WBCHSE HS Anthropology key terms

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

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

Judging another society's customs by the standards of one's own culture, usually treating one's own practices as normal and others as inferior or strange.

The methodological stance that beliefs and practices should be understood within their own cultural context rather than evaluated by outside standards.

A detailed written account of a particular community produced through long-term participant observation, describing its social organisation, economy, beliefs and everyday practices.

A fieldwork method in which the researcher lives among people, joins their daily activities and records observations while remaining analytically detached.

First-hand research conducted in the setting where people actually live, providing primary data that cannot be obtained from libraries or archives alone.

A fieldwork technique that maps kin connections across generations using symbols for marriage, descent and siblings, revealing social structure and inheritance patterns.

The branch of biological anthropology that studies living and fossil primates to understand behaviour, anatomy and the evolutionary background of humans.

A member of the evolutionary lineage leading to modern humans after the split from the chimpanzee line, recognised by bipedal locomotion and related skeletal features.

Habitual walking upright on two legs, indicated in fossils by a forward-placed foramen magnum, S-shaped spine and broadened pelvis.

A genus of early hominins from Africa, dating roughly four to two million years ago, combining small brains with evidence of upright walking.

An extinct human species known from Africa and Asia, with larger brains and more advanced stone tools than earlier hominins, and generally associated with controlled use of fire.

A robust extinct human population of Europe and western Asia adapted to cold climates, with heavy brow ridges and a stocky build, associated with Mousterian tools and deliberate burial.

The outdated idea that humans can be divided into discrete biological groups; modern genetics shows variation is continuous and greater within populations than between them.

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

A biological or cultural feature that improves survival in a particular environment, such as dark skin near the equator or short limbs in cold climates.

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

The study of living communities' material remains and behaviour to help interpret patterns found in archaeological sites.

The classification of artefacts into named types based on shared form, material or manufacturing technique, allowing comparison between assemblages and periods.

The full collection of artefacts recovered from a single archaeological context, treated together as evidence of the activities carried out there.

The study of superimposed soil and rock layers, using the principle that lower deposits are generally older than those above them to establish relative chronology.

Placing finds in a sequence of older and younger without giving a calendar age, using stratigraphy, seriation or typological change.

Methods that assign a calendar age or age range to a sample, such as radiocarbon dating for organic material or thermoluminescence for heated minerals.

A technique measuring the decay of carbon-14 in once-living material to estimate age, generally reliable for samples up to about fifty thousand years old.

A Lower Palaeolithic stone tool tradition characterised by bifacially flaked handaxes and cleavers, associated with Homo erectus and widely found in India.

A Middle Palaeolithic flake-tool industry made largely by the Levallois technique, associated with Neanderthals and other archaic human populations.

A small, often geometric stone blade segment of the Mesolithic, typically used as an insert in composite tools of wood or bone.

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 with a group of relatives through a chosen line, such as patrilineal, matrilineal or bilateral reckoning.

A group whose members trace common ancestry through a specific line of descent from a known or stipulated ancestor, often holding property or ritual rights together.

A larger unilineal kin group whose members believe they share a common ancestor, often expressed through a totem, without being able to trace every link.

The rule requiring a person to marry outside a defined social group, such as the clan or village, which creates alliances between groups.

The rule requiring marriage within a defined group, such as a caste, religious community or village, maintaining boundaries around that group.

Goods or money transferred from the groom's family to the bride's family at marriage, often compensating for the loss of a member's labour.

Goods, money or property brought by the bride or her family into a marriage, often linked to inheritance and status in stratified societies.

The belief that natural objects, places and creatures are inhabited by spirits or possess a life force, a concept central to early evolutionary theories of religion.

A system in which a clan or group treats a particular animal, plant or object as its sacred ancestor or emblem, with rules protecting it.

Ritual action believed to influence events through supernatural means, often classified as imitative (like produces like) or contagious (contact transfers power).

A category in the Indian Constitution listing communities officially recognised as indigenous or tribal for protective and developmental provisions.

A sub-category of Indian tribal communities identified by pre-agricultural technology, low literacy, economic backwardness or a declining population, receiving special support.

The process by which a lower-status or tribal group adopts the rituals, diet and practices of a higher caste in order to improve its social standing.

The view that tribal and caste societies in India are not sharply separate but shade into one another through overlapping practices and gradual change.

Government and voluntary measures for tribal communities, including reserved seats, scholarships, land protection laws and development programmes.

The use of anthropological methods and findings to solve practical problems in health, education, development, industry or environmental management.

A participatory approach in which the researcher works alongside a community to help it achieve its own goals while also producing knowledge.

The study of how different cultures understand illness, classify diseases and treat them, including local herbal and ritual healing systems.