ANTHROPOLOGY - Nature, branches, perspectives & goal

 CULTURE - all the ways of life including arts, beliefs and Institutions of a population that are passed
down from generation to generation
 ORIGIN - the point or place where something begins or is created.
 BEHAVIOR - It is what a person does to make something happen, to make something change or to keep
things the same.

ANTHROPOLOGY
 It is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and
linguistics in both the present and past including past human species.
 The word "anthropology" comes from the Greek anthropos ("human") and logia ("study"). Anthropology is
the study of people everywhere - today, yesterday, and long ago.

WHO IS THE FATHER OF ANTHROPOLOGY?

 Franz Boas is regarded as both the "father of modern anthropo1logy" and the "father of
American anthropology." He was the first to apply the scientific method to anthropology,
emphasizing a research-first method of generating theories.

NATURE OF ANTHROPOLOGY
 Anthropology is a dynamic subject, characterized by rapid change and diversification, So
that the present statement or any particular moment in time.
 A subject is concerned with the study of the social, cultural and biological diversity of humans.
 It can be divided into a number of specialization, although the boundaries between these are rarely exclusive
and change overtime.
 Study of humans and their ways of life from a global inflationary perspective.

BRANCHES OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Physical Anthropology
Archeology Anthropology
Linguistic Anthropology
Cultural Anthropology

1. PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
 Branch of anthropology concerned with the origin, evolution, and diversity of people. Physical
anthropologists work broadly on three major sets of problems: human and nonhuman primate evolution,
human variation and its significance (see also race), and the biological bases of human behaviour.
 Deals with the evolution of humans, their variability, and adaptions to environmental stresses.
2. LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
 Linguistic anthropology studies the nature of human languages in the context of those cultures that
developed them. Scholars in the field seek to understand the social and cultural foundations of language
itself, while exploring how social and cultural formations are grounded in linguistic practices.
 Linguistic anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life.

What is an example of linguistic anthropology?

An example of linguistic anthropology is the study of how modern English came to be created. It descended
from a Proto-Germanic Language through an Anglo-Frisian language

3. CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
 Cultural anthropologists study how people who share a common cultural system organize and shape the
physical and social world around them, and are in turn shaped by those ideas, behaviors, and physical
environments. Cultural anthropology is hallmarked by the concept of culture itself.
 Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation.
Examples of cultural anthropology include:
Exploring how language is learned and shared between cultures through linguistics.
4. ARCHEOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY
 Archaeological anthropology is the study of past humans and cultures through material remains. It
involves the excavation, analysis and interpretation of artifacts, soils, and cultural processes.
  Examples of types of archaeological sites include campsites, caves, past settlements, monuments,
workplaces, farms, and many more. The most well-known type of material remains are artefacts. These
are objects that were once created or altered by human behavior.

PERSPECTIVE OF ANTHROPOLOGY
 A hallmark is its holistic perspective, understanding humankind in terms of the dynamic interrelationships
of all aspects of human existence.
 The key anthropological perspectives are holism, relativism, comparison, and fieldwork.

HOLISM
 Holism is the perspective on the human condition that assumes that mind, body, individuals, society, and
the environment interpenetrate, and even define one another. In anthropology holism tries to integrate all
that is known about human beings and their activities.

CULTURAL RELATIVISM
 The guiding philosophy of modern anthropology is cultural relativism—the idea that we should seek to
understand another person's beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their culture rather than our
own.

COMPARATIVE OR COMPARISON
 This is the comparative perspective, the attempt to explain both the similarities and differences among
people in the context of humanity as a whole. Anthropology seeks to uncover the principles governing
human behavior that are applicable to all human communities, not just to a select few of them.

FIELDWORK
 Why is it important to anthropology? Fieldwork is among the most distinctive practices anthropologists
bring to the study of human life in society. Through fieldwork, the social anthropologist seeks a detailed
and intimate understanding of the context of social action and relations.

GOAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY
 discover what makes people different from one another.
 Discover what all people have in common.
 Look at your/our own culture more objectively, like an outsider.
 Produce new knowledge and new theories about humankind and human behaviors.
 To understand both our shared humanity and diversity, and engaging with diverse ways of being in the world.

BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
 trace the evolution of our lineage through time in the fossil record, and provide a comparative perspective
on human uniqueness by placing our species in the context of other living organisms.

ARCHEOLOGY ANTHROPOLOGY
 Reconstructing the material world of past societies as fully as possible.
 interpreting the historical significance and cultural meaning of that material world

SOCIAL-CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
 to study the diversity of human societies in time and space, while looking for commonalities across them.

LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY
 to understand the social and cultural foundations of language itself, while exploring how social and
cultural formations are grounded in linguistic practices.

IMPORTANCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY
 Studying anthropology fosters broad knowledge of other cultures, skills in observation and analysis,
critical thinking, clear communication, and applied problem-solving. Anthropology encourages us to
extend our perspectives beyond familiar social contexts to view things from the perspectives of others.