Andean Indians
1) It hard to say what the
wheatear conditions in the Andeans mountains are because they are the longest
mountains in the word with a distance of 4,500 miles and their height conditions vary from place to place. Also the
climate condition is affected by several factors such as Humboldt ocean currents which is
cold and Patagonia which is temperate, so the Andeans mountain has different
climates. For example, in Colombia is full of rainfall season with and average
temperature of 64°F, in Ecuador is dry with an average
temperature of 68°F, in Peru and Chile one can find a
huge snow line because the Andean Mountains search an altitude over 19,000
feet.
2) High altitudes can bring health problems
because oxygenate
the body became harder, so one must to increase one’s breathing rate. It brings
negative consequences like headache, nausea, dizziness, lack of energy and
fluid buildup in lung and brain. However, Andean Indians has developed throughout
the time an enlargement in theirs chest and lungs, so they can absorb more
oxygen in each breath. They can do all
their physical activities with no problem.
3) One interesting
culture adaptation found in Andean Indians is their agriculture, but the
interesting part is how the work their land. Andean Mountains are very steep,
and people cannot use fancy tractors or
big machines to work, so they have to do everything with their hands. In conclusion,
Andean Indians have created their own methods to work their land in a successfully
way.
4) I think that the
best way to describes Andean Indians would be as South Americans Indians
because they are Indians with origin of different countries of South America
(Chile, Colombia, Ecuador), but they share the same ethnicity.
Zulu
1) The Zulu people are
located in South Africa more specific in KwaZulu-Natal. According towww.zulu.org.za
in KwazuluNatal one can expect an endless summer.
This region has a sub-tropical climate most of the year. During
the summer the average temperature is between 75 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit,
and in winter 68 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition one can expect hot days most of the
year,high humidity levels and a good rainfall.
2) One
of the physical characteristics that Zulu people show is
their dark skin which helps them to protect from the high sunlight.KwaZulu-Natal is
located close to the equator, and Zulu people received a big amount of
sunlight, so natural selection has provided Zulu people with dark skin which
have big among of melanin. Consequently, Zulu people have a natural shield
against sunburn and skin cancer.
3) Zulu people dominate one of
the most common cultural adaption around the world which is agriculture. They
have been taken advantage of the good condition of rainfall, and until today
agriculture is their economics base, but the main purpose of their agriculture
is to feed their hungriness. Women do most of the planting and harvesting work.
4) I think that Zulu people
would be best describe as black because they have develop a dark skin color,
and people descendant from
Africa are categorized in the race black.
5) I think that physical
and cultural adaptations have the same value, and anthropologists need to study
both to do their ethnography projects. When anthropologists are investigating a
population they must study its physical adaptations because they need to
understand why a population has some psychical characteristic that another population
do not have. For example, an anthropologist needs to figure out why Germans
have a white skin and Africans dark skin. Also, Cultural adaptations are important
to study because they are spirits of a population, and it defines who are they
there people today because culture represent the knowledge, values and belief
of a person.
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/204/18/3151.full.pdf
http://www.zulu.org.za/index.php?districthome+29++57984
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/andes_climate.htm
Great discussion throughout. Good explanation of the environmental stresses and the adaptations.
ReplyDeleteMy only correction is in the summary. You discuss the value of the physical and cultural adaptations in understanding the populations, but the question in the assignment asked you to compare this adaptive approach to the use of race identification in section 4.
Other than this one point, great post.
I found you’re summery on adaption vs. race interesting. It was an eye opener seeing it from your perspective. I took race as just being physical characteristics and really thought of it as who cares what it looks like on the outside, what matters is how it ticks. And if you look at it race is just really about appearance BUT the thing is, sometimes the appearance is how they have adapted to survive. Thank you for teaching me something.
ReplyDeleteJose-
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post because it was very interesting. On my blog post, I had trouble with the cultural adaptions of the Andean Indians but after reading your post, it became clearer. I also agree that anthropologist should look at both the physical and cultural adaptions within a culture. you made a good point when you said why are German skin white and African skin black? Thank you for sharing
I learned that there existed some discussion of why the skin is dark, Some scientist believe it prevents too much Vitamin D from being absorbed, others believe it is to prevent foliate from being absorbed which can affect the fertility rates. The scientist believe an adaption would be rare unless it helped a culture to survive, so they look at reproduction and fertility.
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Deletethere a relation between color skin and Vitamin D, but just let me find a good article that explain it well =)
Deletewell, I do not think that race identification is very relevant for anthropologist because we can learn more from a population for their cultural y physical adaptations. Adaptations to an environment tell us more of a population because we can find more specific information about why a population is different from the other population. Adaptations to an environment are the spirit of a population...
ReplyDeleteJose Contreras
Thank you for the response. The answer to the issue of "why" is exactly the reason race doesn't do much for us in terms of explaining cultural difference. It doesn't explain why the differences exist in the first place.
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