These are 5 discussion board questions all related to Anthropology. I would like to have answered with references. Each question should have between 300-500 words.

 

1. My question for you this week is which member of our genus was the first to leave Africa?  Where is the evidence? Is it strong enough to change our textbook?

Tell me why you believe what you do.  You can find some additional material for this on the web.  What do the fossils in the Republic of Georgia tell us?  Does the evidence leave anything up to question?

 

 

 

2. We are moving quickly into Neolithic territory here…

What were some of the consequences of domestication?  How do archaeologists know (what provides the evidence)?

An interesting question: are cats really domesticated? How did that happen–or not?

Some of those consequences led to a domino effect in terms of the development of civilization.  

What are the next steps in the organization of societies?  Are we better off now?  Don’t forget to include issues of health and well-being.

 

 

 

3. Why don’t egalitarian societies exist anymore?  Can you imagine when circumstances that would allow for us ( U. S.) to return to an egalitarian situation? Why or why not?

Is the American dream still valid?  Can we all be millionaires and rise up from where we started?  Why or why not?  The NY Times piece is useful here.

Given the current political climate and debate over the middle class, do you think we really understand the role stratification plays in our lives? Do politicians actually understand?

 

 

 

 

4. How is social status determined from speech patterns?  Give me an example from your own life.  Have you ever noticed differences while the were occurring?

How about gender? Is there really a difference between male and female communication? How might this affect relationships? Marriage practices? Are we really from different planets?

What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis?  Do you agree with the basic premise? How does this relate to the web link addressing lost languages and species extinction?

What are the major differences between human and nonhuman communication?  

Why do we (and many others) assume by default, that English is the lingua franca?

 

 

 

5. Why do we have belief systems?  
  
Why is there such carryover in creation stories around the globe?  

Why do certain celebrated holidays comprise multiple origins–i.e. having roots in pagan or other belief systems. What is that called when belief systems merge? 

Why are Native American or other beliefs sometimes referred to as ‘myths’ while the Bible is taken as fact?  Why is tolerance so difficult?

What do you see in terms of the future of organized belief system? Are more or less people involved?

ANSWER

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My question
1.A longstanding view of human evolution holds that the first hominids to leave Africa did so with the help of bigger brains, longer legs and fancier tools than those of their predecessors. That scenario suffered a major blow a couple of years ago, however, when paleontologists working in Dmanisi, Georgia unearthed the oldest human remains yet found outside of Africa—two 1.7-million-year-old skulls belonging to early members of our genus, Homo–and discovered primitive tools alongside them. Now a new finding may topple another pillar of the theory. According to a report in the current issue of the journal Science,researchers working at the same site have recovered a third skull–one that housed a surprisingly small brain.
Exceptionally well-preserved, the fossil, dubbed D2700, exhibits a thin browridge, short nose and large canine teeth, observes team member David Lordkipanidze of the Georgian Academy of Sciences in Tbilisi. With an endocranial volume of roughly 600 cubic centimeters, D2700 was considerably smaller-brained than the other two Dmanisi hominids, whose skulls have some 800 cubic centimeters of brain space. But size differences notwithstanding, the three specimens are, overall, similar in form. The investigators thus believe that the remains represent members of the same species, H. erectus, although they have some features characteristic of the more primitive Homo habilis. It may well be that the D2700 individual was a female and the other two were males, the team posits.
2.Plant and animal domestication is the most important development in the past 13,000 years of human history. It interests all of us, scientists and non-scientists alike, because it provides most of our food today, it was prerequisite to the rise of civilization, and it transformed global demography. Because domestication ultimately yielded agents of conquest (for example, guns, germs and steel) but arose in only a few areas of the world, and in certain of those areas earlier than in others, the peoples who through biogeographic luck first acquired domesticates acquired enormous advantages over other peoples and expanded. A burial marks an exact point in time, and preserves information not only about the deceased but also about those who buried the body—their beliefs, customs, and daily lives. Formal burials reflect culturally prescribed ways to show respect for the deceased, as well as a means to dispose of the dead.
Bones found in even the most unlikely places hold clues. Chesapeake burials sometimes reveal corpses hurriedly placed in shallow pits, with little attention paid to positioning the body. On rare occasions, archaeologists find bones in trash pits, old wells, or cellars. In sharp contrast to dogs, cats did not evolve to look or act very different from their wild ancestors. This fact has made it difficult for scientists to determine when exactly cats domesticated. Although evidence shows that cats probably did not evolve from modern large cats, such as lions and tigers, Archaeologists cannot use the shapes of old bones and scientists cannot investigate DNA to distinguish between ancient small wild cats and modern domesticated cats. However, some evidence does lead scientists to believe that the modern domestic cat (Felus catus) may have descended from a European wild cat (Felis silvestris) and an African wild cat (Felislybica), cats that still exist in the wild.the next step of organization socities is to help people we are now better off than those those and the health issues are different from those times they ued herbs whilereas now we use chemicals.
3. it is my studied opinion that egalitarianism doesn’t survive under conditions of capitalism but other pressures work just as well to bring it down. Its not quite that simple, in other words. The problems come about when population sizes grow beyond what can be managed by consensus which seems to be in the thousands or low tens of thousands if and when there is a relatively strong, shared set of ideals and expectations. But when individuals come along who want to act more towards their own opportunistic goals, then the lack of binding authority does not provide any many of preventing them from doing so. Encroachments by the more dominant society provide many opportunities for both diluting the ethos of these people plus opportunities for individuals to exploit local conditions for their own ends. The reason unto why they do not exist is because ideals of egalitarianism are very fragile and become compromised by external pressures leading to internal chaos. On some First Nations reserves, opportunists do emerge who manage to exploit the lack of coercive authority within the reserves and do get involved in the tobacco trade (or other conditions of tax-free status) or drugs, gambling, etc., and use the money to organise and arm factions (such as the “warrior societies”) to protect their own interests and coerce (or oppress) others. They often will also do things like try to bring in outsiders (sometimes known as “wannabes”) to use as dupes and form voting blocks to balance out the democratic factions and, of course, when others argue that these people are not members of the society or do not belong, then the “racist” club is brought out. The irony is that, in the end, these opportunists are more xenophobic and exclusionary and so the membership of the “wannabes” only lasts as long as they are seen as useful to their sponsors. Yes they can return because there is equality Historically, this “American Dream” has compassed the world and brought many people to the US in pursuit of that dream. There are some of the mega-wealthy who have had opportunity handed to them on a silver platter by being born into a life of comfort, but there are still self-made people who have found avenues to super success. It is not just technology gurus that can make it big — but there are many from all types of background and industries that have created success. Following are a few people who you may recognize from the past. Each had humble beginnings, but still found success and were able to make it big by their hard work. . Sociology has a long history of studying stratification and teaching about various kinds of inequality, including economic inequality, racial/ethnic inequality, gender inequality, and other types of inequality. Inequality means people have unequal access to scarce and valued resources in society. These resources might be economic or political, such as health care, education, jobs, property and land ownership, housing, and ability to influence government policy. Some politicians don’t understand what we need and some do. To throw all politicians in a basket and say that they are all bad is just ignorant. It’s like saying just because a black man robbed someone, that means all black men are robbers, it is simply not true.
4.Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects ofsociety, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the waylanguage is used, and the effects of language use on society. Sociolinguistics differs from sociology of language in that the focus of sociology of language is the effect of the society on the language, while the sociolinguistics focuses on language’s effect on the society. Sociolinguistics overlaps to a considerable degree withpragmatics. It is historically closely related to linguistic anthropology and the distinction between the two fields has even been questioned recently not you can not now the difference yes gender also affects very much thus affect different relationships and marriage because of the communication barrier we are not from different planets. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the theory that an individual’s thoughts and actions are determined by the language or languages that individual speaks. The strong version of the hypothesis states that all human thoughts and actions are bound by the restraints of language, and is generally less accepted than the weaker version, which says that language only somewhat shapes our thinking and behavior. Following are quotes from the two linguists who first formulated the hypothesis and for whom it is named, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf Many nations have laws that protect conservation-reliant species: for example, forbiddinghunting, restricting land development or creating preserves. Population numbers, trends and species’ conservation status can be found in the lists of organisms by population. a species indicates the likelihood that it will becomeextinct. Many factors are considered when assessing the conservation status of a species; e.g., such statistics as the number remaining, the overall increase or decrease in the population over time, breeding success rates, or known threats. The primary difference between human communication and animal communication is the duality of structure of human language. Each human language has got a fixed number of sound units called phonemes. These phonemes are combined to make morphemes. Thus language has got two levels of patterning which is not prevailed in animal communication.
Yet another distinctive feature of human communication is creativity. Human beings use their linguistic resources to produce new expressions and new sentences. They arrange and rearrange phonemes, morphemes, words and phrases to create new modes of expression. This is also called open- endedness of language. Animal communication is closed system they cannot produce new vocal signals to communicate novel events or experience.
Human beings can talk of real or imaginary situations, places and objects far removed from their present surroundings and time. Human language is context free whereas animal communication mostly context bound. Animal communication is merely a response to stimulus in the immediate environment like the presence of food or danger. EFL mainly exists in countries where the dominant language is not English, and is frequently taken advantage of by those who see English as a passport to success in study or business. ESL mainly exists in countries where the dominant language is English and is aimed predominantly at immigrants needing to acquire language skills for work and day to day survival. Both forms have traditionally assumed interaction with native speakers as one of the primary functions of the language and thus both have looked for standards based on native speaker English as the models, and both forms have also recognized the importance of placing the language being learned within the mother culture from whence it derived. All well and good, and this has served many people well for around two centuries. Since the earliest known written records that exist, it is easily seen that mankind has always found a need to have a belief in something…even though that belief may seem illogical and wrong to others further down in history or even in the same time period but in another culture. Some people believe in a higher power…others believe there is nothing outside what the five senses can perceive. No matter how different beliefs are from one another, they always seem to have a passionate and devout group of followers. Why is this? Why are there so many different belief systems that are so different from each other? The most frightening question of all is to ask which belief system is the true one? All human societies, including our own, tell stories of how the world began. Such stories are almost infinitely varied in detail, but they tend to include some basic themes.

5.Many accounts begin with earth, or with earth retrieved from water. In some of them gods and people and animals emerge from the earth (just as plants still do). In others the process begins when a creature, such as a crab or tortoise, dives into a primeval ocean and brings up a small piece of earth from which the universe is created. Myths of these kinds are common among American Indians and aboriginalAustralians(who place before the moment of creation a period called ‘the time of dreaming’).many celebration hae different origins because of influencila individuals who lived there in the past. Religious syncretism exhibits blending of two or more religious belief systems into a new system, or the incorporation into a religious tradition of beliefs from unrelated traditions. This can occur for many reasons, and the latter scenario happens quite commonly in areas where multiple religious traditions exist in proximity and function actively in the culture, or when a culture is conquered, and the conquerors bring their religious beliefs with them, but do not succeed in entirely eradicating the old beliefs or, especially, practices. Most history textbooks designed for high school courses mistakenly consider the various Native American religions as an indistinguishable whole. One popular textbook, The Amer¬ican Way describes Native American religion in these words: “These Native Americans [in the Southeast] believed that nature was filled with spirits. Each form of life, such as plants and animals, had a spirit. Earth and air held spirits too. People were never alone. They shared their lives with the spirits of nature.” The American Way may have been attempting to show respect for Native American religion, but it doesn’t wash. Stated unequivocally in this way, the beliefs are depicted as opaque or meaningless fallacy and fable, not the sophisticated theology of a higher civilizationFirst off are they stupid or ignorant? The difference is simple, ignorant lacks knowledge, stupid has the knowledge but refuses to use it. Ignorance can be cured by education, stupid is forever.
I find the stupid ones are difficult to deal with because I can fathom no reason for their behavior, actions or beliefs and I like to consider myself a sensible logical person. What would possibly compel a person to act that way. Its beyond me and I have great difficulty when for some reason I must deal with them. If at all possible I leave. Researchers accidentally discovered that people with religious beliefs tend to be more content in life while studying an unrelated topic. While not the original objective, the recent European study found that religious people are better able to cope with shocks such as losing a loved one or getting laid off of a job. A growing number of people, millions worldwide, say they believe that life definitively ends at death – that there is no God, no afterlife and no divine plan. And it’s an outlook that could be gaining momentum – despite its lack of cheer. In some countries, openly acknowledged atheism has never been more popular.