Anthropology. What? 
Most people will go through life without understanding anthology, or even talk to an anthropologist. So, people can have a vague idea what anthropology is. Some will automatically think Indiana Jones, when he was an archaeologist and a bad one at that. Though I do like the hat. Or say yeah, I like bugs to, hearing entomology instead of Anthropology. For those and many other reasons I decided to write this blog post about what Anthropology is and its origins.
Around the time explores made transcontinental travels they made amazing discoveries in new lands that help us further understand our world in fields like natural history, geology, and biology. But when the explorers got to “new” lands they encountered people as well. People that looked, talked, and dressed very differently from there way in western society. And in an age of great discovery and further understanding Europeans tried to explain this, what was to them, phenomenon. And slowly but surely the discoplone Anthropology was born in the 19th century. Even when you look at googles “use over time for: anthropology” graph the word catapults from 1850’s to modern day.
Anthropology in America will eventually be known as the study of humankind, viewed at all perspectives of people at all times. American anthropology has become so specialized, we can also look at ourselves in many different but connected ways, it has been divided into four sub-fields. The four sub-fields in America are Cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and physical(biological) anthropology.
Cultural Anthropologists studies living cultures and will often spend long trips with cultural groups to gain more intimate perspective of these cultures. Archaeologists are like Cultural Anthropologists, but study the past cultures using material culture or more known artifacts. Linguists study language, its structure, evolution, and social and cultural context for language. Finally, physical anthropologists study the human evolution and variation, both past and present.
Even through anthropology is very diverse it is also a studying field that holistic as well. Unlike other disciplines, anthropologists study humans using a biocultural approach. Acknowledging the fact that there is a intercorrelation between culture and biology using scientific study.
Now I will only be blogging about Physical Anthropology and its fields. If you think looking at one fourth of the sub-fields will be a light read, then you’re wrong. What makes physical anthropology interesting is its relationship with the other sub-fields and that it is science and social science. Also, its close ties to other disciplines like biology, genetics, paleontology, geology, and many other fields and specialties. So, I hope you enjoy my topics but more so the world that is Physical Anthropology.
Bag of Bones 