Transcript Why Conduct Qualitative Research?

Weeks 1-2
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Four fields of anthropology
Applied anthropology is done in all four
fields
Two epistemological traditions
Field work in all four fields
Applied work in all four fields
Method and theory
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The humanist and interpretivist vs. the
scientific and positivist traditions
Emic vs. etic data
Three paradigms: Sociobiology,
idealism, and materialism
Concept of culture
Nomothetic vs. idiographic theories
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Rationalism and empiricism
Tabula rasa
Kant’s attempt at a solution
The dilemma of relativism
War, economics, and the development
of science
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Gutenberg’s contribution to modernism
and science
Bacon and Newton: the principles of
induction and deduction
Newton’s hypothetico-inductive model
The Enlightenment and social science
The qualitative-quantitative problem
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Participant observation is anthropology’s
strategic method for collecting many
different kinds of data.
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August Comte’s contribution to social
science: Effective knowledge can be
used to improve human lives.
The mastery-over-nature metaphor
transferred to social science
The humanist reaction against
positivism
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Racial thinking and the development of
anthropology in the 19th Century
U.S. and Europe: the development of
four-field anthropology
Unilinear evolution, historical
particularism, biological and structural
functionalism
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Functionalism and the problem of
teleology
Key figures immediately after unilineal
evolution: Boas, Malinowski, RadcliffeBrown
Weeks 3-4
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Evolution: Linneaus, LeClerc, Cuvier,
Lamarck, Malthus, Darwin
Lyell’s role: uniformitarianism
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Mammalian traits
constant body temperature, postpartum
development of helpless offspring,
internal reproduction and fertilization,
greater reliance on learned behavior
The K-T event and the appearance of
primates
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Prosimians and Anthropoids
Catarrhines and Platyrrhines
Catarrhines include cercopithecines and
colobines (OW monkeys), and
hominoids
Hominoids include hylobates, the
pongids, the genus Pan, and the
hominids
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Fossil primates:
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Oligocene anthropoids
Miocene ancestors of the hominoids
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Emergence of hominids at the end of
the Miocene
Differentiation into arboreal and
terrestrial hominoids
Freeing hand, tall-grass, sharing food,
using tools as weapons
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Raymond Dart and the Taung child
Australopithecines: the sequence
Homo habilis
Homo ergaster
Homo erectus
H. erectus moves out of Africa
Hominid sequence I
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Sahelanthropus
Ardipithecus ramidus
Australopithecus anamensis
Australopithecus afarensis
Australopithecus africanus Taung
Australopithecus robustus (P. robustus
Australopithecus boisei (P. boisei, Zinj)
Hominid Sequence II
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Homo habilis (P. rudolfensis)
Homo rudolfensis
Homo ergaster
Homo erectus Trinil (P. erectus)
Homo heidelbergensis Mauer
Homo rhodesiensis Kabwe
Homo neanderthalensis
Homo sapiens
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Reduction of the saggital crest and the
nuchal bun
Punctuated equilibrium
Tool using and tool making: the
evidence from modern chimps
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Early human life and sexuality
The controversial Fialkowski hypothesis
AMH (anatomically modern humans)
and mitochondrial DNA
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Single and multiple origin theories of H.
sapiens.
The disappearance of the Neanderthals:
note the evidence at Qafzeh.
Adaptive radiation
Dating fossils and artifacts
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Relative vs. absolute dating
Oldowan and Acheulean tools
The Levallois method