This document provides an overview of the field of anthropology. It discusses the history and evolution of anthropology from its roots in ancient Greek writings to its establishment as a formal academic discipline in the 20th century. The document also outlines several key fields within anthropology, including cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and biological anthropology. Each field takes a different approach to understanding human cultures, behaviors, and histories.

1. A N T H R O P O L O G
Y
P R E S E N T E D B Y :
R A M V I L A S J A I D U PA L LY
1

2. CONTENTS
Introduction
History
Vision of Anthropology
Different Fields of Anthropology
Cultural Anthropology
Linguistic Anthropology
Biological Anthropology
Archaeology
Dental Anthropology
2

3. INTRODUCTION
• Anthropology is a global discipline where humanities, social, and
natural sciences are forced to confront one another.
• Derived from two Greek words, ‘Anthropos’ mean MAN & ’logos’ means
STUDY/SCIENCE.
• According to Webster the science of human beings; especially : the
study of human beings and their ancestors through time and space and
in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and
culture.
3

4. • Anthropology seeks to understand and explain why people do the
things they do and say the things they say.
• It seeks to find the generalities about human life while also explaining
the differences.
4

5. HISTORY
• Some interest in man and his cultures is found in nearly all human
societies, past or present, regardless of their level of cultural
development.
• Anthropology traces its roots to ancient Greek historical and
philosophical writings about human nature and the organization of
human society.
• Herodotus, a Greek historian (400 BC).
• Wrote a book named “HISTORY”, mentioned about different cultures. 5

6. • During the Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries ad) biblical scholars
dominated European thinking on questions of human origins and
cultural development.
• The Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, who lived in the 14th AD, was another
early writer of ideas relevant to anthropology.
• Both Khaldun and Herodotus produced remarkably objective, analytic,
ethnographic descriptions of the diverse cultures in the Mediterranean
world.
6

7. • The European Age of Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries
marked the rise of scientific and rational philosophical thought.
• David Hume, John Locke of England, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau of
France, wrote a number of humanistic works on the nature of
humankind.
• They based their work on philosophical reason rather than religious
authority and asked important anthropological questions.
• Rousseau, for instance, wrote on the moral qualities of “primitive”
societies and about human inequality.
7

8. IMPERIALISM AND INCREASED
CONTACT WITH OTHER CULTURES
8

9. • Europeans came into increasing contact with other peoples around the
world, prompting new interest in the study of culture.
• The increasing dominance of global commerce, capitalist (profit-driven)
economies, and industrialization in late-18th-century Europe led to vast
cultural changes and social upheavals throughout the world.
• Europeans suddenly had a flood of new information about the foreign
peoples encountered in colonial frontiers.
9

10. • In early 19th century systematic approach towards the study of
anthropology had started.
• In 1836 Danish archaeologist Christian Thomsen proposed that three
long ages of technology had preceded the present era in Europe. He
called these the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.
10

11. • Modern anthropology, in both its physical and cultural aspects, begins
roughly with the 20th century.
• Anthropology becomes a recognized academic discipline: data on
physical and cultural anthropology are collected by professional field
workers trained to these tasks.
11

12. EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
• n 1859 British naturalist Charles Darwin published his influential book On the
Origin of Species.
• Darwin’s theory was later supported by studies of genetic inheritance
conducted in the 1850s and 1860s by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel.
• English social philosopher Herbert Spencer applied a theory of progressive
evolution to human societies in the middle 1800s.
12

13. • He likened societies to biological organisms, each of which adapted to
survive or else perished.
• Spencer later coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" to describe this
process.
13

14. ANTHROPOLOGICAL EVOLUTIONARY
THEORIES
• During the late 1800s many anthropologists promoted their own
models of social and biological evolution.
• According to Morgan, human societies had evolved to civilization
through earlier conditions, or stages, which he called Savagery and
Barbarism.
14

15. • Like Morgan, Sir Edward Tylor, a founder of British anthropology, also
promoted the theories of cultural evolution in the late 1800s.
• Tylor attempted to describe the development of particular kinds of
customs and beliefs found across many cultures.
15

16. • Beals and Harper says “ Anthropology is the study of origin and
development and nature of human species”
• Thus the subject matter of anthropology includes the earliest fossil
bones and human like creatures.
• The artefacts and traces left in the earth by our ancestors and all of the
living or historically described people of the earth.
16

17. • Anthropologists take the help from historians and archaeologists.
• Previously their study was limited to tribal and small societies but now
they have expanded the field of their study.
• In studying all these they are using many approaches as methods. These
are
– Holistic Approach
– Participant Method
17

18. VISION OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• It is useful to think of theory as containing four basic elements:
• Questions
• Assumptions,
• Methods
• Evidence.
18

19. HOLISTIC APPROACH
• Through this method study of all possible aspects of man is done.
• Also study the varieties of people.
• Previously the individual anthropologists tried to be holistic and cover
all aspects of the subject, but at present there are different disciplines in
the field of anthropology.
19

20. PARTICIPANT METHOD
• Here the anthropologists live in the societies for a minimum period of
one year or more.
• They are concerned with many types of questions like when, why where,
how etc.
• They are curious about typical characteristics of human population and
how and why such people have varied characteristics through ages.
20

21. DIFFERENT FIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• Cultural anthropology – examines cultural diversity of the present and
recent past.
• Linguistic anthropology – considers how speech varies with social
factors and over time and space
• Archaeology – reconstructs behavior by studying material remains
• Biological anthropology – study of human fossils, genetics, and bodily
growth and nonhuman primates
21

22. CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
• Studies the origins of man’s cultures their evolution and development ,
and the structure and functioning of human cultures in every place and
time.
• All the cultures interest the cultural anthropologist, for all contribute
some evidence of reactions in cultural forms to the ever present
problems posed by the physical environment.
22

23. • Culture includes all behavior of people in their everyday lives, from daily
rituals (for example, washing dishes) to beliefs about abstract concepts
(for example, time), and is learned and transmitted from one generation
to the next.
• It can be the food people eat, the clothes they wear, the shelter they live
in, how they move from place to place, how they defend themselves,
what they learn, and the languages they speak.
• Cultural anthropologists are anthropologists who study both past and
present cultures. 23

24. ARCHEOLOGY
• Archaeology, the “study of the old”
• Archaeology is the study of the ancient and recent human past through
material remains. It is a subfield of cultural anthropology.
• Archeology or prehistory deals primarily with ancient cultures and with
past phases of modern civilizations.
24

25. TYPES OF ARCHAEOLOGY
• Prehistoric archaeology focuses on past cultures that did not have
written language and therefore relies primarily on excavation or data
recovery to reveal cultural evidence.
• Historical archaeology is the study of cultures that existed (and may still)
during the period of recorded history--several thousands of years in
parts of the Old World.
25

26. • Underwater archaeology studies physical remains of human activity that
lie beneath the surface of oceans, lakes, rivers, and wetlands.
• It includes maritime archaeology—the study of shipwrecks in order to
understand the construction and operation of watercraft—as well as
cities and harbors that are now submerged, and dwellings, agricultural,
and industrial sites along rives, bays and lakes.
26

27. • Industrial archaeology focuses on social change during and since the
Industrial Revolution.
• Cultural Resource Management archaeology, known as “CRM” refers to
archaeology that is conducted to comply with federal and state laws
that protect archaeological sites.
• Some of the other specialties within archaeology include urban
archaeology, bio-archaeology, archaeometry experimental archaeology.
27

28. 28

29. LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
• Linguistic anthropology is devoted to the study of communication,
mainly among humans.
• Linguistic anthropology has three subfields: historical linguistics, the
study of language change over time and how languages are related.
• Descriptive linguistics, or structural linguistics, the study of how
contemporary languages differ in terms of their formal structure.
• Sociolinguistics, the study of the relationships
29

30. • Anthropologists' study language in everyday use, or discourse, and how
it relates to power structures at local, regional and international levels
(Duranti 1997).
• Second, they look at the role of information technology in
communication, including the Internet, social media such as Facebook,
and cell phones.
• Third is attention to the increasingly rapid extinction of indigenous
languages and what can be done about it.
30

31. ETHNOLOGY
• Ethnology (from the Greek ethnos= nation) is the branch of
anthropology that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different
peoples and the relationship between them.
• Ethnology in its theoretical aspects is devoted very largely to the
problem of explaining the similarities and differences to be found in
human cultures.
31

32. ETHANOLOGY
• The scientific analysis of the socio-economic systems and cultural
heritages of the people, of low technological level, based upon,
ethanography and undertaken to reveal the origins, functioning and
processes to change of their cultural features.
• This is done by using participant method.
32

33. • It is concerned with patterns of thought and behaviour such as
marriage, custom kinship organisation, political and economical
systems, religion folk art, music and the ways in which these patterns
differ in contemporary societies.
• Ethanohistorians, investigate written documents to determine how the
ways of life of a particular group of people has changed over the time.
33

34. • The other type of enthanologists is the comparative or cross sectional
researcher who studies the data collected by the ethanographers and
the ethanohistorians.
34

35. BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
• Physical/ biological anthropology is the study of the past and present
evolution of the human species and is especially concerned with
understanding the causes of present human diversity.
• It deals with the exploring of the human origins and human variation.
35

36. • Biological Anthropology looks at the physical or biological differences
(DNA, genes, phenotype) characteristics in humans.
• There are three ways in which Biological/physical anthropology study
human variation and human evolution: human genetics( traits that are
inherited), population biology(environmental impact on humans), and
epidemiologist( the study of diseases).
36

37. DENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY
• The discipline of dental anthropology can be defined as the study of
teeth and jaws of living or prehistoric people and their ancestors for
insights concerning human behavior, health and nutritional status, or
genetic relationship of populations to one another.
• Teeth exhibit variables with a strong hereditary component that are
useful in assessing population relationships and evolutionary dynamics
37

38. • Teeth can also exhibit incidental or intentional modifications, which
reflect patterns of cultural behavior.
• As the process of tooth formation is highly canalized (i.e., buffered from
environmental perturbations), developmental defects provide a general
measure of environmental stress on a population.
38

39. WHY STUDY TEETH??
PRESERVABILITY
• Teeth preserve exceptionally well in the archeological record (due in part to the
chemical properties of enamel) and are frequently the best represented part of a
skeletal sample.
39

40. OBSERVABILITY
• Most variables of interest to human osteologists can be observed only
in prehistoric and protohistoric skeletal remains.
• Teeth, on the other hand, can be directly observed and studied in both
skeletal and living populations (e.g., through intraoral examinations,
permanent plaster casts, extracted teeth).
• Because teeth are observable in both extinct and extant human groups,
they provide a valuable research tool for the analysis of short-term and
long-term temporal trends. 40

41. VARIABILITY
• Because teeth are critical in food-getting and food processing behavior,
their development is controlled by a relatively strict set of genetic-
developmental programs.
• The dentition interfaces directly with the environment, teeth are also
modified postnatally by physical factors associated with mastication and
disease factors related to the interplay of dietary elements and a
complex oral microbiota.
41

42. TEETH AS INDICATORS OF AGE
• An accurate determination of age and gender is fundamental to any
inquiry relating to human skeletal remains in both archeological and
forensic contexts.
• One characteristic of the dentition, which makes teeth useful in aging
individual skeletons, is a predictable sequence of developmental events,
including crown and root formation calcification and eruption.
42

43. • Before the age of 12 years, teeth are the best and most readily available
indicator of age.
• Because tooth wear in adulthood has a strong cultural component, it is
necessary to apply different standards to spatially and temporally
circumscribed populations.
43

44. INFERRING HISTORY FROM TEETH
• The derivation of historical relationships from dental data requires
variables with a significant genetic component.
• As most historical analyses focus on tooth size and morphology, this
discussion is limited to metric and morphologic variables.
44

45. TOOTH SIZE
• The studies on human tooth size variation used measurements such as
maximum crown length [mesio-distal (MD)diameter] and maximum
crown breadth [ bucco-lingual (BL) diameter].
• In some instances, measurements are reported for crown height and
inter-cuspal distances, but crown wear must be minimal or the
landmarks used for measurement are obliterated.
45

46. • A comparison of individual crown diameters within a single population
usually shows that male teeth are 2-6% larger than those of females.
• This dimorphism is most pronounced in canine dimensions.
• In the human dentition, a high degree of dimensional inter-correlation
exists, i.e., the size of one tooth is not independent of the size of all
other teeth.
46

47. • In addition to interdimensional correlations, crown diameters are also
associated with other variables, including hypodontia, hyperodontia,
and, to some extent, crown morphology.
• Within European populations, large-toothed (megadont) individuals are
more likely to have supernumerary teeth, whereas small-toothed
(microdont) individuals are more likely to have missing teeth.
47

48. CROWN AND ROOT MORPHOLOGY
• Teeth exhibit two types of morphological variation. First, there is
variation in the form of recurring structures (e.g., labial curvature of the
upper central incisors).
• However, most morphological crown and root traits that have been
operationally defined take the form of presence/absence of variables.
• That is, within a population, some individuals exhibit a particular
structure while others do not.
48

49. 49

50. • Morphological root traits are most often defined in terms of variation in
root number; lower molars, for example, can exhibit one, two, or three
roots.
• For most crown and root traits manifested as presence-absence
variables, presence expressions vary in degree from slight to
pronounced.
• Although some morphological variables exhibit significant sex
differences (e.g., the canine distal accessory ridge), the majority of these
traits show similar frequencies and class frequency distributions for50

51. TOOTH SIZE AND POPULATION
HISTORY
• Teeth from many human populations, skeletal and living, have been
measured for mesiodistal and bucco-lingual crown diameters.
• These basic tooth crown dimensions are often broken down into two
components for between-group odontometric comparisons.
51

52. • Although absolute tooth dimensions provide useful information on
relative population relationships, odontometric comparisons are even
more discriminating when tooth shape is also taken into account.
• When the major geographic subdivisions of humankind are analysed on
the basis of simple genetic markers, population geneticists find that
• Africans are the most highly differentiated from all other regional
populations.
52

53. • Asiatic Indians, Middle Easterners, and Europeans form a coherent
genographic grouping.
• Mainland Asian and Asian-derived groups in the Americans and the
Pacific cluster together at low to intermediate levels of differentiation.
• Australians remain the most enigmatic population from a genetic
standpoint, with hints of distant historical ties to both Southeast Asia
and Africa.
53

54. • In general, when both tooth size and shape are taken into account,
odontometric data provide a useful tool for assessing population
relationships.
• Tooth size variation has also been used to assess temporal trends in
recent human evolution.
54

55. DENTAL MORPHOLOGY AND POPULATION
HISTORY
• Human populations exhibit a great deal of within and between-group
variation in the frequencies of various crown and root traits.
• The utility of dental morphology in resolving questions of population
history is well illustrated by a problem that has concerned
anthropologists for decades: the question of Native American origins.
55

56. 56

57. • Turner defined two complexes: Sinodont (North Asian) and Sundadont
(Southeast Asian).
• First, the suite of variables that characterized the Sinodent complex of
north Asians also characterized all Native American populations.
• Although there is dental variation among New World populations, it
appears that all were derived from ancestral populations in North Asia.
57

58. • Second, Polynesians and Micronesians exhibited crown and root trait
frequencies in accord with the Sunadont pattern, so the historical inference is
that these groups were ultimately derived from Southeast Asian populations.
• In addition to assessing broad patterns of historical relationships, dental
morphology has also been used to measure micro-differentiation among local
populations within circumscribed geographic regions.
58

59. THE ENVIRONMENTAL INTERFACE:
TEETH AND BEHAVIOR
• Interest here is with alterations of the tooth crown, which indirectly reflect four classes
of human behavior:
i. Dietary
ii. Implemental
iii. Incidental cultural
iv. Intentional cultural
59

60. DIETARY BEHAVIOR
• Since the early 1980s, isotope and trace element analyses of bone
collagen and apatite have been widely used to infer general
characteristics of the diet of earlier human populations.
• Within and between-group variation in attrition may reflect the nature
of food-stuffs being consumed.
60

61. • Early hunter-gatherer and agricultural populations are characterized by
rapid rates and pronounced degrees of crown wear, although the
relative contributions of attrition and abrasion to this wear was probably
highly variable.
• Angle of crown wear, rather than absolute degree of wear, may
distinguish groups practicing different subsistence economies
61

62. • In addition to crown wear, certain dental pathologies can be utilized to
make inferences about dietary and other cultural behavior.
• As the constituents of a hunter-gatherer diet did not generally promote
the formation of carious lesions, these groups are characterized by low
caries frequencies.
62

63. • With an increased reliance on plant foods and food preparation
techniques, which broke down complex carbohydrates into simpler
sugars, caries rates increased.
• But, despite the fact that carious lesions increased in earlier agricultural
populations, this increase was modest compared with the extremely
high caries rates in modern populations.
63

64. • The analysis of caries rates, crown wear, is most informative when
studied in the context of circumscribed geographic populations.
• Comparisons between prehistoric and modern populations also show a
dramatic rise in caries rates following the introduction of refined
carbohydrates into native diets that had hitherto consisted primarily of
animal products (protein and fat).
64

65. IMPLEMENTAL BEHAVIOUR
• The use of teeth as tools is most commonly associated with populations
particularly Eskimos, this behaviour is not limited in either time or space.
• Humans throughout history have taken advantage of the strength,
form, and ready availability of their teeth to perform a variety of
functions from carding wool to holding bobby pins.
65

66. • Teeth do not record all instances of tool use, but they can reflect
repetitive behaviours and traumatic episodes.
• In addition to patterns of uniform wear generated by attrition and
abrasion, enamel and dentine can also be removed through traumatic
fracturing.
66

67. • Although chipping can be caused by such things as grit accidentally
introduced into food, it is frequently attributed to using the teeth as
tools, especially among Eskimos.
67

68. INCIDENTAL CULTURAL BEHAVIOUR
• Several patterned behaviours, which do not reflect either implemental
use or intentional modification, leave an imprint on teeth.
• Habitual pipe smokers commonly hold a pipe on either or both sides of
the mouth in the region of the left or right canines.
• Another cultural practice that leaves unintended wear is labret usage.
68

69. • The wear pattern produced by labret use is very distinctive; it is manifest
as a polished facet on the labial or buccal surfaces of the anterior or
posterior teeth, respectively.
• A thorough perusal of the ethnographic literature would probably reveal
many other cultural practices that leave unintentional marks on the
teeth.
69

70. 70

71. INTENTIONAL CULTURAL MODIFICATION
• Unlike other animals, however, which make do with the biological
equipment they are provided with, humans can modify the appearance
of their mouths in a variety of ways.
• In others, groups directly modify the appearance of their teeth,
especially the more visible incisors and canines.
• Precious metals can also be inlayed as bands on the labial surface or
around the entire crown.
71

72. • The reasons for dental mutilation may be idiosyncratic or culturally
prescribed.
• An interesting and not yet fully exploited anthropological usage of
dental mutilation would be to assess the diffusion of specific practices
from one region to another.
72

73. DENTAL INDICATORS OF ENVIRONMENTAL
STRESS
• Anthropologists have long sought methods to estimate relative levels of
environmental stress on earlier human populations.
• Growth arrest lines in long bones (i.e., Harris or transverse lines) provide
one measure of this phenomenon.
73

74. • As dental asymmetry appears to have certain limitations as a broad scale
indicator of comparative stress levels, dental anthropologists have
shifted their attention to the analysis of irregularities in the tooth crown
that arise during amelogenesis (enamel formation) and dentinogenesis
(dentine formation).
74

75. • The most readily observed manifestation of such growth irregularities is
linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH), which takes the form of horizontal
circumferential bands and/or pits on the tooth crown.
• Experimental and clinical evidence shows that a wide range of
phenomenon can disrupt amelogenesis and stimulate hypoplastic
banding/pitting.
• However, the key stimulus in earlier human populations probably
involved some combination of nutritional deficiency and disease
morbidity. 75

76. • The numbers of bands and their degree of expression may also provide
insights into the differential treatment of male and female children or
differences in status within a population.
76

77. REFERENCES
• Eriksen TH, Nielsen. FS A History of AntHropology. Pluto press; London. 2nd ed.
• MyAnthroLab Connections. Anthropology and the study of culture.
• Mayhall JT, Heikkenen T. Dental Anthropology. Oulu University Press.
• Scott RG. Dental Anthropology. In; Encyclopedia of Human Biology. Academy Press.
Washington.
• Turner, C. G., I1 (1986). The first Americans: The dental evidence. Nut. Geogr. Res. 2, 37-
46.
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78. • Brace CL, Rosenberg, KR, Hunt KD. Gradual change in human tooth size in the late
Pleistocene and post- Pleistocene. Evolution 41, 705-720.
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