The Social Sciences: Anthropology

1. The Social Sciences: Anthropology

2. The Social Sciences • Anthropology • Study human life throughout history • Examines biological and cultural diversity • Comparative and holistic • Sociology • Study of the groups and societies humans build and the way social relationships affect behavior • Focuses on groups and social institutions • Psychology • Study of behavior and mental processes in contexts • Focuses on individuals

3. General Anthropology • Study of the whole of human existence: • Past, present, future • Biology, society, language, culture

4. Organized life in groups General Anthropology • Study of the whole of human existence: • Past, present, future • Biology, society, language, culture

5. Traditions and customs that govern beliefs and behaviors Transmitted through learning General Anthropology • Study of the whole of human existence: • Past, present, future • Biology, society, language, culture

6. General Anthropology • Study of the whole of human existence: • Past, present, future • Biology, society, language, culture • Grew during the late 19th century • Influenced by: • Evolutionary theory • Reports from travelers to non-Western societies • Discoveries in biology and geology

7. General Anthropology • Subdisciplines: • Cultural (sociocultural) • Archeological • Biological • Linguistic • Common theme: Humans are biologicaland cultural beings evolving through time

8. Cultural Anthropology • Study society and culture • Explain cultural similarities and differences • What aspects of culture are universal? Generalized? Particular? • Culture is: • Learned (often unconsciously) • Based on symbols • Shared and integrated • Both stable and changing • Forms subcultures • Is exceedingly complex

9. Cultural Anthropology • Ethnography • Based largely on fieldwork • Ethnopicture: an in-depth examination of a particular culture or society

10. Cultural Anthropology • Ethnocentrism: • Judging other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture • Cultural Relativism: • Each culture must be understood in terms of its own values and beliefs • No one culture is better than any other

11. Cultural Anthropology • Ethnology • Based on cross-cultural comparison • Uses data gathered by ethnographers and archaeologists to identify and explain cultural differences and similarities

12. Archaeological Anthropology • Reconstructs behavior and cultural patterns by examining material remains • Traditional archaeology focused on discovering grand sites • Some archaeologists‘going local’ tolook at daily life

13. Archaeological Anthropology • Not always glamorous!

14. Archaeological Anthropology • Not always glamorous!

15. Archaeological Anthropology • Must infer cultural patterns from artifacts and ruins • Non-native materials indicate trade • Buildings give clues about the living conditions

16. Mt. Vernon Distillery Dig

17. Mt. Vernon Distillery Dig

18. Mt. Vernon Distillery Dig

19. Biological Anthropology • Seek to understand human adaptation, variation, and change • Primatology

20. Biological Anthropology • Seek to understand human adaptation, variation, and change • Primatology • Forensics

21. Biological Anthropology • Seek to understand human adaptation, variation, and change • Primatology • Forensics • Genetics

22. Biological Anthropology • Seek to understand human adaptation, variation, and change • Primatology • Forensics • Genetics • Sociobiology

23. Linguistic Anthropology • Initially documented unwritten, ‘disappearing’ languages • Now those languages have been recorded or lost—very few left

24. Linguistic Anthropology • Language is constantly changing • Now broadens view to many types of communication

25. Applied Anthropology • Using anthropological knowledge to solve practical problems • Forensic anthropology • Linguists • Globalization • Garbology