3. What Is Anthropology?
As a scholarly discipline, anthropology
straddles the sciences, social studies and
humanities.
4. What Is Anthropology?
What makes anthropology unique is its
holistic approach: the notion that hard
sciences, social sciences and humanities
can all speak to one another within the same
disciplinary tradition.
5. Anthropology recognizes that
almost all phenomena “are
simultaneously real, like
nature, narrated, like
discourse, and collective, like
society.”
6. The Four Fields
What makes human beings unique?
Human Characteristic Anthropological Subfield
Humans shape their material environment Archaeology
Humans differ in their physical form Physical/Biological
Anthropology
Humans have a unique communication Linguistic Anthropology
system
Humans act according to learned knowledge Cultural Anthropology
systems
7. Archaeology
Studies the ways humans
manipulate their material
environment
Examines material environment
of past societies for clues about
their lives
8. Physical Anthropology
Examines the ways
humans are
biologically similar
to and different from
other animals
Primatology
Human Evolution
9. Linguistic Anthropology
How humans use
language to communicate
The spread and
transformation of
language
Language acquisition
Language revitalization
10. Cultural Anthropology
Describes and analyzes the
beliefs people have about
their social and material
worlds, and the ways these
affect human action
