Glossary
- Page ID
- 285328
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Eg. "Genetic, Hereditary, DNA ...") | (Eg. "Relating to genes or heredity") |  |
The infamous double helix | https://bio.libretexts.org/ | CC-BY-SA; Delmar Larsen |
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Word(s) |
Definition |
Image | Caption | Link | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthropology | The study of humans in all aspects, times, and places; it is a holistic, comparative, and evolution-based discipline with a focus shaped by the concept of 'culture.' | ||||
| Culture | The system of shared values, beliefs, behaviors, and artifacts, transmitted from one generation to the next, that the members of a group use to cope with their world and with each another. | ||||
| Epistemology | The philosophical study of knowledge. Theories of knowledge. The attempt to distinguish 'justified beliefs' from 'opinions.' | ||||
| Reflexivity | The practice, process, or ability to examine one's thoughts, feelings, assumptions, and biases and how they influence one's understanding and actions. | ||||
| Knowledge System | A unified way of knowing that is shared by a group of people and is used to explain and predict phenomena. | ||||
| Hypothesis | An explanation of observed facts, relying on a scientist's knowledge-based experiences and background research, stating how and why observed phenomena are the way they are. | ||||
| Theory | An explanation of observations that address a wide range of phenomena. | ||||
| Law | A statement of prediction about what will happen given certain conditions. | ||||
| Holism | The perspective on the human condition that assumes that mind, body, individuals, society, and the environment interpenetrate, and even define one another; the anthropological view that the whole of a culture is greater than the sum of its parts. | ||||
| Enculturation | The process by which individuals learn and adopt the norms, values, behaviors, language, and customs of their culture. | ||||
| Analytic Other | A group, people, or culture which is foreign to us or whom we make foreign so as to study them with qualified objectivity. | ||||
| Cultural Relativism | The idea that we should seek to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their own culture rather than our own; understanding people’s beliefs within the system they themselves have for explaining things. | ||||
| Culture (Geertz) | An historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which [humans] communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and their attitudes toward life. | ||||
| Emic | From the perspective of the studied culture | ||||
| Etic | From the perspective of the observer | ||||
| Religion (Durkheim) | A unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them. | ||||
| Religion (Geertz) | (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in [humans] by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic. | ||||
| Religion | A shared system of beliefs and practices regarding the interaction of natural and supernatural phenomena. | ||||
| Witchcraft | The use of intangible (not material) means to cause a change (positive or negative) in circumstances to another person. | ||||
| Sorcery | The use of material elements (object, potions, leavings) to cause a change in circumstances (positive or negative) to another person. | ||||
| Symbol | A object, image, gesture, vocalization, or event conventionally and arbitrarily associated with a particular meaning. | ||||
| Myth | A well-known story that explains primary principles, beliefs, and values outside of chronological time; a sacred or sacred-like story that reflects and reinforces a community’s worldview | ||||
| Ritual | A special kind of repeated, patterned action conventionally associated with a particular meaning. Performative acts by which we carry out our religious beliefs, public and private. | ||||
| Economy | The central way in which societies meet basic material needs and wants; a system for making, circulating, and using things, including material goods, services, and information. | ||||
| Modes of Production | Solutions to meet human wants and needs by generating materials from the environment, developing techniques of labor and forms of technology to process those materials, organize society to get the necessary work done, and ways of trading and circulating things. | ||||
| Kinship | A network of social and biological relationships between individuals. | ||||
| Artefacts | Portable items that were made and used by humans. | ||||
| Ecofacts | Natural objects that have been used or moved by humans. | ||||
| Features | Non-portable human creations. | ||||
| Material culture | The physical objects, resources, and spaces that people create, use, and share as part of their culture. | ||||
| Technology | The specialized knowledge and skills used for making material culture | ||||
| Context | How an artifact or other type of archaeological data was found in relation to everything else at the archaeological site | ||||
| Communication | The transfer of information from a sender to a receiver | ||||
| Folk taxonomies | The systems of categories people use to organize their knowledge of the world |