Unit 1

• • Archaeology
  • A branch of anthropology that studies human history and its artifacts
• •  
  • Biological Anthropology:
  • A subdiscipline of anthropology that focuses on the evolution, function and health of the human body and those of our closest primate ancestors.
• • Critical cultural relativism:
  • Alternative perspective of cultural relativism that poses questions about cultural beliefs and practices.
• • Cultural relativism:
  • The effort to understand the beliefs and behaviours of other cultures in terms of the culture in which they are found.
• • Cultural text:
  • A way of thinking about culture as a text of significant symbols, such as words, gestures, drawings, and natural objects, all of which carry meaning.
• • Culture:
  • The system of meanings about the nature of experience that are shared by a people and passed on from one generation to another, including the meanings that people give things, events, activities and people.
• • Ethnocentric fallacy:
  • The mistaken notion that the beliefs and behaviours of other cultures can be judged from the perspective of one's own culture.
• • Ethnocentrism:
  • The tendency to judge the beliefs and behaviours of other cultures from the perspective of one's own culture.
• • Linguistic anthropology:
  • A study of the relationship between language and culture
• • Relativistic fallacy:
  • The idea that it is impossible to make moral judgements about the beliefs and behaviours of members of other cultures.
• • Society:
  • The social structures and organization of group comprised of people who share a territory and culture
• • Sociocultural anthropology:

  A comparative approach to the study of societies and cultures that focuses on differences and similarities in the ways that societies are structured and cultural meanings are created.