Anthropology (csu)

• Anthropology is the comparative study of culture and society, with a focus on local life.
• Anthropology involves the study of people throughout the world, their evolutionary history, how they behave, adapt to different environments, communicate and socialize with one another.
• Anthropology confronts basic questions of human existence and survival, including how we originated, how we have changed, and how we are changing still.
• Franz Boas proposed that culture and gender roles play just as strong a role as biology in influencing adolescent behavior.
• Franz Boas was a German-born American anthropologist who lived from 1858 to 1942.
• Much of Margaret Mead's research was completed via participation/observation in Samoa and New Guinea.
• Margaret Mead proposed that culture and gender roles play just as strong a role as biology in influencing adolescent behavior.
• Margaret Mead was an American anthropologist who lived from 1901 to 1978.
• Both cultural anthropology and sociology are concerned with biological features and social aspects such as physiology, language, genetic make up, culture, nutritional history, politics, evolution, family, and religion.
• Cultural anthropology is the study of human society and culture, describing, analyzing, interpreting, and explaining social and cultural similarities and differences.
• Ethnography is fieldwork in a particular culture, providing an account of that community, society, or culture.
• Ethnology is the comparative study of ethnographic data, of society and of culture.
• Archaeological Anthropology is the study of human behavior and cultural patterns and processes through the culture’s material remains.
• Archaeology reconstructs behavior by studying material remains such as artifacts, garbage, burials, and remains of structures.
• Archaeologists use paleoecological studies to establish ecological and subsistence parameters within which given groups lived.
• The archaeological record provides a unique opportunity to look at changes in social complexity over thousands and tens of thousands of years.
• Historical archaeology combines archaeological data and textual data to reconstruct historically known groups.
• Biological/ Physical Anthropology is the study of human biological variation in time and space.
• Structural Linguistics investigates the structure of a certain language by looking at lexicon, syntax, morphology.
• Epidemiology is the study of how and why diseases affect different populations in different ways.
• Jane Goodall worked directly with the Leaky family and her specialty was living with and understanding the language and behaviour of chimps.
• Sociolinguistics investigates relationships between social and linguistic variation to discover varied perceptions and patterns of thought in different cultures.
• Linguistic Anthropology is the study of language in its social and cultural context across space and time.
• Examples of famous anthropologists include Louis and Mary Leaky, Jane Goodall, Franz Boaz, and Margaret Mead.
• Primatology is the study of biology, evolution, behavior, and social life of primates.
• Human biological plasticity refers to the body's ability to change as it copes with stresses such as heat, cold, and altitude.
• From his studies, Franz Boas developed his theory of relativism, debunking the prevailing beliefs that Western Civilization is superior to less complex societies.
• Paleoanthropology is a special interest within Biological Anthropology, focusing on human genetics, human growth and development, and human evolution as revealed by the fossil record of humans and non-human primates.
• Franz Boas studied and widely collected information on race, linguistics, art, dance, and archaeology.
• Louis and Mary Leakey are credited with discovering physical evidence to support the evolutionary timeline and much of their discoveries were throughout Africa.
• Human Genetics is the study of human traits.
• Historical linguistics reconstructs ancient languages and studies linguistic variation through time.
• Population Biology is the study of environmental effects and interactions with population characteristics.
• Biological Anthropology draws on Geology, Biology, Zoology, Anatomy, Physiology, Medicine, and public health.