Short Brief: Study of humans from a biological, social, and humanistic perspective. In the U.S. the field is generally divided into four major areas: physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology. In Europe the term anthropology commonly refers to physical anthropology alone. Physical anthropology deals with the biological evolution and the physiological adaptations of humans. Cultural, or sociocultural, anthropology concerns the ways in which people live in society—that is, the ways in which their language, culture, and customs develop. Linguistic anthropology focuses on language, examining, for example, the relationships between language and social life. Archaeology generally studies past cultures through their material remains. This article deals primarily with physical and cultural anthropology; see Linguistics and Archaeology for detailed information on those two fields.
Anthropology is fundamentally cross-cultural. Most early anthropological research studied non-European peoples and cultures, but a great deal of recent research has focused on modern settings. Anthropologists are firmly devoted to fieldwork, emphasizing firsthand experience and immersion in people's lives and activities.
HISTORY
From ancient times, travelers, historians, and scholars have studied and written about cultures that were exotic or different from the ways of life that they knew. The 5th-century bc Greek historian Herodotus traveled widely among different cultural groups, observing and analyzing their ways of life. As do modern anthropologists, he interviewed “key informants,” and he was acutely aware of the significance of differences among cultures in such aspects as family organization and religious practices. Much later, the Roman historian Tacitus, in his work Germania (about ad 98), described the character, manners, and geographical distribution of the German tribes.
In the Middle Ages a few individuals traveled in many lands and recorded what they saw and heard. The most famous was the Italian adventurer Marco Polo, who chronicled his travels (1271–95) through China and other parts of Asia, providing a wide range of information about the peoples and customs of the Far East.
During the Age of Discovery, which began in the 15th century, new fields of knowledge were explored. The discovery of the diverse peoples and cultures of the New World, Africa, South Asia, and the South Seas introduced revolutionary ideas about human cultural and biological history. In the 18th century scholars of the French Enlightenment, such as A. R. J. Turgot and the Marquis de Condorcet, began theorizing about long-term evolution and the development of human civilization from its earliest stage. These anthropological-philosophical views clashed with the biblical account of creation and with the theological tenet that the simpler cultures and peoples were remnants of groups that had fallen from God's grace and degenerated to a “primitive” condition.
During the 19th century the discoveries of a Neanderthal fossil in Germany (1856) and the remains of Java Man (in the 1890s) gave impressive evidence of an extremely long process of human evolution. Other archaeological finds—such as masses of ancient stone tools found in the gravel deposits in the Somme Valley by the French archaeologist Jacques Boucher de Crèvecoeur de Perthes—testified to a long, slow development of human prehistory, perhaps lasting hundreds of thousands of years.
Anthropology emerged as a distinct field of study in the mid-19th century. In North America the founder of the discipline was Lewis Henry Morgan, who did major research on the Iroquoian Confederacy. Morgan later set out a general theory of cultural evolution as a gradual progression from “savagery” to “barbarism” (marked by simple domestication of animals and plants) to “civilization” (begun with the invention of the alphabet). In Europe the founding figure was the British scholar Sir Edward B. Tylor, who elaborated a theory of human evolution with special concentration on the origins of religion. Tylor, Morgan, and their contemporaries emphasized the rationality of human cultures and theorized that everywhere human culture evolves into more complex and developed forms. Also in the mid-19th century major foundations for scientific archaeology were developed, especially by the Danish archaeologists at the Museum of Northern Antiquities in Copenhagen. From systematic excavations they discovered the sequential development of tools from Stone Age to Bronze Age to Iron Age.
Applied anthropology began in the 19th century with such organizations as the Aborigines Protection Society (1837) and the Ethnological Society of Paris (1838). These societies worked to arouse the European conscience against such cruelties as the slave trade and the slaughter of aboriginal peoples in Australia and the Americas.
PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Physical anthropology, a major area of study and experimentation, is primarily concerned with human evolution, human biology, and the study of other primates.
Evolution of Humans.
One branch of physical anthropology became widely known largely because of the work of a family of paleoanthropologists: Louis S. B. Leakey, who was Anglo-Kenyan; his wife,Mary, who was British; and their son, Richard, Kenyan. Their discovery during the 1960s of a series of fossils in Olduvai Gorge in N Tanzania led to major revisions in the understanding of human biological evolution. Fossil remains unearthed by researchers in subsequent decades provided further evidence that between, roughly speaking, 1 million and 3 million years ago the genus Homo (“true human”) coexisted in Africa with other advanced man-ape forms belonging to the genus Australopithecus (“southern ape”) and known as australopithecines. These ancient ancestors of humans had the legs and body for walking on two feet, which freed the hands for manipulating objects.
A striking illustration of the fact that human evolutionary progress was quite uneven was provided by a set of remains discovered in 1986 in the Olduvai Gorge by researchers from the University of California. This fossil, approximately 1.8 million years old, was classified as Homo habilis. It had arm and leg bones that gave evidence of relatively advanced upright, bipedal locomotion, and its skull characteristics resembled other H. habilis. It also was similar to australopithecines: the legs were short in proportion to the arms, there were indications of marked differences in stature between males and females, and the skeletal bones did not differ much from those of “Lucy,” a famous Australopithecus afarensis skeleton about 3.3 million years old that was discovered by American paleoanthropologist Donald C. Johanson (1943– ) in Ethiopia in 1974.
Crude stone artifacts discovered in association with australopithecine fossils in East Africa demonstrate tool-making and tool-using capabilities going back some 2.5 million years. But tools are found much more often with fossils of the larger-brained genus Homo. This technical ability, which may have contributed to the apparent evolutionary success of Homo, is reflected in the name Homo habilis (“handy man”). Compared with the australopithecines, who are thought to have been primarily vegetarian, the H. habilis forerunners of modern human beings seem to have been developing toward considerable meat eating, judging from the conformation of the teeth and evidence of tool use.
As the number and variety of fossil discoveries accumulated, and were supplemented by genetic studies, it became clear that Africa, rather than Asia, was the probable center of earliest human evolution. H. habilis, and an allied, slightly larger species found in Africa, H. rudolfensis, seem to have represented an initial stage. They had somewhat bigger brains than australopithecines—the usual brain size of the adult H. habilis form was about 590–690 cc (36–42 cu in). But in certain other respects they still shared australopithecine features. The expansion out of Africa was apparently undertaken close to 2 million years ago by species representing the next stage of human evolution: Homo ergaster (“working man”) and especially Homo erectus (“upright man”). Members of these species tended to be larger than those of H. habilis and H. rudolfensis, and they had bigger brains. Over the more than 1.5 million years of its existence H. erectus developed markedly, according to fossil evidence. Its adult brain size, originally slightly larger than that of H. habilis and H. rudolfensis, eventually reached the range of 1100–1300 cc (67–79 cu in), within the size variation of Homo sapiens. As H. erectus spread from Africa across Asia and into Europe, it developed an increasingly diversified tool-making inventory.
The best known remains of H. erectus are the famous Java man, formerly known as Pithecanthropus erectus, and the equally well-known Peking man, a collection of skeletal materials found at Zhoukoudian near Beijing (Peking), originally labeled Sinanthropus pekinensis. Both are much younger than the East African H. habilis materials and date from about 500,000 years ago. The Peking fossils are especially interesting because the brain size is even larger than that of the Java materials, averaging more than 1050 cc (more than 64 cu in), and the skull and other bone materials are slightly more “modern.” H. erectus fossils have also been found in Europe and Africa, with many stone tools and other evidence of a simple hunting-gathering culture. At Zhoukoudian archaeologists found evidence of human use of fire, as well as indications of cannibalism.
The famed Neanderthal specimens and dozens of similar fossils have long been a subject of controversy. While some anthropologists suspect the Neanderthals may be a direct part of human ancestry; others believe they were a side branch, that is, a separate species, of Homo that died out tens of thousands of years ago. Between about 300,000 years ago and 28,000 years ago Neanderthals were a hunting-gathering people in parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. They were robustly built, with heavy brow ridges and an average brain size of about 1500 cc (92 cu in), greater than that of most modern H. sapiens. Some fossils have been found that appear to be intermediate between Neanderthal and H. sapiens. Such remains might be evidence of “intermarriage” between Neanderthal peoples and the direct ancestors of humans; or they might simply reflect a wide range of variation in a single H. sapiens population. Since the last phases of the Ice Ages, about 20,000 to 10,000 years ago, large numbers of skeletal remains resembling modern humans have been found in Europe and Africa and elsewhere.
The Americas have produced no human skeletal materials older than about 15,000 years, and the few specimens that are several thousand years old are all H. sapiens. It seems clear that biological evolution leading to modern humanity took place in the Old World. See also Human Evolution.
Human Biology.
Another major branch of physical anthropology is the study of contemporary peoples and their biological features. Much early study and debate centered on the identification, number, and characteristics of “principal races.” As refined techniques were developed for measuring skin and eye color, hair texture, blood type, head shape, and other dimensions, the classification of races became more and more complicated (see Races, Classification Of). Modern theorists hold that ideas of “pure races” or ancestral archetypes are misleading and mistaken. All humans living today are H. sapiens and are descended from the same general, complex ancestry. Genetic features have always varied geographically, but in every region genetic inheritance results in “ranges of variation” and intermediate types or combinations. Thus, categorization of people by supposed race is more a social and political than a biological statement. “Asian,” “black,” and “white” are socially defined groupings involving much mixing of genetic qualities with cultural characteristics.
Biological anthropologists later shifted their attention to the complex patterns of human genetics. They have studied the interplay of genetic adaptations with physiological and cultural (nongenetic) adaptations in illness, malnutrition, and environmental stresses such as high altitudes and hot climates. Medical and nutritional anthropologists combine biological-genetic perspectives with cultural and social data in studying illnesses such as hypertension and diabetes and in investigating growth and development under varying circumstances of nutrition and health.
The American physician Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, a co-winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, gained particular attention for his discovery that the mysterious wasting sickness called kuru, found only among an isolated people in highland New Guinea, was communicated through cannibalistic practices. (The infectious agent was later shown to be a prion.) Some biological anthropologists have traced the genetic patterns and other features of such diseases as sickle-cell anemia, thalassemia, and diabetes.
Study of the Primates.
Since humans are primates, with biological cousins among the apes and monkeys, the study of the behaviors, population dynamics, dietary habits, and other qualities of baboons, chimpanzees, gorillas, and similar primates is an important comparative dimension of anthropology. British anthropologist Jane van Lawick-Goodall and her colleagues have spent years observing the free-ranging chimpanzees in a national park in Tanzania. They discovered that chimpanzees are capable of using simple tools—notably small sticks to “fish” for termites and ants—and can throw stones and sticks effectively. In a famous experiment chimpanzees were observed using heavy sticks in “beating up” a stuffed leopard. They communicate with each other both vocally and physically. Studies of communications patterns and of group life among monkeys and apes provide insights for understanding the remote past of human evolution.
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
A large portion of anthropological research focuses on fieldwork among different cultures around the world. Between about 1900 and 1950 such studies were aimed at recording the variety of human ways of life before the simpler, non-Western cultures were completely engulfed by modernization and Europeanization. Research describing the food production, social organization, religion, clothing and material culture, language, and other aspects of different cultures is referred to as ethnography. The comparative analysis of these ethnographic descriptions, seeking broader generalizations about cultural patterns, dynamics, and worldwide principles, is the study of ethnology.
In the second half of the 20th century ethnology became more and more interwoven with social anthropology, developed by British and French scholars. For a brief period it was hotly debated whether anthropology should be concerned with the study of social systems or, following the American style, the comparative analysis of cultures. It was soon realized, however, that research in ways of life and behaviors is practically always a combination—commonly referred to today as cultural, or sociocultural, anthropology.
Kinship and Social Organization.
One important discovery of 19th-century anthropologists was that kinship relationships form the core and principal substance of social relations in all premodern societies. In many nonindustrial societies, the most important social groups are clans, lineages, and other kinship organizations. When membership in such kinship “corporations” (for instance, the Roman gens) is assigned to persons through the male line only, the system is called patrilineal descent. Before the growth of commerce and large-scale urbanization, many European peoples were organized economically and politically into patrilineal kin groups.
Matrilineal societies, with kin group membership traced through females, are less common. Herodotus was the first scholar to describe such a social system, which he found among the Lycians of Asia Minor. Several well-known American Indian groups have matrilineal kinship systems, including the Iroquois, Cherokee, Creek, Crow, Navajo, and some Pueblo communities in Arizona and New Mexico.
Bilateral kinship organization, in which kinship relations are traced through both maternal and paternal sides of the family, is prevalent both in the simplest hunting-gathering societies (such as the !Kung peoples of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa and the Inuit, or Eskimo) and in complex societies. Modern North Americans have bilateral kinship systems. (Contemporary Western bilateral kinship, however, is adapted to a social system largely dominated by nonkinship organizations and relationships.) A study of kinship organization in 860 preindustrial societies showed that about 50 percent had patrilineal systems; some 35 percent, bilateral; and 15 percent, matrilineal.
In kinship-based societies, the members of a lineage, clan, or other kin group are usually descendants of a common ancestor. Similarly, groups of lineages may often consider themselves descendants of a common ancestor (such as “the children of Abraham”). This concept allows large numbers of people to be united for warfare or ritual activities, making them distinct from their neighbors and enemies. For example, among some Central Asian “hordes” that for centuries attacked Europe with their swift cavalry, the complex military organization was based on patrilineal kinship.
Voluntary Associations.
Some nonindustrial, small-scale cultural groups also have important social groupings not based on kinship. The Plains Indians were famed for their “military societies”—groups of men who fought and celebrated together, and who also assumed some “police” duties in the communally organized buffalo hunts. The Zuni, Hopi, and other Indian communities of Arizona and New Mexico still have religious fraternities that provide for a richly elaborate ceremonial life. In some West African cultural groups, secret societies exercise social control and recreational responsibilities.
Practically all ethnic and national groups develop special modes of organizations when they migrate into new surroundings. The familiar Sons of Norway, Italian-American clubs, and other ethnic organizations of North America are matched by similar voluntary associations of migrant groups in African and Asian cities.
The Evolution of Political-Social Systems.
The simplest human societies are hunting-gathering groups such as the Inuit, Kalahari San, Congo Pygmies, and Australian aborigines. Among these peoples small numbers of families are grouped together into bands—that is, nomadic groups of perhaps 30 to 100 persons, related by kinship and associated with a particular territory.
The few remaining hunting-gathering bands (in remote parts of Africa, India, and the Philippines) are important because they exemplify, in a general way, the state of social organizations and culture of 99 percent of all human experience. Their kin relations, religious ideas, methods of health care, and cultural characteristics illustrate the cultural roots of modern humanity.
More complex social and economic systems were not possible until especially favorable food sources allowed early humans to settle in permanent, year-round communities. Then came the crucial breakthrough—although only a moderate change at first—as people learned to domesticate plants and animals for food, transportation, clothing, and other uses.
The Neolithic transition—that is, the beginnings of domestication of food resources—occurred independently in the Middle East and in East Asia about 12,000 years ago, according to the latest archaeological evidence. With greater population concentrations and permanent living sites, social-political organizations developed that linked together numbers of local groups. The new social systems, often encompassing several thousand people in multicommunity tribes, were united by religious ceremonies, food exchanges, and cultural features.
Although small-scale tribes often had no real “central government,” increases in populations and food sources led to the need for, and the possibility of, political centralization. Chiefdoms are the small-scale social systems in which food products and political tribute flow to a central leader, or chief, who in turn redistributes the food and tribute to the community members.
The Rise of Nation-States.
Ethnological and archaeological studies support the view that states or kingdoms came into existence somewhat differently in different historical and ecological situations. In the prebiblical Middle East, for example, the first city-states developed when population increases led to expanding food needs, followed by the development of irrigation projects to satisfy these needs. This, in turn, led to the growth of military systems to protect these resources. In other instances, location on crucial trade routes—for example, Timbuktu on the Saharan salt-trade route—favored military and administrative centralization.
Once started however, kingdoms nearly everywhere displayed certain patterns of growth. Fledgling kingdoms seldom “stand still”; the tendency to engulf neighboring regions—to exploit them economically and to “pacify” potential invaders—is widespread. In the “first civilizations”—in the Middle East, Egypt, northern India, Southeast Asia, China, Mexico, and Peru—military fortifications soon appeared, usually accompanied by temples and other examples of religious ritual that marked the growth of priesthoods. Social stratification, with a small military-religious elite and a large subservient population of peasants and workers, was a consequence.
Evolution of Religious Systems.
Simple hunting-gathering bands apparently often had detailed beliefs about the supernatural world, the “forces of nature,” and the behaviors of spirits and gods. But some small-scale societies, such as the !Kung peoples of the Kalahari, seem to possess unelaborate ideas about the supernatural, the causes of things, and the hereafter. The Siriono of eastern Bolivia, for example, are reported to be totally vague about where people go after they die.
Small-scale, relatively egalitarian hunting-gathering groups usually lack the extra resources to support full-time religious specialists. All human groups, however, large and small (including modern North American cultural groups), have shamans—men or women thought to have direct contact with supernatural beings and forces, from which they derive power to affect natural events such as illness. The shaman is often the only person with a specialized religious role in small-scale societies.
In the lower middle range of cultures—for example, small societies practicing cultivation—communal religious systems involve the people in complex ritual performances, often with a rotation of priestly responsibilities. Where kinship groups are the main elements of social solidarity, religious observances are often centered around family and lineage.
The rise of centralized social systems with social stratification has almost always been accompanied by the development of ecclesiastical religious systems with full-time priests, complex rituals for the entire populace, and increased tendencies to both moral and political rule making. These complex religious systems seldom eliminated either the practices of individualized shamanism (especially for healing of sickness) or the family-centered religious observances that reflect kinship solidarity.
Archaeological evidence from the earliest city-kingdoms testifies to the frequently close partnerships between the ecclesiastical leaders and the leaders of commerce and statecraft, thus emphasizing the conservative aspect of religion. On the other hand, movements of radical social reform have usually been religious, and both in simpler societies and in more complex “civilizations,” new religious systems arise regularly whenever some portion of the society experiences severe frustration and hardship. While religion may at times serve the status quo, religions may sometimes act as forces of radical change.
Development of Culture.
The rather simple schemes of cultural evolution proposed in the 19th century have been debated, elaborated, and modified as new archaeological and ethnological data have come to light. Some leading anthropologists early in the 20th century, such as the German-American Franz Boas and the American Alfred Kroeber, took a strong antievolutionist point of view. They argued that cultural and social processes have been so diverse throughout the world that no general stages or trends could be discerned. That point of view has now been largely discarded.
Two fundamentally different explanations of cultural evolution have been elaborated. The 19th-century evolutionists held that broadly similar processes of cultural growth and elaboration occur in different societies because of a fundamental psychic unity of all humankind. Thus, the parallels in the rise of social stratification and ruling elites, for example, are seen as caused by human mental qualities.
The contrary view, held by increasing numbers of anthropologists, puts primary emphasis on the material conditions of life—the energy sources, technologies, and production systems of human groups. Environmental influences are also stressed, because the growth of complex cultural systems has been especially favored by certain geographical and climatic features. For example, the prehistoric Middle East was rich in varieties of game animals (wild pigs, sheep, goats) and wild plants that proved especially amenable to domestication.
Most theorists would now agree that material influences—including available energy, technology, and the organization of production (and reproduction)—are major components in cultural evolution and social processes. Still, the force of ideas also looms large; some widely cited examples of the power of ideas are the spread of religions such as Christianity and Islam, the struggle between COmunist and non-Communist ideologies, influence of Communist ideology, and the impact of commercial advertising.
A comprehensive theoretical approach gradually emerged in anthropology during the 1970s. Usually called ecological theory, this approach requires a holistic, multivariable research strategy. In the spectrum from materialist to mentalist viewpoints, it can be adjusted to various intermediate positions. The American anthropologist Margaret Mead, for example, studied the development of the individual personality under varying social and economic conditions. In general, when the focus is on larger time frames (such as hundreds or thousands of years), the emphasis shifts toward materialistic determinism. Research centered on shorter time spans, including cultural features of modern society, can emphasize symbols and ideas (such as ethnic identity and religious revivalism) and still remain within the ecological framework.
METHODS AND APPLICATIONS
The research methods of anthropologists are as varied as the topics they study.
Archaeological Research.
For archaeological anthropologists it is fundamental to establish chronological patterns—the time sequences of past human activities that have left physical remains to be excavated. Of modern methods of dating archaeological remains, the radiocarbon technique is among the most widely used. The basis of this method is that living plants and animals contain fixed ratios of a radioactive form of carbon, known as carbon-14. Carbon-14 deteriorates at a constant rate, leaving ordinary carbon. Measuring the traces of radiocarbon in pieces of charcoal, remains of plants, cotton fibers, wood, and so forth permits fairly accurate assessment of age in materials that are as much as 60,000 to 70,000 years old.
The ages of ancient fossil remains dating from several million years ago are established by other powerful radiological tools, such as the potassium-argon method. Radioactive potassium (potassium-40) breaks down extremely slowly, yielding argon-40.
Time sequences of archaeological remains are still read primarily through meticulous attention to stratigraphy—the time-ordered deposition of soil, organic materials, and remains of human activity. Such deposits gradually build up and cover each preceding phase in any human living site. The techniques used in establishing stratigraphic sequences include soil analysis, geological assessment, and study of animal and plant remains, as well as the detective work of piecing together the remains of floors, storage pits, and other constructions. See also Dating Methods.
Sociocultural Research.
In cultural anthropology, research rests on the fundamental idea of participant observation in a community or social system. The anthropologist first becomes immersed in the life of the community and, through daily contacts and observations, establishes rapport with the people. This first phase of field research can take weeks, even months, particularly if one must learn the local language. The early ethnographers obtained their data mainly from extensive interviewing of a few key informants—persons who were “experts” about the local culture and social system. These data were cross-checked among several informants and pieced together with the field-worker's own direct observations.
Research in complex and changing cultural systems, however, requires additional methodological tools. Structured interviews (with samples of people) are routinely used to obtain focused information about food use, health behavior, economic resources, labor migrations, recreation, and other topics. Meticulous recording of transactions in the marketplace, hours of work, catches of fish and game, and crop yields are used in analyzing economic behavior. Complex psychological tests are employed when the focus turns to questions of personality. Data from church archives, native texts, government reports, and other written sources are also analyzed.
As field data became more complex and sophisticated, requiring routine management of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of bits of information, archaeologists turned to computers to map out time sequences, spatial relationships, and other patterns. Trends of cultural change, relationships of economic activities to social interactions, multiethnic interactions, and other complicated patterns are tested with complex statistical methods.
Such technical, quantified research methods have not replaced traditional field-research styles. Rather, detailed interviews of key informants, as well as complex qualitative analysis of symbol systems, ceremonies, and other cultural features, are still essential parts of eclectic, holistic methodology.
CURRENT TRENDS
Toward the close of the 20th century anthropology increasingly became an applied science, as researchers concentrated on social issues in areas such as health care, education, environmental protection, and urban development. Many anthropologists are now employed by government agencies, research corporations, Indian tribal governments, and health-care facilities, and much fieldwork is carried out in complex cultural sciences—school systems, citywide health systems, large-scale agricultural development programs, and multicommunity rural regions.
The shift to the study of complex, multicultural systems and the increase in quantified research methods led to a need for team research. Early research typically involved a lone field-worker, isolated for months in some remote village; now, however, many field projects consist of several persons, including statistical consultants, both biological and social scientists, and student assistants.
Another significant trend is to work more closely with community people—ethnic organizations, tribal governments, neighborhood health clinics, migrant labor organizations, women's groups, and other special-interest groups—whose activities require up-to-date quantitative and descriptive data. Linguists have worked with Indian organizations and other ethnic groups to help develop bilingual, bicultural school materials.
Anthropologists have traditionally developed social attachments to their research communities as a matter of practical methodology. Those social relationships have often become partnerships in which the people in the communities that are studied directly experience at least some benefits of the projects. In turn, these pragmatic applications of anthropological methods lead to new directions in social and biocultural theory. P.J.P., PERTTI J. PELTO, Ph.D.
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