CHSE Odisha Elective Anthropology key terms

The holistic study of humans across time and space, combining biological, cultural, archaeological, and linguistic approaches to understand human origins, variation, and social life.

The principle that human phenomena must be studied as interconnected wholes, so biology, culture, environment, and history are examined together rather than in isolation.

The American tradition of dividing anthropology into biological/physical anthropology, archaeology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology, all taught as one integrated discipline.

Judging another culture by the standards of one's own, often treating one's own customs as natural or superior; a bias anthropology tries to counter.

The methodological stance of understanding beliefs and practices within their own cultural context rather than evaluating them by outside standards.

A detailed, usually long-term, first-hand description of a community's way of life, produced through participant observation and interviews.

The comparative branch of cultural anthropology that analyses and compares ethnographic data from many societies to build general explanations of culture.

The learned, shared, and transmitted system of knowledge, beliefs, values, norms, and practices by which a group organises its life and adapts to its environment.

The process by which individuals learn and internalise their own culture from birth onward, largely unconsciously, through family, peers, and institutions.

The lifelong process through which people acquire the norms, roles, and skills needed to function as members of a society, including deliberate instruction.

The study of living and fossil primates, including their anatomy, behaviour, ecology, and social organisation, used to model human evolutionary origins.

A member of the mammalian order Primates, characterised by grasping hands and feet, forward-facing eyes, nails instead of claws, and large brains relative to body size.

A member of the human lineage after its split from the chimpanzee line, including living humans and all extinct bipedal relatives such as Australopithecus and Homo.

Habitual upright walking on two legs, indicated in fossils by features such as a forward-placed foramen magnum and a basin-shaped pelvis; a defining hominin trait.

A genus of extinct hominins from Africa, dating roughly four to two million years ago, with small brains and clear evidence of habitual bipedal walking.

An extinct human species that spread from Africa into Asia and Europe, with larger brains and more advanced tools than earlier hominins, dating from about 1.9 million years ago.

An extinct human population of Europe and western Asia adapted to cold climates, with robust bodies and Mousterian tools, interbreeding in part with modern humans.

A now-rejected classification of humans into discrete biological groups; genetic evidence shows human variation is continuous and clinal rather than divided into sharp racial categories.

The range of biological differences among human populations, such as skin colour, body build, and blood groups, produced by adaptation, gene flow, drift, and history.

A trait or process, genetic or behavioural, that improves an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment over generations.

A short-term, reversible physiological adjustment by an individual to environmental stress, such as increased red-cell production at high altitude.

The study of past human behaviour through material remains such as tools, structures, and refuse, recovered by systematic excavation and survey.

The long period of human existence before written records, reconstructed from archaeological and biological evidence rather than texts.

The principle that layers of sediment are deposited in sequence, so lower layers are generally older than those above, allowing relative dating of finds.

The controlled removal and recording of soil and deposits at an archaeological site to recover artefacts and features in their original spatial context.

Placing finds in a sequence of earlier or later without assigning a calendar age, using methods such as stratigraphy, seriation, and typology.

An absolute dating method measuring the decay of carbon-14 in organic remains such as bone, charcoal, and shell, useful for roughly the last 50,000 years.

The Old Stone Age, the earliest and longest cultural period, defined by flaked stone tools and a hunting-gathering way of life before farming.

A Lower Palaeolithic stone-tool tradition, associated especially with Homo erectus, characterised by large bifacial tools such as handaxes and cleavers.

A Middle Palaeolithic stone-tool industry of flake tools made from prepared cores, associated mainly with Neanderthals and early modern humans.

The system of socially recognised relationships based on descent, marriage, and adoption that defines rights, obligations, and group membership.

The rule by which a person is affiliated to a lineage or group through parents, whether unilineal (patrilineal or matrilineal), bilateral, or double.

A unilineal descent group whose members believe they share a common ancestor, often a totemic figure, without tracing exact genealogical links.

A descent group whose members can trace genealogical connections to a known common ancestor, forming a segment of a larger clan.

A socially approved union between partners that establishes rights and obligations between them and their kin, and usually legitimises offspring.

A domestic group based on kinship, typically comprising parents and children, which organises residence, child-rearing, and economic cooperation.

Goods or money transferred from the groom's kin to the bride's kin at marriage, common in many African and Indian tribal societies, also called bridewealth.

Property or money brought by a bride or her family into a marriage, transferring wealth toward the new household or the groom's family.

A religious and social system in which a group treats a plant, animal, or natural object as its sacred emblem and ancestral symbol, often linked to clan exogamy.

The belief that spirits or souls inhabit people, animals, plants, and natural objects, often considered an early form of religious thought.

A set of ritual practices believed to influence events through supernatural means, often classified as imitative or contagious by early anthropologists.

A fieldwork method in which the researcher lives among a community and takes part in its daily activities while systematically observing and recording.

First-hand research conducted in a community over an extended period, using observation, interviews, genealogies, and local records to gather primary data.

The use of anthropological concepts and methods to address practical problems, such as public health, education, tribal development, and resettlement planning.

A socially and politically organised community linked by kinship, territory, and shared culture, often with a distinct language and economy; a category used in Indian administration.

A term meaning 'original inhabitant', widely used in India for indigenous tribal communities, carrying claims to land, culture, and political recognition.

Planned efforts by state and voluntary agencies to improve the welfare, education, health, and livelihoods of tribal communities while addressing displacement and cultural loss.

A district of southern Odisha with a large Kondh tribal population, known for shifting cultivation, village councils, and ethnographic studies of Kondh society.

One of Odisha's largest tribal communities, mainly in Kandhamal and nearby districts, with clan organisation, shifting cultivation, and distinctive festivals and rituals.

A major tribal community of eastern India, including Mayurbhanj in Odisha, known for village organisation, the Jaher sacred grove, and the Sarna religion.

A small tribal community of the Malkangiri hills in southern Odisha, known for hill cultivation and a distinctive dress and ornament tradition.