Download CHAPTER 2: ETHICS AND METHODS

CHAPTER 2: ETHICS AND METHODS
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
This chapter introduces students to the ethical standards of anthropology and the field methods employed
by anthropologists. It pays special attention to the multidisciplinary nature of archaeology and biological
anthropology and examines the use and interrelationship of ethnographic and survey research techniques.
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
1.
Know the ethical obligations of anthropologists as stated by the American Anthropological
Association.
2.
Understand the multidisciplinary nature of physical anthropology and archaeology.
3.
Distinguish the primary areas of study that Kottak identifies in physical anthropology and
archaeology.
4.
Be familiar with the field methods of survey and excavation used by archaeologists, as well as the
kinds of archaeology in which researchers may engage.
5.
Consider the reasons why the fossil record is not a representative sample of animals and plants that
have existed. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of the relative, absolute, and molecular dating
methods used by archaeologists and physical anthropologists.
6.
Be able to identify and distinguish among the major ethnographic techniques, and know how and
why these techniques would be used.
7.
Know how ethnography and survey research differ in terms of methods and goals, yet also how these
methods may be complementary.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Ethics and Anthropology
A. The anthropologist’s primary ethical obligation is to the people, species, and materials he or
she studies.
B. The AAA Code of Ethics states that anthropologists should recognize their debt to the people
with whom they work and should reciprocate in appropriate ways.
1. Researchers should obtain informed consent from anyone who provides information
or who might be affected by the research.
2. Researchers should include host country colleagues in their research planning and
requests for funding.
3. Researchers should establish collaborative relationships with host country institutions
and colleagues before, during, and after their fieldwork.
4. Researchers should include host country colleagues in dissemination, including
publication, of the research results.
5. Researchers should ensure that something is "given back" to host country colleagues.
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II. Research Methods in Physical Anthropology and Archaeology
A. Multidisciplinary Approaches
1. Anthropologists collaborate with scientists from diverse fields in the study of sites,
fossils, and artifacts.
2. Palynology, the study of ancient plants through pollen samples, is used to shed light
on a site’s environment at the time of occupation.
3. Bioarchaeologists examine human skeletons to reconstruct their physical traits, health
status, and diet.
4. Forms of remote sensing, such as aerial photos and satellite images, are used to locate
archaeological features as well as patterns of flooding and deforestation, which can
then be investigated on the ground.
B. Primatology
1. Primate behavior has been observed in zoos and through experimentation, but the
most significant studies have been done in natural settings, among free-ranging apes,
monkeys, and lemurs.
2. Studies of primate social systems and behavior suggest hypotheses about behavior
that humans do or do not share with our nearest relatives, and also with our hominin
ancestors.
C. Anthropometry
1. Anthropometry is the measurement of human body parts and dimensions, including
skeletal parts (osteometry).
2. Body mass and composition provide measures of nutritional status in living people.
D. Bone Biology
1. Bone biology (or skeletal biology) is the study of bone as a biological tissue,
including its genetics; cell structure; growth, development, and decay; and patterns of
movement (biomechanics).
2. Paleopathology is the study of disease and injury in skeletons from archaeological
sites.
3. Forensic anthropologists work in a legal context, recovering, analyzing, and
identifying human remains and determining the cause of death.
E. Molecular Anthropology
1. Molecular anthropology uses genetic analysis (of DNA sequences) to assess
evolutionary links among ancient and contemporary populations and among species.
2. Molecular anthropologists also reconstruct waves and patterns of migration and
settlement.
F. Paleoanthropology
1. Paleoanthropology is the study of early hominins through fossil remains.
2. Paleoanthropological studies are usually undertaken by multidisciplinary teams that
may include physical anthropologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, geologists,
palynologists, paleoecologists, physicists, and chemists.
G. Systematic Survey
1. Systematic survey provides a regional perspective by gathering information on
settlement patterns (the distribution of sites) over a large area.
2. During a survey, researchers record the location, size, and approximate age of sites.
H. Excavation
1. During an excavation, scientists recover remains by digging through the layers of
deposits that make up a site.
2. The layers or strata that make up a site can be used to establish the time order of the
materials encountered during the dig.
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a. According to the principle of superposition, in an undisturbed sequence of
strata, the oldest is on the bottom and each successive layer above is younger
than the one below.
b. Generally, artifacts and fossils from lower strata are older than those
recovered from higher strata in the same deposit.
3. Sites are excavated because they are endangered (e.g., by modern development), or
because they are well suited to answer specific research questions.
III. Kinds of Archaeology
A. Experimental archaeologists try to replicate ancient techniques and processes (e.g., tool
making) under controlled conditions.
B. Historical archaeologists use written records as guides and supplements to archaeological
research on societies with written histories.
C. Classical archaeologists study the literate civilizations of the Old World, such as Greece,
Rome, and Egypt.
D. Underwater archaeology is a growing field that investigates submerged sites, most often
shipwrecks.
IV. Dating the Past
A. The fossil record is not a representative sample of all the plants and animals that ever have
lived.
B. Taphonomy is the study of the processes that affect the remains of dead animals.
C. Paleontologists and anthropologists have established a chronology for the evolution of life by
assigning dates to geologic layers (strata) and to the material remains, such as fossils and
artifacts, within them.
D. To date fossils or artifacts, scientists use several relative and absolute techniques that offer
different degrees of precision and that are applicable to particular periods of the past.
1. Relative Dating
a. Relative dating provides a time frame in relation to other strata or materials
rather than absolute dates in numbers.
b. Stratigraphy is the science that examines the ways in which earth sediments
accumulate in layers known as strata (singular, stratum).
c. Fossils or artifacts in a given stratum are younger than those in the layers
below them and older than those in the layers above them.
2. Absolute Dating
a. Absolute dating techniques allow fossils or artifacts to be dated more
precisely, with dates in numbers.
b. Radiometric techniques are based on known rates of radioactive decay of
elements found in or around fossils.
c. Examples of absolute dating techniques include carbon-14 (14C), potassiumargon (K/A), uranium series (238U), thermoluminescence (TL), and electron
spin resonance (ESR).
V. Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology
A. Cultural anthropology and sociology share an interest in social relations, organization, and
behavior.
B. Sociologists traditionally have worked in the large-scale nations of the industrial West.
1. Sociologists rely heavily on questionnaires and other means of collecting masses of
quantifiable data.
2. Sampling and statistical techniques are basic to sociology.
C. Traditionally anthropologists used ethnographic techniques to study small populations.
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D. Émile Durkheim, one of the founders of both anthropology and sociology, compared the
organization of simple and complex societies.
VI. Ethnography: Anthropology’s Distinctive Strategy
A. Ethnography is the firsthand, personal study of local cultural settings.
B. Traditionally, ethnographers have tried to understand the whole of a particular culture.
C. In pursuit of this goal, ethnographers usually spend an extended period of time in a given
society or community, moving from setting to setting, place to place, and subject to subject to
discover the totality and interconnectedness of social life.
VII. Ethnographic Techniques
A. Observation and Participant Observation
1. Ethnographers are trained to be aware of and record details from daily events, the
significance of which may not be apparent until much later.
2. Ethnographers strive to establish rapport—a good, friendly working relationship
based on personal contact—with their hosts.
3. Participant observation involves the researcher taking part in the activities being
observed.
B. Conservation, Interviewing, and Interview Schedules
1. Ethnographic interviews range in formality from undirected conversation, to openended interviews focusing on specific topics, to formal interviews using a
predetermined schedule of questions.
2. Multiple conversational and interviewing methods may be used to accomplish
complementary ends on a single ethnographic research project.
C. The Genealogical Method
1. The genealogical method includes procedures by which ethnographers discover and
record connections of kinship, descent, and marriage, using diagrams and symbols.
2. Because genealogy is a prominent building block in the social organization of
nonindustrial societies, anthropologists need to collect genealogical data to
understand current social relations and to reconstruct history.
D. Key cultural consultants, also called key informants, are people who by accident, experience,
talent, or training can provide the ethnographer with the most complete or useful information
about particular aspects of life.
E. Life Histories
1. Life histories reveal how specific people perceive, react to, and contribute to changes
that affect their lives.
2. Since life histories are focused on how different people interpret and deal with
similar issues, they can be used to illustrate the diversity within a given community.
F. Local Beliefs and Perceptions, and the Ethnographer’s
1. An emic (native-oriented) approach investigates how local people perceive and
categorize the world, what their rules of behavior are, what is meaningful to them,
and how they imagine and explain things.
2. Cultural consultants or informants are individuals who provide the ethnographer with
the emic perspective.
3. An etic (science-oriented) approach emphasizes the categories, explanations, and
interpretations that the anthropologist notices and considers important.
G. Problem-Oriented Ethnography
1. Although anthropologists are interested in the whole context of human behavior,
most ethnographers now enter the field with a specific problem to investigate, and
they collect data relevant to that problem.
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2. Because local people lack knowledge about many factors that affect their lives,
anthropologists also may gather information on variables such as population density,
environmental quality, climate, physical geography, diet, and land use.
H. Longitudinal Research
1. Longitudinal research is the long-term study of a community, region, society, culture,
or other unit, usually based on repeated visits.
2. Longitudinal research has become increasingly common as improved transportation
has allowed anthropologists to visit their research area repeatedly.
3. Longitudinal research is often conducted by teams of ethnographers (see team
research below).
I. Team research involves a series of ethnographers conducting complimentary research in a
given community, culture, or region.
VIII. Survey Research
A. Anthropologists working in large-scale societies are increasingly using survey methodologies
to complement more traditional ethnographic techniques.
1. Survey involves drawing a study group or sample from the larger study population,
collecting impersonal data, and performing statistical analyses on these data.
2. By studying a properly selected and representative sample, social scientists can make
accurate inferences about the larger population.
B. Survey research is considerably more impersonal than ethnography.
1. Survey researchers refer to the people who make up their study sample as
respondents.
2. Respondents answer a series of formally administered questions.
C. Ethnography can be used to supplement and fine-tune survey research, thereby providing new
perspectives on life in any society.
IX. Anthropology Today: Archaeologist in New Orleans Finds a Way to Help the Living
A. The news article describes the work of an anthropologist doing public archaeology in New
Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
B. The anthropologist, Shannon Lee Dawdy, has worked to protect and preserve New Orleans
graveyards like Holt Cemetery, a final resting place for the city’s poor.
LECTURE TOPICS
1.
By far the most engaging and effective introduction to research is a presentation of the
anthropologist’s own work, or that of a colleague who is either a physical anthropologist or
archaeologist. In particular, you could discuss the methods you use to conduct your research, as well
as your own experiences and impressions when you first did fieldwork. Did you experience culture
shock? Such a presentation will set a mood for the course and keep students involved long after the
immediate occasion for the presentation has passed.
2.
Physical anthropology and archaeology are both inherently multidisciplinary. Discuss the makeup of
an archaeological or physical anthropological project and how specialists from a wide range of fields
will be represented on the research team.
3. Discuss the political implications of archaeological fieldwork. Examples to use include the
documentation of war crimes during the Guatemalan civil war from 1960 to 1996, Kennewick Man,
the temple at Ayodyah in India, and Hitler’s interest in archaeology.
4. Discuss the different ways in which archaeologists and physical anthropologists date the past. Be
sure to explain the limits of each technique. Also, it is important to highlight that absolute dating is
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not really “absolute” because a researcher needs a suite of dates that point toward a range (confidence
interval) of time for the material dated.
5.
The role of the anthropologist as ethnographic fieldworker has come under some scrutiny. Discuss
the various political issues that may arise when researchers from industrialized nations study people
in “Third World” countries. Give examples of both successful and unsuccessful fieldwork (e.g., from
the work of Chagnon, Evans-Pritchard, Benedict, Briggs, Malinowski, and Radcliffe-Brown).
Discuss some of the problems and experiences that anthropologists face during fieldwork. The
debate over anthropological involvement in the Vietnam War in particular provides an interesting
basis for a discussion of professional ethics.
6.
This chapter stresses the emerging synthesis of techniques that once were used separately by
anthropologists and sociologists. Discuss how quantitative and qualitative techniques complement
each other in anthropological research. For example, how do qualitative data inform the design of
survey questionnaires?
SUGGESTED FILMS
Archaeology: Developments in Artifact Analysis and Preservation
1993 23 minutes
This film presents methods of excavation, survey, and conservation. The film also explores some of the
new techniques in use in archaeological fieldwork directed at studying tree rings, rocks, sediment, and
vegetable debris. From Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
Series: Lost Worlds: The Story of Archaeology
6-part series
50 minutes each
This six-part series explores the rise and developments of archaeology. Titles in the series: Stones and
Bones: The Birth of Archaeology; Treasure Seekers: Archaeology Turns from Passion to Plunder;
Digging by the Book: Program Archaeology; Looking for One Beginning: The Fallacy of Diffusionism;
At the Service of the State: Archaeology as Political Tool; The Future of the Past. From Films for the
Humanities and Sciences.
Unearthing Evil: Archaeology in the Cause of Justice
2000 28 minutes
This film presents the work of forensic archaeologist Richard Wright, who has excavated massacre sites
in the Ukraine and Bosnia. His excavations have been used to convict the perpetrators of these crimes.
From Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
Apes to Man
1995 53 minutes
This film explores the evolution of primates and hominids, from the appearance of the first apes to the
arrival of modern humans. The film visits key sites in Africa, touching on some of the important debates
in the study of human evolution. Part of the Series Planet of Life. A Discovery Channel Production.
Jane Goodall: A Life in the Wild
1990 31 minutes
This film presents the life and work of Dr. Jane Goodall. Through interviews with Dr. Goodall, we learn
why she became a primatologist and how she came upon some of her more important findings. From
Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
The Gene Hunters
1994 52 minutes
This film presents the scientific effort to collect DNA samples from native peoples around the world.
These samples will be used to study questions related to human origins and migration, native rights,
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medical ethics, and profit. From Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
Series: Strangers Abroad
Six parts, 52 minutes each
This series explores the origins of modern anthropological fieldwork by presenting the lives and research
of some of the field's important pioneers. Titles in the series: Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer: Fieldwork;
Franz Boas: The Shackles of Tradition; William Rivers: Everything Is Relatives; Bronislaw Malinowski:
Off the Veranda; Margaret Mead: Coming of Age; Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard: Strange Beliefs. From
Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
The Rise of Anthropology: Haddon and Rivers
1988 50 minutes
This film traces the ethnographic expedition of Drs. Alfred Haddon and W. H. Rivers to Melanesia.
Drawing on journal entries, archival footage, photos, and interviews with a modern researcher, this film
contextualizes the importance and impact of this early expedition. A BBC production. Original BBC
broadcast title: Dr. Miller and the Islanders.
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