What is culture? A system of beliefs, values and assumptions about life that guide behavior and are shared by a group of people. Video Where you live Shapes What you believe (Beliefs) Your Language What you make (artifacts) What you do (Behavior) Geography and Culture

Facts about Culture Culture is learned behavior - you are not born with it Culture must be taught by family by society Can you name other groups that make up society? Video

Language a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings: Spoken and Written Signs and symbols Literature and Drama Music and Dance Video Video Oral Tradition

Cultural Constants Beliefs are ANYTHING the group considers true, right and important Religion organized belief system Values what is important, desirable Ethics what is right, proper or wrong Esthetic Values what is pleasing or repulsive Beliefs dictate behavior V ideo

Behavior the response of an individual, group, or species to its environment as expressed in Family Government Economics Recreation

Economy production, distribution and consumption of goods and services Types of economies (see manual for definitions) Traditional Market Command Capitalist Mixed Video Video Types of Economies

Types of Families NUCLEAR FAMILY – a family group consisting of father, mother and children EXTENDED FAMILY – a family that includes near relatives in addition to a nuclear family: siblings, cousins, grandparents or grandchildren, etc. PATRIARCHY – social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family MATRIARCHY – a family, group, or state governed by a woman (mother) video

Bands, Tribes, Chiefdoms, States

Government or Social Control Early types include Band A band is a small, autonomous group of people (often as low as twenty, and never more than a few hundred) made up of nuclear families that live together and are loosely associated with a territory on which they hunt. A band’s political structure is typically found amongst societies with a hunter- gather economy. Band societies have no specialized roles. Social order is maintained through the informal mechanisms of gossip, ridicule and avoidance - in other words through public opinion.

Tribe Tribes: Technically, the tribe is a group of bands. local groups are communal and strongly social, with members linked by kinship ties Purpose is to accommodate more sedentary life, to redistribute food, and to organize some communal services. Governance Public opinion plays a major role in decision making. Tribal people tend to be egalitarian, think humans are part of nature itself, the world is composed of dualities that form a harmony, and life is designed to work for the good of the community - good of the whole. Tribal people also stress consensus in determining what is good for the whole.

Chiefdoms Chiefdoms are societies headed by individuals with unusual ritual, political, or entrepreneurial skills. The society is kin-based but more along hierarchical lines than a tribe. associated with greater population density and display signs of social ranking. Distinguished from tribes by the presence of centers which coordinate economic, social and religious activities. The society is more divided along two lines - nobility and commoners. Nobility tends to compete for leadership, prestige, and religious authority making the chiefdom relatively unstable.

State "State" : "an autonomous political unit, encompassing many communities within its territory and having a centralized government with the power to collect taxes, draft men for work or war, and decree and enforce laws." Notion of a centralized government that distinguishes the state from the decentralized type political organization. Represent highly complex organizational structures that function to control large societies. Associated with large territories, administrative bureaucracies, a high degree of specialization, and large, dense populations Represent a major departure from earlier kin- based societies. A non-kin-based relationship between rulers and those who are ruled marks a state as a major departure from other forms of societies.

Material Artifacts Artifacts include: Food Clothing and adornment Shelter and structures Technology Transportation Art video

Definitions Enculturation: the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of a culture and assimilates its practices and values Acculturation: cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture; also : a merging of cultures as a result of prolonged contact Ethnicity: a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits Custom: the whole body of usages, practices, or conventions that regulate social life Traditions: the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instructioni