Human Geography
Jerome D. FellmannMark BjellandArthur GetisJudith Getis
Human Geography
Chapter2
Roots & Meaning of Culture
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Photo credit: © Getty RF
Human Geography 11e
Components of Culture
• Culture Traits• Culture Complex• Culture System• Culture Region• Culture Realm• Globalization
Photo credit: © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc./Barry Barker, photographer
Human Geography 11e
Components of Culture• Culture Traits
– Units of learned behavior– Tools– Languages– Objects– Techniques or beliefs– Elementary expressions of culture
• Culture Complex– Traits that are functionally interrelated– The assemblage of traits
Human Geography 11e
Components of Culture
• Traits and complexes have areal extent and they can be plotted on maps
• Culture System– A broader generalization than a cultural
complex– Refers to the collection of interacting cultural
traits and cultural complexes that are shared by a group within a particular territory
Human Geography 11e
Components of Culture• Culture Region
– A portion of the earth’s surface occupied by populations sharing recognizable and distinctive cultural characteristics
• Culture Realm– A set of culture regions grouped whenever they
show related cultural complexes and landscapes
• Globalization– Homogenization of cultures as economies are
integrated and uniform consumer demands are satisfied by standardized commodities
Human Geography 11e
People and Environment• Environments as Controls
– Environmental Determinism• The belief that the physical environment exclusively
shapes humans, their actions, and thoughts
– Possibilism• A reaction against environmental determinism;
people are dynamic forces of development (the environment is not as dynamic like human beings)
• Human Impacts– Cultural Landscape
Human Geography 11e
Roots of Culture
• Hunter-Gatherers– Pre-agricultural people dependent on
the year-round availability of plant and animal foodstuffs they could secure
– Rudimentary stone tools and weapons– Hunters and gatherers required
considerable territory to support a relatively small number of individuals
Human Geography 11e
Seeds of Change
• Cultural Divergence• Carrying Capacity
Human Geography 11e
Agricultural Origins and Spread
• Domestication of Animals and Plants– Farming– Plant Domestication
• Food crops cultivated• Raising crops
– Animal Domestication• The successful breeding of species that are
dependent on human beings
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Neolithic Innovations
• “New Stone” Age
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Culture Hearth
• The place of origin of any culture group whose developed systems of livelihood and life created a distinctive cultural landscape.
Human Geography 11e
• Multilinear Evolution– The common characteristics of widely
separated cultures developed under similar ecological circumstances
– Environmental zones tend to induce common adaptive traits in the cultures of those who exploit these areas
– Comparable events cannot always be explained in the basis of exporting techniques• Significant time and space differences
Human Geography 11e
• Diffusionism– Cultural similarities are the product of spatial
spread from common origin sites
• Cultural Convergence– Differences between places are being reduced
by improved communications leading to homogenization
– Sharing of technologies so evident among widely separated societies in a modern world united by efficient communication systems
Human Geography 11e
The Structure of Culture
• Ideological Subsystem– Mentifacts
• Technological Subsystem– Artifacts
• Sociological Subsystem– Sociofacts
• Cultural Integration
Human Geography 11e
Culture Change
• Innovation– Cultural Lag
• Resistance to change
• Diffusion– The process by which an idea or
innovation is transmitted from one individual or group to another across space
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– Expansion Diffusion• Contagious diffusion affects nearly uniformly
all individuals and areas outward from the source region
• Hierarchical Diffusion involves processes of transferring ideas first between larger places or prominent people, and later to smaller or less important points or people
• During stimulus diffusion, a fundamental idea, not the trait itself, stimulates imitative behavior
– Spread of the concept but not the specific system
Human Geography 11e
Culture Change– Relocation Diffusion
• The idea is physically carried to new areas by migrating individuals
– Acculturation • A culture is modified• Adoption of traits of another dominant group• Immigrant populations take on the values,
attitudes, customs, and speech of the receiving society, which itself undergoes change from absorption of the arriving group.
Human Geography 11e
Contact between Regions
• Diffusion Barriers– Any conditions that hinder either the
flow of information or the movement of people and thus retard or prevent the acceptance of an innovation
• Syncretism– The process of the fusion of the old and
new is called syncretism and is a major feature of culture change