INTRODUCTION TO ARCHAEOLOGY: HOW DO WE  Buildings are common features on archaeological

DISCOVER THE PAST? sites. These can range from the remains of stone
 Archaeologists and paleoanthropologists rely on rings that once held down the sides of tents to
four kinds of evidence to learn about the past: palaces built of stones that had been shaped and
 Artifacts fitted together.
 Eco facts FINDING THE EVIDENCE
 Fossils  Archaeologists and paleoanthropologists usually
 Features restrict their research to what are called sites. Sites
ARTIFACTS are known or suspected locations of human activity
 Anything made or modified by humans is an artifact in the past that contain a record of that activity.
 By far, the most common artifacts from the past  Sites can range from places where humans camped
are stone tools, which archaeologists call lithics. for perhaps only one night to entire ancient cities.
 Another common kind of artifact is ceramics (pots HOW ARE SITES CREATED?
and other items made from baked clay).  The most dramatic one is volcanic activity; record
 Humans first started making ceramics about 20,000 of human behavior (and even the humans
years ago and ceramics objects such as storage and themselves) can be totally buried within seconds.
cooking vessels quickly came to be widely used.  The most impressive example of this must be
 Wood and bone artifacts are common too, and Pompeii, an entire city that was buried in the
were used to make hide-working, cooking, hunting, eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79
and even butchering tools  In the Philippine setting one example can be the
 Wood and bone tools have been used by humans at Mt. Mayon and the ruins of Casagwa
least as long as stone tools, but unlike stone tools,  Less dramatic means of burying the record of
they tend not to survive well in the archaeological human behavior are the natural processes of dirt
record. accumulation and erosion
 In some places, metals and glass are common  Wind or water borne soil and debris can cover a site
artifacts. These survive well in the archaeological either quickly (as in a flood) or over a long period of
record, and hence they are often found where they time preserving artifacts, Eco facts, fossils and
were used. features left by humans.
ECOFACTS HOW SITES ARE FOUND?
 Eco facts are natural objects that have been used or PEDESTRIAN SURVEY AND REMOTE SENSING
affected by humans.  Pedestrian survey is what the name suggests,
 Good examples are the bones of animals that have walking around looking for sites.
been eaten. These bones are somewhat artifacts,  Looking in obvious places like cave sites
but they haven’t been made or modified by  Remote sensing is a much more high-tech way of
humans just used and discarded them. finding sites. With remote sensing techniques,
 Another example is pollens and seeds found at archaeologists and paleoanthropologists find
archaeological sites. Because humans bring plants archaeological deposits by sensing their presence
back to their houses to use. Pollens and seeds from from a remote location, usually the current surface
many plants are commonly found. of the ground beneath which the archaeological
FOSSILS deposits are buried.
 A fossil may be an impression of an insect or leaf on  One device used is magnetometer.
a muddy surface that now is a stone. Or it may  One of the most commonly used active technique is
consist of the actual hardened remains if an soil interface radar (SIR) sometimes also called
animal’s skeletal structure. ground penetrating radar (GPR). This technique is
FEATURES based on the fact that different soils reflect radar
 Features are a kind of artifact, but archaeologists energy differently.
distinguish them from other artifacts because they  These recording give the archaeologists a picture of
cannot be easily removed from an archaeological what is below the ground.
site.
 The most common features are called pits. Pits are HOW ARE ARTIFACTS, ECOFACTS, AND FEATURES
simply holes dug by humans that are later filled RECOVERED FROM SITES?
with garbage or eroded soil.  Whether they are identified by pedestrian survey or
 Living floors are another common type of feature. remote sensing, once archaeological deposits are
These are the palaces where humans lived and found, there is only one way to recover them, by
worked. The soil in these locations are often excavation.
compacted through human activity and are full of  Excavation itself is a complex process with two
minute pieces of garbage. goals:
 1. To find every scrap of evidence (or a statistically  Paleoanthropologists use the surrounding rocks to
representative sample) about the past that a indicate the time period in which the organism
given site holds died. In addition, the study of associated fauna and
2. To record the horizontal and vertical location of flora can suggest what the ancient climate and
that evidence with precision habitat were like.
ANALYZING THE EVIDENCE  Much of the evidence from primate evolution
 Once archaeologists and paleoanthropologists have comes from teeth, which are the most common
found a site and recovered artifacts and other animal parts (along with jaws) to be preserved as
materials from it, they are ready to begin “reading” fossils.
what they have found to learn the story of the past.  Animals vary in dentition or the number and kinds
This “reading” of the archaeological record is called of teeth they have, their size, and their
analysis. arrangement in the mouth.
 Before doing analysis, then, archaeologists and  Paleoanthropologists can tell much about an
paleoanthropologists must first conserve and animal’s posture and locomotion from fragments of
reconstruct the materials they have found. its skeleton.
 Conservation is the process of treating artifacts, Eco  The underside if the cranium may provide
facts, and in some cases, even features, to stop information about the proportions of the brain
decay and, if possible, even reverse the devoted to vision, smell or memory.
deterioration process.  The skill also reveals information about
 Reconstruction is like building puzzle- but a three- characteristics of smell and vision.
dimensional puzzle where you’re not sure which  For example, animals that rely more on the smell
pieces belong and you know not all of the pieces than on vision tend to have large snouts. Nocturnal
are there. animals tend to have large eye sockets.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM ARTIFACTS? DATING THE EVIDENCE
 First, archaeologists typically examine the form of  For some time, relative dating methods were the
an artifact or how it is shaped. For most common only methods available. Relative dating is used to
artifacts such as lithics and ceramics, forms are determine the age of a specimen or deposit relative
known well enough to be grouped into typologies to another specimen or deposit.
 Typologies often provide a lot of information about  Absolute dating or chronometric dating is used to
an artifact including its age, the species or culture measure how old a specimen or deposit in years.
with which it is affiliated and, in some cases, even RELATIVE DATING METHODS
how it is made, used or exchange in the past. DENDROCHRONOLOGY
 Second, archaeologists often measure artifacts,  The method of dating events and conditions of the
recording their size in various often strictly defined recent past is based on the number, width, and
dimensions. Such as metric analysis is used much density of annual growth rings of long-lived trees.
like formal analysis to group artifacts into a THERMOLUMINESCENT (TL) DATING
typology.  Thermoluminescence dating makes use of the
 Third, archaeologists often attempt to understand principle that if an object is heated at some point to
how an artifact was made. By examining the a point to a high temperature, as when clay is
material, the artifact is made from and how that baked to form a pot; it will release all the trapped
material was manipulated, archaeologists can learn electrons it held previously.
about the technology, economy, and exchange  The amount of thermoluminescence emitted when
systems of the people who made the artifact. the object is heated during testing allows
 Finally, archaeologists attempt to understand how researchers to calculate the age of the object.
an artifact was used. Knowing how an artifact was RADIOMETRIC DATING
used allows the archaeologist a direct window onto  Radiocarbon dating techniques, first developed by
ancient life. the American chemist Willard F. Libby and his
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM ARTIFACTS AND FOSSILS? associates at the University of Chicago in 1947, are
 New techniques such as electron microscopy, cat frequently useful in deciphering time-related
scans, and computer assisted biochemical modeling problems in archaeology, anthropology,
provide much information about how that oceanography, pedology, climatology, and recent
organism may have moved about the geology. This method is popularly known as Carbon
microstructure of bone and teeth, and how the 14 Dating.
organisms developed POTASSIUM-ARGON METHOD
 Chemical analysis of fossilized bone can suggest  Potassium-40, a radioactive form of Potassium,
what the animal typically ate decays at an established rate and forms Argon-40.
The half of life of Potassium-40 is a known quantity,
 so the age of a material containing potassium can THE NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION: THE DOMESTICATION OF
be measured by the amount of Potassium-40 PLANTS AND ANIMALS
compared with the amount of Argon-40 it contains.
 Radioactive Potassium-40 half life is very long- BROAD SPECTRUM REVOLUTION
1,330 million years
 Term coined by Kent Flannery
 This means that Potassium-Argon dating may be
used to date samples from 5,00 years up to 3 billion  This refers to the period beginning around 15 000
years old. BP in Middle East and 12 000 BP in Europe during
 The K-Ar method is used to date potassium rich which a wider range or broader spectrum of plant
minerals in rock, not the fossils that may be found and animal life was hunted, gathered, collected,
in the rock. A very high temperature such as those caught, and fished.
that occur in a volcanic event, drives off any original  It was revolutionary because in the Middle East it
Argon in the material. Therefore, the amount if led to food production
Argon that accumulates afterward from the decay  Food Production- human control over the
of radioactive potassium is directly related to the reproduction of plants and animals.
amount of time since the volcanic event.
URANIUM SERIES DATING THE MESOLITHIC
 The dismay of two kinds of Uranium, U235 and
U238 (half-life is 4.5 billion years), into other  It has characteristic tool type-microlith
isotopes (such as Thorium 230) has also proved  After 15 000 BP, throughout the inhabited world, as
useful for dating sites with remains of Homo the big name supply dwindled, foragers had to
Sapiens (Modern looking Man) particularly in cave pursue new resources.
sites were stalagmites and other calcites formations  Human attention shifted from large-bodied, slow
form. producers (such as mammoths) to species such as
 Because water seeps into caves usually contains fish, mollusks, and rabbits that produce quickly and
Uranium but not Thorium, the calcite formation prolifically. This happened with the European
trap Uranium. Uranium starts decaying at a known
Mesolithic.
rate into other isotopes (such as Thorium 230) and
 It also happened at the Japanese site of an inlet
the ratio of those isotopes can be used to estimate
the time elapsed. near Tokyo. Nittano was occupied several times
 The Thorium-Uranium ratio is useful for dating cave between 6000 and 5000 BP by the members of
sites less than 300,000 years old where there are Jomon Culture.
no volcanic rocks suitable for the Potassium-Argon  These broad-spectrum foragers hunted deer, pigs,
method. Early Homo Sapiens from European cave bears, and antelope. They also ate fish, shellfish,
sites in Germany, Hungary, and Wales were dated and plants.
this way.  Jomon sites have yielded the remains of 300
THE RESULTS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH species of shellfish and 180 species of edible plants
 One goal of archaeological research is the (including berries, nuts, and tubers).
description or reconstruction of what happened in
the past. Archaeologists attempt to determine how NEOLITHIC
people lived in a particular place at a particular
time, and when and how their lifestyle changed.  It is the term used to describe economies based on
 Also, of interest, of course, is whether new cultures food production mainly through cultivated crops
arrived or established cultures moved out of a given and domestication of animals.
area. Creating histories of cultures and their
THE TRANSITION OF FOOD PRODUCTION IN THE
changes over time is called culture history.
 A second major goal of archaeological research is MIDDLE EAST (KENT FLANNERY)
testing specific theories and hypothesis about ERA DATES (BP)
human evolution and behavior. Origin of State (Sumer) 5500 BP
 In addition to testing hypotheses, archaeology has a
Increased specialization 7500-5500 BP
primary role within anthropology in its attempt to
in food production
identify and understand general trends and
Early dry farming 10 000-7500 BP
patterns in human biological and cultural evolution.
(wheat and barley) or
farming without
irrigation thus it
depended on rainfall
 and caprine (goats and  In winter, they hunted in the piedmont steppe
sheep) domestication region. When winter ended, the steppe dried up.
Seminomadic hunting 12 000-10 000 BP  Game animals moved up to the hilly flanks and high
and gathering such as plateau country as the snow melted during
the Natufians summer. Pasture land became available at higher
 During the era of increasing specialization in food elevations.
production (750-5500 BP), new crops were added  Foragers gathered as they climbed, harvesting wild
to the diet, along with more productive varieties of grains that ripened later at higher altitudes.
wheat and barley.
 Cattles and pigs were domesticated. GENETIC CHANGES AND DOMESTICATION
 By 5500 BP, agriculture extended to the alluvial
 The seeds of domesticated cereals and often the
plain of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, where early
entire plants are larger thus they have higher yield
Mesopotamians lived in walled towns, some of
per unit area.
which grew into cities.
 Domesticated plants also lose their natural seed
 Metallurgy and the wheel were invented.
dispersal mechanisms. Beans have pods that hold
 Humans were living in the Bronze Age. together and domesticated cereals have tougher
 The archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe used the connective tissue holding the seedpods to the
term Neolithic Revolution to describe the origin and stem.
impact of food production – plant cultivation and  Animals got smaller when domesticated because
animal domestication. smaller animals are easier to control.
 Neolithic was coined to refer to new techniques of  When sheep got domesticated, advantageous new
grinding and polishing stone tools. phenotypes arose. Wild sheep are not woolly.
 Neolithic economies based on food production
were associated to substantial changes in human FOOD PRODUCTION AND THE STATE
lifestyles.
 Farming colonies spread down into the drier areas.
 By 12 000 BP, the shift toward the Neolithic was
By 7000 BP, simple irrigation systems had
under way in the Middle East (Turkey, Iran. Iraq,
developed, tapping springs in the foothills.
Syria, Jordan, and Israel) also known as the Fertile
 By 6000 BP, more complex irrigation techniques
Crescent.
made agriculture possible in the arid lowlands of
 People started intervening in the reproductive
southern Mesopotamia. In the alluvial desert plain
cycles of plants and animals.
of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a new economy
THE FIRST FAMERS AND HERDERS IN THE MIDDLE EAST based on irrigation and trade fueled the growth of
an entirely new form of society.
 Middle East food production arose in the context of  This was the state, a social and political unit
four environmental zones. featuring a central government, extreme contrasts
 From highest to lowest, they are High Plateau (5000 of wealth, and social classes.
ft or 1500 meters high), Hilly Flanks (woodland
zones that flanks Tigris and Euphrates), Piedmont SEVEN WORLD AREAS WHERE FOOD PRODUCTION WAS
Steppe (treeless plain) and the Alluvial desert INDEPENDENTLY INVENTED
(watered by Tigris and Euphrates with an altitude of
Area Major Earliest Date
30-150 meters above mean sea level) Domesticated
 Recent archaeological findings support the Plants and
hypothesis that food production began in Marginal Animals
areas such as piedmont steppe rather than in the Middle East wheat, barley, 10000 BP
optimal zones such as hilly flanks, where traditional sheep, goats,
foods were abundant. cattle, pigs
 Early cultivation began as an attempt to copy, in a South China rice, water 8500-6500 BP
less favorable environment (piedmont steppe), the (Yangtze River buffalo, dogs,
dense stands of wheat and barley tat grew wild in Corridor) pigs
the hilly flanks. North China millet, dogs, 7500 BP
(Yellow River) pigs, chickens
 Early seminomadic foragers in the Middle East has
Sub Saharan sorghum, pearl 4000 BP
followed game from zone to zone.
Africa millet, African
 rice, cattle (for Mathematics, weights, Greater stress
their milk and measures
blood) Trade and markets Public health declines
Central Mexico maize, beans, 4700BP (e.g. more exposure to
squash, dogs, pathogens including
turkeys communicable and
South Central potato, quinoa, 4500 BP epidemic diseases)
Andes beans, Increased economic Rise in protein deficiency
camelids, production and dental carries
(llama, alpaca), Urban life Social inequality and
guinea pigs poverty
Eastern United goosefoot, 4500 BP More reliable crop yields Slavery and other forms
States marsh elder, of human bondage
sunflower, Rise in crime, war, and
squash, turkey human sacrifice
Increased environmental
degradation (e.g. air and
EXPLAINING THE NEOLITHIC water pollution,
 Several factors including a diversity od useful plant deforestation)
and animal species and early sedentism, combined
to form the first domestication in the Ancient ORIGIN OF CITIES AND STATES
Middle East.
 Of the 148 large animals, species that seem STATE
potentially domesticable, only 14 actually have  Is a form of social and political organization that has
been domesticated. a formal, central government and a division of
 A mere dozen among 200 000 known plant species society into classes
account for 80% of the world’s food production.
 The 12 caloric staples are wheat, corn (maize), rice,
barley, sorghum (millet), soybeans, potatoes, ATTRIBUTE OF STATES
cassava (manioc), sweet potatoes, sugarcane, sugar 1. A state controls a specific regional territory such as
beets, and bananas. the Nile Valley and the Valley of Mexico.
 Domestication rested on a combination of  Early states were expansionists; they arose from
conditions and resources that had not come competition among chiefdoms, as the most
together previously. The development of a full- powerful chiefdom conquered others, extended its
fledged Neolithic economy required settling down. rule over a large territory.
 Sedentism (settled sedentary life) was especially 2. Early states had productive farming economies,
attractive when several species of plant and supporting dense populations, often in cities.
animals were available locally for foraging and  The agricultural economies of early states usually
eventually domestication involved some form of control or irrigation.
 THE BENEFITS AND COSTS OF FOOD PRODUCTION 3. Early states used tribute and taxation to
(COMPARED TO FORAGING accumulate at a central place, resources needed to
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES support hundreds, or thousands, of specialists.
Discoveries and Harder work 4. States are stratified into social classes. In the first
inventions states, the non-food producing population
New social, political, Less nutritious diets consisted of a tiny elite, plus artisans, officials,
scientific, and creative priests, and other specialists.
forms (e.g. spinning, 5. Early states had improving public buildings and
weaving, pottery, bricks, monumental architecture, including temples,
metallurgy) palaces, and storehouses.
Monumental Child labor and child Example: Egyptian Pyramids
architecture, arched care demands Aztec Temple
masonry, sculpture Abu Simbel Temple
Writing Taxes and military drafts
Forbidden City-Beijing
 Great Wall of China Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica. It can also occur
Hanging Gardens of Babylon in societies such as those of Papua New Guinea
Harappa (India) (even in pre-Spanish time in the Philippines), where
Machu Pichu, Peru no states developed.
Mohenjodaro, Pakistan  POPULATION, WAR, AND CIRCUMSCRIPTION
Tikal (Mayan), Guatemala  According to Carnelio, wherever and whenever
Ziggurat of Ur, Iraq environmental circumscription (resource
6. Early states developed some form of record- concentration), increasing population and warfare
keeping system usually a written script. exist, state formation will begin.
Examples: Cuneiform  Multivariate Theory: involves multiple factors,
Hieroglyphics courses, or variables.
Aztec codex  Incorporating three factors working together
Mayan Writings instead of a single cause of state formation
FIRST CITY STATES  Theory explains many, but not all, cases of state
formation.
 The first states developed in Mesopotamia by 5500
THE URBAN REVOLUTION
B.P. and in Mesoamerica some 3000 years later.
Chiefdoms were precursors to states.  Childe, probably the most influential archaeologist
WHAT IS CHIEFDOM? of the 20th century, chose the term “revolution”
deliberately.
 A chiefdom is a form of hierarchical political  He used the term “Urban Revolution” to describe
organization in non-industrial societies usually the major transformation of human life and social
based on kinship, and in which formal leadership is institutions. As a result of the Urban revolution,
monopolized by the legitimate senior members of economic activity of all was expanded greatly; and
select families or ‘houses’ the first cities were built.
 JULIAN STEWARD
HOW AND WHY DID CHIEFDOMS AND STATES
ORIGINATE?  Suggested that at the core of the urban
transformation was a changing, functionally
 The complexity of division of social and economic interrelated group of social institutions.
labor tended to grow as food production spread  The rise of civilization was viewed by Steward as a
and intensified. series of successive, major organizational levels.
 Systems of political authority and control  Hunting and gathering
developed to handle regulatory problems which  Incipient agriculture
emerges when the population grows and the  Formative years
economy develops.  Regional fluorescence
 Competition for territory and resources stimulates  Initial Conquest
state formation.  Dark Ages
CAUSES OF STATE FORMATION: HYDRAULIC SYSTEMS  Cyclical Conquests

 One obvious cause of state formation: the need to KIND OF SOCIETIES

regulate hydraulic agricultural economies. EGALITARIAN
 In arid areas such as ancient Egypt and
Mesopotamia, states have emerged to manage  Nature of Status: Status differences are not
systems of irrigation, drainage and flood control. inherited. All status is based on age, gender, and
 Growth in hydraulic systems is often but not always individuals’ qualities, talents and achievements.
associated with state information.  Common Form of Subsistence economy: Foraging
 Common Forms of Social Organization: Bands and
LONG-DISTANCE TRADE ROUTES Tribes
 States arise at strategic locations in regional trade  Examples: Inuit, Ju’/hoansi San, and Yanomami
networks.
 Long-distance trade has been important in the
evolution of many states, including those in
RANKED ETHNICITY AND RACE

 Nature of Status: Status differences are inherited ETHNICITY

and distributed along a continuum from the
 Ethnicity is based on cultural similarities (among
highest-ranking member (chief) to the lowest
members of the same ethnic group) and
without any breaks
differences (between that group and others).
 Common Form of Subsistence: Horticulture,
 Ethnicity is revealed when people claim a certain
pastoralism, and some foraging groups
ethnic identity for themselves and are defined by
 Common Forms of Social Organization: Chiefdom
others as having that identity.
and some tribes
 Ethnicity means identification with and feeling part
 Examples: Pre-Spanish and American indigenous
of an ethnic group and exclusion from certain other
groups and tribes of the Philippines; indigenous
groups because of this affiliation.
Hawaiians; Trobriand Islanders.
ETHNIC GROUP AND ETHNICITY
STRATIFIED
ETHNIC GROUP
 Nature of Status: Status differences are inherited
and divided sharply between distinct noble and  Shares certain beliefs, values, habits, customs, and
commoner classes norms because of their common background. They
 Common Form of Subsistence: Agriculture defined themselves as different and special
 Common Forms of Social Organization: States because of cultural features.
 Examples: Teotihuacan, Uruk period of  The distinction may arise from language, religion,
Mesopotamia, Inca, Shang Dynasty of China, Rome, historical experience, geographic isolation, kinship,
Athens, Modern day Countries or “race”

WHY STATES COLLAPSE? STATUS

 Invasion, famine, disease, prolonged drought, soil  Any position that determines where someone fits in
exhaustion, erosion and the build-up of irrigation society. It encompasses the various positions that
salts. people occupy in society.
 States may collapse when they fail to keep social
ASCRIBED STATUS
and economic order to protect themselves against
outsiders.  People have little or no choice about occupying
them.
EXAMPLES OF COLLAPSED STATES
 Example: age, race, sex, caste group in India.
 With the death of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony,
ACHIEVED STATUS
Egypt became a province of the Roma Empire
 Emperor Puyi is the last emperor of China. He died  Are not automatic; they come through choices,
in 1967 during the time of the cultural revolution of actions, efforts, talents, or accomplishments.
Mao Zedong.  Example: educational background, socio-economic
 The Spaniard Conquistadors headed by Francisco status, marital status (unless it is arranged
Pizzaro captured and the later killed King Atahualpa marriage).
of the Inca Empire in 1533 AD
RACE
 The Spanish Conquistadors headed by Hernan
Cortes captured Tenochtitlan, the Aztec Capital in  Are ethnic groups assumed (by members of
1521 particular culture) to have a biological basis but
 The collapse of Mayan empire was caused by actually race is socially constructed.
overpopulation, Environmental degradation, and
climate change. RACISM

 Discrimination against an ethnic group assumed to

have a biological basis.
 In Charles Wagley’s terms, they are social races
(groups assumed to have a biological basis but
 actually defined in a culturally defined in a culturally  The Barakumin are less likely to attend high school
arbitrarily, rather than a scientific, manner.) or college. If they do, they face discrimination.
 Many Americans mistakenly assume that “whites”  Majority of children and teachers may refuse to eat
and “blacks”, for example, are biologically distinct with them because Barakumin are considered
and that these terms stand for discrete races. unclean.
 The origin of the Barakumin lies in a historical
RACE IN THE USA
tiered system of stratification from Tokugawa
 In American culture, one acquires his or her racial period (1603-1868)
status/identity at birth, as an ascribed status.  The top four ranked categories were warrior-
 American rules for assigning racial status can be administrator (samurai), farmers, artisans, and
even more random. In some states, anyone to have merchants. The ancestors of the Barakumin were
any black ancestor, no matter how remote, can be below this hierarchy.
classified as a member of the black race.  Barakumin did “unclean” job such as animal
slaughters and disposal of the dead.
DESCENT
 They still do the same job including work with
 Social identity on the basis of ancestry leather and animal products.
 A rare variant of this rule of descent exists in USA.  Barakumin and other minorities in Japan are more
 Hypodescent- hypodescent automatically places likely to have careers in crime, prostitution,
children of mixed marriages in the group of their entertainment, and sports.
minority parent (hypo means lower)
ETHNIC GROUPS, NATIONS, AND NATIONALITIES
 It divides American society into groups that have
been unequal in their access to wealth, power, and NATION
prestige.
 Is a society that is sharing a language, religion,
NOT US: RACE IN JAPAN history, territory, ancestry, and kinship.

 Japan is commonly viewed as a nation that is STATE

homogeneous in race, ethnicity, language, and
 An independent centrally organized political unit or
culture-an image the Japanese themselves
a government.
cultivate. Japan is hardly a uniform entity.
 About 10% of its population consists of minorities. NATION-STATE
These include aboriginal Ainu, annexed Okinawans,
 Refer to an autonomous political entity or a
outcast BARAKUMIN, children of mixed marriages
country.
and immigrant nationalities specially Koreans.
 To describe racial attitudes in Japan, Jennifer NATIONALITIES AND IMAGINED COMMUNITIES
Robertson (1992) uses Kwame Anthony Appiah’s
term Intrinsic Racism  Groups that now have, or wish to have a regain,
 Intrinsic Racism- a belief that a perceived racial autonomous political status (their own country) are
difference is a sufficient reason to value one person called nationalities.
less than another.  In the word of Benedict Anderson, they are
 In its construction of race, Japanese culture regards Imagined Communities. Their members do not
certain ethnic groups as having a biological basis form an actual face-to-face community. They can
when there is no evidence that they do. only imagine that they all belong to and participate
in the same group. Even if they become nation-
 The best example is the Barakumin, a stigmatized
states, they remained imagined communities
group of at least 4 million outcasts, sometimes
because most of their members, though feeling
compared to India’s untouchables.
comradeship, will never meet.
 Barakumin are perceived as standing apart from
majority of Japanese. Through ancestry and PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE
descent, Barakumin are “not us.” Japanese try to
keep their lineage pure by discouraging mixing.  Ethnic diversity may be associated with positive
 The Barakumin are residentially segregated in group interaction and coexistence or with conflict.
neighborhoods (rural or urban) called Baraku. In many nations, multiple cultural groups live
together in reasonable harmony. Three ways of
 realizing such peaceful coexistence as assimilation, PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION
the plural society, and multiculturalism.
PREJUDICE
ASSIMILATION
 Devaluing a group (looking down on) a group
 Assimilation describes the process of change that a because of its assumed behavior, values,
minority ethnic group may experience when it capabilities, or attributes.
moves to a country where another culture  People are prejudiced when they hold stereotypes
dominates. about groups and apply them to individuals.
 By assimilating, the minority adopts the patterns
STEROTYPES
and norms of its host culture.
 It incorporated into the dominant culture to the  Fixed ideas-often unfavorable-about what the
point it no longer exists as a separate cultural unit. members of a group are like.
 Examples: New York, Los Angeles, Paris, London,
DISCRIMINATION
Singapore, Hong Kong
 Assimilation is the “melting pot” model; ethnic DE FACTO
groups give up their own cultural traditions as they
blend into a common national stew  Practiced but not legally sanctioned.
 Some countries such as Brazil are more  Examples: harsher treatment of American
assimilationist than others are. German, Italians, minorities.
Japanese, Middle easterners, East Europeans DE JURE
started migrating to Brazil late in the 29th Century.
 Part of the law
THE PLURAL SOCIETY  Example: Segregation in the Southern United States
 Ethnic distinctions can exist despite generations of and apartheid in South Africa which both no longer
inter-ethnic contact. in existence.
 Through a study, it was shown that ethnic groups CHIPS IN MOSAIC
can be in contact for generations without
assimilations and can live in a peaceful coexistence.  Although multicultural model is increasingly
 Plural Society: a society that combines ethnic prominent in North America, ethnic competition
contrasts ecological specialization (that is, use of and conflict are just as evident.
different environmental resources by each ethnic  “They come into our neighborhoods and treat us
group), and the economic interdependence of like dirt” -African Americans
those groups.  “It’s not part of our culture to smile.” -Koreans
 Economic development in the middle East with still
AFTERMETHS OF OPPRESSION
camel herders and traders in the desert.
 Fueling ethnic conflict are such forms of
MULTICULTURALISM
discrimination as genocide, forced assimilation, and
 Multiculturalism is a view of cultural diversity as cultural colonialism.
valuable, good, desirable, and worth maintaining.
GENOCIDE
 Multiculturalism model promotes the practice of
other cultural/ethnic practices and traditions.  Physical destruction of an ethnic or religious group
 Multiculturalism model works best in a country through mass murder.
where the political system promotes freedom of  Example: holocaust of Nazi Germany and “ethnic
expression cleaning” in Bosnia.

ROOTS OF ETHNIC CONFLICT ETHNOCIDE

 Political  A dominant group may try to destroy the cultures

 Economic of certain ethnic groups.
 Religious
FORCED ASSIMILATION
 Linguistic
 Cultural  A dominant group force the minority group to
 Racial adopt to the dominant culture.
ETHNIC EXPULSION Discrimination; Not legally Ageism, sexism
De Facto sanctioned but
 Removing groups that are culturally different from practiced
a country. TYPES OF NEGATIVE ETHNIC INTERACTION
 Example: the Rohingya (Muslims) in
Burma/Myanmar TYPES NATURE OF EXAMPLES
INTERACTION
REFUGEES Genocide Deliberate Nazi Germany;
elimination of ethnic
 People who have been forced (involuntary
ethnic group cleansing in
refugees) or who have chosen (voluntary refugees) through mass Bosnia,
to flee a country to escape persecution of war. murder Rwanda
COLONIALISM Ethnocide Cultural practices Ancient
attacked by practices of
 Political, social, economic, and cultural domination dominant culture Filipinos during
of a territory and its people by a foreign power for or colonial power. Spanish
an extended time. colonial period
Ethnic Forcing ethnic Middle East
CULTURAL COLONIALISM Expulsion group(s) out of a refugees now
country or region in Europe
 Internal domination- by one group and its because of ISIS
culture/ideology over others.
 Example: Chinese Han to Muslim areas in China and
in Tibet and Russians in non-Russian provinces of LANGUAGE AND COMUNICATION
USSR.
WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
TYPES OF POSITIVE ETHNIC INTERACTION
 Language, which may be written or spoken, is our
TYPES NATURE OF EXAMPLES primary means of communication.
INTERACTION  Writing has existed for 6000 years. Language has
Assimilation Ethnic groups United existed thousands of years before that, but no one
absorbed within States knows exactly when. Its complexity allows us to
dominant culture before create detailed images, to discuss abstract ideas,
Plural Society Society or region Areas of and to share our experiences with others.
contains Middle Easy  Since language is always changing, some linguistic
economically with farmers anthropologists reconstruct ancient languages by
interdependent and herders
comparing them to their contemporary
ethnic-groups
descendants.
Multiculturalism Cultural diversity Canada and
valued; ethnic United  Some explore the role of language in colonization
cultures coexist States now and in the expansion of world economy.
with dominant
LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
culture
TYPES OF NEGATIVE ETHNIC INTERACTION  Examines language structure and use, linguistic
change, and the relations among language, society,
TYPES NATURE OF EXAMPLES
and culture
INTERACTION
Prejudice Devaluing a Homophobia; CALL SYSTEM
group based on islamophobia
assumed  The natural communication systems of other
attributes primates like monkeys and apes.
Discrimination; Legal policies Former  The call systems of our hominid ancestors
De Jure and practices segregation in eventually grew too complicated for genetic
that harm US and transmission. As hominids relied more and more on
particular apartheid in learning, their call systems evolved into language.
ethnic group South Africa
NON-HUMAN COMMUNICATION
 Systems of communication are not unique to LANGAUGE CONTRASED WITH CALL SYSTEM
human beings
HUMAN LANGUAGE PRIMATE CALL SYSTEM
 Other animal species communicate in variety of
Has the capacity to Are stimuli-dependent;
ways
speak of things that are the food call will be
1. A bird may communicate by a call that “this is not present made only in the
my territory.” (displacement) presence of food; it
2. A squirrel may utter a cry that leads other cannot be faked
squirrels to flee from dangers. Has the capacity to Consist of a limited
3. An ant releases a chemical when it dies and its generate new number of calls that
fellow then carry it away to the compost heap. expressions by cannot be combined to
 Karl von Frisch discovered that the black Australian combining other produce new calls
honeybee- by choosing a round dance, a wagging expressions
dance, or a short, straight run-can communicate (productivity)
not only the precise direction of the source of food Is group specific in that Tend to be species
all humans have the specific, with little
but also its distance from the hive.
capacity for language, variation among
SIGN LANGUAGE but each linguistic communities of the
community has its own same species for each
 Even though apes cannot speak language, they can language, which is call.
learn to use them culturally transmitted
ASL (AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE)
COMMUNICATION
 The first chimpanzee to learn ASL was Washoe. She
was captured from Africa and was also raised like a  Communicate comes from the Latin verb
human child by the Gardners and Roger Fouts. “communicare” which means to share or impart
 Another chimpanzee named Lucy also learned ASL.  We communicate to convey messages. The sender
She was Washoe’s junior by one year, and the two gives a signal that is received and decoded by the
lived in the same institute. receiver who usually responds with a specific action
 Both chimpanzees showed human traits like or reply.
swearing, joking, lying, and trying to teach language
OTHER FORMS OF COMMUNICATION ASIDE FROM
to others.
SPOKEN LANGUAGE INCLUDES:
 Because of their strength and size, gorillas are less
likely subjects for experiments like these.  Body stance
 Still, psychologist Penny Patterson managed to  Facial expressions
raise her now full-grown gorilla named Koko and  Gesture
teach her ASL.  Tone of Voice
 Koko’s vocabulary surpasses that any of chimp: she  Eye Contact
uses 400 ASL signs regularly and has used about
700 at least once.
 Even though they cannot use spoken language,  Calls carry in intensity and duration, but are
these apes can use gestural language, and they also automatic and cannot be combined.
showed traits that are similar to humans’ such as:
 Displacement-to talk about thinks that are not in  Somehow, our ancestors began to combine calls
sight, or are not tangible. and to understand them.
 Productivity- to make new expression that are
comprehensible to others  A communication (call, word, sentence) is symbolic
 Cultural transmission- to transmit through learning when:
CRITICISMS
1. The communication has meaning when its referent
 Some scholars compare these chimps and gorillas is not present
to circus animals and say that they don’t really have 2. The meaning is arbitrary wherein the receiver of
linguistic ability, but only one of these critics the message could not guess its meaning just from
actually worked with an ape.
 the sound(s) and does not know the meaning Chomsky calls this set of rules UNIVERSAL
instinctively. GRAMMAR.
 The fact that we can learn foreign languages and
HOW HUMAN VOCALIZATION IS DIFFERENT FROM
that words and ideas can be transmitted from one
OTHER SPECIES?
language to another tends to support Chomsky’s
1. All human languages employ a large set of symbols. position that all humans have similar linguistic
2. Human languages are open systems governed by abilities and thought processes.
complex rules about how sounds and sequences of
FROM PIDGIN TO VREOLE LANGUAGES
sounds can be combined to produce an infinite
variety of new meanings.  Some languages developed in various areas where
Example is the word “care”- careless, careful, European colonial powers established commercial
carelessness, care bears, careless whisper, etc. enterprises that relied on imported labor, generally
3. Humans can transmit many more complex slaves.
messages than any other animals.  The laborers/slaves in one place often came from
4. Humans can talk (and think) with language about several different societies and in the beginning
things completely out of context. would speak with their masters and with each other
5. Humans can be deliberately ambiguous in their in some kind of Pidgin (simplified) version of the
messages. master’s language.
6. Humans have many kinds of discourse.  Pidgin language lacks many of the building blocks
found in the languages of whole societies building
THE ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE
blocks such as:
 Even though the apes have a latent ability to 1. Prepositions (to,on,and so forth) and
combine and remember linguistic symbols, human 2. Auxiliary verbs (designating future and other
evolution is still needed to make this ability grow tenses)
into language.  Many pidgin languages developed into and were
replaced by so called Creole languages, which
FOXP2
incorporate much of vocabulary of the masters;
 Those numbers who had inherited the non-speech language but also have a grammar that differs from
form of this mutated gene cannot speak properly, it and from the grammars of the laborers’ native
just like apes. The same variant of this gene is also languages
found in chimpanzees.  All creoles use intonation instead of a change in
 By comparing the genomes of chimps and humans, word order to as a question. The creole version
it seems that the speech-friendly form of FOXP2 puts a rising inflection at the end.
appeared in humans around 150,000 years ago.  Example: You can fix this?
 The appearance of language gave a big advantage  All creoles express the future and the past in the
to Homo sapiens. same grammatical way, by the use of particles (e.g.
 The information stored in human societies are shall) between subject and the verb, and they all
much greater than those of any nonhuman group. employ double negatives.
 New experiences cam be shared, and humans can  Example: Guyana English Creole
prepare for it the next time they have a similar  Nobody no like me.
experience
DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS
 Homo sapiens perhaps 100,000 years ago may had
the beginnings of language but others believe that  Tries to discover the rules of phonology,
language developed more recently/ morphology, lexicon, and syntax.
 Noam Chomsky suggests that there may be a  The scientific study of a spoken language.
language-acquisition device in the brain, as innate
GRAMAR
to humans as call systems are to other animals.
 As the forebrain evolved, this device may have  For linguistics, grammar consists of the actual often
become part of our biological maintenance. unconscious principles that predict how people
 Chomsky argued that the human brain contains a talk.
limited set of rules for organizing language, so that
all language has a common structural basis.
PHONOLOGY speak unrelated languages have contact through
trade, intermarriages, and warfare.
 The study of speech sounds and considers which
 Ideas and inventions diffuse widely among human
sound are present and significant in a given
groups.
language.
 Linguistic evidence may confirm cultural contact
 Although the human vocal tract theoretically can
and borrowing when written history is lacking. By
make a very large number of different sound
considering which words have been borrowed, we
(phones- to linguists) each language uses only some
also can make inferences about the nature of the
of them.
contact.
 Finding it difficult to make certain sounds is only
 Example: Contemporary English
one of the reasons we have trouble learning a
 Even without written documentation of France’s
“foreign” language.
influence after the Norman Conquest of England in
 Another problem is that we may not be used to
1066, linguistic evidence in Contemporary English
combining certain sounds or making a certain
would reveal a long period of important firsthand
sound in particular position in a word.
contact with France.
MORPHOLOGY  Harrison’s recent book, When Languages Die
(2007), notes that an indigenous language goes
 Studies the forms in which sounds combine to form extinct every two weeks, as its last speaker die.
MORPHS  Of approximately 7,000 remaining languages, about
20% are endangered.
 Smallest unit of language that has a meaning  National Geographic’s Enduring Voices Project
MORPHEME strives to preserve endangered languages by
identifying the geographic areas with unique,
 One or more morphs with the same meaning. poorly understood, or threatened languages and by
documenting those languages and cultures.

 Prefixes in- such as incomplete and un- such as PROTOLANGUAGE

unclear are from the same morpheme not.  Original language from which daughter language
LEXICON diverge
 Example: Latin is the protolanguage of Spanish and
 It is a dictionary containing all its morphemes and English
their meanings.
THE PROCESS OF LANGUAGE DIVERGENCE
SYNTAX
1. Geographic barrier such as bodies of water, deserts
 Refers to the arrangement and order of words in and mountains
phrases and sentences. 2. Social distance
Example: Untouchables of India
HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS
3. Contact with other groups
 Focuses on how languages change over time. 4. Conquest and colonization
 Deals with long-term change; historical linguists can
THE SAPIR WHORF HYPOTHESIS
reconstruct many features of past languages by
studying contemporary daughter languages.  Language is a force in its own rights that it affects
 Language changes over time. how people in a society perceive and conceive
 It evolves-varies, spreads, divides into subgroups reality
(languages within a taxonomy of related languages  Argued that the grammatical categories of different
that are most closely related) languages lead their speakers to think about things
 Knowledge of linguistic relationships is often in particular ways
valuable to anthropologists interested in history,
SOCIOLINGUISTICS
particularly events during the past 5,000 years.
 But cultural similarities aren’t limited to speakers of  Investigates relationships between social and
related languages. Even groups whose members linguistic variation or language in its social context
 Is concerned with the ethnography of speaking-that  The suffix -sama (added to a name) is used to
is, with cultural and subcultural patterns of speech address someone of higher social status such as a
variation in different social contexts. teacher. Women can use it to demonstrate love or
respect for their husbands.
LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY
 The most common Japanese honorific, -san,
 Whether bilingual or not, we all vary our speech in attached to the last name, is respectful, but less
different contexts; we engage in style shifts formal than “Mr.”, “Mrs.”, or “Ms.”
 In certain parts of Europe, people regularly switch  Attached to a first name, -san denotes more
dialects. This phenomenon knowns as diglossia, familiarity. The honorific -dono shows more respect
applies to “high” and “low” variants of the same and is intermediate between -san and -sama.
language.  In Java, Indonesia, vocabularies of the groups in the
 For example, in Belgium, is people speaking society-peasants, townspeople and aristocrats-
German and Flemish. have some differences.
 People employ the “high” variant (German) at  Example: “now”
universities ad in writing, professions and mass  Peasant: saiki
media. The use of “low” variant (Flemish) for  Townspeople- saniki
ordinary conversations with family members and  Aristocrat- samenika
friends.
MULTILINGUALISM AND CODESWITCHING
 According to the Principle of Linguistic Relativity, all
dialects are equally effective as systems of MAKING A LIVING: SUBSISTENCE AND EXCHANGE
communication, which is language’s main job.
SUBSISTENCE, ECONOMY, AND DISTRIBUTION: HOW
 Our tendency to think of a particular dialect as
HUMANS DO IT
cruder or more sophisticated than others is a social
rather than a linguistic judgement.  Food is necessary for survival; the means of
GENDER SPEECH CONTRASTS subsistence of a given group has been called their
adaptive strategy.
 In public contexts. Japanese women tend to adopt  Cohen describes five adaptive strategies: foraging,
an artificially high voice, for the sake of politeness, horticulture, agriculture, pastoralism, and
according to their traditional culture, industrialism.
 In North America and Great Britain (even in the
ECONOMIC PRODUCTION AS AN ADAPTIVE STRATEGY
Philippines) women’s speech tend to be more
similar to the standard dialect than men’s is. FORAGING
 Men may adopt working-class speech because hey
associate it with masculinity.  Also known as hunting and gathering
 The use of certain types of words and expressions  Foraging was the only means of subsistence for the
has been associated with women’s traditional first 5 million years of human history.
lesser power in society.  Hunters and gatherers continued to exist after the
 Women tend to use words like “oh dear”, “o multiple inventions of agriculture in those areas ill-
fudge”, and “Goodness!” rather than “damn,” suited to growing crops.
“hell,” or “shit”  Foraging relies on the collection of nutritionally
significant plant resources and the capture of
LANGUAGE AND STATUS POSITIONS important animal protein sources for food.
HONORIFICS  THE IMPORTANCE OF GATHERING
 For much of the 20th century, anthropologists
 Are terms used with people, often by being added assumed hunting was more important than
to their names to “honor” them. gathering.
 Such terms may convey or imply a status difference  Subsequent ethnographic work showed plant
between the speaker and the person being referred resources usually make up 80% of the diet.
to such as Dr. House and Professor Dumbledore  Foragers live off the land, usually in small groups
 The Japanese language has several honorifics, some called “bands”
of which convey more respect than others do.
 Because forages are highly mobile and frequently  Hanunuo Mangyan of Mindoro
live in marginal environments, they tend to live in
AGRICULTURE
groups of 100 or less.
 This mobile lifestyle leads to temporary housing  Differs from horticulture in that it is more labor
structures. intensive, uses more sophisticated tools (such as
 Most members of bands are related. plows), engages the use of draft animals, may use
 The bands practice exogamy (marriage outside of terracing, and employs irrigation.
their family/band)  More labor is used, and greater quantities of crops
 Membership of band may change during the course are produced.
of a year.
DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND FARMING
 They practice seasonal transhumance (the seasonal
movement of people with their live stocks)  Domesticated animals, especially cattle and horses,
 Egalitarian have played an important role in raising crops,
 Sexual division of labor providing both labor (plowing) and fertilizer.
EXAMPLE OF FORAGERS IRRIGATION AND TERRACING

 California Indians  Irrigation provides nutrients and a continual source

 Inuit (aka Eskimos) of water to crops, allowing for continual use of
 Australian aborigines fields (rather than shifting)
 !Kung san of South Africa  Terracing allows for cultivation of crops in
mountainous areas.
CULTIVATION
COSTS AND BENEFITS OF AGRICULTURE
 Cultivation is food production rather food
gathering.  Human labor input greater for agriculture, since
 According to Cohen’s scheme, the three forms of time and energy are required to build and maintain
food production are horticulture, agriculture, and canals and terraces, as well as to feed and care for
pastoralism animals.
 Horticulture and agriculture focus on plant  Yields are much greater with agriculture over
resource production; pastoralism focuses on horticulture; provides long-term, dependable crops
herding and “harvesting” their animals. that translates to lower labor costs per unit.
 THE CULTIVATION CONTINUUM
HORTICULTURE
 Horticulture = low labor, shifting-plot
 Horticulture is the small-scale planting and  Agriculture = labor-intensive; permanent plot
harvesting of food plants using simple tools and  Some world economies are intermediate between
small garden plots. horticulture and agriculture, suing sectorial
 Horticulturalists frequently use swidden or slash- fallowing, which is a form of horticulture that is
and-burn technique for fertilization of the soil. employs by larger populations.
 Shifting cultivation is common.
INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE
ADVANTAGES OF HORTICULTURE  Intensive agriculture allows for large population
 However, large populations combined with
 Can sustain large groups (example: kuikuru of South intensive agricultural practices result in extreme
America) environmental degradation.
 Allows for flexible sedentism (staying in one place)  Intensive agriculture often leads to specialization in
certain crops (rice, maize, potatoes), thereby
DISADVANTAGES OF HORTICULTURE sacrificing dietary diversity
INTENSIVE AGRICULTURE GONE WRONG
 Limited carrying capacity.
 The ancient Maya civilization collapsed about 800
 Leads to rapid soil exhaustion A.D., following a combination of agricultural
HORTICULTURAL GROUPS intensification and population growth that led to
deforestation and soil erosion.
 Yanomami
 The tribes of Papua New Guinea
PASTORALISM  Example: Kwakiutl Group of Canada
 Pastoralists are herders who focus on animals such RECIPROCITY
as goats, sheep, cattle, camels, and yaks.  Reciprocity is an exchange between social equals;
 Traditional pastoralists are found in parts of North common in egalitarian societies.
and Eastern Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and THREE TYPES OF RECIPROCITY
Europe. GENERALIZED
PASTORALISM AS A LIVING  Someone gives with no explicit expectation that it
 Pastoralists use their herds for food (milk, blood, will be returned.
meat). BALANCED
 Pastoralists frequently trade with farmers for grains  Giving with expecting something in return
and vegetables, or may engage in limited NEGATIVE
horticulture or foraging.  Giving with the expectation of immediate return
 Pastoralists practice pastoral nomadism (the whole but one of the parties is of disadvantaged. Barter of
group moves) or transhumance (only certain goods is an example.
members of the group follow the herd animals).
EXAMPLE OF PASTORALISTS FAMILY AND MARRIAGE
 Reindeer herders of Mongolia FAMILY
MODES OF PRODUCTION  Is the basic institution and the primary group
 Economy = a system of production, distribution and in society.
consumption of resources MARRIAGE
 A mode of production is a way of organizing  Means a socially approved and sexual and
production: economic union usually between a woman and
 “A set of social relations through which labor is a man.
deployed to wrest energy from nature by means of  It is presumed, by both the couple and others,
tools, skills, organization, and knowledge.” to be more or less permanent, and it
(Wolf,1982) subsumes reciprocal rights and obligations
CAPITALISM VS. NON-INDUSTRIAL MODES OF between the two spouses and between
PRODUCTION spouses and their future children.
 In non-industrial societies, labor is given as a social
obligation, and is frequently kin-based.
 In capitalist industrial societies, money buys labor FUNCTIONS OF THE FAMILY
power, and there exists a social gap between the 1. Family regulates sexual behavior and is the
purchasers of labor and their laborers (bosses and unit of reproduction.
workers). 2. The family performs the functions of biological
INDUSTRIALISM maintenance.
 Large scale, industrial production, involving  The family gives its member status
factories and mechanization.  The family is an important mechanism for
 Industrial production can be either capitalist or social control.
socialist WHY MARRIAGE IS UNIVERSAL?
 Industrialism relies on corporate agriculture.  Gender Division of Labor
MEANS OF PRODUCTION  Prolonged Infant Dependency
 The means, or factors of production, involve  Sexual Competition
territory, labor, and technology. MARKING THE ONSET OF MARRIAGE
 In non-industrial societies, there is a closer  The event that marks the commencement of
relationship between laborers and the means of marriage varies in different societies
production.  Among the Turamiut Inuit, the betrothal is
 In industrial societies, there is frequent alienation considered extremely important and is arranged
of the workers from the means of production. between the parents at or before the time their
children reach puberty.
DISTRIBUTION AND EXCHANGE  Later when the youth is ready, he moves in with
 The Market Principle: operates in a capitalist betrothed’s family for a trial period. If all goes well-
economy by governing the distribution of land, that is the girl gives birth to a baby within a year or
labor, natural resources, technology, and capital. so- the wife goes with her husband at his camp.
Items are bought and sold, and rely on the law of  In keeping with the general openness of their
supply and demand. society's attitude toward sexual matters, a
 Redistribution: goods and services move towards Trobriand couple advertise their desire to marry
the center, then redistributed. “by sleeping together regularly, by showing
 themselves together in public, and by remaining NANDI OF KENYA
with each other for long periods of time.”  Bride price consists of about five to seven cattle
 When a girl accepts a small gift from a boy, she one or two sheep and goats, cowrie shells, and
demonstrates that her parents favor the match. money equivalent to the value of one cow
Before long, she moves to the boy’s house, takes
her meals there, and accompanies her husband all
day. Then the word goes around that the two are SUBANUN OF THE PHILIPPINES
married.  Several times the annual income of the groom plus
 Among those societies that have ceremonies three to five years of bride service
marking the onset of marriage, feasting is a BRIDE SERVICE
common element. It expresses publicly the  Requires the groom to work for the bride’s family,
unification of the two families by marriage. sometimes before marriage begins, sometimes
 The reindeer Tungus of Siberia set a wedding date after. Bride service varies in duration. In some
after protracted negotiations between two families societies it lasts for only a few months; in others, as
and their larger kin groups. Go-betweens assume long as several years.
most of the responsibility for the negotiating.
 The wedding day opens with the two kin NORTH ALASKAN ESKIMOS
groups pitching their lodges in separate areas  Catch a seal
and offering a great feast. After the group’s EXCHANGE OF FEMALES
gift have been presented, the bride’s dowry is  Custom whereby a sister or female relative of the
loaded onto reindeer and carries to the groom is exchanged for the bride.
groom’s lodge.  Societies with this custom tend to be horticultural,
 Then, the new couple will greet all the guests egalitarian, and women have high contribution to
in the lodge of the husband. Finally, the go- primary subsistence
betweens spit three times on the bride’s
hands, and the couple are formally husbands GIFT EXCHANGE
and wife. More feasting and revelry bring the  Involves the exchange gift of about equal by the
day to a close. two kin groups about to be linked by marriage.
 In marry cultures, marriage includes  Example: Andaman Islanders
ceremonial expressions of hostility. DOWRY
 One form of this custom is the trading of  It is usually a substantial transfer of goods or
insults between kin groups such as the one money from the bride’s family to the bride (but
occurring on Polynesian atoll of Pukapuka. given to the groom). A family has to have a wealth
 On occasion, hostility can have genuinely to give a dowry.
aggressive overtones, as among Gusii of  Payment of dowries was common in medieval and
Kenya. renaissance Europe, where the size of the dowry
 When the permission is granted, the bride often determined the desirability of the daughter
must hold on the house post because she will  One theory suggests that the dowry is intended to
be dragged outside by the clansmen of the guarantee future support for a woman and her
groom. Finally, she goes with them, crying and children, even though she will not do much primary
with her hands on her head. subsistence work.
 But the battle is not over yet. Mutual  Another theory is intended to attract the best
antagonism continues right into the marriage bridegroom for a daughter in monogamous
bed, even up to the beyond coitus. The groom societies with a high degree of social inequality.
is determined to display his virility; the bride is  Examples: Eastern Europe, Southern Italy, France,
equally determined to rest it. Parts of India, Iraq
 Brides are said to take pride in the length of INDIRECT DOWRY
time they can hold off their mates. Men can  The dowry is provided by the groom’s family to the
also win acclaim. Of the bride is unable to walk bride but it is sometimes first given to the bride’s
the following day, the groom is considered a father.
“real man”. BASERI OF SOUTHERN IRAN
ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF MARRIAGE  The groom’s father assumes the expense of setting
BRIDE PRICE up couple’s new household.
 Is a gift money or goods from the groom or his  He gives cash to the bride’s father who uses at least
kin to the bride’s kin; the gift usually grants the some of the money to buy his daughter household
groom the right to marry the bride and the utensils, blankets, and rugs.
right to her children.
INCEST TABOO family are likely to die early of genetic disorders
 Prohibition of sexual intercourse or marriage than are the offspring of unrelated spouses.
between some categories of kin. FORMS OF MARRIAGE
 The most universal aspect of the incest taboo is the MONOGAMY
prohibition of sexual intercourse or marriage  Permits a man to take only one spouse at a time
between mother and son, father and daughter, and POLYGAMY
brother and sister.  Is plural marriage and may assume in three forms:
 A few societies in the past, however, permits incest, POLYGYNY
mostly within the royal and aristocratic families,  Is the marriage of one man to two or more women
though generally it was forbidden to the rest of the at the same time
population.  Arapesh of New Guinea- everything is so even
 For example, are the Incas of Peru, Hawaiian royal because they practiced sororal polygyny
families, and the Ancient Egyptians  Plateau Tonga in Africa- they practice non sororal
THEORIES OF INCEST TABOO polygyny the husband shares his personal goods
CHILDHOOD-FAMILIARITY THEORY and his favors among his wives who live in separate
 Edward Westermarck dwellings.
 He argued that persons who have been closely  Crow Indians- practiced sororal polygyny and co-
associated with each other since earliest childhood wives usually shared a tepee.
such as sibling, are not sexually attracted to each  Tanala of Madagascar-requires the husband to
other and therefore would avoid marriage with spend a day with each co-wife in succession.
each other.  Tonga of Polynesia-grant the first wife the status of
FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY chief wife while the other wives are called small
 Sigmund Freud suggested that the incest taboo is a wives.
reaction against unconscious, unacceptable desires. EXPLANATIONS FOR POLYGYNY
 He suggested that the son is attracted to his  It is permitted in societies that have a long
mother (Oedipal Complex) (as a daughter is to her postpartum sex taboo. In these societies, a
father (Electra Complex)) and as a result, feels couple must abstain from intercourse until
jealousy and hostility toward his father. But the son their child is at least a year old.
knows that these feeling cannot continue, for they  It is a response to an excess of women over
might lead the father to retaliate against him; men.
therefore, they must renounce or repressed.  Society will allow polygyny when men marry at
FAMILY DISRUPTION THEORY an older age than women
 Bronisław Malinowski POLYANDRY
 Sexual competition among family members would  Is the marriage of a woman to two or more
create so much rivalry and tension that the family men at the same time.
could not function as an effective unit.  Tibetans-fraternal
COOPERATION THEORY  Toda of India - fraternal
 Edward B. Taylor and was elaborated by Leslie A. EXPLANATIONS FOR POLYANDRY
White and Claude Levi-Strauss  Shortage of women. The Toda practiced female
 It emphasizes the value of incest taboo in infanticide and the Sinhalese had a shortage of
promoting cooperation among family groups and women but denied the practice of female
thus helping communities to survive. (Joffrey infanticide.
Baratheon and Sansa Stark)  It is an adaptive response to severely limited
 Early humans developed the incest taboo to ensure resources. In Tibetans who lived in Nepal they
that individuals would marry members of other practiced fraternal polyandry in order to prevent
families. The tie created by intermarriage would the division of a family’s farm and animals.
serve to hold the community together. GROUP MARRIAGE
 Tylor, explained the incest taboo as an answer to  More than one man is married to more than one
the choice “between marrying out and being killed woman at the same time, sometimes occurs but it
out.” is not customary in any known society
THE NAYAR EXCEPTION
INBREEDING THEORY  In the 19th century, a caste group in Southern India
 Focuses in the potentially damaging consequences called the Nayar seems to have treated sex and
of inbreeding, or marrying within the family. People economic relations between men and women as
within the same family are likely to carry the same things separate from marriage. About the time of
harmful recessive genes. People within the same puberty, Nayar girls took ritual husbands.
 The union was publicly established in a ceremony  Is a custom whereby a man is obliged to marry his
during which the husband tied a gold ornament brother’s widow.
around the neck of his bride. But from that time on,  Chukchee of Siberia- next oldest brother to be
he had no more responsibility for her. Usually, he successor or the nearest relative is obliged to care
never saw her again. for a woman left with children and a herd
 The bride lived in a large household with her family, SORORATE
where she was visited over the subsequent years by  Obliges a woman to marry her deceased sister’s
other “husbands.” One might be a passing guest, husband
another more regular visitors.  Bhutan
 He came at night and left the following day. If a
regular visitor, he was expected to make a small gift TYPES OF FAMILY
of cloth, betel nuts, and hair and bath oil. If the BASED ON INTERNAL ORGANIZATION
father of her child, or one of a group who might be, NUCLEAR FAMILY
he was expected to pay the cost of the midwife.  Is composed of a husband and his wife and their
 The Nayar situation seems to have been a special children in a union recognized by the other
response to the problem of extended make members of the society.
absence during military service. In a more recent EXTENDED FAMILY
times, military service ceased to be a common  Is composed of 2 or more nuclear families
occupation of the Nayars, and stable married economically and socially related to each other
relationships have become the norm.  Filipinos and Slovakian
SELECTION OF MARRIAGE PARTNERS: WHOM SHOULD MATRIFOCAL FAMILY
ONE MARRY?  The only parent left was the mother
ARRANGED MARRIAGES PATRIFOCAL FAMILY
 In an appreciable number of societies, marriages  The only parent left was the father
are arranged; negotiations are handled by the BASED ON DESCENT
immediate families or by go-betweens. Sometimes PATRILINEAL DESCENT
betrothals are completed while the future partners  Affiliates a person with a group of relatives through
are still children. his or her father
 This was formerly the custom in much of Hindu  Kapauku Papuans of New Guinea
India, China, Japan, and Eastern and Southern MATRILINEAL DESCENT
Europe  Affiliates a person with a group of relatives through
COUSIN MARRIAGES his or her mother
 Some societies allow and even prefer particular  Navajo Indians, Truk of Pacific
kinds of cousin marriages. Cross cousins are AMBILINEAL DESCENT
children of siblings of the opposite sex; that is, a  affiliates a person with a group of relatives related
person’s cross cousins are father’s sister’s children through both his or her parents
and mother’s brother’s children. Parallel cousin are  Filipinos, Samoans of South Pacific
children of siblings of the same sex; a person’s BASED IN RESIDENCE
parallel cousins, then, are father’s brother’s PATRILOCAL
children and mother’s sister’s children.  The son stays and the daughter leaves, so that the
 Chippewa Indians- used to practice cross-cousin married couple lives with or near the husband’s
marriage as well as cross-cousin joking. parents
 Kurds who are mostly Sunni Muslims prefer parallel MATRILOCAL
cousin marriage.  The daughter stays and the son leaves, so that the
ENDOGAMY married couple lives with or near the wife’s
 Dictates that one should marry within one’s clan or parents.
ethnic group BILOCAL
 Caste group of India, Royal invest such as the Incas  Either the son or the daughter leaves with or near
of Peru, ancient Egypt and traditional Hawaii either wife’s or husband’s parents
 Examples: Masai Warriors of East Africa, Tutsi of NEOLOCAL
Rwanda  Both son and daughter leave; married couples live
EXOGAMY apart from the relatives of both spouses
 Prescribes that one should marry outside one's clan BASED ON AUTHORITY
or ethnic group PATRIARCHAL FAMILY
 Filipinos  Is one in which the authority is vested in the oldest
LEVIRATE male in the family, often the father
MATRIARCHAL FAMILY
 Is one in which the authority is vested in the
mother or mother’s kin.
EGALITARIAN FAMILY
 Is one in which the husband and the wife exercise a
more or less equal amount of authority.
RARE TYPES
CHEYENNE INDIANS
 Allowed married men to take berdaches or male
transvestites as second wives.
AZANDE WARRIORS
 They are the ones who could not afford wives often
marries “boy-wives” to satisfy their sexual needs.
 As in normal marriages, gifts were given by the
“husbands” to the parents of his boy-wife. The
husband performed services for the boy’s parent
and could sue any other love of the boy in court for
adultery.
 The boy-wives not only have sexual relations with
their husbands but also performed many of the
chores female wives traditionally performed for the
husbands.
NANDI OF KENYA
 About 3 percent of the marriages appear to be a
Nandi solution to the problem of a regular
marriage’s failure to produce a male heir to
property
 The Nandi solution is to have the woman, even if
her husband is still alive, become a “husband” to a
younger female and “father” the younger woman’s
children.
 The female husbands arrange a male consort so
that the new wife can have children. Those
children, however, consider the female husband to
be their father because she is the socially designed
father.