Anthropology is the study of humankind in all times and places. It focuses on the interconnections and interdependence of all aspects of the human experience in all places, in the present and deep into the past. A fundamental principle is that the various parts of human culture and biology must be viewed in the broadest possible context. Anthropologists aim to avoid ethnocentrism, the belief that the ways of one’s own culture are the only proper ones, and to guard against culture-bound theories – theories based on assumptions about the world and reality that come from a researcher’s own particular culture.
The following are the four fields of anthropology:
- Cultural anthropology (also called social or sociocultural anthropology) is the study of patterns of human behavior, thought, and feelings. It focuses on humans as culture-producing and culture-reproducing creatures. Culture is a society’s shared and socially transmitted ideas, values, and perceptions, which are used to make sense of experience and which generate behavior and are reflected in that behavior. These standards are socially learned, rather than acquired through biological inheritance. The two main components of cultural anthropology are ethnography (a detailed description of a particular culture primarily based on fieldwork) and ethnology (the study and analysis of different cultures from a comparative or historical point of view, utilizing ethnographic accounts and developing anthropological theories that help explain why certain important differences or similarities occur among groups).
- Linguistic anthropology, the study of of human languages, investigates their structure, history, and relation to social and cultural contexts.
- Archaeology studies human cultures through recovery and analysis of material remains and environmental data.
- Biological anthropology (also called physical anthropology) focuses on humans as biological organisms. Paleoanthropology is the study of biological changes through time (evolution) to understand the origins and predecessors of the present human species.
An artifact is any object fashioned or altered by humans. Artifacts are material culture – products or representations of human behavior and beliefs (durable aspects of culture such as tools, buildings, and art objects). Ecofacts are the natural remains of plants and animals found in the archaeological record. Features are nonportable elements such as hearths and architectural elements such as walls. A fossil is any trace or impression of an organism that has been preserved in the earth’s crust from past geologic time.
—September 2020
—March 2021
Lance Jones 