Anthropology and it's Division

 

Anthropology

Anthropology is made up of 2 Greek words: “Anthropos” which means human and “logas” which means study. From the word, anthropology is the study of man. Anthropology can be defined as the following ways:

1. Study of human processes like physical and cultural evolution.
2. Study of physical, social and cultural development and behavior of human being since their appearance on earth.
3. Study of men  and at all his works.
4. Study of custom and race of man.

Division of Anthropology

Anthropology has two main branches - a) Physical Anthropology and b) Cultural Anthropology.

1. Physical Anthropology

, It studies the overall process of human beings and its growth. It studies the historical process, racial variation, human fossils that have existed in the earth for a billion of years ago and their history of origin in a comparative way. It is divided into following part:

a.Human Paleontology:

It is the study of the emergence of humans and their evolution.

b.Human Variation

It is the study of how and why human populations differs in biological or physical characteristics.

c.Human Genetics

It is the study of genetic variation in human beings since its evolution.

d.Primatology

It is the study of primate populations.

e.Biometry

It is the study of birth, death, pattern of disease, fertility rates and factors influencing them.

2.Cultural Anthropology/ Socio-Cultural Anthropology

It is the study of culture and is based mainly on ethnography. It studies the kinship and social organization. It is concerned with how and why cultures vary or are similar in the past and present. The branches of cultural anthropology are given below:

a.Archaeology

It is the study of human material culture including both artifacts, carefully gathered in museum.

b.Linguistic Anthropology

It is the study of the human communications either verbal and non-verbal and variation in language across time and space and the relationship between language and culture.

c.Ethnology

It is the study of reason and types of differences of people’s and species behavior, traditional customs, working systems, perceptions and techniques, marriage, kinship, economic and political, social institutions of the present and recent past society.