalic index, the cranium has a maximum width of 75% or less of the maximum length, i.e. a cephalic index greater than 75.

ethnography

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: ethnographic study
CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: The description and analysis of contemporary cultures, which is based almost entirely on in-depth fieldwork. The formulating of generalizations about culture and the drawing of comparisons are components of ethnography. It is part of the subdiscipline of cultural anthropology. An important technique is participant observation, whereby the anthropologist lives in the society being studied. Ethnography provides data to archaeologists through analogy and homology. An ethnographic study is that of the cultural characteristics of a particular ethnic or social group.

historical particularism

CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A school of anthropological thought associated with the work of Franz Boas and his students (including Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, and A.L. Kroeber), whose studies of culture emphasized the integrated way of life distinctive of a people. It is a detailed descriptive approach to anthropology designed as an alternative to the broad generalizing approach favored by other anthropologists and the research is based on particular cultural traits and elements.

horizon

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: horizon style
CATEGORY: term; artifact
DEFINITION: Any artifact, art style, or other cultural trait that has extensive geographical distribution but a limited time span. The term, in anthropology, refers to the spread of certain levels of cultural development and, in geology, the layers of natural features in a region; in soil science a horizon is a layer formed in a soil profile by soil-forming processes. The main meaning, however, refers to a phase, characterized by a particular artifact or artistic style that is introduced to a wide area and which may cross cultural boundaries. Provided that these 'horizon markers' were diffused rapidly and remained in use for only a short time, the local regional cultures in which they occur will be roughly contemporary. The term is less commonly used now that chronometric dating techniques allow accurate local chronologies to be built. Examples of art styles which fulfill these conditions is called a 'horizon style' -- such as Tiahuanaco or Chavín.

Kroeber, Alfred Louis (1876-1960)

CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American anthropologist who made great contributions to American Indian ethnology; to the archaeology of New Mexico, Mexico, and Peru; and to the study of linguistics, folklore, kinship, and social structure. He was one of the small group of scholars whose work laid the basis of New World archaeology as a scientific discipline. His first work was in preparing a typological seriation of potsherds from Zuñi sites of the American southwest, and his work, together with that of Kidder and Nelson in the same area, showed how archaeological methods could reveal time depth and cultural change in North America. From 1921, Kroeber applied the same techniques to Max Uhle's Peruvian collections. He worked out a scheme for Peruvian archaeology which formed the basis of all studies of the subject for the next 20 years. Kroeber explored much of the Peruvian coast, especially the Nasca Valley where he made the first-ever stratigraphic excavation of a Peruvian midden. Kroeber continued to write about the ethnology of North American Indians and also concentrated on theoretical aspects of anthropology, in particular the processes of culture change. His Configurations of Culture Growth" (1945) sought to trace the growth and decline of all of civilized man's thought and art. "The Nature of Culture" (1952) was a collection of Kroeber's essays published on such topics as cultural theory kinship social psychology and psychoanalysis."

Li Chi (1896-1979)

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: [Li Ch'i]
CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Chinese archaeologist responsible for establishing the historical authenticity of the semilegendary Shang dynasty of China (c 1766-1122 BC). He supervised numerous excavations at Anyang (An-yang), working to identify the features distinguishing the Shang civilization from previous Neolithic cultures. More than 300 tombs, including four important royal burial sites, were uncovered and carefully studied. Some 1,100 skeletons and oracle bones, unquestionably linked with the Shang period, were recovered. Li Chi created a typology of bronzes based on their shapes, of ceramic sherds, and bone hairpins. Following the Japanese invasion of China and the expulsion of the Chinese Nationalists from the mainland, many of Li's Anyang remains and notes were lost. After escaping to Taiwan, he established the first archaeology and anthropology department at a Chinese university (National University in Taipei). He published a number of books, including The Beginnings of Chinese Civilization" (1957). "

linguistics

CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: A subdiscipline of anthropology that emphasizes the relationships between cultural behavior and language. It is the study of human speech including the units, nature, structure, and modification of language.

marginal

CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: In anthropology, a term referring to traits or cultures which are either at a great distance from the center of development or simple in comparison to more complex developments elsewhere. The term is comparative and has no meaning except with reference to a specified center.

Morgan, Lewis Henry (1818-1881)

CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: A founder of American anthropology (scientific anthropology), known especially for establishing the study of kinship systems and for his comprehensive theory of social evolution. He put forth the scheme of development as being savagery to barbarism to civilization. His work directly affected the application of the theory of evolution to the discipline of anthropology. Morgan's theory of cultural evolution was published in Ancient Society or Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization" (1877). This was the first major scientific account of the origin and evolution of civilization with illustrations of developmental stages drawn from various cultures."

new archaeology

SYNONYMS OR RELATED TERMS: New Archaeology; processual archaeology
CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: A movement which began in America in the 1960s, aimed at making archaeology more scientific, now more often called processual archaeology. It was suggested that explanations be based on carefully designed models of human behavior and emphasized the importance of understanding underlying cultural processes. This new approach was controversial and is commonly associated with Lewis R. Binford and his students. Binford's New Perspectives in Archaeology" in 1968 stressed the following ideas: the use of new techniques such as the computer for statistical and matrix analyses of data and concept of the ecosystem for the understanding of the economic and subsistence bases of prehistoric societies; an evolutionary view of culture; the use of models of cultures viewed as systems incorporating the evolutionary view of culture and a close relationship between archaeology and anthropology. Although the proponents of the new archaeology have been criticized by more traditionally minded scholars their basic principles are now widely accepted."

paleoethnology

CATEGORY: related field
DEFINITION: Ethnology is a science that deals with the division of human beings into races and their origin, distribution, relations, and characteristics. It is anthropology dealing chiefly with the comparative and analytical study of cultures -- more commonly called cultural anthropology. Paleoethnology is the study of the behavior of vanished peoples. Now renamed, it is the ethnological study of prehistoric peoples based solely on archaeological evidence.

prehistoric archaeology

CATEGORY: branch
DEFINITION: The branch of archaeology that deals with the times before the beginnings of recorded history. The area of archaeology concerned with preliterate or nonliterate societies, in contrast to historical archaeology. In North America, prehistoric archaeology is considered part of the discipline of anthropology.

prognathic

CATEGORY: term
DEFINITION: A term in physical anthropology referring to the forward projection, beyond the vertical plane, of the alveolar process and mandible (mouth area). This protruding form contrasts with orthognathic, or straighter-faced, appearance.

Putnam, Frederic Ward (1839-1915)

CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Curator of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, from 1875-1909. He was a leader in the founding of anthropological science in the US. He was important as an archaeologist who classified and described finds and as an administrator and archaeological sponsor. In fieldwork, he depended on scientific techniques for surveying, excavating, drawing cross-sections of excavations, and plotting finds. He did studies of the mounds of the Midwest US and on the antiquity of humans on the continent, which he believed to predate the end of the last glaciation. In 1891, Putnam began organizing the anthropological section of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. That collection became the basis of Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. He was the curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History following that and in 1903 he went to the University of California, Berkeley, to organize both the new department of anthropology and the anthropological museum. Putnam published more than 400 zoological and anthropological articles, reports, and notes and was also a founder and the editor of the periodical American Naturalist"."

Steward, Julian Haynes (1902-1972)

CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: American anthropologist and archaeologist who influenced archaeological theory, emphasizing that the goals of both disciplines were the same: understanding of cultural change and the plotting of that change on spatial and temporal planes. His best-known book was Theory of Culture Change: the Methodology of Multilinear Evolution" (1955) and he also wrote "Handbook of South American Indians" (1946-1950) and "Irrigation Civilizations" (1955). He carried out fieldwork in the Great Basin British Columbia and the Andes planned and helped establish the Virú Valley project. He worked for the use of evolutionary and ecological thought in anthropology and archaeology; he is known as the as the founder of the theory of cultural ecology."

Tello, Julio César (1880-1947)

CATEGORY: person
DEFINITION: Peruvian archaeologist who discovered and studied some of the most important sites in Peru; considered with Max Uhle and Alfred Kroeber to be a founder of Peruvian archaeology. His main contributions were the excavation of the Paracas cemeteries and the study of the Chavín, but he also worked at Pachacamac, Cajamarquilla, Huari, Pacheco, Cerro Blanco, Punkuri, Kotosh, Cerro Sechin, and Ancon. He also identified many cultural groups, including Chavín, Chimu, Huari, and Nazca. Tello founded the National Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology in Lima.