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Test No: 2 Date: 12.01.2019 Max. Marks: 250 Max. Time 3 Hours ANTHROPOLOGY- ALL INDIA TEST SERIES ARCHEOLOGY, GENERAL ANTHROPOLOGY PAPER-1, CHAPTERS- 1.1 to 1.8 & PAPER-2, CHAPTERS- 1.1 to 1.3 KEY 1a. Visual Anthropology • Visual anthropologists look at the visual aspects of a culture, such as art and media, and are also interested in how anthropological data can be represented visually, • Visual anthropologists are concerned with both the visual aspects of culture and using media to present data visually. • study a wide range of cultural aspects, including art, dance, ritual, jewelry, body adornments; also intersects with archaeology in the study of prehistoric art, such as cave paintings • Visual anthropology is a subfield of social anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. More recently it has been used by historians of science and visual culture. • study of all visual representations such as dance and other kinds of performance, museums and archiving, all visual arts, and the production and reception of mass media. • research topics include sand paintings, tattoos, sculptures and reliefs, cave paintings, scrimshaw, jewelry, hieroglyphics, paintings and photographs • Displaying data visually presents unique advantages that aren't always found through writing. For example, something as detailed and visually-focused as a dance is easily conveyed through a video, where the viewer can get a sometimes stronger sense of the experience • So-called "collecting clubs" included the British anthropologists Edward Burnett Tylor, Alfred Cort Haddon, and Henry Balfour, who exchanged and shared photographs as part of an attempt to document and classify ethnographic "races." • Bateson and Mead took more than 25,000 photos while conducting research in Bali, and published 759 photographs to support and develop their ethnographic observations. • Film as ethnography is an innovation generally attributed to Robert Flaherty, whose 1922 film Nanook of the North is a silent recording of activities of an Inuit band in the Canadian Arctic. • Anthropologists such as Adolphe Bertillon and Arthur Cervin sought to objectify the images by specifying uniform focal lengths, poses, and backdrops to remove the distracting "noise" of context, culture, and faces. Some photos went so far as to isolate body parts from the individual (like tattoos) [http://www.visualanthropology.net] +91 – 99899 66744 www.sosinclasses.com b. Scope of Archeological Anthropology REFER from Booklet Sosin for Anthropology: Archaeological anthropology and Indian Archeology: Page no 9-18 • Archaeological anthropology is the study of past humans and cultures through material remains. It involves the excavation, analysis and interpretation of artifacts, soils, and cultural processes. • Archaeology tells us about the technology used in the past by analyzing the tools people have left behind. On this basis it can shed light on the economic activities of the people. The engravings on the pottery, jewellary etc reveal the artistic capacities of the people. Certain aspects of religious beliefs can also be guessed by observing burial sites and the articles kept there. • The Archaeological Anthropology makes an attempt to understand the geological processes particularly the climatic phases that have left evidences in earth's surface. The archaeological evidences are found in abundance mainly in river terraces. The chief methods of archaeologists are excavation to discover artifacts dating to assign an approximate time period and to build the cultural history of man's past based on that. • Historical archaeology • Experimental archaeology • Archaeometry • Pseudo archaeology 1c. Living megaliths of India • Megaliths were constructed either as burial sites or commemorative (non-sepulchral) memorials. The former are sites with actual burial remains, such as dolmenoid cists (box- shaped stone burial chambers), cairn circles (stone circles with defined peripheries) and capstones (distinctive mushroom-shaped burial chambers found mainly in Kerala). The urn or the sarcophagus containing the mortal remains was usually made of terracotta. Non- sepulchral megaliths include memorial sites such as menhirs • Megaliths are spread across the Indian subcontinent, though the bulk of them are found in peninsular India, concentrated in the states of Maharashtra (mainly in Vidarbha), Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. • According to archaeologists R.K. Mohanty and V. Selvakumar, around 2,200 megalithic sites can be found in peninsular India itself, most of them unexcavated. • Even today, a living megalithic culture endures among some tribes such as the Gonds of central India and the Khasis of Meghalaya • The living megalithic culture in India provides strong hints regarding the belief systems of prehistoric megalithic people. “The Gond people believe in life after death, they believe that every human being has two souls: the life spirit and the shadow. • tribes who still include megaliths in their religious beliefs, for example, the Gadabas, Gonds, Kurumbas, Marias, Mundas, Savaras, Garos, Khasis, Nagas, Karbis, Tiwas, and Marams. These groups still construct megalithic manuments for the dead. ‘Megalithism’ may be considered as a living tradition. • The Gonds, Kurumbas, Morias and Savaras plant and worship stone menhirs and sometimes erect wooden pillars. The Gonds believe that the spirit of the dead resides in a stone. +91 – 99899 66744 www.sosinclasses.com • The veneration of the wooden and stone pillars is evident in the practices of the Morias who apply turmeric and oil on them. They sacrifice a buffalo and offer rice and worship these stones in the belief that the spirit of the dead resides in them. The Savaras, before sowing, present the seeds in front of the pillars and sacrifice animals to promote the fertility of the seeds • Similarly, the Kurumbas approach the megalithic monuments of their ancestors whom they implore to help them tide over their difficulties [DO MENTION FEW of above mentioned examples in the answer] d. Ethno Archeology in India • Ethnoarchaeology is an ethnographic approach to the study of contemporary, living human societies that seeks to identify behavioral realities that structure the potential archaeological record. • The term 'Ethnoarcheology' was coined by Jesse Fewkes to mean an archaeologist "who can bring as preparation for his work an intensive knowledge of the present life • In order to understand the material culture preserved in traditional practices, ethnoarchaeology tries to study the possible correlation between the material culture of the people on one side and the unobservable social relations or spiritual life on the other. In this way, archaeology contributes directly towards historical reconstruction when conventional historical sources are lacking or when other forms of preserved traditions require substantial support. • The concept of 'Thunder Axe' in North East India ✓ The concept of 'thunder Axe' is one of the many distinctive aspects of ancient belief systems which probably dates back to a very remote period. This belief is retained in the form of tradition by almost all the tribes that inhabited the North East region of India. Thus by applying the general comparative analogy for the concept of 'Thunder Axe', great insights could he gained about the cultural and cognitive patterns of prehistoric life. The Neolithic stone tools, owing to their peculiar nature, have always mystified the common man who cannot diagnose them scientifically. These stone objects are assumed to be material products of thunder and lightning. ✓ Various tribes of North East India consider the Neolithic stone tools as 'thunder axe' with magical and medicinal properties. The Kachari tribe of Assam refer to these stones in their local language as Sarak, ni-Ongthai (Sarak= Heaven, ni=of Ongthai=stone) ✓ In Santhali dialect these stones which came along with a thunder strike are called Ceter or thunder Axe. The traditional Sanatal people believe that the stones also have medicinal properties. They would rub the stone on a rough surface and whatever dust particle that comes out of the grinding process is dissolved in water and served as medicine. • the ethnoarchaeological studies of tribal groups on the Indian subcontinent have also stressed the degraded nature of the contemporary environment and the loss of many +91 – 99899 66744 www.sosinclasses.com wild plant and animal resources as a result of agricultural expansion and modernization • Roy examined the technology of swidden agriculture, in particular, the tools used and patterns of use wear. The axes and hoes used by modern agriculturalists are of metal, but Roy's work has demonstrated that the wear patterns they develop as a result of use in particular activities are quite similar to those found on prehistoric stone tools in the same region, and may result from similar kinds of use. • the most comprehensive ethnoarchaeological studies dealing with material culture and social structure and strategies is the by Miller on pottery use and distribution in Madhya Pradesh. Miller examined the role of goods in symbolizing social status in a caste-based hierarchical society. [DO MENTION FEW of above mentioned examples in the answer] e. Protein Synthesis ✓ Protein synthesis is one of the most fundamental biological processes by which individual cells build their specific proteins. Within the process are involved both