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Article: Culture, Origins of
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Science and Religion
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Culture, Origins of
The dawn of culture may be the single most important development in human evolution. Sometimes people find their dependence on culture frustrating, but overall it is far more an enabler than a limitation. The human ability to think would be grossly constrained without language, however often people find themselves at a loss for words. Humans would not be human without culture to mediate their relationships with the environment, with other humans, with spirits and deities, and with abstract or imagined worlds like mathematics and the future.
Despite many suggestions, the definition E. B. Tylor used when introducing the term
culture
to anthropology is still popular: ...