Preface

The book introduces you to anthropology, covers research methods, gender-based issues, economic and political organisations and religion. It can serve as a good textbook for students of anthropology, while also helping sociology students.

The students will get a clear grasp of how various institutions of the society have evolved over a period of time and how these institutions are all interlinked. They will also know what their current status is and in which directions social change is taking place. The book gives many India-related examples.

Key technical terms are defined. The students are expected to answer the questions given at the end of each chapter to reinforce their understanding.

I hope this book helps students to look at our society in a more critical way.

Venkata Mohan

July 2020

Anthropology and Its Branches

1. Meaning and scope

Anthropology is a discipline that studies humans, focussing on the study of differences and similarities, both biological and cultural, in human populations. It is concerned with typical biological and cultural characteristics of human populations in all periods and in all parts of the world.

It is a study of human populations – similarities as well as differences. It is not confined to populations living today. It studies the past populations too. It is not confined to any one country, or any one continent. All the parts of the world are covered. It studies not simply the cultural aspects but biological as well.

It is a very wide field, as the name itself suggests. ‘Anthropos’ in Greek means man or human and ‘logos’ means study. Anthropology means the study of man. But the ‘study of man’ is too broad and lacks specificity. If anthropology intends to study man across time and space, how does it draw boundaries around itself? How does it make itself different from the other disciplines that study man?

Anthropologists tend to focus on the typical characteristics of human populations. They do not go into the social groups within a population, nor do they specialise in any one aspect of culture. Their study of a population is holistic. Holistic refers to an approach that studies many aspects of a multifaceted system. An anthropologist tends to ask what a population is in its essence. The population may be big or small, rich or poor, advanced or not advanced. He or she attempts to gain a broader understanding of a population and thereby of humankind. Details are used to build a bigger picture of man.

Traditionally, anthropology focussed on non-Western cultures. But nowadays anthropologists from the Western cultures are studying certain communities within their own societies.

2. Cultural anthropology

There are two broad divisions in anthropology: physical anthropology and cultural anthropology. Cultural anthropology is further divided into three subfields: archaeology, linguistics and ethnology. Archaeology studies the distant past whereas ethnology studies the recent past and present. Nowadays ethnology is usually referred to by its parent name cultural anthropology.

Ethnology is the study of how and why recent cultures differ and are similar. It is an analysis of cultures. Ethnography refers to a description of a society’s customary behaviours and ideas. It contributes data to ethnology. Ethnography is produced by an ethnographer. An ethnographer is a person who spends some time living with, interviewing, and observing a group of people to describe their customs.

Many cultures have changed rapidly in the recent past. Through interviewing the present people, we would not know what their customs had been few years ago. Many societies changed due to contact with the dominant cultures. Ethnohistory helps in understanding these recent changes. An ethnohistorian is an ethnologist who uses historical documents to study how a particular culture has changed over time. While ethnographers provide the data by living with a group of people to study their culture, ethnohistorians provide the data by examining the accounts left by the missionaries, traders, explorers and government reports.

In ethnology, generalisations are important and cross-cultural research leads to generalisations. A cross-cultural researcher is an ethnologist who uses ethnographic data about many societies to test possible explanations of cultural variation to discover general patterns about cultural traits – what is universal, what is variable, why traits vary, and what the consequences of the variability might be. This is how cultural anthropology is generated.

3. Biological anthropology

Biological (physical) anthropology is the study of humans as biological organisms, dealing with the emergence and evolution of humans and with contemporary biological variations among human populations. It studies the physical or biological side of man – his past as well as his present, how he evolved as well as what he is now.

Physical anthropology includes human paleontology (paleoanthropology) which is the study of the emergence of humans and their later physical evolution. Human evolution is studied with the help of fossils. Fossils refer to the hardened remains or impressions of plants and animals that lived in the past.

Fossil evidence is interpreted to speculate what humans could have been like at one time and who were the ancestors to humans. Knowledge of earth sciences (geography and geology) is needed in this interpretation. The study of primates too plays an important role in interpreting the fossil evidence. A primate is a member of the mammalian order Primates, divided into the two suborders of prosimians and anthropoids. A primatologist is the one who studies primates.

Biological anthropology also involves the study of human variation, which is the study of how and why contemporary human populations vary biologically. Currently, all the people living on the earth belong to one and the same species,. That is Homo sapines, which means that all human populations on earth can successfully interbreed. The first Homo sapiens may have emerged about 200,000 years ago.

In the study of human variation, three disciplines are made use of – human genetics, population biology and epidemiology. Human genetics is the study of inherited human traits. Population biology is the study of environmental effects on, and interaction with, population characteristics. Epidemiology is the study of how and why diseases affect different populations in different ways.

4. Archaeology

Archaeology is the branch of anthropology that seeks to reconstruct the daily life and customs of peoples who lived in the past and to trace and explain cultural changes. Often lacking written records for study, archaeologists must try to reconstruct history from the material remains of human cultures.

Whereas ethnology is about the recent past or present, archaeology is about the distant past. Archaeology studies ancient cultures mostly with the help of material remains. How is archaeology different from the discipline of history? History is limited to the last 5000 years of human history and to the small proportion of societies that developed writing. Human societies existed for more than a million years, and archaeology attempts to study these societies of the distant past.

Archaeology deals with prehistory, which refers to the time before written records, but it also covers some societies that left written records. Historical archaeology is a speciality within archaeology that studies the material remains of recent peoples who left written records.

Archaeology asks questions such as where did tool-making emerge, where did agriculture develop and where did first cities emerge. To understand the cultures of the distant past, a knowledge of the present-day cultures is useful as a way of comparison. A knowledge of the earth sciences would also be useful to locate possible sites of significance as well as to help interpret the remains found at such sites.

5. Anthropological linguistics

Anthropological linguistics is the anthropological study of languages. Linguistics is the study of languages and is older than anthropology as a disicpline. But linguistics studies only the written languages of past and present. Linguistic anthropologists study the languages that are not written. They have to reconstruct their vocabulary and grammar.

Anthropological linguists study how languages differ from each other as well as how they evolved. Descriptive linguistics refers to the study of how languages are constructed. They study how sounds and words are put together.

Historical linguistics refers to the study of how languages change over time. Historical linguistics trace changes in languages over time and from what common language, different languages emerged.

Sociolinguistics is the study of cultural and subcultural patterns of speaking in different social contexts. It studies the interface between society and language.

6. Applied anthropology

Applied anthropology is the branch of anthropology that concerns itself with applying anthropological knowledge to achieve practical goals. Applied or practicing anthropology is the fifth field crosscutting the four fields of anthropology mentioned above – archaeology, linguistics, ethnology and biological anthropology.

For most of anthropology’s history, anthropologists generally worked in academic institutions. But more and more of them are working outside academia in our times. Many of them are working in government agencies, international development agencies, private consulting firms, public health organisations, medical schools, law offices and charitable foundations.

Biological anthropologists may be called upon to give forensic evidence or in designing public health programs or in designing clothes and equipment to fit the human anatomy. Archaeologists are employed in managing museums or managing excavation sites. Anthropological linguists are called upon to help in bilingual educational training programs or in exploring ways to improve communication. Ethnologists may work in a wide variety of projects related to community development, urban planning or studies on the impact of cultural change. In a number of countries, anthropologists are being called upon to solve practical social problems.

7. Relationship with other disciplines

Cultural anthropology comes closest to sociology among all the social sciences. The difference between these two is that cultural anthropology focusses on simple cultures whereas sociology focuses on complex cultures. The methods they employ are also different. In cultural anthropology, field work is a very important method. In sociology, questionnaires and interviews are more important. Both the disciplines study societies holistically – economy, polity, religion, kinship – and seek to explore the interrelationships among the various aspects of the society.

Since cultural anthropology covers the contemporary too, though not as comprehensively as in sociology, its scope is much wider. Its data base is vast.

Cultural anthropology has been historically developed not only as the study of the simple societies, but also as the study of societies seen as ‘the other’. An anthropologist leaves his own society to study another society. Sociology, however, involves the study of one’s own society. But this differentiation could get complicated sometimes. M. N. Srinivas, for example, is seen as a sociologist in India, but is regarded as an anthropologist abroad, because he wrote about the rural India. Rural India, to the West, is an example of ‘the other’ while at the same time being a simple society.

Economics specialises in the economies of advanced societies. It has many theories and models on how economies run and how they should run. Economic anthropology is a part of cultural anthropology that focusses on the economies of simple societies. A lot is written on the similarities and differences between the economies of simple societies and complex societies and how far theories developed for complex economies are relevant to simple economies.

Political science specialises in the politics of advanced societies. It has theories on how power operates and how it should operate. Political anthropology is a part of cultural anthropology. It studies simple societies, compares how the political institutions there are different from those in complex societies. Political anthropology studies how political institutions are embedded in other aspects of culture.

Psychology focusses on the individual, not on the society or culture. But culture is shared by the individuals. Culture shapes the individuals. The individuals are socialised by their cultures. Anthropology also studies the interaction between the culture and the individual personality.

History’s main focus is on the particulars – this place, this event, the relationship between the events. Cultural anthropology on the other hand seeks generalisation from the particulars. Also, whereas history studies the societies that have written records, cultural anthropology studies those without written records.

Anthropology is interdisciplinary. It draws heavily from sociology. It draws from political science for the political aspects of culture, from economics for the economic aspects, from psychology for the psychological aspects, from history to know the past, from linguistics to study the languages.

Earth sciences are also important in the process of uncovering and interpreting fossils – in the field of physical anthropology. Life sciences and medical sciences have an important place in charting human evolution and explaining human variation.

Terms

1. Anthropology: a discipline that studies humans, focussing on the study of differences and similarities, both biological and cultural, in human populations. It is concerned with typical biological and cultural characteristics of human populations in all periods and in all parts of the world.

2. Holistic: refers to an approach that studies many aspects of a multifaceted system.

3. Biological (physical) anthropology: the study of humans as biological organisms, dealing with the emergence and evolution of humans and with contemporary biological variations among human populations.

4. Cultural anthropology: the study of cultural variation and universals in the past and present.

5. Applied anthropology: the branch of anthropology that concerns itself with applying anthropological knowledge to achieve practical goals.

6. Human paleontology (paleoanthropology): the study of the emergence of humans and their later physical evolution.

7. Human variation: the study of how and why contemporary human populations vary biologically.

8. Fossils: the hardened remains or impressions of plants and animals that lived in the past.

9. Primate: a member of the mammalian order Primates, divided into the two suborders of prosimians and anthropoids.

10. Primatologists: People who study primates.

11. Homo sapiens: All living people belong to one biological species, Homo sapiens, which means that all human populations on earth can successfully interbreed. The first Homo sapiens may have emerged about 200,000 years ago.

12. Ethnology: the study of how and why recent cultures differ and are similar.

13. Ethnographer: a person who spends some time living with, interviewing, and observing a group of people to describe their customs.

14. Ethnography: a description of a society’s customary behaviours and ideas.

15. Ethnohistorian: an ethnologist who uses historical documents to study how a particular culture has changed over time.

16. Cross-cultural researcher: An ethnologist who uses ethnographic data about many societies to test possible explanations of cultural variation to discover general patterns about cultural traits – what is universal, what is variable, why traits vary, and what the consequences of the variability might be.

17. Archaeology: the branch of anthropology that seeks to reconstruct the daily life and customs of peoples who lived in the past and to trace and explain cultural changes. Often lacking written records for study, archaeologists must try to reconstruct history from the material remains of human cultures.

18. Prehistory the time before written records.

19. Historical archaeology: a speciality within archaeology that studies the material remains of recent peoples who left written records.

20. Anthropological linguistics: the anthropological study of languages.

21. Linguistics: the study of languages.

22. Descriptive (structural) linguistics: the study of how languages are constructed.

23. Historical linguistics: the study of how languages change over time.

24. Sociolinguistics: the study of cultural and subcultural patterns of speaking in different social contexts.

Think on it

1. Define anthropology.

2. What is the scope of anthropology?

3. What is the focus of anthropology?

4. What is meant by holistic study?

5. Does anthropology exclude Western cultures?

6. What is ethnology?

7. Is ethnology being equated with cultural anthropology?

8. How is ethnography different from ethnology?

9. How is an ethnographer different from ethnohistorian?

10. Who is a cross-cultural researcher?

11. What is the scope of physical anthropology?

12. What is paleoanthropology?

13. What are fossils?

14. Who is a primate?

15. When did Homo sapiens emerge?