ANTH 201: Chapter 1

What is anthropology?

1. Anthropology is the objective and systematic study of humankind in all times and places. 2. Anthropology contains four major fields or subdisciplines: cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and physical or biological anthropology. 3. In each of anthropology's fields some individuals practice applied anthropology, which uses anthropological knowledge to solve practical problems.

What do anthropologists do in each of its four fields?

1. Cultural anthropologists study humans in terms of their cultures, the often-unconscious standards by which social groups operate. 2. Linguistic anthropologists study human languages and may deal with the description of a language, with the history of languages, or with how languages are used in particular social settings. 3. Archaeologists study human cultures through the recovery and analysis of material remains and environmental data. 4. Physical anthropologists focus on humans as biological organisms; they particularly emphasize tracing the evolutionary development of the human animal and studying biological variation within the species today.

How do anthropologists conduct research?

1. Fieldwork, characteristic of all the anthropological subdisciplines, includes complete immersion in research settings ranging from archaeological and paleoanthropological survey and excavation, to living with a group of primates in their natural habitat, to biological data gathered while living with a group. Ethnographic participant observation with a particular culture or subculture is the classic field method of cultural anthropology. 2. After the fieldwork of archaeologists and physical anthropologists, researchers conduct laboratory analyses of excavated remains or biological samples collected in the field. 3. The comparative method is key to all branches of anthropology. Anthropologists make broad comparisons among peoples and cultures--past and present. They also compare related species and fossil groups. Ethnology, the comparative branch of cultural anthropologists, uses a range of ethnographic accounts to construct theories about cultures from a comparative or historical point of view. Ethnologists often focus on a particular aspect of view. Ethnologists often focus on a particular aspect of culture, such as religious or economic practices.

How is anthropology different from other disciplines?

1. Unique among the sciences and humanities, anthropology has long emphasized the study of non-Western societies and a holistic approach, which aims to formulate theoretically valid explanations and interpretations of human diversity based on detailed studies of all aspects of human biology, behavior, and beliefs in all known societies, past and present. 2. In anthropology, the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences come together into a genuinely humanistic science. Anthropology's link with the humanities can be seen in its concern with people's beliefs, values, languages, arts, and literature--oral as well as written--but above all in its attempt to convey the experience of living in different cultures.