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Anthropology

Life Sciences

Anthropology is the scientific study of humankind, spanning human biological evolution, the archaeology of past societies, the diversity of living cultures, and the structure of human languages. It grew gradually out of Enlightenment era writing rather than from one founding text, and its fieldwork methods, living for extended periods inside the community being studied, were set largely by Bronislaw Malinowski's work in the 1910s and 1920s. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Central QuestionSourced to the subject's own account
What do the full range of human biological variation and cultural practice, studied comparatively across every society rather than assumed from any one, reveal about what is universal to being human and what is not? 1
ScopeSourced to the subject's own account
Anthropology is the holistic study of humanity, encompassing human biology and evolution, past and present cultures and societies, and the development of language, usually organized into biological, cultural, linguistic and archaeological branches. 1
SignificanceSourced to the subject's own account
Franz Boas, trained in physics and geography before turning to ethnography, established the four-field American model of anthropology and argued against the racial hierarchies common in nineteenth century social science, insisting each culture be understood on its own terms rather than ranked against a single standard of progress. 1
Disputed
Founded Year
1871 1
Sourced to the subject's own accountEdward Burnett Tylor's Primitive Culture (1871) established the discipline's central concept of culture and is commonly cited as founding the modern academic discipline; institutional roots reach back earlier still, to the Ethnological Society of London (1843) and the Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris (1859).
Anthropology
Filter Results4 entries
Connections

Founded By

Tylor's Primitive Culture, published in 1871, is the year recorded as when the field was founded.

Source History of Anthropology (Wikipedia)
Franz Boas, Scientists

Boas is credited as founder of the modern American four-field tradition rather than of anthropology as such, which has older European roots.

Source History of Anthropology (Wikipedia)

Has Scientist

Source A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (Wikipedia)
Source Alfred Russel Wallace (Wikipedia)
Source Bronislaw Malinowski (Wikipedia)
Source Cheikh Anta Diop (Wikipedia)
Source Claude Levi-Strauss (Wikipedia)
Dell Hymes, Scientists
Source Dell Hymes (Wikipedia)
Source Derek Freeman (Wikipedia)
Source Donald Johanson (Wikipedia)
Source Edward Burnett Tylor (Wikipedia)
Source Francisc Rainer (Wikipedia)
Franz Boas, Scientists
Source Jane Goodall (Wikipedia)
Source Wikipedia
Source Louis Leakey (Wikipedia)
Source Margaret Mead (Wikipedia)
Source Mark Stoneking (Wikipedia)
Source Mary Leakey (Wikipedia)
Source Peter Freuchen (Wikipedia)
Source Rebecca Cann (Wikipedia)
Source Richard Leakey (Wikipedia)
Source Thomas Henry Huxley (Wikipedia)
Source William Johnson Sollas, Wikipedia

Has Theory

Source Cultural Relativism (Wikipedia)
Ethnography, Concepts
Source Ethnography (Wikipedia)
Kinship, Concepts
Source Kinship (Wikipedia)
Source Participant Observation (Wikipedia)

Studies

Source Cultural Relativism (Wikipedia)
Ethnography, Concepts
Source Ethnography (Wikipedia)
Kinship, Concepts
Source Kinship (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. History of Anthropology (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Lead section
    History of anthropology in this article refers primarily to the 18th- and 19th-century precursors of modern anthropology. The term anthropology itself, innovated as a Neo-Latin scientific word during the Renaissance, has always meant "the study of man".
  • Founded By: Edward Burnett Tylor
  • Founded By: Franz Boas
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Rebecca Cann (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Scientist: Rebecca Cann, Infobox, fields
Quote, Has Scientist: Rebecca Cann, Infobox, fields
Infobox fields: Anthropology, genetics, ornithology
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Mark Stoneking (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Scientist: Mark Stoneking, Infobox, fields
Quote, Has Scientist: Mark Stoneking, Infobox, fields
Infobox fields: Anthropology, population genetics
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William Johnson Sollas, Wikipedia
Has Scientist: William Johnson Sollas, Infobox, fields
Quote, Has Scientist: William Johnson Sollas, Infobox, fields
Infobox fields: geology and anthropology
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Francisc Rainer (Wikipedia)
  • Has Scientist: Francisc Rainer, Infobox, fields
    Infobox fields: Pathology; Morphology; Microbiology; Kinesiology; Biological anthropology
  • Has Scientist: Francisc Rainer, Lead sentence
    Francisc Iosif Rainer (December 28, 1874, August 4, 1944) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian pathologist, physiologist and anthropologist.
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Alfred Russel Wallace (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Scientist: Alfred Russel Wallace, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Scientist: Alfred Russel Wallace, Lead sentence
Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823-7 November 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and illustrator.
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Jane Goodall (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Scientist: Jane Goodall, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Scientist: Jane Goodall, Lead sentence
Dame Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall ( ; 3April 19341October 2025) was an English primatologist and anthropologist.
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Thomas Henry Huxley (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Scientist: Thomas Henry Huxley, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Scientist: Thomas Henry Huxley, Lead sentence
Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825-29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist who specialised in comparative anatomy.
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Cheikh Anta Diop (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Scientist: Cheikh Anta Diop, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Scientist: Cheikh Anta Diop, Lead sentence
Cheikh Anta Diop (29 December 1923-7 February 1986) was a Senegalese historian, anthropologist, physicist, and politician who studied the human race's origins and pre-colonial African culture.
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Wikipedia
WikipediaHas Scientist: Kenneth Pike, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Scientist: Kenneth Pike, Lead sentence
Kenneth Lee Pike (June 9, 1912 - December 31, 2000) was an American linguist and anthropologist.
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Dell Hymes (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Scientist: Dell Hymes, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Scientist: Dell Hymes, Lead sentence
Dell Hathaway Hymes (June 7, 1927, in Portland, Oregon, November 13, 2009, in Charlottesville, Virginia) was a linguist, sociolinguist, anthropologist, and folklorist who established disciplinary foundations for the comparative, ethnographic study of language use.
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Peter Freuchen (Wikipedia)
Has Scientist: Peter Freuchen, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Scientist: Peter Freuchen, Lead sentence
Lorenz Peter Elfred Freuchen (20 February 1886-2 September 1957) was a Danish explorer, author, journalist and anthropologist.
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Ethnography (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Theory: Ethnography, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Theory: Ethnography, Lead sentence
Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures.
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Kinship (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Theory: Kinship, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Theory: Kinship, Lead sentence
In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated.
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Louis Leakey (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Scientist: Louis Leakey, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Scientist: Louis Leakey, Lead sentence
Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (7 August 1903-1 October 1972) was a Kenyan-British palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in demonstrating that humans evolved in Africa, particularly through discoveries made at Olduvai Gorge with his wife, fellow palaeoanthropologist Mary
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Mary Leakey (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Scientist: Mary Leakey, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Scientist: Mary Leakey, Lead sentence
Mary Douglas Leakey, FBA (née Nicol, 6 February 1913-9 December 1996) was a British paleoanthropologist who discovered the first fossilised Proconsul skull, an extinct ape believed to be ancestral to humans.
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Donald Johanson (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Scientist: Donald Johanson, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Scientist: Donald Johanson, Lead sentence
Donald Carl Johanson (born June 28, 1943) is an American paleoanthropologist.
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Richard Leakey (Wikipedia)
Has Scientist: Richard Leakey, Lead sentence
Quote, Has Scientist: Richard Leakey, Lead sentence
Richard Erskine Frere Leakey (19 December 1944-2 January 2022) was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician.
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Anthropology (Wikipedia)
In Group: Mind and Behavior Sciences, Lead
Quote, In Group: Mind and Behavior Sciences, Lead
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 a
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Participant Observation (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHas Theory: Participant Observation, Lead, sentence 1
Quote, Has Theory: Participant Observation, Lead, sentence 1
Participant observation is one type of data collection method by practitioner-scholars typically used in qualitative research and ethnography.
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Cultural Relativism (Wikipedia)
WikipediaStudies: Cultural Relativism, Lead, sentence 1
Quote, Studies: Cultural Relativism, Lead, sentence 1
Cultural relativism is the view that the values (such as moral values) of a culture must be understood in their own cultural context and not judged according to the standards of a different culture.
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