Chapter 1

The Essence of Anthropology

Chapter Outline
 The Anthropological Perspective
 Anthropology and Its Fields
 Anthropology, Science, and the Humanities
 Fieldwork
 Field Methods
 Anthropology's Comparative Method
 Questions of Ethics
 Anthropology and Globalization
Anthropology

 The study of humankind in all times and

places.
 The focus is the interconnections and
interdependence of all aspects of the human
experience in all places, in the present and
deep into the past, well before written history.
Holistic Perspective

 The idea that the various parts of human culture

and biology must be viewed in the broadest
possible context in order to understand their
interconnections and interdependence.
 A fundamental principle of anthropology which
helps anthropologists avoid the pitfalls of
ethnocentrism.
Culture-Bound

 Theories about the world and reality based on the

assumptions and values of one’s own culture.
 The cross-cultural and long-term evolutionary
perspective of anthropology distinguishes it from
other social sciences and guards against culture-
bound behavior.
The Four Fields of Anthropology

INSERT FIGURE 1.1 P. 5

Applied Anthropology

 The use of anthropological knowledge and

methods to solve practical problems, often for a
specific client.
 Involves collaboration with communities in
order to set goals, solve problems, and
conduct research together.
Medical Anthropology

 An applied specialization in anthropology that

brings theoretical and applied approaches from
cultural and biological anthropology to the study
of human health and disease.
Physical Anthropology

 Also known as biological anthropology.

 The systematic study of humans as biological
organisms.
 Molecular anthropology is a branch of
biological anthropology that uses genetic and
biochemical techniques to test hypotheses about
human evolution, adaptation, and variation.
Paleoanthropology

 The study of the origins and predecessors of the

present human species (human evolutionary
studies).
 Uses a biocultural approach, focusing on the
interaction of biology and culture.
 Genetic analyses indicate that the human line
originated 5 to 8 million years ago.
 Primatology
 The study of living and fossil primates.
– Primates include the Asian and African apes, as
well as monkeys, lemurs, lorises, and tarsiers.
Biologically, humans are members of the ape
family.
 Primatologists designate the shared, learned
behavior of nonhuman apes as culture.
 Tool use and communication systems indicate the
elementary basis of language in some ape
societies.
Human Growth, Adaptation, and
Variation
 Anthropologists examine biological mechanisms
of growth as well as the impact of the environment
on the growth process.
 Physical anthropologists study the impacts of
disease, pollution, and poverty on growth.
 Studies of human adaptation focus on the capacity
of humans to adapt or adjust to their material
environment—biologically and culturally.
Forensic Anthropology

 Subfield of applied physical anthropology that

specializes in the identification of human skeletal
remains for legal purposes.
 Forensic anthropologists use details of
skeletal anatomy to establish age, sex,
population affiliation, and stature of the
deceased.
Cultural Anthropology

 Also known as social anthropology or

sociocultural anthropology.
 The study of customary patterns in human
behavior, thought, and feelings.
 It focuses on humans as culture-producing and
culture-reproducing creatures.
 Involves two main components: ethnography and
ethnology.
Culture

 The standards by which societies operate.

 These standards are socially learned, rather than
acquired through biological inheritance.
 No person is “more cultured” in the
anthropological sense than any other.
Components of Cultural
Anthropology
1. Ethnography is a detailed description of a
particular culture primarily based on fieldwork.
2. Ethnology is the study and analysis of different
cultures from a comparative or historical point of
view, utilizing ethnographic accounts and
developing anthropological theories that explain
why differences or similarities occur among
groups.
Linguistic Anthropology

 Branch of anthropology that studies language.

 Linguists may study:
– The description of a language - how a sentence
is formed, or a verb conjugated.
– The history of languages - how languages
develop and change with the passage of time.
– The relation between language and culture.
Archaeology
 The study of human cultures through the recovery and
analysis of material remains and environmental data.
– Archaeology involves various sub-
specializations such as bioarchaeology (the
archaeological study of human remains),
ethnobotany (the cross-cultural study of
indigenous plants), and zooarchaeology
(tracking animal remains at archaeological
sites).
Cultural Resource Management

 A branch of archaeology that is concerned with

survey and/or excavation of archaeological and
historical remains threatened by construction or
development and policy surrounding protection of
cultural resources.
Empirical

 Based on observations of the world rather than on

intuition or faith.
Hypothesis

 A tentative explanation of the relation between

certain phenomena.
Theory

 In science, an explanation of natural phenomena,

supported by a reliable body of data.
Doctrine

 An assertion of opinion or belief formally handed

down by an authority as true and indisputable.
Fieldwork

 The term anthropologists use for on-location

research.
 Participant observation: in ethnography, the
technique of learning a people’s culture through
participation and personal observation within the
community being studied, as well as interviews
and discussion with members of the group over an
extended period of time.
Field Methods of Archaeology
and Paleoanthropology
 Artifact: any object fashioned or altered by
humans; a form of material culture.
 Site: places containing archaeological
remains of previous human activity.
 Fossil: the preserved remains of plants and
animals that lived in the past.
Dating Techniques in Archaeology
and Paleoanthropology
 Relative dating: techniques that establish the
relationship among a series of remains by
using geological principles to place remains
in chronological order.
 Absolute dating: also called chronometric
dating; establishes actual dates calculated in
years “before the present” by using properties
such as rates of decay of radioactive
elements.
Ethnographic Field Methods
 Key consultant: a member of the society
being studied who provides information to
researchers so that they understand the
meaning of what they observe.
 Informal interview: an unstructured, open-
ended conversation in everyday life.
 Formal interview: a structured question-
answer session based on prepared
questions.
 Eliciting devices: activities and objects used
to draw out individuals to help them recall and
explain.
Comparative Method

 Anthropologists are concerned with the objective

and systematic study of humankind.
 The comparative method is key to all branches of
anthropology.
 Anthropologists make broad comparisons among
peoples and cultures past and present, related
species, and fossil groups.
Anthropological Ethics
 “Anthropological researchers must do everything
in their power to ensure that their research does
not harm the safety, dignity, or privacy of the
people with whom they work, conduct research, or
perform other professional activities.”
 Anthropologists have special obligations to
those whom they study, those who fund the
research, and those in the scientific
community.
Globalization

 Worldwide interconnectedness, evidenced in

global movements of natural resources, trade
goods, human labor, finance capital, information,
and infectious diseases.