1. What Is Anthropology and Why Should I Care?
Chapter 1
What Is Anthropology
and Why Should I Care?

2. What is Anthropology?
What about Cultural Anthropology?

3. Anthropology The scientific and humanistic study of human beings
Encompasses:
the evolutionary history of humanity
physical variation among humans
the study of past societies
comparative study of current day human societies and cultures

4. Society
A group of people who depend on one another for survival or well-being
A set of social relationships among people
Contains statuses and soles
Contains institutions
Occupy geographic locations

5. Culture
The learned behaviors and symbols that allow people to live in groups
The primary means by which humans adapt to their environment
The ways of life characteristic of a particular human society
Body Ritual among the Nacirema

6. Goal of Anthropology
Describe, analyze, and explain different cultures to show how groups live in different physical, economic, and social environments, and to show how members give meaning to their lives.

8. Holistic Approach
Anthropologists bring a holistic approach to understanding and explaining.
Anthropology combines the study of human culture, history, language, and biology to understand human societies.
Holism separates anthropology from other academic disciplines which generally focus on one factor as the explanation for human behavior.

9. Anthropologists generally focus on typical characteristics of a population.
When describing a group of people, anthropologists may discuss:
the history of the area in which they live,
the physical environment,
the organization of family life,
the general features of their language,
their political and economic systems,
their religion,
their diet, or
their styles of art and dress.

10. Sub-disciplines of Anthropology
Cultural anthropology
Anthropological linguistics
Archaeology
Biological or physical anthropology

11. Cultural Anthropology
The study of human thought, behavior, and lifeways
Cultural anthropologists attempt to understand culture through the study of its origins, development, and diversity.
Sex, After or before emotional connection?
Breastfeed, Your own or your neighbor’s as well?
Loved dies, Bury her or eat her?
Why is this important?

12. Cultural Anthropology
Ethnography is the description of society or culture.
An emic ethnography attempts to capture what ideas and practices mean to members of a culture.
An etic ethnography describes and analyzes culture according to principles and theories drawn from the Western scientific tradition such as ecology, economy, or psychology.

13. Archaeology
The key focus of archaeology is to look at the material remains people leave behind to try to infer their cultural patterns from it.
Archaeology is about interpreting patterns to provide insights into the lives and cultural ways of other people in other times.

14. Anthropological Linguistics
The study of language and its relation to culture
Humans have a huge number of words and complex patterns that we use to put them together.
We form communities of speech.
The use of complex language is central to being a human being.

15. Physical or Biological Anthropology
Physical and biological anthropologists study humans as physical and biological entities.
All human culture rests on a biological base.

16. Human Paleontology
Human paleontologists search for fossils to discover and reconstruct the evolutionary history of our species.
They extract biological and chemical data from ancient bones or from living humans to help discover the biological histories of humanity and the relationships among different human groups.

17. Primatology Humans are primates.
Other primates: apes, Old World and New World monkeys, and prosimians
Biologically very close to us
We share about 98% of our genes with our closest ape relations.
Studying these relatives may give us insights into the behavior of our evolutionary ancestors.

18. Applied Anthropology
The application of anthropology to the solution of human problems
Forensic anthropology – uses the tools of physical anthropology to aid in the identification of skeletal or badly decomposed human remains
Forensic anthropologists identify the victims of crimes, warfare, and genocide.

19. Anthropology and Other Social Sciences
Anthropology focuses on understanding other groups of people.
Anthropology attempts to observe, collect, record, and understand the full range of human cultural experience.
Anthropology presents many useful ways of thinking about culture.