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Anthropology: What Does It Mean to Be Human? takes a question-oriented approach that helps students understand current anthropological issues, consider them critically, and apply them to their own lives. A unique alternative to more traditional, encyclopedic introductory texts, Anthropology: What Does It Mean to Be Human? takes a question-oriented approach that illuminates major concepts for students. Structuring each chapter around an important question, the authors explore what it means to be human, incorporating answers from all four major subfields of anthropology-cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology-and offering a more balanced perspective than other texts. They address central issues of the discipline, highlighting the controversies and commitments that are shaping contemporary anthropology.
Ancillaries:
– Companion Website featuring:
- Student Resources, including a study skills guide, flashcards, self-quizzes, chapter outlines, and helpful links; and
- Instructor Resources, including PowerPoint presentations for lectures, filmographies, activities, strategies for class discussions, and guest editorials; and (3) a chapter on human evolution
– Computerized Test Bank and Instructor's Manual on CD
– Cartridges for Course Management Systems
Concise table of contents:
List of Boxes
Preface
Chapter 1: What Is Anthropology?
Module 1: Anthropology, Science, and Storytelling
Chapter 2: Why Is Evolution Important to Anthropologists?
Chapter 3: What Can Evolutionary Theory Tell Us about Human Variation?
Module 2: Dating Methods in Paleoanthropology and Archaeology
Chapter 4: What Can the Study of Primates Tell Us about Human Beings?
Chapter 5: What Can the Fossil Record Tell Us about Human Origins?
Chapter 6: How Do We Know about the Human Past?
Chapter 7: Why Did Humans Settle Down, Build Cities, and Establish States?
Chapter 8: Why Is the Concept of Culture Important?
Module 3: On Ethnographic Methods
Chapter 9: Why Is Understanding Human Language Important?
Module 4: Components of Language
Chapter 10: How Do We Make Meaning?
Chapter 11: Why Do Anthropologists Study Economic Relations?
Chapter 12: How Do Anthropologists Study Political Relations?
Chapter 13: Where Do Our Relatives Come From, and Why Do They Matter?
Chapter 14: What Can Anthropology Tell Us about Social Inequality?
Chapter 15: What Can Anthropology Tell Us about Globalization?
Bibliography
Credits
Glossary and Index
Detailed table of contents:
List of Boxes
Preface
Chapter 1 What Is Anthropology?
What is Anthropology?
What is the Concept of Culture?
What Makes Anthropology a Cross-Disciplinary Discipline?
Biological Anthropology
In Their Own Words: Anthropology as a Vocation Listening to Voices
Cultural Anthropology
Linguistic Anthropology
Archaeology
Applied Anthropology
Medical Anthropology
The Uses of Anthropology
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Module 1: Anthropology, Science, and Storytelling
Scientific and Nonscientific Explanations
Some Key Scientific Concepts
Module Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Chapter 2: Why Is Evolution Important to Anthropologists?
What is Evolutionary Theory?
What Material Evidence is There for Evolution?
Pre-Darwinian Views of The Natural World
Essentialism
The Great Chain of Being
Catastrophism and Uniformitarianism
Transformational Evolution
What is Natural Selection?
Population Thinking
Natural Selection in Action
Unlocking the Secrets of Heredity
Mendel's Experiments
The Emergence of Genetics
What Are the Basics of Contemporary Genetics?
Genes and Traits
Mutation
DNA and the Genome
Anthropology in Everyday Life: Forensic Anthropology and Human Rights
Genotype, Phenotype, and the Norm of Reaction
In Their Own Words: How Living Organisms Construct Their Environments
What does Evolution Mean?
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Chapter 3: What Can Evolutionary Theory Tell Us about Human Variation?
What is Microevolution?
The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis and Its Legacy
The Molecularization of Race?
The Four Evolutionary Processes
Microevolution and Patterns of Human Variation
Adaptation and Human Variation
Phenotype, Environment and Culture
In Their Own Words: DNA Tests Find Branches but Few Roots
What is Macroevolution?
Can We Predict the Future of Human Evolution?
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Module 2: Dating Methods in Paleoanthropology and Archaeology
Relative Dating Methods
Numerical Dating Methods
Modeling Prehistoric Climates
Module Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Chapter 4: What Can the Study of Primates Tell Us about Human Beings?
What Are Primates?
Approaches to Primate Taxonomy
The Living Primates
Strepsirhines
Haplorhines
In Their Own Words: The Future of Primate Diversity
Flexibility as the Hallmark of Primate Adaptations
In Their Own Words: Chimpanzee Tourism
Past Evolutionary Trends in Primates
Primate Evolution: The First 60 Million Years
Primates of the Paleocene
Primates of the Eocene
Primates of the Oligocene
Primates of the Miocene
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Chapter 5: What Can the Fossil Record Tell Us about Human Origins?
Hominin Evolution
Who Were the First Hominins? (6-3 mya)
The Origin of Bipedalism
Changes in Hominin Dentition
In Their Own Words: Finding Fossils
Who Were the Later Australopith? (3-1.5 mya)
How Many Species of Australopith Were There?
How Can Anthropologists Explain the Human Transition?
What Do We Know About Early Homo? (2.4-1.5 mya)
Expansion of the Australopith Brain
How Many Species of Early Homo Were There?
Earliest Evidence of Culture: Stone Tools of the Oldowan Tradition
Who Was Homo Erectus? (1.8-1.7 mya to 0.5-0.4 mya)
Morphological Traits of H. erectus
The Culture of H. erectus
H. erectus the Hunter
The Evolutionary Fate of H. erectus
How Did Homo sapiens Evolve?
Fossil Evidence for the Transition to Modern H. sapiens
Where Did Modern H. sapiens Come From?
Who Were The Neandertals? (130,000 to 35,000 years ago)
Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age Culture
Did Neandertals Hunt?
In Their Own Words: Bad Hair Days in the Paleolithic Modern (Re)Constructions of the Cave Man
What Do We Know About Anatomically Modern Humans? (200,000 years ago to present)
What Can Genetics Tell Us About Modern Human Origins?
The Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age (40,000? to 12,000 years ago)
What Happened To The Neandertals?
Upper Paleolithic/Late Stone Age Cultures
In Their Own Words: Women's Art in the Upper Paleolithic
Spread of Modern H. sapiens in Late Pleistocene Times
Eastern Asia and Siberia
The Americas
Australasia
Two Million Years of Human Evolution
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Chapter 6: How Do We Know About the Human Past?
Archaeology
Surveys
Archaeological Excavation
Interpreting the Past
Subsistence Strategies
Bands, Tribes, Chiefdoms, and States
Whose Past Is It?
Plundering the Past
Contemporary Trends in Archaeology
Gender Archaeology
Collaborative Approaches to Studying the Past
Cosmopolitan Archaeologies
Anthropology in Everyday Life: Archaeology as a Tool of Civic Engagement
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Chapter 7: Why Did Humans Settle Down, Build Cities, and Establish States?
Human Imagination and the Material World
Is Plant Cultivation a Form of Niche Construction?
Animal Domestication
Was There Only One Motor of Domestication?
How Did Domestication, Cultivation, and Sedentism Begin in Southwest Asia?
Natufian Social Organization
Natufian Subsistence
Domestication Elsewhere in the World
What Were the Consequences of Domestication and Sedentism?
In Their Own Words: The Food Revolution
What is Social Complexity?
How Can Anthropologists Explain the Rise of Complex Societies?
What is the Archaeological Evidence For Social Complexity?
Why Did Stratification Begin?
How Can Anthropologists Explain the Rise of Complex Societies?
Andean Civilization
In Their Own Words: The Ecological Consequences of Social Complexity
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Chapter 8: Why Is The Concept of Culture Important?
How Do Anthropologists Define Culture?
In Their Own Words: The Paradox of Ethnocentrism
In Their Own Words: Culture and Freedom
Culture, History and Human Agency
In Their Own Words: Human-Rights Law and the Demonization of Culture
Why Do Cultural Differences Matter?
What is Ethnocentrism?
Is it Possible to Avoid Ethnocentric Bias?
What is Cultural Relativism?
How Can Cultural Relativity Improve Our Understanding of Controversial Cultural Practices?
Genital Cutting, Gender, and Human Rights
Genital Cutting as a Valued Ritual
Culture and Moral Reasoning
Did Their Culture Make Them Do It?
Does Culture Explain Everything?
Culture Change and Cultural Authenticity
The Promise of the Anthropological Perspective
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Module 3: On Ethnographic Methods
A Meeting of Cultural Traditions
Single-Sited Fieldwork
Multisited Fieldwork
Collecting and Interpreting Data
The Dialectic of Fieldwork: Interpretation and Translation
Interpreting Actions and Ideas
The Dialectic of Fieldwork: An Example
The Effects of Fieldwork
The Production of Anthropological Knowledge
Anthropological Knowledge as Open-Ended
Module Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Chapter 9: Why is Understanding Human Language Important?
How are Language and Culture Related?
How Do People Talk about Experience?
In Their Own Words: Cultural Translation
What Makes Human Language Distinctive?
What Does it Mean to <"Learn>" A Language?
How Does Context Affect Language?
How Does Language Affect How We See The World?
Pragmatics: How Do We Study Language in Contexts of Use?
Ethnopragmatics
What Happens When Languages Come into Contact?
What is Linguistic Inequality?
What Are Language Habits of African Americans?
In Their Own Words: Varieties of African American English
Language Ideology
Anthropology in Everyday Life: Language Revitalization
Language, Culture, and Thought
Perception
Illusion
Cognition
Language, Thought, and Symbolic Practice
Languages, Symbolic Practices, Worldviews
What Are Symbols?
In Their Own Words: The Madness of Hunger
Symbolic Practices, Worldviews, Selves
Anthropology in Everyday Life: Lead Poisoning among Mexican American Children
In Their Own Words: American Premenstrual Syndrome
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Module 4: Components of Language
Phonology: Sounds
Morphology: Word Structure
Syntax: Sentence Structure
Semantics: Meaning
Module Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Chapter 10: How Do We Make Meaning?
What is Play?
What do We Think about Play?
What Are Some Effects of Play?
What is Art?
Is There a Definition of Art?
<"But Is It Art?>"
<"She's Fake>": Art and Authenticity
In Their Own Words: Tango
What is Myth?
How Does Myth Reflect and Shape Society?
Do Myths Help Us Think?
What is Ritual?
How Can Ritual Be Defined?
Ritual As Action?
What Are Rites of Passage?
How Are Play and Ritual Complementary?
In Their Own Words: Video in the Villages
How Are Worldview and Symbolic Practice Related?
What is Religion?
How Do People Communicate in Religion?
How Are Religion and Social Organization Related?
Worldviews in Operation: Two Case Studies
Coping with Misfortune: Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande
Are There Patterns of Witchcraft Accusation?
Coping with Misfortune: Seeking Higher Consciousness among the Channelers
In Their Own Words: For All Those Who Were Indian in a Former Life
Maintaining and Changing a Worldview
How Do People Cope with Change?
In Their Own Words: Custom and Confrontation
How Are Worldviews Used As Instruments of Power?
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Chapter 11 : Why Do Anthropologists Study Economic Relations?
How Do Anthropologists Study Economic Relations?
What are the Connections between Culture and Livelihood?
How Do Anthropologists Study Production, Distribution, and Consumption?
How Are Goods Distributed and Exchanged?
What are Modes of Exchange?
Does Production Drive Economic Activities?
Labor
Modes of Production
What is the Role of Conflict in Material Life?
In Their Own Words: <"So Much Work, So Much Tragedy – and for What?>"
Anthropology in Everyday Life: Producing Sorghum and Millet in Honduras and the Sudan
In Their Own Words: Solidarity Forever
Why Do People Consume What they Do?
The Internal Explanation: Malinowski and Basic Human Needs
The External Explanation: Cultural Ecology
How is Consumption Culturally Patterned?
How is Consumption Being Studied Today?
In Their Own Words: Fake Masks and Faux Modernity
In Their Own Words: Questioning Collapse
The Anthropology of Food and Nutrition
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Chapter 12: How Do Anthropologists Study Political Relations?
How Are Culture and Politics Related?
How Do Anthropologists Study Politics?
Coercion
Anthropology in Everyday Life: Doing Business in Japan
In Their Own Words: Reforming the Crow Constitution
How Are Politics, Gender, and Kinship Related?
Hidden Transcripts and the Power of Reflection
How Are Immigration and Politics Related in the New Europe?
In Their Own Words: Protesters Gird for Long Fight over Opening Peru's Amazon
Anthropology in Everyday Life: Human Terrain Teams and Anthropological Ethics
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Chapter 13: Where Do Our Relatives Come From and Why Do They Matter?
What is Kinship?
Sex, Gender, and Kinship
What is the Role of Descent in Kinship?
What Role do Lineages Play in Descent?
Lineage Membership
Patrilineages
What are Matrilineages?
In Their Own Words: Outside Work, Women, and Bridewealth
What are Kinship Terminologies?
What Criteria Are Used For Making Kinship Distinctions?
What is Adoption?
Adoption in Highland Ecuador
European American Kinship and New Reproductive Technologies
How Does Organ Transplantation Create New Relatives?
Marriage
Toward a Definition of Marriage
Woman Marriage and Ghost Marriage among the Nuer
Why is Marriage a Social Process?
Patterns of Residence after Marriage
Single and Plural Spouses
In Their Own Words: Two Cheers for Gay Marriage
How is Marriage an Economic Exchange?
In Their Own Words: Dowry Too High. Lose Bride and Go to Jail
What is a Family?
What is the Nuclear Family?
What is the Polygynous Family?
Extended and Joint Families
In Their Own Words: Law, Custom, and Crimes Against Women
How are Families Transformed Over Time?
Divorce and Remarriage
How Does International Migration Affect the Family?
Families by Choice
Friendship
Anthropology in Everyday Life: Caring for Infibulated Women Giving Birth in Norway
In Their Own Words: Why Migrant Women Feed Their Husbands Tamales
How Are Sexual Practices Organized?
Ranges of Heterosexual Practices
Other Sexual Practices
Sexuality and Power
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Chapter 14: What Can Anthropology Tell Us About Social Inequality?
Inequality and Structural Violence in Haiti
Gender
Class
Caste
Caste in India
In Their Own Words: As Economic Turmoil Mounts, So Do Attacks on Hungary's Gypsies
Race
Colorism in Nicaragua
In Their Own Words: On the Butt Size of Barbie and Shani Dolls and Race in the United States
In Their Own Words: The Politics of Ethnicity
Ethnicity
Nation and Nationalism
Australian Nationalism
Naturalizing Discourses
The Paradox of Essentialized Identities
Nation Building in the Postcolonial World: The Example of Fiji
Nationalism and its Dangers
Anthropology in Everyday Life: Anthropology and Democracy
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Chapter 15: What Can Anthropology Tell Us about Globalization?
What Happened to the Global Economy after the Cold War?
Cultural Processes in a Global World
In Their Own Words: Slumdog Tourism
In Their Own Words: Cofan: Story of the Forest People and the Outsiders
Globalization and the Nation-State
Are Global Flows Undermining Nation-States?
Migration, Transborder Identities, and Long-Distance Nationalism
How Can Citizenship be Flexible?
Are Human Rights Universal?
Human-Rights Discourse as the Global Language of Social Justice
Rights versus Culture?
Rights to Culture?
Are Rights Part of Culture?
How Can Culture Help in Thinking about Rights?
Cultural Imperialism or Cultural Hybridity?
What is Cultural Imperialism?
Cultural Hybridity
Can We Be At Home in a Global World?
What is Friction?
In Their Own Words: How Sushi Went Global
In Their Own Words: The Anthropological Voice
Why Study Anthropology?
Chapter Summary
For Review and Discussion
Key Terms
Suggested Readings
Bibliography
Credits
Glossary and Index
Robert H. Lavenda is Professor of Anthropology and Co-chair of the Department of Anthropology at St. Cloud State University. Emily A. Schultz is Professor of Anthropology at St. Cloud State University.
