The Four Subfields

Many scholars argue that modern anthropology developed during the Age of Enlightenment, a cultural movement of 18th century Europe that focused on the power of reason to advance society and knowledge. Enlightenment scholars aimed to understand human behavior and society as phenomena that followed defined principles.

Anthropologists generally regard Herodotus, a Greek historian who lived in the 400s bc, as the first thinker to write widely on concepts that would later become central to anthropology.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

The Origin of Anthropology The word anthropology dates back to the late 16th century, but it was not until the 19th century that it was applied to the academic discipline that now bears its name.

• Archaeology. Archaeologists study human culture by analyzing the objects people have made.
• Biological Anthropology.
• Cultural Anthropology.
• Linguistic Anthropology.

5 Most Branches of Anthropology – Discussed!

• Physical Anthropology: Before understanding the social, cultural and lingual nature of man, it is necessary to understand him as a biological organism.
• Linguistic Anthropology:
• Socio-Cultural Anthropology:
• Ethnology:
• Archaeological Anthropology:

There are now four major fields of anthropology: biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology. Each focuses on a different set of research interests and generally uses different research techniques.

Anthropologists are skilled in deconstructing generalizations, stereotypes, and searches for universal laws. They produce knowledge of relevance to significant contemporary issues, which is of value to government, policy makers, businesses, technology developers, health care providers, teachers, and the general public.

Educational anthropologists try to focus on education and multiculturalism, educational pluralism, culturally relevant pedagogy and native methods of learning and socializing. Educational anthropologists are also interested in the education of marginal and peripheral communities within large nation states.

Rather, a professional, or scientific, perspective represented in anthropology emphasises the need to understand what humans do and how they interpret their own actions and world-views. This approach, known as cultural relativism, is an essential methodological tool for studying local life-worlds on their own terms.

Cultural anthropology, a major division of anthropology that deals with the study of culture in all of its aspects and that uses the methods, concepts, and data of archaeology, ethnography and ethnology, folklore, and linguistics in its descriptions and analyses of the diverse peoples of the world.

The definition of cultural anthropology is the study of past and present societies and the language, traditions, customs, and behavior that are both similar or different from one to another. An example of cultural anthropology is ethnology.

The aim of cultural anthropology is to document the full range of human cultural adaptations and achievements and to discern in this great diversity the underlying covariations among and changes in human ecology, institutions and ideologies.

Physical or biological anthropology deals with the evolution of humans, their variability, and adaptations to environmental stresses. Using an evolutionary perspective, we examine not only the physical form of humans – the bones, muscles, and organs – but also how it functions to allow survival and reproduction.

Anthropologists fundamentally view the world through a unique lens, and their ability to see what others do not is fostered through anthropological methodologies, approaches, and ideas. The physical reality is the same; the lens is different.