So you’re taking an anthropology course, which means you’re probably wondering what
you’ve gotten yourself into.
Well this short video will give you a very basic view of anthropology and how it is divided
into four distinct, though interwoven, subfields.
Simply put, Anthropology is the study of humans.
The term Anthropology comes from two roots, Anthropos meaning Man or Human, and Logos
meaning study of.
Anthropology is traditionally subdivided into four subfields.
Cultural, Biological, Linguistic, and Archaeology.
Cultural Anthropology is the study of the cultural basis of humanity, similar to sociology,
but looking at all cultures around the world, and bringing in a historical context.
Cultural Anthropology is well known due to the media.
National Geographic (among others) provides a view of the cultural anthropologist as a
westerner from Europe or the US who travels to a remote culture to study exotic people.
While this is occasionally true, currently cultural anthropologists do just as much research
within their own culture studying particular subcultures of Americans or Europeans, as
they do studying isolated non-western societies.
The second subfield is biological or physical anthropology.
The focus of this subfield is on human anatomy and genetics, as well as the biological relatives
of humans, such as monkeys and apes, as well as human ancestors, like Neanderthals and
Australopithecines.
Biological anthropologists study how genetics make us look the way we do or how we can identify
who someone is when all we have is their skeletal remains.
They also study the behavior and physical makeup of primates, which helps us understand
how humans have evolved and how our ancestors may have behaved as well as how they looked.
Biological anthropologists who specialize in paleoanthropology study the ancient remains
of primates, both those that are within our ancestral line and those who are not on our
line, our cousins, if you will.
Many of these give us a really good understanding the way we are today
Linguistic anthropology is the study of language usage in terms of culture.
Looking at how language changes and adapts, and how language is used differently in different
settings by different individuals.
Linguistic anthropology also addresses the basic structure of languages and usages that
languages have in different cultures, as well as language similarities and differences to
look at human migration around the world.
The last main subfield is archaeology.
So in a lot of ways they are kind of like cultural anthropologists of the past.
They do this by excavating the remains they left behind and interpreting the artifacts
and features in order to deduce these cultural behaviors of cultures that are now extinct.
There is actually one more subfield that crosscuts the four main or traditional subfields, which
is called applied anthropology.
Applied anthropology is the use of anthropological practices and methods in the everyday world,
in business, healthcare, design, marketing, etc.
The most commonly applied anthropology is cultural, but all four subfields can be applied
in different ways.
Physical anthropology is applied in the design of cars, seats, as well as things like baby
food.
Forensic Anthropology is applied anthropology.
Archaeological applications include things like when a shopping mall is built, individuals
have to go out and excavate and make sure that there aren’t any Native American remains
where that new development is going to be made.
So there are many different ways in which anthropology can be applied.
I hope this has given you a good view of what anthropology is in a nutshell and I look forward
to you learning more about it.