ANT 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Distributed Knowledge, Centrifugal Force
Document Summary
The bio cultural nexus, or the family in the context of routine, ritual, belief, and leadership. Survived all over the world into era of globalization. Most ethnic groups: under transition within h-g communities. Resulted in cultural creativity and diversity, little glimpse into wider glance at cultural diversity. Extraordinary way for humans to colonize/thrive in omnivorous/terrestrial niches over broad geographic ranges. Languages: chimps/bonobos: gestures (arm and hand, some face/vocalizations) Language facilitates socially distributed knowledge of past ideas/practices. Some human cultures: body of hunted animal w/ kinship relationships. Everybody: conscious, what it means to be a part of an extended family, which relationships are important in terms of familial obligations. Other chimps: plaintively beg for a piece, in humans: more detail/precision involved. Completely different pattern of using language to reinforce sharing. Staged excursions to the thresholds of the sacred or the supernatural. Sacred time and place and characters: important social values. Grammar, practices, preferences to shape social networks and values.
