Categories: Education

The Subfields of Anthropology

Anthropology, being a very broad and all-encompassing science, requires subfields. There are four separate areas of anthropology. There is cultural anthropology, archaeology, which is the one we are most familiar with, linguistic anthropology, and biological anthropology. Each is very important to the study of humans.

Cultural anthropology deals with how we as humans interact with our culture. We are certainly unique creatures, unlike any other animal on the Earth. Our cultures are not shared by any animals, and have many more facets than animals. For example, we have what we know as a marriage system. We have economies, armies, states, and governments to govern such things. Cultural anthropologists seek to dismantle the cultures that we have established and study every aspect of them. The main focus, of course, is to see how these cultures changed over time. How did human beings adapt in the early days of our species? Obviously, how we are today is much different than back then, and these scientists want to find every step along the way to further analyze our origins. This is a daunting task indeed, and since there is still so much that we are unaware of, this is an extremely interesting and constantly growing field.

Archaeology is how we learned of classical Greece, Atlantis, the catastrophe in Pompey, the Egyptians, and more. This subfield is extremely important to anthropology as a whole, because it reconstructs our past as human beings. When we use artifacts to piece together history, we can understand even more about a culture than we ever could have imagined. In fact, thanks to archaeology, we have skulls of some of the earliest humans that lived. Not only is this proof that we weren’t always as we are now, but this is a testament to the beauty of our species and how we have progressed throughout time. We can now look at these skulls and observe the increased brain capacity from era to era. This and more, all thanks to what these anthropologists find.

Another subfield is linguistic anthropology. This is the study of languages as they vary throughout different cultures. Of course, language is one of the most important factors of being human, as it is how we transfer ideas and create distinct cultures. Without language, we would most likely be nowhere near what we are now, and thus, this subfield is extremely important. It’s interesting to think of where language began and how.

Biological anthropology is the subfield that deals with evolution the most. This science stresses how we changed over time both genetically and phenotypically. To outline biological anthropology, think of a question. Why are there different races? Through human variation, we can see people of different colors, sizes, and structures. This is a very important field, and the favorite of many who are interested in evolution.

Anthropology is an important subject, inclusive of all different aspects of humanity. There truly is something for everybody, and as a science that’s growing in popularity, there’s plenty of room.