What is Culture?

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What is Culture?

• Beliefs
• Values
• Behaviors
• Social orgs
• Tools
• Structures
• Artifacts

Passed to next gen
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Components of Culture

• Trait
• Owning a car
• Complex
• Auto in society Movies, NASCAR, rites of
  passage
• System
• American (Pronounced Ameri Kuhn)
• Region
• American (American), often entire nations belong
  to a region
• Realm
• North American, Latin American, European.

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World Realms
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Geogrpahy is Destiny !!!

• Possibilism vs. Environmental Determanism
• Possibilism
• People not Environment
• Environmental Determinism
• Physical Environment shapes human action

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Human Control of Environment

• Fire
• Plistocine overkill (2mil-11k)
• Fire drive animals, kill with weapons(with
  handles)
• 40 of large African animals
• Majority of large animals, reptiles, and
  flightless birds in Australia (46,000 ago)
• 2/3 of North American large animals (11,000 ago)
• Maoris and Polynesians 80-90 of birds
• Easter Island barren wasteland Madagascar
  today

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11,000 years ago Culture Begins!
USGS.GOV

• SE Europe and S. Russia forest, tundra,
  grassland huge animals
• Human migration Northward necessitated tools
  (Mother)
• Population of Britain 400-500 groups of 20
• World Pop 5-10 million
• 2.5 day workweek leads to language, religion,
  trade, permanent settlements, social
  stratification (culture)
• Spread of Peoples (Oppenheimer)

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10000-5000 ago Culture Change

• Domestication
• Plants 18,500 ago Nile Valley ???
• Plants 10,000 ago Near East ???
• Animals 8000 ago Pigs and Goats Near East
• Animals 7000 ago Cattle and pigs Greece/NearEast

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Review

• 70,000 ago
• 15,000 ago
• Glacial Maximum to retreat
• Spreading
• 10,000 ago
• Ice Age ends Plant Domestication
• 8,000 ago
• Animals

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Domestication?

• Organized Farms
• Stratified society
• Artisans
• Warriors
• Merchants
• Scholars
• priests

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Culture Hearths

• Domestication leads to Civilization
• 1000s of hearths
• Few Civilizations (cradles)
• Writing, metallurgy, long-distance trade,
  astronomy, math, social stratification,
  specialized labor, formal gov, urban culture

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Structure of Culture

• Ideological Subsystem

• Technological Subsystem

• Sociological Subsystem

• mentifacts

• artifacts

• sociofacts

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Structure of Culture

• Ideological Subsystem

• Technological Subsystem

• Sociological Subsystem

• mentifacts

• artifacts

• sociofacts

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Innovator?

• Change Culture?

• Andy Warhol
• Pop culture
• Truman Capote
• In Cold Blood
• Britney Spears
• Michael Jackson

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Diffusion

• Relocation
• Physically Carried
• Crusades

• Expansion
• Islam

• Contagious
• Uniform, encounters

• Time-Distance decay
• Farther from source takes longer

• Hierarchical
• Larger to smaller places Fashion