sandr010

The term pattern is used for those arrangements or systems of internal relationship which give to any culture its coherence or plan and keep it from being a mere accumulation of random bits.The total system or the ideology of patterning is called a configuration.Kroeber has distinguished two major kinds of pattern: 1. Basic or Systemic Pattern- These are those that have persisted for years and years as coherent organization of traits  with functional value ( agriculture,monotheism) 2.Secondary Pattern- These are those that are subject to a great variety and instability( formal social organization,system of thought). As an out growth from Kroeber's conceptualizations came the Patterns of Culture written by Ruth Benedict.She added  a new dimension to the two types of patterns described by Kroeber.She refers to those qualities of cultural organization which come to prevade all or most spheres of some cultures and give them a distinctive individual slant.Benedict made use of psych...

The critical factor that differentiates humans and apes is bipedal locomotion. Comparative studies of fossils of humans and animals show differences in the structure of skulls and pelvis. Bipedalism freed the hands of our ancestors allowing them to carry loads and make tools. Apart from bipedalism particular aspects of tooth number, size, shape and enamel of teeth are of value in tracing human ancestry. The earliest fossil evidence supporting the evolution of a creature ancestral to humans was found in Kenya. The fossil a single jawbone has been dated to be 5.5 million years old. More substantial evidence was found in mid 1990s in northeastern Ethiopia where the remains of more than 40 individuals who lived about 4.4 million years ago were unearthed. The earliest hominid fossils of australopithecines from North Kenya have been dated to be 4.2 to 3.9 million years old. Such fossils were traced in Tanzania and Ethiopia also. The australopithecine fossils have been found at Hadar in...

Karl Marx was a socialist and a revolutionary thinker of the 19 th century. He was influenced by the works of Lewis Henry Morgan a lawyer who turned his attention to ethnographic study of native people. The notes prepared by Marx were used by Engels to bring out the book – The origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Marxist anthropology provides a typical 19 th century model of social evolution in which contemporary ethnographic evidence could be fitted into appropriate positions. The positions were recognized in the movement from the primitive through the ancient and the feudal to the capitalist and finally the communist stage. Economic base received primary focus in Marxist anthropology and religion, law or sociology. Marxist anthropology received importance as a subject of study in the Soviet Union and China. Its impact on North America and Europe was low though some individual anthropologists in USA and Britain had certain political and intellectual affiliation...

Emic and etic have become terms in anthropology, for an ‘‘insider’’ versus an ‘‘outsider’’ view of a particular social world. For example, an outsider view of an economic exchange might hold that a seller’s goal is to maximize profit. An insider view from people actually involved in the exchange might show that profit was not the concern. The distinction between emic and etic, insider and outsider, originated in the linguistics of the 1950s, most famously in the work of Kenneth Pike (1967). In the 1960s, anthropology borrowed and shortened the linguist’s distinction between phonetic and phonemic and began talking about etic’’ and ‘‘emic.’’ Due to the debates between ‘‘materialist’’ or etic and ‘‘symbolic’’ or emic approaches to anthropology, ‘‘etic’’ and ‘‘emic’’ turned into labels for com- peting kinds of ethnographic descriptions.  The shift to etic/emic as a partition of the ethnographic space rather than a dialectic process by which it was explored introduced di...

The urban revolution refers to the emergence of urban life and the concomitant transformation of human settlements from simple agrarian-based systems to complex and hierarchical systems of manu- facturing and trade. The term also refers to the present era of metropolitan or megalopolis growth, the development of exurbs, and the explosion of primate or mega-cities.  Archeologist V. Gordon Childe coined the term urban revolution to explain the series of stages in the development of cities that preceded the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century. For Childe, the first revolution the ‘‘Agricultural Revolution’’ occurred when hunting and gathering societies mastered the skill of food production and began to live in stable and sedentary groups. The second revolution the Urban Revolution began during the fourth and third millennia bce in the civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Near East. The urban revolution ushered in a new era of population growth, complex urban development, a...

Tradition is generally understood as a body of values, beliefs, rules, and behavior patterns that is transmitted generationally by practice and word of mouth and is integral to socialization processes. Connoting fixity, stability, and continuity, it guides daily behavior and justifies shared beliefs and practices. In small-scale societies, where tradition offers the dominant blueprint for acceptable behavior, its status is that of sacred lore. Where orally transmitted, however, tradition is always open to variation, contestation and change, and becomes a model ofpast practices rather than a passively and unreflec- tively inherited legacy. Since the 1990s, the historical turn in anthropological theory has led scholars to contextualize the emergence of particular constructions of tradition within colonization, missionization and post-war ‘‘development’’ and in articulation with the global political economy. Since  1980s, the topic of tradition has proved remarkably durable, engenderi...

Population Genetics is concerned with the determination of the genetic structure of human population and the analysis of the factors that maintain or alter their genetic structure.The web of genetic relationships among allele frequencies,consanguinity,matting patterns,gene flow  and natural selection are all significant in the study of population. A human population is found generally in a particular place and is a coherent entity mainly because it is geographically bounded.Further human populations are also defined by other important factors such as economic and even psychological boundaries. The genetic approach to human population generally uses the concept of Mendelian population which is defined by Theodosius Dobzhansky as follows : A reproductive community of sexual and cross fertilizing individuals which share in a common gene pool. Each Mendelian population may contain several other smaller Mendelian populations within it.The largest Mendelian population is a species becaus...

The structure of DNA was explained by a model created by Watson and Crick .The DNA helix has two strands  .Each strand is formed by numerous nucleotides.A nucleotide is formed by a nitrogenous base ( Adenine,Thymine,Guanine or Cytosine) with a 5 carbon sugar and a phosphate.Many nucleotides form a string or  strand called a polynucleotide which is known as gene.The various features or characters of an organism and its internal chemistry are decided only by these genes. It has been possible to identify and isolate a gene and to transfer a gene from one organism to another to create new combination.The technology is called recombinant DNA Technology.Depending upon what use we make of this technology the various branches of this new science are called biotechnology ,genetic engineering etc. In breeding programmes in crops  and other animals alteration of nucleotides by several parasexual or conjugational methods have been used.Now a large number of mutagenic  substances...

According to A.J Kelso physical anthropology attempts to explain human evolution.Genetics provides a basis for investigating similarities  and differences between parent and offspring generations.Evolution  may be defined as the accumulation of genetic changes over generations. Physical anthropology attempts to describe and explain man's  biological variation.Genetics have made it possible  to employ a distinctive set of traits,inherited ones in describing and analysing man's variation and these may be analysed in ways that other traits cannot. In classifying man's variation ,physical anthropology have relied heavily on racial classification that basically are pre-Darwinian or non evolutionary in outlook.Genetics in the development of its theory of population structure has laid the foundations  for classifying human variation into categories with clearer evolutionary unity and thus with clearer biological meaning than traditional racial classification simply.

The term Genetics is derived from the Greek word gen which means to become or to grow into.It is the science of inheritance which tries to explain how charactors are transmitted through generations. Genetics is the scientific study of the laws of inheritance.By inheritance is meant the transmission of biological characteristics from one generation to another generation.Inheritance has two main components. Heredity which is concerned with the factors responsible for the resemblance between parents and their offspring. Variation which is concerned with the forces  or influences due to which no two organisms are exactly alike. There are three general branches of Genetics Formal Genetics deals with the laws of inheritance postulated by Gregor Mendel the father of formal or classical or statistical genetics. Molecular Genetics is the study of the biochemical element of inheritance viz  the DNA or the Deoxyribonucleic Acid which is material component of the gene. Population Gen...

Functional theories explaining the evolution of primitive religion were propounded by Malinowski and Radcliffe- Brown.Malinowski cites the example of Trobriand Islanders  whose religion is associated with various emotional states of tension.  The magical and religious practices  of the islanders surround fishing expeditions. The emotional states of tension experienced by the islanders are born out of fear of disasters overtaking them while on fishing expeditions. Various institutions in the lives of the people  give rise to tensions based on anger,hate and greed.These states leading to tension continue for long,frustration set in,work suffers and  zest for life goes down. An emotionally upset state of life is not conducive to bring out the best in an individual.Religion helps to get rid of stress and strain paving way for attaining mental equipose and stability. Radcliffe- Brown's stand  on the function or religion is different  from that of Malinowski...

In genetic evolution physiological  and behavioural  changes result in increased chances of survival in a given environment. In the biological sense adaptation means  individual responses  which act to maintain  homeostatis as also evolutionary change  over generations towards attaining  increased fitness to live and thrive.The concept is also applied to human behavior and socio-cultural evolution. Evolutionary change in the genetic composition of a population may represent  either progressive adaptation to constant environmental  conditions or adjustment  to changing environmental conditions. Macroevolution  is broadly similar to adaptive radiation. Through this process diversification of an initial  stock into smaller stocks takes place  and each becomes adapted  to its own environment.Adaptive radiation in biological  sense is most strikingly illustrated  among invertebrates  in groups showing rapid ...

Human beings face problems and perplexities throughout life. It would have been similar experience with the primitive people as well. The primitive man when faced with an insurmountable problem would have prayed and offered worship making a religious approach. He would have tried to coerce a superior unseen power into service       through magic. The two kinds of approaches would have been made to tide over difficult situations. Frazer based on world wide studies arrived at two laws in classifying magic. The first law known as law of similarity includes homoeopathic and imitative or mimetic magic. The second law named law of contact is associated with contagious magic. Homoeopathic magic is known among some tribes in Chota Nagpur and in the Ho tribe. The tribes of Chota Nagpur believe that thunder with its rumbling noise causes rains .In order to cause rains they imitate thunder by flinging down rocks and boulders down hills with the hope that rains ...