Zulu
The Zulu are a Southern African tribe who are primarily located in KwaZulu-Natal which borders the Eastern Cape in the south, Indian ocean to the east, and Lesotho to the west. They live in flat coastal plains which often exposes them to the sun with occasionally brief rain. This type of climate brings with it intense heat with little relief from the sun. Because of the environment, the Zulu's bodies have biologically developed protections against the weather. For example, their skin has a dark pigment that helps block off the sun's ultraviolet rays. They also have skinnier bodies that have less surface area that allow heat to quickly exist out of their bodies. Because of this biological change, they handle the extreme environment conditions better than people without this advantage.
During ceremonies, traditional clothes are worn with include: colorful attire, beads, feathers, and local animal furs. These ceremonies include weddings and rites of passage among others. These cultural traditions allow the Zulu to have social standings and a rich cultural society. They practice polygamy which is an example of a cultural aspect that can assist the Zulu population not only in social standing, but also with the environment they face. The more wives a Zulu man has, the more respect he gains among his peers. The Zulu wives are only responsible for their direct families, however this practice can help the Zulu population grow allowing more hunters and gathers to join the society.
Although there are different tribes with similar and vastly different cultures in South Africa, I would describe the Zulu people as South African because of their geographic location.
Andean Indians
The Andean Indians are group of people located in South America primary located in the Andes Mountains. These mountains extend from Venezuela to the southern tip of the South America which range to about 4,500 miles long. The average height of the Andes mountains are 13,000 feet above sea level. The climate in the Andes mountains depends on the area considered. There are parts of the long range of the mountains that can be rainy and cold, or warm and dry. There is not much drastic change in weather because the Andes Mountains serve as a wall for South America against the Pacific Ocean. This means that the weather changes are primarily felt down the mountain further into the continent.
One physical adaptation the Andean Indians have developed are the increased air intake with every breath. It is unsure if the Andean Indians have genetically adapted to the heightened elevation, but there is evidence that a human's body works harder in elevated environments because of the pressure it puts on the body. The higher a human goes above sea level, the more the heart works against the pressure to supply the body with enough blood to keep functioning. However, the Andean Indians seem to have adapted to the environment because they along with the ancestors before them, have lived there for thousands of years.
A cultural adaptation that the Andean Indians have been accustomed to is the agriculture. Surprisingly, crops have been able to grow in the heights of the Andean mountains. They grow many different crops which include: maize, sweet potato, beans, and many others. Because of this agriculture, food has become more available to the Andean population without much effort. More food means there is more population growth and trade.
I would describe the Andean Indians as South American also based on their geographic location. Their environment contributes highly to their way of life.
Summary
I would base both races on their geographic location. For the Zulu I have chose South African and for the Andean Indians I have chosen South American. I believe there are both benefits and disadvantages to both views on race. For example, calling the Andean Indians just that based on their appearance would probably confuse many. On the other hand, it may be easier to knowledge the specific group of people being discussed, and same goes for the Zulu. So in my personal point of view, both ways of looking at it are both correct and incorrect.
Cited Sources
Zulu environment: http://www.everyculture.com/wc/Rwanda-to-Syria/Zulu.html
Zulu physical adaptation: http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_2.htm
Zulu cultural adaptation http://www.zulu-culture.co.za/zulu_family.php#.VxfX1_krKUk
Andean Indians environment: http://www.livescience.com/27897-andes-mountains.html
Andean Indians physical: http://anthro.palomar.edu/adapt/adapt_3.htm
http://www.ub.edu/HAPPOM/actividades/pdf/rupert2001.pdf
Andean Indians cultural adaptations:http://www.britannica.com/topic/Central-American-Indian
Hi Randy!
ReplyDeleteYour research was very thorough and I enjoyed reading through it. I didn't understand your cultural adaptations though - it seems to me that population growth is a concern & goal of all cultures, as it's a basic human drive that we have been designed with, so it was difficult to me to understand how that adaptation was specific to the Zulus and Andean Indians based on their environments. All in all, I think your knowledge of both people groups is well-rounded! I learned some things! :)
Very good images for your post.
ReplyDeleteI actually appreciate how you meshed the first and second sections together. A little harder to parse out points but overall, it told a good picture of how the environment interrelates with their physical adaptations. Well done highlighting the darker pigmentation providing protection against UV rays but additionally raising the very important relationship between body shape and heat stress (Bergmann and Allen's rules). Great job.
While I appreciate the thoroughness of your cultural section, I'm having trouble understanding how ceremonies and polygyny help address environmental stress. Now, I'm a physical anthropologist by training, and I do understand the biological relationship between mating patterns and the environment, but you haven't address that relationship in your post. How does the environment cause a population to become polygynous or polyandrous or monogamous?
Race is not determined by geographical location. It is usually determined by external physical features, so that even if you didn't now where someone was from, you would still feel able to guess at their race, using their skin color, facial structure, body shape or even the type of hair they have. So given that, what race would you assign to the Zulu?
Good discussion on the Andean physical adaptations to high altitudes, but that stress should have been addressed more completely in your first section, particularly if your adaptations were going to address that stress in your second section. High altitude stress is also known as 'hypoxia' and makes it more difficult for humans to pass oxygen across the membrane later between the lungs and blood stream. It is this particular stress that is addressed by the adaptations you correctly identify in the second section.
Same problem with your geographic-based assignment of race for the Andeans. Given the correction earlier in my comments, how would you change your answer based upon external physical traits?
It's not clear that you understood the question in the final section, which asked you to compare the use of race vs. using the environmental/adaptive approach to understanding and explaining human variation. Does race explain why humans vary as they do? Or does it merely describe and categorize humans into subjective groups? The environment actually causes humans to adapt and change to better 'fit' their environment. Because of that causal relationship, the environmental approach actually has explanatory power when using it to study human variation. Race doesn't have that relationship and therefore has no explanatory power. It is solely a sociocultural construct, subject to cultural bias, and really has no use in trying to understand why humans vary as they do.
Sorry, left out the Andean cultural adaptation. Well done explaining the connection between the environment and the Andean agricultural practices.
DeleteHello Randy, I love the way you described the Zulu cultural part of your post, I never thought of the way they dress ceremonially to be an adaption, but after reading your post it makes sense.
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