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Cultural history / anthropology proved to be one eye exam at UN SMA / MA in Language Program. Anthropology is the study of humanity. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences. The term “anthropology”, pronounced /ænθrɵˈpɒlədʒi/, is from the Greek ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, “human”, and -λογία, -logia, “discourse” or “study”, and was first used by François Péron when discussing his encounters with Tasmanian Aborigines.

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Anthropology’s basic concerns are “What defines Homo sapiens?”, “Who are the ancestors of modern Homo sapiens?”, “What are humans’ physical traits?”, “How do humans behave?”, “Why are there variations and differences among different groups of humans?”, “How has the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens influenced its social organization and culture?” and so forth.

In the United States, contemporary anthropology is typically divided into four sub-fields: cultural anthropology (also called “social anthropology”), archaeology, linguistic anthropology and biological/physical anthropology. The so-called “four-field” approach to anthropology is reflected in many undergraduate textbooks as well as anthropology programs (e.g. Michigan, Berkeley, UPenn, etc.). At universities in the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, these “sub-fields” are frequently housed in separate departments and are seen as distinct disciplines.

The social and cultural sub-field has been heavily influenced by post-modern theories. During the 1970s and 1980s there was an epistemological shift away from the positivist traditions that had largely informed the discipline. During this shift, enduring questions about the nature and production of knowledge came to occupy a central place in Cultural and Social Anthropology. In contrast, Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, and linguistic anthropology remained largely positivist. Due to this difference in epistemology, anthropology as a discipline has lacked cohesion over the last several decades. This has even led to departments diverging, for example in the 1998-9 academic year at Stanford University, where the “scientists” and “non-scientists” divided into two departments: Anthropology, and Cultural and Social Anthropology. (Anthropology at Stanford later reunified in the 2008-9 academic year).

Overview

Anthropology is traditionally divided into four sub-fields, each with its own further branches: biological or physical anthropology, social anthropology or cultural anthropology, archaeology and anthropological linguistics. These fields frequently overlap, but tend to use different methodologies and techniques.

Biological anthropology or Physical anthropology (also described as forensic anthropology), focuses on the study of human populations using an evolutionary framework. Biological anthropologists have theorized about how the globe has become populated with humans (e.g. the “Out of Africa” and “multi-regional evolution” debate), as well as tried to explain geographical human variation and race. Many biological anthropologists studying modern human populations identify their field as human ecology – itself linked to sociobiology. Human ecology uses evolutionary theory to understand phenomena among contemporary human populations. Another large sector of biological anthropology is primatology, where anthropologists focus on understanding other primate populations. Methodologically, primatologists borrow heavily from field biology and ecology in their research.

Cultural anthropology is also called socio-cultural anthropology or social anthropology (especially in Great Britain). It is the study of culture, and is often based on ethnography. Ethnography can refer to both a methodology and a product of research, namely a monograph or book. Ethnography is a grounded, inductive method, that heavily relies on participant-observation. Ethnology involves the systematic comparison of different cultures. In some European countries, all cultural anthropology is known as ethnology (a term coined and defined by Adam F. Kollár in 1783).

The study of kinship and social organization is a central focus of cultural anthropology, as kinship is a human universal. Cultural anthropology also covers economic and political organization, law and conflict resolution, patterns of consumption and exchange, material culture, technology, infrastructure, gender relations, ethnicity, childrearing and socialization, religion, myth, symbols, values, etiquette, worldview, sports, music, nutrition, recreation, games, food, festivals, and language (which is also the object of study in linguistic anthropology).

Archaeology is the study of human material culture, including both artifacts (older pieces of human culture) carefully gathered in situ, museum pieces and modern garbage. Archaeologists work closely with biological anthropologists, art historians, physics laboratories (for dating), and museums. They are charged with preserving the results of their excavations and are often found in museums. Typically, archaeologists are associated with “digs,” or excavation of layers of ancient sites.

Archaeologists subdivide time into cultural periods based on long-lasting artifacts: the Paleolithic, the Neolithic, the Bronze Age, which are further subdivided according to artifact traditions and culture region, such as the Oldowan or the Gravettian. In this way, archaeologists provide a vast frame of reference for the places human beings have traveled, their ways of making a living, and their demographics. Archaeologists also investigate nutrition, symbolization, art, systems of writing, and other physical remnants of human cultural activity.

Linguistic anthropology (also called anthropological linguistics) seeks to understand the processes of human communications, verbal and non-verbal, variation in language across time and space, the social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture. It is the branch of anthropology that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems, linking the analysis of linguistic forms and processes to the interpretation of sociocultural processes. Linguistic anthropologists often draw on related fields including sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, semiotics, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis.

Linguistic anthropology is divided into its own sub-fields: descriptive linguistics the construction of grammars and lexicons for unstudied languages; historical linguistics, including the reconstruction of past languages, from which our current languages have descended; ethnolinguistics, the study of the relationship between language and culture, and sociolinguistics, the study of the social functions of language. Anthropological linguistics is also concerned with the evolution of the parts of the brain that deal with language.

Because anthropology developed from so many different enterprises (see History of Anthropology), including but not limited to fossil-hunting, exploring, documentary film-making, paleontology, primatology, antiquity dealings and curatorship, philology, etymology, genetics, regional analysis, ethnology, history, philosophy and religious studies, it is difficult to characterize the entire field in a brief article, although attempts to write histories of the entire field have been made.

On the one hand this has led to instability in many American anthropology departments, resulting in the division or reorganization of sub-fields (e.g. at Stanford, Duke, and most recently at Harvard). However, seen in a positive light, anthropology is one of the few place in many American universities where humanities, social, and natural sciences are forced to confront one another. As such, anthropology has also been central in the development of several new (late 20th century) interdisciplinary fields such as cognitive science, global studies, human-computer interaction, and various ethnic studies.