Anthropology is the comprehensive study of humanity across space and time, exploring our biological evolution, diverse cultures, and behaviors, uniquely bridging the gap between biological and social sciences to understand what it means to be human.
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We humans are a fascinating species of animal, though rather narcissistic. For this reason,
the study of humans across space and time has its own field: anthropology. The etymology of
the word is Greek, with Anthropos meaning human, and logos being the study of. This
discipline provides a broad perspective that helps us understand the diversity of the human
experience within the context of biological and behavioral continuity with other animal species.
This is certainly a tall order, as it means we must understand our own evolution and biology,
the wide variety of material and behavioral cultures we exhibit, and how each of these
necessarily interact with one another. Anthropology as a discipline tackles
this gargantuan task by partitioning the labor into four subfields. Biological Anthropology,
which was formerly known as Physical Anthropology, is the first subfield we will cover, and it
concerns the study of human biology within an evolutionary framework. So in a sense,
this series will pick up right where the zoology series leaves off, having covered the entire
animal kingdom, and now focusing on a very small part of that kingdom. Biological Anthropology
includes several subjects. Paleoanthropology is commonly known as the search for and study
of our hominin ancestors through fossil remains, and when available, DNA sequencing. Primatology,
the study of non-human primates and how their behavior and morphology relates to our own
species, is also familiar to many thanks to the work of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey,
and Biruté Galdikas. Forensic Anthropology, which involves the application of human biology
and osteology in legal investigations, is known by many people thanks to its role in criminal
investigations and TV dramas. But there are other subjects that we will tackle later in the series.
Archeology is the second subfield of anthropology that will be investigated in this series,
which involves the study of the material culture of past people groups. This covers a wide variety
of long-gone human or human-adjacent activity, from Neanderthal tools over 40,000 years ago,
to Egyptian canopic jars in the more recent past. Archeology has a large area of study given that
it is utilized to investigate the behavior of more distant hominins as well as that of
human societies that only recently disappeared. Cultural Anthropology is the third subfield of
Anthropology we will cover, which concerns itself with the study of human societies,
primarily those that exist today or in the relatively recent past. This would include how
these societies structure their governments, their religious organizations, their taboos and customs,
and gender roles, among other subjects. Sociocultural subjects are formally
categorized just like in Biological Anthropology. For instance, Political Anthropology studies the
politics of a society, while Economic Anthropology studies its financials. Many of these subjects
will be examined in depth when we arrive at the Cultural Anthropology section of this series.
The last subfield of Anthropology will not be covered in this series, and is formally known
as Linguistic Anthropology. This subfield concerns the study of language and how it
interacts within and across social systems. The subject matter is perhaps better suited
for a series on Linguistics, which will hopefully occur on this channel one day.
At any rate, this series aims to teach the “Big Picture” of Anthropology and what it means to be
human, from our biology and evolution, through our material culture and cognition, and up to
our modern societies today. Anthropology is unique in that it marries the biological and the social,
a union that will be explored in depth to create a cohesive understanding of the field.
Stating where anthropology begins in the annals of time requires that we must first identify
where “humans” begin. This is a far more difficult task that it may seem, primarily due to the smooth
gradient of hominin fossils and remains that we have uncovered over the years. It is made more
difficult due to the fact that human biology differs very little from other living apes,
who also display many of the behavioral characteristics we once thought were unique
to our own species, from tool use to politics. Biological Anthropology, in many ways, aims to
answer the question of how our species came to evolve morphologically and behaviorally, and what,
if anything, makes our species unique from other animals. Formally, it is the study of human
biology through an evolutionary framework. It is here in this subfield that we begin our series on
Anthropology, because without understanding what humans are biologically, and how we came to be
this way, we would miss out on much of the answer to the question “What does it mean to be human?”
Biological Anthropology is aggressively multi-disciplinary. It is the “STEM”
branch of Anthropology, as it concerns itself with the empirical side of the
field. Paleoanthropologists find and measure the morphologies of ancient human ancestors,
charting how they change physically over time and chronicling the paleoenvironments they lived in
by using methods such as Stable Isotopes. Primatologists sample living populations
of non-human primates and record behavior, lineages, and selective pressures at play,
which can aid in reconstructing aspects of extinct primates. Paleogeneticists study ancient genomes,
while human biologists study the anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics of our species,
and paleopathologists investigate the ancient pathologies that impacted hominins.
But each of these fields relies on the collaboration of other disciplines. A
paleoanthropologist discovers hominin remains, and must consult geologists, taphonomists,
and paleoecologists to determine how long ago the specimen lived, how it died and preserved,
and what environment it lived in. Primatologists work with ecologists, general biologists,
botanists, entomologists, and others to investigate the world and pressures that
their study primate is subject to. Certainly most fields in science are
multi-disciplinary, but Biological Anthropology exemplifies the necessity and benefits of
collaboration. It is through this cooperation that we have learned more about human evolution,
biology, and behavior through time. Studying human evolution can tell us more about our
shared history with one another and the rest of the primates, our health and predispositions
through time, and why we behave the way we do. But the history of the discipline is as sordid
as any. And that is where we will begin. So if you’re ready, let’s learn some anthropology.
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