WBCHSE HS Anthropology cheat sheet

Anthropology derives from Greek anthropos (human) + logos (study); it is the holistic, comparative and fieldwork-based study of humans as biological and cultural beings across all times and places.

Scope is conventionally split into four fields: biological/physical, archaeological, socio-cultural (including linguistic), and applied anthropology; in India a fifth emphasis, Indian anthropology/tribal studies, is often added.

Holism: no single trait (e.g., a marriage rule or a skull measurement) is explained in isolation; institutions are analysed as interlinked parts of a whole.

Comparative method: cross-cultural comparison (e.g., Murdock-style trait lists, HRAF) tests whether a pattern is universal, culture-specific, or an artefact of sampling.

Relativism (methodological): a practice is described in terms of its own cultural context before evaluation; this is a research stance, not a claim that all practices are morally equal.

Etic vs emic: etic = analyst's external categories; emic = participants' own categories; good ethnography reports both and shows where they diverge.

Disciplinary links: biology/ genetics (evolution, human variation), geology/palaeontology (stratigraphy, fossils), sociology (social structure), psychology (cognition, enculturation), economics/political science (exchange, power), linguistics (language and cognition).

Key distinction from sociology: anthropology traditionally studies small-scale, non-industrial, colonised or marginal communities using long-term participant observation; sociology arose studying industrial European societies with survey and structural methods.

Ethnocentrism is judging another culture by one's own standards; cultural relativism is the corrective; racism is a pseudo-scientific ideology, distinct from the biological fact of human variation within and between populations.

Order Primates: grasping hands/feet with nails, opposable thumb, stereoscopic colour vision, reduced olfaction, large brain relative to body, long juvenile period, typically one or two offspring, clavicle and mobile shoulder.

Prosimians (lemurs, lorises, tarsiers) vs anthropoids (monkeys, apes, humans): anthropoids have fused frontal bones, a bony plate (simian shelf in some), and a fully enclosed orbit.

Hominoid apes: gibbon, orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo, human; humans differ by habitual bipedalism, reduced canine size, non-honing chewing, larger brain, and a vertical spine with lumbar curve.

Bipedal skeletal markers: anteriorly placed foramen magnum, short broad pelvis, valgus knee, longer lower limbs, arched foot with adducted hallux, S-shaped vertebral column.

Hominin sequence (indicative): Sahelanthropus/Australopithecus (bipedal, small brain) → Homo habilis (Oldowan tools, ~2.5–1.6 mya) → Homo erectus (Acheulian, fire, dispersal from Africa) → archaic Homo sapiens → anatomically modern Homo sapiens with symbolic culture.

Dating and evolution evidence: fossils plus comparative anatomy, molecular clocks (mtDNA, Y-chromosome), and the Out-of-Africa model of modern human origins versus multiregional continuity.

Human variation: clines (gradual geographic change in gene frequencies, e.g., skin pigmentation correlated with UV radiation), polymorphisms (ABO, sickle-cell, G6PD), and adaptation (high-altitude hypoxia, lactase persistence).

Race is not a valid biological taxonomy: most genetic variation lies within populations, and 'racial' traits are clinal, non-concordant and environmentally plastic.

Adaptation types: genetic (sickle-cell heterozygote advantage in malaria zones), physiological/acclimatisation (sweating, vasodilation, haemoglobin at altitude), and cultural/technological (clothing, shelter, diet).

Three-age system: Stone Age → Bronze Age → Iron Age; Stone Age subdivided into Palaeolithic (Lower, Middle, Upper), Mesolithic and Neolithic.

Lower Palaeolithic: Oldowan (chopper-chopping tools, core-and-flake) and Acheulian (handaxe, cleaver, bifacial); Middle Palaeolithic: prepared-core Levallois technique, flake tools, points, scrapers; Upper Palaeolithic: blade and bladelet industries, burins, harpoons, cave art.

Mesolithic: microliths (geometric forms - trapeze, triangle, lunate), bow-and-arrow, fishing, early domestication of dog, seasonal camps; in India, sites such as Bagor, Bhimbetka rock shelters, Langhnaj.

Neolithic: ground and polished stone axes, adzes, sickles, querns, pottery, weaving, agriculture and animal domestication, permanent villages; Indian sites include Mehrgarh, Burzahom, Chirand, Daojali Hading.

Tool typology terms: core, flake, blade, burin, scraper, point, microlith; typology classifies by form and inferred function and is the basis of assemblage comparison.

Stratigraphy principle: law of superposition - in undisturbed deposits, lower layers are older than upper layers; associated artefacts and features give relative age.

Relative dating: stratigraphy, seriation (frequency of styles through time), typological sequence, pollen analysis; absolute dating: radiocarbon (organic material, roughly 50,000 years), potassium-argon (volcanic rock, very old), thermoluminescence (pottery, burnt flint), dendrochronology, fission-track.

Radiocarbon dating requires calibration (tree-ring curves) because raw 14C ages differ from calendar years; contamination by older carbon makes samples appear older.

Site formation and context: provenience (exact position), association (co-occurrence), taphonomy (post-depositional processes such as scavenging and erosion) determine what an assemblage can legitimately support.

Family types: nuclear (parents and children) vs extended/joint; residence rules - patrilocal, matrilocal, avunculocal, neolocal, ambilocal; descent rules - patrilineal, matrilineal, bilateral, ambilineal, double descent.

Marriage functions: regulates sexual access, legitimises offspring, creates affinal alliances, transfers rights over property and labour; forms include monogamy, polygyny, polyandry (including fraternal), and group marriage as a rare reported form.

Marriage payments: bride price/bridewealth (goods to bride's kin), dowry (goods to bride/groom household), bride service (labour), and exchange (sister-exchange).

Prohibitions and preferences: incest taboo (exogamy), clan exogamy, village exogamy, cross-cousin marriage (preferred in parts of South India), levirate (widow marries husband's brother) and sororate (man marries wife's sister).

Kinship terminology: classificatory vs descriptive; Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Omaha, Crow, Sudanese systems; terms encode descent, generation, sex, seniority and affinity.

Descent and grouping: lineage (unilineal descent from a known ancestor), clan (claimed common ancestor, often totemic), moiety (dual division), phratry, kindred (bilateral personal network).

Religion (Durkheim): beliefs and practices uniting adherents into a moral community; sacred/profane dichotomy; functions include explanation, anxiety reduction, social control and solidarity.

Magic (Frazer): imitative (homeopathic) magic based on similarity and contagious magic based on contact; Tylor's animism and Marett's animatism (mana) are alternative early theories.

Ritual types: rites of passage (Van Gennep: separation, liminality, incorporation), calendrical rites, and crisis rites; liminality (Turner) is the ambiguous in-between phase.

Constitutional definition: Article 342 empowers the President to notify Scheduled Tribes; criteria used include primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact and backwardness (Lokur Committee criteria, 1965).

Article 366(25) defines 'Scheduled Tribes' as tribes or tribal communities deemed scheduled under Article 342; 'tribe' itself has no single statutory definition.

Major tribal concentrations: central India (Gond, Bhil, Baiga, Korku, Santal, Munda, Oraon, Ho, Kharia), north-east (Naga, Khasi, Garo, Mizo, Bodo), Andaman and Nicobar (Jarawa, Sentinelese, Onge, Great Andamanese, Shompen), and Nilgiri groups (Toda, Kota, Badaga).

West Bengal Scheduled Tribes include Santal, Oraon, Munda, Ho, Kora, Mahali, Lodha, Birhor, Toto, Rabha, Mech, Lepcha, Bhutia, Sherpa and Chakma; Santal is the largest group in the state.

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), formerly 'primitive tribes': 75 groups nationally, identified by pre-agricultural technology, low literacy, economic backwardness and declining population; West Bengal PVTGs include Birhor, Lodha, Toto, and Great Andamanese-type isolated groups elsewhere.

Tribal economy typology: food gathering (Birhor, Jarawa), hunting and fishing, shifting cultivation (jhum), settled agriculture, pastoralism (Toda, Gujjar), and artisan/industrial labour.

Tribal social organisation: often clan-based with territorial exogamy; examples include Santal pargana and jaher (sacred grove), Munda khuntkatti land tenure, Khasi matrilineal descent with matrilocal residence.

Tribal religion: many groups practise nature and ancestor worship alongside Hinduism/Christianity; examples include Sarna dharma among Munda-Santal-Oraon, and the Khasis' indigenous faith.

Constitutional safeguards: Fifth Schedule (tribal areas in states other than Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram), Sixth Schedule (autonomous district councils in the north-east), Articles 15(4), 16(4), 46, 275, 330, 332 and 335.

Assimilation vs integration: Verrier Elwin's 'isolation' and 'protection' stance contrasted with Nehru's 'Panchsheel' approach of integration without erasing tribal identity; Ghurye called tribes 'backward Hindus'.

Welfare measures: scholarships and hostel facilities, pre-matric and post-matric stipends, reservation in education and employment, Tribal Sub-Plan (1974), and the PESA Act 1996 extending Panchayati Raj to Scheduled Areas.

Forest and land laws affecting tribes: Indian Forest Act 1927, Forest Rights Act 2006 (individual and community forest rights, Gram Sabha consent), and the Fifth Schedule's Governor's role over tribal land alienation.

Applied anthropology: use of anthropological methods to solve practical problems - programme design, rapid rural appraisal, participatory rural appraisal, social impact assessment, and ethnographic evaluation of health and nutrition schemes.

Medical anthropology: explanatory models of illness (Kleinman), illness vs disease, medical pluralism (biomedicine, Ayurveda, folk healing), and ethnomedicine among tribal communities.

Development anthropology: distinguishes growth from development; critiques top-down displacement (dams, mining), and studies resettlement, rehabilitation and indigenous knowledge.

Environmental anthropology: common property resources, sacred groves (sarna), traditional ecological knowledge, and political ecology of conservation and displacement.

Contemporary fields: urban anthropology, anthropology of tourism, digital/virtual ethnography, forensic anthropology, human rights anthropology, and corporate/organisational ethnography.

Ethics in applied work: informed consent, confidentiality, avoiding harm, benefit-sharing, and recognition of community ownership of research data.

Participant observation (Malinowski): long residence, learning the language, participating in daily life while maintaining analytic distance; the core method of socio-cultural anthropology.

Fieldwork tools: field diary, genealogical method (pedigree charts), key-informant interviews, life histories, case studies, focus group discussion, questionnaire/schedule, and mapping (village, kin, resource).

Sampling and design: purposive and snowball sampling for hard-to-reach groups; census vs sample; triangulation of methods and informants to check reliability.

Observation types: participant vs non-participant, controlled vs uncontrolled, structured vs unstructured; interviews may be structured, semi-structured or unstructured.

Schedules vs questionnaires: a schedule is filled by the investigator, a questionnaire by the respondent; schedules suit low-literacy field settings.

Anthropometry practicals: measurements such as stature, sitting height, head length and breadth, cephalic index, nasal index, and BMI; use standard landmarks and instruments (anthropometer, spreading caliper, measuring tape).

Cephalic index = (head breadth / head length) × 100; nasal index = (nasal breadth / nasal length) × 100; BMI = weight (kg) / height (m)².

Serology and genetics practicals: ABO, Rh and MN blood grouping, PTC tasting, colour-blindness (Ishihara), dermatoglyphics (fingerprint patterns - arch, loop, whorl).

Project report structure: title, introduction and problem, objectives, methodology, field area and informants, findings, discussion, conclusion, references, and ethics statement.