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Lecture 1

Lecture 1. The Essence of Anthropology. Outline. The development of Anthropology. What is Anthropology? What do Anthropologists do? How do Anthropologists do what they do?. What Is Anthropology?. The study of humankind everywhere, throughout time.

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Lecture 1

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  1. Lecture 1 The Essence of Anthropology

  2. Outline • The development of Anthropology. • What is Anthropology? • What do Anthropologists do? • How do Anthropologists do what they do?

  3. What Is Anthropology? • The study of humankind everywhere, throughout time. • Seeks knowledge about what makes people different and about what they all have in common.

  4. What Do Anthropologists Do? • Study humans as biological organisms. • Trace the evolutionary developmentof humans. • Investigate biological variation past and present.

  5. How Do Anthropologists Work? • Formulate hypotheses to develop theories supported by data. • Anthropologists do fieldwork to become familiar with situations and recognize patterns in the data.

  6. Fields of Anthropology • Physical Anthropology • Archaeology • Linguistic Anthropology • Cultural Anthropology

  7. Physical Anthropology • Also called biological anthropology. • Focuses on humans as biological organisms, evolution, and human variation. • Analyze fossils and observe living primates to reconstruct the ancestry of the human species.

  8. Cultural Anthropology • The study of customary patterns in human behavior, thought, and feelings. • Focuses on humans as culture-producing and culture-reproducing creatures. • Two main components: ethnography and ethnology.

  9. Archaeology • Studies material remains in order to describe and explain human behavior. • Study tools, pottery, and other features such as hearths and enclosures that remain as the testimony of earlier cultures.

  10. Linguistic Anthropology Studies human languages: • Description of a language - the way a sentence is formed or a verb conjugated. • History of languages - the way languages change over time. • The study of language in its social setting.

  11. Ethnology • Also called sociocultural anthropology. • Concentrates human ideas and practices as they can be seen and experienced. • When possible, the ethnologist becomes ethnographer by living among the people under study.

  12. Anthropology’sComparative Method • Uses the methods of other scientists by developing hypotheses and arriving at theories. • Anthropologists make comparisons between peoples and cultures past and present, related species, and fossil groups.

  13. The Scientific Approach and Anthropology Difficulties: • Objectivity: It is difficult for someone who grew up in one culture to frame objective hypotheses about other cultures. • Validity:The reliability of the ethnographer’s account is not easily validated.

  14. Questions Of Ethics Anthropologists have obligations to: • Those whom they study. • Those who fund the research. • Those in the profession who expect a study to be published so they can further the research in the field.

  15. Assingnment: 1. Read: Haviland, Chapter 2: „The Characteristics of Culture”. 2. Study Alice Fletcher’s fieldwork among the Sioux Indian women in the 1880’s: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/fletcher/fletcher.htm 3. Watch on Youtube: - „Tales from the Jungle: Malinowski OR -”First Contact” (BBC4 Anthropology Season)

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