Cultural Anthropology What is Anthropology?

What is anthropology Anthropology can be understood as “the holistic study of humankind”……………….

Four fields of anthropology Physical/biological anthropology: Deals with humans as biological organisms *concerned with two broad areas of investigation:

Physical/biological anthropology 1. Reconstructing the evolutionary record of the human species (asking questions about the emergence of humans and how humans have evolved up to the present time (paleoanthropology)

Physical/biological anthropology 2. How and why the physical traits of contemporary human populations vary throughout the world.

Physical/biological anthropology-subfields Primatology-area of specialization developed since the 1950’s focusing on the study of the anatomy and social behavior of such nonhuman primate species such as gorillas, baboons and chimpanzees in an effort to gain clues about our evolution as a species

Four fields of anthropology Archaeology: Study of the lifeways of people from the past by excavating and analyzing the material culture they have left behind. Archaeologists try to understand cultural adaptations of ancient peoples by at least partially reconstructing their cultures.

Archaeology Archaeologists work with three types of material remains: 1. artifacts: objects that have been made or modified by humans and that can be removed from the site and taken to the lab for further analysis (tools, arrowheads and fragments of pottery)

archaeology 2. features: like artifacts, are made or modified by people, but they cannot be readily carried away from the dig site (house foundations, fireplaces, postholes)

Archaeology 3. Ecofacts: include objects found in the natural environment (bones, seeds and wood) that were not made or altered by humans but were used by them. Provide Archaeologists with important data concerning the environment and how people used natural resources.

Archaeology-subfields Cultural Resource Management (public archaeology/contract archaeology): A form of applied archaeology involving evaluating, and sometimes excavating sites before the construction of roads, dams and buildings

Four fields of anthropology Anthropological Linguistics: Scientific study of human communication within its sociocultural context. Anthropological linguistics studies contemporary human languages as well as those of the past. There are four distinct branches:

Anthropological linguistics Historical Linguistics: Deals with the emergence of language in general and how specific languages have diverged over time.

Subfield of historical linguistics Glottochronology Historical linguistic technique of determining the approximate date that two languages diverged by analyzing similarities and differences in their vocabularies

Anthropological linguistics Descriptive Linguistics Branch of anthropological linguistics that studies how languages are structured

Anthropological linguistics Ethnolinguistics Study of the relationship between language and culture

Anthropological linguistics Sociolinguistics: Branch of anthropological linguistics that studies how language and culture are related and how language is used in different social contexts

Four fields of anthropology Cultural Anthropology: Branch of anthropology that deals with the study of specific contemporary cultures and the more general underlying patterns of human culture derived through cultural comparisons.

Cultural anthropology Before cultural anthropologists can examine cultural differences and similarities (ethnology)throughout the world, they must first describe the features of specific cultures in as much detail as possible.

Cultural anthropology These detailed descriptions are called ETHNOGRAPHIES. They are the result of extensive field studies (a year or two in duration) in which the anthropologist observes, talks to, and lives with the people she is studying.

Cultural anthropology Ethnology The comparative study of contemporary cultures, wherever they may be found. Ethnologists seek to understand why both why people today and in the recent past differ in terms of ideas and behavior patterns and what all cultures in the world have in common with one another.

Cultural anthropology-subfields Urban Anthropology Medical Anthropology Educational anthropology Economic anthropology Psychological anthropology

Principles of cultural anthropology Holism: a perspective in anthropology that attempts to study a culture by looking at all parts of the system and how those parts are interrelated Cultural relativism: the idea that cultural traits are best understood when viewed within the cultural context of which they are a part