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Anthropology

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxTerm>Evolution</OpenstaxTerm> is defined as change in the allele frequency within a gene pool that can lead to changes in an organism’s morphology (form and structure) over time. Evolution involves the processes of <OpenstaxTerm>mutation</OpenstaxTerm>, <OpenstaxTerm>natural selection</OpenstaxTerm>, and <OpenstaxTerm>speciation</OpenstaxTerm>, which will be introduced in upcoming sections. Prior to the 19th century, the prevailing idea in Western thought was that nature was fixed and static; it was made by a supreme being in the form it currently appeared, and it did not change. Within this fixed natural system, living creatures were arranged within a set order that was considered to have been decreed by God, known as the <OpenstaxTerm>great chain of being</OpenstaxTerm>. This order featured God at the top, angels beneath God, and then humans. Below humans were various types of animals, followed by plants and minerals. This hierarchy was significant both because it placed some creatures above others and because it distinctly separated humans from the rest of the animal world.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	During a period stretching from the 14th through the 18th centuries, some people began to question whether the natural world was as static as it was traditionally perceived to be. The British scientist and architect Robert <OpenstaxTerm>Hooke</OpenstaxTerm> is remembered as the first person in the Western world to claim not only that nature has changed over time but also that evidence of these changes remain. He hypothesized that <OpenstaxTerm>fossils</OpenstaxTerm> are the remains of actual plants and animals that were once alive. This conclusion was contrary to the previously accepted conclusion that fossils were nothing more than stone images. Hooke also noted that many marine fossils were located far away from any existing ocean, and he came to the then radical conclusion that Earth’s geography and physical features had experienced dramatic changes.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The first person to propose a mechanism by which species could change was French naturalist Jean-Baptiste <OpenstaxTerm>Lamarck</OpenstaxTerm>, best known for having developed the first <OpenstaxTerm>theory of macroevolution</OpenstaxTerm>, a hypothesis about how the actual transformation from one species into another species could occur. Lamarck’s theory relied on the now defunct idea of the <OpenstaxTerm>inheritance of acquired characteristics</OpenstaxTerm>.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Lamarck argued that the usefulness of a trait or organ could be ascertained based on its complexity or size. In particular, he believed that the usefulness of an organ could be judged by its size and the usefulness of a trait by its complexity. He speculated that organs and traits that help a creature to survive will become bigger and more complex over time, while those that are of little use will become smaller and simpler and eventually disappear. His classic example of this theory in action is the long neck of a giraffe. Lamarck speculated that as giraffes stretched their necks to reach the leaves at the tops of trees, their necks would grow longer, and furthermore, these longer necks would be inherited by the subsequent generations. This theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics is also known as <OpenstaxTerm>Lamarckian inheritance</OpenstaxTerm>. One of the interesting things about Lamarck’s theory is that he believed that wishes, desires, wills, and needs were all sufficient to motivate change. That is, wishing for or desiring a change in one’s physical characteristics could make that change happen.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	There are two primary problems with Lamarckian inheritance. First, desires, wishes, and needs do not change physical characteristics without a deliberate change in behavior. Someone may wish for blue hair, but their hair color will not change without dye. The second problem is that the inheritance of acquired traits is not possible. If someone dyed their hair blue, their children would not inherit blue hair. Traits that are acquired during a lifespan are not passed on to subsequent generations.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Just because Lamarck’s theory of macroevolution is not correct does not mean that it is insignificant. Lamarck recognized the importance of interactions between organisms and their environments in the evolutionary process and was the first to propose a mechanism by which evolutionary change from one species into another could actually occur.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Georges <OpenstaxTerm>Cuvier</OpenstaxTerm>, another Frenchman and a leading scientist in the early 19th century, made numerous contributions to evolutionary thinking. He is best known for his theory of <OpenstaxTerm>catastrophism</OpenstaxTerm>, which he developed to explain the increasing number of fossils that were being found, some displaying impressions of creatures no longer found anywhere on Earth. Catastrophism proposes that floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters—understood within the theory as acts of God—have been responsible for killing all the animals alive in certain places at certain times. According to Cuvier, either new animals have been created or the areas had been repopulated by animals from neighboring areas. To be consistent with emerging fossil evidence indicating that organisms had become more complex over time, Cuvier proposed that new organisms with a more modern appearance were the result of a more recent creation event. While scientists no longer adhere to catastrophism as a viable theory, Cuvier’s idea of extinction continues to be an important component of evolutionary thinking today.
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<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Another major contributor to evolutionary thinking was Scottish geologist Charles <OpenstaxTerm>Lyell</OpenstaxTerm>, known as the father of modern geology. He wrote a three-volume treatise, <OpenstaxTerm><OpenstaxEm>Principles of Geology</OpenstaxEm></OpenstaxTerm> (1830–1833), in which he argued that contemporary geological processes were the same as those that occurred in the past. These processes, such as wind and rain, produced the contemporary geological landscape. Mountains, lakes, and rivers were all created by these geological processes, many of them slow moving. This theory has come to be known as the principle of <OpenstaxTerm>uniformitarianism</OpenstaxTerm>. Lyell suggested that in order for such slow-acting forces to produce momentous change, Earth must be much older than previously suspected. Prior to Lyell’s publication, the majority of natural historians believed that the earth was less than 6,000 years old, a number arrived at through calculations made based on the Old Testament. By altering the suspected age of the earth from several thousand years to millions of years, Lyell changed the framework within which scientists viewed the geological past.
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4.4.1 Early Evolutionists and the Fixity of Species

1 What Is Anthropology?

1.1 The Study of Humanity, or "Anthropology Is Vast"

1.1.1 The Heart of Anthropology: Central Narrative and Commitments

1.1.2 Central Commitment #1: Exploring Sociocultural Diversity

1.1.3 Central Commitment #2: Understanding How Societies Hold Together

1.1.4 Central Commitment #3: Examining the Interdependence of Humans and Nature

1.2 The Four-Field Approach: Four Approaches within the Guiding Narrative

1.2.1 Biological Anthropology

1.2.2 Archaeology

1.2.3 Cultural Anthropology

1.2.4 Linguistic Anthropology

1.2.5 How the Four Fields Work Together: The Example of Race

1.3 Overcoming Ethnocentrism

1.3.1 Enculturation and Ethnocentrism

1.3.2 Primitivism and Orientalism

1.4 Western Bias in Our Assumptions about Humanity

1.4.1 Primitivism and Orientalism in Popular Culture

1.4.2 The Bias of Backwardness

1.5 Holism, Anthropology’s Distinctive Approach

1.5.1 Society as an Integrated Whole

1.5.2 Sources of Contradiction, Conflict, and Change

1.6 Cross-Cultural Comparison and Cultural Relativism

1.6.1 Relativism Is Not “Anything Goes”

1.6.2 Morality, Activism, and Cultural Relativism

1.7 Reaching for an Insider’s Point of View

1.7.1 The Challenge of Representing Others

1.7.2 Collaborative Methods of Representation

1.7.3 Working across Cultures toward Common Goals

1.7.4 Suggested Readings

2 Methods: Cultural and Archaeological

2.1 Archaeological Research Methods

2.1.1 Archaeological Techniques

2.1.2 Archaeological Dating Methods

2.2 Conservation and Naturalism

2.2.1 Early Efforts

2.2.2 Salvage Anthropology

2.2.3 Museum Collections

2.2.4 Interpretation and Voice

2.3 Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.1 The Development of Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.2 Perspective and Interpretation in Ethnography

2.4 Participant Observation and Interviewing

2.4.1 Participant Observation

2.4.2 Interviewing Informants

2.4.3 Ethical Considerations

2.5 Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

2.5.1 Differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Information

2.5.2 Modeling

2.5.3 The Science of Anthropology

2.6 Collections

2.6.1 Archives

2.6.2 Three-Dimensional Collections

2.6.3 Ownership

2.6.4 Suggested Readings

3 Culture Concept Theory: Theories of Cultural Change

3.1 The Homeyness of Culture

3.2 The Winkiness of Culture

3.3 The Elements of Culture

3.3.1 Culture Is What We Make

3.3.2 Culture Is What We Do

3.3.3 Culture Is What We Think

3.4 The Aggregates of Culture

3.4.1 Symbols

3.4.2 Ritual

3.4.3 Social Structure

3.5 Modes of Cultural Analysis

3.5.1 Evolution, Adaptation, and Historical Particularism

3.5.2 Functionalism

3.5.3 Structuralism

3.5.4 Ontology

3.6 The Paradoxes of Culture

3.6.1 Paradox 1: Culture Is Continuous, but It Changes

3.6.2 Paradox 2: Culture Is Bounded but Mobile

3.6.3 Paradox 3: Culture Is Consensual but Contested

3.6.4 Paradox 4: Culture Is Shared, but It Varies

3.6.5 Suggested Readings

4 Biological Evolution and Early Human Evidence

4.1 What Is Biological Anthropology?

4.1.1 Looking to the Deep Past

4.1.2 Exploring What It Means to Be Human

4.2 What’s in a Name? The Science of Taxonomy

4.2.1 Defining the Science of Taxonomy

4.2.2 Defining a Species

4.3 It’s All in the Genes! The Foundation of Evolution

4.3.1 The Units of Life

4.3.2 Gregor Mendel and the Laws of Heredity

4.3.3 Mendelian Inheritance in Humans

4.4 Evolution in Action: Past and Present

4.4.2 Charles Darwin’s Role in Changing Views of the Natural World

4.4.3 Understanding Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection

4.5 What Is a Primate?

4.5.1 What Is a Primate?

4.5.2 Primate Behavioral Variation

4.5.3 Explaining Primate Success

4.5.4 Primate Classification and Taxonomy

4.6 Origin of and Classification of Primates

4.6.1 Understanding Concepts of Time

4.6.2 Fossils and Dating Methods

4.6.3 Making Sense of Fossils

Question	Answer
the theory that changes in Earth’s fauna and flora were caused by supernatural catastrophic forces rather than evolution.	catastrophism
changes that appear in a species over time. Evolution is dependent on genetic variation and natural selection to pass on beneficial traits that will increase survival of the species.	evolution
any remains, impression, or traces of living things from a former geologic age.	fossils
a concept detailing a hierarchical structure of all matter and life.	great chain of being
the disproved idea that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that it has acquired during its lifetime.	inheritance of acquired characteristics
a change in the structure of a gene that results in a variant form that may be transmitted to subsequent generations.	mutation
the concept that Earth’s surface was shaped in the past by slow-moving geological processes.	uniformitarianism