ANTHRO 101 Terms

Archaeology

The study of the human experience, past, present, and future. Archaeologists use excavation to locate artifacts and understand the people and cultures of the past. Archaeologists work alongside ethnographers, linguists, and other trained researchers.

Physical anthropology

The study of the human experience, past, present, and future. Physical anthropologists examine the human experience from an evolutionary perspective, tracing back millions of years to the emergence of bipedalism, when our earliest ancestors first walked on two legs.

Linguistic anthropology

The study of the human experience, past, present, and future. Linguists focus on language to understand people and the relationships among language, writing, symbols, reading, and everything in our environment. A linguist will use anthropology’s tools and methods, and is not limited to a solely language approach.

Cultural anthropology

The study of the human experience, past, present, and future. Cultural anthropologists study all aspects of the human experience and rely on people’s accounts through intensive observation and data collection methods known as ethnography. Cultural anthropologists also attempt to put themselves in others’ shoes and engage in what is called participant observation.

Theory

Ideas, views, frameworks, and interpretations that help researchers understand the people and culture they study. Large data sets and evidence should always support a theory, whereas initial observations typically support a hypothesis.

Method

Methods or methodologies are how anthropologists practice skills and techniques with their hands.

Excavation

The archaeologists’ primary method of collecting data. It involves digging well-controlled layers into the earth while documenting all evidence of culture.

Race

What we look like, our phenotypes, the result of our combined genes, traits resulting from environmental forces inherited from our parents.

Ethnicity

The cultural values and practices that people of different races share. Example: Mexicans can be of other races, yet still eat the same foods, enjoy the same music, and practice similar faiths.

Ethnography

A written account of a people, culture, or society. The primary method of the cultural anthropologist. A good ethnography will always include both etic and emic perspectives.

Ethnographer

A researcher who utilizes ethnography to understand people.

Franz Boas

The Father of North American Anthropology, argued that anthropologists must be out in the field and collect as much data as possible to understand people. Developed the four fields of anthropology and claimed no real linkages between race and intelligence. All people, regardless of race, can learn, and people and culture are products of their environment, according to Boas.

Racism

The belief that one individual or group is superior to another group based on race. When motivated by racial animus, racist individuals tend to ridicule, seclude, and physically hurt those seen as inferior.

White Supremacy

A widespread belief that the White race was superior to Native Americans and Black people of Africa. It led to the killing of Native Americans and the slave trade, both of which were profitable and upheld by racism.

Participant observation

A research method that requires the researcher to become involved in the group they study to attain an insider’s perspective.

Etic (point of view)

The perspective of the researcher/anthropologist- the outsider point of view.

Emic (point of view)

The perspective of the study group- the Native point of view.

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one individual or group is superior to another group based on one’s own native culture (set of standards); being ethnocentric. Ethnocentrism is a product of enculturation and is found in all humans and societies.