ANT 302 First Exam Review
KEY TERMS
 Culture – an integrated system of meanings, values, or patterns of behavior, with which
a specified group of people live and apprehend the world around them
 Cultural Anthropology – the comparative, cross-cultural study of human society and
culture; founded by Sir Edward Tylor
 Anthropology Subfields
1. Physical or Biological (Natural Science)
 Evolutionary origins and diversity of humanity
 Jane Goodall
2. Archeology (Natural Science)
 Excavating the human past
 Divided into historical archeology (looking at written records) and prehistoric
archeology (looking at material remains)
3. Linguistic (Humanities)
 Looking at the relationship between language and human behavior and
perception
4. Cultural (Social or Sociocultural) (Humanities)
 Focuses on how culture is shaping humans
 Characteristics of Culture
1. Shared
2. Learned
3. Tacit (implicit, unconscious)
4. Explicit (conscious, spoken)
5. Arbitrary (by chance)
6. Symbolic (ex. U.S. flag)
7. Integrated (a change in one aspect can change others)
8. Largely Adaptive (people adapt culturally to cope with environmental stresses
and fulfill psychological and emotional needs)
 Franz Boas – founder of American four field anthropology; contributed to cultural,
biological, and linguistic anthro