Using the modules below, answer the following essay questions.docx

Using the modules below, answer the following essay questions:
Short Answer
Respond to 1of the following short answer questions. Your
response should be at least 1-2 paragraphs long and written in
full sentences. (10 points possible)
Option 3: Describe the role of religion in supporting people and
culture. Please provide specific examples to illustrate and
support your answer.
Essay Question
Answer 1of the following essay questions. Your response will
be graded in terms of
accuracy, completeness, and relevancy of the ideas expressed.
For full points, your answer should be written in complete
sentences and be at least 5 paragraphs long with a recognizable
introduction, and conclusion. Support your statements with
specific examples from the course material, cite your sources
both within the text of your essay and at the end of your essay.
(15 points possible)
Choose one of the forms, and and discuss the "emic" and etic
views of why this form of marriage "makes sense" (i.e., is
adaptive) using specific examples from the course or course
readings.
Use these modules:
1. What Is Anthropology?
The Subject Matter of Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of what it is to be human in the past
and present, the things about people that are the same, and the

things about them that are different. Anthropologists try to
understand and describe the way in which humans think and
behave and why we think and behave as we do. They help us
recognize that much of what we think and do has been learned
from the cultural worlds we walk in and that others do not
necessarily experience or understand the world in the same way
we do.
To understand humanity, anthropologists must study all of
humanity, not just the most familiar or convenient human
populations. Anthropology is cross-cultural. It seeks to
understand how life is lived, experienced, and interpreted in
different settings and at different times. It also seeks to
understand how different people's unique histories and positions
in larger contexts, such as the global economy, shape their
lives. By studying people in their own contexts, anthropologists
guard against conclusions that may be true for some, but not all.
Anthropologists resist assumptions that any particular behavior,
idea, or way of being is "natural" unless they are sure that no
others do it, think about it, experience it, or interpret it
differently. They challenge ethnocentrism wherever and
whenever they find it.
Think about it:
Ideas about where infants should sleep can reflect notions of the
"ideal" person a society is trying to develop. Many Americans,
for example, highly value independence, individualism, and
personal space and think, therefore, that infants "must" learn to
sleep in their own cribs, often in their own rooms. People from
other traditions, however, may find this practice cruel. Where
do you think infants should sleep? Why? What does your
opinion say about your values and traditions?
The Development of Anthropology

Historically, many have written about the ways of life of
"others." For example, Herodotus wrote about different groups
of people in the ancient world, Marco Polo wrote about the
people he encountered in his travels, and the early European
explorers and missionaries wrote about people in the Americas.
Despite this long tradition of "amateur" anthropology,
anthropology as an organized academic discipline is only about
130 years old. In Europe and the United States in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, the increasing ability to travel to
faraway places and the realization that, although there was
enormous diversity among peoples, we are all members of the
same species allowed the discipline to flourish.
Though anthropology first developed in this Euro-American
context and Western anthropologists studied "exotic" peoples in
faraway places or traditional peoples whose ways of life were
changing rapidly with modernity, anthropologists now come
from all over the world. They bring their different perspectives
to their research and often turn an "anthropological gaze" on
either their own cultures or on the Western cultures in which the
discipline originally arose. As one might expect, through its
attention to diversity, anthropology has also attracted diverse
scholars. Women, for example, have been among anthropology's
pioneers perhaps more than in other disciplines. Think of
Margaret Mead, an anthropologist who is famous for her studies
of culture and personality, particularly adolescence and gender
roles, as just one instance.
Think about it:
Leo Chavez, an American anthropologist whose family migrated
to the United States from Mexico generations ago, wrote an
ethnography about the lives of recent immigrants to California.
Do you think it is necessary for an anthropologist to come from
the "same" background as the people she or he studies? In your
opinion, how close in background do you think Dr. Chavez and

his informants were? To what extent would their common ethnic
origin help or hinder his study?
How Is Anthropology Organized?
The Four Fields and Two Dimensions of Anthropology
Anthropology is organized into four fields―archaeology,
cultural anthropology, linguistics, and physical (or biological)
anthropology―though each makes use of the insights of the
others, and all are linked by common themes. Each of these
fields has two dimensions, theoretical and applied, though
again, this division is somewhat arbitrary because applied
anthropologists use and contribute to theory, and theoreticians
consider real-world data as they build theories to explain what
they observe.
Archaeology studies the "stuff" people leave behind as they live
and die. This "stuff" includes not only the remains of materials
people make and use, but also, for example, the traces of their
diets, diseases, and processes of living.
Think about it:
Archaeologists often study "garbage" such as food scraps,
bones, broken pottery, artistic "mistakes," discarded objects,
even bodily waste. What do you think a future archaeologist
would say about your way of life based on your garbage?
Cultural anthropology (also called social anthropology or
sociocultural anthropology) studies learned and shared ideas
and behaviors, how these come to be, how they change, and how
"culture" shapes what people think and do. (We will discuss in
more depth in topic 2 below the concept of culture as it is
variously understood by anthropologists.) The following list

compiled from the sections and interest groups of the American
Anthropological Association indicates some of the topics
cultural anthropologists are interested in. These include
feminism, law, politics, education, agriculture, psychology,
religion, work, development, urban and rural life, globalization,
media, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender issues, AIDS, alcohol
and drugs, bioethics, disabilities, and emerging diseases as well
as every geographic area of the world. Anthropologists
specialize in certain issues or geographic areas or both, but as
this list implies, whatever is part of the human experience is
grist for at least one cultural anthropologist's mill.
Linguistic anthropologists study human languages, both past
and present. They describe languages, study the ways in which
languages change and develop, and look at various forms of
communication among people. By studying their languages,
linguistic anthropologists help us understand what is important
to different groups of people and how they make sense of their
world.
Physical anthropologists (also called biological anthropologists)
study the interaction between culture and biology in human life,
primatologists study nonhuman primates (primatology),
paleoanthropologists study the evolution of primates including
humans, and molecular anthropologists study genetic
relationships among people. Forensic anthropologists are often
experts on human anatomy and biological structures and may
conduct research to solve crimes.
Medical anthropology cross-cuts all of the four fields of
anthropology. For example, consider research on infectious
diseases. Physical and cultural anthropologists try to understand
the relationship between culturally patterned beliefs and
behaviors and the transmission of HIV. For instance, an
anthropologist might ask, How do ideas about sexual
abstinence, fidelity, and condoms affect behaviors that in turn

affect whether an individual becomes infected with HIV (a
biological condition)? Archaeologists look for evidence of
infectious diseases and the ways people coped with them
through what they have left behind, and linguistic
anthropologists study the different terms different people use
for such diseases, their treatments, and outcomes, and the
discourse related to them.
Think about it:
In Uganda in the early 1990s, HIV was called the small insect
of SLIM (their term for AIDS), whereas in Western (and other)
cultures, we call the agent that causes AIDS a "virus." We
understand viruses differently than we do insects. Such different
terms can indicate different ways of thinking about and
understanding this pathological agent, and these ideas, in turn,
can influence what people do to avoid acquiring it.
Anthropological data from Uganda indicate that many people at
this time transferred to HIV their ideas about other insect-born
infections, such as malaria. Thus, some people believed they
would not get "the small insect" if they stayed indoors in the
evening.
Can you think of an example of when you applied ideas you
already had when you were trying to comprehend something
entirely new? How do you think this type of thinking affects the
"truth" of what you "know" about the new phenomenon?
Another example from medical anthropology illustrates both the
applied and theoretical dimensions of anthropology. "Critical
medical anthropologists" use ideas from world systems theory
to investigate the effects of the world capitalist system on
human health in various settings. Although their studies
increase our understanding of the political and economic factors
that lead to differential health outcomes and thus build theory,
their findings are also used to develop interventions designed to

improve health in specific populations.
Think about it:
Anthropologists reported that narcotic analgesics (painkillers)
are now commonly marketed in American inner cities and that
their use leads to serious health and psychiatric consequences.
They described those who use these drugs and the ways they are
marketed and sold. Why do you think knowing more about the
people who use certain drugs and how they obtain them could
help control the problem?
Unifying Threads
The four fields of anthropology are unified by their emphasis on
holism, a historical perspective, universalism, and a cross-
cultural comparative approach. All anthropologists are
committed to understanding human phenomena in context. That
is, anthropologists recognize that nothing occurs in a vacuum
and that a researcher must be familiar with the whole to
understand the particular. By the same token, anthropologists
know that the present is a product of the past and that the
yesterdays of a place and of a people must be known to
understand the todays and tomorrows. Anthropologists also
respect the universal humanity of all those they study as well as
the connections between humans and other primates. Finally, all
anthropologists are committed to studying all cultures,
subcultures, and microcultures and comparing them to document
and understand commonalities, differences, and changes.
The Position of Anthropology within Science and the
Humanities
Human beings are complex biological and cultural organisms,
and anthropologists integrate approaches from both science and
the humanities to understand them and to convey their ideas and

their lives to others. People, for example, must eat and drink to
survive, but think of the myriads of foods and drinks there are
and the countless different behaviors, ideas, and experiences
that accompany this biological necessity. For example, a
"scientific" anthropologist may quantify how food is
apportioned differently between men and women in diverse
settings. They may ask, Are men allotted more high-protein
food in certain cultures and if so, what are the health outcomes
of this difference? On the other hand, a more humanistically
oriented anthropologist may seek to understand and represent
the ways men and women feel about these differences. As
further evidence of anthropology's humanistic perspective,
anthropologists may be interested in the arts different people
make, the literature they write or speak, and the values that give
meaning to their lives.
The Relationship between Anthropology and Other Academic
Disciplines
Anthropology is unique in its holism; it considers every aspect
of what it is to be human. Therefore, every other discipline is
useful to anthropologists. They learn from political scientists,
molecular biologists, economists, physicians, historians,
lawyers, psychologists, physicists, writers, neuroanatomists—in
other words, from everyone. While anthropologists learn from
other disciplines, they also question whether the theories and
conclusions of other disciplines apply to all peoples or just to
certain people. Thus, by investigating diversity, anthropology
provides an essential corrective to the very human tendency of
so-called "objective" researchers to see the world through their
own inevitably biased lenses. Of course, anthropologists are
humans, too, so they must look at their own and each other's
work as well to identify and eliminate the ethnocentric biases
they find.
How Do Cultural Anthropologists Do Their Work?

Major Types of Studies in Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropologists produce different products according to
the requirements of their research questions and, importantly,
according to funders' needs. They write books, journal articles,
and reports and produce films, recordings, and television or
video programming. Traditionally, cultural anthropologists
lived for an extended time (sometimes years, off and on)
conducting fieldwork among an "exotic" people (at least to
Western eyes), participating in the daily life of the people as
they observed it. They learned and used the language, perhaps
focusing on specific aspects of the people's lives according to
the anthropologists' own interests, biases, or guiding theoretical
framework. Eventually they produced ethnographies that
described and analyzed the people's way of life.
As the need for anthropological input into public health and
international and domestic development projects has increased,
much ethnographic work has become even more issue-oriented,
focused, and brief. Sometimes "rapid assessments" are
conducted rather than extended fieldwork. Consequently,
anthropologists, although still producing comprehensive
ethnographies, also write relatively brief reports, articles, and
monographs and may even condense their findings into one-
page executive summaries that policymakers and program
officers can easily digest and use.
Finally, "new" ethnographies often examine what the
anthropologist brings to his or her research and explore the
ways the ideas, attitudes, or values of the anthropologist affect
the eventual product. Sometimes, instead of being set in only
one place, "new" ethnographies examine an issue in multiple
places and from multiple perspectives.
Think about it:

An example of a "new" ethnography is Anna Lowenhaupt
Tsing's Friction, which explores global connections and the
friction that results from different people's interests "bumping
up" against each other. Her ethnography of the timber industry,
indigenous resistance to the industry, and global
environmentalism is situated in the many sites necessary to tell
her story: villages in the rainforest, corporate offices, and
nonprofit agencies across the globe. Tsing also acknowledges
her own allegiances and understands that, rather than being an
objective observer, she is part of the story she tells.
Anthropologists also produce cross-cultural comparisons called
ethnologies. Ethnologies often focus on specific issues, looking
at how different groups of people approach and deal with
various living situations.
Think about it:
Brigitte Jordan compared birthing practices in the Yucatan,
Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United States in her classic
work, Birth in Four Cultures. For example, she found that to
Mayan women, birth is "hard work" properly performed at
home. To many women in the United States (and often to
biomedical professionals) birth is a medical event fraught with
peril that must occur in a hospital to best secure the safety of
both mother and child. In her ethnology, Jordan did not attempt
to prove that one way is "better" than another. She tried only to
document variations and to understand the logics underlying
them.
What do you think of this approach? Do you think there is a
"right" way to give birth? If you were a health-care worker in a
different culture, do you think it would be helpful to understand
your patients' or clients' ideas and behaviors surrounding
childbirth?

The Methods Cultural Anthropologists Use in Their Work
Anthropologists have a varied tool kit available to them to
answer their research questions. They are well-known for their
qualitative research approach, though they use both qualitative
and quantitative research methods. Anthropologists often ask
open-ended questions that allow people to respond however they
wish and say as much as they want to say. Anthropologists call
the people they study informants or consultants to emphasize
the expertise of the people and the fact that the people are the
experts rather the "subjects" of experiments or "respondents" to
a survey with forced-choice questions.
Anthropologists, however, often use and help develop surveys
that are based on previous open-ended research conducted to
determine the range of answers appropriate in the particular
setting in which the survey will be used. They may also use
interview guides rather than preformatted questionnaires, and
they may allow an informant to venture into any subject that
may be illuminating.
Also, rather than questioning a fixed number of people,
anthropologists often follow "trails" wherever they lead,
interviewing people previous informants have suggested would
be helpful. On the other hand, unlike journalists,
anthropologists are often concerned with making sure they
interview enough informants to capture the range of variation in
responses, and they use scientific methods to obtain
representative samples when their research questions call for
this approach.
Think about it:
All anthropologists must "enter the field"—that is, they must
begin research in a new environment where they may be

strangers and may be subject to suspicion if not outright
hostility. Alternatively, they may enter the field "at home,"
where a new dynamic may be introduced into already
established relationships.
Elizabeth Fernea accompanied her anthropologist husband to a
remote conservative Shiite village in Iraq in the early 1960s.
She balked at wearing the traditional abaya, the black garment
that conceals women's entire bodies. To Fernea, the garment
symbolized what she considered to be the second-class status of
women in this culture. She quickly found, however, that she was
very uncomfortable without it. When she wore it to her first
social gathering with women in the village, her hostess
pronounced her "polite."
If you were to live in and study another culture, how do you
think you would handle expectations that you conform to
customs that conflict with your beliefs?
Anthropologists are often interested in uncovering both emic
and etic points of view―that is, they try to identify the point of
view of the people being studied as well as other "outside"
perspectives. For example, surveys often ask demographic
questions that divide people into groups according to age,
education, income, marital status, religion, and ethnic group or
race. These are standard etic categories, typically agreed upon
by Western researchers as important markers of difference. On
the other hand, people may or may not identify themselves
according to these categories, and they may also have other
(emic) categories for grouping people, such as clan, political
group, musical style, sports teams they follow, and so forth.
Indeed, they may not think in terms of differences among
people at all.
Anthropologists ask their informants to detail their life
histories, fill in blanks, draw pictures and maps, tell them which

things go together and which things don't, appear on videotape
and audiotape, participate in focus groups, todemonstrate how
they make their art and artifacts, perform their operations, cook
their food, and surf the Web. In other words, anthropologists
ask their informants to show and tell what it means to live their
particular lives. Depending on the data they have collected,
anthropologists may use statistical or qualitative data-analysis
software to analyze their data.
Think about it:
Arthur Kleinman, a psychiatrist and one of the most important
figures in medical anthropology, recounts why he became a
qualitative researcher. Early in his career, he administered a
survey to the parents of young adults with schizophrenia. The
last question asked parents to rate the impact of the illness on
their families on a five-point scale ranging from "Very Severe"
to "None."
One mother wrote at the bottom of her questionnaire something
like this: I will answer this question, but you will never
understand anything from my rating. This illness has not had a
"very severe" impact on my family; it has murdered my family.
What do you think is the difference between asking people to
rate or otherwise assign a number to their experiences or
feelings and asking them to explain or describe them? How
might asking open-ended questions contribute to our
understanding of phenomena?
How Does Cultural Anthropology Contribute to Solving Human
Problems?
Anthropology's Contributions to Health Care, Education, and
Business

Anthropologists conduct research and gather information that
contributes to many fields, including health care, education, and
business. In all these fields, anthropologists help professionals
understand and work successfully with people who do not
necessarily share their ideas or behaviors.
An enormous amount of work has been done in health care, for
example. Medical anthropologists conduct cross-cultural studies
of everything possibly related to health and illness and
behaviors related to them. They study health-care systems,
including Western medicine, and the relationships between
patients and healers in many different settings. They may act
directly as "brokers" between patients and biomedical health-
care professionals to help ensure that care is delivered in
appropriate ways to people whose ideas and behaviors may not
mesh well with biomedical ideas. They may help integrate
traditional healers into Western medical practices, and they may
study different treatments and health-care outcomes, comparing
ideas and behaviors around the world. Medical anthropologists
know that people come into health-care encounters with many
established ideas and behaviors and that interventions to
improve people's health will not be successful without
understanding the people practitioners hope to serve.
In education, anthropologists may help teachers understand
different learning styles and behaviors of those they are trying
to teach. For example, children in certain cultures may be
taught not to look at or speak to adults, but their American
teachers may not understand this cultural behavior.
In business, anthropologists may help marketers understand
consumers, they may help product developers understand
people's needs and how they actually use products, and they
may help managers understand their organization's culture and
help them implement beneficial changes.

Actual and Potential Contributions of Anthropology to Solving
Social Problems
Anthropology is concerned with life as it is actually lived.
Anthropologists want to find out what people actually do, rather
than what they say they do. They ask people why they behave as
they do. Anthropologists participate in the lives they observe
and allow what they observe and question to emerge naturally
rather than from preconceived assumptions. They talk to people
and allow them to bring up and elaborate on topics that a
conventional survey might not include.
Through embedded, holistic research, anthropologists deliver
reliable and valid findings that are firmly grounded in reality.
Policymakers use these findings to design programs to alleviate
social problems in both domestic and international settings.
Additionally, because anthropologists are uniquely trained, they
are particularly useful program evaluators who can understand
how a program is really operating. Furthermore, because they
are trained to "expect the unexpected," they are likely to
unearth programs' unintended consequences, both positive and
negative. The more such contributions are appreciated, the more
anthropologists will be able to contribute. Just as they are now
routinely included in planning and evaluating public health and
development projects, policymakers must include them when
they plan initiatives related to national security, war, and peace.
2. What Is Culture?
How do Anthropologists Understand Culture?
The Characteristics of Culture
There may be as many definitions of culture as there are
anthropologists, but all definitions incorporate certain ideas.
Culture is learned rather than instinctual. Sometimes people

deliberately teach the ideas and behaviors their group deems
appropriate, "normal," or commonsensical. Humans, however,
often absorb ideas and behaviors unconsciously and are unaware
that they are learned and that not all humans share them. This
fact implies another characteristic of culture: culture is shared,
whether by a few in a small subculture, such as an ethnic or
religious group, or a microculture, such as an organization, or
by members of an entire nation or other geographic entity.
Difference is another hallmark of culture. If everyone in the
world thought or behaved in one way, the idea or behavior could
be said to be "natural" rather than cultural. Additionally, culture
varies and is dynamic; it changes through time, though not all
members of a culture change in the same ways or at the same
times. Furthermore, the transmission of culture requires
language, including "primitive" forms such as simple signs and
vocalizations, to convey meaning.
The language requirement implies a final commonly accepted
characteristic: culture is expressed through symbols, which are
anything that stands for something else. Words, images,
artifacts, behaviors, and other symbols are culturally produced,
enacted, and interpreted in learned, shared, and varied ways.
Though other animals may also demonstrate learned, shared,
and varied behaviors, it is the highly elaborated, incredibly rich
symbolic aspect of human culture that makes it unique.
The History of the Concept of Culture
People have been aware that they learn, share, and transmit this
learning for a very long time, but an anthropological concept of
culture only began in the nineteenth century. Sir Edward Tylor
(1871, Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1966:81) defined culture as "…
that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law,
morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired
by man as a member of society" (1871." Since then, the concept

has changed from Tylor's "laundry list" of the elements of a
culture to an understanding that culture is deeper than behavior
we can observe.
Today, there are many concepts of culture arising from different
theoretical approaches, though as just noted, these concepts
incorporate some fundamental themes. For example, some
anthropologists understand culture as responses to the objective
material conditions in which a population lives, and others think
of culture in terms of the subjective ideas that direct people's
attempts to make sense of their worlds.
The following figure, through quotations from various noted
anthropologists, shows how the concept of culture has changed
over time.
Evolution of the Concept of Culture
· Benedict (1929): … that complex whole which includes all the
habits acquired by man as a member of society (1966, 81).
· Linton (1936): … the sum total of ideas, conditioned
emotional responses, and patterns of habitual behavior which
the members of that society have acquired through instruction
or imitation and which they share to a greater or lesser degree
(1966, 82).
· Mead (1937): Culture means the whole complex of traditional
behavior which has been developed by the human race and is
successively learned by each generation. A culture is less
precise. It can mean the forms of traditional behavior which are
characteristic of a given society, or of a group of societies, or of
a certain race, or of a certain area, or of a certain period of time
(1966, 90).
· White (1943): Culture is an organization of phenomena—
material objects, bodily acts, ideas, and sentiments—which

consists of or is dependent upon the use of symbols (1966, 137).
· Kroeber (1948): … culture might be defined as all the
activities and non-physiological products of human
personalities that are not automatically reflex or instinctive
(1966, 91).
· Herskovits (1948): … refers to that part of the total setting [of
human existence] which includes the material objects of human
manufacture, techniques, social orientations, points of view, and
sanctioned ends that are the immediate conditioning factors
underlying behavior (1966, 84).
· Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952): … Patterns, explicit and
implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by
symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human
groups, including their embodiments in artifacts (1966, 357).
· Geertz (1973): … set of control mechanisms—plans, recipes,
rules, constructions (what computer engineers call
"programs")—for the governing of behavior (1973, 44).
Source: All except Geertz, 1973, are quoted in Kroeber and
Kluckhohn, 1966.
How Do Anthropologists Study Culture?
Anthropological Studies of Various Cultures
In a traditional holistic study of a culture, anthropologists look
at features of the physical environment in which the group of
people lives. These features may include climate, natural
resources, and geologic features. They investigate the ways
people earn a living, the tools and other materials they use, and
the economic institutions they have developed to survive.
Anthropologists study the social structure—that is, the

relationships people are born into or form and the rules that
govern these relationships. These rules may concern the rights,
obligations, and expectations associated with each relationship.
Anthropologists also study political, educational, and religious
relationships and institutions as well. Finally, they study the
shared sense that holds the group together, their ways of
viewing, experiencing, and interpreting their world.
More anthropologists today are conducting focused studies to
understand specific cases. In these studies, anthropologists may
study only one aspect of a culture intensively, but they also
examine how this aspect fits into an integrated, contextualized
whole.
How Anthropologists Compare Cultures and the Usefulness of
this Approach
Anthropologists sometimes generate theories or explanations of
why people think and act as they do and the conditions under
which they think and act in particular ways. To build these
"grand" theories, it is important to look at ideas and behaviors
and the factors that affect them on a worldwide scale. Only then
can theorists generalize about humanity. For example, a theory
that explains how states developed cannot be based only on the
circumstances surrounding one state's development because the
factors may be very different for others.
To help anthropologists theorize, the Human Relations Area
Files (HRAF) are available on the Internet. These files contain
ethnographic and archaeological information on 400 different
societies, classified into over 700 categories. Anthropologists
can ask questions and test hypotheses about warfare, gender
inequalities, child abuse—nearly any human issue. Even if most
anthropologists today no longer try to make sweeping
generalizations about all humanity and instead focus on how
culture operates in local settings, they will include cross-

cultural comparisons in their work to highlight diverse human
responses to and interpretations of similar phenomena.
What Is the Role of Culture in Human Life?
The Role of Culture in Human Survival
Culture has allowed humans to live successfully in nearly every
possible environment. The ranges of many other species are
usually restricted by climate and the availability of specific
foods required for survival. Humans, on the other hand, have
learned to exploit nearly all available resources in an
environment and have invented ways to live in seemingly
hostile environments with few resources of their own. For
example, we do not have natural fur coats like other mammals
that live in the cold, but we do have coats, houses, and heating
systems. We are still subject to natural forces, however, and
some of our cultural adaptations may not work well in the long
run. History is full of examples of cultures that have not
survived.
Today, for example, human activity may be altering global
climate in ways that may not be conducive to our long-term
survival. There are five factors that may contribute to or prevent
environmental collapse:
1. environmental damage
2. climate change
3. hostile neighbors
4. friendly trade partners
5. the society's responses to its environmental problems

Perhaps we will successfully adapt to new conditions—or
perhaps we will not. Anthropology, by highlighting the vast
diversity of human ideas and behaviors, teaches us that we are
not locked in by our "nature" to respond in potentially
maladaptive (or even annihilating) ways. We are creative,
flexible cultural beings; we have choice.
The Relationships among Culture, Society, and the Individual
It is a paradox that whereas individuals actively create culture
as they are exposed to, learn, and share new information,
individuals are also the products of culture because culture
shapes what they think and do. For example, even when
individuals "rebel," they rebel in culturally patterned ways. Any
society is a group of such individuals, and each society must
balance individual needs and the needs of the group. Groups
reward individuals who conform to cultural norms (and these
norms vary in different cultures), but the norms must not be so
onerous that individuals' needs are not met. For example,
sexuality strengthens cooperative bonds by cementing
relationships between families through marriage. It ensures that
society will continue. However, sexual competition can threaten
cooperation, and unrestricted sexual activity can result in
unsustainable population growth. Therefore, to promote the
beneficial consequences of sexual activity and control the
potentially destructive consequences, all societies make rules
about who may have sex with whom.
Too much restriction, however, can lead to individual pent-up
frustrations and societal stresses. To generalize from this
example, when individuals must subordinate all their needs to
the needs of the group, tension grows. When group needs are
ignored, problems arise and the group may dissolve. Different
groups of people strike different balances, and those balances
shift with time, but all cultures address this tension between
individual and group needs.

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism and Their Place in
Anthropology
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to see one's own ways as the best
or the only ways. By making differences visible, anthropology
constantly strives to make ethnocentrism visible as well.
Anthropologists frequently point out that other disciplines ask
questions and draw conclusions based on ethnocentric biases
and assumptions, and they critique anthropology itself on the
same basis. For example, feminist and minority anthropologists
have accused many of their colleagues, both male and female,
majority and minority, pioneers and newcomers, of sexism,
ageism, heterosexism, racism, and other forms of communalism,
however unintentional they may be. To ignore the perspectives
of groups who may view and experience things differently is to
leave out significant parts of the human story.
Think about it:
Bronislaw Malinowski pioneered ethnographic fieldwork in his
studies of the Trobriand Islanders early in the twentieth century.
Much later, however, Annette Weiner also studied the
Trobrianders and found that Malinowski had ignored women in
his studies and, in so doing, missed their important economic
role. Can you think of any examples of biases affecting
scientific research?
The principle of cultural relativism, another hallmark of
anthropology, insists that one must suspend judgment of others
so that one can understand other cultures on their own terms.
Once anthropologists have achieved this understanding,
however, they may conclude that certain practices are
maladaptive or even morally repugnant. Cultural relativism does
not mean "anything goes." Anthropologists may ask this
question of any group: How well does your culture meet the

physical and psychological needs of its members, and how well
does your culture help its members respond to their obligations
as moral world citizens?
How Is Culture Created and How Does It Change?
Theories of How Humans Create Culture
Though people create culture, they do not just sit down and do
it. Anthropologists have struggled with how some ideas take
hold and become "common sense" and the "way we do it." Many
have stressed the adaptive nature of culture; cultures "grow" as
people try creatively to solve the problems of living. Others
maintain that culture exists outside of specific individuals or
ideas and that it generates itself. Still others emphasize that
although humans collectively create and change culture, these
humans are themselves immersed in culture because a culture-
free individual does not exist. The innovations any individual
creates emerge in a context and will be adopted if the context
and timing are "right" and discarded if they are not.
Theories of Cultural Change
This sense of "rightness" leads us to theories of cultural change.
As we have noted, cultures are dynamic, and they respond with
varying degrees of flexibility to movements and shifts within
and around them. New ideas or behaviors appear, and cultures
either accommodate them or reject them. (Today, this happens
much more rapidly than previously.) Culture change can be
positive or negative. Flexibility allows beneficial adaptations to
occur, but too much rapid change can be destabilizing.
Early in the history of the discipline, theorists thought that
cultures "progressed" from primitive forms to what they
considered the highest form of civilization, European societies.
(This way of thinking is often known as social evolution or

social Darwinism.) Anthropologists discarded this ethnocentric
approach by the 1920s, replacing it with theories of
diffusionism. According to this theory, cultural traits spread
from one society to others through proximity.
Cultural ecologists rejected this "accidental" approach to
change and maintained that cultures change predictably in
response to environmental conditions. More "culturally"
oriented anthropologists challenged this approach and held that
material conditions did not inevitably produce certain changes
but that people's ideas, values, attitudes, and beliefs shape the
way cultures change. In other words, these scholars say that
people with different culturally constructed perceptions of the
world will respond to it in different ways.
Another view that has emerged is world system theory (see How
Is Anthropology Organized above). World system theorists
argue that cultural change in the world today is caused by the
effects of Western capitalism and its attempts to impose
ideological hegemony on the rest of the world. Not all
anthropologists accept world system theory as the major or only
explanation of the forces driving change in the world today.
Many believe that numerous factors contribute to social change.
Nonetheless, all anthropologists must now consider the
increasing economic, political, social, and cultural integration
of the world today and various peoples' responses to this
integration.
3. The Beginnings of Human Culture
Where Do We Place Homo sapiens among the Animals?
The Classification of H. sapiens within the Animal Kingdom
A species is a group of organisms that can reproduce fertile
offspring. For example, horses and donkeys can mate and

produce offspring (mules), but mules are sterile, indicating that
horses and donkeys are members of different species. Any
living human can mate with any other human and produce fertile
offspring (given that all is working well); therefore we are all
members of the same species.
Biologists have developed a system to classify all living
organisms into categories. The system is a hierarchical
arrangement based on the characteristics of organisms, and each
species belongs to progressively more inclusive groups. Each
species is given a name that includes the name of the species
and subspecies (if any) and the name of the genus to which it
belongs. The biological name for modern humans is Homo
sapiens sapiens.
Hierarchical Table of Categories
Category
Examples
You
Kingdom
Animalia
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Chordata
Class
Mammalia
Mammalia
Order
Carnivora
Primata
Family
Canidae
Hominidae
Genus
Canis (coyote, dog, wolf)

Felidae (lion, tiger, cougar)
Homo
Species
familiaris
sapiens
Some scientific names
Canis familiaris (domestic dog)
Felidae familiaris (house cat)
H. sapiens
Source: Abelard.Org. 2003. Human Classification Systems,
Using the Example of Classification of "Living Organisms"
(Taxonomy). Electronic document,
http://www.abelard.org/briefings/taxonomy.htm, accessed July
26, 2006.
How the Study of Primates Can Help Us Understand Our
Species
We are biologically very closely related to other primates,
particularly chimpanzees and bonobos, and studying their
anatomy and behavior can give us clues about our early
ancestors, how they evolved, and how they lived. Furthermore,
our closest primate relatives live as we do in social groups,
communicating with one another, cooperating with one another,
fighting and resolving conflicts with one another, and using
tools to accomplish tasks. Studies have shown that young
primates learn the "rules" of their group and that some of these
rules vary from group to group, indicating these cousins also
have rudimentary culture.
By studying primates, we can learn which of our behaviors may
be in our "nature" and which we "create" through culture. Many
culturally constructed behaviors are adaptive, but some are not.
If a maladaptive behavior is culturally determined rather than
part of our biological nature, we then can choose to replace it
with behaviors that enhance our species' well-being.

Think about it:
Robert Sapolsky reviewed studies in primatology that challenge,
among others, assumptions that primate species are "hard-
wired" to be either peaceful or violent. In one example,
aggressive adolescent male baboons newly moving into one
particular troop whose aggressive males had died of
tuberculosis years before soon learned and adopted the peaceful,
affiliative behavior of the nonaggressive males already there. In
other words, circumstances had created a new peaceful way of
life in this troop, which was then passed on to newcomers. The
male baboons' so-called aggressive "nature" had changed and
wasn't so natural after all.
How might this study be relevant to our understanding of
"human nature"? To what extent does it suggest alternatives to
some current human behaviors?
When and How Did Humans Evolve?
The Mechanisms of Evolution
Evolution is the scientific theory that explains the enormous
number of different species that now live and have lived on
Earth. The theory holds that all species arose from other species
through a long process of change. Darwin defined evolution as
"descent with modification." The first life forms on Earth were
single-celled organisms, and all other forms descended—with
modifications—from them. Several processes—mutations,
natural selection, random genetic drift, and gene flow—made
this happen. We describe these processes below.
· Mutations, or changes, occur by chance in DNA molecules and
produce an organism with a trait or traits that differ from those
of its parents. For example, a chance mutation in DNA may
increase a cell's sensitivity to movement.

· In the process of natural selection, nature, through direct
inheritance or mutations, selects traits that increase an
organism's ability to reproduce in specific environments from
traits that are already present in the population. Sensitivity to
movement may enable the organism with this capability to move
in the direction of other movement and thus find more food.
This organism would then be more likely than others of its kind
to reproduce successfully and pass this sensitivity to more
offspring. Over vast amounts of time, the population as a whole
will have this trait.
· In random genetic drift, the frequencies of genes change by
chance, which is most likely to happen in small populations. For
example, a single organism may have a mutation that makes it
green whereas others of its kind are blue. Being green confers
no reproductive advantage on its own—green beings are no
more likely to reproduce more offspring than blue beings—but
if for some reason the green organism is the only one that
reproduces (e.g., perhaps all others have been wiped out by a
disease), all the members of the population will eventually be
green.
· Finally, gene flow occurs when genetic material is exchanged
either directly or indirectly between different populations. For
example, when a member of Group A mates with a member of
Group B and one of their offspring mates with a member of
Group C, genetic material from Group A can combine with
genetic material from Group C, influencing the evolutionary
fate of that population. In other words, natural selection
chooses traits that increase reproductive success and pushes
evolution in the direction of greater adaptation to environments,
but traits that evolved through random genetic drift and gene
flow were not specifically selected for and just come along for
the ride.

The Major Trends in Human Evolution
Contrary to what many people think, evolutionary theory does
not maintain that humans evolved from today's apes. Instead,
humans and today's apes both evolved from early primates. We
are closely related because we share a common ape-like
ancestor who probably lived five–seven million years ago. The
mechanisms of evolution, primarily natural selection, operated
so that descendants of this ancestor evolved many species that
were adapted to various environments. The apes of today
represent one branch, and different species of apes evolved
according to their own paths (smaller branches). Modern
humans represent another branch that includes many different
species. Many of these species became extinct because of a
variety of factors, and today there is only one enormously
successful hominid—us.
Over millions of years, hominids lost many ape-like features
such as long, sharp canines, small skulls, and large differences
between sexes. The most important trend in the evolution of
modern humans was upright walking on two legs (bipedalism),
which allowed individuals to see and escape from predators and
freed hands so they could carry offspring, food, and eventually,
weapons and other tools. These abilities probably stimulated
increased brain development, which, in turn, endowed modern
humans and their more recent ancestors with the intelligence to
develop cultural solutions including language to the challenges
of survival so these solutions could be transmitted to others. It
is culture that has allowed modern humans to survive
worldwide.
The Hominid Genera in the Fossil Record and the General
Characteristics of the Species within Each
Paleoanthropologists disagree about how to classify the hominid
fossils that have been found, and they disagree on which fossils

are hominids. They make these determinations from finely tuned
analyses of skeletal remains such as teeth and bones, and many
times they must draw conclusions from mere fragments. Given
these limitations, however, many currently divide hominids into
four genera (the plural of genus): Ardipithecus,
Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Homo. Just which fossils
belong to Ardipithecus and the number of separate species they
belong to are extremely controversial issues in
paleoanthropology.
Hominids belonging to Ardipithecus are extremely ape-like
because they lived around six–to eight million years ago, which
is very close to the time it is thought that human and
chimpanzee lineages diverged from a common ancestor. Early
Australopithecines had many ape-like characteristics and
primarily ate vegetation, though they also hunted small animals
and scavenged the kills of other animals. Later
Australopithecines developed powerful chewing equipment to
take advantage of harder, very fibrous plants. Species in the
Paranthropus genus were especially "robust" (heavy and thick),
with very large teeth and chewing muscles and bones to which
they were attached, large-featured faces, and large bodies.
Paleoanthropologists think that it is most likely that some
Australopithecine species evolved into the first species in our
modern genus, Homo (perhaps Homo habilis), and that
Paranthropus species became extinct.
Compare the Evidence for the "Out of Africa" and
"Multiregional" Hypotheses Regarding the Evolution of Modern
Humans
Scientists agree that humans originated in Africa. They agree
that an advanced hominid species, Homo erectus, spread from
Africa into Europe and Asia. They agree that modern humans
evolved from archaic humans, but they disagree about whether
one, several, or all populations of archaic humans, such as the

famous Neanderthals, played a role in the evolution of modern
humans.
Proponents of the "Out of Africa" hypothesis argue that modern
humans descend directly from one population of archaic H.
sapiens in Africa and that these modern humans eventually
spread again throughout the world, replacing H. erectus because
of their superior capacity for culture. They base their case on
genetic and fossil evidence and on cultural remains such as art.
For example, in a famous study of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA,
which is inherited only from one's mother), researchers
determined that all modern humans today share mtDNA with a
woman who lived in sub-Saharan Africa about 200,000 years
ago. (This does not mean she was our only ancestor; she is,
however, the only woman whose descendants included a woman
in every generation for these many, many years. Recent fossil
discoveries in Africa of anatomically modern humans dating
from 160,000 years ago also support the "Out of Africa"
hypothesis (e.g., H. sapiens idaltu).
Supporters of the "multiregional" hypothesis argue that fossil
evidence from China and Asia indicate that H. erectus
transitioned to H. sapiens simultaneously in certain areas of the
world where they coexisted. They argue that this was possible
because all populations were genetically connected by gene
flow, so any evolutionary advance would spread throughout
breeding populations. This hypothesis is also supported by
recent genetic evidence indicating that Africa was not the only
source of modern humans' DNA. Finally, some scientists argue
that certain geographical variations in traits that date from
around 750,000 years ago still exist (for example, the relatively
"flat" faces of many Asian peoples).
Think About It:
The National Geographic Genographic Project is collecting

DNA specimens from people all over the world to determine the
routes our ancestors took when they moved out of Africa
beginning about 60,000 years ago. Are you curious about your
earliest ancestors? New technologies can tell you where your
ancestors may have lived.
What Do We Know about the Beginnings of Culture?
The Fossil Evidence for Tool Making
Other primates modify natural objects to accomplish tasks, and
there is some evidence that one Australopithecine species, A.
garhi, made tools from stones about 2.5 million years ago,
though many experts disagree about this. Prior to this evidence,
experts attributed the first stone tools to the earliest known
species of the genus, Homo, Homo habilis, "handy man." Many
tools have been found at sites associated with "handy man."
Their brain cases were much larger than those of
Australopithecines, and the shape of their skulls was more
human-like. Additionally, the skulls show evidence that an area
of the brain associated with language, Broca's area, was
developed, so H. habilis could have used rudimentary
"language" to teach his or her techniques and skills to others
and pass traditions orally as well as by demonstration to
succeeding generations.
Think about it:
Antelope fossils found at the same site as A. garhi show cut
marks made by a stone tool, and the hominid fossils and
antelope fossils date from the same time period. The earliest
stone tools, dated to 2.6 million years ago, were found nearby.
Some experts think that A. garhi made sharp-edged tools by
chipping off small pieces from volcanic rocks. Is this evidence
strong enough to convince you that A. garhi made stone tools?

The Role of Language in Creating Culture
In the previous section, we asserted that some primitive
language capacity may have allowed ancestors of modern
humans to teach their tool-making techniques and skills to
others. Imagine the advantages of the capacities to convey the
nuances of tool manufacture and to verbally correct and guide
an apprentice rather than trying to teach only by demonstration.
Because we have language, we can assess a situation for danger
and specifically warn others of the direction and timing of the
danger even in the dark. With others, we can evaluate past
successes and failures and plan future endeavors to maximize
success. We can remember who is our friend, to whom we owe
favors and who owes us, and who is our enemy. In short, it is
impossible to imagine thought as we know it without language,
and without thought, we cannot share or teach in the way
humans do. Without language, we have no culture, and without
culture, our species would not have survived. The importance of
language to culture and thus human success cannot be
overemphasized. Without language, we are not human.
Is the Biological Concept of Race Useful?
Why "Race" Is a Cultural Construct
Clearly, there are differences among groups of people in skin
color, hair color and texture, amount of body hair, body shape
and size, and blood type, among many others. Studies of the
human genome indicate that after the dispersal of our ancestral
population from Africa, human populations continued to evolve
on different continents, which led to the differences we observe.
Studies have shown, however, that there is more variation
within groups than between groups. For example, Euro-
Americans and African Americans have wider variations in skin
color within each group than one would find if the groups were

compared to each other. Also, variations in characteristics occur
as gradations rather than as sharp breaks. For example, it is
impossible to draw a line demarcating where one "race" ends
and another begins according to skin color, hair texture, or
facial features.
Certainly, though many uninformed people assert that members
of certain races behave in certain ways, there is no scientific
evidence for behavioral differences based on "racial" biology.
People from all populations are capable of the complete range
of human behaviors. Additionally, human populations are
genetically "open," which means that genes flow back and forth
among them. Given the biologically constant sexual availability
of men and women, whenever different groups come in contact
with one another, they interbreed and have done so since our
beginnings. This interbreeding has produced a continuum of
genetic differences rather than sharp distinctions among us.
Skin Color as an Adaptation to Different Environments
Many people consider skin color an indicator of "race." Skin
color is complicated and depends on several factors including
skin thickness or transparency, a pigment called carotene,
reflected color from blood vessels, and most importantly, the
amount of another pigment, melanin, in the skin's outer layer.
Everyone, except albinos, has melanin, which protects against
the damaging effects of ultraviolet rays from the sun.
The distribution of skin color in the world indicates that natural
selection favored very dark-colored skin in areas that received
the most ultraviolet radiation. In areas with less sunlight, light-
colored skin allows enough sunlight to penetrate the skin to
help manufacture Vitamin D. Vitamin D is necessary to
maintain adequate levels of calcium in the body and thus, is
essential for healthy bones. It is likely that light skin color is a
relatively recent adaptation to environments with relatively

little sunlight. The critical lesson is that one skin color is no
better than another. Skin colors represent successful adaptations
to different environments.
Different "Racial" Classification Systems in Use Today
Though the biological nature of "race" is very controversial,
there is no argument that race is very meaningful culturally.
One's racial classification often determines one's chances in life
in the United States, for example in the health care one
receives. However, the systems people use to assign themselves
and others to races vary cross-culturally. For example, the
Japanese system is simple: people are either Japanese or not
Japanese. Americans (U.S.) usually follow the rule of
hypodescent: children of mixed-race parents are assigned to the
lower-status race. For example, a child with a Euro-American
parent and an African-American parent is often classified as
African American, which, sadly, still is often considered by
many as the lower-status racial category in the United States
today. Additionally, race is usually assumed to be unchangeable
in both the United States and Japan. In Brazil, however, the
racial classification system is much more fluid and is based on
many apparent physical characteristics. For example, when
people become suntanned their "race" may change.
REFERENCES
Conroy, Glenn C. 2005. Reconstructing Human Origins. 2nd ed.
New York: W. W. Norton.
Diamond, Jared. 2005. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail
or Succeed. New York: Penguin.
Fernea, Elizabeth W. 1965. Guests of the Sheik: An
Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. New York: Doubleday.

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New
York: Basic Books.
Haviland, William A., Harald E. L. Prins, Dana Walrath, and
Bunny McBride. 2005. Cultural Anthropology: The Human
Challenge. Instructor's Edition. 11th edition. Belmont, CA:
Thomson Wadsworth.
Kottak, Conrad P. 2006. Physical Anthropology and
Archaeology. 2nd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
———. 2004. Cultural Anthropology. 11th edition. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Kroeber, Alfred L., and Clyde Kluckhohn. 1966. Culture: A
Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions. New York:
Vintage Books. (Original work published 1952 as vol. 47, no. 1,
of the Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology
and Ethnology, Harvard University.)
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1922. Argonauts of the Western
Pacific. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Murdock, George P. 1945. The Common Denominator of
Cultures. In The Science of Man in the World Crisis. Ralph
Linton, ed. P. 124. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sapolsky, Robert M. 2006. A Natural History of Peace. Foreign
Affairs 85(1):104–120.
Schumann, D. A., C. Rwabukwali, D. Hom, J. McGrath, J.
Pearson-Marks, G. Svilar, C. Carroll-Pankhurst, T. Ikwap, and
W. Kiriya. 1992. The Sociocultural Context of AIDS Prevention
in Uganda: Midterm Project Findings. Submitted to Family
Health International, subagreement #4021-9 under the NIAID
research program, "Behavioral Research in AIDS Prevention."

Singer, M. 1993. Knowledge for Use: Anthropology and
Community-Centered Substance Abuse Research. Social Science
and Medicine 37(1):15–25.
Smedley, Brian D., Adrienne Y. Stith, and Alan R. Nelson, eds.
2003. Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic
Disparities in Health Care. Washington, DC: National
Academies Press.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of
Global Connection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Tylor, Edward B. 1871. Primitive Culture: Researches into the
Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language,
Art and Customs. New York: Gordon Press.
Wallerstein, I. 1997. The Modern World System: Capitalist
Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in
the Sixteenth Century. San Diego: Academic Press.
Weiner, Annette. 1988. The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea.
New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Return to top of Module 2: Culture and Survival—Subsistence,
Communication, and Child Rearing
Commentary
Topics
1. Language and Communication
2. Social Identity and Enculturation
3. Patterns of Subsistence: Making a Living
4. Economic Systems

1. Language and Communication
The ability to use language is one of the most distinctive
aspects of being human. People use symbols, whether by sound
or gesture, to communicate. All language has rules that are
followed so that meaning can be shared. Even though we are
born with the physiological capacity to communicate in any
language, we must actively learn each language.
We humans, of course, are not the only animals that
communicate. Birds communicate through calls, as do mammals
of all sorts. Dogs "talk" to you, as do cats. Their ways of
communicating are called call systems. Such systems use a few
sounds or gestures in response to specific events. These calls
are considered a closed system of communication because each
call is unique in its message. Chimpanzees, considered among
the closest relatives to humans, have a number of distinctive
gestures, hoots, moans, and screams that communicate. For
instance, a particular hoot alerts others to food, and a bark
indicates "danger." Each call has only one meaning.
Characteristics of Human Speech
In contrast to the "closed" systems of animal communication,
human speech is an open system because we can combine
sounds in all manner of ways to communicate in all manner of
situations. A chimp would be hard pressed to put together two
calls to indicate "food" and "danger," for example, "Someone is
putting bananas in my bin, and that someone is dangerous!"
Humans, however, can put together a whole range of meaningful
sounds (words) to express a complex array of past, present, and
future experiences and emotions.
Human speech is characterized by conventionality, meaning that
specific sounds (words) refer to specific things. In English, we
have specific sounds that mean chair. In Spanish, a different set
of sounds means chair (unasilla); similarly in French (une

chaise), and so on. The sounds are arbitrary, but they are set for
a given language. Conventionality enables us to communicate in
a given language.
Human speech is also characterized by productivity. That is,
you can constantly create new phrases and sentences from the
words you use. You can create new sentences each day for the
next 100 years and never run out of ways to combine words that
make sense.
Finally, human speech is characterized by displacement. That is,
we can talk about things that are not immediately in front of us.
We can talk about things in the past. We can talk about things
happening next door. We can talk about things we can only
imagine. We can talk about things so complex we can hardly
understand them, which is a remarkable quality of language. As
a result, we can communicate abstract concepts that we can
remember, think about, and apply later on.
Teaching our Nearest Primate Relatives to Communicate
What about chimpanzees and other primates who are taught to
communicate by humans? Because chimps do not have the
physical capacity to speak like humans, researchers have taught
a number of animals to communicate using American Sign
Language. A famous one is the chimpanzee, Washoe, who after
being taught 10 signs, spontaneously combined them in new
ways (Gardner and Gardner 1967:671) and even taught signs to
her son. Altogether, Washoe could use about 85 signs (Nanda
and Warms 2007:118). Kanzi, a bonobo (pygmy chimpanzee),
learned 150 signs and used them in strings (Savage-Rumbaugh,
Shanker, and Taylor 1998, cited in Nanda and Warms
2007:118).
Washoe and Kanzi show us that chimpanzees have a greater
linguistic ability than we previously thought. However, even

with careful instruction over many years, the highest level of
language that chimpanzees can acquire is that of a very young
human child. Humans have evolved language that is unique in
its complexities and possibilities. Humans need human language
to pass on their culture and for survival. Chimps do not (Nanda
and Warms 2007:118–119).
The Structure of Language (Descriptive Linguistics)
Linguists (those who study languages) identify four subsystems
of a language itself. At the base are the sounds. Sounds
identified by humans are called by their Latin name, phones.
The smallest unit of meaningful sound is a phoneme. The study
of phones is phonology. One way of writing these sounds so that
others will be able to pronounce them is through the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Each symbol in the IPA
represents one distinct sound.
How would you write your name so that anyone would know
how to pronounce it?
Linguistic Activity
Try writing your name and your mother's or father's name using
the International Phonetic Alphabet tables.
Note the two sets of symbols: one for consonants and one for
vowels.
Choose one symbol for each sound in your names.
Here are examples for Jason and Tiffany. To spell their names
phonetically, refer to the International Phonetic Alphabet charts
at the link above.
Consonants for Jason's name are: /j/ s/ n/. The vowels are: /ei
/a/.

For Tiffany's name, the consonants are: /t/ f/ n/. The vowels are:
/ I/ e/i:
/j ei /san/ / tI/fe/ni:/
Please note: even though in English you may spell a word with a
double letter (Tiffany), in IPA, only one symbol is given per
sound.
The set of sounds used in a given language are phonemes. A
phoneme is the smallest sound that makes a difference in
meaning in a language. For example in English, we distinguish
between the sound r (red) and the l (led). So these sounds are
phonemes in English. Someone whose first language is Japanese
may have a difficult time distinguishing these sounds, so she or
he may refer to "led beans and lice" (instead of "red beans and
rice"). English requires that we distinguish these phones.
Japanese does not.
For example:
Each human language uses only a subset of the possible human
sounds. Some languages include sounds that other languages
would not even consider or would use them in different ways.
Some African languages regularly use click sounds. The first
language of Nelson Mandela, the former president of South
Africa was Xhosa, one such language. The symbol "!" is used to
indicate a certain click sound. In these modules, you will see
references to "!Kung." The !Kung are an ethnic group in
southern Africa. The "!" tells you how to pronounce their name.
Many languages, including Chinese, rely on tones. A sound said
in a high pitch may have a different meaning when it is said in a
low pitch. Cantonese dialect has six tones. Mandarin has four.
Depending on your tone, for the sound "ma," you could be
talking about your mother or a horse (Haviland et al. 2005).
In English, we use ng at the end of words, as in sing, but have

difficulty placing it at the beginning of the word as is done in
some Polynesian and Asian languages.
When sounds are put together in a meaningful way, they form
morphemes. Morphemes can be words or parts of words. For
example, in English we have suffixes and prefixes that go at the
end and the beginning of words, but that are not words
themselves. For example, pre (as in prefix) means "before," and
the suffix ly makes an adverb from an adjective, as in quickly.
The study of words and the meaningful parts of words is called
morphology.
The way in which words are combined into sentences and
phrases is called syntax. Words must be structured and arranged
to make sense in a language. Each language has its own
syntactic rules. In English, the order of words in the sentence
makes a difference. In English, "The letter carrier bit the dog"
has a different meaning than "The dog bit the letter carrier."
Even though all the words are the same, the order conveys
meaning. In German, the parts of speech are indicated by case
markers. Thus, Der Hund biss den Briefträger ("The dog bit the
letter carrier") and Den Briefträger biss der Hund mean the
same thing regardless of the order. To say "The letter carrier bit
the dog," you would change the case markers to read Der
Briefträger biss den Hund.
The order of words and the regular ways words are changed
form the grammar of a language. The rules and patterns of
grammar enable us to coherently put sounds together and help
us recognize meaning in each new utterance. Both morphology
and syntax are part of the grammar of a language.
All of the words of a given language form its lexicon
(vocabulary). The relationship of language to culture can clearly
be seen in its words. We have hundreds of words for cars and
car parts in our lexicon. Members of hunting and gathering

groups have 500 to 1,000 words for different plants (Nanda and
Warms 2007:125). Clearly, the lexicon of a language reflects
what is important to the group and helps people distinguish
categories that make a difference.
Think about it:
Each subgroup in a society has its special words, or lexicon.
Think about your workplace or a special hobby, sport, or
interest of yours. In introducing total newcomers to your area,
what words would you teach them so they would understand
everything they needed to know?
Historical Linguistics
Languages change. Even from one generation to the next we can
see changes in vocabulary and word usage.
Think about it:
Language can change even within a short period of time.
Compare words you use with those your parents or grandparents
may have used. Listen to recordings of old radio shows, review
old movies, or chat with your older relatives.
What differences do you note in their vocabulary, compared to
the vocabulary you and your friends use?
Historical linguists look at how languages change and evolve.
Besides documenting changes in living languages, historical
linguists chart divergences in ancient languages. For example,
historical linguists study the relationship of Latin to the many
Romance (having to do with Rome, the home of Latin culture
and civilization) languages of Europe, e.g., Italian, Spanish,
Portuguese, French, and Romanian.
English is one of 140 languages within the Indo-European
language family. Over a period of 6,000 years, protolanguage,
or original language, developed into many different groups and

subgroups. English is one of the languages within the Germanic
subgroup as illustrated in the following chart,
Source: Short, Daniel M. 2005. Indo-European Language Tree.
Electronic document,
http://www.danshort.com/ie/iecentum_c.shtml, accessed August
4, 2006.
Historical linguists use their knowledge of how languages
change over time to trace the migrations and movements of
people. For instance, linguists studying the many Polynesian
languages of the central Pacific have helped determine when the
island groups were originally settled. Linguists work with
archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and physical
anthropologists to help piece together the puzzle of ancient
peoples' migrations and settlements.
Language and Culture
Language and culture are intricately intertwined. Sociolinguists
study this relationship, looking at when and how people use
language and what it means. They look at a person's status and
how speech reflects that. They look at age and sex and the
different language patterns associated with them. They also look
at when informal talk and formal talk are used and how people
know when to use which type.
Many people are raised with two or more languages or two or
more dialects. A child may use one language in school and
another language at home. We may use Standard English at
work but other speech when interacting with friends in a
process called code switching. Learned cultural rules help us
understand when it's appropriate to use one way of speaking or
another.
Think about it:
Even monolinguists (those speaking one language) adapt their

speech to different situations. Consider how you might speak to
people at a religious service compared to how you might talk to
others Friday night at the club. How would it be to use
"religious service language" when playing pool? What changes
from one setting to the next?
Language and Thought
We learn important points about our culture through the study
of communication. Our culture influences our language.
However, anthropologists also wonder how language affects our
culture. Specifically, to what extent does language shape our
thoughts? Linguistic relativity, sometimes called the Sapir-
Whorf hypothesis, is the idea that language molds thought and
action. Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Whorf
maintained that language provides certain filters that affect the
way we see the world. We see it differently depending on the
language we speak. The structure of the language, as well as its
lexicon, guides speakers along certain paths. Thus, we think and
act the way we do partially because of the nature of the
language we speak.
For example:
Speakers of Swedish and Finnish (neighboring peoples speaking
radically different languages) working at similar jobs in similar
regions under similar laws and regulations show significantly
different rates of on-the-job accidents. The rates are
substantially lower among the Swedish speakers. The Swedish
language emphasizes movement in three-dimensional space. The
Finnish language emphasizes more static relations among
temporary entities. As a consequence, Finns organize the
workplace in a way that ignores the time factor in the
production process. This in turn leads to frequent production
disruptions, haste, and (ultimately) accidents (Haviland et al.
2005:107).
Gender Differences

Our sex makes a difference in how we speak. Distinct ways of
speaking for males and females are found in many languages. In
American society, sociolinguist Deborah Tannen (2001:132)
notes that men and women are socialized into to two different
cultures that result in two different ways of speaking. Tannen
observes that women seek relationships, and their type of
speaking is "rapport-talk." Men, on the other hand, seek
independence in a hierarchical world. Their language is "report-
talk." When men and women interact, their different styles
interfere with communication. A woman may be indirect in
expressing her wish and expects the other person to interpret.
The man, on the other hand, expects directness and may totally
misunderstand the woman's intent.
For example:
In Lakota society, in South Dakota, men and women have
distinct ways of speaking. For example, a woman and her
brother would each pose the same question differently. When
the movie Dances with Wolves was released, Lakota were eager
to see the movie that was filmed on their reservation. In the
theater, as the plot unfolded, the audience started to laugh
because the hero (Kevin Costner) spoke Lakota like a woman.
Because the actors had found Lakota difficult to learn, the
dialect coach had decided to teach everyone just one way to
speak (Haviland et al. 2005:109).
Nonverbal Communication
To fully understand and communicate in another culture, we
must know not only the language in its fullness, but also how
people communicate without words, i.e., nonverbally.
Nonverbal messages may carry up to 70 percent of
communication (Nanda and Warms 2007:135). Nonverbal
communication cues must be learned to be understood. Time,
space, gestures, all have meaning, depending on the culture.
Time talks: If your sweetheart is arriving later and later for
your dates, what does this tell you? If a candidate arrives a half-

hour before the interview time, what does this communicate?
Time has meaning, and we learn what that meaning is through
our culture.
Think about it:
In New Zealand, Maori (the indigenous peoples) and Pakeha
(those of European origin) people are still learning each others'
ways. Recent discussions on a land issue encountered
difficulties because Maori and Pakeha leaders had different
expectations regarding time. The Maori expected talks to
continue until a consensus was reached. The lawyers for the
Crown (the government), expected talks to finish by a certain
time because they had deadlines to attend to.
As a cultural anthropologist, how could you facilitate
communication between the two groups?
Space talks: What does it tell you when you see two people with
their faces very close together? What do a large office and a
large desk communicate to others? Proxemics is the study of the
social use of space. Edward Hall (1969), in his classic study,
observed that people in different cultures maintain different
amounts of space between themselves and others depending on
their relationships with the others and what kinds of
interactions they are conducting with them. He identified three
kinds of intimate space. The closest space is the "bubble"
surrounding a person. Only our very closest friends and
intimates are permitted here. The space extending a little further
from our bodies' space is for social and consultative
interactions. This is the distance we maintain when doing
routine business. The third-closest space is public space. In this
area, interactions are impersonal. Because the distance for each
of these spaces is determined by our culture, people in different
societies have different comfort zones. Arab, Latin-American,
French, Italian, and Turkish people, among others, have a
smaller "bubble" than Americans, Germans, English, or

Japanese and thus feel more comfortable with closer distances
in their personal space.
Think about it:
How do you feel in a crowded elevator? What happens to your
bubble? Consider how people react when their comfort zone is
intruded upon. What changes are made? Consider gaze of eyes
and movement of body.
Things talk: What does a diamond tiara tell you about the
person wearing it? What does a Ferrari tell you about the
driver? What does a body piercing tell you about the person
involved? We give meaning to the things we see, and we learn
this meaning from our culture.
Think about it:
In Polynesia tattooing is an important part of the indigenous
culture. Tattoos indicate high rank and status. They
communicate bravery and the ability to endure pain. They are an
indication of wealth. When Captain Cook's sailors came ashore
in the eighteenth century, they were intrigued with the custom,
and many got tattoos as well. Back home in England, tattoos
were a novelty and became associated with the sailors and lower
ranks of society. Who gets tattoos in our society? What does
tattooing communicate?
Gestures talk: Consider the ways people use gestures. We wave
good-bye, blow kisses, give thumbs up, show A-ok. These
gestures may mean something very different in another culture.
The A-ok sign is considered an obscene gesture in parts of
South America. The signal to "stop" with the palm out and the
fingers up can mean a challenge to fight in some Asian cultures.
2. Social Identity and Enculturation

How do people get to be members of society? How does an Inuit
child learn the ways of his Inuit people? How do Korean
children learn to be good Koreans? Anthropologists refer to the
process of passing one's culture from one generation to the next
as enculturation. Enculturation starts soon after birth as we
become oriented to both our physical and our social
environment. How we become oriented depends on the culture
in which we live. As we learn our culture and the ways of our
people, we develop self-awareness and the ability to determine
the accepted ways to think and act.
Human babies are not equipped to take care of themselves. They
are helpless and dependent on others for survival. Our
biological instincts help us only so far. We need our social
environment, those around us, to ensure that we live and thrive.
Our mother is the most important person when we are first born,
and we start to learn from her.
Soon, other members of the household are involved in teaching
us. Who these people are and what we are taught depends on the
culture in which we are born. Some households may be
composed of a mother and father and their children. In some
societies, fathers never live in the same house as the mothers of
their children. In other societies, grandparents, aunts, and
uncles all live together and are involved in the enculturation
process of each child, a subject covered in module 3.
Anthropologists see that not only what children learn is
important as they become members of society, but how they
learn is also significant. Childhood experiences influence adult
personalities. How we are raised makes a difference in who we
are as adults. We can identify two different patterns of child
rearing that help us explain some personality differences. These
patterns are dependence training and independence training.

1. Dependence training encourages children to think of
themselves as part of a larger group. This training creates
community members who see the group as more important than
the individual. This pattern is found in societies with extended
families, particularly in households that depend on subsistence
horticulture, pastoralism, or foraging (see topic 3 below) for
survival. Often a large group is needed as a source of labor to
till the soil, manage the herds, or help find food in the
wilderness. Individuals cannot survive alone.
In these groups, the possibilities of conflict are great because
decisions must be group ones. In-marrying spouses must
conform to the group. Various aspects of dependency training
help prevent conflicts. One aspect of the training is indulgence
towards children. Babies in such societies are often nursed for
several years. Infants are held, passed around, and constantly
tended. They are often with others. Young children are given
duties and activities that help the group and support the child's
sense of importance in contributing to the group.
A second aspect of the training is corrective. Children are
punished for disobedience or for being selfish or aggressive.
After punishment, a child may immediately be shown love
again. The group and its relationships with others are primary.
2. Independence training stresses self-reliance and personal
achievement (Haviland et al. 2005:129). Such training is
generally found where nuclear families (parents and children)
are on their own. Independence is important for survival. As
with dependence training, both discouragement and
encouragement are used. For instance, among many families in
North America, infants are fed on a schedule, and breast feeding
is stopped after a few months. Children are encouraged to feed
themselves. Soon after birth, babies are given their own private
space, with a crib away from the parents. Children are generally
not given responsibilities as contributions to the group's welfare

but as tasks that will benefit the child herself.
Assertiveness and even aggression may be encouraged.
Competition and winning are emphasized. In societies that
believe survival requires individuals to look out for their own
interests, independence training is important.
Anthropologists see that dependence and independence training
form a continuum, and one pattern is not considered better than
the other. If a society requires compliant people, then
independence training would undermine the society. In a society
where adults are asked to question authority and invent new
ways of doing things, dependency training would not work.
Sometimes a society will have both aspects at work with
resulting contradictions. For example, in the United States,
although individual independence is professed, a strong trend of
compliance also exists. This trend has become more evident in
the security requirements for air travelers where anything out of
the ordinary is seen as a threat. Whistle-blowers in government
and corporations may not only be ignored or seen as disloyal,
they may even be punished or fired rather than heralded for
their independent actions.
Gender Roles and Enculturation
Anthropologist Margaret Mead, in her cross-cultural studies,
found that differences between men and women varied from one
culture to the next. Biology is not destiny in the ways we
behave.
For example:
In the 1930s, Mead determined from her studies in Papua New
Guinea that in different ethnic groups, men and women had
different characteristic temperaments. Among the Arapesh, men
and women were cooperative and nurturing. Among the
Mundugamor, both sexes were aggressive, whereas among the

Tchambuli, women were dominant over men. Modern
researchers question some of Mead's findings, but her research
showed that different cultures may have different expectations
for male and female personality and behavior (Mead 1963).
Group Personality
Child rearing, personality, and culture are all intertwined. To
what extent is it possible to generalize about the personality of
people in a given group? To a certain extent, it may be possible.
Each individual develops certain characteristics that are like
those of others in their society, because of common experiences.
At the same time, all people also have distinctive personalities
based on their unique circumstances and genetic background.
Thus, any generalization about the modal personality of a group
must be qualified by the realization that individuals within any
group are unique. Furthermore, group boundaries may be
porous. However, modal personality is defined as those
characteristics that occur most frequently in a culturally
bounded group (Haviland 2005:132). Modal personalities are
determined through statistical measures and can reveal variation
and diversity within groups. Data on personalities can be
gathered through such psychological tests as Rorschach ("ink
blot") tests in which people are asked to explain what they see
in the random blot.
For example:
Anthropologist, Ruth Benedict, developed the idea that culture
was "personality writ large," that is, that culture reflected the
collective personality of those within it. In her classic work
Patterns of Culture (1959), she compared three cultures: (1) the
Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest of North America, (2) the
Zuni of the American Southwest, and (3) the people of the
island of Dobu near Papua New Guinea. Each group had a
pattern of culture: the Kwakiutl were individualistic and
exuberant, the Zunis aimed for the golden mean, and the

Dobuans were fearful and worried about magic.
During World War II, Benedict worked with the U.S. occupation
forces in Japan. She argued that Japanese culture, characterized
by a strong sense of "shame" and "honor," was more amenable
to change than U.S. culture, which was characterized by a sense
of "guilt" and a belief in absolute good and evil. She convinced
U.S. authorities not to eliminate the institution of the emperor,
but to maintain it. She argued that given the traditional
flexibility of the emperor, the emperor would reject militarism
(as shameful) and accept democracy (as honorable).
Her work, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), has sold
more than two million copies in Japan. Her understanding of
Japanese personality made a difference for the occupation of
Japan and its economic and political recovery since the war
(Ferraro 2006:64-65).
Alternative Gender Models
Anthropologists agree that gender roles vary from culture to
culture and that these roles affect personality. However, genders
themselves may be ambiguous, a fact that also affects
individuals' roles and personalities. Chromosomes that
determine a person's sex may vary, making someone who falls
outside distinct biological and culturally defined categories of
male or female.
Some cultures allow for a third sex, usually males who take the
role of females. For example, the Plains Indians of North
America had an intermediate category of male/female. By being
neither fully male nor female, these individuals held great
prestige in the community. They were viewed as having special
healing powers. Sometimes called by the French term Berdache,
such people today prefer to be known as Two Spirits, showing
both the male and female together in one person.
For example:

In Samoa in the South Pacific, fa'afafineare men who take on
the role and dress of women. Fa'afafine means "in the way of a
woman." Sometimes a family will select a boy and groom him to
be a fa'afafine. Other times, a boy or man will choose to become
a fa'afafine. Fa'afafine are beloved. They are useful around the
house because of their strength. Their gentleness helps make for
smooth relationships. In modern Samoa, fa'afafine work in many
fields including secretarial and administrative fields. They are
on athletic teams and teach Sunday school.
3. Patterns of Subsistence: Making a Living
How do humans survive? How is it that we can survive in
almost every climate on the globe? Naked, we have little to
protect us compared to other animals. What we have to our
advantage is culture and the ability to adapt.
As humans have adapted to the different environments of the
world, what basic subsistence strategies have they developed to
help them survive? Anthropologists identify four basic
strategies: foraging (also called hunting and gathering,
pastoralism, horticulture, and agriculture. We discuss these
strategies in the next sections.
Foraging
Foraging is the subsistence strategy that humans have used for
most of their time as a species on Earth. It is the oldest and
most universal of our strategies for making a living. Foraging
relies on plants and animals that are wild. Foragers do not
produce food. They do not cultivate plants and do not raise
animals for food. Their food sources are those naturally
occurring plants and animals that reproduce on their own.
Foragers generally have a low population density. They live in

small mobile, family-based groups. Hunting and gathering
groups tend to be egalitarian (everyone is equal), with
leadership coming from those with knowledge and experience.
These groups can move from their camp when convenient. They
thus leave behind refuse that might cause diseases and conflicts
that might cause hardship or dissolution of the group. Their
material possessions are few. Most of what they have is shared.
Anthropologist Marshall Sahlins (1972) has noted that foragers
were the original affluent society. Even in the harsh lands of the
Kalahari Desert, the !Kung are traditionally able to do all of
their subsistence work of hunting and gathering in less than 20
hours per week. The remaining time is spent in storytelling,
resting, and chatting, even though they're living in marginal
areas (Lee 2003).
It is sometimes hard for foragers to continue their lifestyle in
the modern world because of pressure on the land. The main
groups of foragers today are in marginal land, not desired by
more powerful neighbors. However, as demand for oil and
mineral resources grows, even those on marginal lands are being
forced to settle off their traditional territory. Modern
governments prefer that their citizens settle in one place so that
they can be counted and taxed and so are often unsympathetic to
the situation of nomadic foragers.
Modern groups that still maintain some foraging include the
Inuit of the Arctic Circle, some Australian aboriginal groups,
the Agta of the Philippines, the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert of
southern Africa, and some Orang Asli of Malaysia, among
others.
Pastoralism
Pastoralism is a food-gathering strategy that depends on herd
animals such as cows, goats, or sheep. The animals eat the grass
or other natural vegetation, and the humans eat the animals.

People may also use the animals for milk, cheese, or their
blood.
Pastoralists can be either nomadic or transhumant. Nomadic
pastoralists follow the herd from one grazing spot to another.
The whole family will move with the animals. Sometimes a
greater pattern of movement will be finely regulated among a
large group, with a chief directing when and where a given
family may herd its animals (Barth 1986).
Transhumant pastoralism is a strategy whereby most of the
family stays in one place while some members move the herd
animals to grazing areas. Transhumance is found in East Africa,
where the men and boys herd the animals to different pastures.
In Heidi, the classic children's story by Johanna Spyri, set in
Switzerland, the herding society was transhumant. Heidi's
friend, the goatherd, looked after the goats during the summer
months in the mountains while the family stayed back in the
village.
Pastoralism involves a complex relationship of animals, land,
and people. Because the animals are domesticated, they depend
on their keepers for food, water, and protection from predators
and weather. Pastoralists must know the capacities and
characteristics of the land and the needs of their animals. The
animals are essential for the livelihood and survival of the
people, but they are more than just commodities. Animals are
frequently named. They are admired and caressed. Individual
animals even inspire stories and songs.
For example:
Among the Nuer of East Africa, cattle are central to life. Each
man takes his name from one of his cows whose qualities
particularly please him. Nuer people chant poems and sing
songs about their cows. Here is an example of one of these
songs

....As my black-rumped white ox,
When I went to court the winsome lassies,
I am not a man whom girls refuse.
We court girls by stealth in night…
We brought the ox across the river….
Friend, great ox of the spreading horns,
Which ever bellows amid the herd,
Ox of the son of Bul Maloa.
In this song, transcribed by anthropologist E. E. Evans-
Pritchard, the poet, son of Bul Maloa, refers to his ox as his
friend and as one who helps him impress the ladies (Evans-
Pritchard 1940:47).
Pastoralists today are found in East Africa (cattle), North Africa
(camels), southwestern Asia, including Turkey and Iran (sheep
and goats), central Asia (yak), and the subarctic (caribou and
reindeer) (Nanda and Warms 2007:156). As is the case with
foragers, central governments do not much care for pastoralists,
particularly those who are nomadic. Governments find it hard to
count, tax, and control such folk. Furthermore, traditional
herding lands of pastoralists may lie in more than one country
so the families and their herds as they cross borders may get
caught in international conflicts and warfare.
Horticulture
Horticulture is the production of plants using simple tools.
Unlike foragers who gather wild plants for their subsistence,
horticulturalists grow their own domesticated varieties of
plants. Horticulturalists are found throughout the tropics and
temperate parts of the world where the growing season and
climate permit planting and harvesting. The primary crops vary
from region to region. The indigenous peoples of North and

South America cultivate maize (corn), beans, and squash. In the
Oceania region, the major crops include sweet potato, taro, and
manioc. Rice and millet are among the crops grown by
horticulturists in Asia and Southeast Asia.
Horticulturalists' technology is generally simple. They do not
use draft animals or plows but instead use digging sticks or
hoes. They do not have irrigation systems. Their yields are
generally low but enough to feed their families.
Horticulturalists generally do not aim to cultivate great
surpluses. Population densities among them are generally low,
usually no more than 150 people per square mile (Nanda and
Warms 2007:18) although villages may range from 100 people
to 1,000 people.
In the tropics, horticulturalists frequently practice swidden, or
slash-and-burn cultivation, in which fields are cleared by
cutting down the vegetation and then burning it. The resulting
ash fertilizes the fields and supports productivity for a few
years. As productivity declines, the fields are abandoned and
left to revert back to native vegetation and forest growth.
Fields are left fallow for up to 20 years before being cut and
burned again. This cycle enables the soils to be replenished
before being used again for cultivation. Horticulturalists require
about six times as much land in fallow as they do in production.
When land becomes scarce, whether through a rise in population
or appropriation by others, and the fallow period is shortened,
the soils can quickly deteriorate if they do not have the required
time for regeneration.
Most swidden farmers plant a multitude of crops on their small
plots. Some horticulturalists shift residences as they shift fields.
In other societies, the families stay in one place but rotate fields
for cultivation. Horticulturalists also hunt and fish to
supplement their diets.

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