Anthropology is the study of humans, encompassing their origins, physical traits, behavior, and cultural diversity through various subfields including biological, cultural, archaeological, and linguistic anthropology. It employs a holistic and transcultural approach, emphasizing the need to understand historical contexts while exploring human adaptability and societal organization. Anthropology seeks to apply its insights to solve contemporary social issues, with a focus on enhancing understanding among diverse populations.

1. WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?

2. Anthropology comes from the
Greek word anthropos for “man,
human” and logos for “study”.

3. What is Anthropology?
•It seeks to answer an enormous variety of questions about humans.
•They are interested in discovering when, where and why humans
appeared on earth, how and why they have changed since then, and
how and why modern human populations vary in certain physical
features.
•Anthropologists are also interested in how and why societies in the
past and present have varied in their customary ideas and practices.

4. Anthropology's basic concerns are…
1. What defines Homo sapiens?
2. Who are the ancestors of modern Homo
sapiens?
3. What are humans' physical traits?
4. How do humans behave?
5. Why are there variations and differences
among different groups of humans?
6. How has the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens
influenced its social organization and culture?”

5. WHAT THEN IS UNIQUE OR
CHARACTERISTIC OF
ANTHROPOLOGY?

6. (a). anthropology is transcultural;
looks all human groups, large and
small; distant and near.

7. (b). anthropology spans all of
human history, the ancient and the
modern. We must know past to
understand present.

8. (c). anthropology is holistic; seeks to
demonstrate how aspects of cultures are linked,
how they affect one another; seeks to
understand all aspects of human behavior. It is a
multi-faceted approach to the study of human
behavior.

9. Anthropology seeks to find the generalities
about human life while also explaining the
differences. To do this the examples must
include a transcultural and historical
perspective.

10. Anthropology seeks to understand and
explain why people do the things they do and
say the things they say. A goal is create
better understanding among people.

11. In sum, we as anthropologists often say
that “anthropology is the most humane of
the sciences and the most scientific of the
humanities”. Thus we draw data from all
kinds of sources.

12. • Creativity, adaptability, and
flexibility are basic human
attributes, and human diversity
is the subject matter of
anthropology.

13. •People share both society and culture.
•Society is organized life in groups, a feature
that humans share with other animals.
•Cultures are traditions and customs,
transmitted through learning, that govern the
beliefs and behaviors of the people exposed to
them.

14. •Humans are the most adaptable animals in the
world, having the ability to inhabit widely variant
ecological niches.
• Humans, like all other animals use biological
means to adapt to a given environment.
• Humans are unique in having cultural means of
adaptation.

15. What are the
SUBFIELDS of ANTHROPOLOGY
as a SOCIAL SCIENCE?

16. Biological Anthropology

17. Biological Anthropology
•Biological anthropology is multidisciplinary.
•It draws on biology, zoology, geology, anatomy,
physiology, medicine, public health, osteology, and
archaeology.

18. • Biological anthropology seeks to
understand human behavior from a
biological base especially focusing
upon human evolutionary history and
biological variation among human
populations.

19. Biological Anthropology
•There are five special interests within biological
anthropology:
• paleoanthropology: human evolution as revealed by the fossil
record
• human genetics
• human growth and development
• human biological plasticity: the body’s ability to change as it
copes with stresses such as heat, cold, and altitude
• primatology: the study of the biology, evolution, behavior, and
social life of primates.

20. Paleoanthropologists study
the fossil record of human
evolution. This photo shows
Professor Teuku Jacob with early
fossil skulls from Java, Indonesia.
Photo Credit: Kenneth Garrett / National Geographic

21. Cultural Anthropology

22. CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
•Cultural anthropology is the study of human society and
culture, the subfield that describes, analyzes, interprets, and
explains social and cultural similarities and differences.
•Cultural anthropology also combines ethnography and
ethnology to study human societies and cultures for the
purpose of explaining social and cultural similarities and
differences.

23. • Cultural anthropology seeks
to understand universals and
variations in human cultures
both past and present.

24. Two Disciplines of
Cultural Anthropology
• Ethnography
• Ethnology

25. •Ethnography produces an account (a book, an article,
or a film) of a particular community, society, or culture
based on information that is collected during fieldwork.
•Generally, ethnographic fieldwork involves living in the
community that is being studied for an extended period
of time (e.g. 6 months to 2 years).
Ethnography

26. • emphasize local behavior, beliefs, customs, social life,
economic activities, politics, and religion, rather then
developments at the national level.
• Since cultures are not isolated, ethnographers must
investigate the local, regional, national, and global systems of
politics, economics, and information that expose villagers to
external influences.
Ethnography

27. • Ethnology examines, interprets, analyzes, and
compares the ethnographic data gathered in different
societies to make generalizations about society and
culture.
• Ethnology uses ethnographic data to build models, test
hypotheses, and create theories that enhance our
understanding of how social and cultural systems work.
• Ethnology works from the particular (ethnographic data) to
the general (theory).
Ethnology

28. Comparison between Ethnography and Ethnology
ETHNOGRAPHY ETHNOLOGY
requires fieldwork to collect data draws upon data collected by a series
of researchers
descriptive synthetic
group/community specific comparative/cross-cultural

29. Archaeology

30. Archaeological Anthropology
•Archaeological anthropology reconstructs, describes, and
interprets past human behavior and cultural patterns through
material remains.
•The material remains of a culture include artifacts (e.g.
potsherds, jewelry, and tools), garbage, burials, and the
remains of structures.
•Archaeologists use paleoecological studies to establish the
ecological and subsistence parameters within which given
group lived.

31. • Archaeology seeks to understand human
history through the study (primarily) of
materials remains. Sometimes the work of
archaeologists overlaps with the work of
historians in a specialization, historical
archaeology.

32. •The archaeological record provides archaeologists the
unique opportunity to look at changes in social
complexity over thousands and tens of thousands of
years (this kind of time depth is not accessible to
ethnographers).
•Archaeology is not restricted to prehistoric societies.
• Historical archaeology combines archaeological data and textual data to
reconstruct historically known groups.]
• William Rathje’s “garbology” project in Tucson, Arizona.
ARCHAEOLOGY

33. •Archaeology is the study of
human material culture,
including both artifacts
(older pieces of human
culture) carefully gathered
in museum pieces and
modern garbage.

34. Archaeology: A preserve body on Pompei from the
eruption of Mount Vesuvius

35. Linguistic Anthropology

36. • Linguistics seeks to understand human
language, written and non-written,
spoken and non-verbal. The study of how
languages change over time is termed
historical linguistics. The study of how
language is used in social contexts is
termed socio-linguistics.

37. Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic anthropology is the study of language in
its social and cultural context across space and
time.
• Some linguistic anthropologists investigate
universal features of language that may be linked to
uniformities in the human brain.

38. Linguistic Anthropology
•Historical linguists reconstruct ancient languages
and study linguistic variation through time.
•Sociolinguistics investigates relationships between
social and linguistic variation to discover varied
perceptions and patterns of thought in different
cultures.

39. Branches of Linguistics
• Historical linguistics – is the study of how
languages change over time and how they may
be related.
• Structural/Descriptive linguistics – is the
study of how contemporary languages differ,
especially in their construction.

40. • Sociolinguistics investigates relationships
between social and linguistic variation. No
language is a homogeneous system in which
everyone speaks just like everyone else.
• Sociolinguistics – the study of how language is
used in social context.

42. •Underscoring all of the sub-fields in both
biological and cultural anthropology is
Practicing or Applied Anthropology, which
seek to apply anthropological knowledge to
the solution of human problems. All of the
sub-fields in anthropology have an applied,
practicing component.

43. •Anthropology, as defined by the
American Anthropological Association
(AAA), has two dimensions:
1) theoretical/academic anthropology
2) practicing or applied anthropology.

44. Theoretical / Academic
Anthropology
•Theoretical/academic anthropology includes the four
subfields discussed above (cultural, archaeological,
biological, and linguistic anthropology).
• Directed at collecting data to test hypotheses and models that were
created to advance the field of anthropology.
• Generally, theoretical/academic anthropology is carried out in academic
institutions (e.g. universities and specialized research facilities).

45. Applied Anthropology
•Applied anthropology is the application of any of
anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and techniques to
identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems.
•Some standard subdivisions have developed in applied
anthropology: medical anthropology, environmental
anthropology, forensic anthropology, and development
anthropology.

46. •Applied anthropologists are generally employed by
international development agencies, like the World Bank,
United States Agency for International Development
(USAID), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the
United Nations.
Applied Anthropology

47. Medical Anthropology
Medical
anthropology studies
health conditions
from a cross-cultural
perspective. In
Uganda's Mwiri
primary school
children are taught
about HIV.
Photo Credit: Jorgen Schytte / Still Pictures / Peter Arnold, Inc.

48. Applied Anthropology
•Applied anthropologists assess the social and cultural dimensions
of economic development.
•Development projects often fail when planners ignore the cultural
dimensions of development.
•Applied anthropologists work with local communities to identify
specific social conditions that will influence the failure or success
of a development project.

49. Two Dimensions of
Anthropology
GENERAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
APPLIED
ANTHROPOLOGY
CulturalAnthropology MedicalAnthropology
Archaeological
Anthropology
Cultural Resource
Management (CRM)
Biological or Physical
Anthropology
ForensicAnthropology
Linguistic Anthropology Non-government
Organizations (NGO’s)

50. Franz Boas
- Father of modern American anthropology
- the first anthropologist to have rejected the biological
basis of racism or racial discrimination
- historical particularism: each society is considered as
having a unique form of culture that cannot be
subsumed under an overall definition of general culture.
- advocated cultural relativism (“cultures should be
judged by their own values, as successful adaptations to
their own environments”)
Pioneers in anthropology

51. Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski
- a Polish immigrant who did a study of
Trobriand Island
- he developed participant observation: a
method of social science research that
requires the anthropologists to have the
ability to participate and blend with the way
of life of a given group of people.
- one of the most influential ethnographers in
the 20th century

52. Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown
• he did fieldwork on the Andaman Islands east of
India
• became the Chair in Social Anthropology in
Oxford
• advocated the study of abstract principles that
govern social change
• structural-functionalist paradigm: the basic unit
of analysis for anthropology and social sciences
are the social structures and the functions they
perform to maintain the equilibrium of society.

53. Henry Louis Morgan
- 1st to research aboriginal peoples of North America
- came up with a “Theory of Social Evolution”:
The idea that social evolution occurred in 3 stages,
a) savagery :
b) barbarism :
c) civilization:
- once widely accepted, now the assumption of social or
cultural evolution is considered ethnocentric: Morgan
was “judging other cultures according to one’s values”,
his being the white, European-based culture.

54. Ruth Benedict
• Patterns of Culture, (on Plains native cultures)
and The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (on Japanese
culture: life should be highly ritualized and perfectly
executed…)
• looked at how culture and religion shape personality
• concluded that cultures have personalities: some cultures
believed in restraint, and others might believe in
fierceness.
→ Main idea: the main personality traits of the culture
become the main personality traits of persons of that
culture.

55. Margaret Mead
• student of Franz Boas.
• worked in the south Pacific islands of Polynesia and New Guinea.
• broke the gender barriers of her time.
* Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) compared adolescence in Samoa
and America, saw it didn’t seem to exist in Samoan culture, so she
concluded adolescence isn’t a universally distinct or difficult stage,
unlike many cultures (i.e., it’s “nurture”)
* her studies of 3 cultures in the south Pacific resulted in her
conclusion that, “nurture” (socialization) was more influential in
development than nature.
This is where the Nature –Nurture debate began.

56. …and I
Ma’am Madeline
says...
Thank you so much