Wat the h**l is anthropology?

Question

thank you all for ur great answers

Answer 1

The study of the line of Human Evolution.

At least, I believe so...

Answer 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropolog...

That should explain x

Answer 3

Anthropology is the study of human beings.

Answer 4

The study of humans.

Though you might be mistaken for thinking it is something to do with evolution.

But evolution is philosophy not science.

Answer 5

Anthropology

You only really need to read the first couple of lines of the cut n paste below..............

============monster cut and paste=================

1. What is anthropology?

Anthropology concerns itself with humans as complex social beings with a capacity for language, thought and culture. The study of anthropology is about understanding biological and cultural aspects of life among peoples throughout the world. All humans are born with the same basic physical characteristics but, depending on where they grow up, each individual is exposed to different climates, foods, languages, religious beliefs, and so on. However, human beings are not simply shaped by their environment, they also actively shape the worlds in which they live. A key aim of anthropology is to understand the common constraints within which human beings operate as well as the differences which are evident between particular societies and cultures.

Given such concerns, the potential subject matter of anthropology is truly vast. Researchers nowadays tend to specialise in one or another branch of the discipline. Some, called physical or biological anthropologists, investigate such topics as how humans or human-like creatures evolved over thousands or millions of years, as well as our genetic and behavioural relationships with non-human primates. Others, called social or cultural anthropologists, study such things as the very varied ways in which different peoples organise themselves to ensure stable agricultural production or community life. They might study different assumptions people hold about how the world works as revealed in their religious beliefs and practices. They might study the many material forms that people produce such as their houses, dress, crafts and art. In this Guide we discuss both of these kinds of anthropology, although we say more about the social and cultural side of the discipline.

Some history .....

For many thousands of years, travel, trade and exploration have brought people of different languages and cultures into contact. These contacts generated tales of strange and exotic peoples and their customs. The Greek historian Herodotus might thus be seen as an early kind of anthropologist. In the fifth century BC he travelled around the Greek colonies of the Mediterranean and North Africa and described in considerable detail the indigenous peoples of those regions and their ways of life.

Herodotus's writings could be described as one of the earliest ethnographic descriptions but if we are to talk of anthropology as a discipline rather than a loose collection of traveller's tales, we must move forward to the nineteenth century when the scholarly study of human cultural and biological diversity began to take shape. At this time the western world was in the throes of some rapid and far-reaching developments. Across Europe and North America the expansion of new industries, mass migration from the countryside to the cities and the development of new systems of communication and transport had profound impacts on social life and the organisation of society and economy. This was also a time when western colonial expansion and domination were at their height. Social commentators and philosophers were keen to understand the changes that were happening around them. The foundations of the major academic disciplines as we know them today were laid down during this period.

One of the major questions asked during the nineteenth century was 'how did we get to where we are today?' Charles Darwin wrote an account of the way species develop through natural selection; this was his theory of evolution which first appeared in 1859. Darwin suggested that all life forms had developed gradually over long periods of time, with the more successful species displacing ones less well adapted to their environment. These ideas had a profound impact on scientific enquiry in the biological sciences and also had wider cultural repercussions. Many of the most influential social theorists of the nineteenth century adapted Darwin's model of biological evolution to understand changes that were happening at a social and cultural level.

Two important disciplines concerned with the study of humanity emerged at this time, namely anthropology and sociology. The branch of scholarship which was later to become sociology turned its attention to changes in the West. The branch of scholarship which was later to develop into anthropology established its focus on the 'primitive' and began a search for the precursors of modern civilisation. Societies which were non-literate, technologically simple, small-scale in terms of their economic and political organisation and usually far removed from western Europe became the focus of the emerging discipline of anthropology. Nineteenth century anthropologists believed that such societies provided a glimpse of humanity at an earlier stage of social evolution and that in time they too would develop modern ways of life. Such views, widespread in society at that time, have since been rejected as knowledge about our common humanity has developed.

By the early decades of the twentieth century ideas of social evolution were beginning to be questioned and so-called 'primitive' societies began to be studied not simply as evidence of earlier stages of social development but as societies in their own right. The job of the anthropologist was thus not to arrange such societies on a scale from high civilisation to technological simplicity but rather to understand each society according to its own particular logic. Strange myths, rituals, art forms, marriage practices and ways of living were treated as legitimate topics of study. Each society represented a unique expression of human cultural variation and physical adaptation. The attempts to understand non-western peoples on their own terms came to be known as cultural relativism. This approach to the study of cultural variation became a distinctive feature of north American cultural anthropology associated with such influential figures as Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict.

By contrast, the focus of British anthropology throughout most of this century has been on actual social relations rather than manifestations of culture. Classification and comparison of societies were based on the various ways in which parts of society, such as kinship practices, rules for property ownership and means of subsistence, fitted together to form a distinctive and stable set of social arrangements. The comparison of different societies was also based on the identification of institutions with apparently similar functions, for example, marriage or funeral rituals. This particular approach to anthropology was known as structural-functionalism and was prominent during the 1930s, 40s and 50s. The period produced a long list of studies, each dealing with the distinctive way of life of a particular group. The Nuer of the Sudan, the Trobriand Islanders of the Western Pacific, and the Tikopia of Polynesia are but a few of the many peoples who are now firmly lodged in world history as a result of the studies of anthropologists.

Throughout the early part of this century the project of British social anthropology was in some ways akin to butterfly collecting. However, during the century anthropology developed into a discipline that was far more than the collection of rare and exotic specimens which it was the task of the anthropologist to locate and describe in rich and colourful detail. The job of anthropological theory was to establish patterns which were generalisable across the evident diversity of ways of human life. In addition it began to be recognised that 'primitive' societies were in fact rather complex and far from static in terms of their development. Consequently, new avenues of anthropology began to develop which moved beyond simple studies of structure and function. Attention began to focus on the interaction between small-scale traditional societies and large-scale economies and state structures. What were previously presented as isolated, stable and unchanging societies were located in wider historical processes such as the spread of colonialism and capitalism. Seeing societies in this light marked a major shift in the scope and possibilities for anthropological enquiry: it might be said that anthropologists began to be less concerned with collecting butterflies and more concerned with the eco-systems in which they lived. Other areas of enquiry which began to open up during the sixties and seventies included the study of language and meaning and a new awareness of the importance of gender in understanding society and culture. This was also a period in which the focus of anthropological research began to encompass western society and its institutions. Western anthropologists no longer confined themselves to observing distant and 'exotic' societies but were to be found studying in their own backyards and often highlighted surprising aspects of taken-for-granted-everyday life. Industry, governments and international organisations were all regarded as subjects for enthnographic research.

The final phase in this very brief history of anthropology represents one of the most exciting to date. Anthropology is rooted in a tradition which began by studying societies very different and distant from those in the West. Whilst contemporary anthropology has retained its attention to the detail of social and cultural processes, it has grown into a discipline with much wider and all-encompassing interests and applications. Many of the old distinctions between 'primitive' and modern are no longer sustainable. Likewise, disciplinary distinctions between sociology and anthropology are no longer a matter of West-versus-the-rest. High levels of mobility and migration combined with the extraordinary potential for global communica

Answer 6

You may also be interested in physiognomy too.

Anyway, heres a cut and paste from Encarta:

noun  



Definition:

  

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.



2. Christian doctrine concerned with humankind: the parts of Christian doctrine that are concerned with the nature, origin, and destiny of humankind

Answer 7

Anthro = people/human

ology = study of

Answer 8

The study of Human evolution. or summat like that.