Alfred Louis
Kroeber
(1876-1960)
Alfred Louis Kroeber
(1876-1960)
1897—Course in American
Indian languages at Columbia
University offered by Franz Boas
1901—Completed dissertation
on symbolism in Arapaho art in
Montana
First doctorate in anthropology
to be awarded by Columbia
1901-1946—First instructor of
newly created anthropology dept.
at U C Berkeley
Personal Life
 Born
in Hoboken, New Jersey, June 11, 1876
 Died in Paris, October 5, 1960
 Parents
upper middle-class Protestants of
German ancestry
 Grandfather
Kroeber came to United States
when his son, Florence Kroeber, was ten
years old
 Grandfather fought in the Civil War
 Kroeber's
mother, Johanna Muller, was
American born in a German family
Education
Schooled
Private
at home until age 7 or 8
tutor
Sachs'
Collegiate Institute, grammar
and high school
Columbia
University in 1892 at the
age of sixteen
Introduction
Kroeber
played a major role in
developing American anthropology
from
the rather random endeavors of
amateurs and self-trained men
to
a coherent, scientific, and
academic discipline
Introduction
 Contributions
to anthropology included:
 Extensive
ethnographic investigations in
 California
 The Great Plains
 Archaeological
 Linguistic
studies in Mexico and Peru
research, especially in California
Kroeber and Culture
Lifelong
goal-> Understand nature of
cultural phenomena (i.e., culture)
 Cultural
analysis should not use method
of physical sciences
 Seek to determine causes and effects
 Also
rejected a social science orientation
 To avoid problems of human welfare,
which strongly oriented much social
science at that time
Boas’ Influence
First,
unrelenting empiricism
 Repudiated
earlier anthropologists who
arranged cultural data into existing
categories & developmental schemes
Second,
stressed primary importance
of intensive first-hand ethnographic
field work
Culture as Superorganic
Kroeber's
theory was:
Superorganic
Supra-individual
 Culture is greater than the individual
Deterministic
 Events
are caused by things that happened
before them & people have no ability to make
choices or control what happens
No“great
man theory”
Culture as Superorganic
Not
interested in the:
Effect of culture on the individual
“Culture
and personality” view
Effect
of the individual upon
culture

“Great man theory” of history
Method for Studying Culture
1. Characterized cultures by means of
culture element lists
2. Identified major styles, philosophies,
and values
The Element Survey Approach
Kroeber
wanted to quantify and
explain cultural diversity (specifically the
Native Americans of California)
 He
 He
created the cultural elements list
developed minimal units of culture
that could be listed and gathered
The Element Survey Approach
 Included
the following questions of each
group:
 Do they practice polyandry?
 Do they practice cremation?
 Do they use a sinew-backed bow?

Sinew, the shredded fibers of animal tendon
Do they use beaver-teeth dice?
 Beaver
Tooth: A game played for centuries
By “First People of the Pacific
Northwest”
 Game
includes a woven basket, four carved
beaver teeth (dice), and a bundle of "counting
bones" (bird bones)
 Simple, fast-paced, and fun:
 Depending on the fall of the carved teeth (dice)
 Players win counting bones
 Player with most bones at end of game wins
Do they eat acorn mush?
 Acorns,
the nut of the oak tree, has been a staple
of California Indian diet for more than 4,000 years


For many groups, the most important plant food
Native Californians harvested 10 or more species
 Acorns





are extremely nutritious containing up to:
18% fat,
6% percent protein
68% carbohydrate
Vitamins A and C
Many amino acids
 Acorn
mush or bread usually eaten with meat for
a balanced meal
Do their young men drink hallucinogenic
jimson weed mush?
 Flowers light blue or white
on a purple stem
 All parts of plant are toxic:
 Leaf
 Root
 Flower
 Seed
Jimsonweed used by Native Americans for
drug-induced ceremonial and spiritual
purposes
Flaws in Element Survey Approach
Reduces
cultures into bits and pieces
Assigns
equal significance to each
(beaver teeth dice and polyandry)
Assumes
an element has same
meaning in other cultures



Swastika is an ancient symbol used for over 3,000 years
China, Japan, India, and southern Europe
Until the Nazis used this symbol, it was used by many
cultures to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good
luck
Benefits of Survey
For
all the flaws, as an exercise in
salvage ethnology, it helped to
document cultures under threat
Culture and Society
Kroeber distinguishes between culture
and society.
Society is just group life, even among
bees and ants

Essential Elements of Culture
It
is learned: Not genetic or racial
Kroeber opposed racial determinism
It is shared: Not any person’s individual
province, or the creation of any one
person
It is patterned: Not a random assortment
of elements, but a coherent whole
It is meaningful
The Historical Approach
Culture’s
past shapes the culture
No
other forces, like political
instability or economic necessity, are
determining factors
To
understand a culture, you must
reconstruct its past
Focus on Culture
Definition:
Culture consists of the set
of attributes and products of human
societies, and therewith of mankind,
which
are extrasomatic (i.e., outside &
unrelated to the body) and transmitted by
mechanisms other than biological
heredity
Focus on Culture
Kroeber
was concerned with:
Reconstructing
history through a
descriptive analysis of concrete
cultural phenomena
Grouped
into “culture types” that
could be analyzed to reveal their
histories
The Superorganic
 Pertaining
to the structure of cultural elements
within society conceived as independent of
and superior to the individual members of
society
 Individuals
have very little, if any, impact on
culture’s development and change

Culture plays a determining role in human
behavior

Culture has an existence outside of people
and compels us to conform to patterns
Organizing the information:
The functional prerequisites of culture
 People
 Language
 Territory/Technology
Alfred Kroeber
 Social
Organization
 Ideology
(belief
systems)
Kroeber and Ishi
 http://wn.com/alfred_l._kroeber
There was huge variation in languages.
Language Variation
• Indian languages are extremely diverse.
• 300 distinct languages
• 2000 dialects
California—at least 20 families
West of Rockies—17 more
Rest of the continent—20 more
Today English is most commonly spoken
language
Many native languages are gone or soon will be
Diverse Definitions of Culture
28
Topical: Culture consists of everything
on a list of topics or categories, such
as:
Social organization
Religion
Economy
Historical: Culture is social heritage, or
tradition
Passed from generation to generation
.
Diverse Definitions of Culture
Behavioral: Culture is:
Shared
Learned human behavior
A way of life
Normative: Culture is:
 Ideals
 Values
 Rules
for living
30
Definitions of culture
 Alfred
Kroeber &
Clyde Kluckhohn,
published a list of
160 definitions of
culture (1952.)
Diversity
in the concept
of culture
 Anthropologist’s
definition of
culture may influence:
 Choice of research problems
 Methods
 Interpretations
 Views on public policy
Studying Culture: Cultural Aspects of Dreaming
 Emphasis
on dreams and beliefs about them
differ across cultures.
 Different
cultural views:
 Dreams
are generally dismissed as unreal and
irrelevant to the important concerns of day-to-day
life.
 Dreams
important sources of information-about the
future, about the spiritual world, or about oneself.
 Dreams
considered as a space for action, like
waking life, or a means for communication with
other people or with the supernatural.
Cultural Aspects of Dreaming
 Certain
societies attribute such importance
to dreams that they have been designated
(by Alfred Kroeber) “dream cultures.”
 Cultures
in which dreams are taken seriously
accumulate a depth of observations about
their dreams.
 Their
beliefs may be useful in understanding
dreaming.
Alfred Kroeber
 Understanding
Culture
as Superorganic
Historical Approach
Deterministic
 First American Textbook
in anthropology (1923)