ARCL-1006EL Study Guide - Winter 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Bipedalism, Primate, Human Evolution
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
ARCL-1006EL
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
ARCL 1006
Jan 10, 2018
The Nature of Anthropology
•What is the scope of Anthropology?
•Anthropo- human
•logos- the study of
•the thought that we can study everything that humans have ever done, across the entire
universe,
•interested in anthropology through both cultural and biological characteristics
•Culture examples: shared aspects of human groups, (food, dances, etc)
•Biological examples: genetics
•What is it that makes anthropology different from other disciplines
•HISTORICALLY distinguishing characteristics: breadth//studies were not limited to one
region, commitment to holistic approach (how human study and biology work together),
research methods
•TODAY’S distinguishing characteristics: holistic approach
•Participant observation
• associated w/ Malinowski
•idea that to understand culture, one must be in that culture, and be immersed in that
culture
•What is Holism?
•Approach to study that includes examination of many different aspects of the subject of
study
•example: extinction of Neanderthals: to use the holistic approach you need to look at a few
things:
•correlate locations and dates
•what was going on on the planet at that time// Adaptation- different physicality, adapted
to cold weather so maybe climate change caused it. Also could have changed material
distribution (eg, animals, food, etc)
•populations size- can we reconstruct population size? what if there simply weren't
enough to procreate, etc
•came into contact w modern humans- did that decrease population size? disease?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
•a holistic approach to Neanderthals extinction would take many questions and ideas
into consideration
•ACTIVITY: TAKE A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO A SUBJECT
•Why some apes chose bipedalism about 6 millions years ago, and some did not
•Region
•Location of resources// climate change
•Introduction of threats
•Characteristics of group
•tool use- more limbs to do things
•Environment
•Four sub-disciplines of anthropology
•physical/biological/evolutionary anthropology- deals w human body
•human evolution- what were out ancestors like, physically, where did they live, how old
were they, etc
•study of fossil hominids specifically: palaeoanthropology
•Primatology: study of living primates and their ancestors
•Genetics: help us understand variation in humans- can study ancient DNA, able to
determine the there is a fossil hominid in sybria via a single tooth
•human adaptation: physical differences of people around the world (eg blood types, how
people digest things, etc) able to see via geographic evidence
•human biological variation
•Archaeology
•study of human cultures using material remains, most frequently in the past but can also
study contemporary cultures using material remains
•study landscapes, archaeological sites (variable- ancient cities, where some random sat
down and dropped a piece of lettuce, where one leaves a trace on the landscape),
•study features (defined areas where certain kinds of activities went on)
•Study artifacts
•very important: context- need to know certain aspects like where they're from,
significance, etc
•Archaeologists always documents where things come from and their relations
•historical data, geographical, etc
•cultural or sociocultural anthropology
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
January, 17, 2018: recap of mendel"s peas experiment, mendel"s conclusions. Jan 24, 2018: cline: gradual change in frequency or occurrence of something over space. Human biological variation race: contributors to variation in skin colour, oxidized hemoglobin (red, from red blood cells, melanin produced by melanocytes in epidermis, mc1r- coded gene, skin colour is polygenic- not a mendelian trait. Jan 29, 2018: reasons why we study primates. Jan 31, 2018: all about noses, strepsirrhini. Why: major artifact class: lithic (chipped // groundstone, two reasons: it"s a stone- does not break down easily. Houses households: who makes up the basic social house holds . Settlements communities: reflections of the communities. Regions polities: larger social political groups, places that may have some sort of government. Burial grounds differences in social and economic status: see the difference between people, size and nature. Weren"t simply nuclear families but also the rest of that family.
