Question

Defining Anthropology: What is anthropology? Here you will separate the different anthropology subfields you have learned about, and you will discuss how the field is the sum of all its parts as you consider people and their complexities. How do all the subfields work together to form the field of anthropology? You will also provide a field-specific example to support your definition.

Answer 1

According to Western Washington University: "Anthropology explores what it means to be human. Anthropology is the scientific study of humankind in all the cultures of the world, both past and present."

Anthropology is the study of human beings, their behaviour, culture, beliefs.It is the study of humans from the beginnings of years to the present . It may be called as a subject of half science and half arts.It may concerned with the biological features as well as social aspects.

Four Sub fields of Anthropology :

1. Archaeology  examines peoples and cultures of the past.It is the study of past cultures. ie, who we are? what we are? etc. Archaeologists can go back millions of years and can  often study cultures that are long gone. Using this ,archaeologists can look at how cultures change over time. It  is the important  way of knowing about that past.

2. Biological Anthropology is  the study of biological aspects of human beings.It is the study of the past and present evolution of the human species and is concerned with understanding the causes of present human diversity.Anthropologists studies about  human evolution, human genetics, health and disease.

3. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their cultural, social aspects of life in the past and the present. It focuses on the social lives of living communities. cultural anthropologists works focus on the broad description of the knowledge, customs  of a particular culture group.

4. Linguistics Anthropology is the study of language. Anthropologists study the diversity of the world's languages and the diversity of language use and other forms of communication in societies around the world.

Each of these sub fields in anthropology contributes different aspects to the understanding of humans in the past and present. It helps anthropologists to study the total variety present in our species. Anthropology studies everything about being human and therefore enables us to understand the origins and development of human.

A field-specific example for anthropology is regarding the study of Museums. It is the place for the study of organized collection, and display of objects—began long before Many of these collections are associated with the discipline of anthropology providing evidence of human evolution , past cultures etc.