What Lenses Do Anthropologists Use to Gain a Comprehensive View of Human Cultures?

BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Biological anthropology, sometimes called physical anthropology, is the study of humans from a biological perspective—in particular, how they have evolved over time and adapted to their environments. Both the fossil record and genetic evidence suggest that the evolutionary line leading to modern humans split between 5 and 6 million years ago from the one leading to modern African apes. Modern humans thus share a common ancestor with other primates such as apes and monkeys. In fact, genetic studies reveal that humans share 97.7 percent of their DNA with gorillas and 98.7 percent with chimpanzees. Through a complex evolutionary process that we are learning more about every day, Homo sapiens (the group of modern humans to which you and I belong) evolved in Africa fairly recently in the grand scheme of things—probably less than 200,000 years ago—and gradually spread across the planet (Larsen 2021).

Biological anthropology has several areas of specialization. Paleoanthropology traces the history of human evolution by reconstructing the human fossil record. Thus, paleoanthropologists excavate the teeth, skulls, and other bones of our human ancestors and analyze them to track changes in human physical form over time. From these fossils they map changes in key categories such as overall body size, cranial capacity, hand structure, head shape, and pelvic position. Such changes reveal developments in walking, diet, intelligence, and capacity for cultural adaptation. Since the late 1970s, paleoanthropologists have also used molecular genetics to trace changes in human ancestors over time. The sequencing of DNA allows us to measure how closely humans are related to other primates and even to follow the movement of groups of people through the flow of genes. For instance, mitochondrial DNA (passed on from mother to child) indicates that modern Homo sapiens first appeared in Africa around 150,000 years ago and migrated out of Africa 100,000 years ago. This DNA evidence generally matches the findings of the archaeological record.

Primatology is another specialization within biological anthropology. Primatologists study both living nonhuman primates and primate fossils to see what clues their biology, evolution, behavior, and social life might provide about our own, particularly about early human behavior. Careful observation of primates in their natural habitats and in captivity has offered significant insights into sexuality, parenting, sex differences, cooperation, empathy, intergroup conflict, aggression, conflict resolution, toolmaking, and problem-solving.

Biological anthropologists also study the diverse human physical forms that have evolved over time. Humans come in all shapes and sizes. Our differences range from body size and facial shape to skin color, height, blood chemistry, and susceptibility to certain diseases. Biological anthropologists attribute general patterns of human physical variation to adaptation to different physical environments as humans spread from Africa across the other continents. Variations in skin color, for instance, can be traced to the need to adapt to different levels of ultraviolet light as humans migrated away from the equator.

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Jane Goodall, a gray-haired White woman wearing kakis and a puffer vest, sits with a chimpanzee in a grassy area. She appears to be speaking to the chimpanzee, who is gently touching her leg.

However, studies of human biology show that physical similarities far outweigh the differences among the world’s people. In fact, there is more variation within what are assumed to be “groups” than there is between groups. This is clearly evident in terms of the thorny concept of race. A biologically distinct race would include people in a group who share a greater statistical frequency of genes and physical traits than people outside the group. Biological anthropologists find no evidence of distinct, fixed, biological races. Rather, there is only one human race. Attempts to identify distinct biological races are flawed and arbitrary, as no clear biological lines exist to define different races. Racial categories, which vary significantly from culture to culture, are loosely based on a few visible physical characteristics such as skin color, but they have no firm basis in genetics (Larsen 2021; Mukhopadhyay, Henze, and Moses 2007). We will return to this discussion of the biological and social dimensions of race in Chapter 5.

ARCHAEOLOGY

Archaeology involves the investigation of the human past by means of excavating and analyzing material remains (artifacts). Some archaeologists study the emergence of early states in places such as Egypt, India, China, and Mexico. They have unearthed grand sites such as the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico and the terra-cotta warriors guarding the tomb of China’s Qin Dynasty emperor. Others focus on the histories of less spectacular sites that shed light on the everyday lives of people in local villages and households.

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A tractor flattens piles of trash at a dump.

Archaeology is our only source of information about human societies before writing began (around 5,500 years ago). Because we are unable to travel back through time to observe human behavior, prehistoric archaeology seeks to reconstruct human behavior in the distant past (before written records) from artifacts that give significant clues about our ancestors’ lives. Campsites, hunting grounds, buildings, burials, and garbage dumps are rich sources of material. There, archaeologists find tools, weapons, pottery, human and animal bones, jewelry, seeds, charcoal, ritual items, building foundations, and even coprolites (fossilized fecal matter). Through excavation and analysis of these material remains, archaeologists reconstruct family and work life. What animals did the people eat? What seeds did they plant? What tools and crafts did they make? Coprolites reveal a great deal about the local diet. Burial sites provide significant data about how people treated their elders and their dead, what rituals they may have practiced, and their ideas about the afterlife. Archaeological evidence can suggest trade patterns, consumption habits, gender roles, and power stratification.

Unlike prehistoric archaeology, which looks at the time before writing, historic archaeology explores the more recent past and often combines the examination of physical remains and artifacts with that of written or oral records. Historic archaeologists excavate houses, stores, factories, sunken slave ships, and even polar ice caps to better understand recent human history and the impact of humans on the environment. For example, recent excavations of former plantations of the enslaved in the southern United States, combined with historical records such as deeds, census forms, personal letters, and diaries, have provided rich insight into the lives of enslaved Africans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Students in the North Atlantic Biocultural Organisation’s international field school conduct excavations in Iceland that reveal not only historical information about the settling of the North Atlantic but also data on major changes in the contemporary global climate. Core samples from borings drilled through glaciers reveal sediments deposited from the air over thousands of years as the glaciers formed; such samples allow archaeologists to track global warming and the impact of greenhouse gases on climate change.

LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY

Linguistic anthropology involves the study of human language in the past and the present. Languages are complex, vibrant, and constantly changing systems of symbols through which people communicate with one another. Languages are very flexible and inventive. (Consider how English has adapted to the rise of the Internet to include such new words and concepts as spam, instant messages, texting, Googling, Zoom, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and FaceTime.) Language clearly reflects people’s ideas of and experiences with the world. But linguistic anthropologists suggest that language may also limit and constrain people’s views of the world. In other words, can we think clearly about something if we don’t have an adequately sophisticated language for it?

Language is perhaps the most distinctive feature of being human. It is key to our abilities to learn and share culture from generation to generation, to cooperate in groups, and to adapt to our environments. While some animals—including dolphins, whales, bees, and ravens—have a limited range of communication, human language is more complex, creative, and extensively used.

Linguistic anthropology includes three main areas of specialization. Descriptive linguists carefully describe and analyze languages and their component parts. For example, some descriptive linguists spend years in rural areas helping local people construct a written language from their spoken language. Historic linguists study how language changes over time within a culture and as it moves across cultures. Sociolinguists study language in its social and cultural contexts. They examine how different speakers use language in different situations or with different people. They explore how language is affected by factors such as race, gender, age, class, or other relationships of power. Consider current changes in American English. For example, speakers are increasingly using a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun, they, when referring to a person with an unknown, nonbinary, or fluid sex or gender identity. This is a distinct shift from past language norms that required using he or she rather than the plural they. Sociolinguists would explore these changes: How are these linguistic norms changing? Who uses they? Who resists using it? How do these changes reflect changing American norms of gender and sexuality? We will explore sociolinguistic issues like these further in Chapter 4.

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Cultural anthropology is the study of people’s everyday lives and their communities—their behaviors, beliefs, and institutions. Cultural anthropologists explore all aspects of human culture, such as war and violence, love and sexuality, child-rearing and death. They examine what people do and how they live, work, and play together. But they also search for patterns of meaning embedded within each culture, and they develop theories about how cultures work. Cultural anthropologists examine how local communities interact with global forces.

Ethnographic fieldwork is at the heart of cultural anthropology. Through participant observation—living and working with people on a daily basis, often for a year or more—the cultural anthropologist strives to see the world through the eyes of others. Intensive fieldwork has the power to educate the anthropologist by (1) making something that may at first seem very unfamiliar into something that ultimately is quite familiar and (2) taking what has been very familiar and making it seem very strange. Through fieldwork, anthropologists look beyond the taken-for-granted, everyday experience of life to discover the complex systems of power and meaning that all people construct. These include the many systems we will cover throughout this book: gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, kinship, class, and economic and political systems.

Cultural anthropologists analyze and compare ethnographic data across cultures in a process called ethnology. This process looks beyond specific local realities to see more general patterns of human behavior and to explore how local experiences intersect with global dynamics. Ultimately, through intensive ethnographic fieldwork and cross-cultural comparison, cultural anthropologists seek to help people better understand one another and the way the world works.