Ministry of Science and Higher Education

Social Anthropology (Anth 1012)

A Freshman Common Course

Department of Anthropology
Hawassa University, 2013 E.C.
 UNIT TWO:
SUB-FIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY:
Four Mirrors for Understanding
Humanity
 INTRODUCTION
Due to its Broad interest on humanity,
anthropology intersects the multiple approaches
to the study of humankind;
biological, social, cultural, historical, linguistic,
cognitive, material, technological, affective, and
aesthetic.
This inter-disciplinarity is integrated and formalized
in anthropology within its four major subfields that
compose the discipline:
Socio-cultural Anthropology, Linguistic
Anthropology, Archaeology and Physical
Anthropology.
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 Socio-Cultural Anthropology

Reflect your views on the following

questions:
What is society?
What is culture?
How can we study cultures?
What do you know about socio-cultural
anthropology?
 Socio-Cultural Anthropology
 Socio-cultural Anthropology is also often called
social anthropology or cultural anthropology - is
the largest sub-fields of anthropology.
 It deals with human society and culture.
 In simple terms, while society is a group of people who
have similar ways of life, culture is a way of life of a group
of people.
 It studies the social, cultural, material and non-
material life of contemporary human societies.
 It studies the social (human relations), symbolic or
nonmaterial (religious, language, and any other symbols)
and material (all man-made objects) lives of people.

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 Socio-Cultural Anthropology

By taking culture as unit of analysis, it studies living

people in all parts of the world:
Culture, economic lives, kinship, sex and marriage,
socialization, social control, political organization, class,
ethnicity, gender, religion & culture change are few of its
themes.
Its major intention is understanding the existing
social & cultural diversity across the globe.
To study and interpret cultural diversity, it engages in
two types of study: Ethnography & Ethnology.
 Socio-Cultural Anthropology
Ethnography: is a descriptive study of a particular
contemporary culture by means of direct extensive
fieldwork.
It provides a comprehensive account of particular
society, or culture in as much detail as possible.
 These detailed descriptions (ethnographies) are the result
of extensive fieldwork in w/h the anthropologist observes,
talks to, and lives with the people he or she is studying.
 During ethnographic fieldwork, the anthropologist gathers
data that he or she organizes, describes, analyzes, and
interprets to build and present that account, which may be
in the form of a book, article, or film.

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 Socio-Cultural Anthropology
Ethnology: is the comparative study of contemporary
cultures/societies, wherever they may be found.
 It examines, interprets, analyzes, and compares the results
of ethnography;
 ethnologists attempt to identify and explain cultural
differences and similarities, to test hypotheses, and to
build theory to enhance our understanding of how social
and cultural systems work.
 Its main aim is to make generalizations about society and
culture & to uncover general cultural principles, the
“rules” that govern human behavior.
 Socio-Cultural Anthropology

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Socio-cultural anthropology uses ethnographical and
ethnological approaches to answer all sort of questions
related to culture and human societies.
 To properly address emerging questions related to culture and
societies, it has been sub-divided into many other specialized
fields as:
 Anthropology of Art, -Medical Anthropology,
 Urban Anthropology -Economic Anthropology,
 Political Anthropology -Development Anthropology,
 Anthropology of Religion, -Demographic Anthropology,
 Ecological Anthropology, -Psychological Anthropology,
 Ethnomusicology, etc.
 All of them are considered to be the applied areas of
anthropology.
 Linguistic Anthropology
Taking language as one of humanity’s most distinctive
characteristics, it try to understand mankind from its
linguistic aspects.
Study human language as a cultural resource and
speaking as a cultural practice in its social & cultural
context, across space and time.
 Language is basically a system of information transmission
and reception.
 Humans communicates - by sound (speech), by gesture
(body language), and in other visual ways such as writing.
Analogous to genes that carry and transmit genetic
materials to offspring, languages hand down cultural
traits from one generation to another.
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 Linguistic Anthropology
Linguistic anthropology focuses on several key issues
including;
the origin of language;
the relation between Language, Culture & Human
Thought Patterns;
the ways language constructs identity & ideology;
comparative analysis of language to come up with
linguistic variation and change etc.
Linguistic Anthropology is divided into four distinct
branches or areas of research: structural linguistic,
historical linguistics, ethno-linguistic & socio-
linguistic.
 Linguistic Anthropology
Structural Linguistics: studies the structure of
linguistic patterns.
 It examine grammatical patterns & other linguistic elements
including phoneme, lexical & syntax to understand the
structure & set of rules of given language.
 Every culture has a distinctive language with its own logical
structure and set of rules for putting words and sounds
together to have meaningful communication.
Historical Linguistics:- deals with the emergence of
language in general and how specific languages have
diverged over time.
 It focuses on the comparison and classifications of
contemporary languages to discern the historical links
between them.
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 Linguistic Anthropology
Ethnolinguistics: examines the relationship
between language and culture. This is b/c;
Language as a symbolic base of culture
significantly affect human behavior.
Language inform us about what is important in a
given culture, where certain cultural aspects that
are emphasized are reflected in the vocabulary.
It also explore how language determine human
thinking process & influences the modes of
perception of reality & experience of the world.

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 Linguistic Anthropology
Socio-linguistics: investigates linguistic variation
within a given language.
One reason for variation is geography, as in regional
dialects and accents
Linguistic variation also is expressed in the
bilingualism of ethnic groups.
Sociolinguists also study the situational use of
language in different social context.
It also investigate how language that a person speaks is
used to define its social group –professional, class
group or dialects.
The term archaeology is derived from two Greek
words: arkhaios- (ancient) and logia (study) –it is
the study of the human past.
It study the way’s of lives of past people through
the interpretation of material remains.
It focused on the study of historic and pre-
historic cultures, through excavating & analyzing
the material/physical remains they left behind.
To get information about earlier culture, archeologists
excavate & analyze different types of material/physical
remains; primarily -;
Artefacts, Features and Eco-facts.
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 Archaeology

Artefacts: are material remains made and used by the

past peoples such as tools, ornaments, and pottery.
*helps to get clues about the culture of past societies-
including their values, norms & beliefs.
Features: are artifacts made or modified by people,
but they cannot be readily moved from site. e.g., house
foundations, ancient buildings, obelisk, and steles.
Ecofacts: are organic and environmental remains that
were not made by human; but were used by them such
as soil, animal bones, and plant remains.
*helps to understand the past environment and how people
used natural resources in the past.
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 Archaeology
The analysis of such material/physical remains helps
reveal how people lived in the distant past and the way
the past societies interacted with their local ecosystem.
Archaeologists also able to infer many non-material
cultural aspects such as values, ideas and behavior
patterns of past societies from such analysis.
In general, archaeologists are interested in:
reconstructing, describing & interpreting the behavior and
ways of life of the past societies;
explaining and delineating the origin, spread and evolution
of the human culture.
archaeologists focused on what changed over time to
reconstruct human cultural evolution.
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 Archaeology
Archaeology has two prominent subfields: Prehistoric
Archaeology and Historical Archaeology.
Prehistoric Archaeology:- study human prehistory,
i.e., dated between 6,000 years ago to 2.5 million years
ago (the time of the first artifacts).
 To reconstruct prehistoric life ways/cultures, it used
material remains and study contemporary foraging
societies.
 By this, archaeology is the only scientific enterprise that
systematically examine prehistoric cultures & provided a
much longer time frame for understanding the record of
human development.

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 Archaeology

Historical Archaeology:- study historical people.

 It reconstruct the cultures of people who used writing
and about whom historical documents have been
written.
 To come up with historical people and cultures, it uses
both written documents & excavated artefactual
remains.
 Much of its work has been used to help preserve
historical sites & cultural heritage (Cultural Resource
Management).

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 Archaeology
Archeology has also several specialized areas including
Classical Archaeology (deals primarily with ancient
civilizations), Ethno-archeology (examine material
culture of current societies to reflect on the life style of
past societies), Heritage management etc.
Ethiopia: as per archaeological findings in north,
south, east & western part of the country, Ethiopia is
among those countries which have old civilization.
It is believed that archeological studies and findings
in the future will help to better understand the
country’s past and to reflect on its present and future
course.

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 Physical/Biological Anthropology
Study humankind from a biological perspective –
humanity as a biological being/species.
It concerned with the interactions between human
biology, environment and behavior (culture) in the
context of evolutionary processes.
Essentially, physical anthropology is concerned with two
broad areas of investigation:
 human evolution:-it try’s to comprehend the biological
evolution of the human species.
 human variation:- it examines how and why the physical
traits of human populations vary throughout the world.

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 Physical/Biological Anthropology
Thus, it can be defined as the study of human biological evolution and contemporary
physical variations among peoples of the world.
 It incorporates examination of the influence of culture and environment on these two areas of
biological evolution and contemporary human variations.
Along the two areas of investigation, diverse areas of specialization -developed within
biological anthropology –having a multidisciplinary nature.
 E.g., –Paleoanthropology (evolution of early humans), Human Genetics/Population Genetics, Human
Ecology (bio-cultural adaptation), Human Growth and Development, Anthropometry (physical
measurements), Human Demography, Forensic Anthropology, Primatology etc.


In general, biological anthropologists study, analyze and describe human populations
to understand the mechanism and processes of human evolution, biological
variations, and bio-cultural adaptations in human populations.

physical anthropologists study how culture and environment have influenced these two
areas of biological evolution and contemporary variations.
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 Physical/Biological Anthropology
In addition, it has diverse application areas (problem
solving) -in health sector, industry, physical fitness
analysis, providing evidences in criminal cases, providing
evidences in identity/paternity dispute cases, etc.
In general, biological anthropologists study, analyze
and describe human populations to understand the
mechanism and processes of human evolution,
biological variations, and bio-cultural adaptations.
It is deeply concerned with understanding how bio-
cultural evolutionary factors shaped humanity
through time.

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 Human Evolution & Question of Human Origin

One of the major questions anthropologists grapple

with is the origins of humankind.
Questions for Discussions:
From where did we (the modern human species)
come from?
What does different world religions and
cosmologies say about the origin of human beings?
What about scientific (evolutionary/paleo-
anthropological explanations) about the origin
and evolution of human beings?

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 Human Evolution & Questions of Human Origin

Aside from the creationist explanations, anthropologists

rely on scientific views of evolution in order to explain
human origins.
In this regard, biological anthropologists are interested
in studying human evolution –the emergence of humans
and how humans have evolved up to the present time (in
evolutionary perspective).
Evolution: is the gradual change and development of
living organisms. It can be defined as a change in the
genetic structure of a population in time and space.
 Genetically speaking, Evolution is a change in gene frequency
within a population.

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 Human Evolution & Questions of Human Origin
Evolutionary explanations & theory (about evolution of
life) are attributed to the works of handful of scientists –
the prominent one is, Charles Darwin (1809-1882).
Darwin is known for his theory of natural selection in the
evolution of species and the idea of survival of the fittest.
 Darwin saw the importance of biological variation within a
species & recognized the importance of sexual reproduction
in increasing variation.
Natural Selection –one of the basic factor for evolution:
is a process of evolutionary adaptation by which, genotypes
best suited to survive and reproduce in a particular environment
give rise to a disproportionate share of offspring.
 Other factors includes genetic mutation, gene flow &
random genetic drift.
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 Human Evolution & Questions of Human Origin

Darwin‘s work demonstrated that humanity was part

of the world of living things (one of his contribution).
 For long, creationist views, held humanity as a special
creation, fundamentally different from all other living
things.
However, Darwin‘s ideas and the discovery of other
scientists set the foundation for a new study:
 the study of humans as living, evolving creatures, in
many ways no different from the rest of animal life.

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 Human Evolution & Questions of Human Origin

Paleoanthropology-: –one of the specialties of

biological Anth., study human biological evolution
through the analysis of fossil remains of the proto
human species.
 It is interested in reconstructing the evolutionary record of
the human species.
 It trace the physical development of modern human and
try’s to determine the missing link b/n modern human &
its biological ancestors.
Research findings (fossil records), in this regard,
indicate that East Africa, especially the Great Rift
Valley, is the origin of mankind.

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 Human Evolution & Questions of Human Origin
The oldest fossils of early humans (human ancestors),
including Australopithecus Afarensis (Lucy/Dinknesh)
were discovered in this part of Africa.
 Hence, Africa, prominently, E.Africa & Ethiopia is found to
be the ‘cradle of human kinds’.
 The modern man (Homo sapiens) emerged in east Africa,
Ethiopia?, and migrated to Middle East, Europe, Asia,
Australia, and finally to America.
Despite this, Primatological studies of the biology and
behaviour of non-human primates used to gain clues
about human evolution and adaptation. It helps -
 to interpret fossil records;
 understand the way our early ancestors adapted to different
environmental conditions and changes.
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 Human Variation (Physical/Biological)
Obviously, not all human beings look the same -People
come in many colors and shapes with wide-ranging
physical/biological differences.
Questions for Discussions:
Why do people worldwide have differences in their
phenotypic attributes?
What are the sources of human physical/
biological variations?
What do such differences mean for humanity as a
species?

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 Human Variation (Physical/Biological)
Biological anthropology studies human variations
within & among d/t populations in time and space.
 It examines how and why the physical traits of contemporary
human populations vary throughout the world.
In studying human variation, Human Ecology and
Adaptation become its central concerns.
Human ecology is about relationships between people
and their environment (general ecosystem).
Adaptation refers to changes, modifications and/or
variations that increase the chances of survival,
reproductive success and general wellbeing in an
environment.

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 Human Variation (Physical/Biological)
Adaptation is a process whereby organisms attained a
beneficial adjustment to the environment.
 This adjustment can be either temporary or
permanent, acquired either through short-term or
lifetime process, and may involve physiological,
structural, behavioral, or cultural changes aimed at
improving organism’s functional performance in
the face of environmental stresses.
 Human beings adapt to their environments through an
evolutionary process –of bio-cultural adaptation.
Indeed, the major source of human physical/biological
variations are derived from the interrelated effects
(accumulated changes) of processes of bio-cultural
adaptation.
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 Human Variation (Physical/Biological)
Studies of human ecological adaptation, in this regard,
shades light on how different physical characteristics
help people adapt to their environment.
 Among others, Skin color—one of the most visible human
characteristics -is a good example of adaptation to a
particular environment.
 while natural selection (overtime) favored people with
Darker skins in tropical regions -Africa (w/h received
extensive & more intensive sunlight), Lighter skins, are an
adaptation (favored) to more cloudier regions -Europe.
 This in a way, implicates the influence of environmental
factors on the human body & human physical variation.
 Biological adaptations aren‘t instantaneous. They take place
over the span of generations.
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 Human Variation (Physical/Biological)
Besides, humans adapts mainly through cultural means
including complex behavior such as making tools and
technological inventions.
 Cultural evolution is vastly more efficient means of
adaptation than biological evolution.
 It is a non-biological responses of people to modify or ameliorate
environmental stress. And, it facilitates human biological
adaptation.
 More rapid - potentially to all mankind in less than one
generation -inventions/discoveries occurs at high frequency.
Thus, the observing physical/biological variations among
the modern human population is accounted to bio-cultural
evolutionary factors and process that shaped humanity
through time.

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 Human Race/s and the History of Racial Typing
Humans have undoubtedly been classifying their
neighbors (or each other) in various ways -including in
racial typologies, for a very long time.
Questions for Discussions:
 How can we understand ‘race’ from biological
(genetic) and societal point of view?
 Does the use of ‘race’ as a system of human
classification has scientific validity?
 The idea held by some people/groups about the
presence of superior (master) and inferior racial
groups has any objective/scientific basis?

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 Racial Typing: A Short Historical Overview
The history of racial typing –people classifying each other into d/t ―’racial groups’, goes back
to ancient Egypt:
 there find records (1350 BC) of ancient Egyptian’s classifying people by skin color.
Because skin color was so noticeable, many racial classifications were prominently
based on that factor.
During the age of discovery (16 thc), European, encountering other people –develop racial
classification of their own, based on skin color:
 they also labeled these unknown people as ‘Savages’ for they didn’t share European’s culture,
values & religion.
 the less European looking a people/group were labeled as the more savage –this in time shaped into
racial supremacist ideas.

In general, such folk notions of race- perceived race as a non-overlapping and distinguishable,
categories of people; w/h is fixed, natural, and immutable in its character.

 Such ideas in time, shaped into –‘racial supremacist ideology’ – with a belief that cultural behavior
correlates with skin color, nose shape, hair texture, or what have you.

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 Racial Typing: A Short Historical Overview
The Scientific Community, in its part were also engaged in
human racial typing/classifications.
Especially, from the mid-18th c to early 20th c, d/t scholars
including naturalists began to classify humans into d/t
racial types/varieties, using d/t methods & criteria.
 the question of whether ‘human races’ were separate species
or just varieties of a single species become crucial.
 The typology provided by Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778),
was worth mentioning, in this regard. –it was influential & the
first to put humans in a classification along with the primates.
On the basis of geography, skin color, humor, posture, and
customs (w/h involves subjective perceptions), Linnaeus,
classified humans into four basic "varieties“ (1758):
 American (reddish), European (white), Asian (yellow), & African
(black)
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 Racial Typing: A Short Historical Overview
Johann F. Blumenbach (1752-1840), a German physician,
naturalist & anatomist, who also worked in anthropology,
introduced comparable racial categorization.
 He classified humans into five racial types, taking cranial shape
(beauty) as key character & evaluating cranial extents:
 *Caucasian (white), Mongolian (yellow), Ethiopian (black),
American (red), and Malayan (brown) (Blumenbach, 1795).
 By this, he radically changed human typology from a
geographically based model (Linnaeus) to ranking, from a
Caucasian ideal:
 He ranked the Caucasian not only as the most Beautiful, but claimed as
the original race of mankind, from w/h all the other races had
‘degenerated’, according to climate, environment & modes of life.
 This is based on a perception of human origin from Caucasus, near
Georgia & then spread across the world.
 However, his ideas were used to support scientific racism.
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 Racial Typing: A Short Historical Overview
In the later years, (esp. mid-19th c), in attempt to categorize
humans, scientists were quantifying and measuring human
bodies, focusing primarily on cranial morphology.
In this regard, Anders Retzius (1796-1860), popularized a
measurement called the “Cranial (cephalic) Index" -a
ratio measurement of the shape of the head:
 the maximum breadth of the skull divided by the maximum
length;
 the ratios produced were then grouped and named:
Dolichocephalic, Brachycephalic, and Mesocephalic (in
b/n the two groups).
 Dolichocephalic: people with long, narrow heads (like most
northern Europeans)
 Brachycephalic: people with short, broad, (round) heads
(like many southern Europeans).
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 Racial Typing: A Short Historical Overview
However, such rigorous measurements (e.g., craniometry) &
classification schemes–strengthen scientific ‘racism’.
 they led to many arguments about which peoples were
superior to the others (racial superiority vs inferiority).
The root problem of such racial typing was –Biological
determinism: the idea that physical traits were somehow
linked to behavior.
Especially of the 18th & 19th c, scientific typologies were
ethnocentric -often relied upon subjective descriptions
of non-Europeans in contrast with a European ideal.
 the typologies incorporated the cultural values, morals, and
stereotypes of their time into their explanations;
 they were rigid, linking behavioral traits including intellect to
physical characteristics –strengthen popular notions of racism.

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 Racial Typing and Racism
Racism: is an ideology/a set of beliefs about the
superiority of one particular (colour/social/ethnic group)
over others; rooted in the assumption that
behavior/intellect is linked with hereditary characteristics.
In extreme cases, it is used to justify inequality.
This was practically observed in the promotion of the idea
of Social Darwinism and the practices of Eugenics.
Social Darwinism – opt for application of Darwin‘s
principles of biological evolution to societies.
 the idea that as societies/nations evolved & competed,
the morally superior societies would prevail as the less-
moral, ―savage societies were weeded out; and that this
was all natural and good.

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Eugenics– as a social philosophy, advocates
improvement of human species through social
intervention (selective breeding)–:
 during the 19th & early 20th c, along supremacist racial
ideologies, people including scientists advocated for state
regulation of marriages, family size, & whether to allow
an individual to reproduce;
 during the II WW, the Nazis took it to a terrible extreme;
 using eugenics as the basis for its acts, the Nazi party killed
millions of Jewish people, Gypsies and others it considered
inferior in an attempt to create a Master Race.
Although we have outgrown this phase (for the most part),
which is relieving, still there are some people, calling for
‘racial purity’ –a senseless, impossible & destructive idea.
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The problems with the concept of a master race — aside
the obvious moral issues— is that biological variation is
necessary for the health of a population.
 If everyone is the same, everyone is susceptible to the same
potential disaster –makes the idea of a master race suicidal.
 For this reason, many biologists measure the overall health of
a species by its very genetic diversity.
After all, Racism is a learned behavior that can be
avoided by unlearning –by learning and being aware of
the claims made about race.
Yes, physical/biological attributes including peoples’ skin
color varies, -but the question is:
 does it make someone biologically different to the point of
them being separate races and/or inferior or superior?
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Though the modern man exhibit geographically based
differences within the species, a biological conception of
‘human races’ makes no sense, factually or conceptually.
In fact, starting from the early 20th century, the “scientific”
notions of race -was begin to diverge.
Modern genetics abandon race as a variable in biomedical
research and tends not to speak of races, and this has two
main reasons:
 1. there has always been so much interbreeding between
human populations that it would be meaningless to talk of
fixed boundaries between races.
 2. the distribution of hereditary physical traits does not
follow clear boundaries.
 there is no distinct genetic boundary for a group commonly
called Races.
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Dramatic genetic discontinuities (species level differences)
are not found among modern human population.
 many of the physical attributes associated with race are due
to bio-cultural adaptation to climate & environment.
Thus, people are fundamentally the same biologically and it
would be difficult to argue otherwise:
 as members from what are considered to be different human
races can mate & produce offspring and the offspring are
fertile themselves.
More importantly, human behavior isn’t biologically
determined –for the most part, it’s culturally learned:
 It’s culture that really drives behavior, not the genes. And,
 Cultural behavior is not genetically linked to those geographic
differences.
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 Instead of race, biological anthropologists prefer to speak
about ‘ancestry’, a more general term that recognizes the
reality of some geographically specific human adaptations
but doesn‘t turn them into separate species.
 Indeed, anthropologists (e.g., Ashley Montagu,1942, & R.C.
Lewontin, 1972) concluded that Human racial classification
is of no social value and is destructive of social relations –
And, it’s not the correct way to examine human variation.
 there find no identifiable, objective phenomena nor do a
uniform set of coherent beliefs about race;
 As a biological classification, ‘race’ fails –it doesn’t predict
genetic similarities or differences;
 Thus, ‘Race’ is more of a social construct, not a biological
entity -it is not scientifically rational therefore to refer to
distinct human races (or species).
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