ANTHROPOLOGY: INTRO

 Anthropos- people/humans THE DISCIPLINE

 Logos- study of A neglected, intellectual, practical resource in nation building
 “Madaling maging tao (in the biological sense), mahirap “Binabaliwala ba o di masyadong nararamdaman ang
magpakatao(in the cultural sense)” presensiya?”
 Biological+Cultural= Biocultural Animal  Ang tanong ng karamihan?
o What sets us apart o Ano ba ang antropologo?
 American School of Thought: o Sino at nasaan ang mga antropologo?
Physical/Biological Archaeology o Anu-ano ang ginagawa at kontribusyon nila sa
Anthropology sambayanan?
Cultural Anthropology Linguistic Anthropology  Addresses the question of human being
 + Applied Anthropology o Who and what we are, where we come from, what we
 British School of Thought: do and why we do what we do
Archaeology (PAST) (EXTINCT) o “Kung saan may mga tao, doon din ang aghamtao”
ANTHROPOLOGY
Social Anthropology (PRESENT) (EXTANT)
 BIO ANTHROPOLOGY
Biological Anthropology
 LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
 Where you study the emergence/origins of humans/human
evolution  ARCHAEOLOGY
 Bakit magkaiba ang tao?  CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
 How humans vary at the physical level
BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
 Why do humans vary?
 5 special interests within biological anthropology
 Notion ng race as a biological thing is different from a political
o Human evolution as revealed by the fossil record
aspect
(paleoanthropology)
 Race is bad/Racism (Political Science) o Human genetics
 Race is a survival tactic (Biological Anthro) o Human growth and development
 65 million years ago (Biological Evolution) o Human biological plasticity (the body’s ability to
 5 million years ago (Biocultural Evolution) change as it copes with stresses such as heat, cold and
 Anthropoid-> Homonoid (We have common ancestors with these) altitude)
 Paano mo iaapply ang Biological Anthropology? o The biology, evolution, behavior and social life of
o Ergonomics monkeys, apes and other nonhuman primates
 Science of design  Human variation
Archaeology  Examines evolutionary changes in physical form
 Archaeo- study of humans (via their material remains of the past) o Anatomical changes that might have been associated
 Study of the material remains of the past with the origin of tool use or language
 Material remains: fossils, artifacts, “pollen”, other living materials  Paleoanthropology
(ano yung inulam nila), bones, ancient grains o Paleo means ancient/ancient humans
 May field sa museology o Scientific study of ancient humans
o Applied archaeology o Branch of anthropology concerned with the origins and
o Engaged in cultural resource management development of early humans
o For cultural heritage/history o Paleontologist is a scientist who studies fossils; a
 Minsan nahuhukay na fossil it contributes to the biological paleoanthropologist is one sort of paleontologist, one
anthropology who studies the fossil record of human evolution
o Homo floresensis  Primatology
Applied Linguistics o Scientific study of primates
 “selfie” o Assists paleoanthropology, because primate behavior
 How to use language for human survival may shed light on early human behavior and human
 How languages evolve for human survival nature
 Different languages in different cultures  Population genetics
Paano mo maiaapply ang Cultural Anthropology? o Study of genetic variation within populations
 Bakit mas kuripot ang Ikolano, Bikolano at mas kuripot ang  Involves the examination and modelling of
Boholano? changes in the frequencies of genes and
o Is pagiging kuripot a value or a vice alleles in populations over space and time
o “Gaano sila kadalas daanan ng bagyo?” o Bakit may mga grupo ng taong di tinatablan ng sakit?
Ethnocentric or cultural relativist  Osteology/ Anatomy
 (+) ethnocentrism o Study of bones- helps paleoanthropologists who
 (-) ethnocentrism examine skulls, teeth and bones, to identify human
Be a cultural relativist ancestors and to chart changes in anatomy over time.
 “Cultural Change” o The study of the structure and function of the skeleton
o It takes at least 25 years for a culture to be established and bony structures
 “meme” o Paano mo malalaman kung may mahukay ka na bones
o Naging salinlahi from one generation to another if potential ancestor ng ancient humans?
 If you won’t conform, you will be a pariah  Anthropometry
o Study of measurements and proportions of the human
 “taboo”- it becomes a mortal sin
body
o If you don’t “bless” elders
o “Sino daw ang pinakagwapo sa buong mundo?”
 Anthropocentric or ecocentric
o Anthropocentric- humans are the center of the universe  Forensic
o Scientific way of solving crimes
o Humans first
o You don’t care if sinisira ang bundok, etc, if di ka  Ergonomics
naman affected o Scientific study of design
o Ecocentric- takes into account the importance of nature o Study of people’s efficiency in their working
for survival environments
o “Climate Change” o Process of designing or arranging workplaces,
products and systems so that they fit the people who
use them
ARCHAEOLOGY
 Scientific study of reconstructing human history via remains of the
past
 Uses studies of living societies and behavior patterns to imagine
what life might have been like in the past
 Prehistoric archaeology
o Study of prehistoric human evidences
 Artifacts
 Fossilized human remains
o History before the advent of writing
o Cave art paintings, ancient protohumans na nahukay
 Historical archaeology
o Focuses on the “recent” past, usually the last 500-600
years which means that there is often not only an
archaeological (physical) record, but also a
documentary (written) and even oral historical and
eyewitness records available to us
o Yung mga nasa advent of writing na may nahukay
kang ancient jars, ancient bones (*Manila not an
ancient land/Makati lang)
 Ethnoarchaeology
o Ethno-people
o Strategic gathering and studying of ethnographic data
on human behavior and its ramifications by
archaeologists who train as ethnographers in order to
address issues of concern to archaeological inquiry
o Studying the extant culture to be able to find
explanations for extinct cultures
o Applied ethnoarchaeology
 In grave sites, garbage sites, human
settlement sites
 Experimental
o One of the practical methods of archaeological
interpretation
o Living analytical process used to recreate aspects in
part or in whole, of ancient societies in order to test
hypotheses or proposed interpretations and
assumptions about that society
o Attempts to observe a modern manufactured replica of
an ancient site and/or objects based on the discoveries
of items from the archaeological record, in a controlled
environment where archaeologists can test and re-test
their theories about the lost society
 Museology
o The science or practice of organizing, arranging and
managing museums
o For cultural resource management
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
 Extant cultures via ethnohistory, ethnography, ethnology
 Study of human society and culture
 Describes, analyzes, interprets and explains social and cultural
similarities and differences
 Engage in two activities: ethnography and ethnology
 Ethnography
o Based on field work
o Provides an account of a particular community, society
or culture
o Ethnographer gathers data that he or she organizes,
describes, analyzes and interprets to build and present
that account, which may be in the form of a book,
article or film
o Traditionally, ethnographers have lived in small
communities and studied local behavior, beliefs,
customs, social life, economic activities, politics and
religion.
 Relatively poor and powerless
 Ethnographers often observe
discriminatory practices directed toward
such people who experience food
shortages, dietary deficiencies
 Ethnology
o Based on cross-cultural comparison
o Examines, interprets, analyzes and compares the
results of ethnography
 Data gathered in different societies
oIt uses such data to compare and contrast and to make
generalizations about society and culture
o Ethnologists attempt to identify and explain culture
differences and similarities, to test hypotheses and to
build theory to enhance our understanding of how
social and cultural systems work
o Gets its data for comparison not just from ethnography
but also from the other subfields
 Archaeology
ETHNOGRAPHY ETHNOLOGY
Requires field work to collect Uses data collected by a series
data of researchers
often descriptive Usually synthetic
Group/community specific Comparative/cross-cultural
 Medical Anthropology
o Study of how people in different cultural settings
experience health and illnesses
o Recent studies include research into the
 impact of AIDS on Central African
societies
 consequences of the traumas of war on
families in Sri Lanka and Guatemala
 impact of the new reproductive
technologies (*IVF) on British notions of
‘the family’
 impact of malnutrition on Brazilian ideas of
children’s illnesses
 appearance of new illnesses like multiple
personality disorder and chronic fatigue
(Gulf War Syndrome)
 effects of migration on the mental health of
ethnic minority groups
o examines such questions as which diseases and health
conditions affect particular populations (and why) and
how illness is socially constructed, diagnosed,
managed and treated in various societies
 Economic Anthropology
o Study of the processes of production, circulation and
consumption of different sorts of objects in social
settings
 Objects include material things, less visible
objects such as names and ideas as well as
what people do for each other
 Provide labor and services
o Settings range from:
 small and intimate social units like
households through intermediate ones like
firms, villages or local markets to very
large entities like regional systems of
ceremonial exchange or global systems of
advertising and consumption
o Approaches:
 Social context
 What sorts of people make, five,
take or consume which sorts of
things?
 In what sorts of situations do
they do so?
 Cultural context
 How do different sorts of people
understand their economic
activities, the objects involved
and the people with whom they
carry out these activities?
 When an artisan sells something
to a buyer, how does each party
think about their relationship
and the objects that they
exchange?
o Different from economists such that economists
usually restrict themselves to monetary transactions
 and try to develop formal, abstract models of economic  Educational Anthropology
systems o Way of examining educational systems from a cultural
o Economic anthropologists are concerned with all anthropologist point of view
forms of production, circulation and consumption, o In classrooms, anthropologists have observed
monetary or not. interactions among teachers, students, parents and
 Political Anthropology visitors; they view children as total cultural creatures
o Examines and compares these diverse systems of whose enculturation and attitudes towards education
social control belong to a context that includes family and peers
o Explores the power structures of society, including the  Comparative religion/ Anthropology of Religion
extent of consensus and the patterns of equality or o Anthropologists of religion are not concerned with
inequality within them. discovering the truth or falsehood of religion
o Examines the ways in which leaders establish or o They are interested in how religious ideas express a
bolster their authority through tradition, force, people’s cosmology
persuasion and religion.  Notions of how the universe was organized
o Asks whether a society can have a legal system even and the role of humans within the world
without formal courts and written laws o Study rituals which incorporate symbols and note how
o Key areas: these often help to bring communities together in times
 Effect of colonialism on subject peoples, of crisis or special points in the calendar
and the ways in which western legal o Examines the actions of religious specialists
systems have been adopted and also  Priests
adapted to their needs by non-western  Prophets
people  Shamans
 Role of ceremonial and ritual in the  Spirit mediums
installation ceremonies of rules, as a way of
giving government an aura of legitimacy  Folklore & arts/ Anthropology of Art
o Interesting insights in: o Studies and analyzes the wide range of material objects
 National identity produced by people around the world
 Ethnic conflict  Not merely as aesthetic objects but play a
 Meaning of monarchy wider role such as in rituals and beliefs
 Why people sometimes take the law into  Sculpture
their own hands  Masks
 Geography-Anthropology  Painting
o Emphasizes the integration of the two disciplines and  Textiles
the common interests in examining the relationship  Baskets
between human populations and their natural and built  Pots
environments
 Weapons
o Cross-cultural study of communities, regions and their
 Human body itself
human environments from both anthropological and
geographical perspectives o Interested in symbolic meanings encoded in such
objects, as well as in the materials and techniques used
 Psychological Anthropology
to produce them
o Study of psychological topics using anthropological
o Overlaps with art history, aesthetics, material culture
concepts and methods in:
studies, and visual anthropology but it is distinguished
 Personal identity
by its focus on the social processes involved in making
 Selfhood
objects
 Subjectivity
o More concerned with the role and status of the artist in
 Memory
the wider community
 Consciousness
o Analyzes the form and function of objects and explores
 Emotion
the relations between these and aspects of the wider
 Motivation
society
 Cognition
 Madness  Gender & ethnicity/ Anthropology of Gender
o Margaret Mead demonstrated that ideals of femininity
 Mental health
o Considers connections between the individual and and masculinity vary enormously between group
o Important distinction between sex as a biological given
sociocultural milieu, including cultural influences on
and gender as culturally variable
personality and psychological foundations of society
and culture o Aim to explore the full ranges of gender categories
including androgyny, in different cultural contexts
o Comprises studies of
 Child-rearing
 Self-representation LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
 Dreaming  History, structure, function, physiology of human language
 Mental disorder  Studies language in its social and cultural context, across space
 Gender relations and over time
 Violence  Make inferences about universal features of language, linked
 Racism perhaps to uniformities in the human brain
 Cultural symbolism  Reconstructs ancient languages by comparing their contemporary
o Strongly committed to ethnographic fieldwork in descendants and in so doing make discoveries about history
diverse cultures  Study linguistic differences to discover varied perceptions and
o 2 demanding questions to theories of mind and patterns of thought in different cultures
personality:  Historical linguistics
 If such theories adequately consider o Study of phonological, grammatical, and semantic
cultural influences on the individual changes, the reconstruction of earlier stages of
 Whether they can in any way illuminate languages, and the discovery and application of the
cultures, particularly the symbolic content methods by which genetic relationships among
of expressive culture and the logic of local languages can be demonstrated
knowledge o Considers variation in time such as the changes in
sounds, grammar and vocabulary between Middle
 English (spoken from approximately A.D. 1050 to
1550) and modern English
 Structural/Descriptive Linguistics
o Study of language based on the theory that language is
a structured system of formal units such as sentences
and syntax
o Based on the assumptions that a language is a coherent
system of formal units and that the task of linguistic
study is to inquire into the nature of those units and
their peculiar systematic arrangement, without
reference to historical antecedents or comparison with
other languages
 Sociolinguistics
o Investigates relationships between social and linguistic
variation
o Basic notion underlying sociolinguistics is: language
use symbolically represents fundamental dimensions
of social behavior and human interaction
o The relationship between language and society affects
a wide range of encounters- from broadly based
international relations to narrowly defined
interpersonal relationships
o * sociolinguists might investigate language attitudes
among large populations on a national level, such as
those exhibited in the US with respect to the English-
only amendment or they might study the status of
French and English in Canada or the status of national
and vernacular languages in the developing nations of
the world as symbols of fundamental social relations
among cultures and nationalities
 Semiotics
o Study of sign systems, study of signs and sign-using
behavior
o Explores how words and other signs make meaning
o A sign is anything that stands in for something other
than itself
 Hermeneutics
o Interpretation of a given text, speech or symbolic
expression (such as art)
o Also used to designate attempts to theorize the
conditions under which such interpretation is possible
ANTHROPOLOGY: THE DISCIPLINE
 Trans-disciplinary in character
 Draws on the natural and social sciences as well as on the
humanities
o Bio anthropology: human evolution and human
variation
o Archaeology: memories of our distant and not so
distant past
o Linguistic anthropology: symbolic realm
o Cultural anthropology: ways of life
 Holistic:
o Involves the biological, social and cultural aspects of
human adaptability
o What it is to be human
o “Anthropology is the most scientific among the
humanities and most humanistic among the sciences”
(Wolf)
 Has a tool kit, itself evolving- concepts, theories and
methodologies
 To address questions of human adaptability at the individual,
group and global level
 Taking into account biological, social and cultural dimensions of
being human
 Discursive:
o “Madaling maging tao (homonization), mahirap
magpakatao (humanization)
GRADUATE CURRICULUM
MA/PHD in Anthropology: UP DILIMAN
Core courses: 18 units (PhD: 42 units)
 Anthro 202-Historical Foundations in Physical Anthropology
 Anthro 212 - World Archaeology (Prehistory)
 Anthro 270 - Seminar in Anthropological Linguistics
 Anthro 224 - World Ethnography
 Anthro 292 - Seminar in Anthropological Theory
 Anthro 297 - Seminar in Research Design and Methods
 Anthro 400 – Doctoral Dissertation (12 units)
Other courses? 18 units (PhD: 42 units)
 Physical Anthropology:
o Anthro 203 - Seminar in Primate Behaviour
o Anthro 205 - Readings in Physical Anthropology
o Anthro 298 - Research Design & Methods in Physical
Anthropology
 Archeology:
o Anthro 215 - Philippine Archaeology
o Anthro 216 - Fieldwork in Philippine Archaeology
o Anthro 217 - Seminar in Southeast Asian
Archaeology
o Anthro 218 - Seminar in Philippine Prehistory
o Anthro 219 - Special Problems in Museology
 Linguistic Anthropology:
o Anthro 270 - Seminar in Anthropological Linguistics
 Cultural Anthropology:
o Anthro 223 - Philippine Ethnic Groups
o Anthro 225 - Philippine Culture and Society
o Anthro 226 - Seminar in Comparative Kinship
Systems
o Anthro 232 - Seminar in Ecological Anthropology
o Anthro 235 - Seminar in Culture and Population
o Anthro 236 - Seminar in Economic Organization
and Cultural Behaviour
o Anthro 245 - Research in Philippine Customary
Law & Political System
o Anthro 246 - Seminar in Political Anthropology
o Anthro 251 - Seminar in Religious Systems
o Anthro 261 - Asian Traditions
o Anthro 262 - Seminar in Myths and Rituals
o Anthro 265 - Field Research in Philippine Folklore
o Anthro 266 - Seminar in Asian Folk Traditions
o Anthro 267 - Medical Anthropology
o Anthro 269 - Asian Folklore
CURRICULUM
 Actual course covers other disciplines
 U.P. curriculum carries the 4 fields (American tradition)
 Some other higher educational institutions carry the same
(Ateneo, University of San Carlos, Silliman, Technological
University of the Philippines)
ANTHROPOLOGISTS DO IT IN THE “FIELD”
 Contribution to Research: “Field Work”
 The “Field” is where human beings are:
o Schools/Universities
o Archeological sites
o The laboratory
o The village/local community
o Other human groupings
o The global village
o The virtual community
 And the field used to be archaeological sites, little villages, usually
kin-ordered, and relatively isolated from the outside world.
  Thus, it came to pass that fieldwork, along with its methods of
learning the local language, protracted participant observation,
photography, etc. became the rite of passage of anthropologists.
 But the field has expanded to wherever there are human groups
and that includes the global village and the virtual community of
netizens, with new methods that include googling, not to mention
ogling…
ANTHROPOLOGY IS A TRAINING CENTER
 Trains you to stop, look and listen
 Trains you to connect the dots –with the obvious and the taken-
for-granted as well as the hidden
 Trains you to see the small and the large, the short and the long
term, and everything in between
 Trains you to dig up the past to understand the present and peer
into the future;
 Trains you to imagine anthropologically and to act realistically
and ethically;
 These are large claims, and so it must be made clear that
anthropology cannot do these things by itself; it needs to
collaborate, as it actually does, with other disciplines
CODE OF ETHICS IN PHILIPPINE ANTHROPOLOGY
 An anthropologist must be scientifically objective (truthful) and
relevant to the national and community goals; sincere to the host
community and obliged to explain to them the objectives and
implications of his research; to listen to criticism by his host
community of the research he/she has conducted; and eventually
to provide them a copy of his/her work, ideally in their language,
for the host community to be the final arbiter of the validity of
his/her work.
 An anthropologist doing research has the obligation to make
available the results of research data only to the host community,
but also to the larger community.
 The anthropologist has the right and the obligation to criticize
unethical practices of fellow anthropologists and other
individuals and institutions that affect the practice of
anthropology (Art. 2, sec. 2 UGAT Constitution and ByLaws,
1978)
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
 “Where human beings are, there shall
anthropology be”
 “Kung saan may mga tao, doon din ang
aghamtao”
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SENSE-MAKING
 When you theorize, you make sense out of something
 When we make sense out of something, we use our senses
 Quantitative- probability, scientism(dogmatist)
Evolutionism
 Edward Burnett Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan
 Morgan assumed that human society had evolved through a series
of stages, which he called savagery, barbarism, and civilization
o He subdivided savagery and barbarism into lower,
middle and upper
 Lower savagery
o Earliest humans
o with a subsistence based on fruits and nuts.
 Middle savagery
o people started fishing and gained control over fi re
 Upper savagery
o The invention of the bow and arrow
 Lower barbarism
o began when humans started making pottery.
 Middle barbarism
o In the Old World depended on the domestication of
plants and animals
o in the Americas on irrigated agriculture
 Upper barbarism
o Iron smelting and the use of iron tools
 Civilization
o finally, came about with the invention of writing
 All societies pass through a series of stages
 Maging savage ka muna bago ka maging barbaric
 You have to start with classical theories
 Morgan’s brand of evolutionism is known as unilinear
evolutionism
o Because he assumed there was one line or path through
which all societies had to evolve
o For example: Any society in upper barbarism had to
include in its history, in order, periods of lower,
middle, and upper savagery, and then lower and middle
barbarism.
o Stages could not be skipped.
o He believed that the societies of his time could be
placed in the various stages.
 Some had not advanced beyond upper
savagery.
 Others had made it to middle barbarism,
while others had attained civilization.
 Critics of Morgan disputed various elements of his scheme,
particularly such terms as “savagery” and “barbarism” and the
criteria he used for progress.
o because Polynesians never developed pottery, they
were frozen, in Morgan’s scheme, in upper savagery.
o In fact, in sociopolitical terms, Polynesia was an
advanced region, with many complex societies,
including the ancient Hawaiian state.
 We know now, too, that Morgan was wrong in assuming that
societies pursued only one evolutionary path.
 Societies have followed different paths to civilization, based on
very different economies.
 Tylor developed his own evolutionary approach to the
anthropology of religion.
o Like Morgan, Tylor proposed a unilinear path—from
animism to polytheism, then monotheism, and finally
science.
o religion would retreat as science provided better and
better explanations.
 Both Tylor and Morgan were interested in survivals, practices
that survived in contemporary society from earlier evolutionary
stages.
 The belief in ghosts today, for example, would represent a
survival from the stage of animism—the belief in spiritual
beings.
 Survivals were taken as evidence that a particular society had
passed through earlier evolutionary stages.
Diffusionism
 British School of Diffusionism (heliocentric diffusion
o G. Elliot Smith, William J. Perry, (and W.H.R.
Rivers)
o Held the view that all cultures originated only in one
part of the world which was Egypt
 Culture center of the world
 Cradle of civilization
 German School of Diffusionism (culture circles)
o Fritz Graebner, William Schmidt
o Cultures originated from a limited number of culture
centers
o Approach was through the analysis of culture
complexes identified geographically and studied as
they spread and developed historically
o Time and space dimensions
 First dimension of space was explained in
terms of culture circles
 Second dimension of time was explained in
terms of culture strata
  Refers to the diffusion or transmission of cultural characteristics
or traits from the common society to all other societies
 Criticized the psychic unity of mankind of evolutionists
 Believed that most inventions happened just once and men, being
capable of imitation, these inventions were then diffused to other
places
 All cultures originated at one point and then spread throughout the
world
 Held that primitive or modern is also a relative matter; looked
specifically for variations that gradually occurred while diffusion
took place
 All societies change as a result of cultural borrowing from one
another, cultural circles as sources of diffusion (German-Austrian
School)
 Egypt as the origin of all cultural traits (British School)
 Acculltturation
o Processes of change in artifacts, customs and beliefs
that result from the contact of two or more cultures
Historicism/Historical Particularism
 Franz Boas, Alfred Kroeber
o Boas is the father of American four-field anthropology
o Kroeber studied the distribution of traits and developed
culture area classifications for Native North America
 Disputed the criteria Morgan used to define his stages and also the
idea of one evolutionary path
 argued that the same cultural result, for example, totemism, could
not have a single explanation, because there were many paths to
totemism.
o System of belief in which humans are said to have
kinship or a mystical relationship with a spirit-being
such as an animal or a plant
o Because the particular histories of totemism in
societies A, B, and C had all been different, those
forms of totemism had different causes, which made
them incomparable.
o They might seem to be the same, but they were really
different because they had different histories.
 To explain cultural generalities, such as totemism and the clan, the
evolutionists had stressed independent invention:
o Eventually people in many areas (as they evolved
along a preordained evolutionary path) had come up
with the same cultural solution to a common problem.
o Agriculture, for example, was invented several times.
o The Boasians, while not denying independent
invention, stressed the importance of diffusion, or
borrowing, from other cultures.
 The analytic units they used to study
diffusion were the culture trait, the trait
complex, and the culture area.
 culture trait: bow and arrow.
 trait complex: hunting pattern
 culture area: based on the
diffusion of traits and trait
complexes across a particular
geographic area
o As culture traits diffused, they developed their
particular histories as they entered and moved through
particular societies
 Historical particularism was based on the idea that each element
of culture, such as the culture trait or trait complex, had its own
distinctive history and that social forms (such as totemism in
different societies) that might look similar were far from identical
because of their different histories.
 Historical particularism rejected comparison and generalization in
favor of an individuating historical approach.
 All societies are product of their own particular histories and
experiences; this collection of ethnographic facts through direct
field work must precede the development of cultural theories
 *Filipino language is more on innovation (Tagalized Spanish)
 Because of colonial mentality, we want to colonize our fellow
Filipinos
Functionalism
 Bronislaw Malinowski
o Father of ethnography
o Functionalist in two senses:
 1. rooted in his ethnography, he believed
that all customs and institutions in society
were integrated and interrelated, so that if
one changed, others would change as well.
 Each, then, was a function of the others.
 A corollary of this belief was that the
ethnography could begin anywhere and
eventually get at the rest of the culture.
 study of Trobriand fishing
eventually would lead the
ethnographer to study the entire
economic system, the role of
magic and religion, myth, trade,
and kinship.
 2. needs functionalism.
 believed that humans had a set
of universal biological needs,
 customs developed to fulfill
those needs.
 function of any practice was the
role it played in satisfying those
 universal biological needs,
o need for food, sex,
shelter, and so on.
 postponed the search for origins (through evolution or diffusion)
and instead focused on the role of culture traits and practices in
contemporary society
 Sought to understand how parts of contemporary cultures
functioned for the well-being of the individual (and society)
 3 types of individual needs
o Basic needs
 Food, sex, protection
o Instrumental needs
 Education, law, social control
o Integration needs
 Psychological security, social harmony and
common worldview
Structural Functionalism
 Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown
o In his view, the function of any practice is what it does
to maintain the system of which it is a part.
o That system has a structure whose parts work or
function to maintain the whole.
o saw social systems as comparable to anatomical and
physiological systems.
o The function of organs and physiological processes is
their role in keeping the body running smoothly.
o So, too, he thought, did customs, practices, social roles,
and behavior function to keep the social system
running smoothly.
 According to functionalism and structural functionalism, customs
(social practices) function to preserve the social structure
 The task of an anthropologist is to determine how cultural
elements function for the well-being of society (Social functions
rather than individual functions)
 Used social structure as a unit of analysis (network of relations
found within a group of people)
 Viewed anthropology as comparative sociology
Structuralism
 Claude Levi-Strauss
o Structuralism evolved over time, from his early
interest in the structures of kinship and marriage
systems to his later interest in the structure of the
human mind
 aims not at explaining relations, themes,
and connections among aspects of culture
but at discovering them.
 Rests on n Lévi-Strauss’s belief that human minds have certain
universal characteristics, which originate in common features of
the Homo sapiens brain.

 These common mental structures lead people everywhere to think
similarly regardless of their society or cultural background.
(universal mental characteristics):
o the need to classify:
 to impose order on aspects of nature, on
people’s relation to nature, and on relations
between people.
 According to Lévi-Strauss, a universal
aspect of classification is opposition, or
contrast.
 many phenomena are continuous rather
than discrete, the mind, because of its need
to impose order, treats them as being more
different than they are.
 One of the most common means of
classifying is by using binary opposition.
 Good and evil
 white and black
 old and young
 high and low are oppositions
that reflect the universal human
need to convert differences of
degree into differences of kind.
 applied his assumptions about classification and binary opposition
to myths
 Human cultures are shaped by certain preprogrammed codes of
the human mind (LS own version pf the psychic unity of
humankind)
 One of the basic tenets of human mind is it is programmed to think
in binary opposites;
 Directs relationship between culture and cognition
 Draws on a linguistic model
 View human behavior from a rational perspective
 Walang bobo
 Mahalaga yung papel ng human mind
 Neuro-anthropology
 There’s such a thing as an encultured brain
 Matindi ang influensya ng utak at pananaw ng tao sa isang kultura
 Mindset matters
 “Legalization of Marijuana”
Psychological Anthropology (Culture and Personality)
 Benedict, Sapir, Mead
 The central task of anthropologist is to show the relationship
between psychological and cultural variables;
 Looked as child-rearing practices and personality from a cross-
cultural perspective;
 Child-rearing help shape the personality structure of an individual
which in turn influences the culture (interactive relationship
between child-rearing practices, personality structure and culture)
 Differences between Western child-rearing and Asian (Japan),
Samoan child-rearing practices
 Look at different child-rearing practices in different cultures
 Configurationalism
 Benedict and Mead
 related to functionalism in the sense that culture is seen as
integrated
 Boasians traced the geographic distribution of culture traits.
o Boas recognized that diffusion wasn’t automatic.
o Traits might not spread if they met environmental
barriers, or if they were not accepted by a particular
culture.
o There had to be a fit between the culture and the trait
diffusing in, and borrowed traits would be reworked to
fit the culture adopting them
 Although traits may diffuse in from various directions, Benedict
stressed that culture traits—indeed, whole cultures—are uniquely
patterned or integrated.
 Mead also found patterns in the cultures she studied. Mead was
particularly interested in how cultures varied in their patterns of
enculturation.
 Stressing the plasticity of human nature, she saw culture as a
powerful force that created almost endless possibilities.
 Even among neighboring societies, different enculturation
patterns could produce very different personality types and
cultural configurations.
Cultural Materialism
 Marvin Harris
o adapted multilayered models of determinism
associated with White and Steward.
o For him all societies had an infrastructure
 corresponding to Steward’s culture core,
consisting of technology, economics, and
demography—the systems of production
and reproduction without which societies
could not survive.
o Growing out of infrastructure was structure—
 social relations
 forms of kinship and descent
 patterns of distribution and consumption.
o The third layer was superstructure:
 religion, ideology, play—
 aspects of culture furthest away
from the meat and bones that
enable cultures to survive.
o Harris’s key belief, shared with White, Steward, and
Karl Marx, was that in the final analysis infrastructure
determines structure and superstructure.
 Material conditions determine human consciousness and
behavior;
 Study material constraints that arise from the universal needs of
producing food, technology, tools and shelter as distinguished
from mental constraints (values, ideas, religion, arts); See material
constraints as the primary causal factors accounting for cultural
variations; relies heavily on etic research methodology;
 Share common ideas with Marx (materialist interpretation) but
rejects the Marxist notion of dialectical materialism which calls
for destroying capitalism and empowering the working class;
 No political agenda but to the scientific study of culture
Interpretative Anthropology
 Clifford Geertz
o defined culture as ideas based on cultural learning and
symbols
o During enculturation, individuals internalize a
previously established system of meanings and
symbols.
o They use this cultural system to define their world,
express their feelings, and make their judgments.
o Interpretive anthropology approaches cultures as texts
whose forms and, especially, meanings must be
deciphered in particular cultural and historical
contexts.
 Meanings are carried by public symbolic
forms, including words, rituals, and
customs.
o His approach recalls Malinowski’s belief that the
ethnographer’s primary task is “to grasp the native’s
point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision
of his world”
 Human behavior stems from the way people perceive and classify
the world around them
 At the opposite end of cultural materialism, argues that the way
people perceive (and classify) those objective conditions are the
most significant factors in human behavior (satisfaction of human
needs vs ideas, values, satisfaction of social relationships);
 See cultural anthropology more as a humanistic enterprise rather
than as a scientific one and finds affinity with art and literature
than with biology and psychology;
 Idiographic in approach not to generate laws but to focus on
cultural description, literature, folklore, myths and symbols
Neoevolutionism
 Leslie White
o complained that the Boasians had thrown the baby
(evolution) out with the bath water (the particular flaws
of 19thcentury evolutionary schemes).
 o There was a need, the neoevolutionists contended, to
reintroduce within the study of culture a powerful
concept— evolution itself.
 White’s approach has been called general evolution
o the idea that over time and through the archaeological,
historical, and ethnographic records, we can see the
evolution of culture as a whole.
 *human economies have evolved from
Paleolithic foraging, through early farming
and herding, to intensive forms of
agriculture, and to industrialism.
 Sociopolitically, too, there has been
evolution, from bands and tribes to
chiefdoms and states
 But unlike the unilinear evolutionists of the 19th century, White
realized that particular cultures might not evolve in the same
direction.
 For White, energy capture was the main measure and cause of
cultural advance:
o Cultures advanced in proportion to the amount of
energy harnessed per capita per year.
o In this view, the United States is one of the world’s
most advanced societies because of all the energy it
harnesses and uses.
o White’s formulation is ironic in viewing societies that
deplete nature’s bounty as being more advanced than
those that conserve it.
 Cultures evolve in direct proportion to their capacity to harness
energy
 White: C= E x T
 “Culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per
year increases or as the efficiency of the means of putting energy
to work is increased (1959:368-69)
 Cultural evolution is caused by advancing levels of technology
and a culture’s capacity to “capture energy”
HARVESTS FROM THE FIELD
 Researches in:
o Prehistory/history (Tabon man, Balangay)
o Material cultures (lithic, pottery, ceramics)
o Health and diseases (IKSP, HIV/AIDS, drug abuse,
malaria, pranic healing, diet, etc.)
o Development (issues and approaches)
o Environment (biodiversity conservation, climate
change)
o Indigenous Peoples cultures (Aytas/Agtas/Ati,
Mangyans, Igorots, Lumads, etc.)
o Comparative religion
o Gender
o Cyber-culture
CONTRIBUTIONS TO NATION-BUILDING
 PEOPLE’S RIGHTS (IPs, urban poor, peasants, children and
women)
 NATIONALISM (Anthropologists as revolutionaries, activists,
change agents, academicians)
 POLICY REFORMS (consultants, trainers, researchers of
GOs/NGOs/International Orgs)
 BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION (protection and
management of biological and cultural resources)
 KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION (research and publications)

Culture ecology/ Multilinear Evolution

 Julian Steward: distinguished between 3 different types of

evolutionary thought that is unilinear evolution or “stages model”
(Tylor, Morgan), universal evolution or “cultural laws” (White),
multilinear evolution (Steward) which focuses on the evolution of
specific cultures without assuming that all cultures follow the
same evolutionary process
 Proposed multilinear evolution
o showed how cultures had evolved along several
different lines.
o *recognized different paths to statehood
 (e.g., those followed by irrigated versus
nonirrigated societies).
o Steward was also a pioneer in a field of anthropology
he called cultural ecology, today generally known as
ecological anthropology
 considers the relationships between
cultures and environmental variables
 Steward was equally interested in causality, and he looked to
technology and the environment as the main causes of culture
change.
 The environment and the technology available to exploit it were
seen as part of what he called the culture core—the combination
of subsistence and economic activities that determined the social
order and the configuration of that culture in general

THE GREATEST CHALLENGE
 The Big Picture: the beginning of new geologic age, the
Anthropocene Epoch
 Previous epoch of the Earth primarily affected biological
evolution including human evolution and adaptability
 In the epoch of Anthropocene, human beings, instead of simply
being affected by the way the Earth works, are themselves
already affecting how the Earth works…
 This change in the dominance of large- scale and secular changes
by human agency, challenges anthropology to continually
address the question of bio-cultural change and evolution as an
unconscious process and as an intentional human practice
 The small picture
o the human individual responding as a conscious agent
 Everything in between
o Dynamics of the varieties of human groupings
wherever they are found

EthnoScience
 Sturtevant, Goodenough
 The ethnographer must describe a culture in terms of native
categories (emic view) rather than in terms of his/her own
categories (etic view)
 Same approach as structuralism but differ in method
 “Culture is described by how it is perceived, ordered and
categorized by the members of that culture rather than by the
impositions of the ethnographer”
PRIMATE EVOLUTION

PRIMATE CHARACTERISTICS: SUMMARY

 Large brains
 3-D vision, reduced sense of smell
 Flexible shoulder joints, vertical positioning of trunk
 Hands and feet with five digits
 Grasping thumb
 Flat fingernails instead of claws
 Generalized dentition
 Extended gestation and maturation
 Strong maternal offspring bond
 High degree of socialization
EMERGENCE OF PRIMATES
 First primates
o Plesiadapiforms or adapids or omomyids?
 Environment-Cretaceous to Paleocene
o Continental drift (Pangaea= Laurasia &
Gondwanaland)
 Success of primates
o Arboreal theory
o Visual predation hypothesis

ANTHROPOIDS
 Anthropoids branched off from the prosimians during the Eocene
o Anthropoid eyes are rotated more forward compared to
prosimians
o Anthropoids have a fully enclosed bony eye socket
o Anthropoids have a dry nose separate from the upper
lip
o Anthropoids have molar cusps

AGE OF ANTHROPOIDS (EOCENE: 34-24 MYA)

 Anthropoids 1st appearance (34 mya)
EARLY CENOZOIC PRIMATES  Anthropoids branched off from the prosimians during the Eocene
 The earliest primates date to the first part of the Cenozoic (65-54  Undisputed remains of early anthropoids date from 34 million
m.y.a.) years ago; Fayum area southwest of Cairo, Egypt
 The Eocene (54-38 m.y.a.) was the epoch of prosimians with at  Found remains from different types of anthropoids, including:
least 60 different genera in two families o Parapithecids (monkey-like)
o The omomyid family lived in North America, Europe, o Propliopithecids (ape-like)
and Asia and may be ancestral to all anthropoids  Some believe that the common ancestor for
o The adapid family was ancestral to the lemur-loris line both Old and New world monkeys
OMOMYID belonged to this ancestor
 Shoshonius, a member of the Eocene omomyid family o Best known of group- Aegyptopithecus which is
PROMISIANS believed to be after the fashion of the howler monkey
a. Fat-tailed galago (mainland Africa)  Aegyptopithecus
b. Ruffed lemur (Madagascar) o Lived about 33 MYA in Egypt
c. Sifaka (Madagascar) o Sometimes called the “Dawn Ape”
d. Ring-tailed lemur (Madagascar) o Arboreal, probably ate fruit
e. Mouse lemur (Madagascar) o Link between earlier primates and apes
f. Slow loris (South Asia)
MIOCENE ANTHROPOIDS (24 TO 5.2 MYA)
g. Aye-aye (Islands off Madagascar)
 Late Miocene Apes (24 to 16mya)
o Movement to Europe and Asia due to warmer weather
conditions; migration from Africa
 Two main groups:
o Sivapithecus
 Link to orangutans
o Dryopithecus
 Middle Miocene
o Kenyapithecus
 16 to 10 million years ago with molars
resembling modern hominoids
 Early Miocene Period (10 to 5 mya)
o Oreopithecus bambolii
 Lived between 9-7 m.y.a. and spent much
TARSIERS: SURVIVING PROSIMIANS (Bohol) of its time standing upright and shuffling
short distances (oreo is greek for mountain)
AYE-AYE o Proconsul found in sites in East Africa
 The aye-aye shown here lives on the island of Madagascar. It is a o First hominid appeared in Africa 5 m.y.a.
very specialized insect-eater
 Large eyes & good climbing abilities PROCONSUL
 The aye-aye, and most other prosimians, differ from monkeys and  A skull of Proconsul africanus from the Kenya National Museum.
apes in having a moist area of skin on the nose KENYAPITHECUS
 Fossil jaw bones from Equatorius, probably ancestral to
KEY TRAITS OF PROSIMIANS Kenyapithecus africanus and K. wickeri.
 Grasping (5 digits on hands and feet= precision grip) SIVAPITHECUS
 Vision (binocular stereoscopic- complements grasping)  Belongs to the ramapithecid genera along with Gigantopithecus
 Smell and touch (lesser sense of smell; primary sense organ is  Now believed to ancestral to the modern orangutan
touch/finger tips rather than nose) DRYOPITHECUS
 Brain size (larger/ more complex than other mammals)  Lived in Europe during the middle and late Miocene
 Parental concern (strong mother-infant bond)  This group probably includes the common ancestor of the lesser
 Social behavior (for protection/longer & better parental care) apes (gibbons and siamangs) and the great apes
 Has the Y-5 arrangement of molar cusps typical of Dryopithecus
and of hominoids
OREOPITHECUS HYLOBATES: GIBBONS AND SIAMANGS
 Oreopithecus bambolii lived between 9-7 m.y.a. and spent much  Only monogamous primates
of its time standing upright and shuffling short distances o Mate for life and will not accept another mate if
 its big toe splayed out 90 degrees from the other toes one of them dies (reason why they lack sexual
 Oreo is greek for “mountain” dimorphism)
GIGANTOPITHECUS  Smallest of all the apes
 Gigantopithecus is the largest primate that ever lived, some o Gibbons weigh about 12 lbs; long arms in
standing over 10 feet tall and weighing 600 pounds relation to legs
 since it died out around 250,000 years ago, it coexisted with Homo  Arboreal and move through trees by brachiation (swinging
erectus from branch to branch)
 some people believe it is still alive today as the yeti and bigfoot PONGIDS: ORANGUTAN
ANTHROPOIDS  Live in Indonesia and in near extinction
a. Spider monkey (NW monkey)  Marked sexual dimorphism (75-100 lbs females; 200 lbs males)
b. Saki monkey (NW monkey)  Males much time on the ground than on trees
c. Drill (OW terrestrial monkey)  Gestation period: 9 months
d. Tamarin (NW marmoset)  Live on diet of mostly leaves and with a few insects mixed in
e. Colobus (OW arboreal monkey) PONGIDS: GORILLAS
f. Gibbon (OW lesser ape)  Live in forested regions of Central Africa
g. Gorilla (OW great ape)  Marked sexual dimorphism (150lbs females vs 350 lbs males)
 Spend 4/5 of their time on the ground
PRIMATE EVOLUTION  Eat large quantities of mostly leaves, bark and fruits
 anthropoids are humanlike primates  Live in social units that range from 5-30 individuals
 they are subdivided into the New World monkeys, Old world  Large size evolved as a means of protection from predators once
monkeys, and hominoids they left the trees
 hominoids are divided into hominids, great apes and lesser apes PONGIDS: CHIMPANZEES
 hominids include living and extinct humans  Single genus called Pan and 2 species (Pan troglodytes and Pan
PLATYRRHINE MONKEYS (NW) Bonobo)
 Flat noses  Live in tropical regions of Africa
 Nostrils point sideways  Eat varied diet of meat, fruits and leaves; 70% fruits
 Many have prehensile tails  Some live mainly on trees, other groups on the ground
 36 not 32 teeth swing by brachiation  Less sexual dimorphism than among gorillas or orangutan
 Little sexual dimorphism (females 80 lbs, males 100 lbs)
 Live in south and central America  Live in social groups that are semi-closed ; men tends to wander
Platyrrhine Monkeys: Tamarins less than females
Platyrrhine Monkeys: Capuchin Monkey PONGIDS: BONOBOS
Prehensile Tail  Live in the forests of Central Africa
CATARRHINES (OW MONKEYS)  Arboreal, restricted to small area of Zaire and number to no more
Divided into two Superfamilies: than 10,000
 Old World Monkeys  Look very much like chimps and live in social groups
 Hominoids  In chimps’ society, the male dominates; in bonobo society, the
o Lack tails, have larger skulls & Walk partially upright females dominate
o Include gibbons, gorillas, orangutans, humans &  The bonobos are the sexiest of all animals
chimpanzees
 Engage in sex play very frequently and often on a daily basis;
 Most are arboreal; some like the baboons are not o traditional intercourse and rubbing of the sex organs
 Have cheek pouches, 32 teeth (like humans); no prehensile tails o sex seems to be their way of relieving tension and
 Have ischial callosities (hard, leathery-like patches of skin on their avoiding conflict in the society
buttocks used as pads for sitting on rough or rocky ground). These  Females don’t show signs of estrus as do the other chimps
areas in females turn red when they are in estrus
 A great deal of sex play (oral and rubbing of sex organs) occur
 When in trees, move by jumping and running along branches from between the females
one place to another
 Male-female sex play is also very common, not much male – male
 Land dwelling types like baboons have marked sexual sex play
dimorphism
 Diet of mostly fruits, leaves and insects; don’t hunt for meat like
 Mandrill and Diana the chimps
TERRESTRIAL OLD WORLD MONKEYS: BABOON CHRONOLOGY OF HOMINID EVOLUTION
LESSER APE: GIBBON  The Pleistocene (2 m.y.a. to 10,000 B.P.) is the epoch of human
GREAT APE: ORANGUTAN life.
GREAT APE: GORILLA o Lower Pleistocene (2 to 1 m.y.a.): Australopithecus
GREAT APE: CHIMPANZEE and early Homo
HOMINID: HOMO SAPIEN o Middle Pleistocene (1 m.y.a. to 130,000 B.P.): Homo
HOMINOIDS (Apes and Humans) erectus and archaic Homo sapiens
Hominoids characteristics: o Upper Pleistocene (130,000 to 10,000 B.P.): modern
 No external tails Homo sapiens
 Larges primates in size THE VARIED AUSTRALOPITHECINES
 Brain is more complex and larger  There are two major hominid genera: Australopithecus and Homo.
 Invest time in parental care of the young  However, in 1992 Berhane Asfaw and Tim D. White discovered
 Invest time in parental care of the young substantial remains considered to be from hominids ancestral to
 Molar teeth have 5-y cusp pattern, not 4-x pattern like the the australopithecines; these remains have been called
monkeys Ardipithecus ramidus (thus establishing a third hominid genus)
 Can raise both arms above their head easily and swing from one and dated a 4.4 m.y.a.
branch to another using their fingers  A more recent (1995, by Maeve Leakey and Alan Walker)
Divided into 3 families discovery has been named Australopithecus anamensis and been
 Great apes: Pongids dated at 4.2 m.y.a.
 Lesser apes (of Southeast Asia): Hylobates
 Human family: Hominid
LOCOMOTION FORMS  first referred to the family of languages spoken from Taiwan to
 Brachiation New Zealand and Madagascar to Eastern Islands as
 Bipedalism “Austronesian” –
 Knuckle walking o a term which marked the beginning of a new era of
 Laetoli, Tanzania, c. 3.5 - 3.8 million years ago research and which is being used up to this time.
PRIMATE EVOLUTION First, we will map the sites that have yielded physical and cultural remains
 Bipedal means walking on two legs. dated back to the Pleistocene period.
o foraging
Afterward, we will review the theories related to the Austronesian speakers’
o carrying infants and food
o using tools evolution or dispersal by looking at the different possibilities regarding the
 Walking upright has important adaptive advantages. homeland and routes followed by these seafarers
EVOLUTION OF BIPEDALISM THE PLEISTOCENE-EARLY HOLOCENE PERIOD AND
 Tool use and bipedalism (Darwin/Washburn) PALEOLITHIC CULTURAL STAGE
 Energy efficiency and bipedalism (Isbell/Young) A. PLEISTOCENE ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS
 Radiator theory (Falk)  began around 1.6 million years ago and extended until 12,000
 Body temperature and bipedalism (Wheeler) years ago
 Habitat variability and bipedalism (Potts)  characterized by mid-latitude glaciations interspersed with short
 Reproduction and bipedalism (Lovejoy) interglacial periods
 Canine reduction and bipedalism (Jolly)  In Southeast Asia, the climatic changes have been better recorded
PRIMATE EVOLUTION for the late Pleistocene period since 240,000 years ago
 Humans share a common ancestor with other primates.
 It is acknowledged that glacial maxima were reached around
o Primates are mammals with flexible hands and feet,
forward-looking eyes and enlarged brains. 135,000 years ago and again around 18,000 years ago
MONKEYS VS APES + HUMANS  At these times, the sea level in Southeast Asia may have been as
 Monkeys have smaller brains low 120 or 140m below its present level.
 When walking, monkey are quadrepedal  Eventually, it rapidly rose during the early Holocene to reach its
 They move their arms parallel to each other (like dogs and cats present level (or slightly higher) around 6,000 years ago
when they walk)  At glacial maxima, large tracts of land of the shallowly
 Apes and humans are orthograde (move arms and legs submerged Sunda continental shelf may have been exposed to the
independently of each other) surface.
 Arms and legs of monkeys tend to be of the same length; In apes, o The Sunda shelf stretches from Sumatra, Nias and
the arms are longer than the legs; In humans, legs are longer than Siberut on the West to Palawan, Borneo and Sulawesi
the arms on the East.
 Most monkeys have external tails, for balancing or holding things;  Further eastward, most of the present Philippine archipelago,
no external tails for apes and humans except Palawan, may have been grouped in one or two islands
separated from the mainland by narrow sea corridors.
Artifact arrogance
 The physical separation between Sundaland and the present
 gusto ng branded
Similarities and Differences Between Humans and Other Mammals Philippine archipelago had a major impact on the dispersal of
 Teeth fauna and flora species at this time.
o canines - for tearing and piercing (most carnivores)  Today, it is argued that a biogeographical boundary called
o incisors - nip and cut food (rodents) Huxley’s line marked the easternmost spatial diffusion of
o premolars with cusps - grinding and crushing (horses) Sundaland fauna species
o molars with cusps - grinding and crushing (cattle) –  Beyond this line, in the Philippines (except Palawan), Sundaland
o primitive mammals have 66 teeth; species drop dramatically
o modern mammals have 44;  These environmental considerations are of great importance in
o humans have 32. understanding the dispersal of early hominids in the Philippines
 Offspring have an extended period of learning. and Southeast Asia as a whole.
 Humans have an overall larger brain size.
B. EVIDENCES OF EARLY HOMINIDS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
 Humans possess behavioral flexibility
HOMINID EVOLUTION AND THE PHILIPPINES
PEOPLING  oldest remains of hominids in Southeast Asia are the fossils
READING NOTES of the so-called ‘Java man’
INTRODUCTION: o retrieved from different sites in Central Java
Spaniards tried to explain the presence of different kinds of people that they o These fossils of Homo Erectus have been dated
called: back to between 1.3 and 0.5 million years ago
(early Pleistocene)
 Negrillos (now known as Negritos)
 only one site in Southeast Asia, Ban Mae Tha in Thailand,
 Indios
has yielded Paleolithic stone tools with secure Middle
o Non-Negritos pagans
Pleistocene age-control
 Moros
 Much more is known about the late Pleistocene period
o Muslims
which began around 125,000 years ago.
During the 19th century a new classification of people came out:
 A couple of sites, Gua Cha (Malay Peninsula), Niah
 Negritos (Borneo) and Tabon (Palawan), all located in Sundaland,
 Proto-Malays (or Indonesians) have indeed yielded human remains of modern Homo
 Deutero-Malays (or Malays) Sapiens of younger Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene age
In 1897, R. Virchow (1899) (from 50,000 years ago)
 made the first critical assessment of the existing data about the  The Tabon Caves are one of the most significant
peopling of the Philippines archaeological sites in the Philippines. The caves have
 explored new ways in physical anthropology using skull analysis yielded a tibia fragment and a mandible both dated back
data. to 47,000 (± 11,000 years) and 31,000 years ago (± 8,000
Two years later, in 1899, Wilhelm Schmidt years).
 o These complement the skull of the so-called
Tabon Man (from the same Tabon Caves),
recently redated back to around 16,500 years
ago
 Associated to those human fossils, a number of
contemporary Paleolithic chert flakes and pebble tools,
ranging from Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene, have
been collected in the Tabon Caves
 Paleolithic stone tool artifacts of Late Pleistocene – Early
Holocene age have actually been recovered all over
Sundaland
 Paleolithic cultural remains have also been discovered
beyond the Huxley’s line, in Southern Sulawesi (
 The Cagayan Valley, in Northern Luzon, is rich of several
cave sites
 Middle and Upper Paleolithic flake and pebble artifacts
from these caves have been dated up to 28,000 years ago.
This lithic technology extended early into the Holocene
period
 Recently, alleged lower Paleolithic stone tools including
a proto-handaxe have been found in Arubo, Nueva Ecija
 During the late Pleistocene period, early men may have
lived in company of mammals (elephas, stegodons,
rhinoceros…) which fossils have been recovered almost all
over the present-day Philippine archipelago
C. IMPLICATIONS TO THE PEOPLING OF SOUTHEAST ASIA
AND THE PHILIPPINES
Observations:
 First, the date continuum of hominids fossils discovered in
Sundaland indicates that Sundaland may have been
continuously occupied from 1.3 Million years ago to the
present time by early Homo Erectus, then Homo Sapiens and
finally present-time Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
 More controversial is the lineage of the first occupants of
Sundaland.
 It is generally admitted that the ancestors of Southeast Asian
Homo Erectus came from Africa around 1 million years ago.
 However, two models are opposing regarding its fate and the
origin of the later Homo Sapiens discovered in Southeast Asia.
o The first and most widely accepted model asserts
that Southeast Asian Homo Sapiens are the direct
descendants of the Java Homo Erectus.
o On the other hand, the second and recently
conceptualized model called “Noah’s Ark model”
claims that Sundaland Homo Erectus has
disappeared before being replaced by incoming and
modern Homo Sapiens allegedly originating in
Africa
 The discovery of Paleolithic cultural remains beyond the Huxley’s
line is another challenge in understanding the peopling of
Southeast Asia and the Philippines in particular.
o The presence of hominids, most probably Homo
Sapiens, together with contemporary mammals, in
Luzon, during the late Pleistocene glacial period,
without evidences of local Homo Erectus ancestors
to date, questions the validity of the
biogeographical boundary marked by the Huxley’s
line.
o It leads to think that early hominids and mammals
may have crossed the narrow water channels which
separated the Sundaland, including Palawan and
Formosa, from the rest of the archipelago at this
time.
o As of now, the evidences are however too meager to
emit any hypothesis regarding the routes and date of
dispersal
 The cultural remains discovered however indicate that these
late Pleistocene-early Holocene populations relied on hunting-
gathering activities to make a living.
 Indeed, the classic model of evolution which describes chopping-
tool-culture Southeast Asia as culturally slowly developing
compared to hand-axeculture Europe and Africa during the
Paleolithic cultural stage, seems to be outdated by more recent
archaeological researches
 These works show that Pleistocene hominids rather adjusted to
their immediate tropical environment by using other
materials like bamboo or rattan to make basic tools and
complement their workshop
 Although evidences are cruelly lacking, some supposed that
these early hunter-gatherers hominids who occupied the
Philippine archipelago during the Pleistocene period were the
ancestors of the Negritos that today sparsely occupy some
remote and mountainous regions of the country
 Two models are proposed for their potential evolution and
eventual adaptation into the Holocene period. The first and
most widespread “isolation stance”
o argues that the Hunter-Gatherer Pleistocene had at
most infrequent contacts with the culturally
advanced Austronesian speakers that spread within
the archipelago during the Holocene
o The defender of this model claims that Negrito
people were until recently almost completely
isolated and separated from the lowland farming
populations and thus remain chiefly hunter-
gatherers up to now
 However, a more complex interdependent model of evolution
suggest that strong trading interactions have been maintained
between Negritos and Austronesian speakers at least for the
last 1,000 years and quite possibly 3,000 years
 The defenders of the interdependent model claim that
o “Negritos evolved culturally into what they are
today as they moved into the forest to collect wild
products to trade with agriculturalists and oversea
traders for tools and starch food” and that
o “they are kept there by their more powerful
neighbors and because it is economically their most
viable option in their very restricted
circumstances”
THE MIDDLE AND LATE HOLOCENE PERIODS AND NEOLITHIC
CULTURAL STAGE: INTERNAL DEVELOPMENT VERSUS
MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE
 second and distinct layer of population occupied the archipelago
during the Holocene period: these are the so-called ‘Austronesian
speakers’.
o The Austronesian speakers are associated with the
spread of Neolithic culture in the Philippine
archipelago.
o Neolithic cultural stage in the Philippines usually
includes the development of agriculture, polished
stone tools, pottery making and Austronesian
languages.
 Indeed, the peopling of the Philippines and of insular Southeast
Asia as a whole by Austronesian speakers could be seen from
two different angles.
o One views the inhabitants of the Philippines as
indigenous people who have undergone a long
period of internal development.
o The second hypothesis considers the Philippine
Austronesian speakers as exogenous, implying
movements of people.
o The movements of people indicates the existence of
homelands, that could be seen multiple or unique,
and routes of migration. All of these differ from one
theory to another.
Internal development and indigenous people
 The first theory has mainly been developed by archaeologist
William Meacham
 This asserts that the homeland for Austronesian speakers lies
within a wide triangle called ‘Austronesia’
 o This triangle stretches from Sumatra, on the southwest
angle, to Formosa, on the north, and to the Lesser
Sunda Islands, on the southeast
 Meacham does not contest the existence of relationships
(trade…) between the different communities located within
the triangle, but rather he insists on the period of internal
development the people underwent.
 These local evolutions are at the origin of the current cultural
and linguistic differences existing within insular Southeast
Asia.
 Meacham’s theory did not gain many followers.
 B. Bronson also asserts that people of Island Southeast Asia
underplayed a period of local and internal development due to
radical isolation.
 This differs from the Meacham’s hypothesis which
acknowledges trading contacts within the area.
 Bronson therefore contests the existence of large group of
people migrations for various reasons, i.e.,
o absence of irrefutable evidence, shaky date
concordance between linguistic and archaeological
proofs,
o serious competition with previous residents.
 In the Philippines, only F. Landa Jocano (1967, 1983-84 and
1998) defends a quite similar approach, while adding a political
dimension to it
Movements of people and the question of the homeland
A. The multiple homeland hypothesis
 H. Otley Beyer has developed one of the first and most popular
theories on the peopling of the Philippines. This involves
movements of people coming from different homelands
 During the Holocene period, he distinguished four main waves
of migrations
o The first one, composed of seafaring and stone tool-
using Indonesian ‘A’, would have occurred 5,000 to
6,000 years ago.
o About 2,500 years ago, Indonesian ‘B’, featured by
their bark cloth-wearing skill, would then have
reached the archipelago.
o Less than one millennium later (between 800 and
500 BC) would have come the terrace-building
Proto-Malays from a provenance of central Asia.
o Finally, around 300 to 400 years BC, the Deutero-
Malays would have sailed to the current Philippines
from insular Indonesia.
o At the beginning of the 21st century, this theory is still
widespread in Philippine history textbooks
B. The unique Melanesian homeland hypothesis
 In the early 1960’s, using lexicostatistical analysis, American
linguist Isidore Dyen (1962 and 1965) locates the homeland of
Austronesian speakers somewhere in Melanesia, between the
Bismarck Archipelago and the New Hebrides.
 He came to this conclusion because of the great concentration
of diverse language in that area of Melanesia.
 From there, people would have moved westward to the
mainland of Asia and the current Philippines sometimes
around 3,500 years BC
 This theory has also been formalized and mapped by British
diplomat A. Coates (1974). However, it did not gain much
support.
C. The unique South China Sea homeland hypothesis
 The fourth theory dealing with the Austronesian homeland is the
one of American anthropologist and archaeologist Wilhelm G.
Solheim II
 Since, the term ‘Austronesian’ first applies to the linguistic
domain, he chose to call the ancestors of the Philippine
Austronesian speakers and other insular Southeast Asian
people ‘Nusantao’ (from ‘nusa’ for ‘island’ and ‘tau’ for ‘man’
or ‘people’), which encompasses a wider cultural dimension
 The main reason for territory expansion would have been
trading activities of the maritime-oriented Nusantao.
 Solheim indeed excludes major movements of people but
rather, insists on the fact that Proto- and Pre-Austronesian
language would have developed as barter language among the
people of Southeast Asia
 In this way, Solheim rejoins the hypothesis of W. Meacham, yet
with a smaller area of original development.
 Mostly from pottery and shell tool evidence, Solheim asserts
that the ‘Nusantao’ trading network would have originated
from the edges of the Celebes Sea including northeastern
Borneo, the northern Celebes and southwestern Mindanao.
 Around 5,000 BC, the earliest communities of Nusantao would
have sailed northward to trade in/at Taiwan, following the
dominant sea currents and wind pattern of the Batanes Formosa
strait.
 Other seafarers would have simultaneously spread toward the
Wallacea, the Pacific islands and Indochina
 Noteworthy is that Solheim recently got the support of
geneticist S. Oppenheimer in defending this theory
D. The unique mainland Southeastern China hypothesis
 The last theory locates the Proto-Austronesian homeland in
mainland Southeastern China. Linguists such as Kern (1889),
Benedict (1942 and 1975) and above all Blust (1980 and 1988),
and also archaeologists like Chang (1964), have been very
convincing in positioning it according to lexicon and
morphological evidences.
 Noteworthy is that Dyen (1995) has contested this theory.
However, the routes the Austronesians would have followed to
reach the Philippines and the date of their arrival in the
archipelago are still being debated.
o Archaeologist Robert Heine-Geldern (1932) was
one of the first to propose a scheme for
Austronesian speaker movements from South
China.
 He actually locates the Proto-
Austronesian homeland a little bit
westward from that of Blust.
 Heine-Geldern asserted that, between
2,000 and 1,500 BC, early Austonesian
speakers would have moved south
toward the Malay Peninsula before
crossing the strait that separates it from
Borneo.
 From Borneo they would have gotten
access to the Philippines, possibly
through Palawan, before spreading
toward Formosa and eventually
reaching Japan
 Heine-Geldern based his hypothesis on
extensive and referred archaeological
evidences but that date back to the first
decades of the 20th century and surface
collections.
 Later, Loofs (1993) revived the data and
the hypothesis of Heine-Geldern but
without gaining much interest.
 More recently, some geneticists
suggested a similar Malay Peninsula-
Borneo route using Y chromosomes
evidences
o Based on lexico-statistical and glotto-chronological
analyses, some linguists (Thomas and Healey 1962;
Llamzon 1977) assert that, from Southeastern
China, Austronesian speakers would have moved
southward to Indochina (around 2,000 BC) before
spreading westward to the Malay Peninsula and
Eastward to Borneo around 1,100 BC. Then, the
Borneo group would have branched into two sub-
groups that would have reached the Philippine
 archipelago around 700 years BC, one through o The first one sees the Austronesian speakers as
Mindanao and the second through Palawan and indigenous people who eventually underwent a period
Mindoro (Figure 8). of internal development.
o Grace (1964), who quietly supports this theory, claims o The second approach includes movement of people
that Austronesian speakers reached the Philippines as from one or several homelands which have first to be
early as 1,500 BC or shortly thereafter. defined.
o On the other hand, Philippine anthropologist  In this case, the routes used are also subject to discussion.
Arsenio Manuel (1966, 1991, 1994) defends a  This summary of the different theories dealing with the peopling
multiple route hypothesis. of the Philippines does not tend to make any claim on the validity
o It is actually noteworthy that this scholar locates the of any of these approaches.
homeland of Austronesian speakers a little bit more  Especially because the very fast evolving ground it encompasses,
southward than Blust, near the Tonkin Gulf. in particular with the recent development of genetics, still lets
o From there, some communities would have reached open many doors.
Formosa and Luzon through Hainan Island. Others  The final and definitive story of the peopling of the Philippines is
would have moved southward along the Indochina indeed far to be known.
coast before spreading toward Borneo and Luzon KINSHIP DYNAMICS
o To demonstrate his theory, Manuel resorts to Cultural Anthropology
archaeological, cultural (rice growing techniques)  Comparative, cross-cultural study of human society and culture
and linguistic evidences.  Subfield of anthropology that describes, analyzes and interprets,
o Finally, the last theory has been developed, early in and explains social and cultural similarities and differences
the 1960s and 1970s, by anthropologists and  Activities:
archaeologists like Robert Suggs (1962) and o Ethnography
Richard Shutler and Jeffrey Marck (1975).  Account of a particular community, society
o It has eventually been formalized by archaeologist or culture
Peter Bellwood (1988, 1991, 1995, 1997) who thinks  Single culture
that the proto-Austronesian speakers crossed the o Ethnology
strait separating China from Formosa before 4,000  Study of socio-cultural differences and
BC to individualize themselves as Austronesian. similarities
 Examines, interprets, analyzes and
o Subsequently, they would have reached Luzon,
compares results
through the Batanes Islands, between 3,000 and  Generalizations about society and culture
2,000 BC, before spreading toward Borneo, the o Ethnohistory
Celebes and the Pacific Ocean  Studying how that particular culture
o The reasons of such a dispersal remain unknown emerged
but one hypothesis suggests that the Neolithic Cultural Evolution
revolution associated with the domestication of rice  Concerns major changes, biological and cultural in the genus
would have triggered new pressure on the land. Homo
o Rice cultivation would have caused permanent  Involves long-term trends
settlements and communities. These would have o Major changes across a sweep of time
quickly encountered overpopulation problems o Main trends
given the limited resources available.  Parts and subparts have increased
o In the search of available lands, they would have  Forming of macrobands (large
eventually crossed the strait between Taiwan and social units of people)
the Philippines.  Functional specialization
o Trade and territory expansion motivations could  Appearance of separate
political, economic
not, of course, be rejected when looking for the
complexities of society
reasons of the origin of the Austronesian speaker
 Regulation, coordination, integration
migrations. o Role of central government
o In 1988, physiologist Jared Diamond (1988) made  Adaptability
big noise by calling a ‘fast track’ evolution of this o Adaptability of humans due to different food gathering
theory the “Express train to Polynesia”. procedures
o The Bellwood hypothesis got the support of  Foraging
linguists (Blust 1988; Gray and Jordan 2000; Diamond  Reliance on nature for food and
2000), geneticists (Melton et al. 1995 and 1998), other necessities
dental specialists (Matsumura 2002) and physical  Horticulture
anthropologists, while sometimes quite in a  Slash-and-burn cultivation
controversial way (Brace 1980; Brace and Hinton  Agriculture
1981).  Use of domesticated animals,
o The pattern of diffusion of rice species (especially irrigation, terracing in farming
Oryza indica) in Island Southeast Asia, from  Pastoralism
Mainland China to the Philippines, also supports  Domestication of animals
this theory (Pejros and Shnirelman, 1998; Paz, 2003).  What is kinship?
o Biologists remain prudent but do not reject the o Sense of being related to another person (s)
o Set by rules (sometimes laws)
Taiwan to Philippines route theory (Houghton 1996)
o Often taken for granted as being “natural” rather than
CONCLUSIONS cultural
 This hierarchical approach of the peopling of the Philippines, o Includes relationships through blood and through
especially during the Holocene period, could be schematized as marriage
shown in Figure 10. o Functions:
 When tackling the question of Austronesian speakers dispersal in  Provides continuity between generations
Southeast Asia, two views are conflicting.  Defines a group on whom a person can rely
for aid
Functions of Kinship Systems  Three types of societies in terms of which groups have unequal
 Vertical function access to advantages:
 Horizontal function o Egalitarian
Principles of Kinship Classification o Rank
 Generation o Social class
 Gender Rank Societies
 Lineality versus collaterality  Do not have very unequal access to economic resources or to
 Consanguineal versus Affinal kin power, but they do contain social groups with unequal access to
 Relative age prestige
 Sex of the connecting relative o Rank societies are partly stratified
 Social condition o Most societies with ranking practice agriculture or
herding
 Side of the family
o The position of chief is at least partly hereditary
Descent Groups
Class Societies
 Descent rules
 Have unequal access to all three advantages- economic resources,
 Characteristics:
power and prestige
o Have a strong sense of identity
 Class is a category of people who all have about the same
o Often share communally held property
opportunity to obtain economic resources, power and prestige
o Provide economic assistance to one another
o Engage in mutual civic and religious ceremony  Kinds of class systems:
o Open- US
Rules of Descent: Two Types
o Caste-India, Japan
 Unilateral
o Slavery- formerly in US, Egypt
o Trace their ancestry through mother’s line or father’s
Race and Ethnicity
line, but not both (60%)
 Race is a social category, and racism is born out of extreme
 Cognatic descent
ethnocentrism
o Includes double descent ambilineal descent and
Descent Groups  Cultural anthropologists completely reject the idea of race, while
some physical anthropologists, especially forensic
 Affiliations between children and parents
anthropologists, hold on to some distinguishing biological
 Functions
characteristics
o Organize domestic life (regulate marriages) Political Life
o Enculturate children (control behavior)
 Involves even more than government and politics
o Allow transfer of property (inheritance)
 It also involves ways of preventing or resolving troubles and
o Carry out religious ritual
o Settle disputes disputes both within and outside the society
Pinciples of Classifying Kin  Formal governmentes
Kin Types vs Kin Terms Band Organization
KIN TYPES Tribe Organization
The basic relationships anthropologists use to describe the actual contents of Chiefdom Organization
kinship categories Religion
1. kin types are supposedly culture free etic elements RELIGION
Hawaiian naming system Totemism
Iroquis  Creates permanent or temporary solidarity among people
 Important for Native American religions
Origin of States- Theories  Totems: plants, animals, geographic features
 Irrigation  Each group believes they are descendants of their totems
o Labor and management  Annual celebration for totems
o Lead to unequal access to productive land Manaism and Taboo
o Border disputes lead to need for defense MANAISM
 Population growth, circumscription, and War  Pre-animistic
o Population growth leads to warfare and corruption  From Melanesian word, “mana” meaning power, effectiveness
o Social circumscription prevents migration and prestige
 Local and long-distance trade  The belief that there is a spiritual power and energy that permeates
o Organizational and defense requirements the world
Consequences of State Formation TABOO
 Positives:  Word taboo is of Polynesian origin, meaning set apart, forbidden
o Larger and denser population allowances (Captain James Cook, 1771)
o People freed to become craftspeople, merchants, artists  The prohibition of an action based on the belief that such behavior
o Art, music and literature flourish is either too sacred and consecrated or too dangerous and accursed
o Organized religion develops for ordinary individuals to undertake
 Negatives (a la Jared Diamond):  Defiance will be followed by some kind of trouble to the offender
o People can’t refuse government (oppression and force) Types of Religion
Decline and Collapse of States 1. Siamanic
 Environmental degradation  Have “shamans” or witch doctors that serve as mediator between
o Natural causes (e.g., drought) people and supernatural forces
o Behavior of humans 2. Communal
 Depletion of natural resources  Specializes in harvest ceremonies and rituals
 Change in soil content  Polytheistic meaning, they believe in several deities
 Increase in incidence of disease (e.g., 3. Olympian
yellow fever)  Originated through state organization and social stratification
o Overextension of state  Have full-time religious officials
o Conflict-internal or external  Includes powerful anthropomorphic gods each having a particular
Equality and Inequality function
 Equality before law is the idea, not the reality 4. Monotheism
 Inequality is present more in socially stratified societies, when  Believe in an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent supreme
people have unequal access to economic or natural resources, being
power and prestige
Rituals
 “Formative, repetitive, stereotyped behavior, based on liturgical
orders”
Rites of Passage
 “rites marking transitions between places or stages of life”
Liminality
 “in-between phase of a passage rite”
Religion in States
 Robert Bellah created the term “word rejecting religion”
 Tendency to reject the natural world and give focus to the divine
realms instead with salvation being the end goal
 Examples are Christianity and Protestantism
 Max Weber linked the spread of capitalism to the beliefs taught
by Protestant leaders
Antimodernism
 Rejects modern ideas or what is perceived to be a purer, better way
of life
Fundamentalism = antimodernist movements
 They assert an identity separate from the larger religious group
from which they arose
 The state should be subservient to God
Expansion of Various Religions
 Religion inspired by science and technology
 Religion inspired by Spiritism
Magic
 Involves supreme beings
 Spells, formulas, incantations
 Supernatural techniques to accomplish specific goals
 People turn to this when there is gap in knowledge or lack of
control
Imitative Magic
 To produce desired effects by imitating
Contagious Magic
 Whatever is done to an object affects the person who once owned
it or had contact with it
Divination
 A magical procedure by which the cause of a particular event or
the future is determined
Differences of Religion and Magic
Religion
 Institutionalized/ social institution
 Long term goals
 Personal & supplicative negotiation
 Sentiments of God
 Benevolent and positive actions
Magic
 Individualistic action
 Immediate goals
 Manipulative
 Requires professional skills
 Counters interest of society
Similarities
 Serve emotional and cognitive needs
 Dispel doubts
 Both are used for social control
 Reduce psychological stress