Human

Homo sapiens idaltu (extinct)

Culture

Culture is defined here as a set of distinctive material, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual features of a social group, including art, literature, lifestyles, value systems, traditions, rituals, and beliefs.

Related Topics:
Culture - Intellectual - Emotional - Spiritual - Art - Literature - Lifestyle - Value systems - Tradition - Ritual - Belief

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Culture consists of at least three elements: values, social norms, and artefacts. A culture's values define what it holds to be important. Norms are expectations of how people ought to behave. Artefacts – things, or material culture – derive from the culture's values and norms together with its understanding of the way the world functions.

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Language

Values, norms and technology are dependent on the capacity for humans to share ideas. The faculty of speech may be a defining feature of humanity, probably predating phylogenetic separation of the modern population. (See Proto-World language, Origins of language.) Language is central to the communication between humans. Some scientists argue that non-human animals are able to use language too, and that non-human primates are able to learn human sign language http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/language/chimpanzee.html http://www.msubillings.edu/asc/PDF-WritingLab/3-Minute%20Spr05/APA%20sample%20paper.pdf (pdf). Language is central to the sense of identity that unites cultures and ethnicities.

Related Topics:
Speech - Phylogenetic - Proto-World language - Origins of language - Language - Communication - Primate - Sign language - Culture - Ethnicities

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The invention of writing systems some 5000 years ago, allowing the preservation of speech, was a major step in cultural evolution. Language, especially written language, is sometimes thought to have supernatural status or powers. (See Magic, Mantra, Vac.)

Related Topics:
Writing systems - 5000 years ago - Magic - Mantra - Vac

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The science of linguistics describes the structure of language and the relationship between languages. There are estimated to be some 6,000 different languages, including sign languages, used today.

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Music

Music is a natural intuitive phenomenon operating in the three worlds of time, pitch, energy, and under the three distinct and interrelated organization structures of rhythm, harmony, and melody.

Related Topics:
Music - Intuitive - Time - Pitch - Energy - Rhythm - Harmony - Melody

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Composing, improvising and performing music are all art forms. Listening to music is perhaps the most common form of entertainment, while learning and understanding it are popular disciplines. There are a wide variety of Music genres and ethnic musics.

Related Topics:
Composing - Improvising - Art - Entertainment - Discipline - Music genre - Ethnic music

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Emotion and sexuality

Human emotion has a significant influence on, or can even be said to control, human behaviour. Emotional experiences perceived as pleasant, like love, admiration, or joy, contrast with those perceived as unpleasant, like hate, envy, or sorrow. There is often a distinction seen between refined emotions, which are socially learned, and survival oriented emotions, which are thought to be innate.

Related Topics:
Emotion - Love - Admiration - Joy - Hate - Envy - Sorrow

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Human exploration of emotions as separate from other neurological phenomena is worth note, particularly in those cultures were emotion is considered separate from physiological state. In some cultural medical theories, to provide an example, emotion is considered so synonymous with certain forms of physical health that no difference is thought to exist. The Stoics believed excessive emotion was harmful, while some Sufi teachers (in particular, the poet and astronomer Omar Khayyám) felt certain extreme emotions could yield a conceptual perfection, what is often translated as ecstasy.

Related Topics:
Sufi - Omar Khayyám - Ecstasy

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In modern scientific thought, certain refined emotions are considered to be a complex neural trait of many domesticated and a few non-domesticated mammals, developed commonly in reaction to superior survival mechanisms and intelligent interaction with each other and the environment; as such, refined emotion is not in all cases as discrete and separate from natural neural function as was once assumed. Still, when humans function in civilised tandem, it has been noted that uninhibited acting on extreme emotion can lead to social disorder and crime.

Related Topics:
Scientific - Mammal - Disorder - Crime

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Human sexuality, besides ensuring reproduction, has important social functions, creating physical intimacy, bonds and hierarchies among individuals, and that may be directed to spiritual transcendence, and/or to the enjoyment of any activity involving sexual gratification. Sexual desire is experienced as a bodily urge, often accompanied by strong emotions, both positive (such as love or ecstasy) and negative (such as jealousy). (See also Libido.)

Related Topics:
Sexuality - Reproduction - Physical intimacy - Sexual desire - Love - Ecstasy - Jealousy - Libido

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As with other behaviors, humans high intelligence and complex societies have produced the most complex sexual behaviors of any animal. Human sexual choices are usually made in reference to current cultural norms. For example, some choose to abstain from sex before marriage because of their religious beliefs, while others may not have such mores. Most cultures, groups and individuals insist on monogamy, while some others practice polygamy or other forms of human sexuality. There is still a widespread belief that sex acts are devalued when engaged in outside of a long-term, monogamous romantic relationship, but extra-marital sexual activity and casual sex became increasingly accepted in modern society during the sexual revolution.

Related Topics:
Norms - Religious - Mores - Monogamy - Polygamy - Human sexuality - Romantic relationship - Casual sex - Sexual revolution

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Human sexuality is an integral part of the social life of humans, governed by implied rules of behaviour. Sexuality influences social norms and society in turn influences the manner in which sexuality can be expressed. Acceptance of particular types of sexuality varies widely from culture to culture.

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Body image

The physical appearance of the human body is central to culture and art. In every human culture, people adorn their bodies with tattoos, cosmetics, clothing, and jewellery. Hairstyles and hair colour also have important cultural implications. The perception of an individual as physically beautiful or ugly can have profound implications for their lives. This is particularly true of women, whose external appearance is highly valued in most, if not all, human societies. Anthropologists believe this to be an important factor in the development of personality and social relations in particular physical attractiveness.

Related Topics:
Physical appearance - Culture - Art - Tattoos - Cosmetics - Clothing - Jewellery - Hairstyle - Beautiful - Ugly - Appearance - Anthropologist - Social relations - Physical attractiveness

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There is a relatively low sexual dimorphism between human males and females in comparison with other mammals.

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Trade and economics

Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both, and a form of economics. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and services. Modern traders instead generally negotiate through a medium of exchange, such as money. As a result, buying can be separated from selling, or earning. The invention of money (and later credit, paper money and non-physical money) greatly simplified and promoted trade.

Related Topics:
Trade - Goods - Service - Economics - Market - Barter - Money - Earning

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Trade exists for many reasons. Due to specialization and division of labor, most people concentrate on a small aspect of manufacturing or service, trading their labour for products. Trade exists between regions because different regions have an absolute or comparative advantage in the production of some tradable commodity, or because different regions' size allows for the benefits of mass production. As such, trade between locations benefits both locations.

Related Topics:
Division of labor - Manufacturing - Service - Comparative advantage - Mass production

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Economics is a social science that studies the production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services.

Related Topics:
Social science - Production - Distribution - Trade - Consumption - Goods

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Economics, which focuses on measurable variables, is broadly divided into two main branches: microeconomics, which deals with individual agents, such as households and businesses, and macroeconomics, which considers the economy as a whole, in which case it considers aggregate supply and demand for money, capital and commodities. Aspects receiving particular attention in economics are resource allocation, production, distribution, trade, and competition. Economic logic is increasingly applied to any problem that involves choice under scarcity or determining economic value. Mainstream economics focuses on how prices reflect supply and demand, and uses equations to predict consequences of decisions.

Related Topics:
Microeconomics - Macroeconomics - Aggregate supply - Demand - Money - Capital - Commodities - Resource allocation - Competition - Value - Supply and demand

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Artefacts, technology, and science

Human cultures are both characterised and differentiated by the objects that they make and use. Archaeology attempts to tell the story of past or lost cultures in part by close examination of the artefacts they produced. Early humans left stone tools, pottery and jewellery that are particular to various regions and times.

Related Topics:
Archaeology - Artefacts - Stone tools - Pottery - Jewellery

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Improvements in technology are passed from one culture to another. For instance, the cultivation of crops arose in several different locations, but quickly spread to be an almost ubiquitous feature of human life. Similarly, advances in weapons, architecture and metallurgy are quickly disseminated.

Related Topics:
Cultivation - Weapons - Architecture - Metallurgy

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Such techniques can be passed on by oral tradition. The development of writing, itself a type of artefact, made it possible to pass information from generation to generation and from region to region with greater accuracy.

Related Topics:
Oral tradition - Writing

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Together, these developments made possible the commencement of civilisation and urbanisation, with their inherently complex social arrangements. Eventually this led to the institutionalisation of the development of new technology, and the associated understanding of the way the world functions. This Science now forms a central part of human culture.

Related Topics:
Civilisation - Urbanisation - Science

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In recent times, physics and astrophysics have come to play a central role in shaping what is now known as physical cosmology, that is, the understanding of the universe through scientific observation and experiment. This discipline, which focuses on the universe as it exists on the largest scales and at the earliest times, begins by arguing for the big bang, a sort of cosmic explosion from which the universe itself is said to have erupted ~13.7 ± 0.2 billion (109) years ago. After its violent beginnings and until its very end, scientists then propose that the entire history of the universe has been an orderly progression governed by physical laws.

Related Topics:
Physics - Astrophysics - Physical cosmology - Big bang - Billion - End - Physical laws

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