There are many misconceptions about anthropology. Often anthropologists are thought of as traveling to exotic places to study aboriginal people or as archaeologists studying the fossil record.

Anthropology is both easy to define and difficult to describe, its subject matter is both exotic (marriage practices among the Australian aborigines) and commonplace (the structure of the human hand), its focus both sweeping and microscopic. Anthropology is the holistic scientific study of humankind with the goal of advancing our understanding of who we are and how we came to be that way. Of all the sciences which study our species, only anthropology attempts to understand the whole of the human condition in time and space. Anthropology integrates the study of communication and language, economics, political organization, religion, art, philosophy, education, medical and nutritional practices, social interaction, marriage, child rearing, science, and technology. Anthropology studies humanity as biological, psychological, cultural, and social entities living in relationship with their environment. The science of anthropology begins with a simple, but enormously powerful idea: that any particular aspect of our behavior can be fully understood only when it is placed against the background provided by the full range of human behavior. This is the comparative perspective, the attempt to explain both the similarities and differences among people within the context of humanity as a whole.

We learn to avoid "ethnocentrism," the tendency to judge customs inferior on the basis of preconceptions derived from our own cultural backgrounds. This same process allows us to look at our own society with new eyes.

There are four basic branches of anthropology: social or cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and physical or biological anthropology.

Social or cultural anthropology studies human behavior by means of firsthand observation and interviews within particular communities and interpretation of that behavior by comparison with the results of similar studies in other communities. These communities may be either in a far away exotic land or somewhere closer to home, for example the workplace. They may focus on particular aspects of life or institutions, such as kinship, religion, art, or economics or they may try to characterize a way of life as a whole.

This study, called ethnography, is different from any other "social science" method of study because the ethnographer enters a study without using theory to guide him/her, but allows the informant, a member of the culture being studied, to guide the study.

Linguistic anthropology studies the historical development of human languages and the ways in which that development can be used to unravel the relationships between different societies. In addition, linguistic anthropologists are concerned with the nature of language itself and the relationships between language, thought, and behavior; that is, the ways in which language and all the other aspects of human culture interrelate.

Archaeologists interpret records, often fragmentary and incomplete, of the remains of ancient societies and peoples, from classical Greece, Rome, and the Near East to the stone tools of our two million-year-old human ancestors.

In recent years, many archaeologists have moved into the growing field of cultural resource management to help federal, state, and local governments preserve our nation's prehistoric and historic cultural heritage.

Physical or biological anthropologists study Homo sapiens as a biological species -- its origins, evolutionary history, and the biological diversity of modern human populations. Physical anthropologists study the natural history of the human species and attempt to understand the biological bases for human nature and our remarkable behavioral abilities. Forensic anthropologists apply their knowledge of skeletal analysis to assisting organizations ranging from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to local police departments.

For more information about anthropology and what anthropologist do, visit the American Anthropological Association.

Written by Douglas W. Hume (1993, links added in 2007) adapted from David Givens's What is Anthropology?

Last Updated ( Saturday, 11 July 2009 02:16 )