Concept of Culture essays

Concept of Culture essays Assignment B-Concept of Culture Essay Anthropology is the field of inquiry that studies human culture and evolutionary aspects of human biology. Anthropology is derived from the Greek words, anthropos, meaning human, and logos, meaning word or study of. Anthropologists examine such topics as how people live, what they think, what they produce, and how they interact within their environment. Culture refers to the ways of life that are learned and shared from one generation to the next. Usually people within the same society share the same culture, so anthropologists use the terms society and culture interchangeably. Being that anthropology is a broad field of study, most anthropologists choose from one of four subfields to specialize in. The subfields are cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and physical anthropology. The focus of cultural anthropology is the characteristics of human behavior. The interest is of present-day people and the societies they live in. The beginning of cultural anthropology is found to have started in the nineteenth century, when the Europeans became observant of what they called primitive societies in Africa and Asia. Cultural anthropologists study the topics such as: the interaction between people, the ideals they hold, the way they make their livings, and the organization of the establishments in which they live. On the other hand, archaeology is the study of the past, rather than living, human societies and culture. Archeologists main concern is with culture; they rely on artifacts left by past societies. There is found to be a connection between the artifacts left from an ancient society to the nature of that society. Another focus is on the past environments, this gives an understanding of how environmental forces shaped the growth of human culture. One of the most uniquely human charac ...

The Khmer Empire Water Management System

The Khmer Empire Water Management System The Angkor civilization, or Khmer Empire, was a complex state in southeast Asia between AD 800 and 1400. It was remarkable, among other things, because of its extensive water management system stretching across over 1200 square kilometers (460 square miles), which connected the natural lake Tonle Sap to large man-made reservoirs (called baray in Khmer) through a series of canals  and permanently altering the local hydrology. The network allowed Angkor to flourish for six centuries despite the difficulties of maintaining a state-level society in the face of successive dry and monsoon regions. Water Challenges and Benefits Sources of permanent water tapped by the Khmer canal system included lakes, rivers, groundwater, and rainwater. The monsoonal climate of southeast Asia divided the years (and still does) into wet (May-October) and dry (November-April) seasons. Rainfall varies in the region between 1180-1850 millimeters (46-73 inches) per year, mostly in the wet season. The impact of water management at Angkor changed natural catchment boundaries and eventually led to erosion and sedimentation of channels requiring considerable upkeep. Tonle Sap is among the most productive freshwater ecosystems in the world, made so by the regular flooding from the Mekong River. Groundwater in Angkor can today be accessed at ground level during the wet season and 5 meters (16 feet) below ground level during the dry  season. However, local groundwater access varies greatly across the region, with bedrock and soil characteristics at times resulting in a water table as much as 11-12 m (36-40 ft) below the ground surface. Water Systems Water systems were used by the Angkor civilization to cope with the vastly changing water quantities included raising their houses on mounds or stilts, building and excavating small ponds at the household level and larger ones (called trapeang) at the village level. Most trapeang were rectangular and generally aligned east/west: they were associated with and perhaps controlled by the temples. Most temples also had their own moats, which were square or rectangular and oriented in the four cardinal directions. At the city level, large reservoirs- called baray- and linear channels, roads, and embankments were used to manage water  and may have formed an intercommunication network as well. Four major baray are in Angkor today: Indratataka (Baray of Lolei), Yasodharatataka (East Baray), West Baray, and Jayatataka (North Baray). They were very shallow, between 1-2 m (3-7 ft) below ground level, and between 30-40 m (100-130 ft) wide. Baray were built by creating earthen embankments of between 1-2 meters above the ground level and fed by channels from natural rivers. The embankments were often used as roads. Archaeologically-based geographic studies of the current and past systems at Angkor suggests that Angkor engineers created a new permanent catchment area, making three catchment areas where there once was just two. The artificial channel eventually eroded downward and became a river, thereby altering the natural hydrology of the region. Sources Buckley BM, Anchukaitis KJ, Penny D, Fletcher R, Cook ER, Sano M, Nam LC, Wichienkeeo A, Minh TT, and Hong TM. 2010. Climate as a contributing factor in the demise of Angkor, Cambodia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(15):6748-6752. Day MB, Hodell DA, Brenner M, Chapman HJ, Curtis JH, Kenney WF, Kolata AL, and Peterson LC. 2012. Paleoenvironmental history of the West Baray, Angkor (Cambodia). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(4):1046-1051. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1111282109 Evans D, Pottier C, Fletcher R, Hensley S, Tapley I, Milne A, and Barbetti M. 2007. A new archaeological map of the world’s largest preindustrial settlement complex at Angkor, Cambodia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(36):14277-14282. Kummu M. 2009. Water management in Angkor: Human impacts on hydrology and sediment transportation. Journal of Environmental Management 90(3):1413-1421. Sanderson DCW, Bishop P, Stark M, Alexander S, and Penny D. 2007. Luminescence dating of canal sediments from Angkor Borei, Mekong Delta, Southern Cambodia. ​Quaternary Geochronology 2:322–329.