Art

                                        
           
1. Functions of Early Art: In this assignment folder is a link to a walk-through of the Lascaux Caves in France. Access the link and explore the cave paintings. There is also a link to background information on the cave site and I encourage you to review this as well. Then answer the following questions (25 points):
           

1. What were the cave artists trying to say?   

   
I believe that the cave artists were simply trying to tell stories and explain what they were seeing. Since they had close to no form of written language they had to rely on art to write their stories down.

2. Why do you think that there were so many animals and not as many people in the paintings?                   

I think that cave painters probably spent more time hunting and observing animals then they spent time with other people, their lives were more revolved around animals than other people. Most of their stories have to do with the hunt and less about their humanistic relationships, they really spent more time with nature.

3. What can the paintings tell us about other aspects of the life of cave dwellers or        Paleolithic people?

They tell us about how much they spend with animals, and how much more connected they are to the environment than most of us are.

4. What difficulties did these early humans navigate in order to paint these pictures?

The early humans had to deal with figuring out how to make “paint” they also had to paint in the day since during the night the caves would become dark unless they had fire. They also couldn’t really screw up since they don’t have the kinds of paint covers and erasers that we do.

5. Speculate as to three (3) possible functions of this art to early humans.       

Possible functions of art for them could be storytelling: it would be a way to “write” their stories down. It could be a way of communication if two different cultures met and they didn’t speak the same language they would both know what a bull looked like. Also it could be a way for them to mark their territory and or leave marks as to where they have hunted and where animals are plentiful or where they are not.
           
2. Commonalities in Function: Compare the possible functions of the art from the Lascaux Caves to modern art, in all of its various forms. What are some commonalities in function you can find in how the art of early humans and modern humans? (10 pts)

Art is a bit of a language that can be hard to understand, back then it used to be very literal, a fox was a fox, but now something simple can mean something much, much more. And much like back then it can be used to write stories, however we don’t so much use art to mark territories unless you consider tagging to be a form of art which it can be to some. Most functions of art back then can still be used now.
           
3. Introduce Us to Your Favorite Art: Include in your post at least one image and/or a link (5 pts) to a video depicting an art form you would like to explore. This could be a specific type of art (i.e., ceramics, photography, etc.), music (classical, blues, grunge, etc.), performance art, or any other type of art you might want to present. Then answer the following questions:
           
Drawing/Illustrating (these are two of my own pieces of art)

1. For those who practice this form of artistic expression, what function does it serve? What are they trying to communicate? (5 pts)       

Drawing/Illustrating can be a very expressive form of art, it can just simply tell a story or it can just show life as how it is. They can communicate so many different things it all depends on the person painting the picture or sketching out the image. These artists can also become advertisers/graphic designers where their job is to make a product look good to consumers.

2. Is there a complete culture surrounding this art form, i.e., a language, a set of behaviors, form of dress, etc.? Describe and identify the features of this culture. (10 pts)   

I think for each individual artist there is a specific “language” they use for their own art, two artists may share the same ideals and draw them but they might not draw it the same way. Most artists tend to look at things from a connective perspective constantly bringing two ideas together that most people wouldn’t associate with each other but it works.

3. How does this art form (and its culture) benefit society? Are there any detrimental affects? (5 pts)

This art form allows for creativity and it allows for people who don’t speak the same language to enjoy the same story. Stories can be told through images drawn by illustrators, much like animated movies, those used to be drawn by animators through cell blocks, it was hard work but it brought a lot of joy to many people. I can’t really think of any downsides to art other than maybe people will disagree with some artists are trying to convey through their work.

Culture and Violence

                   

1. Rules or laws against killing are essentially a cultural universal, meaning all cultures have rules regarding the killing other people and the punishments for breaking these rules. How do the Yanomamo rules regarding killing and the consequences for breaking these rules differ from the rules in Western cultures in general? (5 pts)       

    While the Yanomamo people try to keep civility they often break their rules if they feel their women are threatened, infidelity has occurred, or a family member was killed by another tribe.  It is more for revenge, compared to our culture when killing is frowned upon unless it is in defense or completely accidental, even then we don’t like killing. While our western culture leaves it to the police to deal with the incident, in the Yanomamo culture they deal will killings through revenge.
       

2. Describe the process of revenge killings as it is expressed in Yanomamo populations. (5 pts)       

Revenge killing is when a person is wrongfully killed so the kin of that family will take revenge on the kin of the person who killed. Often in raids the killings occur.

3. Revenge killings are a dangerous for those who take part. What are the benefits of obtaining the status of unokais? How do they compare to the benefits of being a non-unokais? Why would a man choose to become an unokais instead of being a non-unokais? (10 pts)           

The danger of revenge killing for anyone that takes part is when they do the killing they risk having a revenge killing place upon their own family or themselves.  The benefit to being a unokais is the prestige of having killed someone, they are often respected however if a man is a non-unokais they do not have to worry about the consequences of a revenge killing. A man would want to be a unokais because they are more respected than unokais and they tend to have more children and more wives. The prestige is worth the risk to them.

4. Identify and describe the relationship between revenge killings and these aspects of the    Yanomamo culture. How do they influence and affect each other?
1. Political structure (5 pts) - while the Yanomamo culture does have rule sort of against killing it still happens, so the revenge killings are almost above the “government”
2. Social Status/Social Organization (5 pts) - unokais tend to have a higher social status and are looked up to.       
3. Kinship (5 pts)    - Kinship groups stick together for revenge killing and kinship groups are targeted, it is not just the unokais they target.
4. Marriage & Reproduction (5 pts) - the men that perform revenge killing on average tended to have more children and wives than non-unokais

5. Behaviors that are usually labeled as “anti-social”, such as killing other people, are generally thought to be a bad thing to do under most circumstances, other than defense. Why do we need laws against something that no one should want to do? Use your reading of the article to help you explain your answer. (10 pts)           

   
I believe we have laws against killing so that we don’t turn into the Yanomamo tribe, eventually killing could become a sport and people would take honor in saying they have killed someone, but if we prevent it through laws this won’t happen. We are prevent revenge killing. While most of us find it only acceptable for defense if there were not laws stopping us from killing someone we could, even if we found it morally wrong we would be able to get revenge

Kinship

      I interviewed my mother Kathy Bullock, she was born in South Dakota and then moved to Granada Hills, CA when she was a baby. She has lived in California since. She lived with her parents and brother who she did not get along well with. At 18 she moved out and married her first husband. She has had a total of 4 kids, three boys one girl. Married 3 times. Her rough relationship with her father and the bad relationship between her parents is what she determines was her inability to understand love.

     We just sort of chatted for a bit, it was really easy to get the information but it was odd asking her questions like “so who are your kids” when I obviously knew the answer. But we both laughed it off and would continue on as normal. I think it affected the thoroughness since I probably did not ask as much questions as I should have since I already knew most of the answers since we’ve discussed our family before. I think interviewing someone unrelated would be easier for me since I would not feel quite so silly since I wouldn’t be asking questions about myself and people I know all about.
           
    Some of the things I noticed is that the matrilineal descent tended not to move far, all my siblings and grandparents live in Southern California. However on my patrilineal descent they tended to spread out more. There is more of a trend to smaller families as the generations progress, however there used to be larger families more toward the earlier generations mapped. Ideal differences have put a barrier between my family and my mother’s ex families and her brother and her deceased father.

   

    I know both sides of my family pretty well, my family is fairly small but I know most of my relatives, once we start getting to older generations I know less.
    It all depends I socialize more with my mom’s mom more than I do my dad’s dad, if that makes sense. I also socialize more with my brothers which technically would be considered my mom’s side since they are not related to my father. My aunts and uncles on my dad’s side are more spread out so I don’t see them quite as often.

I think it would have to be my mom,    mostly because she handles the money more often, even though she makes less than my father she does the majority of the spending for the family so often she is the decision maker.   

    Family members who marry into the family are treated the same as members who are apart of the family. We are such a small family that we all get along well and it’s not hard to become apart of our general crazy quirks. 

   I don’t really feel there are any different attitudes based upon gender in our family, I’m the only daughter in the family and I’m not treated any different by my brothers or family. I think we mostly view each other at equals though our family relationship is different than most since my oldest brother is twenty years older than me.

As odd as it may sound I don’t really feel like this exercise I learned much more than I already knew. But looking at it from an anthropological standpoint was interesting, it made me view how my family interacts with each other but for the most part I knew all these thing internally but now I was just viewing them from an external standpoint.

           

Agriculture and Trade

Part 1
    The benefits to hunter gatherers are they are very active, so they are more in shape. They rely on skill, and have the knowledge to which plants they can eat and which ones they can not. The benefit to agriculture is that they don’t have to travel to find food, they grow it all themselves as well as their cattle.
    The disadvantage to hunter gatherers is they have to constantly move in order to find their food, and if they don’t know what they can and cannot eat it can get them killed. Disadvantages to agriculture is that studies show they are not as healthy as hunter gatherers, and their mouths are smaller causing problems.
    Hunter gatherers provide a healthier diet, shown in Razib Khan’s model when agriculture started an increase in death occured. It seems that hunter gatherers all together have a healthier lifestyle they are constantly moving and their food changes giving them diet change providing them with the nutrients that they need
    Early human populations most likely started using agriculture so that they could settle down in one location. It would be more productive to have one place to call home and raise your food there rather than chasing after your food daily. Generally speaking humans seem to like schedules and regularity, so if they can control their environment to produce the food they need at specific times of the year then it would make more sense.

Part 2

The availability of surplus and the ability to trade go hand in hand. If you have 20 pigs and 50 yams but you need 15 pigs and 40 yams to eat it means you have a surplus of 5 pigs and 10 yams, and you can only trade what you don’t need. In essence you can only trade what you have left over, you can’t trade things that don’t exist.

    A benefit to trading is that you have the ability to get something you don’t have. As a farmer you can only grow so many things, so you then have the ability to trade with someone else to gain what you need. Another benefit it you gain the aspect of community, it allows you to interact with different people forming bonds over what you have and what you don’t, what you don’t need and what you need to get.
    A negative social aspect of trading is that people can get taken advantage of causing certain people to lose product. Trading can also be very competitive causing problems among traders of the same items especially if one of the people has an advantage over the other. Monopolies are also a problem, they can set their price at what ever they want if their item is wanted by others.
    Agriculture made it easier for trade to happen, with agriculture more food is available and it gives different people the opportunity to work together to get what they need. Trading probably happened because one farmer had too much of one product and a different farmer had too much of a different product so they traded to get rid of their surplus and gain something they need.