Anthropology Hall of Fame

Margaret Mead  The most famous of the early anthropologists  Studied cultures in Pacific islands  Compared Samoan teens to American teens  Conclusion: personality influenced by society  Later focus: gender roles  Accused of sloppy methods  Used too many personal stories, not enough statistics  Many thought she exaggerated the sexual liberation of young Samoans  But: she’s an important pioneer, she popularized anthropology

Ruth Benedict  Studied role of religion  human personality  Studied Aboriginal peoples of US Plains  Culture “personality writ large”  i.e., the sum of all the personality types of its people  Studied Japanese culture to assist redevelopment after WWII

Bronislaw Malinowski  Social Anthropologist  (founder)  Studies & compares social organizations in different societies  Studied people of New Guinea & Trobriand Islands  His functional theory  All social institutions are designed & modified to meet needs of most of the population  Rejected Cultural Evolutionism

Cultural Evolutionism?  All societies develop in a regular series of predictable stages  Savage  Primitive  Sophisticated  Criticisms against Cultural Evolutionism:  It’s racist  Implied that newer is more advanced  Ethnocentric, judges Western civilization as best, others compared to it  Malinowski: anthropology to explain, not judge  Don’t rate cultures,  Point out similarities, differences  REQUIRES: exhaustive observation & detailed record-keeping

Raymond DartPhysical Anthropologist  Examine fossils / other remains  To understand evolutionary development of humans  Skull found 1924, Australopithecus “Southern Ape”  Findings disputed  1947, found more evidence supporting claim  Today, Australopithecus a valuable discovery

Louis & Mary Leakey  Likely the most famous family of physical anthropologists  1930’s people thought human origins in Asia  Leakey disagreed, went to Africa  Australopithecus  Homo habilis  Experimented with ancient tools  how ancestors hunted  Thought: study of primates would help us to understand our ancestors

Jane Goodall  Worked with Leakeys  Observed & recorded lives of chimpanzees  Initially from a distance, once she gained their trust, from close up  Key findings:  Chimps make & use tools  They aren’t strictly vegetarian  They have a social structure  Alpha male wins supremacy, has the right to mate with the females  Eventually usurped, has a privileged role as respected grandparent  Our human ancestors:  Highly developed social structure, based on aggression  Originally vegetarian, became meat eaters when able to co-operate to hunt

Biruté Galdikas  Focus: orangutans  Why?  Share 98% genetic material with humans  Foster parent to a 1 year old male  Observations  (similar to Goodall’s)  Highly structured social communities  Violence always possible  “looking into the …eyes of an orangutan…image of our own creation…

Dian Fossey  “Gorillas in the Mist”  Observed gorillas, from a distance, close up  They show affection  family  Aggression  outsiders  Common theme: primates share much in common with our early human ancestors