Window on Humanity Chapter 1

Adaption: A trait that helps an organism survive and reproduce.

Anthropology: It is the study of all aspects of human kind, biological, cultural, and
linguistic, past and present, throughout the world, using a holistic approach.
Applied Anthropology: The use of anthropological knowledge and methods to solve
practical problems, often for a specific client.
Archaeological Anthropology: reconstructs, describes, and interprets human
behavior and cultural patterns through material remains.
Biocultural: Focusing on the interaction of biology and culture.
Biological Anthropology: Study human origins/evolution, and non-human primates.
Cultural Anthropology: Differences and similarities in contemporary and historically
recent cultures; causes and consequences of sociocultural change; impacts of
globalization and contacts on the world's peoples; other names: social anthro.
sociocultural and ethnology.
Cultural Resource Managements: A branch of archaeology tied to government
policies for the protection of cultural resources and involving surveying and/or
excavating archaeological and historical remains threatened by construction or
development.
Culture: Beliefs, customs, and traditions of a specific group of people.
Ethnography: A detailed study of the life and activities of a group of people by
researchers who may live with that group over a period of years.
Ethnology: branch of anthropology dealing with human races, their origin,
distribution, culture, etc.
Food Production: cultivation of plants and domestication of animals.
general Anthropology: anthropology as a whole: cultural, archaeological, biological,
and linguistic anthropology.
Holistic: Concerning the whole rather than the parts.
Linguistic Anthropology: The study of human communication, including its origins,
history, and contemporary variation and change.
Science: An organized way of gathering and analyzing evidence about the natural
world.
Society: A community of people who share a common culture.
Sociolinguistics: A school of thought that focuses on the relationship between
language and culture.
Window on Humanity Chapter 2
Acculturation: The exchange of cultural features that results when groups come
into continuous first hand contact; the original cultural patterns of either or both
groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct
Core Values: Key, basic, or central values that integrate a culture and help
distinguish it from others
Cultural Relativism: The position that the values and standards of cultures differ
and deserve respect
Cultural Rights: Doctrine that certain rights are vested not in individuals but in
identifiable groups, such as religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous
societies
Diffusion: Borrowing between cultures either directly or through intermediaries
Enculturation: The social process by which culture is learned and transmitted
across the generations

Estrus: Period of maximum sexual receptivity in female baboons, chimpanzees,

and other primates, signaled by vaginal area swelling and coloration
Ethnocentrism: The tendency to view one's own culture as best and to judge the
behavior and beliefs of culturally different people by one's own standards
Generality: Culture pattern or trait that exists in some but not all societies
Globalization: The accelerating interdependence of nations in a world system
linked economically ad through mass media and modern transportation systems
Hominids: A member of the taxonomic family that includes humans and the
African apes and their immediate ancestors
Hominins: A member of the human lineage after its split from ancestral chimps;
used to describe all the human species that ever have existed, including the
extinct ones, but excluding chimps and gorillas
Human Rights: Doctrine that invokes a realm of justice and morality beyond and
superior to particular countries, cultures, and religions. Include the right to
speak freely, to hold religious beliefs without persecution, and not to be
enslaved
Independent Invention: Development of the same culture trait or pattern in
separate cultures as a result of comparable needs and circumstances
Intellectual Property Rights
Each society's cultural base-its core beliefs and principles. It is claimed as a
group right-a cultural right, allowing indigenous groups to control who may know
and use their collective knowledge and its applications
International Culture: Cultural traditions that extend beyond national boundaries
National Culture: Cultural experiences, beliefs, learned behavior patterns, and
values shared by citizens of the same tradition
Particularity: Distinctive or unique culture trait, pattern, or integration
Subcultures: Different cultural symbol-based traditions associated with
subgroups in the same complex society
Symbol: Something, verbal or nonverbal, that arbitrarily and by convention
stands for something else, with which it has no necessary or natural connection
Universal: Something that exists in every culture

Window on Humanity Chapter 3