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civilization

(Encyclopedia)civilization, culture with a relatively high degree of elaboration and technical development. The term civilization also designates that complex of cultural elements that first appeared in human histo...

Mozarabs

(Encyclopedia)Mozarabs mōzârˈəbz [key], Christians of Muslim Spain. Their position was the usual one of Christians and Jews in Islam: they were a separate community, locally autonomous, and they paid a special ...

Aryan

(Encyclopedia)Aryan ârˈēən [key], [Sanskrit,=noble], term formerly used to designate the Indo-European race or language family or its Indo-Iranian subgroup. Originally a group of nomadic tribes, the Aryans were...

Wissler, Clark

(Encyclopedia)Wissler, Clark, 1870–1947, American anthropologist, b. Wayne, Ind., grad. Indiana Univ., 1897, Ph.D. Columbia, 1901. At first a teacher of psychology, he became interested in anthropology under Fran...

Hampton University

(Encyclopedia)Hampton University, at Hampton, Va.; coeducational; founded 1868, chartered 1870 as a normal and agricultural school; known as Hampton Institute 1930–84. Founded by Samuel Chapman Armstrong, it was ...

Boas, Franz

(Encyclopedia)Boas, Franz bōˈăz, –ăs [key], 1858–1942, German-American anthropologist, b. Minden, Germany, Ph.D. Univ. of Kiel, 1881. He joined an expedition to Baffin Island in 1883 and initiated his field...

Olmec

(Encyclopedia)Olmec ōlˈmĕk [key], term denoting the culture of ancient Mexican natives inhabiting the tropical coastal plain of the contemporary states of Veracruz and Tabasco, between 1300 and 400 b.c. The term...

Hall, Stuart Henry McPhail

(Encyclopedia)Hall, Stuart, 1932–2014, Jamaican-born British sociologist and cultural theorist, b. Kingston, Jamaica. Hall attended Jamaica College and moved to Eng...

Germanic laws

(Encyclopedia)Germanic laws, customary law codes of the Germans before their contact with the Romans. They are unknown to us except through casual references of ancient authors and inferences from the codes compile...

Chibcha

(Encyclopedia)Chibcha chĭbˈchə [key], indigenous people of the eastern cordillera of the Andes of Colombia. Although trade with neighboring tribes was common, the Chibcha seem to have evolved their culture in co...