What Culture Is

ANTH A-103, Human Origins and Prehistory

Larry J. Zimmerman, Ph.D., RPAIndiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

"Culture or civilization, taken in its wide, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, morals, law, custom and any other habits and capabilities acquired by man as a member of society."

E. B. Tylor, 1871 from Primitive Culture

Four traditional views of culture:1. Culture is the difference between humans and

animals.

2. Culture is learned behavior.

3. Society carries culture.

4. Culture is patterned behavior

As outlined by Kroeber and Kluckhohn in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions

Culture is the difference between humans and animals.

•An anthropocentric definition

•Tools using versus tool making

•Jane Goodall's chimpanzee studies

•Algebraic mentality

•Opposable thumb

•Power Grip vs. Precision Grip

Crucial to tool-making and using

Opposable thumb

Power Grip vs. Precision Grip

Power Precision

A revised definition?

Humans are the only animals to make and use tools as their primary means of adapting to the environment

Culture is learned behavior.

How do humans learn?

Imitative learningLanguage-based learning

Wolf or wild children

Remus and Romulus Helen Keller & Anne Sullivan

Signs vs symbols

Foundations of language

Signs carry their own meaning

Symbols are intermediaries and carry meaning for something else

It’s raining! Il pleut!

Symbols are an abstraction from reality, thus an artificial creation by people.

Culture is an artificially created reality

If language is a human creation based on symbols, and language is the foundation for culture, then

Society carries culture.•Society—an interacting group of organisms of the same species

•Society is the repository for culture—language is crucial

•Society's members participate in it

•Society & Culture outlast the individual

•Society and Culture are the dominant determinant of social behavior

a. Stereotypesb. Modal personalitiesc. National character

Culture is patterned behavior

a. Culture with an upper case C; culture with a lower case c b. Culture is hierarchical c. Culture is a system

Kaibola School, Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea,  on National Day, when traditional dress is worn

Functional prerequisites of culture

Territory/technologyPeople

Language Social organization (kinship and network of agreements)

Ideology (belief systems/world view)

What is anthropology?

The study of cultureTasks of anthropology:Description (ethnography)Comparison (ethnology)Explanation

The same as the tasks of any science, but because anthropology deals with people, it crosses over into the social sciences and humanities.

Four subfields of anthropology

Anthropological LinguisticsLanguage as a foundation for cultureWhat you can tell about a culture by use of languageVariations of symbolic communication-body language

ArchaeologyStudies the evolution/change/development of human culture through timeProblems of timeProblems of preservationProblems of ethnographic analogy

Cultural AnthropologyExamines living cultures and all their variety

Physical or biological anthropologyLooks at the biological underpinnings of culture

Why study Anthropology?

1. Humans are just plain interesting.Dangers: using the practices of another culture to justify your own cultural practices-Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism introduced as key concepts

2. Humanistic reasonsIf we know what others do and why, we will be less likely to rush to judgment about them. 3. Scientific reasonsIf you can predict how culture works, then you can change it to make the world better.