FIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY

THE FOUR FIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGYSOURCE: HAVILAN, PRINS, WALRATH, MCBRIDE.(2007). THE ESSENCE OF ANTHROPLOGY

PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

focuses on humans as biological organisms.

Traditionally, biological anthropologists concentrated

on human evolution, primatology, growth and

development, human adaptation, and forensics.

molecular anthropology, the anthropological study of

genes and genetic relationships

PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Paleoanthropology

• focus on biological changes through time to understand how, when, and why we became the kind of organisms we are today.

• Takes a biocultural approach focusing on the interaction of biology and culture.

Primatology

• Studying the anatomy and behavior of the other primates helps us understand what we share with our closest living relatives and what makes humans unique.

• study of living and fossil primates.

Forensic Anthropology

• the identification of human skeletal remains for legal purposes.

• also investigate human rights abuses such as systematic genocides, terrorism, and war crimes.

Human Growth, Adaptation, and

Variation• Examination of

biological mechanisms of growth as well as the impact of the environment on the growth process.

• physical anthropologists study the impacts of disease, pollution, and poverty on growth.

Though these 160,000-year-old fossil specimens of two adults and one child were first unearthed in Ethiopia in 1997, their discovery was not announced until 2003.

• TABON MAN, THE EARLIEST HUMAN FOSSIL REMAIN IN THE PHILIPPINES WAS DISCOVERED IN PALAWAN. IT IS ESTIMATED TO BE MORE THAN 20,000 Y.O.

The study of other primates provides us with important clues as to what life may have been like for our own ancestors.

FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGYClyde Snow holds the skull of a Kurd who was executed by Iraqi security forces.

Snow specializes is widely known for his work identifying victims of state-sponsored terrorism.

HUMAN GROWTH, ADAPTATION, AND VARIATION

• are responsible for some features of human variation• Example: the enlargement of the right ventricle of the

heart to help push blood to the lungs among the Quechua Indians of highland Peru.

Developmental adaptations

• are short-term changes in response to a particular environmental stimulus.

• For example, a person who normally lives at sea level will undergo a series of physiological responses if she suddenly moves to a high altitude.

Physiological adaptations

ARCHAEOLOGY• THE BRANCH OF ANTHROPOLOGY THAT STUDIES HUMAN CULTURES

THROUGH THE RECOVERY AND ANALYSIS OF MATERIAL REMAINS AND ENVIRONMENTAL DATA.

• MATERIAL PRODUCTS INCLUDE TOOLS, POTTERY, HEARTHS, AND ENCLOSURES THAT REMAIN AS TRACES OF CULTURAL PRACTICES IN THE PAST, AS WELL AS HUMAN, PLANT, AND MARINE REMAINS, SOME OF WHICH DATE BACK 2.5 MILLION YEARS.

To recover very small objects easily missed in excavation, archaeologists routinely process the earth they remove.

Ancient Mayan City of Tikal in Peru

Some archaeological features are best seen from the air, such as this figure of a hummingbird made in prehistoric times on the NazcaDesert of Peru.

“Ice Man”, Tyrolean Alps, Italy, 1991

Mummified body of a man who lived 5,200 years ago

CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

•IT IS PART OF ACTIVITIES LEGISLATED TO PRESERVE IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF A COUNTRY’S PREHISTORIC AND HISTORIC HERITAGE.

LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGYstudies human languages

Linguists may deal with

the description of a language

the history of languages

the relation between

language and culture.

English is one of a group of languages in the Germanic subgroup of the Indo-European family

ALL PRIMATES, INCLUDING HUMANS, COMMUNICATE WITH GESTURES OR BODY LANGUAGE INCLUDING FACIAL EXPRESSION.

Other primates communicate through nonlanguage vocal

systems

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

• IS THE STUDY OF CUSTOMARY PATTERNS IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR, THOUGHT, AND FEELINGS.

• FOCUSES ON HUMANS AS CULTURE-PRODUCING AND CULTURE-REPRODUCING CREATURES

CULTUREThe (often

unconscious) standards by which

societies—structured groups of people—

operate. These standards are

socially learned, rather than acquired

through biological inheritance.

TWO MAIN COMPONENTSEthnography

Detailed description of a particular culture primarily based on

fieldwork, which is the term anthropologists use for on-

location research.

EthnologyThe study and analysis of different cultures from a

comparative or historical point of view, utilizing ethnographic accounts and developing

anthropological theories that help explain why certain important

differences or similarities occur among groups.

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