What is Anthropology?

Anthropology Four Subfields

Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropologists: Explore cultural diversity among all living societies, including our own. Study how humans organize themselves to carry out collective tasks, and Examine how material lifeclothing, housing, toolsvaries across human societies

Cultural Anthropology
Uses ethnography and ethnology to study human societies to explain cultural similarities and differences. Ethnography: An account of a specific local societys customs, practices, and beliefs

Fieldwork typically involves an extended stay with a local community

Cultural Anthropology
Uses ethnography and ethnology to study human societies to explain cultural similarities and differences.

Ethnology:
Comparative and often crosscultural study of two or more local societies Creates theories to increase our understanding of how cultures and societies work

Linguistic Anthropology
Language is a system of arbitrary symbols that enable communication and the transmission of cultural knowledge.

Lingustic anthropology studies language in its cultural contexts to examine diversity among societies. Includes sociolinguists and historical linguists.

Linguistic Anthropology
Sociolinguists: Study how variation in language use relates to differences in gender, race, class, or ethnicity.

Historical linguists: Reconstruct the historical development of languages and study language variation through time

Archaeology
Archaeologists study cultures through their material remains.

Material remains allow past cultural activities to be described, reconstructed, and interpreted.

Archaeology
Archaeology provides a tremendous time depth unavailable to ethnographers. Prehistoric archaeologists examine remains from people without writing, including artifacts millions of years old. Archaeologists also study people objects from societies who have a written record, such as items from ancient Egypt or 21st-century garbage dumps.

Biological Anthropology
Examines human biological variation across time and space.

Considers how the interplay between culture and human biology has changed as we evolved to become modern humans.

Biological Anthropology
Focuses on biological variation and diversity among modern humans and non-human primates, and their extinct ancestors.

Biological anthropology includes: Biological anthropologists Primatologists Paleoanthropologists

Biological Anthropology
Primatologists:

Study the biology, behavior, and social life of non-human primates, our closest living relatives

Paleoanthropologists:
Examine human and non-human primate evolution, particularly as revealed by fossilized remains

Anthropological Perspective
Holistic Integrates all that is known about humans
and their activities.

Comparative Examines similarities and differences between human societies.

Anthropological Perspective
Field-based Anthropologists collect data from direct contact with people, sites, or animals.

Evolutionary Anthropologists examine biological and cultural change in humans over time.