Anthropology

Cultural Anthropology

The study of the culture of modern peoples.
Can include modern gatherer-hunters (and often
does) Can also include the study of smaller sub cultures
such as:
 1) Breast cancer survivors
 2) Drug users in New York City
 3) People who play massive multiplayer games online

Archaeology

The study of the past through the use of material
remains (a fancy way of saying trash).
 Ancient stone tools
 Ancient Pottery
 Pollen grains from plants ancient peoples ate/used
 Bones of animals left behind by people
 Modern Garbage (this is rare but some archeologists
do it).

Evolutionary Anthropology

This subfield is tricky to define, but includes those
anthropologists who study of the biology of humans
or do cultural anthropology with a evolutionary
theoretical perspective.
 Study of Human health worldwide
 Study of Mother-child interactions
 Study of modern Apes
 Study of modern human genetics (or genetic
material from past peoples)

The study of human language.
 These anthropologists study how languages have
changed in both modern cultures and cultures of the
past.

Linguistics

Koko the Gorilla

The gorilla that knew sign language

Lewis Henry Morgan

was fascinated by the Iroquois
Native American tribe.
• By comparing various cultures around the
world developed an evolutionary
scheme in which a culture moved through
history progressing through stages.
• This scheme was unilineal in nature and
required that a culture posses the ability to
make a certain piece of technology to pass
from one stage to the next.

Armchair Anthropologist

Those early anthropologists who did not do
field work. They, instead, relied on second
hand accounts or simply wrote theory

Charles Lyell

Published Principles of
Geology 1830-1833 in which he
popularized the theory of
uniformitarianism.
• Uniformitarianism is the geological
principal that past geologic events
can be explained by current geologic
phenomena.
• In other words the same things
which occurred in the past are still
occurring today : they are uniform.

Charles Darwin

Published On the Origin of Species
(1859) after his voyage on the HMS Beagle
( note he did field work).
• outlined the process of
Natural Selection in which the
creature best adapted to its
environment is more reproductively
successful than one that is not.
• This would heavily influence
anthropologists and archaeologists.
• We will talk more about him

Herodotus

Coined the term History
• Historia was originally used to describe
a method of inquiry in which a
questions was posed then answered.
• Around the 5th century B.C.
used the term as the study of the
recent past. Though his methods of
data recovery were somewhat suspect
he is often thought of as the first
ethnographer and historian.
• These accounts were somewhat racist,
untrue, and likely insulting to the
people described.
• First Armchair Anthropologist

He coined the term “Survival of
the Fittest” not Darwin.
This concept is very dangerous.
Within it lies the birth of the
Eugenics movement.
We will also talk more about
him.

Herbert Spencer