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Anthropology Exam 2~
Word | Definition |
---|---|
Neolithic | New Stone Age; a prehistoric period beginning about 10,000 years ago in which peoples possessed stone-based technologies and depended on domesticated crops and/or animals for subsistence. |
Mesolithic | The Middle Stone Age of Europe, Asia, and Africa beginning about 12,000 years ago |
Archaic Cultures | The term used to refer to Mesolithic cultures in the Americas |
Microlith | A small blade of flint or similar stone, several of which were hafted together in wooden handles to make tools; widespread in the Mesolithic |
Natufian Culture | A Mesolithic culture from the lands that are now Israel, Lebanon, and western Syria, between about 10,200 and 12,500 years ago |
Neolithic Revolution | The domestication of plants and animals by peoples with stone-based technologies, beginning around 10,000 years ago and leading to radical transformation in cultural systems |
Horticulture | The cultivation of crops carried out with simple hand tools such as digging sticks and hoes |
Pastoralism | The breeding and managing of migratory herds of domesticated grazing animals, such as goats, sheep, cattle, llamas, and camels |
Innovation | Any new idea, method, or device that gains widespread acceptance in society |
Primary Innovation | The creation, invention, or discovery by chance of a completely new idea, method, or device. |
Secondary Innovation | The deliberate application or modification of an existing idea, method, or device |
Domestication | An evolutionary process whereby humans modify, intentionally or unintentionally, the genetic makeup of a population of wild plants of animals, sometimes to the extent that members of the population are unable to survive and/or reproduce |
Vegeculture | The cultivation of domesticated root crops, such as yams and taro |
Diffusion | The spread of certain ideas, customs, or practices from one culture to another |
Mesoamerica | The region extending from central Mexico to northern Central America |
Civilization | In anthropology, societies in which large numbers of people live in cities, are socially stratified, and are governed by a ruling elite working through centrally organized political systems called states |
Bronze Age | In the Old World, the period marked by the production of tools and ornaments of bronze; began about 5,000 years ago in China and SW Asia and about 500 years earlier in SE Asia |
Grave Goods | Items such as utensils, figurines, and personal possessions, symbolically placed in the grave for the deceased person's use in the afterlife |
Hydraulic Theory | The theory that explains civilization's emergence as the result of the construction of elaborate irrigation systems |
Action Theory | The theory that self-serving action by forceful leaders plays a role in civilization's emergence |
Ecosystem | A system, or a functioning whole, composed of both the natural environment and all the organisms living within it |
Cultural Evolution | Cultural change over time -- not to be confused with progress |
Progress | The ethnocentric notion that humans are moving forward to a higher, more advanced stage in their development toward perfection |
Convergent Evolution | In cultural evolution, the development of similar cultural adaptations to similar environmental conditions by different peoples with different ancestral cultures |
Parallel Evolution | In cultural evolution, the development of similar cultural adaptations to similar environmental conditions by peoples whose ancestral cultures are already somewhat alike |
Food Foraging | A mode of subsistence involving some combination of hunting, fishing, and gathering of wild plant foods |
Slash-and-Burn Cultivation | Extensive form of horticulure where natural vegetation is cut, slash is burned, and crops are planted in ashes |
Agriculture | Intensive crop cultivation, employing plows, fertilizers, and/or irrigation |
Peasant | A small-scale producer of crops of livestock living on land self-owned or rented in exchange for labor, crops, or money and exploited by more powerful groups in a complex society |
Industrial society | A society in which human labor, hand tools, and animal power are largely replaced by machines, with an economy primarily based on big factories |
Industrial food production | Large-scale businesses involved in mass food production, processing, and marketing, which primarily rely on labor-saving machines |
Economic system | An organized arrangement for producing, distributing, and consuming goods |
Technology | Tools and other material equipment, together with the knowledge of how to make and use them |
Reciprocity | The exchange of goods and services, of approximately equal value, between two parties |
Generalize reciprocity | A mode of exchange in which the value of the gift is not calculated, nor is the time of repayment specified |
Balanced reciprocity | A mode of exchange in which the giving and the receiving are specific as to the value of the goods and the time of their delivery |
Negative Reciprocity | A mode of exchange in which the aim is to get something for as little as possible |
Kula ring | A form of balanced reciprocity that reinforces trade and social relations among the seafaring Melansians who inhabit a large ring of islands in the SW Pacific Ocean |
Redistribution | A mode of exchange in which goods flow into a central place, where they are sorted, counted, and reallocated |
Conspicuous Consumption | A showy display of wealth for social prestige |
Potlach | A village chief publicly gives away stockpiled food and other goods that signify wealth |
Prestige economy | The creation of a surplus for the express purpose of displaying weather and giving it away to raise one's status |
Leveling Mechanism | A cultural obligation compelling prosperous members of a community to give away goods, host public feasts, provide free service, or otherwise demonstrate generosity |
Market Exchange | The buying and selling of goods and services with prices set by rules of supply and demand |
Money | A means of exchange used to make payments for other goods and services as well as to measure their value |
Informal economy | A network of people producing and circulating marketable commodities, labor, and services that for various reasons escape government control |
Power | The ability of individuals or groups to impose their will upon others and make them do things even against their own wants or wishes |
Political Organization | The means through which a society creates and maintains social order and reduces social disorder |
Band | A relatively small and loosely organized kin-ordered group that inhibits a specific territory and that may split periodically into smaller extended family groups that are politically independent |
Tribe | The term for a rand of kin-ordered groups that are politically integrated by some unifying factor and whose members share a common ancestry, identity, culture, language, and territory |
Chiefdom | A politically organized society in which several neighboring communities inhabiting a territory are united under a single ruler, who is at the head of a ranked hierarchy of people |
State | A political institution established to manage and defend a complex, socially stratified society occupying a defined territory |
Nation | A people who share a collective identity based on a common culture, language, territorial base, and history |
Legitimacy | The right of political leaders to govern -- to hold, use, and allocate power -- based on the values a particular society embraces |
Cultural Control | Control through beliefs and values deeply internalized in the minds of individuals |
Social Control | External enforcement through open coercion |
Sanction | An externalized social control designed to encourage conformity to social norms |
Law | Formal rules of conduct that, when violated, lead to negative sanctions |
Negotiation | The use of direct argument and compromise by the parties to a dispute to arrive voluntarily at a mutually satisfactory agreement |
Mediation | The settlement of a dispute through negotiation assisted by an unbiased third party |
Adjudication | A mediation with an unbiased third party making the ultimate decision |
Carrying Capacity | The number of people that the available resources can support at a given level of food-getting techniques |
Acculturation | The massive cultural change that occurs in a society when it experiences intensive firsthand contact with a more powerful society |
Ethnocide | The violent eradication of an ethnic group's collective cultural identity as a distinctive people; occurs when a dominant society deliberately sets out to destroy another society's cultural heritage |
Genocide | The physical extermination of one people by another, either as a deliberate act or as the accidental outcome of activities carried out by one people with little regard for their impact on others |
Tradition | Customary ideas and practices passed on from generation, which in a modernizing society may form an obstacle to new ways of doing things |
Syncretism | The creative blending of indigenous and foreign beliefs and practices into new cultural forms |
Rebellion | Organized armed resistance to an established government or authority in power |
Revolution | Radical change in a society or culture. In the political area, it involves the forced overthrow of an old government and establishment of a completely new one |
Civil Disobedience | Refusal to obey civil laws in an effort to induce change in governmental policy or legislation, characterized by the use of passive resistance or other nonviolent means |
Revitalization Movement | Efforts for radical cultural reform in response to widespread social disruption and collective feelings of great stress and despair |