Dominant group/Anthropology

With respect to dominance in anthropology or any dominant group (anthropology), or dominant anthropological group; i.e., the phrase 'dominant group' within the subject area of anthropology, use in context may signify importance of research results about a dominant group that usually need to be explained by theory and interpretation of experimentation. Anthropology is divided into fields: archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and social anthropology. The concept of a dominant group seems to find purpose within each.

Archaeology

Archeology is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes (the archaeological record).

Evolutionary archaeology

The theory of Darwinian cultural evolution adopted by many researchers "can facilitate cross-fertilization of ideas and methods and help generate a unified and productive science of culture". A theory of cultural evolution "in which human culture - the entire body of socially transmitted knowledge that is passed on from individual to individual, generation to generation, by means of cultural transmission - is governed by the same general Darwinian evolutionary principles as govern changes in biological species." "Darwin discussed at great length the inheritance of biological traits and the importance of inheritance to his theory of biological evolution, stating that "any variation which is not inherited is unimportant for us". "Perhaps more importantly, Darwin's theory of biological evolution served to unify and integrate the diverse and hitherto separate branches of biology - the "Modern Synthesis" of the late 1930s and 1940s".

“Elements of culture, or cultural complexes, pass from person to person within a group, or from group to group, and, eventually reaching a thoroughly conventionalised form, may take an established place in the general mass of culture possessed by a specific group”.

[T]he majority of the participants give "similar estimates to the confederates despite that estimate being obviously false, illustrating the powerful effect of conformity in group settings."

One group is "placed in a position of economic and communicative superiority: Its products were more valuable than those of the other two groups, and all trade had to be conducted through it."

"The results showed that although the dominant group earned more than the other two groups, all groups increased their earnings over the successive generations."

The "increased productivity was attributed to increasingly efficient trading and division of labor, rules concerning which were being transmitted to each new generation."

Both psychological experiments and archaeological studies "study the cultural transmission of information by means of social learning from individual to individual along a chain or lineage." "The archaeological studies look at actual, unsimulated, large-scale transmission through entire populations involving countless unidentified individuals from successive biological generations." Whereas, "[t]he experimental studies look at simulated small-scale transmission along chains of a few individuals or within small groups under controlled laboratory conditions."

"This cross-disciplinary borrowing of methods, tools, and hypotheses follows naturally from viewing human culture in the context of a larger unifying evolutionary framework."

East African diaspora

The East African diaspora has three causes:

1. migration of ethnic groups like the Zulu,
2. the slave trade, and
3. climatic changes which caused wars and forced ethnic groups to abandon certain areas.

"The major slave traders were the French, Portuguese and the Omani." "The Omanis were the main distributors of slaves and almost had a monopoly of this trade on the East coast from Kilwa to the African Horn."

"Slaves' masters were obliged to teach their pagan slaves Islam. Some slaves accepted Islam freely or under pressure, but in the end the religion and the language (Arabian) became the common denominators of the slave community, since slaves' religion and mother tongue were all different".

"Islam was reinforcing the brotherhood among the slaves and acted as a pacifier, as it justified slavery and facilitated the control of a dominant group".

"Furthermore, since Islam was the common denominator of the slaves, Islam's presence in the new syncretic culture would be dominant."

"[A] different expression of religious affiliation must be visible between the slave and the master, since Islam allows a degree of syncretism. The different take on Islam would have been evident in practice." "A major influence on the slave's life was the experience of enslavement and life as a bonded person. These experiences caused slaves to forget their mother tongue, to learn Arabic and to modify their traditional way of life. Slaves took some of the Arabian culture as their own". "[S]ince Islam was the common denominator of the slaves, Islam's presence in the new syncretic culture would be dominant."

"Slave owners were Africans and the owner's slaves were captured as close as 150km from the town, in villages where trade with these towns was of prominence". "Although most and the biggest slave owners on the coast and islands were Muslims, there were also Christians and native Africans who were slave owners."

Biological anthropology

Some thirty-two vervet monkey infants in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, are observed from August 1983 to June 1985.

An external factor making it costly for an animal to maintain access to a food item is threats by a high-ranking group member. "Vervet infants in the Amboseli National Park do not appear to show distinct preferences for gross food categories. This conclusion is based on the observation that in response to an approaching dominant, the distance at which infants abandoned their food was the same for all food items tested. In contrast, abandon distance varied between food items for adults and juveniles."

"Interactions with dominant group members may thus provide infants with the raw material for recognizing variation in food quality."

"[A]dult tenacity (i.e., one measure of an animal's percept of quality) at a food source varied as a function of the product being consumed."

"An alternative explanation for the age-related differences in abandon distance is that during a threat from a dominant group member, infants, in contrast to adults and juveniles, are more concerned with potential escape routes or alternative food sources than to the quality of food being consumed."

"A final possibility is that infants' fear of dominants overrides the importance of food quality." Dominants "may instill a general level of fear in infants, regardless of food types, and thus abandon distance in infants is not expected to vary by food category."

Cultural anthropology

"[N]ativistic movements in North America" with respect to "groups of individuals" such as "Indians" and "whites" refer to "whites" as an "alien society which surrounds them." Most nativistic movements "have as a common denominator a situation of inequality between the societies in contact. Such inequalities may derive either from the attitudes of the societies involved or from actual situations of dominance and submission."

"Inequality based on attitudes of superiority and inferiority may exist in the absence of real dominance, although situations of dominance seem to be uniformly accompanied by the development of such attitudes."

In the Southwest, the Anglo-Americans dominate Indians and Mexicans alike.

"[T]he technological superiority of European culture has, until recently, rendered the dominance of colonial groups secure."

"Most dominant groups have been less fortunate. They have found themselves threatened, from the moment of their accession to power, not only by foreign invasion or domestic revolt but also by the insidious processes of assimilation which might, in the long run, destroy their distinctive powers and privileges. This threat was especially menacing when, as in most of the pre-machine age empires, the dominant and dominated groups differed little if at all in physical type."

“The situation in which a dominant group acknowledges its cultural inferiority to the dominated is one which must arise very infrequently.”

"These frustrations are somewhat mitigated in the cases where the dominant group recognizes the superiority of the dominated group's culture."

"Nativistic movements tend to arise only when the members of the subject society find that their assumption of the culture of the dominant group is being effectively opposed by it, or that it is not improving their social position."

"Since the dominated society has been frustrated in its earlier desires to become acculturated and to achieve social equality, it can frustrate the dominant society in turn by refusing to accept even those elements of culture which the dominant group is eager to share with it."

"Passive resistance requires much less energy than any of the techniques needed to break it down, especially if the culture patterns of the dominant group preclude the use of forcible methods."

Analysis: three apparent dominant groups are identified:

1. whites,
2. Anglo-Americans, and
3. colonial groups.

Dominant group is used to refer to the group of whites, Anglo-Americans, and colonial groups, each of which is in turn a dominant group. These dominant subgroups are identified as indicated by respective links. "Colonial groups" refers to several groups of immigrants to America. North America has been divided into European immigrant territories based on control such as British America, French America, Spanish America, Russian America, Dutch America, and Norse America.

The relation to one another is that they are dominant groups of individuals, or peoples, originating in Europe. The population is North Americans in the location of North America.

Dominance appears to result from

1. surrounding,
2. armed force, and
3. technological superiority initially.

These may have been replaced to some extent by distinctive powers and privileges, since the culture pattern of the dominant group of European-ancestor North Americans now preclude the use of forcible methods.

Linguistic anthropology

"There certainly appear to be numbers of examples of the language of one group of egalitarian hunter-gatherers replacing the language of another group of egalitarian hunter-gatherers on other continents apart from Australia." Language shift is probably a more common occurrence among prehistoric hunter-gatherers than among peoples with more elaborate socio-political systems, because the latter systems give rise to more fixed ties of groups to ethnic identities, including ethnic languages, than among small bands of hunter-gatherers who could afford to be more 'fickle'.??

"In the case of Aboriginal Australia, differences between economic and political systems, at least using the categories usually quoted in relation to language replacement, are largely absent. Australian Aboriginal societies are classless and stateless, and it seems highly unlikely that any form of centralised organisation and elite hierarchy existed in the past."

"Pidginisation occurs where there is a close economic relationship between two peoples; the pidgin is derived from the language of the dominant partner in the relationship. Such a relationship and the dominance of one side could be inferred from archaeological evidence, independently."

"Such a relationship may just as well result in the adoption of the dominant group's language as a lingua franca without significant pidginisation."

"Other aspects which have been suggested as crucial for pidgin simplification to occur are: (a) an attitude on the part of the dominant language speakers that their language cannot or should not be learnt by foreigners except in a simplified /'debased1 form; (b) a degree of actual complexity/difficulty in the dominant language."

Analysis: members of the dominant group are in the relationship of being "dominant partner"s.

The population is "Aboriginal societies" in the location of Australia.

Investigating the source of dominance includes

"While no relic language or group can be identified amid the southern Pama-Nyungan block of languages, the Yolngu languages of north-eastern Arnhem Land clearly constitute a northern offshoot of Pama-Nyungan entirely surrounded by non-Parna-Nyungan languages.",

"[T]he fact that in this myth this change in technology also accompanies a change from female to male control of circumcision ritual might encourage us to give consideration to ideas that radical change in ritual and social organisation has occurred and its traces can be detected.", and

"These are areas where Macassan influence was also strong."

Dominance may refer to "surrounded", "strong influence", or new technology and an accompanying "prehistoric change from matrimoieties to patrimoieties".

Social anthropology

"For ethnic groups, Wolofs and Lebus, Tukulors and Fulas, Bambaras and Soninkes, Diolas and Manjaks were respectively grouped together since the social structure and historical background of each member of the pair were closely related."

Ethnicity is a central concept in social anthropology and traditionally considered as prominent in determinism of behavior.

"In Senegal, Wolofs and Lebus represent the dominant group (43 per cent of total population) as well as the oldest one in the Dakar area."

External links

• Archaeology Times | The top archaeology news from around the world
• British Association of Biological Anthropologists and Osteoarchaeologists