Anthropology

Definition

Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity that crosses biology and sociology, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. The term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological anthropology studies the biology and evolution of humans and their close primate relatives.

Related concepts

AIBR. Asociación de Antropólogos Iberoamericanos en Red Abductive reasoning Abiogenesis Abnormal psychology Aborigines' Protection Society Acculturation Achieved status Aché people Actor–network theory Adam František Kollár Adaptation Adenosine triphosphate Adventism Aerial archaeology Aerobiology Aesthetics Affinity (law)African-American African Political Systems African traditional religions Afro-American religion Afterlife Age grade Age set Agoraphobic Agronomy Agrostology Ahmadiyya Aidan Southall Akbar Ahmed Alan H. Goodman Alan Lomax Alan Merriam Alaska Native religion Alexander Chayanov Alfred Gell Alfred Tylor Alga Alliance theory Altamira Press Altered states of consciousness Ambilineality American Anthropological Association American Anthropologist American Ethnological Society American Journal of Archaeology American anthropology Amino acid Anatomy Ancient Greek André Leroi-Gourhan Angakkuq Anglicanism Animal Animal studies Animal testing Animism Anito Anthony F. C. Wallace Anthropological Index Online Anthropological Society of London Anthropological Society of Madrid Anthropological linguistics Anthropological science fiction Anthropological theories of value Anthropologist Anthropology (disambiguation)Anthropology of Consciousness Anthropology of art Anthropology of development Anthropology of food Anthropology of human rights Anthropology of institutions Anthropology of media Anthropology of religion Anthropometry Anthrozoology Antihumanism Antipositivism Applied anthropology Archaea Archaeological Archaeology Archaeology of religion and ritual Archaic humans Area studies Aristotle Armenian Apostolic Church Arnold van Gennep Art history Arthur Kleinman Arts and Humanities Research Council Ascribed status Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth Astrobiology Atom Atua Augury Australian Aboriginal kinship systems Auxiliary sciences of history Aviation archaeology Avunculate Axis powers Ayyavazhi Babaylan Bacteria Bacteriology Band society Baptists Barter Batek people Battlefield archaeology Beatrice Blyth Whiting Beauty Behavioral ecology Behavioural sciences Beliefs Belles-lettres Benjamin H. Bratton Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte Bernardino de Sahagún Biblical archaeology Bibliography of anthropology Big man (anthropology)Bilateral descent Bildung Bioarchaeology Biochemistry Biocoenosis Biocultural anthropology Biodiversity Biogeochemical cycle Biogeography Biogeology Bioinformatics Biological anthropology Biological engineering Biological interaction Biological organisation Biological system Biology Biomass Biome Biomechanics Biophysical environment Biophysics Biosemiotics Biosphere Biostatistics Biotechnology Bjorn Thomassen Boasian anthropology Bobohizan Body culture studies Bomoh Bora (Australian)Botany Breathing Bride price Bride service Broca's area Bronisław Malinowski Bruno Latour Bruno Nettl Brutus of Britain Buddhism Burmese kinship Business administration Business studies Callao Cave Calvinism Cantometrics Capitalist Realism Carbohydrate Cargo cult Caribbean Caribbeanist Caspar Bartholin the Elder Caspar Bartholin the Younger Caste Catholic Church Cell (biology)Cell biology Cell cycle Cell signaling Cell theory Cellular microbiology Cellular respiration Center for World Indigenous Studies Centro Cultural Mexiquense Ceremonial pole Chambri people Charles Darwin Charles L. Briggs Charles Laughlin Chemical biology Chemical bond Chemical element Chiefdom Childbirth Chinese folk religion Chinese kinship Christian anthropology Christianity Chronobiology Circulatory system Circumcision Circumscription theory Clan Classics Classificatory kinship Claude Lévi-Strauss Clifford Geertz Climate Climate change Clinical ethnography Cognatic kinship Cognition Cognitive anthropology Cognitive biology Cognitive linguistics Cognitive psychology Cognitive science Cognitive sciences Cohabitation Collateral (kinship)Colonialism Color symbolism Combining form Coming of Age in Samoa Commodification Commodity pathway diversion Common name Communication studies Communitas Community Community (ecology)Community studies Comparative anatomy Comparative biology Comparative method Comparative method (linguistics)Comparative politics Comparative religion Computational biology Concubinage Consanguinity Conservation biology Conservative Judaism Coptic Orthodox Church Cora Du Bois Coral Gardens and Their Magic Cousin marriage Creativity Criminology Critical animal studies Critical medical anthropology Critical theory Criticism Critique of political economy Cross-cultural psychiatry Cross-cultural studies Crow kinship Cryobiology Cultural Anthropology (journal)Cultural adaptation Cultural anthropology Cultural capital Cultural ecology Cultural history Cultural literacy Cultural materialism (anthropology)Cultural relativism Cultural studies Culture Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry Culture-bound syndrome Culture of poverty Culture regions Culture theory Cultures Customary law Cyber-ethnography Cyber anthropology Cybernetic Culture Research Unit Cybertext Cyborg Manifesto Cyborg anthropology Cytogenetics DNA Daedalus (journal)Dan Sperber Dance Daniel Martin Varisco Daniel Miller (anthropologist)David Graeber David M. Schneider David MacDougall David Price (anthropologist)Debt Decomposition Demography Dendrology Dental anthropology Descent group Development anthropology Development studies Developmental biology Developmental psychology Diane Bell (anthropologist)Diet (nutrition)Digambara Digital anthropology Digital humanities Discourse analysis Divination Divine language Don Kulick Donna Haraway Double bind Douglas R. White Dowry Dual inheritance theory Dukun E. Adamson Hoebel E. E. Evans-Pritchard E. Thomas Lawson Earliest known life forms Eastern Orthodox Church Ecogovernmentality Ecological anthropology Ecological genetics Ecological niche Ecology Econometrics Economic anthropology Economic history Economic systems Economics Ecosystem Ecosystem ecology Edmund Leach Edmund Snow Carpenter Education Educational essentialism Edward Burnett Tylor Elder (administrative title)Eleanor Leacock Elite religion Elizabeth Mertz Elman Service Embeddedness Embryology Emergence Emic Emic and etic Emotion Enamel fracture Enchanted Feminism Enculturation Endocrine system Endogamy Energy Engaged theory Environmental anthropology Environmental archaeology Environmental humanities Environmental social science Environmental studies Enzyme Epidemiology Epidermis (botany)Epigenetics Epistemological Eric Wolf Ernest Gellner Ernst Cassirer Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church Ethnic group Ethnic religion Ethnic studies Ethnicity Ethnoarchaeology Ethnobiology Ethnocentrism Ethnochoreology Ethnocinema Ethnographic film Ethnography Ethnohistory Ethnolinguistics Ethnological Society of London Ethnology Ethnomedicine Ethnomuseology Ethnomusicology Ethnomusicology (academic journal)Ethnopoetics Ethology Ethos Etic Etymology Eukaryote Europe and the People Without History European Association of Social Anthropologists Evolution Evolutionary anthropology Evolutionary biology Evolutionary developmental biology Evolutionary origin of religion Evolutionism Exogamy Experimental archaeology Experimental psychology Exploration Extended family F. G. Bailey Family Fanged Noumena Feminist anthropology Feminist archaeology Feminist theory Fermentation Fetishism Fictive kinship Filmmaking First-wave feminism Fitzroy Dearborn Flower Folk art Folk religion Folklore Food security Food studies Forensic anthropology Form of government Formalist–substantivist debate Fossil Fossil collecting Four field approach Frances Densmore Franz Boas Fredrik Barth French language Freshwater biology Function (biology)Fungus Gabriella Coleman Gayle Rubin Geisteswissenschaft Gender Gender equality Gender studies Gene expression Gene flow General knowledge Generative biology Genetic drift Genetics Genocide Genome Genomics Geobiology Geography Geology George Devereux George Peter Murdock Georges Balandier German Renaissance Gerontocracy Gerontology Ghost Dance Gift economy Gifting remittances Gilbert Herdt Global financial system Global studies Great Spirit Greek Orthodox Church Gregory Bateson Ground tissue Habitat Handsome Lake Hanitu Haredi Judaism Hari Kunzru Harold K. Schneider Hasidic Judaism Hausa animism Hawaiian kinship Haymanot Health Health humanities Heinrich Schurtz Henotheism Henri J. M. Claessen Henrietta Moore Herbert S. Lewis Heritage commodification Hermeneutics Herpetology High culture Hindu denominations Hinduism Histology Historical anthropology Historical linguistics Historical materialism Historical particularism Historical sociology Historicism Historism History History of Britain History of Humanities History of anthropology History of biology History of life History of science History of technology History of the social sciences Holism Holism in science Holy Roman Empire Homeostasis Hominidae Hominins Homo luzonensis Hortense Powdermaker House society Human Human Relations Area Files Human Terrain System Human behavior Human behavioral ecology Human behaviour Human biology Human condition Human development (biology)Human digestive system Human ecology Human ethology Human evolution Human geography Human physiology Human rights Human science Human universal Humanism Humanitas Humanitas (journal)Humanities Humanities, arts, and social sciences Humanities and Social Sciences Communications Humanities in the United States Hunter-gatherer Hypermedia Hypertext Hypertext fiction Ibadi Ichthyology Ideology Immune system Immunology Inalienable possessions Incest taboo Incidents of Travel in Chichen Itza Index of biology articles Index of sociology articles Indigenous Australian art Indigenous peoples Infanticide Information science Initiation Innovation Intangible cultural heritage Integrated geography Interdisciplinary Internal environment International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences International relations Internet research Interpretation (logic)Intersectional Introduction to evolution Introduction to genetics Inuit kinship Iroquois kinship Islam Jaap Kunst Jack Goody Jainism James C. Scott James George Frazer James Hunt (speech therapist)James Ladyman Jane I. Guyer Jean Comaroff Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau Jean Rouch Jeremy Boissevain Jhākri Jim Crow economy John Collier (anthropologist)John Comaroff John Kersey John Marshall (filmmaker)John Whiting (anthropologist)Joking relationship Jonathan Spencer Joseph Campbell Joseph Henrich Journal of Cognition and Culture Journal of Controversial Ideas Journal of Legal Anthropology Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Judaism Jurisprudence Kapu (Hawaiian culture)Karaite Judaism Karl Polanyi Keith Hart (anthropologist)Kejawèn Kinship Kinship terminology Korean shamanism Kula ring Land-use planning Language Language ideology Latin school Law Laying on of hands Leaf Left–right paradigm Legal anthropology Legal culture Legal history Legal pluralism Leonardo (journal)Lesley Gill Leslie White Levallois technique Leveling mechanism Levirate marriage Lewis H. Morgan Liberal arts education Life Liminality Limited good Lineage (anthropology)Lineal descendant Linguistic anthropology Linguistic description Linguistics Lipid Lipidology List of anthropologists List of anthropology journals List of biology journals List of humanities journals List of indigenous peoples List of matrilineal or matrilocal societies List of museums with major collections in ethnography and anthropology List of national legal systems List of people considered a founder in a humanities field List of religions and spiritual traditions List of social science journals List of visual anthropology films List of years in anthropology Literary Machines Literature Lived religion Louise Lamphere Lutheranism Macroeconomics Macroevolution Magic (supernatural)Magical thinking Magnus Hundt Mahayana Mahdavia Mammalogy Mana (Oceanic cultures)Management Mandala (political model)Marc Augé Marcel Mauss Margaret Mead Margaret Mead Film Festival Marilyn Strathern Marine biology Maritime archaeology Mark Fisher Marriage Marshall McLuhan Marshall Sahlins Marvin Harris Marvin Opler Mary Douglas Master of Humanities Material culture Mathematical and theoretical biology Mathematical economics Matriarchy Matrifocal family Matrilateral Matrilineality Matrilocal residence Matter Maurice Bloch Maurice Godelier Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Mechanical philosophy Media anthropology Media studies Medical Anthropology Quarterly Medical anthropology Medical humanities Meiosis Melford Spiro Meme Mendelian inheritance Mental health Merrill Singer Metabolism Metaphysics Methodism Meyer Fortes Michael M. J. Fischer Michelle Rosaldo Microbiology Microbiome Microeconomics Microevolution Mike Wesch Miko Military history Milk kinship Minor (law)Mircea Eliade Mitosis Mizuko Ito Moiety (kinship)Moka exchange Molecular anthropology Molecular biology Molecule Mongolian shamanism Monogamy Monograph Monomer Monotheism Moral character Moral economy Morton Fried Moscow University for the Humanities Mosuo women Motivation Mousterian Multiculturalism Muscular system Museum anthropology Museum of Anthropology at UBC Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Music theory Musicology Mutation Mutilation Mycology Myth and ritual Mythology N.N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology Nancy Scheper-Hughes Nanook of the North Narrative National Anthropological Archives National Endowment for the Humanities National Humanities Medal National Museum of Natural History, France National character studies Native American religion Natural science Natural selection Nature–culture divide Navajo medicine Neo-Latin Neoliberalism Neolithic Neolocal residence Neontology Nervous system Nestorianism Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems Network of Concerned Anthropologists Neuroanthropology Neuroscience New media Newspaper Nichiren Buddhism Nick Land Noaidi Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Nomadic pastoralism Non-denominational Muslim Nova Religio Nuclear family Nucleic acid Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges Numinous Nurture kinship Nutrition Nutritional anthropology Nutritional science Nympholepsy Nǃai, the Story of a ǃKung Woman Oceania (journal)Oceanic art Office of Strategic Services Office of War Information Oldowan Omaha kinship On the Origin of Species Ontology Oracle Organ (biology)Organ gifting Organelle Organic compound Organism Oriental Orthodoxy Original affluent society Origins of society Ornithology Orthodox Judaism Osteology Otto Casmann Outline of anthropology Outline of biology Outline of social science Outline of the humanities PH Painting Palaeoanthropology Palaeontology Paleoanthropology Paleoethnobotany Paleolithic Paleontology Pantribal sodalities Parallel and cross cousins Paramount chief Parasitology Participant observation Pastoralism Pathology Patriarchy Patrilineality Patrilocal residence Paul Bohannan Paul Broca Paul Farmer Paul Virilio Pawang Peasant economics Peer review Pentecostalism Perception Performance studies Performing arts Person-centered ethnography Personality psychology Petrifaction Petty kingdom Pharmacology Philippine kinship Philistinism Philology Philosophical anthropology Philosophy Philosophy and economics Philosophy of history Philosophy of psychology Philosophy of science Philosophy of social science Phloem Photobiology Photosynthesis Phycology Phylogenetics Physical anthropology Physical geography Physics Physiology Pierre Bourdieu Pierre Clastres Pilgrimage Plant Plant stem Poetry Political and Legal Anthropology Review Political anthropology Political ecology Political economy Political economy in anthropology Political history Political organization Political philosophy Political science Political sociology Polyandry Polyandry in India Polyandry in Tibet Polygamy Polygyny Polymer Polytheism Pomology Popular culture Population (biology)Population ecology Positivist Post-colonialism Post-structuralism Post-transcriptional modification Postcolonialism Posthumous marriage Potlatch Practice theory Pragmatics Pregnancy Prehistoric medicine Prehistory Primate Primatology Private law Profane (religion)Prokaryote Protein Proteomics Protestantism Protist Protistology Psychological anthropology Psychology Public administration Public anthropology Public health Public humanities Public law Public policy Pure Land Buddhism Purity and Danger Quadrivium Quakers Qualitative research Quantum biology Quantum social science Quranism Race (classification of human beings)Race (human categorization)Racism Ralph Linton Rave Ray Brassier Raymond Firth Reception theory Reciprocity (cultural anthropology)Redistribution (cultural anthropology)Reductionism Reflexivity (social theory)Reform Judaism Regional planning Regional science Regulation of gene expression Relational biology Religious studies Renaissance humanism René Girard Reproduction Reproductive biology Reproductive system Research design Resource (biology)Respiratory system Revue des Études Arméniennes Reza Negarestani Rhetoric Richard Francis Burton Richard Harvey (astrologer)Richard Shweder Rite of passage Ritual Ritual warfare Robert Fletcher (anthropologist)Robert Gardner (anthropologist)Robert Hugh Layton Robert Hull Fleming Museum Robert I. Levy Robert J. Flaherty Robert L. Carneiro Robert Ranulph Marett Robin W. G. Horton Rodney Needham Roger Lancaster Root Rosetta Stone Roy Ellen Roy Rappaport Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Rudolph Virchow Rural sociology Russian Orthodox Church Saba Mahmood Sacred language Sacred site Sacredness Sadie Plant Sally Falk Moore Salvage ethnography Science Science, technology and society Science and technology studies Science studies Scientific Scientific law Scientific method Scientific objectivity Scientific theory Sculpture Segmentary lineage Self-realization Self-reflection Self-replication Semiotic anthropology Semiotics Sex and Repression in Savage Society Sexism Shaivism Shaktism Shamanism Shamanism in Siberia Shell money Shia Islam Shifting cultivation Shingon Buddhism Shinto Shoot (botany)Sidney Mintz Sikhism Slametan Smartism Social Bonding and Nurture Kinship Social anthropology Social capital Social history Social movement Social organization Social psychology Social science Social status Social studies of finance Social work Society Society for Anthropological Sciences Society for Applied Anthropology Society for Ethnomusicology Society for Medical Anthropology Society for the Social Studies of Science Society of Anthropology of Paris Sociobiology Sociocultural anthropology Sociocultural evolution Sociolinguistics Sociologist Sociology Sociology of the Internet Société Ethnologique de Paris Société de biologie Sororate marriage Soul dualism Spatial biology Speciation Spheres of exchange St. Clair Drake Standard Cross-Cultural Sample Standard cross-cultural sample Stanley Diamond Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah State (polity)State formation Stephen O. Murray Stimulus (physiology)Structural anthropology Structural biology Structural functionalism Structuralism Structure Subincision Sudanese kinship Sufism Sunni Islam Superstition Symbolic anthropology Syndemic Synthetic biology Systematics Systems biology Systems theory in anthropology Talal Asad Tanya Luhrmann Taxonomic rank Taxonomy (biology)Teaching Philosophy Technical geography Technology Technology, Tradition, and the State in Africa Ted C. Lewellen Ted Nelson Tengrism Teratology Terrain (journal)The Anti-Politics Machine The Art of Not Being Governed The Ax Fight The Christian Science Monitor The Doon School Quintet The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life The Folklore Society The Great Transformation (book)The Hibbert Journal The Journal of Religion The New World of English Words The arts Theatre Theatre state Theodor Waitz Theories Theories about religion Theravada Thick description Third World Thomas Bartholin Thomas Blom Hansen Tiantai Tibetan Buddhism Tim Asch Tim Ingold Timeline of biology and organic chemistry Tissue (biology)Tom Boellstorff Tooth Tooth decay Torture Totem Toxicology Traité sur les apparitions des esprits et sur les vampires ou les revenans de Hongrie, de Moravie, &c.Trans-cultural diffusion Transcultural Psychiatry Transpersonal anthropology Transpersonal experience Transpersonal psychology Transtheism Tribal art Tribal chief Tribe Trivium Typology (anthropology)USC Center for Visual Anthropology US military in Iraq Ulf Hannerz Unilineality University of Copenhagen University of Toronto Urban anthropology Urban planning Urban sociology Urbanization Vaishnavism Vajrayana Vascular plant Vascular tissue Veena Das Vegan studies Veneration of the dead Vera Mae Green Veterinary medicine Victor Turner Video ethnography Virology Virophysics Virus Visual anthropology Visual arts Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas Visual culture W. D. Hamilton WWII War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)Water Wealth Welfare biology Western World Western world William Frédéric Edwards Wisdom Wolfgang Fikentscher Work of art World-system World history (field)Wu (shaman)Xenobiology Xylem Yazdânism Zen Zooarchaeology Zoology École des hautes études en sciences sociales Émile Durkheim Étienne Serres Śvetāmbara

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