The word culture, from the Latin colo, -ere, with its root meaning "to cultivate", generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. Different definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity. Anthropologists most commonly use the term "culture" to refer to the universal human capacity to classify, codify and communicate their experiences symbolically. This capacity is long been taken as a defining feature of the genus Homo. However, primatologists such as Jane Goodall have identified aspects of culture among our closest relatives in the animal kingdom.Goodall, J. 1986. The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior.

Defining "culture"

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Culture - International Herald Tribune

Goya at the Prado: Admiring the artist in all his moods
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:49:26 -0000
"Goya in Times of War" at the Prado Museum through July 13 may be too big a show, but an excess of Goya is not exactly an unbearable prospect.
A hungry 50 Cent, working hard for the money
By JON CARAMANICA Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:49:26 -0000
G-Unit's show at the Nokia Theater on Tuesday night figured to be full of tumult, but instead 50 Cent and the remaining members of G-Unit were on their best behavior.
On U.S. campuses, liberal professors retire
By PATRICIA COHEN Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:49:26 -0000
Baby boomers, hired in large numbers during a huge expansion in higher education, are being replaced as part of a vast generational change.
Shakira, Angelina Jolie, Tatum O'Neal, Sacha Baron Cohen
Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:49:26 -0000
A round up of the day's celebrity news
Polishing up a tarnished Spoleto
By DANIEL J. WAKIN Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:49:26 -0000
After falling apart under Francis Menotti, the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, a two-and-a-half-week event that was once a major stop on the international culture circuit, is recovering its luster.
Ex-leader at Spoleto calls ouster political
By Daniel J. Wakin Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:58:41 -0000
Francis Menotti broke a long silence on Wednesday and accused Italian politicians of callously throwing him out of the festival founded by his father, the composer Gian Carlo Menotti.

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