Introduction to Anthropology

Concepts in Anthropology

• Anthropology combines the Greek words anthropos (human being/mankind) and logos (reason/study/science)
• Anthropology studies humans and their condition
• Anthropology is distinct as it studies the origins, development, and variations of people
• Anthropology studies learned and shared strategies for living as members of social groups
• Anthropology examines characteristics humans share (homo sapiens) and how people live in diverse environments
• Anthropology analyzes material objects (material cultures) and non-material creations (religion/beliefs, social values, institutions, practices, etc.)
• Anthropology seeks to understand culture, society, and humanity through community studies and comparison
• Anthropology addresses how and why humans are similar and different
• Anthropology aims to develop an integrated picture of humankind

Historical Development of Anthropology

• Anthropology emerged as a discipline in the 20th century
• Anthropology stems from earlier work in historiography, geography, travel writing, philosophy, and jurisprudence
• History shapes the concerns of the present
• Some trace anthropology to the European Enlightenment in the 18th century
• Others say anthropology started as a science in the 1850s or after World War I
• Anthropology originated in the "West," specifically France, Great Britain, the USA, and Germany
• Anthropology has roots in ancient Greek, Roman, and Hebrew philosophers

Development of Anthropology as a Profession

• Anthropology began emerging as a profession in the late 1870s
• A major impetus was the expansion of western colonial powers
• Anthropology became a museum-based profession
• Many museums devoted to studying humankind were founded in the 1870s and 1880s in Europe, North America, and South America
• Early anthropologists focused on small communities in technologically simple societies
• Ethnography is the study of social and cultural features of indigenous peoples
• Ethnology is discovering universal human patterns and traits

Scope and Subject Matter of Anthropology

• Anthropology covers the temporal dimension of the past, present, and future; studies from the Arctic to the Desert
• Anthropology covers all aspects of human ways of life, experiences, and existence in a social group
• A crucial goal is to conceptualize and understand similarities between social systems and human relationships
• Claude Lévi-Strauss expressed that anthropology studies humanity in its diverse manifestations

Sub-fields of Anthropology

• Physical/Biological Anthropology
• Archeology
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Socio-Cultural Anthropology

Physical/Biological Anthropology

• Physical anthropology relates to natural sciences, biology
• Physical anthropologists study how culture and environment influence biological evolution and variations
• Human biology affects behavior, society, and culture (marriage patterns, sexual division of labor, gender ideology)
• Biological variations (morphology/structure, color, size) show change in living organisms
• Human biological variations result from cumulative processes passed through genes
• Major sources of biological variations are natural selection, geographical isolation, and genetic mutations
• Physical anthropology concerns human evolution and genetics
• Human evolution studies processes of simple forms into more differentiated structures in hominids by reconstructing the human species' evolutionary record using fossils/bones
• Human evolution specialties: Paleoanthropology (study of human biological evolution through analysis of fossil remains) and Primatology (studies primates or recent human ancestors)
• Human genetics investigates physical traits of contemporary human populations focusing on DNA and RNA
• Genetic studies are crucial in understanding how evolution works, and identifying genetic sources of hereditary diseases like sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis

Archeological Anthropology

• Archaeology studies lives of past peoples by excavating and analyzing material culture/physical remains (artifacts, features, and eco-facts)
• Artifacts are material remains made/used by past peoples
• Tools, ornaments, arrowheads, coins, and pottery fragments are examples of artifacts
• Archaeological features are like artifacts, are made or modified by past people, but are not readily carried away
• Archeological features include house foundations, ancient buildings, fireplaces, steles, and postholes
• Eco-facts are environmental remains, not made/altered by humans, but used by them
• Eco-facts provide data on the environment and how people used resources Archaeology's subfields/specialties are Prehistoric Archaeology and Historical Archaeology:
• Prehistoric archaeology investigates prehistory and prehistoric cultures, focusing on the period between 6,000 years ago and the time of the first stone tools (2.5 million years ago)
• Historic archaeologists reconstruct cultures of people who used writing and have historical documents

Linguistic Anthropology

• Linguistic anthropology studies human language as a cultural resource and practice in its context
• Language is a system of information transmission and reception: Humans communicate by sound (speech), gesture (body language), and visual ways like writing
• Languages hand down cultural traits analogously to genes transmitting genetic material
• Language is a distinctive feature of being human
• Animals can develop certain behaviors, but cannot pass them to offspring like humans
• Linguistic anthropology studies contemporary and past human languages and is divided into four branches
• Structural/Descriptive Linguistics studies the structure of linguistic patterns: sound systems, grammatical systems, and meanings attached to words
• Ethno-linguistics (cultural linguistics) examines the relationship between language and culture and how linguistic categories affect experiences, thought, and perception
• Historical linguistics deals with language emergence and how specific languages diverged, focusing on comparison and classification
• Socio-linguistics investigates linguistic variation within a given language

Socio-Cultural Anthropology

• Social anthropology is the largest subfield of anthropology
• Social anthropology deals with human society and culture
• Society: group sharing similar ways of life, culture; a group's way of life
• Anthropology studies social, cultural, and material life of contemporary human societies
• Socio-cultural anthropologists engage in Ethnography (field work) and Ethnology (cross-cultural comparison)
• Ethnography provides a comprehensive account of a community, society, or culture with detailed descriptions from extensive field studies
• Ethnographic fieldwork: anthropologist gathers, organizes, describes, analyzes and interprets data that may be in the form of a book, article, or film
• Ethnology comparatively studies contemporary cultures and societies by comparing ethnographic data to compare, contrast, and make generalizations
• Ethnologists seek to understand differences and similarities, test hypotheses, and build theory
• The primary objective of ethnology is to uncover general cultural principles, the "rules" that govern human behavior
• Uses data collected by a series of researchers
• Often descriptive, usually synthetic, group/community specific comparative/cross-cultural
• Socio-cultural anthropology uses ethnographical and ethnological approaches to answer all questions related to culture and human societies
• It is subdivided into specialized fields like Anthropology of Art, Medical Anthropology, Urban Anthropology, Economic Anthropology, Political Anthropology, Development Anthropology, Anthropology of Religion, Demographic Anthropology, Ecological Anthropology, Psychological Anthropology, and Ethnomusicology

Unique Features of Anthropology

• Anthropology has a broad scope
• Anthropology studies all human beings, contemporary, past, "primitive" or ''civilized"
• It has interest in many aspects of humans
• Family lives, marriages, political systems, economic lives, technology, belief, health care systems, personality types, and languages
• Anthropology looks at all phenomena from different vantage points
• Anthropology incorporates culture, history, language and biology to understand society
• Anthropology seeks to understand human beings as whole organisms adapting to environments through biology and culture
• It studies/explains beliefs, practices, or institutions in context and insider's views are a primary focus
• Anthropology depends on qualitative research

Misconceptions about Anthropology

• Anthropology is often misconceived
• Anthropologists only study "primitive" societies
• Anthropologists only study rural areas
• Anthropology studies only fossils of proto-humans
• Anthropology is believed to keep communities from development
• Anthropologists' duties support communities' empowerment in development, instead of playing an active role in positive change

Relationship between Anthropology and Other Disciplines

• Anthropology is similar to other social sciences like sociology, psychology, political sciences, economics, and history and overlaps with these disciplines that study human society
• Anthropology differs by its broad scope, unique approach, perspective, unit of analysis, and methods
• Anthropology studies and analyzes lives holistically, comparatively, and in a relativistic manner
• It studies humankind in its entirety

Contributions of Anthropology

• Anthropology examines all aspects of humanity across all periods of time and parts of globe
• It draws on theories/data from the humanities, social and the physical sciences
• The anthropological perspective, including a comparative study of cultures, says cultures are a way to adapt to environmental conditions
• Individuals can gain a fuller understanding of each other by contrasting and comparing
• Anthropology helps people better understand other societies
• Anthropology gives insight into different ways and modes of living (social and cultural diversity)
• This helps to understand the logic and justification behind group behavior/cultural practices
• Due to long-term, intensive, participant-observation research; cultural anthropology offers insights on cultural groups interacting with globalization
• Anthropology helps individuals to be sensitive to and appreciative of diversity
• Anthropology helps combat prejudice/discrimination and fight against ethnocentrism
• Application of anthropological knowledge/research results is an important element to ensure people's rights and sustain projects