AN101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Richard Potts, Coevolution, Ethnocentrism
24 Jun 2013
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Anthropology: chapter 1- the anthropological perspective on the human condition. Anthropology is considered to have four main specialties: biological anthology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, cultural anthropology. Culture and the human brain coevolved each furnishing key features of the environment to which the other needed to adapt. Culture is shared as well as learning and can be adapted to meet present of future needs. Such learning is sometimes called habitus since it is rooted in habitual learning. Cultural patterns can be traced over time. Human species as a whole can be said to have culture as a distinguishing attribute, but actual human beings would only have access to particular human culture, either their own or others. Human experience is inherently ambiguous, experience must be interpreted. Cultural determinism requires us to accept three assumptions about human nature and human society; That cultures have neat boundaries between them. That every culture offers people only one way to interpret experience.
