sandr010

By 1500 B.C.E. Indo-Aryan tribes had established themselves in  the Punjab region  and had composed most of the hymns in Hinduism’s oldest text, the Rig-Veda.  That text is a collection of more than 1,000 hymns addressed to various Vedic gods. The society described in the hymns of the Rig-Veda was nomadic and pastoral.  Indo-Aryan society was divided into three classes: kings, priests, and commoners. Aryan life centered on cattle, horses, and warfare. This can be seen in the hymns’ many metaphors involving cows, in their use of cattle as a sign of wealth, and in the special energy with which they condemn those who steal or threaten to steal Aryan herds.  Indo-Aryans protected their herds  through warfare.   This was a warrior culture whose major warrior god, Indra, was shown fighting against the “enemies of the Aryans,”  whose practices differed from those of the Aryans themselves. Hymns ask the gods for wealth, cattle, progeny, prosper...

From before 30,000 B.C.E. and up to  10,000 B.C.E. Stone Age communities of hunters and gatherers lived on the Indian subcontinent. The earliest of these human communities are known primarily from surface finds of stone tools.  Paleolithic peoples lived by hunting and gathering in the Soan River Valley, the P otwar plateau regions, and the Sanghao caves of northern Pakistan and in the open or in caves and rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.  The artifacts found at the sites include stone pebble tools, hand axes, a skull in the Narmada River Valley and several older rock paintings  at Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh. Later Mesolithic  communities were more extensive with sites in  Indian states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. Small parallel-sided blades and stone microliths were the tools of many of these Mesolithic communities. These communities lived by hunting and gathering and fishing, with signs  of the ...

Gender expectations are learned and culturally imposed through a variety of social mechanisms, including socialization, situational constraints, and commercialization of gender ideals.  Socialization theorists argue that an undetermined yet significant portion of male-female differences are products of the ways in which males and females are socialized.  Another powerful mechanism for conveying gender expecta tions is the commercialization of gender ideals—the process of introduc ing products into the market by using advertising and sales campaigns that promise consumers they will achieve masculine and feminine ideals if they buy and use the products.   Structural constraints  the established and customary rules, policies, and day-to-day practices that affect a person’s life chances  channel people’s behavior in desired directions.  Structural constraints push men and women into jobs that correspond with society’s ideals for sex-appropriate work. ...

As food-producing economies spread and became more productive, chiefdoms and eventually states developed in many parts of the world.A state is a form of social and political organization that has a formal central government and a division of society into classes. The first states developed in Mesopotamia by 5500 chiefdoms were precursors to states with privileged and effective leaders-chiefs but lacking the sharp class divisions that characterize states.By 7000 in the Middle East there is evidence for an elite level indicating a chiefdom or a state. The complexity of the   division of social and economic labor tended to grow as food production spread and intensified.Systems of political authority and control typically develop to handle regulatory problems encountered as the population grows and the economy increases in scale and diversity.Competition,including warfare among chiefdoms for territory and resources also can stimulate state formation. Anthropologists have identifi...

Symbolic thought is unique and crucial to humans and to cultural learning.Anthropologist Leslie White defined culture as dependent upon symbolling----- culture consists of tools,implements,utensils,clothing,ornaments,customs,institutions,beliefs,rituals,games,works of art,language etc. For White Culture originated when our ancestors acquired the ability to use symbols that is to originate and bestow meaning on a thing or event and correspondingly to grasp and appreciate such meanings. A symbol is something verbal or nonverbal within a particular language or culture that comes to stand for something else.There is no obvious natural or necessary connection  between the symbol and what is symbolizes. Language is one of the distinctive possessions of Homo Sapiens.No other animal has developed anything approaching the complexity of language. Symbols are usually linguistic but there are also nonverbal symbols such as flags that stand for countries.For hundeds of thousands of years,humans...

The term indigenous people gained legitimacy within international law with the creation in 1982 of the United Nations Working group on Indigenous Populations.This group has representation from all six continents. Social movements worldwide have adopted the term indigenous people as a self-identifying and political  label based on past oppression but now legitimizing a search for social,cultural and political rights. Working to promote cultural survival is a growing international pan tribal movement.In June 1992 the World Conference of Indigenous Peoples met in Rio De Janeiro with 300 representatives of the tribal diversity that survives in the modern world. In Latin America the drive by indigenous people for self-determination has emphasized their cultural distinctiveness;political reforms involving restructuring of the state;territorial rights and access to natural resources including control over economic development and reforms of military and police powers over indigenous peopl...

Gender bias is  behavior  that shows  favoritism  towards one gender over another. The gender bias is often in  favor  of men and boys over girls and women. Women and girls are expected to demonstrate feminine  behavior  and boys and men are expected to act masculine. The term gender bias is used interchangeably with the term sexism. Sexism is defined as the subordination of one sex usually female based on the assumed superiority of the other sex or an ideology that defines females as different from and inferior to males. Sex is the basis for the prejudice and presumed inferiority implicit in the term sexism. The term gender bias is more inclusive than the term sexism as it includes both prejudice and discrimination in its definition. Studies of gender bias also focus on gender rather than on sex.Furthermore the term gender bias could include instances of bias against boys and men in addition to bias against girls and women.