UNIT TWO

SUB-FIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Blen Yetnayet
 2.1 Archaeological Anthropology
2.2 Linguistic Anthropology
2.3 Socio-Cultural Anthropology
2.4 Physical/Biological Anthropology
2.4.1. Evolutionary and Paleo-anthropological
perspectives on human origin
2.4.2 Anthropological perspectives on racial
types and human physical variation.

Outline 2.4.3 Human Races: The history of racial typing

2.4.4 The Grand Illusion: Race, turns out, is
arbitrary
2.4.5. What Anthropologists can say for sure about
Human Races?
2.5. Human socio-cultural and biological diversity
and similarities: What is to be human?
SUB-FIELDS OF
ANTHROPOLOGY
Anthropology has often categorized
into four major subfields:
 Archeology,
 Linguistic Anthropology and
 Socio-Cultural Anthropology
 Physical/Biological Anthropology,
 1. ARCHAEOLOGICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY

• Archaeology studies the ways of lives of past peoples by excavating and

analyzing the material culture/physical remains they left behind (artefacts,
features and eco-facts).
• Artefacts are material remains made and used by the past peoples like
Tools, ornaments, arrowheads, coins, and fragments of pottery are
examples of artifacts.
• Features are like artifacts, are made or modified by past people, but they
cannot be readily carried away from the site. e.g.. house foundations,
ancient buildings, fireplaces, steles, and postholes.
• Eco-facts are non- artefactual, organic and environmental remains such as
soil, animal bones, and plants remains that were not made or altered by
humans; but were used by them. Eco-facts provide archaeologists with
important data concerning the environment and how people used natural
resources in the past.
 CONT.

• Archaeology has also its own subfields or areas of specialties. The

most important ones are:-

• Prehistoric Archaeology, Ethno Archeology and Historical

Archaeology.

• Prehistoric archaeology investigates human prehistory and

prehistoric cultures before the art of writing.

• Ethno Archeology its an aspect of prehistoric archeology.

• Historic archaeologists help to reconstruct the cultures of people

who used writing and about whom historical documents have been
written.

• Classical archeology it deals primary with the ancient civilization

and empire of Europe and the middle east.
2. LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY

• Linguistic anthropology or anthropological linguistics

studies human language as a cultural resource and speaking
as a cultural practice in its social and cultural context,
across space and time.
• Language is the most distinctive feature of being human
• Language is basically a system of information transmission
and reception.
• Linguistic anthropology divided in to four distinct branches
Structural or Descriptive Linguistics, Historical
Linguistics, Ethno-Linguistics, and Socio-linguistics
CONT.

Structural /Descriptive Linguistics: -studies the structure of linguistic

patterns.

• Structural linguistics studies grammatical patterns of languages to

identify the similarities and differences among contemporary
languages.

• It examines sound systems, grammatical systems, and the meanings

attached to words in specific languages to understand the structure
and set of rules of given language.

• Every culture has a distinctive language with its own logical

structure and set of rules for putting words and sounds together for
the purpose of communicating.
CONT.

• Ethno-linguistics (cultural linguistics): examines the

relationship between language and culture. In any
language, certain cultural aspects that are emphasized
(such as types of snow among the Inuit, cows among the
pastoral Maasai, or automobiles in U.S. culture) are
reflected in the vocabulary.
• Moreover, cultural linguists explore how different
linguistic categories can affect how people categorize
their experiences, how they think, and how they perceive
the world around them.
 CONT.

• Historical linguistics: - deals with the emergence of

language in general and how specific languages have
diverged over time. It focuses on the comparison and
classifications of different languages to differentiate the
historical links between them.
• Socio-linguistics: - Sociolinguistics examines how the use
of language defines social groups. It investigates linguistic
variation within a given language. No language is a
homogeneous system in which everyone speaks just like
everyone else. One reason for variation is geography, as in
regional dialects and accents. Linguistic variation also is
expressed in the bilingualism of ethnic groups.
 3. SOCIO-CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY

• It’s also called social anthropology or cultural anthropology.

• It’s the largest sub-fields of anthropology. It deals with human society and
culture.
• Society is the group of people who have similar ways of life, but culture is a
way of life of a group of people.
• Society and culture are two sides of the same coin.

• Socio-cultural anthropology describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains

social, cultural and material life of contemporary human societies. It studies
the social (human relations), symbolic or nonmaterial (religious, language,
and any other symbols) and material (all man-made objects) lives of living
peoples.
• Socio-cultural anthropologists engage in two aspects of study: Ethnography
(based on field work) and Ethnology (based on cross-cultural comparison).
 CONT.
• Ethnography provides a comprehensive account of a
particular community, society, or culture. It describes the
features of specific cultures in as much detail as possible
including local behavior, beliefs, customs, social life, economic
activities, politics, and religion. These detailed descriptions
(ethnographies) are the result of extensive field studies (usually
a year or two, in duration) in which the anthropologist
observes, talks to, and lives with the people he or she is
studying. During ethnographic fieldwork, the anthropologist
(ethnographer) gathers data

• Ethnography is more of empirical (observed, practical) study

of culture way of life of a particular group.
CONT. • that he or she organizes, describes, analyzes, and
interprets to build and present that account, which may
be in the form of a book, article, or film. Eg. Kebuska
Bestejerba
• Ethnology is the comparative study of contemporary
cultures and societies, wherever they may be found. It
examines, interprets, analyzes, and compares the results
of ethnography the data gathered in different societies. It
uses such data to compare and contrast and to make
generalizations about society and culture. In other words,
Ethnologists seek to understand both why people today
and in the recent past differ in terms of ideas and
behavior patterns and what all cultures in the world have
in common with one another.
• Ethnology is more a theoretical study of the similarities
and d/s among the human groups of the world past or
present.
 • It is the branch of anthropology most
closely related to the natural sciences,
particularly biology; that is why it is often
called biological anthropology.
• Human biology affects or even explains
4. PHYSICAL/BIOLOGICAL some aspects of behavior, society, and
ANTHROPOLOGY
culture like marriage patterns, sexual
division of labor, gender ideology etc.
• Human biological variations are the result
of the cumulative processes of invisible
changes occurring in every fraction of
second in human life.
CONT.

These changes have been Genes are characteristics that carry Physical anthropology is
accumulated and passed through biological traits of an organism, essentially concerned with two
genes. including human beings. broad areas of investigation:
Human evolution and Human
genetics.
CONT. • Human evolution is the study of the gradual
processes of simple
forms into more differentiated structures in hominid.
• Human evolution is also divided into three
specialties:
• Paleoanthropology,
• Primatology and
• Anthropometry.

• Paleoanthropology (paleo meaning “old”) is the

study of human biological evolution through the
analysis of fossil remains from prehistoric times
to determine the missing link that connect modern
human with its biological ancestors.
CONT. • Primatology studies about primates or recent
human ancestors to explain human evolution.
also, Primatologists study the anatomy and
social behavior of such non-human primate
species as gorillas and chimpanzees in an effort
to gain clues about our own evolution as a
species.
• Anthropometry- it’s the study of human
variation within and among d/t populations
in time and space, human ecology,
population genetics. these physical d/f may be
in terms of blood type, skin colors, skull
shape, hair texture, facial shape etc.
CONT. • Human genetics concerns to investigate how
and why the physical traits of contemporary
human populations vary throughout the world.
• It focuses to examine the genetic materials of
an organism such as DNA (Deoxyribonucleic
acid) and RNA(Ribonucleic acid). are perhaps
the most important molecules in cell biology,
responsible for the storage and reading of
genetic information that underpins all life.
• In addition, genetic studies are crucial in
understanding –how evolution works and plays
important role in identifying the genetic source
of some hereditary disease.
 •As opposed to cosmological explanations that we discussed
above, today anthropologists rely on scientific views of
evolution to explain human origins. Simply put,

 Evolution refers to a process and gradual change in

species over time. Evolution is used to describe the
cumulative effects of three independent facts.
Importantly, these attributes of evolution can be
EVOLUTIONARY AND observed in nature every day. They are:
PALEO-
ANTHROPOLOGICAL  Replication: The fact that life forms have offspring
PERSPECTIVES ON
HUMAN ORIGIN (the issue of raising children)

 Variation: The fact that each offspring is slightly

different from its parents, and its siblings

 Selection: The fact that not all offspring survive, and

those that do tend to be the ones best suited to their
environment. “Survival of the fittest”
CONT. • The scientific explanation of the human origin and the concept of
evolution are attributed to a series of discoveries of the early modern
period and the works of a handful of scientists in the physical/natural
sciences. One of the prominent persons concerning this development is

• Charles Darwin (1809-1882), a British Naturalist of the period. Charles

Darwin is known for his theory of natural selection in the evolution of
species and the idea of survival of the fittest.

• One of Charles Darwin’s contributions to civilization was to

demonstrate that humanity was part of the world of living things, not
separate from it.

• For thousands of years, Western civilization, backed up by the biblical

story of creation, held humanity as a special creation fundamentally
different from all other living things. By Darwin’s time, many were
beginning to question this assessment, but the cultural pressure to
conform to the dominant religion prevented most from saying so out
loud.

• But Darwin’s ideas and the many it fertilized set the foundation for a
new study: the study of humans as living, evolving creatures in many
ways no different from the rest of animal life.
 •Meaning and causes of human variation

 Human variation refers to the fact that there is a range of

possible value for each of the numerous physical and
mental characteristics of human beings.
 Variation is inherent (natural) in every living specious.
 It’s the result of fundamental biological and
CONT. 
environmental process.
The degree of variability can differ considerable
according to the specious.
 It believes that it is much greater in human than in
other specious. b/c the brains of humans are more
advanced than others (education, language)
THERE ARE 

Physical /Biological variability
Cultural/Social variability
TWO BROAD 1. PHYSICAL /BIOLOGICAL VARIABILITY
CATEGORIES  These types of variation may be the result of difference in genes, growing up
OF HUMAN 
in a particular environment
Some of the elements of Physical /Biological variability are:-
VARIATION  Body build/ Facial construction- it vary according to the environment,
hence, tropical zone (hot) area long and skinny body structure and temperate
zone (moderate) short and stocky.
 Skin color- many people associated skin color with race, but anthropologist
argue that skin color is not a good indicator of ancestor E.g. dark skin color is
considered as from Africa but people from southern India have also a darker
skin as well
 Adaptation to high altitude- altitude increase … we take less oxygen W/c
result difficulty to breath and our heartbeat goes to faster and faster these is
known as Hypoxia (oxygen deficiency) therefore these people have large
chest and greater lung capacity.
 Height – people in hot area tend to be tall and people from could areas are
short but hereditary determines a person’s height.
 Susceptibility(vulnerability) to infectious disease – about natural resistance
e.g. Corona in Ethiopia hence there are genes w/c protect people from dying
where they are infected
 CULTURAL/SOCIAL VARIABILITY

CONT.
 Human beings in the world exhibit
certain variation in the way they see
things, dressing, food preference,
belief system, value etc…
 Cultural variation refers to the
deference in social behaviors w/c d/t
culture exhibit around the world.
• Indicators of cultural variation are:-
 Ethnicity
 Race
 Language
 Religion
WHAT •So do human races exist? Very strictly speaking, yes. Homo sapiens does feature
ANTHROPOLOGISTS geographically based differences within the species. However, you must consider
CAN SAY FOR SURE two very important points.
ABOUT HUMAN
•First, these genetic differences don’t mean a lot, biologically. Because all healthy
RACES?
humans can mate and have healthy offspring, we’re all in Homo sapiens,
biologically speaking. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Not only is it inaccurate to
say “the female species” when talking about significant sex differences between
males and females, but it’s also inaccurate to say “the African race” or the “European
race” when speaking of deep differences in these peoples. A look at the genes shows
no significant species-level differences that is only very minor visible ones such as
skin color, shape of nose, or hair texture.

•Biologically speaking, though, these differences aren’t important. For most

physical anthropologists (who’ve spent the most time closely examining human
biology), race is nearly meaningless when applied to humanity.

•Rather than talk about races, physical anthropologists more commonly talk today of
ancestry, (decent, origin) a more general term that recognizes the reality of some
geographically specific human adaptations but doesn’t turn them into loaded, black-
and-white races (pun intended.) Ancestry may be important, for example, when
considering someone’s genetic health because different human populations have
developed slightly different genetic characteristics over time.

•Second and most important is that cultural behavior isn’t genetically linked to
those geographical differences. This disconnect is one of anthropology’s most
important discoveries and lessons for humanity.
 •Most of human behavior isn’t biologically determined or filtered in through
the natural environment but most of it is culturally learned.

•E.g. an infant from Japan can be raised in the Kalahari of Southern Africa
and won’t automatically remove his shoes when going into a home unless his
culture specifically teaches him to do so.

•Like any human can acquire any language, any infant can acquire any
culture; it’s culture that really drives behavior, not the genes. The ancient
belief that human races have innate behavioral traits that is like industrious
Asians or hot-blooded Mediterranean’s is simply wrong.

•One of the main reasons the race concept really doesn’t apply to humans is
CONT. that defining human races is almost impossible: To what race do you assign
a person born from a Native American and a native African marriage? Do you
create a new race in this case? Although some of these designations do exist,
to come up with a race for every possible combination of ancestries would be
an infinite job. Plus, it would just be another exercise in drawing lines where
they don’t really exist. And what’s “black” or “white”? Is a Greek person
black or white? Of course, they’re in between. Assigning people to a race
based on skin color becomes an exercise in holding up paint chips to the
skin.