Anthropology 2229F/G Lecture 9: Lecture 9 Part 1 – Cultural Theories - Processual-Materialists
18 Jul 2012
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Lecture 9 part 1 cultural theories processual/materialists. Culture is responsive to real external world (adaptive mechanism) Culture central to our essence to survive: 2. Humans are rational beings: cultural acts are ones of self- preservation. Find tools, floral/faunal remains in the archaeological record; makes it easy to interpret what people were doing to survive. Assumes that people wont do something for long periods of time that will impede our survival. Search to see how this is an act of self-preservation. Can look at illogical acts and see how it is an act of preservation. Australian aborigines give rock to another group and they get the same thing back; used to make social ties, not goods: useful in times of food shortages, etc. , mechanism of survival. Caches left by clovis peoples in the americas, date to 13,500 bp; caches left in case of short fall in stone needed for tools.
