Lesson 2

• Anthropology is the study of humankind, derived from Greek words meaning "human" and "study of". It is an amalgamation of a branch of the natural sciences (biology) and the social science
• Anthropology is partly a natural science and partly a social science
• Physical Anthropology is the study of human biology within the milieu of evolution
• Subdisciplines of Anthropology include:

  • Paleoanthropology: human evolution; earlier hominids
  • Genetics: gene structure; patterns of inheritance of traits
  • Primatology: nonhuman primates
  • Osteology: skeletal remains
  • Paleopathology: traces of disease and injury in human skeletal remains
  • Forensic Anthropology: analysis and identification of human remains
• Cultural Anthropology is the study and comparative analysis of preliterate societies, including all aspects of human behavior
• Subdisciplines of Cultural Anthropology include:

  • Urban Anthropology: issues of inner cities such as poverty, immigration and social stratification
  • Medical Anthropology: relationship between culture and health or diseases
  • Economic Anthropology: distribution of goods and resources within and between cultures
• Linguistic Anthropology is the study of human speech and language as well as the various changes that have taken place over time
• Subdisciplines of Linguistic Anthropology include:

  • Historical Linguistics: attempts to explain how numerous languages have changed in the past and their possible links to one another
  • Archaeology: the study of earlier cultures and ways of life by way of retrieving and examining the material remains of previous human societies
• Economics concentrates on how a society solves its problem of scarcity of resources
• Macroeconomics analyzes how the economy functions as a whole or its basic subdivisions such as the government or business sectors
• Microeconomics focuses on the behavior of individual agents like households, industries and firms
• Geography is the study of the features of the earth and the location of living things on the planet
• Two major branches of Geography are:

  • Physical geography: the study of soil, landforms, water, vegetation, mineral and climate
  • Human geography: views human beings as a fundamental part of the earth’s surface and focuses on their interactions with the environment
• History attempts to ascertain, record and explain facts and events that happened in the past
• History originated from the Greek word meaning "inquiry" and is one of the oldest social sciences
• Linguistics is the scientific study of language as a universal and recognizable aspect of human behavior and capacity
• Linguistics can be divided into three fields:

  • Morphology: the study of language form
  • Syntax: the study on how words are formed into phrases
  • Phonology: the study of sounds of language
• Political Science is the study of governments and the need for the institution its form and processes
• Sociology deals with the systematic study of patterns of human interaction
• Psychology deals with the nature of human behaviors and factors that affect these behaviors
• Demography is the science and statistical study of human population
• Two types of Demography are:

  • Formal demography: deals with fertility, marriage/union formation and dissolution, mortality and migration using specific demographic methods and measures
  • Social demography: uses demographic data in explaining and predicting social phenomena