ANTH 202 : Test1 2 3
15 Mar 2019
Department
Course
Professor
Notes for tests 1 2 and 3
Anthropology - biocultural approach to the study of humans past and present
Anthropologist will look at the biological and cultural aspects, which includes many
different things on what makes humans human
Fieldwork – a period of time where anthropologists collect data; can include going out
and living with people; spending time in a museum/lab; archeology (excavation at a site)
4 subfields in American Anthropology
1. Linguistics – scientific study of language; how we use language in our culture
2. Sociocultural (Cultural) – study different cultures (a learned behavior that is
distinct among different groups of people; things far away or even close to
home)
3. Archaeology – studying the past based on the material remains of a culture –
something that is not organic – was created by that certain culture (tools,
pottery)
4. Biological/Physical Anthropology – study humans as biological creatures in
the past and present, also other primates
Osteology – the study of bones (recognizing how they grow)
Evolutionary Theory – referring to change within a species; modern populations
continue to change (changes in height, in the skull)
Paleoanthropology – the study of hominid fossils and their evolution; also includes
taxonomy – classifications and relationships (Lucy)
Primatology – the study of non human primates (chimpanzee’s)
Human Variation – the study of how humans differ from each other (responses to
diseases/health, what is race? How are races different from each other?)
Scientific Perspective
Science – process of understanding; understand the world around you; involves
deduction and observation
Scientific Method
Problem Identified (question)
Hypothesis (an explanation)
Data Collection – Testing Experiment (reworking hypothesis/repeated
testing)
Theory – often used like a hypothesis but is really accepted as accurate (its
accepted – set of principles)
Scientific Perspective
Biases? – some biases include where and by whom the scientists where taught
History of American Anthropology
Studies of human variation (all studied humans); mainly looking at skeletons – human
skulls – looked at it based on shape or measurements
Samuel Morton
Looked at North American native skulls; known for inventing measurements for
the skull; wrote Crania Americana (1839)
Franz Boas
Physical Anthropologist – he went out into fields and studied growth and
development – skeletal growth; studied skulls, human growth (1858-1942)
Ales Hrdlicka
Worked in museums – gathered collections for others to study; started American
Journal of Physical Anthropology; started American Association of Physical
Anthropologists (1869-1943)
History of Evolutionary Thought
Charles Darwin
(rabble rouser!); very significant figure in all sciences; species change –
we are all not fixed; branching – there is a common ancestry for all living
things; a gradual change, when change occurs; natural selection
Middle Ages
common world view – “stasis” – things do not change; dominated
how people thought in the natural world and in the political system (if you
were born poor you died poor; there was no moving up)
Religious Beliefs
members of church sat on kings council – king would go to them for
advice
Great chain of being
nature is ordered from the lowest and most material to the highest, most
complex and spiritual
“Fixity of Species”
once something is created it does not change – everything on earth and in
heaven did not change
If you disagreed or questioned you were going against the church and you could be killed
Mid 15th -18th centuries
Renaissance and Enlightenment; exploration – diversity; inventions of telescopes,
new ideas about things changing; laws of physics, motion and gravity; explorers
are finding new plants, animals, people
Darwin’s Influences
People who studied nature are called naturalists
Carolus Linnaeus
Developed a classification system for plants and animals; binomial nomenclature
– a 2 part naming system; basis for taxonomy; taxonomist (1707-1778)
Buffon
Recognized the influence of the environment on life forms; a French scholar;
wasn’t talking about organisms; had a common decent (1707-1788)
Lamarck
Known for the inheritance of acquired characteristics “Lamarckianism”; first to
explain how things changed; proposed that if you have a characteristic that is
acquired during an individuals lifetime can be passed on to the next generation;
ideas were never well respected but was valid until proven false – anatomy (1744-
1829)
Cuvier
Anatomy and paleontology; idea for catastrophism – a natural disaster would
occasionally hit the earth – wipe out all life forms, and other life forms from other
areas would begin to move in and repopulate the area (1769-1832)
Lyell
Known in geology – the theory of uniformitarianism; geological processes that
were at work in the past are at work in the present (wind, rain, erosion – natural)
earth is constantly changing (landscape); because of this the earth is very old –
common belief was that the earth was about 6,000 years old (young) (1797-1875)
Darwin’s Influences
Thomas Malthus
Clergyman and economist; wrote a book about how population size limits
resource availability – competition among the population results (1776-1834)
Alfred Wallace
Independently came up with the idea of natural selection – not known for it
because Darwin might have published works first
Charles Darwin
Born to a wealthy family; studied medicine, theology, and geology – graduated in
1831; joined the Beagle and circled the globe for 5 years (voyage of the “Beagle”
Galapagos Islands) noticed different variations among different countries –
studied finches in Galapagos Islands – returns to England in 1839; 1850’s gets
together with Wallace and shares his ideas; 1858 – both men put together papers
to be read in front of a scientific group; 1859 – publishes his 489 abstract on
natural selection – “origin of species”
Natural Selection
“Survival of the fittest” (Herbert Spencer coined this phrase); nature does what
humans do and have been doing for centuries – they were selectively breeding
based on favorable/desirable traits
