Chapter Two Roots and Meaning of Culture “Ways of Life” A learned behaviors (figures 2.1,2.2)

Components of Culture Culture Traits - smallest units, holy cows, chopsticks, dialects, beliefs.... Culture Complex - from combination of Traits, fig 2.3, Culture Region - areal extent, a portion of the earth’s surface occupied by population sharing recognizable and distinctve cultural characteristics. Culture Realm - even larger area. (fig 2.4) Globalization - interaction between cultures are high.

Interaction of People and Environment - cultural ecology: the study of the relationship between a culture group and the natural environment it occupies Environments as Controls –Environ. Determinism – dismissed by geographers –Possibilism – people, not environments, are the dynamic forces of cultural development Human Impacts –Cultural landscape (fig 2.5, Chaco Canyon, Easter Island) – the earth’s surface as modified by human actions, is the tangible physical record of a given culture.

Roots of Culture In preagricultural periods - Hunter-gatherers (fig 2.8) Brief History –Paleolithic (fig 2.9) –By the end of Paleolithic period, humans had spread to all the continents but Antarctic. (fig 2.10)

Seeds of Change Agricultural Origins and Spread –warmer climate, increased production of food, increase “carrying capacity”, entered “Mesolithic” (Middle Stone Age) period.(11, ,000B.C.) –Domestication of plants and animals, plants - perhaps 20,000 bp. Major centers of plant and animal domestication (fig 2.12) –migration of first farmers (fig 2.13) Neolithic Innovations - new and advanced tools/tech for agricultural env. (fig 2.14, 2.17a), religion, specialized professionals.

Culture Hearths Culture Hearth - emerged in the Neolithic period (fig 2.15) Multilinear Evolution Cultural Convergence

The Structure of Culture Ideological Subsystem Mentifacts Technological Subsystem Sociological Subsystem Sociofacts Cultural Integration

Culture Change Innovation Diffusion –Expansion: hierarchical, contagious, stimulus –Relocation: (fig 2.21, 2.22, 2.23) –Spatial Diffusion of Wal-Mart: Contagious and Reverse Hierarchical Elements –Chinese Inventions : gunpowder, printing, and spaghetti, however, diffusion routes are not documented. Acculturation and Transculturation (fig 2.24) Cultural Modification Acculturation – immigrants, tribal European in areas of Roman conquest, native Americans

Contact between Regions Diffusion Barriers - distance, time, Diffusion is a selective process. Syncretism - process of the fusion of the old and new cultures Do your online quiz for Chapters 1 and 2 – for practice only