A thorough review of development of Anthropology

1. Development of Anthropological Thought:
Modern Anthropology focuses on themes like ;
A) Scientific Anthropology:
i) Can the Cultural Anthropology be a science like
biology?
ii) How can cultural diversity be studied scientifically?
iii) Anthropologists try to find general scientific
principles that influence cultures. They collect and use
data.
B) Humanistic Anthropology:(Ethnology)
i) To study cultural differences, similarities and
patterns of cultural change. No data is collected.
ii) They treat each culture as a unique product of
present and past.

2. Development of Anthropological Thought:
Anthropological thought is as old as humanity.
i) Ancient isolated societies.
ii) Greek Contribution:
Herodotus: Historian, 5th Century BCE.
iii) Muslim Contribution.
Ibn e Khaldun, Umer Khayyam, Al-Bairuni.
iv) Western Contribution:
a) Judeo-Christian worldview.
b) Marco Polo: Venetian, 13th century trader.
c) West contacts East. 16th century, reached to
strange people with primitive cultures.

3. d) Colonial Period: 17-20th century. Many cultural
and anthropological studies during this period.
e) Industrial revolution and scientific development
in 19th century and onward.
It changed view of the world and modern
anthropology started.
f) Geological development explained cultural
development on earth.
The development of Tools: (Archeology)
Three ages:
1) Stone age
2) Bronze age
3) Iron age
g) Theory of Evolution: Charles Darwin

4. Late 19th Century:
(1) Unilineal Evolution: (Evolutionism)
This approach says that,
“All human ways of life pass through a similar
sequence of stages in their development.”
i) Unilineal Evolutionist are first true
anthropologists.
ii) They had ideas of evolution, progress, stages
and survival.
iii) They created a new and different subject.
iv) They developed a mechanism of recognizing
stages.

5. v) They arranged culture into a sequence of stages i.e.,
a) Primitive (A few African tribes)
b) Barbarism (Fijian tribes)
c) Civilized (Korean/Japanese)
d) Advanced (European)
Anthropology became a discipline because of
their efforts. From 1881, it was taught as a subject
in universities in USA.
E.B.Tylor’s Three stages of Religions:
1) Animism (2) Polytheism
3) Monotheism
Tylor considered Anthropology as a Science.

6. Anthropological Thought in the early
20th Century:
Unilineal Approach was rejected because of its flaws.
(2)HISTORICISM:
Franz Boas: (Father of American Anthropology)
He developed the approach called as
HISTORICAL PARTICULARISM (HISTORICISM):
i)Every culture is unique and different because
every one has a different past.
ii) He emphasized on fieldwork.
iii) It makes cross cultural generalizations
questionable.

7. iv)He also concluded from his work that,
“The culture of a human group is a
product of social learning and traditions and not
genetic heritage.”
(3) CONFIGURATIONALISM:
This approach was developed by
RUTH BENEDICT.
Def: Theoretical idea that each culture
develops its own unique thematic patterns
around which beliefs, values and behaviors are
oriented.

8. (4) BRITISH FUNCTIONSLISM:(1920-1960)
Def: “The main purpose of a culture is to serve
human biological, psychological and social
needs.”
(5) REBIRTH OF EVOLUTIONISM in the mid
20th Century:
Objectives were the same as the 19th century
evolutionists but methods were new.
(6) Anthropological thought today:
Two major divisions:
i) Humanistic Anthropology.
ii) Scientific Anthropology:

9. Scientific Anthropology:
a) Scientific Approach:
“Theoretical approach that human cultural differences
and similarities can be explained in the same sense as
in biology.”
b) Evolutionary Psychology:
It is the scientific approach that humans are animals
and so are subject to same evolutionary forces as are
other animals i.e., Human culture can be explained by
evolutionary process as by ants.
C) Materialism:
This theory claims that the satisfaction of human
needs and desires influence societies and their culture.