What does Anthropology Means? Physical, Social and Cultural Anthropology. - Definitions?

Question

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Answer 1

anthropology means the study of humans
human society
culture
etc

good luck

Answer 2

The answer probably is dependent on where you went to school. In the US, we have four fields to anthropology:

Cultural Anthropology: The study of contemporary cultures, usually through participant observation and ethnographies.

Physical or Bio Anthropology: The study of the human structures, human evolution, primatology, forensic anthropology, osteology, population genetics, etc. Also ties into ergonomics.

Linguistics: The structure, formation and symbolism in languages. Don't know much about this, as my school doesn't have a linguist in the department.

Archaeology: The study of material culture. I know this is going to upset some traditionalists, but in many institutions this no longer means just past cultures, but also includes subfields, such as garbology which is specific to contemporary society.

Some institutions have moved more numbers-heavy studies into a separate department, such as Stanford University has. This is probably what is meant as Social Anthropology by academics, but is a methodological split rather than a subject area split. You get more number crunching and statistical analyses in social anthropology, and not as much in cultural anthropology. However, I've seen the two used interchangably.

There is also argument for a "fifth field" of Applied Anthropology which takes elements of all four fields and uses them to enact (hopefully) positive change in the community. This is generally not a path to academic prestige, but very rewarding in a personal way.

Note that it is unusual to have an anthropology program that includes more than one or two of the fields of study, and the name of a given degree or program will reflect the approach taken by the department.

Answer 3

Physical anthropology is the branch that concentrates on the biology and evolution of humanity. The branches that study the social and cultural constructions of human groups are variously recognized as belonging to cultural anthropology (or ethnology), social anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and psychological anthropology.

Social-cultural anthropology examines the various ways in which learned techniques, values, and beliefs are transmitted from one generation to the next and acted upon in different situations.

Answer 4

Anthropology, the study of humans and human ancestors, is traditionally divided into four subfields: sociocultural anthropology, physical anthropology, archaeology and linguistic anthropology. The linguistic anthropology subfield, which focused on how humans communicate with one another, has been somewhat absorbed by the sociocultural subfield in recent decades. Studies in sociocultural anthropology have in the past included comparisons of kinship systems, descriptive ethnographic work, symbolic studies, etc. Physical anthropologists have also been called biological anthropologists. They study the biological aspects of humans and other primates. Archaeologists study the material remains of past societies (or the material remains of past incarnations of current societies). Today, some anthropologists combine expertise from more than one subfield in order to strengthen their research.

Answer 5

an-thro·pol·o·gy (nthr-pl-j) KEY

NOUN:

The classification and analysis of humans and their society, descriptively, culturally, historically, and physically. Its unique contribution to studying the bonds of human social relations has been the distinctive concept of culture. It has also differed from other sciences concerned with human social behavior (especially sociology) in its emphasis on data from nonliterate peoples and archaeological exploration. Emerging as an independent science in the mid-19th cent., anthropology was associated from the beginning with various other emergent sciences, notably biology, geology, linguistics, psychology, and archaeology. Its development is also linked with the philosophical speculations of the Enlightenment about the origins of human society and the sources of myth. A unifying science, anthropology has not lost its connections with any of these branches, but has incorporated all or part of them and often employs their techniques.

Anthropology is divided primarily into physical anthropology and cultural anthropology. Physical anthropology focuses basically on the problems of human evolution, including human paleontology and the study of race and of body build or constitution (somatology). It uses the methods of anthropometry, as well as those of genetics, physiology, and ecology. Cultural anthropology includes archaeology, which studies the material remains of prehistoric and extinct cultures; ethnography, the descriptive study of living cultures; ethnology, which utilizes the data furnished by ethnography, the recording of living cultures, and archaeology, to analyze and compare the various cultures of humanity; social anthropology, which evolves broader generalizations based partly on the findings of the other social sciences; and linguistics, the science of language. Applied anthropology is the practical application of anthropological techniques to areas such as industrial relations and minority-group problems. In Europe the term anthropology usually refers to physical anthropology alone.

Answer 6

Physical anthropology would study the physical nature of humans, like bones and things, the structure of human bodies.

Cultural & social would be more interested in their systems of living, government, how their societies operated, etc.

Answer 7

1. study of humankind: the study of humankind in all its aspects, especially human culture or human development. It differs from sociology in taking a more historical and comparative approach