WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?

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WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?

• Lesson 1
• An overview of the discipline

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Anthropology

• The study of all humans regardless of where or
  when they live/lived.

Page 2 in Core Concepts in Cultural Anthropology
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Who are Humans?

• Taxonomy Homo sapiens
• Roughly 175,000 200,000 years old
• The genus Homo means human and
• extends back to 2.5 million years ago
• Bipedal meaning we walk on two feet
• The only living primate to do so
• Bipedal primates called hominids
• Hominids are 5 7 million years old

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People are generally like me

• Same desires?
• Same beliefs?
• Same attitudes?
• Same values?

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Naïve realism
The assumption that people are generally the same
all throughout the world
Reading 5 in Conformity and Conflicy
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The Anthropological Perspective

• Holistic
• Comparative
• Field-Based
• Evolutionary

Pages 2-3 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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American Anthropology

• Differs from British social anthropology
• Franz Boas - the father of American
  anthropology

Pages 207 - 209 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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The Four Field Approach

• Physical Anthropology
• Linguistic Anthropology

• Socio-cultural Anthropology
• Archaeology

Page 3 in Core Concepts in Cultural Anthropology
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Physical/Biological Anthropology

• Humans as biological organisms
• Present variation
• Evolution
• Paleoanthropology
• Forensic anthropology
• Primates

Pages 3-4 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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The Primate Family Tree
The Primates
Prosimians
Anthropoids
Monkeys
Hominoids
Apes
Humans
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Linguistic Anthropology

• Human language transmits culture
• Language history
• Language acquisition among children
• Language in society and the power embedded in
  language

Pages 6-7 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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Archaeology

• Diggers
• Study material remains - artifacts
• Reconstruct the past
• Prehistoric
• Historic

Pages 7-8 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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Socio-cultural Anthropology

• The study of present culture and society
• Cross-cultural in scope
• Comparative
• Often study contemporary social issues

Pages 4-6 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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ANTHROPOLOGYSHISTORY DEVELOPMENT

• Anthropology as an Academic Discipline

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The History of Anthropology

• Age of Exploration
• Beginning in the 15th Century
• Grew out of contact between Western Europeans and
  others throughout the world
• Encountered a wide range of peoples who were
  physically and behaviorally different

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Early Understandings of Diversity

• Europeans used their Judeo-Christian background
  to interpret physical and cultural differences
• By the middle 19th century, sciences like geology
  and biology began to be used to understand the
  world

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The Birth of Anthropology

• Anthropology grows out of this shift to rationale
  thought
• Initially, anthropologists were used by colonial
  governments to study indigenous peoples so that
  they could be better governed
• Translation Anthropology got its start as a tool
  of colonial oppression

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Early Anthropological Theory

• Positivism
• The first major approach was the Social
  Evolutionist

Pages 202-203 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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Social Evolutionism

• Lewis Henry Morgan
• (1818-1881)
• Unilineal Social/
• Cultural Evolution

Pages 203-205 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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Social Evolutionism

• Who first said the phrase - Survival of the
  fittest?

Pages 204-205 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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Problems with Social Evolutionism

• Extremely biased
• Used biological arguments
• Used to justify Colonialism

Page 205 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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Time for a Change

• Rejection of social evolutionism
• Boas led the new school of American anthropology
• He emphasized
• Holistic perspective
• The comparative method

Page 206 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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Early British Social Anthropology

• Bronislaw Malinowski (1888 1942)
• Anthropological fieldwork
• Functionalism

Page 206-207 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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Early British Social Anthropology

• A.R. Radcliffe-Brown
• (1881 1955)
• Structural-Functionalism

Page 206 - 207 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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The Great Debate

• What should be the defining concept in
  anthropology?

The British camp Society The American camp
Culture
While this debate seems trivial, it divided both
sides
Page 207 - 208 in Core Concepts in Cultural
Anthropology
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Another Shift in Thought

• Postmodernism
• Can anthropology be scientific?

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Exam Review Questions

• What are the 4 fields of American anthropology
  (Chapter 1 in Core Concepts)?
• What are the sub-disciplines (if any) within the
  four fields?
• Where, when, and how did anthropology develop as
  an academic discipline (Chapter 12 in Core
  Concepts)?
• Is anthropology an old discipline?
• How did colonial Europeans view of humanity and
  how did this ideology factor into anthropologys
  development?
• Who were the key early anthropologists with
  regards to the following theoretical ideas?
• Comparative method
• Structural-functionalism
• Functionalism
• Social Darwinism
• Unilineal cultural evolution