INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY

Ant 1102 Spring 2002

Tuesday-Thursday 2-3:15 PM, InstrPlaza N106

Dr. Robert E. Rhoades

Office Telephone: 542-3141

Baldwin 105J/K

Office Hours: Tuesday-Thursday, 3:30-4:30 PM

Course Description: Meeting the Social Science, Environmental Literacy Requirements, and Writing Requirements

Introduction to Anthropology (ANT 1102) is a general survey of the field of anthropology which potentially serves UGA students for both the social science and environmental literacy core course requirement. This course is also geared to helping students improve their writing skills.

Anthropology addresses the issue of human biological and cultural diversity across space and time. Homo sapiens, the subject matter of anthropology, is a highly adaptable primate, with a great capacity to assimilate and transmit its experience and knowledge in a symbolic way. To serve it own purposes, our species has made remarkable impact on practically all world environments, modifying them intentionally by introducing changes in their productivity, order and structure, and also causing unintentional perturbations. The future of planet Earth depends on how well our species comes to grips with nature itself. The population question, the ever-increasing demand for energy and raw materials, and the degradation of our natural resources, as well as changes in ecological processes on a planetary scale, may be placing our species on a path to extinction---despite our apparent technological successes.

The aim of this course is to give the undergraduate student critical knowledge of the vast sweep of the human experience, from a primordial pre-hominid existence in Africa down to the contemporary world. The course will look at how Homo sapiens evolved, developed culture and technology, and transformed itself from being simply another species in localized natural ecosystems to the dominant species of the natural and "fabricated" global ecology. The course is organized around five major transformations affecting human-environmental interactions: 1. Biological evolution of the humanoid form; 2. Development of the Paleolithic foraging way of life; 3.Domestication of plants and animals; 4. Development of complex society; and 5. Evolution of the modern world system. The course will have a special focus on indigenous or non-western cultures. The course will conclude with a discussion of the role of anthropology in solving future human-environmental problems.

Course Organization

Ant 1102 will be experienced through lecture, guest lectures, course-enriching videos, and a research writing paper. Each week there will be lectures combined with discussion/video and an occasional guest lecturer. Class attendance and participation are required in all course-related activities. Your primary contact for information and guidance will be your Graduate Teaching Assistant who will provide you with their office hours. I can be contacted through the telephone number at the top of this syllabus should you have any special problems.

Class Policies

To facilitate learning, mutual respect must govern all class activities. Coming late to class and leaving early is not permitted. Reading newspapers, talking and other forms of distracting behavior are not allowed during class. The Graduate Teaching Assistants will keep a record of your attendance. The University academic honesty policy is strictly enforced. Do you own work in exams and report writing. During exams all caps and hats will have to be safely stored beneath your chair and all notes out of sight.

Exams

Four hour long exams will be given in the course. You will be allowed to drop your lowest exam score among the first three exams. The final exam grade cannot be dropped. Given this flexibility, no make-up exams will be given. A missed exam will constitute the dropped-exam. Your final grade will be based on the following scale of grade equivalents of average scores:

1. 90-100...........A

2. 80-89.............B

3. 70-79.............C

4. 60-69.............D

5. 59-below.......F

Writing Requirement:Research Paper

In addition to the four exams, each student will engage in an individual research project in which the concepts, theories, or principles of anthropology will be applied. In this activity, you will document some interesting person or world around you. The paper is to be based on your original research and writing . Although the formats are to be discussed with your teaching assistant in detail, you should identify a person or an event which has been around most of the last century and write paper. The topic is negotiable with your TA but it must involve first hand fieldwork. You may wish to make a video, a photo display on that person's life history, their particular skill or art, or about an ongoing cultural event (e.g., estate auctions, festivals, heirloom seed saving, etc.) which has more than 50 years of existence. We will provide more detail about this paper in the first two weeks of classes. The same grading schedule listed above for exams will be applied.

YOUR FINAL COURSE GRADE WILL BE BASED ON AN AVERAGE OF 3 EXAMS (LOWEST ONE OF FIRST THREE DROPPED) AND THE RESEARCH REPORT. THE SAME SCALE MENTIONED ABOVE WILL BE USED.

Textbooks

Haviland, William A. 2000. Anthropology. Ninth Edition. Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt-Brace.

Collins, Kay, Lacy Hunter, and Foxfire Students. Foxfire 11. New York: Anchor Books.

Price, Charles 1996. A Student Guide to Collecting Folklore. Johnson City, Tennessee: The Overmountain Press.

WEEKLY TOPICS AND READINGS (Approximate dates)

Course Schedule

Week 1 (1/8-1/10) Readings: Haviland 1. Read all of Price's "A Student Guide to Collecting Folklore" and Foxfire Introduction (pp. 5-10), (this little booklet should be referred to as you write you paper)

• Class Objectives and Requirements
• What is Anthropology?
• Fields and Methods of Anthropology: Biological/Physical, Archeology,

Cultural, Linguistics, and Practicing Anthropology

• Humans and the Environment through Five Major Transformations

Transformation I: Human Biological Evolution

Week 2 (1/15-1/17) Readings: Haviland 2, 3, 4; Foxfire:The Old Home Place (pp. 11-28)

• How has Homo sapiens thought about its place in nature?
• Primate Ancestors and "Cousins"
• Primate Social Behavior as Ecological Strategy

Week 3 (1/22-1/24). Reading: Haviland 5, 6, 7; Foxfire: Wit, Wisdom, and Remembrances (pp.29-58)

• Human Paleontology: The History of Recovery of Fossil Record

Week 4 (1/29) Reading: Haviland 8, 9; Foxfire: Gardens and Commercial Farms (pp.59-93)

• Human Paleontology: The Hominids (Australopithecines to Homo)

• EXAM 1. JANUARY 31.

Transformation II: Evolution of the Paleolithic Culture