1. SOC 111 Introduction to Anthropology
WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?

2. What Is Anthropology? Human Diversity General Anthropology
The Subdisciplines of Anthropology
Anthropology and Other Academic Fields
Applied Anthropology
The Scientific Method

3. What Is Anthropology?
What distinguishes anthropology from other fields that study human beings?
How do anthropologists study human diversity in time and space?
Why is anthropology both scientific and humanistic?

4. How does culture affect growth?
What is proper behavior for boys and girls?
What kind of work should men and women do?
Where should people live? How should they spend their leisure time?
What role should religion play?
How should people relate to their family, friends and neighbors?

5. Genetic attributes are important in terms of growth and development, but human biology is plastic (malleable).
Culture is an environmental force that affect our development as much as nutrition, climate and altitude.
Culture also affects our emotional and cognitive growth and determine our personalities.

6. Anthropology is the social science that provides cross-cultural perspective.
It aims to study not only our own kind but also others in order to grasp entire human behavior.
One culture cannot tell us everything we ned to know about what it means to be “human”.

7. Culture is invisible
It is assumed to be normal, we don’t realize it until it is placed in comparison to another culture.
Remember the fish in water!
Anthropology studies other places as well as other times. Exploration of human diversity in time and space.

8. What Is Anthropology?
Anthropology: the study of the human species and its immediate ancestors
Uniquely comparative and holistic: encompassing past, present, and future; looks at biology, society, language, and culture
Cultures: traditions and customs, transmitted through learning, that form and guide the beliefs and behavior of the people exposed to them

9. Children learn culture through enculturation
Children learn culture through enculturation. By growing up in a particular society.
Cultural traditions include customs and opinions, developed over generations, about proper and improper behavior.
Remember the questions we asked at the beginning!

10. Creativity, adaptability and flexibility are basic human attributes.
Human diversity is the subject matter of anthropology.
Anthropology requires a comparative examination of all societies, ancient and modern, simple and complex.

11. Adaptation, Variation, and Change
Adaptation: the process by which organisms cope with environmental forces and stresses
Humans adapt using biological and cultural means

12. Adaptation to high altitude
Andes of Peru, Himalayas of Tibet and Nepal
Genetic adaptation: larger chest and lungs
Long-term physiological adaptation during body’s growth and development
Immediate adaptation: increased breathing and heart rates

13. Cultural adaptation: using technology to balance air pressure; such as an airplane cabin equipped with oxygen masks.
Humans devise diverse ways of coping with changing environments.

14. Recap 1.1

15. Adaptation, Variation, and Change
Rate of change accelerated during past 10,000 years
Foraging was the sole basis of human subsistence for millions of years
It took only a few thousand years to develop food production: cultivation of plants and domestication (stockbreeding) of animals

16. The industrial revolution.
Spread of industrial production has affected human life. Each economic revolution comes with social and cultural repercussions.
Consider changing family forms. How is today’s family different from that a hundred years ago?

17. “Give Me a Hug”
The world’s nations and cultures have strikingly different notions about displays of affection and personal space
Such bodily movements illustrate culture
Amy L. Best: The teenage embrace is more a reflection of the overall evolution of the American greeting

18. General Anthropology
General anthropology: the academic discipline of anthropology, also known as “four-field” anthropology, includes:
Sociocultural (cultural anthropology)
Archaeological
Biological
Linguistic

19. General Anthropology Developed as scientific field in U.S.
Early American anthropologists studying native peoples of North America combined studies of customs, social life, language, and physical traits in the 19th century

20. General Anthropology
Subdisciplines explore variations in time and space
Influence each other
Sound conclusions about human nature cannot be derived from studying a single nation, society, or cultural tradition

21. Anthropology’s Four Fields
Biological
Anthropology
Archaeology
Cultural
Anthropology
Linguistic
Anthropology
Economic ant.
Political ant.
Medical ant.
Psychological ant.
Ethnobotany
Development ant.
Cultural change
Feminist ant.
Primatology
Descriptive/
Structural
Linguistics
Paleoanthropology
Historical
Linguistics
Prehistoric
Archaeology
Historic
Archaeology
Contemporary
Human
Variation
Sociolinguistics
Underwater
Archaeology

22. Where the Subfields Come In: Disciplinary Holism
Physical Anthropology: The comparative study of all aspects of human biology, fossil hominids, and contemporary human variation
Linguistics: The comparative study of spoken language and its relationship to culture
Cultural Anthropology: The comparative study of culture and of cultures
Archaeology: The comparative study of past cultures from their material remains.

23. Tying the Four Fields Together: Culture
Physical Anthropology: Our biological capacity for culture
Linguistics: the communication base of culture
Archeology: The reconstruction of cultures of the past from our trash and ruins
Cultural Anthropology: Cultures of the recent past, present
And of the future

24. Tying The Subfields to Culture: Physical Anthropology
Our brain:
Source of our language
Source of our tool-making ability
Our Lungs and Mouth: Our ability to speak
Our Arms and Hands: Our ability to make and use tools
Our Bipedal Skeleton: Our ability to stand, walk, and ability to do all of the above

25. Tying the Subfields to Culture: Linguistics
We learn everything through language:
Even the blind and deaf (Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan)
We can think of things not tangible: math equations, things not present or nonexistent
We can produce new words, from blip to iPod

26. Tying the Subfields to Culture: Archaeology
Comparative study primarily of cultural remains of human societies
Even stone tools are hard to identify (above)
Human and prehuman physical remains are also important
(Did Neanderthals mate with humans? (below)

27. Anthropology is Comparative
It involves comparison
Between diverse cultures
That are still around today
Of the recent past
“Ethnographic present”
Between reconstructed cultures
Between related apes and humans (fossil and modern)
What can we learn from comparison?

28. The Point of Comparison: Science
All science involves comparison
We have money and markets
Tribesmen have done without money for millennia—and markets
Yet reciprocity—exchange of goods and services—is everywhere

29. What Does Comparison Tell Us?
Tribesmen usually can produce all they need
We can get everything we need only by trade
Trade means markets—and money
Tribesmen do exchange goods—but they can survive without trade

30. Comparison: Anthropology Vs. Other Disciplines
Economics: Focus is on industrial societies
Sociology: Social relations in industrial societies
Psychology: Study of hang-ups in industrial societies
Anthropology provides data on all these aspects
Across all cultures around the world.

31. Explaining Cultures Popular Approaches Religious Beliefs Ethnocentrism
Culture Bound Approaches
Scientific Approaches
Humanistic Approaches

32. Cultural Forces Shape Human Biology
Biocultural: inclusion and combination of biological and cultural perspectives and approaches to solve a particular issue or problem
Culture: a key environmental force in determining how human bodies grow and develop
Cultural standards of attractiveness and propriety influence participation and achievement in sports

33. Football
Who plays football?
How does it alter human physiology?
Who goes to football games?
Swimming in Brazil

35. Cultural Anthropology
Describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains social and cultural similarities and differences
Ethnography: fieldwork in a particular culture; provides an account of that community, society, or culture
Ethnology: comparative, cross- cultural study of ethnographic data, society and culture

36. Recap 1.2: Ethnography and Ethnology—Two Dimensions of Cultural Anthropology

37. Archaeological Anthropology
Archaeological anthropology: the study of human behavior and cultural patterns and processes through the culture’s material remains
Artifacts (potsherds, jewelry, tools)
Garbage
Burials
Remains of structures

38. Archaeological Anthropology
Many archaeologists examine paleoecology
Ecology: the study of interrelations among living things in an environment
Possible to infer cultural transformations
Reconstruct behavior patterns and lifestyles of the past

39. Archaeological Anthropology
Archaeologists also study the cultures of historical and living people
Historical archaeology combines archaeological data with textual data to reconstruct historically known groups
Rathje’s “garbology” shows that what people report may contrast with their real behavior

40. Biological, or Physical, Anthropology
Biological anthropology: the study of human biological variation in space

41. Biological Anthropology
Human evolution (paleoanthropology)
Human genetics
Human growth and development
Human biological plasticity
Biology, evolution, behavior, and social life of monkeys, apes, and other nonhuman primates (primatology)

42. Linguistic Anthropology
Linguistic anthropology: the study of language in its social and cultural context across space and time
Historical linguists reconstruct ancient languages and study linguistic variation through time
Sociolinguistics: investigates relationships between social and linguistic variation

43. Why Cultural Anthropology? Tylor’s Answer
E.B. Tylor (1871) wrote that:
“Knowledge from remote past
Helps us to forecast the future and to
Fulfill our duty to leave the world better than we found it”
Today we know more than Tylor and his colleagues did
Can ask more specific research questions than they could
Provide some insight about the trajectory of our own society—well, we would hope so anyway!

44. Why Cultural Anthropology? To beat Ethnocentrism
We see other cultures through
Our own 3-D cultural lenses
Everyone judges other cultures in terms of their own
This is ethnocentrism
Anthropologists learn to judge a culture
By that culture’s standards

45. Why Cultural Anthropology: To apply the ethnographic record
To see what has been done about problems besetting all cultures
To see if addressing problems in the past can be applied to today’s cultures
To see what will happen if we continue what we are doing now
To see what could be done to improve society
(Ignoring the homeless as in this cartoon is not one such solution)

46. Components of Culture Subsistence: How People Make a Living
Marriage, Family, and Kinship
Economic Anthropology
Political and Legal Anthropology
Psychological Anthropology
Anthropology of the Supernatural
Globalization and Culture Change

47. We humans meet basic needs in different ways
Ways of getting food, shelter, clothing
Ways of controlling ourselves (and others)
Ways of explaining the universe (including what happens after death)
Different cultures have different answers
Anthropological Job Description: Recording and explaining these differences.

48. The Scope of Anthropology
Anthropology, a discipline of infinite curiosity about human beings.
Broader in scope than other disciplines
Every part of the world containing human populations is of interest to anthropological study.

49. The Relevance of Anthropology
In order to understand humans, it is essential that we study humans in all times and places.
Anthropological studies can illustrate why other people are the way they are, both culturally and physically.

50. Anthropology and Other Academic Fields
Anthropology is a science: a field of study that seeks reliable explanations with reference to the material and physical world
Unique blend of biological, social, cultural, linguistic, historical, and contemporary perspectives
Also linked to humanities

51. Anthropology and Other Academic Fields
Cultural Anthropology and Sociology
Share an interest in social relations, organization, and behavior
Sociologists focused on industrial West, anthropologists on nonindustrial societies
Different methods of data collection and analysis emerged
In many areas and on many topics, anthropology and sociology are converging

52. Anthropology and Other Academic Fields
Anthropology and Psychology
Psychological anthropology studies cross-cultural variations in psychological traits
Malinowski’s study of Trobriand Islanders of the South Pacific

53. Figure 1.1: The Location of Trobriand Islands53

54. Anthropology and Other Academic Fields
Applied anthropology: application of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems
Usually called public archaeology

55. Applied Anthropology
Includes cultural resource management, contract archaeology, public educational programs, and historic preservation
Cultural resource management (CRM): decide what needs saving, and preserve significant information about the past when sites cannot be saved

56. Theories, Associations, and Explanations
Theory: a set of ideas formulated to explain something
Association: an observed relationship between two or more measured variables
Hypotheses: suggested but as yet unverified explanations
In social sciences, associations are usually stated in the form of probability

57. The Scientific Method
In social sciences, associations are usually stated in form of probability
Theories suggest patterns, connections, and relationships that may be confirmed by new research

58. When Multiple Variables Predict
How has variable exposure to television affected Brazilians?
Current viewing level and length of home TV exposure
Strong correlation between liberal social views and current viewing hours
Stronger correlation between years of home viewing by individuals and liberal social views

59. Recap 1.3: Steps in the Scientific Method