Cultural Universals
(excerpted from Understanding Cultural Diversity, An Anthology for Core 101; Gary Ferraro)
A major contribution of cultural anthropology….has been its descriptive documentation of the thousands of cultures that inhabit the face of the earth…. The significant number of cultural differences illustrates how flexible and adaptable humans are compared to other animals because each culture has developed a different set of solutions to the universal human problems facing all societies. For example, every society, if it is to survive, needs a system of communication enabling its members to send and receive messages. There are thousands of mutually unintelligible languages in the world today…. Yet….all of these different language communities have an important common denominator- they all have developed some form of language. Thus, it is important to bear in mind that despite the many differences, all cultures of the world share a number of common features (cultural universals) because they have all worked out solutions to a whole series of problems facing all human societies.

After reading this excerpt, answer the following questions:

Describe some other cultural universals besides language.


Why are cultural universals sometimes overlooked in favor of cultural differences?



How does this excerpt relate to what was done/ discussed in class?