Anthropology 101

What is anthropology?

Anthropology is the study of all aspects of humanity.

Subtopics within anthropology

Include but are not limited to…

• Human diversity

• Language

• Family structures

• Social organization (hierarchy etc.)

• Societal pressures/values

• Evolution of human transportation & communication technologies.

The origins of anthropology

Anthropology came from European colonialism. The first anthropologists were a direct result of racism. They studied the behavior and lifestyles of non-Europeans to see what made them “savages”.

Types of Anthropology: Archaeology

The study of objects that were left behind by humans of the past. Ex: pottery, art, tools, food, trash, religious books, etc.

Types of Anthropology: Biological/Physical anthropology

The study of human origins, evolution, and variation. Ex: Neanderthals → Homosapiens

What is evolution?

• Biological Evolution- this is how our bodies changed physically over millions of years. It’s the transition from our primate ancestors to modern humans. Key examples include: walking upright, growing larger brains, losing thick body hair

• Cultural Evolution- how human societies develop more complex ways of living, such as: moving from stone tools to smartphones, shifting from hunting and gathering to farming.

Types of Anthropology

• Paleoanthropology: the study of fossils

• Forensic Anthropology: studying how someone was killed/cause of death.

• Linguistic Anthropology: the study of human language and how it affects our culture and worldview. In other words, it’s the study of how we assign meaning to words and sounds, in a way that’s understood universally.

Subfields of linguistic anthropology: descriptive linguistics

• the study of the sounds used in a language and how they function to change meaning

• The study of how sounds combine to form smallest meaningful units, such as prefixes or suffixes

• The rules for how words form phrases and sentences

• The study of how these structures map to specific meanings within a cultur

Emblems (an anthropology term)

Emblems are specific gestures that have a direct verbal translation and are widely understood within a group. Ex: thumbs up meaning “good”, middle finger being an insult.

Types of anthropology: Cultural Anthropology

Cultural anthropology is the study of living cultures, and the everyday lives of people in their communities, including their behaviors, beliefs, and institutions.

Racialization

Racialization is the process by which social meanings are attached to perceived physical traits (like skin color), and people are categorized accordingly.

Ex: assuming that someone who is white-passing cannot possibly be Spanish.

National Myth

A national myth is a socially constructed narrative that promotes unity and national identity while minimizing violence and conflict.

Ex: Thanksgiving functions as a national myth that obscures colonial violence, because Thanksgiving is celebrated as a happy holiday despite violent historical realities.

Cultural Markers of identity

One cultural marker of identity is language because it shows that culture is dynamic and constantly evolving. An example of this is generational slang, since it varies as time goes on, and one generation might not be able to understand the slang of a younger generation.

Another cultural marker of identity is music preferences, since they can signal generational, racial, regional, or sub-cultural belonging.

Mental Maps of Reality

the term “mental map of reality” usually refers to the shared cognitive frameworks people use to organize and interpret the world.

An example of this is concepts of time: in the U.S, time is often viewed as linear and scheduled (hence the phrase “time is money”). In other societies, time may be seen as cynical or event-based rather than clock based. those two different interpretations of time, make the worldviews of the members of those two societies different.

Mental Maps of Reality

Another example of a mental map of reality is racial categories.