Anthropology, the study of all aspects of human life and culture. Much of the work of
anthropologists is based on three key
concepts: society, culture, and evolution. 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.
Most anthropologists also believe that an understanding of human evolution explains much about people’s biology and culture. In the United States, anthropologists generally specialize in one of four-sub fields’ cultural
anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and physical 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.
Linguistic anthropology focuses on how people use language in particular cultures. Linguistic anthropologists often work with people who have unwritten (purely spoken, or oral) languages or with languages that very few people speak.
Archaeology focuses on the study of past, rather than living, human societies 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. Physical anthropologists work from the belief that humans are primates. Like sociology, anthropology involves the study of human society and culture. Anthropology studies how people become enculturated—shaped by their culture as they grow up in a particular society. Anthropologists often study historical documents to learn more about the past of living peoples.
Anthropologists have particular ways of approaching their studies. Only through comparison can anthropologists learn about the uniqueness of particular cultures as well as the characteristics that people in all cultures share.
Anthropologists also study how culture has evolved, and continues to evolve, by comparing cultural traits among different groups of people, both past and living. Some physical anthropologists study human genetics, the science of biological heredity. Studies of the connections among human ecology, biology, and culture in small-scale societies have given anthropologists insights on large-scale, even worldwide, problems. Anthropologists have made similar findings in studies of people in other small-scale societies. This technique, known as cultural relativism, helps anthropologists to understand why people in different cultures live as they do. Anthropological research gives a view of human physical and cultural development that challenges many people’s common beliefs.
Researchers trained in cultural anthropology employ a variety of methods when they study other cultures. Informants and anthropologists may also form teams in which the informants work as anthropologists.
Many anthropologists combine cultural research with studies of the environments in which people live.
Linguistic anthropologists, as well as many cultural anthropologists, use a variety of methods to analyze the details of a people’s language. Language reveals much about a people’s culture. All physical anthropologists have detailed knowledge of human skeletal anatomy.
Some physical anthropologists specialize in epidemiology, the study of disease and health among large groups of people. Later anthropologists became more concerned with the dynamics of culture change. Anthropologists always give coppies of their books or articles to the people they study.
Anthropologists know that people derive their individual identity and sense of dignity from their own cultures. This, too, is changing, as increasing numbers of people from diverse cultural backgrounds are working in anthropology and cultural studies.
Researchers working in cultural studies have also redefined culture.
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