| II.
Key Concepts
Much
of the work of anthropologists is based on three key concepts: society,
culture, and evolution. Together, these concepts constitute the primary
ways in which anthropologists describe, explain, and understand human
life.
A. Society and Culture
Two
interrelated anthropological concepts, society and culture, are crucial
to understanding what makes humans unique. In its general sense, a society
consists of any group of interacting animals, such as a herd of bison.
But human societies often include millions or billions of people who
share a common culture. Culture refers to the ways of life learned and
shared by people in social groups. Culture differs from the simpler,
inborn types of thinking and behavior that govern the lives of many
animals. The people in a human society generally share common cultural
patterns, so anthropologists may refer to particular societies as cultures,
making the two terms somewhat interchangeable.
Culture
is fundamentally tied to people’s ability to use language and other
symbolic forms of representation, such as art, to create and communicate
complex thoughts. Thus, many anthropologists study people’s languages
and other forms of communication. Symbolic representation allows people
to pass a great amount of knowledge from generation to generation. People
use symbols to give meaning to everything around them, every thought,
and every kind of human interaction.
B. Evolution
Most
anthropologists also believe that an understanding of human evolution
explains much about people’s biology and culture. Biological evolution
is the natural process by which new and more complex organisms develop
over time. Some anthropologists study how the earliest humans evolved
from ancestral primates, a broader classification group that includes
humans, monkeys, and apes. They also study how humans evolved, both
biologically and culturally, over the past several million years to
the present.
Humans
have changed little biologically for the past 100,000 years. On the
other hand, today’s worldwide culture, characterized by the rapid
movement of people and ideas throughout the world, is only a few hundred
years old. Today’s global-scale culture differs vastly from that
of the small-scale societies (nonindustrialized societies, with small
populations) in which our ancestors lived for hundreds of thousands
of years. Understanding these kinds of societies and their cultures
can help us make more sense of how people cope with life in today’s
culturally diverse and complex world.
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| III.
Fields of Anthropology
Because
anthropology is a very broad field of study, anthropologists focus on
particular areas of interest. In the United States, anthropologists
generally specialize in one of four subfields: cultural anthropology,
linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and physical anthropology. Each
of the subfields requires special training and involves different research
techniques. Anthropology departments in colleges and universities in
the United States usually teach courses covering all of these subfields.
In
many other countries it is common for the subfields to be found in their
own academic departments and to be known by different names. For example,
in Britain and other parts of Europe, what Americans call cultural anthropology
is commonly called social anthropology or ethnology. Also in Europe,
archaeology and the field of linguistics (including what American anthropologists
study as linguistic anthropology) are often considered as fields distinct
from anthropology.
A. Cultural Anthropology
Cultural
anthropology involves the study of people living in present-day societies
and their cultures. Cultural anthropologists study such topics as how
people make their living, how people interact with each other, what
beliefs people hold, and what institutions organize people in a society.
Cultural anthropologists often live for months or years with the people
they study. This is called fieldwork. Some must learn new, and sometimes
unwritten languages, and this may require extra training in linguistics
(the study of the sounds and grammar of languages). Cultural anthropologists
commonly write book-length (and sometimes shorter) accounts of their
fieldwork, known as ethnographies.
B. Linguistic Anthropology
Linguistic
anthropology focuses on how people use language in particular cultures.
Those who practice this form of anthropology have a substantial amount
of training in linguistics. Linguistic anthropologists often work with
people who have unwritten (purely spoken, or oral) languages or with
languages that very few people speak. Linguistic anthropological work
may involve developing a way to write a formerly unwritten language.
Cultures often use these written versions to teach their children the
language and thus keep it in use. Some linguistic anthropologists specialize
in reconstructing dead languages (languages no longer in use) and their
connections to living languages, a study known as historical linguistics.
C. Archaeology
Archaeology
focuses on the study of past, rather than living, human societies and
culture. Most archaeologists study artifacts (the remains of items made
by past humans, such as tools, pottery, and buildings) and human fossils
(preserved bones). They also examine past environments to understand
how natural forces, such as climate and available food, shaped the development
of human culture. Some archaeologists study cultures that existed before
the development of writing, a time known as prehistory. The archaeological
study of periods of human evolution up to the first development of agriculture,
about 10,000 years ago, is also called paleoanthropology. Other archaeologists
study more recent cultures by examining both their material remains
and written documents, a practice known as historical archaeology.
D. Physical Anthropology
Physical
anthropology, also known as biological anthropology, concentrates on
the connections between human biology and culture. Some physical anthropologists,
like some archaeologists, study human evolution. But physical anthropologists
focus on the evolution of human anatomy and physiology, rather than
culture. Areas of particular interest include the evolution of the brain,
especially the areas of the brain associated with speech and complex
thought; of the vocal apparatus necessary for speech; of upright posture;
and of hands capable of making and using tools. Physical anthropologists
work from the belief that humans are primates. Primatology, the study
of the behavior and physiology of nonhuman primates, is a specialized
area of interest within physical anthropology.
Some
physical anthropologists specialize in forensic science, the study of
scientific evidence for legal cases. Forensic anthropologists, with
their knowledge of human anatomy, sometimes get called upon by law enforcement
officials to identify the sex, age, or ancestry of human remains found
at crime scenes or uncovered by excavations. Forensic anthropologists
also have exhumed mass graves in cases of genocide, the crime of mass
murder usually associated with wars. In some cases, anthropologists
have provided evidence used in war crimes trials to convict guilty parties.
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