ANTHROPOLOGY

PRESENTED BY:
1. DOMINIUEL B. NADALA
2. JESSICA R. SARMIENTO
3. ISABELITA E. COMA
4. NERISSA RUBY G. OLIVAR
5. DEXTER A. MANUEL
CONTENTS:
Introduction
History
Characteristics of Anthropology
Vision of Anthropology
Different Fields of Anthropology
Cultural Anthropology
Linguistic Anthropology
Biological Anthropology
Archaeology Dental Anthropology
INTRODUCTION
• Anthropology is a global discipline where
humanities, social, and natural sciences are forced to
confront one another.

• Derived from two Greek words, ‘Anthropos’ mean

MAN & ’logos’ means STUDY/SCIENCE.
• According to Webster the science of human beings;
especially : the study of human beings and their ancestors
through time and space and in relation to physical
character, environmental and social relations, and culture.

• Anthropology seeks to understand and explain why

people do the
things they do and say the things they say.

• It seeks to find the generalities about human life while

also explaining
the differences.
HISTORY
• Some interest in man and his cultures is found in nearly all
human societies, past or present, regardless of their level of
cultural development.

• Anthropology traces its roots to ancient Greek historical and

philosophical writings about human nature and the organization
of human society.

• Herodotus, a Greek historian (400 BC).

• Wrote a book named “HISTORY”,mentioned about different

cultures.
• During the Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries ad)
biblical scholars dominated European thinking on
questions of human origins and cultural development.

• The Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, who lived in the

14th AD, was another early writer of ideasrelevant to
anthropology.

• Both Khaldun and Herodotus produced remarkably

objective, analytic, ethnographic descriptions of the
diverse cultures in the Mediterranean world.
• The European Age of Enlightenment of the 17th and
18th centuries marked the rise of scientific and
rational philosophical thought.
• David Hume, John Locke of England, and Jean-
Jacques Rousseau of France, wrote a number of
humanistic works on the nature of humankind.
• They based their work on philosophical reason rather
than religious authority and askedimportant
anthropological questions.
• Rousseau, for instance, wrote on the moral qualities
of “primitive” societies and about human inequality.
 IMPERIALISM AND
INCREASED CONTACT WITH
OTHER CULTURES
• Europeans came into increasing contact with other
peoples around the
world, prompting new interesting the study of
culture.
• The increasing dominance of global commerce,
capitalist (profit-driven)
economies, and industrialization in late-18th-
century Europe led to vast
cultural changes and social upheavals throughout
the world.
• Europeans suddenly had a flood of new
information about the foreign
peoples encountered in colonial frontiers.
• In early 19th century systematic approach towards the study of
anthropology had started.
• In 1836 Danish archaeologist Christian Thomsen proposed that
three
long ages of technology had preceded the present era in Europe. He
called these the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age.
10
• Modern anthropology, in both its physical and cultural aspects,
begins
roughly with the20th century.
• Anthropology becomes a recognized academic discipline: data on
physical and cultural anthropology are collected by professional
field
workers trained to these tasks.
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
• n 1859 British naturalist Charles Darwin published
his influential book On the
Origin of Species.
• Darwin’s theory was later supported by studies of
genetic inheritance
conducted in the 1850s and 1860s by Austrian monk
Gregor Mendel.
• English social philosopher Herbert Spencer
applied a theory of progressive
evolution to human societies in the middle 1800s.
• He likened societies to biological
organisms, each of which adapted to
survive or else perished.

• Spencer later coined the phrase "survival of

the fittest" to describe this
process.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES
• During the late 1800s many anthropologists
promoted their own
models of social and biological evolution.
• According to Morgan, human societies had evolved
to civilization
through earlier conditions, or stages, which he called
Savagery and
Barbarism.
• Like Morgan, Sir Edward Tylor, a founder of British
anthropology, also
promoted the theories of cultural evolution in the late
1800s.

• Tylor attempted to describe the development of

particular kinds of
customs and beliefs found across many cultures.
• Beals and Harper says “ Anthropology is the study
of origin and
development and nature of human species”
• Thus the subject matter of anthropology includes
the earliest fossil
bones and human like creatures.
• The artefacts and traces left in the earth by our
ancestors and all of the
living or historically described people of the earth.
• Anthropologists take the help from historians and
archaeologists.
• Previously their study was limited to tribal and
small societies but now
They have expanded the field of their study.
• In studying all these they are using many
approaches as methods. These
are
– Holistic Approach
– Participant Method
CHARACTERISTICS OF
ANTHROPOLOGY
a. Transcultural – looks all human groups, large and small; distant
and near.
b. Spans all human history ( ancient and modern) – we must
understand the past to understand the present.
c. Holistic – seeks to demonstrate how aspects of culture are
linked, how they affect one another; seeks to understand
all aspects of human behaviour.
d. Seeks to find the generalities about human life while also
explaining the differences – to do this the examples must
include a transcultural and historical perspective.
e. Seeks to understand and explain why people do the things they
do and say – the goal is to create better understanding
among people.

a.
 VISION OF ANTHROPOLOGY

• It is useful to think of theory as containing four

basic elements:
• Questions
• Assumptions,
• Methods
• Evidence.
HOLISTIC APPROACH
• Through this method study of all possible aspects of
man is done.
• Also study the varieties of people.
• Previously the individual anthropologists tried to be
holistic and cover
all aspects of the subject, but at present there are
different disciplines in
the field of anthropology.
PARTICIPANT METHOD

• Here the anthropologists live in the societies for a

minimum period of one year or more.
• They are concerned with many types of questions
like when, why where, how etc.
• They are curious about typical characteristics of
human population and how and why such people
have varied characteristics through ages.
DIFFERENT FIELDS OF
ANTHROPOLOGY

1. Cultural anthropology – examines cultural diversity of the

present and recent past.
2. Linguistic anthropology – considers how speech varies
with social factors and overtime and space
3. Archaeology– reconstructs behavior by studying material
remains
4. Biological anthropology – study of human fossils,
genetics, and bodily growth and nonhuman primates
1. CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
• Studies the origins of man’s cultures their evolution and
development , and the structure and functioning of human
cultures in every place and time.
• All the cultures interest the cultural anthropologist, for all
contribute some evidence of reactions in cultural forms to the
ever present problems posed by the physical environment.
• Culture includes all behavior of people in their
everyday lives, from daily rituals (for example, washing
dishes) to beliefs about abstract concepts (for example,
time), and is learned and transmitted from one
generation to the next.
• It can be the food people eat, the clothes they wear, the
shelter they live in, how they move from place to place,
how they defend themselves, what they learn, and the
languages they speak.
• Cultural anthropologists are anthropologists who
study both past and present cultures.
2. ARCHAEOLOGY
•Archaeology , the “study of the old”

• Archaeology is the study of the ancient and recent human

past through material remains. It is a subfield of cultural
anthropology.

• Archaeology or prehistory deals primarily with ancient

cultures and with past phases of modern civilizations.
TYPES OF ARCHAEOLOGY
A. Prehistoric archaeology focuses on past cultures that did
not have written language and therefore relies primarily on
excavation or data recovery to reveal cultural evidence.

B. Historical archaeology is the study of cultures that existed

(and may still) during the period of recorded history--several
thousands of years in parts of the Old World.
C. Underwater archaeology studies physical remains of
human activity that lie beneath the surface of oceans, lakes,
rivers, and wetlands.

• It includes maritime archaeology—the study of shipwrecks

in order to understand the construction and operation of
watercraft—as well as cities and harbors that are now
submerged, and dwellings, agricultural, and industrial sites
along rives, bays and lakes.
D. Industrial archaeology - focuses on social change during
and since the Industrial Revolution.

E. Cultural Resource Management archaeology, known as

“CRM” - refers to archaeology that is conducted to comply
with federal and state laws that protect archaeological sites.

• Some of the other specialties within archaeology include:

- urban archaeology,
- bio-archaeology,
- archaeometry and
- experimentalarchaeology.
3. LINGUISTIC
ANTHROPOLOGY
• Linguistic anthropology is devoted to the study of communication,
mainly among humans.

• Linguistic anthropology has three subfields:

a. Historical linguistics , the study of language change over time
and how languages are related.
a.
b. Descriptive linguistics, or structural linguistics, the study of how
contemporary languages differ in terms of their formal structure.

c. Sociolinguistics, the study of the relationships of language.

HOW SOCIOLOGIST STUDY LANGUAGE?

1. Anthropologists' study language in everyday use, or

discourse, and how it relates to power structures at local,
regional and international levels (Duranti 1997).

2. They look at the role of information technology in

communication, including the Internet, social media such as
Facebook, and cell phones.

3. Attention to the increasingly rapid extinction of indigenous

languages and what can be done about it.
ETHNOLOGY
• Ethnology (from the Greek ethnos= nation ) is the branch of
anthropology that compares and analyses the characteristics of
different peoples and the relationship between them.

• Ethnology in its theoretical aspects is devoted very largely to

the problem of explaining the similarities and differences to be
found in human cultures.
ETHANOLOGY
• The scientific analysis of the socio-economic systems and
cultural heritages of the people, of low technological level,
based upon, ethanography and undertaken to reveal the
origins, functioning and processes to change of their cultural
features.

• This is done by using participant method.

• It is concerned with patterns of thought and behaviour such

as marriage, custom kinship organisation, political and
economical systems, religion folk art, music and the ways in
which these patterns differ in contemporary societies.
• Ethanohistorians, investigate written documents to determine
how the ways of life of a particular group of people has
changed over the time.

• The other type of enthanologists is the comparative or cross

sectional researcher who studies the data collected by the
ethanographers andthe ethanohistorians.
4. BIOLOGICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
• Physical/ biological anthropology is the study of the past and
present evolution of the human species and is especially
concerned with understanding the causes of present human
diversity.

• It deals with the exploring of the human origins and human

variation.

• Biological Anthropology looks at the physical or biological

differences (DNA, genes, phenotype) characteristics in humans.
• There are three ways in which Biological/physical
anthropology study human variation and human evolution:

1. human genetics ( traits that are inherited),

2. population biology (environmental impact on humans), and

3. epidemiologist( the study of diseases).

DENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY

• The discipline of dental anthropology can be defined as the

study of teeth and jaws of living or prehistoric people and their
ancestors for insights concerning human behavior, health and
nutritional status, or genetic relationship of populations to one
another.

• Teeth exhibit variables with a strong hereditary component

that are useful in assessing population relationships and
evolutionary dynamics.
• Teeth can also exhibit incidental or intentional
modifications, which reflect patterns of cultural behaviour.

• As the process of tooth formation is highly canalized (i.e.,

buffered from environmental perturbations), developmental
defects provide a general measure of environmental stress on
a population.
WHY STUDY TEETH?

PRESERVABILITY

• Teeth preserve exceptionally well in the archeological record

(due in part to the chemical properties of enamel) and are
frequently the best represented part of a skeletal sample.
OBSERVABILITY

• Most variables of interest to human osteologists can be

observed only in prehistoric and protohistoric skeletal
remains.

• Teeth, on the other hand, can be directly observed and

studied in both skeletal and living populations (e.g., through
intraoral examinations, permanent plaster casts, extracted
teeth).

• Because teeth are observable in both extinct and extant

human groups, they provide a valuable research tool for the
analysis of short-term and long-term temporal trends.
VARIABILITY

• Because teeth are critical in food-getting and food

processing behavior, their development is controlled by a
relatively strict set of genetic developmental programs.

• The dentition interfaces directly with the environment, teeth

are also modified postnatally by physical factors associated
with mastication and disease factors related to the interplay of
dietary elements and a complex oral micro biota.
TEETH AS INDICATORS OF AGE

• An accurate determination of age and gender is fundamental

to any inquiry relating to human skeletal remains in both
archeological and forensic contexts.

• One characteristic of the dentition, which makes teeth useful

in aging individual skeletons, is a predictable sequence of
developmental events, including crown and root formation
calcification and eruption.
• Before the age of 12 years, teeth are the best and most
readily available indicator of age.

• Because tooth wear in adulthood has a strong cultural

component, it is necessary to apply different standards to
spatially and temporally circumscribed populations.
INFERRING HISTORY FROM TEETH

• The derivation of historical relationships from dental data

requires variables with a significant genetic component.

• As most historical analyses focus on tooth size and

morphology, this discussion is limited to metric and
morphologic variables.
TOOTH SIZE

• The studies on human tooth size variation used

measurements such as maximum crown length [mesio-distal
(MD)diameter] and maximum crown breadth[bucco-lingual
(BL)diameter].

• In some instances, measurements are reported for crown

height and inter-cuspal distances, but crown wear must be
minimal or the landmarks used for measurement are
obliterated.
• A comparison of individual crown diameters within a single
population usually shows that male teeth are 2-6% larger than
those of females.

• This dimorphism is most pronounced in canine dimensions.

• In the human dentition, a high degree of dimensional inter-

correlation exists, i.e., the size of one tooth is not independent
of the size of all other teeth.
• In addition to inter-dimensional correlations, crown
diameters are also associated with other variables, including
hypodontia, hyperodontia, and, to some extent,crown
morphology.

• Within European populations, large-toothed (megadont)

individuals are more likely to have supernumerary teeth,
whereas small-toothed (microdont) individuals are more likely
to have missing teeth.
CROWN AND ROOT MORPHOLOGY

• Teeth exhibit two types of morphological variation. First,

there is variation in the form of recurring structures (e.g.,
labial curvature of the upper central incisors).

• However, most morphological crown and root traits that

have been operationally defined take the form of
presence/absence of variables.

• That is, within a population, some individuals exhibit a

particular structure while others do not.
• Morphological root traits are most often defined in terms of
variation in root number; lower molars, for example, can
exhibit one, two, or three roots.

• For most crown and root traits manifested as presence-

absence variables, presence expressions vary in degree from
slight to pronounced.

• Although some morphological variables exhibit significant

sex differences (e.g., the canine distal accessory ridge), the
majority of these traits show similar frequencies and class
frequency distributions for males and females.
TOOTH SIZE AND POPULATION
HISTORY

• Teeth from many human populations, skeletal and living,

have been measured for mesiodistal and bucco-lingual crown
diameters.

• These basic tooth crown dimensions are often broken down

into two components for between-group odontometric
comparisons.
• Although absolute tooth dimensions provide useful
information on relative population relationships, odontometric
comparisons are even more discriminating when tooth shapeis
also takeninto account.

• When the major geographic subdivisions of humankind are

analysed on the basis of simple genetic markers, population
geneticists find that Africans are the most highly
differentiated from all other regional populations.
• Asiatic Indians, Middle Easterners, and Europeans form a
coherent genographic grouping.

• Mainland Asian and Asian-derived groups in the

Americans and the Pacific cluster together at low to
intermediate levels of differentiation.

• Australians remain the most enigmatic population from a

genetic standpoint, with hints of distant historical ties to both
Southeast Asia and Africa.
• In general, when both tooth size and shape are taken into
account, odontometric data provide a useful tool for assessing
population relationships.

• Tooth size variation has also been used to assess temporal

trends in recent human evolution.
 DENTAL MORPHOLOGY AND
POPULATION HISTORY
• Human populations exhibit a great deal of within and
between-group variation in the frequencies of various crown
and root traits.

• The utility of dental morphology in resolving questions of

population history is well illustrated by a problem that has
concerned anthropologists for decades:the question of Native
American origins.
• Turner defined two complexes: Sinodont (North Asian) and
Sundadont (Southeast Asian).

• First, the suite of variables that characterized the Sinodent

complex of north Asians also characterized all Native
American populations.

• Although there is dental variation among New World

populations, it appears that all were derived from ancestral
populations in North Asia.
• Second, Polynesians and Micronesians exhibited crown and
root trait frequencies in accord with the Sunadont pattern, so
the historical inference is that these groups were ultimately
derived from Southeast Asian populations.

• In addition to assessing broad patterns of historical

relationships, dental morphology has also been used to
measure micro-differentiation among local populations within
circumscribed geographic regions.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL INTERFACE:
TEETH AND BEHAVIOR

• Interest here is with alterations of the tooth crown,

which indirectly reflect four classes of human
behavior:
i. Dietary
ii. Implemental
iii. Incidental cultural
iv. Intentional cultural
DIETARY BEHAVIOR

• Since the early 1980s, isotope and trace element analyses of

bone collagen and apatite have been widely used to infer
general characteristics of the diet of earlier human populations.

• Within and between-group variation in attrition may reflect

the nature of food-stuffs being consumed.
• Early hunter-gatherer and agricultural populations are
characterized by rapid rates and pronounced degrees of crown
wear, although the relative contributions of attrition and
abrasion to this wear was probably highly variable.

• Angle of crown wear, rather than absolute degree of wear, may

distinguish groups practicing different subsistence economies
• In addition to crown wear, certain dental pathologies can be
utilized to make inferences about dietary and other cultural
behavior.

• As the constituents of a hunter-gatherer diet did

not generally promote the formation of carious lesions, these
groups are characterized by low caries frequencies.
• With an increased reliance on plant foods and food
preparation techniques, which broke down complex
carbohydrates into simpler sugars, caries rates increased.

• But, despite the fact that carious lesions increased in earlier

agricultural populations, this increase was modest compared
with the extremely high caries rates in modern populations.
• The analysis of caries rates, crown wear, is most informative
when studied in the context of circumscribed geographic
populations.

• Comparisons between prehistoric and modern

populations also show a dramatic rise in caries rates following
the introduction of refined carbohydrates into native diets that
had hitherto consisted primarily of animal products (protein
and fat).
IMPLEMENTAL BEHAVIOUR

• The use of teeth as tools is most commonly associated with

populations particularly Eskimos, this behaviour is not limited
in either time or space.

• Humans throughout history have taken advantage of the

strength, form, and ready availability of their teeth to perform
a variety of functions from carding wool to holding bobby
pins.
• Teeth do not record all instances of tool use, but they can
reflect repetitive behaviours and traumatic episodes.

• In addition to patterns of uniform wear generated by attrition

and abrasion, enamel and dentine can also be removed through
traumatic fracturing.

• Although chipping can be caused by such things as grit

accidentally introduced into food, it is frequently attributed to
using the teeth as tools, especially among Eskimos.
INCIDENTAL CULTURAL
BEHAVIOUR
• Several patterned behaviours, which do not reflect either
implemental use or intentional modification, leave an imprint on
teeth.

• Habitual pipe smokers commonly hold a pipe on either or both sides

of the mouth in the region of the left or right canines. • Another
cultural practice that leaves unintended wear is labret usage.

• The wear pattern produced by labret use is very distinctive; it is

manifest as a polished facet on the labial or buccal surfaces of the
anterior or posterior teeth, respectively. • A thorough perusal of the
ethnographic literature would probably reveal many other cultural
practices that leave unintentional marks on the teeth.
INTENTIONAL CULTURAL
MODIFICATION
• Unlike other animals, however, which make do with the
biological equipment they are provided with, humans can
modify the appearance of their mouths in a variety of ways.

• In others, groups directly modify the appearance of their teeth,

especially the more visible incisors and canines.

• Precious metals can also be inlayed as bands on the labial

surface or around the entire crown.
• The reasons for dental mutilation may be idiosyncratic or
culturally prescribed.

• An interesting and not yet fully exploited anthropological

usage of dental mutilation would be to assess the diffusion of
specific practices from one region to another.
DENTAL INDICATORS OF
ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS

• Anthropologists have long sought methods to estimate

relative levels of environmental stress on earlier human
populations.

• Growth arrest lines in long bones (i.e., Harris or transverse

lines) provide one measure of this phenomenon.
• As dental asymmetry appears to have certain limitations as a
broad scale indicator of comparative stress levels, dental
anthropologists have shifted their attention to the analysis of
irregularities in the tooth crown that arise during amelogenesis
(enamel formation) and dentinogenesis (dentine formation).
• The most readily observed manifestation of such growth
irregularities is linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH), which takes
the form of horizontal circumferential bands and/or pits on the
tooth crown.

• Experimental and clinical evidence shows that a wide range

of phenomenon can disrupt amelogenesis and stimulate
hypoplastic banding/pitting.

• However, the key stimulus in earlier human populations

probably involved some combination of nutritional deficiency
and disease morbidity.
• The numbers of bands and their degree of expression may also
provide insights into the differential treatment of male and
female children or differences in status within a population.
DO YOU WANT TO LEARN
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THANK YOU AND
GOOD DAY…