Chapter Two

Roots and Meaning of Culture

“Ways of Life”

A learned behaviors

(figures 2.1,2.2)

Components of Culture• Culture Traits - smallest units of learned behavior,

holy cows, chopsticks, eating habits, dialects, beliefs....(Howdy.. You’ll…), when individual traits are functionally interrelated, they create a ->

• Culture Complex - from combination of Traits, fig 2.3,(African Culture)

• Culture Region - areal extent, a portion of the earth’s surface occupied by population sharing recognizable and distinctive cultural characteristics.

• Culture Realm - even larger area. (fig 2.4)• Globalization - interaction between cultures are

high. iPod, cell phones in China

Interaction of People and Environment - cultural ecology: the study of the relationship between a culture group and the natural environment it occupies

• Environments as Controls– Environ. Determinism – dismissed by geographers– Possibilism – people, not environments, are the dynamic

forces of cultural development

• Human Impacts– Cultural landscape [fig 2.5, Chaco Canyon (page 42),

Easter Island (fig 2.7)] – the earth’s surface as modified by human actions, is the tangible physical record of a given culture.

Roots of Culture

• In pre-agricultural periods - Brief History– Paleolithic (figs 2.8 & 2.9) Hunter-gatherers: used stone tools to gather foods

in areas (w. central and NE Europe - covered with tundra; S Europe – forest)– By the end of Paleolithic period, humans had spread to all the continents but

Antarctic. (fig 2.10)– 2 ½ day workweek is enough to support bushmen’s families. Time was

available for developing skills for tools, art and sculpture.– By the end of Ice Age (11,000 to 12,000 bp) language, religion, long-dist

trade, permanent settlements, and social stratification within groups have well been developed in many European culture areas.

Seeds of Change• Agricultural Origins and Spread

– warmer climate, increased production of food, increase “carrying capacity”, entered “Mesolithic” (Middle Stone Age) period.(11,000 - 5,000 B.C.)

– Domestication of plants and animals, plants -perhaps 20,000 b.p. Major centers of plant and animal domestication (fig 2.12)

– migration of first farmers (fig 2.13)• Neolithic Innovations - new and advanced tools/tech for

agricultural env. (fig 2.14, 2.17a), religion, specialized professionals.

• Culture Hearth• Culture Hearth - emerged in the Neolithic period

(fig 2.15), Two processes– Multilinear Evolution - – Cultural Convergence

The Structure of Culture• Ideological Subsystem

– Mentifacts (fig 2.19c)

• Technological Subsystem– Artifacts (fig 2.19a)

• Sociological Subsystem– Sociofacts (fig 2.19b)

• Cultural Integration

Culture Change• Innovation (top five inventions you cannot live without?)• Diffusion

– Expansion: hierarchical, contagious, stimulus– Relocation: (fig 2.21, 2.22, 2.23)– Spatial Diffusion of Wal-Mart: Contagious and Reverse Hierarchical

Elements– Chinese Inventions : gunpowder, printing, and spaghetti, however,

diffusion routes are not documented (silk road?)• Acculturation and Transculturation (fig 2.24) Cultural Modification• Acculturation – immigrants, tribal European in areas of Roman conquest,

native Americans loss culture due to European settlement• Transculturation – Baseball in Japan and Green Tea in the U.S.• Read “A Homemade Culture”

– Bed pattern from New East, modified in N Europe– Cotton, domesticated in India, Silk – discovered in China– Soap invented by the ancient Gauls– Glass invented in Egypt– Rubber discovered by Central American Indians– …….

Contact between Regions

• Diffusion Barriers - distance, time, culture (more similar two cultures,,easier to adopt innovation)

• Diffusion is a selective process. – French Canadians less influenced by Anglo culture.

• Syncretism - process of the fusion of the old and new cultures. Example….