you’ve gotten yourself into. Well this short video will give you a very basic view of anthropology

and how it is divided into four distinct, though interwoven, subfields. Simply put,

Anthropology is the study of humans. The term Anthropology comes from two roots, Anthropos

meaning Man or Human, and Logos meaning study of. Anthropology is traditionally subdivided

into four subfields. Cultural, Biological, Linguistic, and Archaeology.

Cultural Anthropology is the study of the cultural basis of humanity, similar to sociology,

but looking at all cultures around the world, and bringing in a historical context. Cultural

Anthropology is well known due to the media. National Geographic (among others) provides

a view of the cultural anthropologist as a westerner from Europe or the US who travels

to a remote culture to study exotic people. While this is occasionally true, currently

cultural anthropologists do just as much research within their own culture studying particular

subcultures of Americans or Europeans, as well as studying isolated non-western societies.

The second subfield is biological or physical anthropology. The focus of this subfield is

on human anatomy and genetics, as well as the biological relatives of humans, such as

monkeys and apes, as well as human ancestors, like Neanderthals and Australopithecines.

Biological anthropologists study how genetics make us look the way we do or how we can identify

who someone is when all we have is their skeletal remains. They also study the behavior and

physical makeup of primates, which helps us understand how humans have evolved and how

our ancestors may have behaved as well as how they looked. Biological anthropologists

who specialize in paleoanthropology study the ancient remains of primates, both those

that are within our ancestral line and those who are not on our line, our cousins, if you

will. Many of these give us a really good understanding the way we are today

Linguistic anthropology is the study of language usage in terms of culture. Looking at how

language changes and adapts, and how language is used differently in different settings

by different individuals. Linguistic anthropology also addresses the basic structure of languages

and usages that languages have in different cultures, as well as language similarities

and differences to look at human migration around the world.

The last main subfield is archaeology. So in a lot of ways they are kind of like cultural

anthropologists of the past. They do this by excavating the remains they left behind

and interpreting the artifacts and features in order to deduce these cultural behaviors

of cultures that are now extinct. There is actually one more subfield that crosscuts

the four main or traditional subfields, which is called applied anthropology. Applied anthropology

is the use of anthropological practices and methods in the everyday world, in business,

healthcare, design, marketing, etc. The most commonly applied anthropology is cultural,

but all four subfields can be applied in different ways. Physical anthropology is applied in

the design of cars, seats, as well as things like baby food. Forensic Anthropology is applied

anthropology. Archaeological applications include things like when a shopping mall is

built, individuals have to go out and excavate and make sure that there aren’t any Native

American remains where that new development is going to be made. So there are many different

ways in which anthropology can be applied. I hope this has given you a good view of what

anthropology is in a nutshell and I look forward to you learning more about it.