| absolute dating | Dating that gives a specific age, year, or range of years for an object or a site.
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| acculturation | Rapid diffusion of cultural items either by choice of the receiving society or by force from a more dominant society.
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| Acheulian | A toolmaking tradition associated with Homo erectus in Africa and Europe. Includes hand axes, cleavers, and flake tools.
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| adapted | When an organism has physical traits and behaviors that allow it to survive in a particular environment.
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| age sets | A social unit made up of persons of approximately the same age.
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| agriculture | Farming using animal or mechanical labor and complex technologies.
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| alleles | Variants of a gene that code for different expressions of a trait.
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| altruism | Acting to benefit others while disregarding one's own welfare.
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| amino acids | The chief components of proteins.
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| animism | The possession of supernatural powers by people, animals, places, or objects.
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| anthropology | The holistic, scientific study of humankind.
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| apocrine glands | Specialized sweat glands that secrete an odorous substance thought to be related to sexual stimulation.
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| arbitrary | Here, the fact that the features of human languages bear no direct relation to their meanings but are agreed-on symbols.
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| arboreal | Adapted to life in the trees.
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| archaeology | The subfield of anthropology that recovers evidence of the human cultural past and reconstructs past cultural systems.
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| artifact | Any object that has been consciously manufactured. Usually refers to human-made objects but now includes some items made by other primates.
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| artificial selection | Selection for reproductive success in plants and animals that is directed by humans. Also called "selective breeding."
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| asexually | Reproducing without sex, by fissioning or budding, as in many single-celled organisms.
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| balanced reciprocity | Giving with expectation of equivalent return. See generalized reciprocity.
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| bands | Small autonomous groups, usually associated with foraging societies.
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| behavioral ecology | A synonym for sociobiology.
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| belief systems | Ideas that are taken on faith and cannot be scientifically tested.
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| bifacial | A stone tool that has been worked on both sides.
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| bilateral | A kinship system in which an individual is a member of both parents' descent lines. See unilineal.
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| biological anthropology | The subfield of anthropology that studies humans as a biological species.
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| biological determinism | The idea that human behaviors have a biological basis with minimal influence from culture.
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| bipedal | Walking on two legs.
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| brachiating | Moving using arm-over-arm swinging.
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| bulb of percussion | A convex surface on a flake caused by the force used to split the flake off. Rarely found in a natural break.
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| carbon dating | A radiometric dating technique using the decay rate of a radioactive form of carbon found in organic remains.
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| carrying capacity | The maximum population of a species allowed by existing environmental conditions and resources.
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| caste | A system of socioeconomic stratification in which strata are closed and a person's membership is determined at birth.
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| chiefdom | A political organization made up of groups of interacting units, each of which has a chief, or leader.
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| chromosome | Strands of DNA in the nucleus of a cell.
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| civilization | A culture with an agricultural surplus, social stratification, labor specialization, a formal government, rule by power, monumental construction projects, and a system of record keeping.
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| cladistics | A classification system based on order of evolutionary branching rather than on present similarities and differences.
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| class | A system of socioeconomic stratification in which the strata are open and a person may move to a different stratum.
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| classical evolutionism | A synonym for unilinear evolutionism.
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| cline | A geographic continuum in the variation of a trait.
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| codify | To arrange systematically. To put into words.
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| codominant | When both alleles of a gene pair are expressed in the phenotype.
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| cognates | Words that are similar in two or more languages as a result of common descent.
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| co-wife resentment | Tension among the wives of one man in polygynous societies, often caused by the differing statuses of those wives.
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| cross cousins | The children of your father's sisters or mother's brothers.
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| cultural anthropology | The subfield of anthropology that focuses on human cultural behavior and cultural systems and the variation in cultural expression among human groups.
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| cultural determinism | The idea that human behaviors are almost totally the result of learned cultural information, with few or no instinctive responses.
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| cultural relativity | Studying another culture from its point of view without imposing our own cultural views.
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| culture | Ideas and behaviors that are learned and transmitted. Nongenetic means of adaptation.
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| deduction | Suggesting specific data that would be found if a hypothesis were true. Works from the general to the specific. See induction.
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| deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) | The molecule that carries the genetic code.
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| dependency | Here, the period after birth during which offspring require the care of adults to survive.
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| descent line | Nuclear families that are connected over time.
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| descent with modification | An old term for what we now call biological evolution.
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| descriptive linguistics | The study of the structure of language in general and of the specific variations among languages.
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| diffusion | The movement of cultural ideas and artifacts among societies. Cultural borrowing.
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| diffusionism | An outdated concept of cultural evolution that claims major cultural advances were made by a few or a single society and spread from there to all other societies.
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| discovery | The realization and understanding of a set of relationships. An addition to knowledge. See invention.
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| displacement | The ability to communicate about things and ideas not immediate in space or time.
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| diurnal | Active during the day.
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| division of labor | The apportioning of a society's jobs to specific individuals, for example, designating men's and women's job roles.
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| dominance hierarchy | Social ranking based on individual differences.
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| dominant | The allele that is expressed in a gene pair of unlike alleles. See heterozygous.
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| duality | Here, the two levels of human language: units of sound and units of meaning that those units of sounds are combined to create.
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| ecofact | An unmodified natural object used as a tool.
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| ecology | The science that studies the network of relationships within environmental systems.
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| ecosystem | A specific set of environmental relationships. A unit of study within ecology.
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| egalitarianism | The practice of not recognizing, and even eliminating, differences in social status and wealth.
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| emerging disease | Any of a group of diseases, of various cause, that have newly appeared or are rapidly expanding their range in the human species.
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| endocannibalism | The eating of human flesh from members of one's own society.
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| endocasts | Natural or human-made casts of the inside of a skull. The cast reflects the surface of the brain and allows us to study the brains of even extinct species.
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| endogamy | Marriage within a specified unit of people.
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| estrus | In nonhuman mammals, the period of female fertility or the signals indicating this condition.
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| ethnocentrism | Making value judgments about another culture from the perspective of one's own cultural system.
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| ethnographic analogy | Interpreting archaeological data through the observation of analogous activities in existing societies.
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| ethnosemantics | The study of the meanings of words, especially as they relate to folk taxonomies.
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| evolution | In biology, the idea that species change over time and have a common ancestor.
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| evolutionary psychology | A synonym for sociobiology.
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| exogamy | Marriage outside a specified unit of people.
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| experimental archaeology | The process of understanding ancient skills and technologies by reproducing them.
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| extended family | Nuclear families linked by blood, generally ones that inhabit the same location.
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| fission | Here, the splitting up of a population to form new populations.
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| folk taxonomy | A system of classification based on the relationships among cultural categories for important items and ideas.
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| foraging | Another name for the hunter-gatherer subsistence pattern.
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| forensic anthropology | A subfield of anthropology applied to legal matters. Usually involved in identifying skeletal remains and assessing the time and cause of death.
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| fossils | Remains of life-forms of the past.
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| founder effect | Genetic differences between populations produced by the fact that genetically different individuals established (founded) the populations.
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| gamete sampling | The genetic change caused when genes are passed to new generations in frequencies different from those of the parental generation.
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| gametes | The cells of reproduction, which contain only half the chromosomes of a normal cell.
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| gender | The culturally defined categories and characteristics of men and women.
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| gene flow | The exchange of genes among populations through interbreeding.
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| gene pool | All the alleles in a population.
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| generalized reciprocity | Giving with no expectation of equivalent return. See balanced reciprocity.
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| genes | Technically, those portions of the DNA molecule that code for the production of specific proteins.
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| genetic drift | Genetic change based on random changes within a species' gene pool; includes fission and the founder effect, and gamete sampling.
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| genotypes | The alleles possessed by an organism.
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| glaciers | Massive sheets of ice that expand and move.
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| grooming | Cleaning the fur of another animal; an activity that, in primates, also promotes social cohesion.
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| habitat | The place occupied by a species; the species' "address."
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| haft | To attach a wooden handle or shaft to a stone or bone point.
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| half-life | The time needed for one-half of a given amount of radioactive substance to decay.
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| hand axe | A bifacial, all-purpose stone tool, shaped somewhat like an axe head.
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| heterozygous | Having two different alleles in a gene pair.
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| historical archaeology | The archaeology of a society that has written records.
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| historical linguistics | The branch of linguistics that attempts to classify and construct a family tree of languages and to reconstruct extinct languages.
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| historical particularism | The American school of cultural evolution that rejected any general theory of culture change but believed that each society could be understood only in reference to its particular history.
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| holistic | Assuming an interrelationship among the parts of a subject.
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| hominids | Modern human beings and our ancestors, defined as the primates who walk upright.
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| homozygous | Having two of the same allele in a gene pair.
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| horticulture | Farming using human labor and simple tools such as digging sticks and hoes.
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| hunter-gatherer | A subsistence pattern that relies on naturally occurring sources of food.
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| hypotheses | Proposed explanations for natural phenomena.
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| incest taboo | A cultural rule that prohibits sexual intercourse or marriage between persons defined as being too closely related.
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| indigenous | Native; refers to a group of people with a long history in a particular area.
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| induction | The process of developing a general explanation from specific observations. See deduction.
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| industrialism | Sometimes recognized as a subsistence pattern; characterized by a focus on mechanical sources of energy and food production by a small percentage of the population.
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| infanticide | The killing of infants.
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| inheritance of acquired characteristics | The incorrect idea that adaptive traits acquired during an organism's lifetime can be passed on to its offspring.
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| intensive foraging | Hunting and gathering in an environment that provides a very wide range of food resources.
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| invention | The creation of new artifacts. The application of discovered knowledge. See discovery.
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| kin selection | Promoting the passing on of one's genes by aiding the survival or reproduction of one's close kin.
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| kinship | Your membership in a family and your relationship to other members of that family. May refer to biological ties, but in anthropology usually refers to cultural ties modeled on biological ones.
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| Kulturkreise ("cultural circle") | A school of cultural evolution originating in Germany that proposed a small number of early cultural centers from which cultural traditions spread in ever-widening circles to encompass and influence other societies.
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| labor specialization | When certain jobs are performed by particular individuals.
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| language | Human communication by means of shared symbols.
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| legal systems | A set of secular rules governing the behavior of individuals and institutions within a society.
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| Levallois | A tool technology in which uniform flakes are struck from a prepared core.
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| limbic system | A portion of the brain involved in emotions such as fear, rage, and care for the young.
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| linguistic anthropology | The subfield of anthropology that studies language as a human characteristic and attempts to explain the differences among human languages and the relationships between a language and the society that uses it.
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| macromutation | A mutation with extensive and important phenotypic results.
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| magic | The use of ritual and paraphernalia to compel or manipulate the supernatural to act in desired ways. See sorcery.
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| market system | Where money is used for exchange in place of goods and services; it operates on a supply-and-demand basis with a profit motive for suppliers.
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| marriage | A set of cultural rules for bringing men and women together to create a family unit and for defining their behavior toward one another, their children, and society.
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| matrilineal | A unilineal kinship system in which an individual is a member of the mother's descent line. See patrilineal.
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| melanin | The pigment largely responsible for human skin color.
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| melanocytes | Specialized skin cells that produce the pigment melanin.
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| men's associations | A social unit made up of a society's men. Common in highland New Guinea.
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| microliths | Small stone flakes, usually used as part of a larger tool such as a sickle.
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| money | A symbolic representation of wealth. Used for exchange in place of actual products or services.
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| monogamy | A marriage unit made up of one husband and one wife.
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| monotheistic | Refers to a religious system that recognizes a single supernatural being.
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| morpheme | A unit of meaning in a language.
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| Mousterian | A toolmaking technology, associated with the European Neandertals, in which flakes were carefully retouched to produce diverse tool types.
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| mutation | Any spontaneous change in the genetic code.
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| natural selection | Evolutionary change based on the differential reproductive success of individuals within a species.
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| neocortex | A portion of the brain involved in conscious thought, spatial reasoning, and sensory perception.
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| niche | The environment of an organism and its adaptive response to that environment.
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| nocturnal | Active at night.
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| nomadic | Refers to societies that move from place to place in search of resources or in response to seasonal fluctuations.
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| nuclear family | The family unit made up of parents and their children.
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| olfactory | Refers to the sense of smell.
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| opposability | The ability to touch the thumb to the tips of the other fingers on the same hand.
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| ovulation | The period when an egg cell matures and is capable of being fertilized.
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| paleontology | The study of past life-forms, using fossil remains and their geological contexts.
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| parallel cousins | The children of your father's brothers or your mother's sisters.
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| pastoralism | The subsistence pattern characterized by an emphasis on herding animals.
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| patrilineal | A unilineal kinship system in which an individual is a member of the father's descent line. See matrilineal.
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| phenotype | The chemical or physical results of the genetic code.
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| pheromones | Chemical substances secreted by an animal that conveys information and stimulates behavioral responses.
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| phoneme | A unit of a sound in a language.
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| physical anthropology | The traditional name for biological anthropology.
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| Pleistocene | The geological time period, from 1.6 million to 10,000 years ago, characterized by a series of advances and retreats of polar and mountain glaciers.
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| political organization | The secular, nonkinship means of organizing the interactions within a society and between one society and others.
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| polyandry | A marriage system with one wife and multiple husbands.
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| polygamy | A marriage system that allows multiple spouses. See polygyny and polyandry.
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| polygyny | A marriage system with one husband and multiple wives.
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| polymorphisms | Variations in phenotypic traits that are the results of genetic variation.
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| polytheism | A religious system that recognizes multiple supernatural beings—technically, multiple gods.
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| postpartum sex taboo | The practice of prohibiting sex for a certain period of time after a woman gives birth for purposes of limiting the birthrate.
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| potassium/argon (K/Ar) dating | A radiometric dating technique using the rate at which radioactive potassium, found in volcanic rock, decays into stable argon gas.
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| prehensile | Having the ability to grasp.
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| pressure flake | Taking a flake off a core by pushing a wood, bone, or antler tool against the stone.
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| priest | A full-time, trained religious specialist who can interpret the supernatural and petition the supernatural on behalf of humans.
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| productivity | Here, the ability of human languages to generate limitless numbers of meanings.
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| prognathism | The jutting forward of the lower face and jaw area.
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| proteins | Molecules that make cells and carry out cellular functions.
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| protocultural | A behavior having most but not all of the characteristics of a cultural behavior.
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| pseudoscience | Scientifically testable ideas that are taken on faith without scientific evidence to support them or even when tested and shown to be false.
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| quadrupedal | Walking on all fours.
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| races | In biology, the same as subspecies. In culture, categories that classify and account for human diversity.
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| racism | Judging an individual solely on his or her assigned racial affiliation, based on the assumption that all members of a "race" possess specific characteristics. Prejudice and discrimination based on such a belief.
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| radiometric | Refers to the decay rate of a radioactive substance.
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| rank | Refers to a society that strives for equal distribution of goods and services through the use of recognized, often temporary, status differences. See redistribution.
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| R-complex | (Reptilian complex) A primitive portion of the brain involved in self-preservation behaviors such as mating, aggressiveness, and territoriality.
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| recessive | An allele that is expressed only if present in a matched gene pair. See homozygous.
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| redistribution | The central collection of surplus goods and their dispersal to people in need of them.
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| reification | Translating a complex set of phenomena into a single entity such as a number. IQ test scores are an example.
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| relative dating | Dating that indicates the age of one item in comparison to another.
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| religion | A system of ideas and rules for behavior based on supernatural explanations.
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| revolution | Rapid and extensive culture change generated from within a society.
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| ribonucleic acid (RNA) | The molecule that, in two forms, translates and transcribes the genetic code into proteins.
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| savannas | The open grasslands of the tropics, usually with reference to the plains of Africa.
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| science | The method of inquiry that requires the generation, testing, and acceptance or rejection of hypotheses.
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| scientific method | The process of conducting scientific inquiry.
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| sedentary | A human settlement pattern in which people largely stay in one place year-round, although some members of the population may still be mobile in the search for food and raw materials.
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| semispecies | Populations of a species that are completely isolated from one another but have not yet become truly separate species.
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| sexual dimorphism | Physical differences between the sexes of a species not related to reproductive functions.
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| shaman | A part-time, supernaturally chosen religious specialist who can manipulate the supernatural.
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| social stratification | The presence of acknowledged differences in social status, political influence, and wealth among the people within a society.
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| sociobiology | The scientific study that examines evolutionary explanations for social behaviors within species.
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| sociolinguistics | The study of language in its social contexts.
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| sorcery | Magical acts with evil intent. See magic.
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| speciation | The evolution of a new species.
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| species | A group of organisms that can produce fertile offspring among themselves but not with members of other groups.
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| state | A political organization with one central authority governing all the individual units.
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| stereoscopic | Three-dimensional vision; depth perception.
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| stimulus diffusion | When knowledge of a cultural trait in another society stimulates the invention of a similar trait.
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| strata | The layers of rock and soil under the surface of the earth. Also the socioeconomic levels within a society.
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| stratigraphy | The study of the earth's strata.
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| subsistence pattern | How a society acquires its food.
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| subspecies | Physically distinguishable populations within a species. The concept, as a formal taxonomic unit, is falling from use.
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| symbol | Something that stands for something else, with no necessary link between the symbol and its meaning.
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| syncretism | The synthesis of existing religious beliefs and practices with new ones introduced from the outside.
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| syntax | Rules of word order in a language.
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| taxonomy | A classification using nested sets of categories of increasing specificity.
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| test pit | An exploratory, usually small excavation made to establish the presence or absence of an archaeological site.
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| theory | A general idea that explains a large set of factual patterns.
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| tribe | A political organization with no central leader but in which the subunits may make collective decisions about the entire group.
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| unilineal | A kinship system in which an individual is a member of only one parent's descent line. See bilateral.
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| unilinear evolutionism | An outdated concept of cultural evolution that claims all societies pass through the same series of stages, from savagery to civilization.
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| witchcraft | Traditionally, evil acts performed by individuals who possess inherent powers. We now recognize white (good) witchcraft.
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| worldview | The collective interpretation of and response to the natural and cultural environments in which a group of people lives. Their assumptions about those environments and the values derived from those assumptions.
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