Overview

ANTHROPOLOGY

• scientific and humanistic study of the human species and its immediate ancestors.
• exploration of human diversity in time and space
• confronts basic questions of human existence: how we originated, how we have changed, and how we are still changing.
• holistic. Holism refers to the study of the whole human condition: past, present and the future; biology, society, language, and culture. Deals on human problems and social change.
• comparative and cross-cultural, systematically compares data from different populations and time periods.
• 4 subfields or subdisciplines: CULTURAL, ARCHAEOLOGICAL, BIOLOGICAL, and LINGUISTIC anthropology

Socio-Cultural Anthropology

Biological/Physical Anthropology

Archaeological Anthropology

Linguistic Anthropology

HUMAN SPECIES

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• Culture is a key aspect of human adaptability and success.
• Cultures are traditions and customs
• transmitted through learning, that guide the beliefs and behavior of the people exposed to them.
Cultural anthropology – examines cultural diversity of the present and the recently past.
Archaeology – reconstructs behavior by studying material remains.
Biological anthropologists – study human fossils, genetics, and bodily growth and development. Also study non human primates (monkeys and apes).
Linguistic anthropology – considers how speech varies with social factors and over time.
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2 dimensions –
1. Academic
2. Applied
Academic (general / theoretical) – ideas/concepts. Ex. 4 subfields of anthropology
Applied anthropology- uses knowledge to identify and solve social problems.
Examples :
• developmental anthropology
• cultural resource management (CRM) –involves preserving significant information about the past and saving sites if still significant and allow destruction if they are not anymore significant.
• forensic anthropology
• study of linguistic diversity in classrooms (sociolinguistics –relation between social and linguistic variation)

INTERDISCIPLINARY/INTERRELATIONSHIPS
1.Sciences
2.Humanities

Natural (e.g.,biology) and Social Sciences (e.g., sociology)

Cross-cultural perspective to the study of

economics
politics
psychology
art
music
literature
society in general

Human Adaptability

Humans – among world’s most adaptable animals.

Adaptability and flexibility – basic human attributes

Human diversity – subject matter of anthropology.

Examples:

Andes of South America – people wake up in villages 16,000 feet above sea level, then travel upward 1,500 ft higher to work in tin mines.

People survive malaria in tropical countries.

Men have walked on the moon.

Most people think that anthropologists study fossils and non industrial, non-Western cultures, and many of them do.
But anthropology is much more than the study of nonindustrial peoples.
It examines all societies –ancient and modern, simple and complex.
Other social sciences focus on a single society like the U.S. or the Philippines.
Anthropology offers a unique cross-cultural perspective by comparing the customs of one society with those of others.

People share society – organized life in groups – with other animals, including wolves, lions, and even ants.

Culture is distinctly human. It is the full range of learned human behavior patterns.

English Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his book, Primitive Culture, published in 1871, said that culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Of course, it is not limited to men. Women possess and create it as well. Since Tylor's time, the concept of culture has become the central focus of anthropology.

Culture is transmitted through learning rather than biological inheritance. Culture is not itself biological, but it rests on certain features of human biology.

Micro Enculturation – process by which people learn traditions by growing up in a particular/limited society.

Questions like-
Mysteries of Human origins/ Hominid biology
Hominids – members of the zoological family that includes fossil and living humans.
When did our ancestors separate from those great aunts and great uncles whose descendants are the apes?
Homo sapiens started when and where?
How has our species changed?
What are we now and where are we going?
Our genus, Homo, has been changing for more than 1 million years.
Humans continue to adapt and change both biologically and culturally.

Adaptation – refers to the processes by which organisms cope with environmental forces and stresses, like those posed by climate and topography (terrains) or landforms.
Humans, like other animals, use biological means or adaptations to fit their environments.
Humans are unique in also having cultural means of adaptation.