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. The methods range from those commonly used by the
social sciences and humanities to those of biology and geology. Biological anthropology and archaeology
are generally the closest to the biological and physical sciences in methods and approach to learning
about the human experience.

Biological (or physical) anthropologists carry out systematic studies of the non-cultural aspects of
humans and near-humans. Non-cultural refers to all of those biological characteristics that are
genetically inherited in contrast to learned. Near-human is a category that includes monkeys, apes, and
the other primates as well as our fossil ancestors. The primary interest of most biological
anthropologists today is human evolution--they want to learn how our ancestors changed through time
to become what we are today. Biological anthropologists also are interested in understanding the
mechanisms of evolution and genetic inheritance as well as human variation and adaptations to different
environmental stresses, such as those found at high altitudes and in environments that have
temperature extremes.

Biological anthropologists are usually involved in one of three different areas of research: human biology,
primatology, or paleoanthropology. Human biology is concerned with learning about human diversity,
genetic inheritance patterns, non-cultural adaptations to environmental stresses, and other biological
characteristics of our species, Homo sapiens click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced.
Primatologists click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced carry out non-human primate
studies. This is usually done in a natural setting among wild apes, monkeys, and related animals. They
are principally interested in learning about the capabilities and behavior patterns of primates--our
closest living relatives. It is likely that the great apes in particular can give us important clues to
understanding the lives of our earliest human ancestors over 2 million years ago. Paleoanthropologists
click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced recover the fossil record of early humans and their
primate ancestors in order to understand the path of our evolution. In doing this, they often work with
geologists, paleozoologists, and scientists with other specialties who help them reconstruct ancient
environments.

Cultural (or socio-cultural) anthropologists are interested in learning about the cultural aspects of human
societies all over the world. They usually focus their research on such things as the social and political
organizations, marriage patterns and kinship systems, subsistence and economic patterns, and religious
beliefs of different societies. Most cultural anthropologists study contemporary societies rather than
ancient ones. Through the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, the peoples who primarily interested
cultural anthropologists were those who lived in small-scale, isolated societies with cultures that were
very different from those of Europeans and European Americans. African, American Indian, and Pacific
Island societies were often the subject of their research. Today, they are equally likely to study
subcultures of modern, large-scale societies such as Southeast Asian Hmong families now living in St.
Paul, Minnesota, Mexican neighborhoods in Southern California, or conservative Old Order Amish
communities in rural Pennsylvania.We are living in a period of unprecedented social and cultural change
around the globe, and the rate of change is accelerating as a result of our rapid population growth and
technological invention, especially in transportation and communication. All of the completely isolated
societies of the past have long since been drawn into the global economy and heavily influenced by the
dominant cultures of the large nations. As a consequence, it is likely that 3/4 of the languages in the
world today will become extinct as spoken languages by the end of the 21st century. Many other
cultural traditions will be lost as well. Cultural and linguistic anthropologists have worked diligently to
study and understand this diversity that is being lost.

Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic anthropologists click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced study the human
communication process. They focus their research on understanding such phenomena as the physiology
of speech, the structure and function of languages, social and cultural influences on speech and writing,
nonverbal communication, how languages developed over time, and how they differ from each other.
This is very different from what goes on in an English or a foreign language class. Linguists are not
language teachers or professional translators.

Most anthropological linguistic research has been focused on unwritten, non-European languages.
Linguists usually begin their study of such a language by learning first hand from native speakers what its
rules are for making sounds and meaning from those sounds, including the rules for sentence
construction. Linguists also learn about different regional and social dialects as well as the social
conventions of speaking the language in different situations.

A hotly debated question in linguistic anthropology since the early 20th century centers on whether or
not our languages predispose us to see the environment in specific ways. In other words, are languages
filters for reality? For instance, if a language does not have a word for the color orange, can its speakers
distinguish orange from red and yellow? The answer to this question is not as simple as it initially seems.

2. What us usefulness of Anthropology?

Anthropology is frequently described as the art of ‘making the familiar exotic and the exotic

familiar’. It has also been described as ‘the most humanistic of the sciences and the most
scientific of the humanities’ (Eric Wolf). Anthropology can be defined as the comparative

study of humans, their societies and their cultural worlds. It simultaneously explores human

diversity and what it is that all human beings have in common.For many years, social and cultural
anthropology was associated with the study of

‘remote places’ and small-scale societies, many of them unfamiliar with literacy and not

incorporated into the institutions of the state. Although the study of human diversity concerns

all societies, from the smallest to the largest and from the simplest to the most complex, most

anthropologists today recognise that all societies in the contemporary world are involved in

processes of enormous complexity, such as migration, climate change, global economic crises

and the transnational circulation of ideas. Just as European and American anthropologists of

the early 20th century struggled to understand and describe ‘the native's point of view’ when

they travelled to such then-remote parts of the world as Melanesia or Africa, contemporary

anthropologists try to grasp their areas of inquiry as fully as possible wherever they conduct
research, be it in their own backyard or in faraway locations. They then report on how the

people they are studying perceive the world and acted upon it, still striving to understand ‘the

native's point of view’, although the focus of their inquiry may now be consumption in a

European city or ethnic politics in the Pacific.

Some of the questions that the first generations of anthropologists asked continue to

concern today’s generation, albeit in new ways. On a general level, anthropologists asks what

it is to be a human being, how a society is put together, and what the word ‘we’ means. Just as

they did in the past, anthropologists explore the importance of kinship in contemporary

societies and raise questions about power and politics, religion and world-views, and gender

and social class, but today, they also study the impact of capitalism on small-scale societies

and the quest for cultural survival among indigenous groups, just to mention a few areas of

inquiry.

Although there are different theoretical schools, as well as many special interests both
regionally and thematically, the craft of social and cultural anthropology consists in a toolboxwhich is
shared by all who are trained in the discipline. Anthropology does not in itself profess to solve the
problems facing humanity, but it gives its practitioners skills andknowledge that enable them to tackle
complex questions in very competent and relevant ways. The key terms are cultural relativism,
ethnography, comparison and context.

3. What are the methods of anthropology?

Ethnography is the process of recording and describing a culture of a specific people, such as the Dani,
and its traits, patterns, and principles of coherent integration. Anthropologists produce ethnography on
the basis of firsthand field observation of the people who are being studied.

Ethnology covers the theoretical aspect of anthropology. Ethnologists ascertain how cultures differ or
exhibit similarities through comparison and generalization, suggest reasons for cross cultural regularities
observed, and use these explana tory inferences to formulate new research hypotheses.

Ethnography and ethnology are interrelated in a complex fashion. Deductive scientific method dictates
that research must be organized to address a theoretical hypothesis that is derived from prior reasoning.
This requirement creates an anthropological d ilemma, however, since an ethnographer must
understand his/her observations in terms of their meanings within a particular cultural context, which
may substantially depart from theoretical system chosen for interpretation. There are accordingly two
ethno graphic styles:

the deductive, or problem oriented, approach, which narrows investigation in terms of issues and
principles identified as significant within anthropological theory

the inductive approach, which identifies research problems and builds explanation from the field
experience per se, and Inductive approaches have been more characteristic of the older schools of
anthropology that developed between the start of the century and World War II. They have resulted in
fairly general ethnographic descriptions. Problem oriented approaches are ty pical of current
anthropological research and tend to focus on specialized subject matter, such as subsistence
techniques, economic transactions, or religious rituals. Anthropologists must still take general
ethnography and local meaning systems into acc ount, however, and must be open to modifying their
research directions and theoretical assumptions if they prove inapplicable or problematic.

4. What is cultural anthropology?

Cultural Anthropology is the study of human cultures, beliefs, practices, values, ideas, technologies,
economies and other domains of social and cognitive organization. This field is based primarily on
cultural understanding of populations of living humans gained through first hand experience or
participant observation. An anthropologist May also look into the sports culture and development in
certain communities