1 What is Anthropology?

In late 2019 news broke of the spread of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, the most populous city in central China. Coronaviruses are responsible for causing the common cold and usually mild upper-respiratory tract infections, but COVID-19, named in such a way to disassociate the disease from its origins in Wuhan, is an infectious disease caused by this newly discovered coronavirus that at the time of the writing of this book , has infected more than 2 million people and has resulted in over 160,000 deaths worldwide. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic. There is no vaccine currently for COVID-19, but there are ongoing clinical trials to evaluate potential treatments. The coronavirus spreads mainly through droplets from the nose or mouth when someone who is infected sneezes or coughs. COVID-19 has been compared to influenza, since symptoms and transmission seem to overlap, but as scientists learn more about COVID-19, there are some potential differences  that have caused countries around the world to implement more restrictive measures  to prevent its spread. Each person infected with the novel coronavirus seems to infect more people than the average person who has the flu. Research indicates that a higher rate of transmission could be due to pre-symptomatic transmission, or when people who have been infected are not showing symptoms but are in fact contagious. In comparison, the flu is the most contagious during the first 3-5 days after the person starts to exhibit symptoms, so pre-symptomatic transmission is not as common. One other difference is that the coronavirus may be transmitted through droplets suspended in the air that are contagious, meaning they could infect others even after the infected person is no longer nearby. A concern for some countries is the lack of testing for COVID-19, as data have shown that about 25% of those infected do not show any symptoms and about 80% of cases are mild to moderate—ranging from a cough and fever to low-grade pneumonia, which may not require extensive medical attention. These numbers imply that some of those infected may not even know that they are and could be spreading the virus without knowing it.

Countries around the globe deployed various lockdown  strategies to try to contain the spread of COVID-19. Schools and institutions of higher education closed. International borders closed and domestic travel became restricted. Millions of people were quarantined and only allowed to leave their homes for essential purposes as defined by local authorities. Non-essential businesses, like restaurants and cafes, closed or had to reduce their services to prevent people from congregating in one place.  Gatherings of people, such as at places of worship or sporting events, were prohibited. Grocery store shelves were emptied due to people buying essentials in case they become unable to leave their homes at all. Convention centers were turned in makeshift hospitals. Face-to-face interactions, among co-workers and even families, were replaced by virtual meetings and phone calls so people did not come in close contact. People were urged or required to wear masks in public to cover their nose and mouth. Photos circulated of deserted historical world monuments, including the Eiffel Tower and the Coliseum, that are usually packed with visitors.  All of these changes to daily life were the result of countries trying to “flatten the curve,” the curve being the projected number of people infected with COVID-19 over time, through implementing “social distancing” guidelines. In epidemiology, a flatter curve means that not everyone will become infected at once, but rather, over a longer period of time.  A slower infection rate gives the health care system time to secure necessary resources and can prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed with extremely sick patients. Cases of COVID-19 appeared in almost every country around the world in a relatively short time from when the first case was diagnosed in China in late 2019, which has caused many people’s lives to change drastically. The headline of an article that appeared in Politico magazine sums it up nicely, “Coronavirus will Change the World Permanently,” since experts agree that even after social distancing guidelines are lifted, daily life will not be the same for quite some time, if ever.

Anthropologists have been increasingly included in the response to disease outbreaks.  The World Health Organization (WHO) involved anthropologists in its response to the Ebola (a deadly virus that damages organs and the immune system) epidemic in West Africa that began in 2014 and lasted until 2016. Anthropologists’ research contributed to various parts of the response process. Using qualitative methods to gather information, they studied the cultural factors that facilitated the spread of Ebola and restricted the response efforts in West Africa. Some anthropologists have focused on those who survived Ebola and the challenges that they faced after recovery. Professor Barry Hewlett, a medical anthropologist who was part of the WHO Ebola response team during the 2000 outbreak in Uganda, was cited as saying, “understanding local customs—and fears—can go a long way in getting communities to cooperate with international health care workers.” Prior to enlisting anthropologists on response teams to disease outbreaks, WHO, and other organizations such as Doctors without Borders, found it hard to persuade families to bring their loved ones who were sick to clinics. Hewlett learned that people in Uganda were very hesitant to do so because they were scared of the foreign health workers: ‘The local people thought that Europeans in control of the isolation units were in a body parts business…Their loved ones would go into the isolation units, and they would never see them come out.’ The health care workers from abroad were not in this business, but rather, mostly every person who contracted Ebola died. The workers would put the bodies of those who passed away from Ebola into secured body bags. To avoid the transmission of the virus, they would remove the dead bodies from the clinic or isolation facility quickly and dispose of them. They did not always have time to notify the families of their loved ones’ deaths, meaning families were unable to see their bodies, thinking that they were taken away and cut up for their organs.

Anthropologists were directly involved in the response to Ebola in West Africa, engaging with affected communities and health care workers. This has not quite been the case with COVID-19,  as social distancing guidelines put in place worldwide have prevented much anthropological, on-the-ground, research on the pandemic. However, this does not mean that anthropologists have not critically engaged with the disease outbreak even from afar. Justin Haruyama, Laura Meek, and Ria Sinha wrote this reminder in their Anthropology News article in March 2020 about the novel coronavirus: “Disease is but the most obvious part of an epidemic. As coronavirus spreads, it fuels many other kinds of contagious forces.” Anthropology has engaged with a range of questions relating to the transmission or response to COVID-19, such as how domestic and international policies affect the economic and social impact of the virus (Harvey 2020); the significance of the name COVID-19, as it is commonly referred to in the media, given the official name of the virus is SARS-CoV-2 (Gusterson 2020); how the shuttering of towns, cities, and entire countries has affected pollution levels and the environment (Mason 2020); and how response agencies and governments handle uncertainty and the unknown (MacGregor et al. 2022).

With its holistic approach—or an interest in how various components of life interact and shape each other and the idea that these components do not exist and therefore cannot be analyzed in isolation—anthropology can offer the cultural and historical contexts of the novel coronavirus as well as the broader social, economic, and political impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown measures taken by different cities and countries.   Lenore Manderson and Susan Levine (2020), write of anthropology’s contribution to understanding COVID-19 given “the institution of quarantine practices, lockdowns, and border controls, and the insistence on adherence of hygiene practices (handwashing) highlight how human practices and behaviors are implicated, and foreshadow a global humanitarian crisis” (367). Anthropologists provide insight into the complex social realities of disease outbreaks, like COVID-19, emphasizing that the disease itself is only part of it; people’s daily lives are also affected in a multitude of ways. What does it mean when people are unable to physically interact with each other during lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19? Who has access to testing and who does not? How does it impact those who are undocumented or living on the margins of society? How does an outbreak affect the mental health, as well as physical well-being, of frontline health care workers, such as doctors, nurses, and hospital staff? What is are the optimal ways to implement social distancing guidelines in different communities? How will those who lose their income during wide-spread shutdowns cope financially during and after the pandemic? Will the elderly or very sick individuals who are isolated die alone during quarantine? Anthropologists can generate knowledge about the interactions between the biological and the social, which cannot be universally understood because people experience their bodies differently based upon the contexts and realities in which they live, and anthropologists can help us see how disease outbreaks unfold in various ways across groups. This type of insight can aid governments, organizations, and communities to develop appropriate tools to address the various biological and social aspects of outbreaks and to make sure all segments of society receive the support they need.

Is what we just described what you think contemporary anthropologists do? What do you think of when you hear the term “anthropology”? Do images of Indiana Jones, the famed professor of archaeology featured in the Hollywood blockbuster franchise of the same name, finding ancient treasures deep inside a cave pop into your head?  Or, maybe you think of the American television series Bones (2005-2017) that follows the work of a forensic anthropologist, Dr. Temperance Brennan, as she collaborates with her team in a lab to solve criminal cases based on human remains brought to her by a special agent for the FBI. (The series developed out of the novels written by real-life forensic anthropologist, Dr. Kathy Reichs, who also served as one of the show’s producers.) Some people remember Dr. Margaret Mead (1901-1978), an anthropologist who conducted ethnographic research in the Pacific, resulting in several widely-read books inside and outside of anthropology, and who was famous for bridging the divide between academia and the public by regularly writing for popular publications and speaking to the media on controversial topics at the time, such as gender and sexuality. Anthropology began as the study of nonindustrial societies, with early anthropologists, like Margaret Mead, focusing on places and people much different from what they knew and experienced in Europe and the United States. Today, many people think that anthropologists continue to study among nonindustrial peoples alone, but anthropologists also conduct research in industrialized nations. And, yes, while some still do important work in more remote areas, their questions have certainly changed over time due to the ways that world has changed and become more interconnected since the first anthropologists conducted their studies and the ways that globalization has impacted the bodies and everyday lives local populations. Other anthropologists conduct their research at hospitals, inside of conference rooms, at professional meetings, within virtual worlds, for technology firms in places like Silicon Valley, or as members of response teams to disease outbreaks.

Who Are Anthropologists? What Do They Do?

Did you know the 12th president of the World Bank (2012-2019), Dr. Jim Yong Kim, is an anthropologist and a physician? Or, that U.S. President Barak Obama’s late mother, Dr. Ann Durham, earned her PhD in anthropology at the University of Hawaii? Would you have guessed that Adidas collaborated with a consulting company specializing in the social sciences to train its design team members in anthropological methods? Or, that Intel Corporation, a technology company, recruited anthropologist Dr. Genevive Bell to build its social science research program with the intention of gaining more keen insight into user experience? Would you have ever thought that an anthropologist helped Yoplait create Go-GURT? Go-GURT’s target audience is children. It is an American brand of low-fat yogurt that comes in plastic packaging that children can open and squeeze into their mouth. No need for a spoon to eat this yogurt. Dr. Susan Squires, who conducted research in corporate settings, was part of a study that investigated why parents chose to buy one product over another for their children’s breakfast. This included Squires eating breakfast with families who were part of the study and while doing so, talking to them about their food habits and morning routines. What did she and her team learn? A banana was a common item that parents and children ate in the morning because it is nutritious and transportable! More and more mothers are working in the United States, meaning there are more dual-earner households and households where mothers are the sole-earner as well as the only caregiver than there were, say, in the 1950s and 1960s. Mornings in many homes are hectic and there is little time to sit down and have breakfast. Furthermore, Squires discovered that children were not always hungry when they first wake up in the morning, but became hungry as the morning went on, sometimes not eating until just a few moments before starting the school day. As part of the research, they asked family members what a good breakfast means for them. Mothers, fathers, in-laws, and children gave a diverse range of answers, ranging from whole grain to “comfort foods” to sweets to eggs and bacon. Squires relayed her findings to her client, Yoplait, and the fact that a successful new breakfast food must be portable, appeal to family members ideas of what a good breakfast is, and appear to be something that is like a banana, since it was a popular choice (healthy, mobile, and disposable). The answer was: Go-GURT. In its first year, 1998, Go-GURT generated $37 million in sales, even though it was not widely distributed. It remains a staple in many American grocery stores even today. What Squires was able to bring to the corporate world as an anthropologist was first-hand insight into families’ mornings through her participatory research inside of homes and a deeper understanding of American families’ routines and habits that could help Yoplait create the right breakfast product to satisfy their needs .

The mathematician René Descartes (1596-1650) wrote, “When the first encounter with some object surprises us, and we judge it to be new or very different from what we formerly knew, or from what we suppose it ought to be, that causes us to wonder and be surprised; and because that may happen before we in any way know whether this object is agreeable to us or is not so, it appears to me that wonder is the first of all the passions” (1989, 52). Anthropologists are curious about people. They like to be surprised and to uncover what is not always obvious to the everyday observer. A famous quote by Margaret Mead goes, “Anthropology demands an open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and wonder that which one would not have been able to guess” (1977, IX). Anthropologists are driven by wonder and the desire to learn more about people and phenomena, both past and present. For anthropologists, even the most mundane or routine can be extremely significant.

What is Anthropology?

Anthropology is the study of humankind. The term comes from two Greek words. The word Anthropos means “human” and “logy” means the “study of.” Anthropology is much broader in scope and time span than some of its closely related disciplines, like sociology . Kenneth Guest has defined anthropology as, “The study of the full scope of human diversity and the application of that knowledge to help people of different backgrounds better understand one another ” (2016, 8). Anthropology includes the study of cultures, languages, artifacts, and human evolution, and this list is not exhaustive. For example, a focus of Dr. Rashmi Sadana’s research is the new metro rail system in Delhi, India. She looks at how it was developed and designed as well as how the system impacts the city and people’s lives both socially and economically. Dr. Haagen Klaus’ research on the north coast of Peru involves the discovery and analysis of human skeletal remains from thousands of years ago to better understand what life was like for people in past societies, and to see what present day societies can learn from them. Both are anthropologists and both teach in the same department at George Mason University. Even though they study in vastly different geographic locations and historical periods, in their work, they address some of the same underlying questions about humanity that drive anthropology as a discipline on-the-whole, such as:  What influences human beliefs and practices throughout the world? Why may we act and think differently from others and what do we all have in common? How has our past shaped who we are today and how have people and cultures changed through time? These are far-ranging questions that reflect the wide-range of interests that anthropologists have.

The American Anthropological Association (AAA), the largest professional organization for anthropologists in the world established in 1902, states that in order to “understand the full sweep and complexity of cultures across all human history, anthropology draws and builds upon knowledge from the social and biological sciences as well as the humanities and physical sciences.” So, even though Sadana’s research in India looks very different from Klaus’ research in Peru, together they are able to provide a more robust picture of humanity. Sadana and Klaus even address some of the same questions about the growth of cities and their infrastructure, gender and class status, colonialism, and globalization, showing how people’s lives are distinctive due to geography, history, and culture, but also how they are the similar in some ways too.

A Brief Introduction to the History of Anthropological Thought

Thinkers of the ancient world laid the foundation for the study of humanity that would later become the recognized discipline of anthropology. As a discipline, anthropology was established during the 19th century especially in the West and originated in the encounters between Westerners and the groups they colonized around the world.  (This contentious relationship between anthropology and colonialism will be discussed more in this resource.)  Anthropology traces its origins to ancient Greek writings concerning human nature and human society. Herodotus, a Greek historian who lived between 484 and 424 BC, has been identified by experts as the first to write on topics that would later become crucial to anthropology. Herodotus was the first to systematically record human actions and events based on a variety of oral and written historical sources. Herodotus is said to have traveled around the ancient world in order to collect information from people and records for his work The Histories, which is a record of politics, customs, and conflicts from around the ancient world, including Greece, Libya, and Egypt. Ibn Khaldun is another early writer whose ideas are key to anthropology. He was born in Tunis in 1332 and died in Cairo in 1406. He descended from a family of government officials and jurists. The Muqaddimah is the first volume in Ibn Khaldun’s history of the world. He analyzed the various influences in history that led to the rise and fall of civilizations, such as politics, environmental and sociological factors, and conflicts. He is considered to be a supreme social analyst of the Medieval Muslim world.

Not long after the time of Ibn Khaldun, Europeans began exploring other parts of the world in their pursuit for wealth and resources. They offered vivid descriptions of the people they encountered as they journeyed through Africa, Asia, and the Americas—people and cultures that were very different from theirs. European nations often created their empires without the participation  of the local people. Colonialism can be defined as a state  that establishes  rule elsewhere, outside of its recognized borders and boundaries. One example is French rule in North Africa. Algeria was under French Rule from 1830 until the Algerian War of Independence in 1962. Morocco was a French protectorate from 1912-1956. (A protectorate means that Morocco remained its own state under the guise of France.) Algerians could not become French citizens under colonial rule, even though those who moved to Algeria from France retained their citizenship and those who were born in Algeria to French parents were granted French citizenship. It is important to realize that we often talk about colonialism as being in the past, but anthropologists have pointed out that it has existed in many time periods in history, including the 21st century, albeit in different forms .

The Age of Enlightenment that is associated with 17th and 18th century Europe is known for its rise of rational and scientific thought. Philosophers of this time, such as John Locke and David Hume, wrote about the nature of humankind based on reason instead of religious authority. Prior to the Enlightenment in Europe, the Church and God were seen as authorities. The structure of society and people’s roles within it and everyday life were seen as being determined by religious intervention. These scholars raised key anthropological questions, but they did not have firsthand experience with non-Western cultures. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Europeans came into more contact with people around the world as countries like England, France, the Netherlands, and Spain expanded their political and economic rule to new lands. The rise of global economic networks, profit-driven economies, and industrialization in the 18th century in Europe spurred extensive cultural and social changes globally. The elite and wealthy who owned land and industries looked abroad for material resources as well as labor.

Europeans had access to  new information about people in the colonies. Europe also looked for scientific reasons to support its claims of superiority and why it should be the global economic and political leader. The first anthropologists, although they were not called anthropologists per se at this point, were sent by Western European countries in the early 19th century to study those societies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas that European countries had colonized . On the one hand, this was done because the Europeans wanted to know how best  to govern them. On the other hand, their task was to document cultures that were seen as potentially disappearing with colonization. Anthropologists dedicated themselves to study the cultures and people of colonized lands. Rational and scientific thought stemming from the Enlightenment shaped how they did anthropology. Their studies were to be systematic and rigorous of foreign   groups. They collected materials from explorers, missionaries, and colonial administrators and organized these items in European museums.  They detailed physical characteristics of colonized peoples trying to find patterns among the for classificatory purposes. Professional anthropology, as a discipline, formed out of these first anthropological explorations of the peoples and cultures within European colonies.

In the early 20th century anthropologists began to take faculty and academic positions at colleges and universities in Europe and the United States. Modern day anthropology has grappled with its not-so-rosy past. Rather than denying that the field began under the guise of colonialism, in which certain people  were made to work as slaves, others were displaced from their homelands, and others experienced violence at the hands of European rulers, anthropology has attempted to learn from this. Starting from the early 20th century, anthropologists, like Franz Boas, have tried to use anthropological theories and research methods to have a better understanding of what makes us all human beings, how people around the world are similar, and cultural diversity, countering the notion that one society is inherently superior to another. In response to Executive Order 13769, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” issued by President Donald Trump in 2017, which denied individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the country, the AAA made a statement: “Anthropology is dedicated to making the world safe for cultural differences. Our scholarship helps advance understanding by taking the long and comparative view of human behavior.” The AAA President, Alisse Waterston stated, ‘We will continue to muster anthropological knowledge and expertise in the service of upholding human rights, protecting academic freedom and helping solve—not exacerbate—human problems .’” Anthropology is diverse and there are many areas of specialization in terms of topics, the materials studied, historical periods, and geographic areas. New research questions and interests emerge for anthropologists as the world changes, and similarly, anthropology changes as a discipline as a reflection of shifts in global trends and forces.

The Four Fields

In the United States, anthropology is divided into four-fields: cultural anthropology (the focus of this resource), biological (or physical) anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology. Four-field anthropology existed in different countries early on, but did not continue to exist after the early 20th century and has since become the hallmark of American anthropology. Anthropology takes many different forms around the world. The World Council of Anthropology Associations (WCAA) is comprised of both national and international anthropology associations with the intention of encouraging widespread communication and cooperation. Anthropology recognizes cultural differences in its theoretical and methodological approach and resulting scholarship; however, as a discipline, this diversity has not been reflected historically. Scholars from the West have tended to be central to the anthropological cannon, which excludes anthropologists from other countries from shaping the discipline. The WCAA was established to counter this unbalance and as a way to include anthropologists more globally moving forward (Reuter 2018).

Cultural anthropology is the “study of people’s everyday lives and their communities—their behaviors, beliefs, and institutions”  (Guest 2016, 18). The AAA states that cultural anthropologists “explore how people in different places live and understand the world around them. They want to know what people think is important and the rules they make about how they should interact with one another. Even within one country or society, people may disagree about how they should speak, dress, eat, or treat others.” You may also hear social anthropology or sociocultural anthropology. Social anthropology and cultural anthropology overlap a great deal and there is not a definitive distinction between the two, but sometimes their foci vary. Cultural anthropology is rooted in the United States and associated with the approaches of anthropologists in the late 19th and early 20th century, most notably Franz Boas, considered the Father of American Anthropology. Cultural anthropology tends to emphasize cultures, language, materiality, and worldviews. Social anthropology was established in Great Britain in the early 20th century and places more emphasis on social interactions and institutions, such as kinship and marriage, within a society. More often than not, these two terms are used synonymously, as their differences are not often even noticed. Some academic departments in the United States, such as the University of California, Irvine and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill use “sociocultural anthropology” to represent the unification of the two in their approach to research and how they train their students. Cultural anthropologists are interested in contemporary people and their cultures. They do study the more recent past in order to understand how beliefs and behaviors have been shaped historically, but may not go back thousands of years like biological anthropologists or archaeologists.

Biological anthropology, also referred to as physical anthropology, is “the study of humans from a biological perspective—in particular, how they have evolved over time and have adapted to their environments” (Guest 2016, 13). Biological anthropologists are interested in physical development and biological aspects of humans and near humans, such as apes and other primates. One of the main concerns of biological anthropology is to examine human evolution and the unique adaptations that make us human. Many of us already know that humans are closely related to apes, sharing 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees. In light of this, our behaviors are different. Agustin Fuentes (2018), Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, has suggested that the ability to alter ecosystems (comprised of living organisms and their physical environment) is the most distinguishing characteristic of humans. This ability to shape the planet means that humans are the ones who play the most significant role in determining  what life on Earth will look like in the future. Biological anthropologists have pointed out that there are far more physical similarities among humans worldwide than there are differences; we are all human. (This will become more significant a little later when we talk about the history of anthropology.) In addition to human evolution and our relationship to our ancestors, biological anthropology has several fields of specialization. For example, there is forensic anthropology, in which anthropologists analyze skeletal remains to help solve criminal cases; paleoanthropology, which investigates the physical development of modern humans by examining teeth, skulls, and skeletons from our human ancestors; and primatology, which is the study of the habits, behaviors, and biology of non-human primates, such as monkeys, gorillas, chimpanzees, apes, and lemurs.

There are also biocultural anthropologists. As the name implies, these anthropologists bridge the fields of biological and cultural anthropology. They can also be called biosocial anthropologists. In their approach, they see biology and culture as inseparable. There is wide variation as to how this sub-field is exactly defined, but in general, biocultural anthropology investigates how culture and our social worlds shape human biology. Take a study on menopause (Lock and Kaufert 2001) across three countries: Japan, Canada, and the United States. Menopause is seen as a universal among women, meaning the majority of women worldwide will experience it regardless of where they are located. However, the symptoms that women experience and how menopause is thought about varies from place to place. This study proposes that we think about ‘local biologies,’ which take into account how varied social and cultural contexts can impact women’s bodies and health as they grow older. Dr. Rick Smith (guest on podcast for Chapter 5), faculty at George Mason University, examines the ways that human biology in contemporary and past societies has been informed by violence and by social and political power. He has an interest in how colonialism in Central and South America, such as the coming of the Spanish, has a biological impact on the human body that can be seen even today in the population. Smith looks at the genetic and epigenetic effects of political transformation. Epigenetics is one area of interest for biocultural anthropologists. Epigenetics is the study of changes in humans by modifications in the ways that genes are expressed; it does not imply changes to the genetic code itself, but it is changes in the process by which genes are turned on and off. In Greek “epi” means “above.” These non-genetic influences on gene expression can then be passed down from generation to generation.

Take the study of the sons of Union Army soldiers who endured tough conditions while they were Prisoners of War (POW) during the Civil War, for instance. Researchers discovered that these sons did not live as long as sons of Union Army soldiers who were not POWs. They found that this was true even if sons were born after the Civil War ended in 1865 to former POWs. They did not experience the difficulties of the war themselves. These effects of lifespan were most evident for the sons of soldiers who were POWs between 1863 and 1864, as the living conditions in POW camps during this time were notably poor. There was a problem with overcrowding and many Union POWs died from scurvy and diarrhea. The researchers were able to control to other forces that could have contributed to sons living longer, such as class. Given this, they concluded that the effects on longevity came through epigenetics. Like Smith’s research and the study on menopause, this study on the lifespan of the sons of Union Army POWs also highlights that social context and environmental factors can shape human biology, including health and the prevalence rate of diseases within particular groups (more about “race-specific” disease in a later chapter).

Depending on the topic that biological anthropologists choose to study, they may overlap with the field of archaeology. Archaeology literally means “the study of the old” (Miller 2013, 6). Archaeology is probably what most people think of when they hear the word anthropology. Archaeology is the study of the past through material remains known as artifacts. What sets archaeology apart from other disciplines that study the past, like History, is that it can go back to before there were written records. Known as Prehistoric Archaeology, this specialization can provide a sense of what took place in pre-urban societies before there were historical records. One of the most fruitful places for archaeologists is middens, or trash heaps.  For example, after Hurricane Wilma hit in 2005, very large shell middens off the southwest coast of Florida were discovered. They were previously seen as just trash left behind by prehistoric people living in the region, but upon further study, the shells helped archaeologists understand societies from at least 3,500 years ago (Malakoff 2018). In the mounds, which contained more than 50,000 artifacts, they found ceramics and tools that were constructed out of animal bone, demonstrating that what was once discarded, can actually provide clues to what everyday life was like. William Rathje (1945-2012), a professor of anthropology started the Garbage Project in 1973 at the University of Arizona, after coming to realize that what he had excavated in his studies of the Mayas was mostly their trash. Rathje looked to landfills across the United States starting in 1987, and even expanded globally, to study society’s consumption patterns as well as decomposition rates of different materials. Rathje combined qualitative methods, such as questionnaires and interviews, with quantitative analysis of trash bins to look at how our reported behaviors compared to actual behaviors.  This is an example of historic archaeology, which combines an analysis of artifacts with written or oral accounts. The Society of American Anthropology (SAA) writes on its website, “Archaeologists might study the million-year-old fossils of our earliest human ancestors in Africa. Or they might study 20th-century buildings in present-day New York City. Archaeology analyzes the physical remains of the past in pursuit of a broad and comprehensive understanding of human culture.” You will find that a majority of archaeologists will center their research in a specific world region or on a particular topic. In the United States, archaeology is considered to be part of anthropology, but in other countries, you may discover that it is independent from anthropology or included in History.

Archaeologists may specialize in one sub-field. Dr. Nawa Sugiyama at the University of California, Riverside, is a zooarchaeologist, which means she focuses on animal remains found at archaeological sites. She co-directs the Project Plaza of the Columns Complex at Teotihuacan, Mexico, a UNESCO world heritage site. She regularly makes trips to her field sites to excavate small areas. As part of her work in Mexico as well as Honduras, Sugiyama examines animal management, captivity, and sacrifice to gain better insight into rituals and urbanization in past societies. Her research proved that zoos are not as modern as we may think, but the concept actually dates back centuries. Through her examination of the remains of birds and big cats, Sugiyama found evidence of zoos in the ancient Mayan city of Copán in Honduras. These animals had been fed artificial diets and some experienced broken bones or other injuries that could have been fatal in the wild. She concluded that they were in captivity, perhaps caught when they were young and raised for ritual ceremonies. But these animals were not all local. Some most likely came from other regions through trade. She employs isotope analysis in her research. Isotopes are atoms that have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons; they are elements with the same atomic number—on a periodic table—but varying mass numbers. Isotope analysis in archaeology can be used to recognize the photosynthesis process of the plants that a human or animal consumed during its lifetime. By measuring the ratios of different isotopes in bones or teeth from the animals and knowing how they occur in nature, archaeologists like Sugiyama can trace them back to their sources and find out things like their diet and what type of environment they were raised.

Zooarchaeology is one specialization in archaeology. There are others, such as: bioarchaeology (study of human remains at archaeological sites), paleoethnobotany (study of ancient plants), lithics (study of stone tools), and underwater archaeology (study of artifacts and human remains under the water’s surface or along coasts). “Lucy ” (Australopithecus afarensis) is probably one of the most well-known early human ancestors. Lucy was discovered in 1974 in Hadar, Ethiopia by Donald Johanson (American anthropologist), along with Yves Coppens (French anthropologist) and Maurice Taieb (French geologist and anthropologist). At time of discovery, Lucy was the oldest early human (hominin) ever to be found. Lucy stood about 3.5 feet tall (107 cm) and was estimated to have lived 3.2 million years ago. Her skeleton was not complete; only about 40% of it was recovered during excavations, although this is probably the most complete skeleton preserved. She had a mixture of ape and human features, such as long fingers and arms used for swinging from trees like apes, but then a pelvis and leg bones more like humans. While her exact age of death cannot be confirmed, they believe that Lucy was an adult. Her humanlike wisdom teeth were in and had been used for a period of time before she died. Also, the portions of her skull that are usually separated in children and then fuse later in life, had in fact fused together. What was most telling about Lucy was that she was described as having a brain about the size of a chimpanzee, but based on her skeletal remains, she was bipedal (walked upright). Chimpanzees sometimes walk on two legs, but their skeletons are not well suited for it. Lucy may have spent some time in trees and one theory is that bipedalism began as a way to carefully walk along branches that would not support the weight of hanging. Lucy, as an upright walker, enforced the idea that walking like modern humans do was one of the factors driving human evolution. It was thought that our early ancestors needed larger brains to do so, but with Lucy, it was clear that they did not need bigger brains to move away from apes. More brainpower came later, over a million years after Lucy. Brains, as in modern humans, Homo sapiens, are significant, but Lucy showed that walking on two legs is the trait that sets us apart from the apes and makes us uniquely human. One interesting tidbit about Lucy is that she is named after the Beatle’s song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which Johanson played on the night of her discovery at the team’s camp on a cassette tape .

The fourth field is linguistic anthropology , which is the study of human languages in the past and present. Linguistic anthropology investigates the relationship between language and culture. One of the more famous early linguistic anthropologists was Edward Sapir (1884-1939) who is known for his classification of indigenous American languages. With his student, Benjamin Whorf, Sapir developed the concept of linguistic relativity, or the “Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis,” which claims that language determines how people think and perceive the world and their behavior. This has been largely discredited by more recent linguistic anthropologists since Sapir argued that language determines or limits thought. Versions of the hypothesis since Sapir’s time suggest that language can influence thought and worldviews, but does not directly determine them. Just because someone speaks a particular language does not mean they are going to think a particular way. Regardless, Sapir’s work started a significant and on-going discussion about the relationship among language, thought, and culture.

Some linguistic anthropologists focus on variations of languages and the different contexts in which these variations are used. Others look at the role that language plays in socialization. Children will learn what is culturally appropriate and accepted in their community partly through language socialization, which includes both verbal and non-verbal communication. It is important to keep in mind that not all language is verbally spoken. Non-verbal communication is also significant in how we become competent members of our community and learn norms.

Many animals have systematic ways of communicating with each other. Researchers have shown that communication in bottlenose dolphins seems to be extensive and complex, so much so that the US military sees them as assets to some of its missions. The Navy Marine Mammal Program in San Diego trains 85 dolphins and 50 sea lions and received financial backing from the Pentagon through 2020. Nevertheless, language is one of the defining features of being human. Language may contribute to the ways that certain people view the world and express themselves. Studying languages can offer insight into the evolution of culture and human society. Humans have thousands of highly complex languages. Franz Boas, based on his trips to northern Canada in the 1880s to study the life of the local Inuit people, suggested that they have 50 words for snow. Boas’ claim has been controversial, and both proven and disproven, but what comes out of it is the conclusion that some cultures and groups have several words for one particular thing because their languages have evolved around the most significant aspects of their life. Boas also made the “famous suggestion that the color of sweater is a matter of cultural construal, rather than of sheer empiricity” (Helmreich 2011, 133) in his 1881 doctoral dissertation in physics from the University of Kiel in Germany. Part of why it is important for cultural anthropologists to learn the language of the groups they are studying, whether it is different from their native tongue or perhaps a variation of their own, is because language is symbolic. We need to understand the symbolism embedded within a language if in fact we are going to have a solid understanding of the people we are studying (more on fieldwork methods soon).

Think about metaphors. Linguistic anthropologists have emphasized that we must understand the context of the metaphor and the cultural aspects that have shaped the metaphor. Metaphors can be a useful entry point into patterns of thought within a society, but how they are interpreted is also informed by experience. Most Americans would understand what we mean if we said, “My brother is a night owl” or “The grocery store was a zoo.” Of course, my brother is not an owl and animals were not roaming around the store during my shopping trip. Instead, I mean that my brother stays up late and the grocery store was filled with lots of people. Are these metaphors universal, meaning they are understood the exact same way everywhere? Probably not. They may be translated exactly word-for-word between languages, but yet, they do not have the same meaning given that metaphors are culturally created and situated. Native English-speakers would most likely not understand the French expression, “Occupe-toi de tes oignons.” This literally translates to “occupy yourself with your onions” in English (using the French informal singular “you”). The meaning in English is, “mind your own business,” or since it is informal, perhaps, “mind your own beeswax.” Sometimes you might hear, “C’est pas tes oignons.” (“It’s not your onions.”) If you are unfamiliar with the cultural context and the symbolism involved, you would not comprehend the meaning of this French saying. Using an onion in this expression may date back to a period of history in France when onion sellers were popular. In 1828, Henri Ollivier, from Breton in northern France, known for its unique pink onions with a sweeter flavor and long shelf life, found it easier to go to the United Kingdom to sell his onions than to Paris. After his first trip, which was a success, this model expanded and more and more men were going to the UK to sell onions from their bicycles. These men wore berets (not really popular among everyday people in France) and had bicycles that were laden with strings of onions. They did not normally ride the bicycles but used them to carry their supply. They traveled the streets of UK selling onions and became known as “Onion Johnnies,” since Yann was a common name in Breton at the time, which is John in English. The peak was in 1929 and the Onion Johnnies disappeared by the 1960s. Early on, the Onion Johnnies were the only contact that many British people had with Frenchmen, so they assumed that the beret was what all Frenchmen wore, when in fact it was worn by only a few groups, like artists, movie stars, military, and laborers. While we cannot say with certainty that speaking French or English will define how we think, which is the Strong Version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, we can assume that living within a particular context where these languages are spoken can influence how we see the world and the ways that we speak, which is the Weak Version of the hypothesis (the interpretation, or various interpretations, that came after the original hypothesis was discredited).

Applied Anthropology

Of the four sub-fields, cultural anthropology is the largest in terms of the number of individuals who graduate with PhDs in the sub-field each year. A report posted to the AAA website states that between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s, about 50% of PhDs awarded in anthropology in North America were in cultural anthropology. Applied (or practicing) anthropologists, who are located outside of academia, usually receive training in cultural anthropology, rather than specifically in applied anthropology. However, applied anthropology cuts across all the sub-fields. For instance, an archaeologist may work in Cultural Resource Management (CRM), the preservation of cultural resources and heritage sites in response to federal, local, or state laws or policies.  A debate that continues in anthropology even today is whether or not Applied Anthropology is a fifth sub-field or if all anthropology should have some applied aspect to it. Daniel Ginsburg (2016) writes, “While anthropologists often speak of a ‘divide’ or ‘split’ between academic and practicing anthropology, this view overlooks the fact that much work in the discipline maintains a presence both inside and outside of higher education institutions.” It was once thought that anthropologists in academia, who are professors or researchers , are the ones who develop theory, and those who are located outside of academia are the ones who practice and apply these theories. This divide has been broken down as anthropologists realize that theory and practice work together both inside and outside of academia. Anthropologists situated in academia build research partnerships within the communities in which they work. This can prompt them to working with groups or individuals for a specific cause, lending their work and voices to advocacy, or using their research to change policy. And, applied anthropologists can certainly make theoretical contributions to anthropology as a discipline through their work.

Paul Sillitoe (2007) asks, “What practical use is anthropology?” (147) It has become more evident in recent past that anthropology has many “practical use[s].” Jo Aiken, a cultural anthropologist and PhD candidate at University College London, has interests in space anthropology and design anthropology. She has conducted fieldwork on privacy and habitat design at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) . Aiken (2016) writes, “When I conducted my first applied study concerning crew privacy needs in long-duration spaceflight, I was the only anthropologist at the space agency even though anthropologists’ fascination with this aspect of humanity began shortly after men first traveled to outer space” (18-19). She learned that anthropology and space research mutually benefit each other. Dr. Jack Stuster works with NASA in his capacity as an anthropologist at a human factors research firm in California. He uses anthropological fieldwork methods and theoretical frameworks to examine the experiences of astronauts while in space and to help organize missions that also take into account their needs as humans. He has even made proposals as to the design and the happenings at the International Space Station (ISS), such as astronauts sharing meals together to facilitate collaboration and cooperation.

Job opportunities for applied anthropology have grown across professional contexts and industries as the demand increases for their skillsets. Applied or practicing anthropology is a growing sub-field as more and more anthropologists are working outside of the university in places like technology firms or businesses, museums or national or state parks, health care, non-profits and think tanks, the government, or education. Some of these anthropologists work in the United States while others work internationally, such as for development organizations like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).