Zagreb-Sundial on Tkalciceva

Amy Mountcastle State University of New York at Plattsburgh Department of Anthropology

Glossary of important terminology

  Hunting-gathering or foraging                        reliant on wild foods

  Horticulturalists               simple farming/use of simple tools; extensive (“shifting”) agriculture, like slash and burn                                         (requires a lot of land which is used one or two seasons and then left fallow)

Pastoralists                       domesticated food animals/herding

Nomadic pastoralists            pastoralists who are highly mobile, taking herds to fertile grazing grounds, often seasonal movements

Transhumant nomadic pastoralists            pastoralists who take herds to grazing grounds and leave family groups at settlements; could be permanent or semi-permanent settlements (some people say that transhumant refers to pastoralists who shift grazing grounds depending upon the season, but nomadic pastoralists do this too).

Agriculturalists                                                  large scale planting; use of plow technology; intensive agriculture, multiple crop yields in a season

  Band—informal, situational leadership based on skill or personal attribute

Tribe—charismatic headman based on personal attributes; generosity; no real power

Chief    Chiefdom—centralized form of leadership, some power,may or may not be hereditary;existence of social hierarchy based on proximity to chief’s lineage (rank society)

State—centralized, bureaucratic system; hereditary succession; class society; monopoly on the use of force

Kinship—consanguineal : blood relations            affinal: marriage relations

Bilateral—reckoning through both mother’s and father’s sides

Cognatic—reckoning through either the male or the female line (but not both)

Unilineal-reckoning through only one side

        Matrilineal            patrilineal

Lineage—unilineal descent group who trace ancestry to a recognized (known) common ancestor

Clan—group of people, often comprising multiple lineages, who trace themselves to a common, unknown ancestor; could be a mythical ancestor

Nuclear family—father, mother, child in a household

Extended family—three or more generations (vertical) living in a household; could also include lateral relative (uncles, aunts, cousins

This page was last updated 20 September 2004
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