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139-603: It is named after anthropologist Franz Boas . There are rich sedge meadows in the river's 2 mi (3.2 km)-wide delta area. Bearded seal , bowhead whale , harbor seal , narwhal , polar bear , ringed seal , walrus , and white whale frequent the area. Boas River and associated wetlands is a Canadian Important Bird Area , site #NU022 ( 63°45′N 85°40′W  /  63.75°N 85.66°W  / 63.75; -85.66  ( Bird Area #NU022 (Boas River) ) ). The elevation varies from 0 m (0 ft) to 60 m (200 ft) above sea level . The IBA

278-767: A Western and an Eastern bloc , which later reunified to form the European Union . In the history of the Americas , the first anatomically modern humans arrived around 20,000 to 15,000 years ago. The Americas were home to some of the earliest civilizations, like the Norte Chico civilization in South America and the Maya and Olmec civilizations in Central America. Over the next millennia, major empires arose beside them, such as

417-499: A critical perspective. The kind of issues addressed and implications for the approach involve pondering why, if a key development goal is to alleviate poverty, is poverty increasing? Why is there such a gap between plans and outcomes? Why are those working in development so willing to disregard history and the lessons it might offer? Why is development so externally driven rather than having an internal basis? In short, why does so much planned development fail? Kinship can refer both to

556-413: A narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians debate the nature of history as an end in itself, and its usefulness in giving perspective on the problems of the present. The period of events before

695-501: A sedentary lifestyle supported by early forms of agriculture . The absence of written documents from this period presents researchers with unique challenges. It results in an interdisciplinary approach relying on other forms of evidence from fields such as archaeology , anthropology , paleontology , and geology . Ancient history, starting roughly 3500 BCE, saw the emergence of the first major civilizations in Mesopotamia , Egypt,

834-638: A break-away group of the Aborigines' Protection Society . These anthropologists of the times were liberal, anti-slavery, and pro- human-rights activists. They maintained international connections. Anthropology and many other current fields are the intellectual results of the comparative methods developed in the earlier 19th century. Theorists in diverse fields such as anatomy , linguistics , and ethnology , started making feature-by-feature comparisons of their subject matters, and were beginning to suspect that similarities between animals, languages, and folkways were

973-425: A broad scope, the amount of primary sources is often too extensive for an individual historian to review. This forces them to either narrow the scope of their topic or rely on secondary sources to arrive at a wide overview. Chronological division is a common approach to organizing the vast expanse of history into more manageable segments. Different periods are often defined based on dominant themes that characterize

1112-605: A culture from an emic (conceptual, vs. etic , or technical) point of view. The study of kinship and social organization is a central focus of sociocultural anthropology, as kinship is a human universal . Sociocultural anthropology also covers economic and political organization , law and conflict resolution, patterns of consumption and exchange, material culture, technology, infrastructure, gender relations, ethnicity, childrearing and socialization, religion, myth, symbols, values, etiquette, worldview, sports, music, nutrition, recreation, games, food, festivals, and language (which

1251-411: A diffuse assemblage of ethnology, human biology, comparative linguistics, and prehistory, held together mainly by the vested interests, sunk costs, and administrative habits of academia, and by a romantic image of comprehensive scholarship. Sociocultural anthropology has been heavily influenced by structuralist and postmodern theories, as well as a shift toward the analysis of modern societies. During

1390-669: A few major subdivisions to dozens more. Practical anthropology, the use of anthropological knowledge and technique to solve specific problems, has arrived; for example, the presence of buried victims might stimulate the use of a forensic archaeologist to recreate the final scene. The organization has also reached a global level. For example, the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA), "a network of national, regional and international associations that aims to promote worldwide communication and cooperation in anthropology", currently contains members from about three dozen nations. Since

1529-405: A historian writes a text about slavery based on an analysis of historical documents, then the text is a secondary source on slavery and a primary source on the historian's opinion. Consistency with available sources is one of the main standards of historical works. For instance, the discovery of new sources may lead historians to revise or dismiss previously accepted narratives. Source criticism

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1668-448: A particular culture, but not supported by external sources (such as the tales surrounding King Arthur ), are usually classified as cultural heritage or legends . History differs from myth in that it is supported by verifiable evidence . However, ancient cultural influences have helped create variant interpretations of the nature of history, which have evolved over the centuries and continue to change today. The modern study of history

1807-606: A particular event occurred, refute an existing theory, or confirm a new hypothesis. To answer research questions, historians rely on various types of evidence to reconstruct the past and support their conclusions. Historical evidence is usually divided into primary and secondary sources . A primary source is a source that originated during the period that is studied. Primary sources can take various forms, such as official documents, letters, diaries, eyewitness accounts, photographs, and audio or video recordings. They also include historical remains examined in archeology , geology , and

1946-410: A result of illness. On the other hand, there are fields that intersect with medical anthropology in terms of research methodology and theoretical production, such as cultural psychiatry and transcultural psychiatry or ethnopsychiatry . Nutritional anthropology is a synthetic concept that deals with the interplay between economic systems , nutritional status and food security , and how changes in

2085-459: A significantly different form, in most non-Western contexts. To surmount this difficulty, anthropologists of art have focused on formal features in objects which, without exclusively being 'artistic', have certain evident 'aesthetic' qualities. Boas' Primitive Art , Claude Lévi-Strauss ' The Way of the Masks (1982) or Geertz's 'Art as Cultural System' (1983) are some examples in this trend to transform

2224-431: A specific time frame and significant events that initiated these developments or brought them to an end. Depending on the selected context and level of detail, a period may be as short as a decade or longer than several centuries. A traditionally influential approach divides human history into prehistory , ancient history , post-classical history , early modern history , and modern history . Prehistory started with

2363-521: A state chronicle , the Spring and Autumn Annals , was reputed to date from as early as 722 BCE, though only 2nd-century BCE texts have survived. The title "father of history" has also been attributed, in their respective societies, to Sima Qian , Ibn Khaldun , and Kenneth Dike . The word history comes from historía ( Ancient Greek : ἱστορία , romanized :  historíā , lit.   'inquiry, knowledge from inquiry, or judge' ). It

2502-671: A state was organized internally , like factions , parties , leaders, and other political institutions. It also examines which policies were implemented and how the state interacted with other states. Political history has been studied since antiquity, making it the oldest branch of history, while other major subfields have only become established branches in the past century. Diplomatic and military history are closely related to political history. Diplomatic history examines international relations between states. It covers foreign policy topics such as negotiations, strategic considerations, treaties , and conflicts between nations as well as

2641-463: A wide variety of fields, such as teaching, politics, cultural anthropology etc. While the origins of ethnomusicology date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, it was formally termed "ethnomusicology" by Dutch scholar Jaap Kunst c.  1950 . Later, the influence of study in this area spawned the creation of the periodical Ethnomusicology and the Society of Ethnomusicology . Visual anthropology

2780-604: Is 5,402 km (2,086 sq mi) in size. The Harry Gibbons Migratory Bird Sanctuary encompasses one third of the IBA's western portion. This is a notable breeding area for the lesser snow goose . Other bird species include: American golden plover , Arctic loon , Atlantic brant, Canada goose , herring gull , jaegers, king eider , Lapland longspur , oldsquaw , red phalarope , red-throated loon , Ross's goose , tundra swan , sandhill crane , semipalmated plover , semipalmated sandpiper , and white-rumped sandpiper . The area

2919-521: Is a method of analysing social or cultural interaction. It often involves participant observation though an ethnographer may also draw from texts written by participants of in social interactions. Ethnography views first-hand experience and social context as important. Tim Ingold distinguishes ethnography from anthropology arguing that anthropology tries to construct general theories of human experience, applicable in general and novel settings, while ethnography concerns itself with fidelity. He argues that

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3058-447: Is a type of archaeology that studies the practices and material remains of living human groups in order to gain a better understanding of the evidence left behind by past human groups, who are presumed to have lived in similar ways. Linguistic anthropology (not to be confused with anthropological linguistics ) seeks to understand the processes of human communications, verbal and non-verbal, variation in language across time and space,

3197-515: Is also the object of study in linguistic anthropology). Comparison across cultures is a key element of method in sociocultural anthropology, including the industrialized (and de-industrialized) West. The Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS) includes 186 such cultures. Biological anthropology and physical anthropology are synonymous terms to describe anthropological research focused on the study of humans and non-human primates in their biological, evolutionary, and demographic dimensions. It examines

3336-439: Is an interdisciplinary subfield of anthropology that studies the interaction of cultural and mental processes . This subfield tends to focus on ways in which humans' development and enculturation within a particular cultural group – with its own history, language, practices, and conceptual categories – shape processes of human cognition , emotion , perception , motivation , and mental health . It also examines how

3475-584: Is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media . While the term is sometimes used interchangeably with ethnographic film , visual anthropology also encompasses the anthropological study of visual representation, including areas such as performance, museums, art, and the production and reception of mass media . Visual representations from all cultures, such as sandpaintings, tattoos, sculptures and reliefs, cave paintings, scrimshaw, jewelry, hieroglyphs, paintings, and photographs are included in

3614-401: Is crossed when people cease to live only in the present, and become consciously interested both in their past and in their future. History begins with the handing down of tradition; and tradition means the carrying of the habits and lessons of the past into the future. Records of the past begin to be kept for the benefit of future generations. This definition includes within the scope of history

3753-435: Is dedicated to the institutional production of this discourse. All events that are remembered and preserved in some authentic form constitute the historical record. The task of historical discourse is to identify the sources which can most usefully contribute to the production of accurate accounts of past. Therefore, the constitution of the historian's archive is a result of circumscribing a more general archive by invalidating

3892-624: Is first attested in reference to history . Its present use first appeared in Renaissance Germany in the works of Magnus Hundt and Otto Casmann . Their Neo-Latin anthropologia derived from the combining forms of the Greek words ánthrōpos ( ἄνθρωπος , " human ") and lógos ( λόγος , " study "). Its adjectival form appeared in the works of Aristotle . It began to be used in English, possibly via French Anthropologie , by

4031-456: Is more related to philosophy , literature and the arts (how one's culture affects the experience for self and group, contributing to a more complete understanding of the people's knowledge, customs, and institutions), while social anthropology is more related to sociology and history. In that, it helps develop an understanding of social structures, typically of others and other populations (such as minorities, subgroups, dissidents, etc.). There

4170-414: Is no hard-and-fast distinction between them, and these categories overlap to a considerable degree. Inquiry in sociocultural anthropology is guided in part by cultural relativism , the attempt to understand other societies in terms of their own cultural symbols and values. Accepting other cultures in their own terms moderates reductionism in cross-cultural comparison. This project is often accommodated in

4309-934: Is one of its primary research designs as well as the text that is generated from anthropological fieldwork. In Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries, the British tradition of social anthropology tends to dominate. In the United States, anthropology has traditionally been divided into the four field approach developed by Franz Boas in the early 20th century: biological or physical anthropology ; social , cultural , or sociocultural anthropology ; archaeological anthropology ; and linguistic anthropology . These fields frequently overlap but tend to use different methodologies and techniques. European countries with overseas colonies tended to practice more ethnology (a term coined and defined by Adam F. Kollár in 1783). It

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4448-401: Is possible for historians to concern themselves with both the very specific and the very general, though the trend has been toward specialization. The area called Big History resists this specialization, and searches for universal patterns or trends. History has often been studied with some practical or theoretical aim, but may be studied out of simple intellectual curiosity. Human history

4587-457: Is sometimes referred to as sociocultural anthropology in the parts of the world that were influenced by the European tradition. Anthropology is a global discipline involving humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Anthropology builds upon knowledge from natural sciences , including the discoveries about the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens , human physical traits, human behavior ,

4726-407: Is still used to mean both "history" and "story". Historian in the sense of a "researcher of history" is attested from 1531. In all European languages , the substantive history is still used to mean both "what happened with men" and "the scholarly study of the happened" or the word historiography . The adjective historical is attested from 1661, and historic from 1669. Historians write in

4865-529: Is the marker that separates history from what comes before. Archaeology is especially helpful in unearthing buried sites and objects, which contribute to the study of history. Archeological finds rarely stand alone, with narrative sources complementing its discoveries. Archeology's methodologies and approaches are independent from the field of history. "Historical archaeology" is a specific branch of archeology which often contrasts its conclusions against those of contemporary textual sources. For example, Mark Leone,

5004-415: Is the memory of the past experience of Homo sapiens around the world, as that experience has been preserved, largely in written records. By "prehistory", historians mean the recovery of knowledge of the past in an area where no written records exist, or where the writing of a culture is not understood. By studying painting, drawings, carvings, and other artifacts, some information can be recovered even in

5143-500: Is the people they share DNA with. This is called consanguinity or "blood ties". People can also have a chosen family in which they chose who they want to be a part of their family. In some cases, people are closer with their chosen family more than with their biological families. Feminist anthropology is a four field approach to anthropology ( archeological , biological , cultural , linguistic ) that seeks to reduce male bias in research findings, anthropological hiring practices, and

5282-426: Is the process of analyzing and evaluating the information a source provides. Typically, this process begins with external criticism, which evaluates the authenticity of a source. It addresses the questions of when and where the source was created and seeks to identify the author, understand their reason for producing the source, and determine if it has undergone some type of modification since its creation. Additionally,

5421-505: Is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior , human biology , cultures , societies , and linguistics , in both the present and past, including archaic humans . Social anthropology studies patterns of behavior, 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 or physical anthropology studies

5560-421: Is the use of periodization . It divides a timeframe into different periods, each organized around central themes or developments that shaped the period. For example, the three-age system divides early human history into Stone Age , Bronze Age , and Iron Age based on the predominant materials and technologies during these periods. Another methodological tool is the examination of silences, gaps or omissions in

5699-399: Is wide-ranging, and includes the study of specific regions and certain topical or thematic elements of historical investigation. History is taught as a part of primary and secondary education, and the academic study of history is a major discipline in universities. Herodotus , a 5th-century BCE Greek historian , is often considered the "father of history", as one of the first historians in

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5838-638: The Indus Valley , China, and Peru. The new social, economic, and political complexities necessitated the development of writing systems . Thanks to advancements in agriculture, surplus food allowed these civilizations to support larger populations, accompanied by urbanization , the establishment of trade networks, and the emergence of regional empires. Meanwhile, influential religious systems and philosophical ideas were first formulated, such as Hinduism , Buddhism , Confucianism , Judaism , and Greek philosophy . In post-classical history, beginning around 500 CE,

5977-606: The Islamic Golden Age . As such, anthropology has been central in the development of several new (late 20th century) interdisciplinary fields such as cognitive science , global studies , and various ethnic studies . According to Clifford Geertz , ...anthropology is perhaps the last of the great nineteenth-century conglomerate disciplines still for the most part organizationally intact. Long after natural history, moral philosophy, philology, and political economy have dissolved into their specialized successors, it has remained

6116-552: The Mongol Empire became a dominant force during the 13th and 14th centuries. In early modern history, starting roughly 1500 CE, European states rose to global power. As gunpowder empires , they explored and colonized large parts of the world. As a result, the Americas were integrated into the global network, triggering a vast biological exchange of plants, animals, people, and diseases. The Scientific Revolution prompted major discoveries and accelerated technological progress. It

6255-504: The Teotihuacan , Aztec , and Inca empires . Following the arrival of the Europeans from the late 15th century onwards, the spread of newly introduced diseases drastically reduced the local population. Together with colonization and the massive influx of African slaves, it led to the collapse of major empires as demographic and cultural landscapes were reshaped. Independence movements in

6394-492: The global financial system from an anthropological perspective. Political economy in anthropology is the application of the theories and methods of historical materialism to the traditional concerns of anthropology, including, but not limited to, non-capitalist societies. Political economy introduced questions of history and colonialism to ahistorical anthropological theories of social structure and culture. Three main areas of interest rapidly developed. The first of these areas

6533-516: The humanities , other times part of the social sciences . It can be seen as a bridge between those two broad areas, incorporating methodologies from both. Some historians strongly support one or the other classification. In the 20th century the Annales school revolutionized the study of history, by using such outside disciplines as economics , sociology , and geography in the study of global history. Traditionally, historians have recorded events of

6672-443: The invention of writing systems is considered prehistory . "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts or traditional oral histories , art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. Stories common to

6811-409: The medical sciences , such as artifacts and fossils unearthed from excavations . Primary sources offer the most direct evidence of historical events. A secondary source is a source that analyzes or interprets information found in other sources. Whether a document is a primary or a secondary source depends not only on the document itself but also on the purpose for which it is used. For example, if

6950-472: The methods they employ, such as quantitative history and digital history , which rely on quantitative methods and digital media . Comparative history compares historical phenomena from distinct times, regions, or cultures to examine their similarities and differences. Unlike most other branches, oral history relies on oral reports rather than written documents. It reflects the personal experiences and interpretations of what common people remember about

7089-445: The 12th century), chronicle, account of events as relevant to a group of people or people in general (1155), dramatic or pictorial representation of historical events ( c.  1240 ), body of knowledge relative to human evolution, science ( c.  1265 ), narrative of real or imaginary events, story ( c.  1462 )". It was from Anglo-Norman that history was brought into Middle English , and it has persisted. It appears in

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7228-505: The 13th-century Ancrene Wisse , but seems to have become a common word in the late 14th century, with an early attestation appearing in John Gower 's Confessio Amantis of the 1390s (VI.1383): "I finde in a bok compiled | To this matiere an old histoire, | The which comth nou to mi memoire". In Middle English, the meaning of history was "story" in general. The restriction to the meaning "the branch of knowledge that deals with past events;

7367-572: The 18th and 19th centuries led to the formation of new nations across the Americas. In the 20th century, the United States emerged as a dominant global power and a key player in the Cold War. The history of Oceania starts with the arrival of anatomically modern humans about 60,000 to 50,000 years ago. They established diverse regional societies and cultures , first in Australia and Papua New Guinea and later also on other Pacific Islands . The arrival of

7506-540: The 1960s", the only African American female anthropologist who was also a Caribbeanist . She studied ethnic and family relations in the Caribbean as well as the United States, and thereby tried to improve the way black life, experiences, and culture were studied. However, Zora Neale Hurston, although often primarily considered to be a literary author, was trained in anthropology by Franz Boas, and published Tell my Horse about her "anthropological observations" of voodoo in

7645-411: The 1970s and 1990s, there was an epistemological shift away from the positivist traditions that had largely informed the discipline. During this shift, enduring questions about the nature and production of knowledge came to occupy a central place in cultural and social anthropology. In contrast, archaeology and biological anthropology remained largely positivist. Due to this difference in epistemology,

7784-459: The 75 faculty members were under a department named anthropology. Anthropology as a specialized field of academic study developed much through the end of the 19th century. Then it rapidly expanded beginning in the early 20th century to the point where many of the world's higher educational institutions typically included anthropology departments. Thousands of anthropology departments have come into existence, and anthropology has also diversified from

7923-504: The 7th century CE and became the dominant faith in many empires. Meanwhile, trade along the trans-Saharan route intensified. Beginning in the 15th century, millions of Africans were enslaved and forcibly transported to the Americas as part of the Atlantic slave trade . Most of the continent was colonized by European powers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among rising nationalism , African states gradually gained independence in

8062-513: The Americas, and Oceania. The history of Africa stands at the dawn of human history with the evolution of anatomically modern humans about 200,000 years ago. The invention of writing and the establishment of civilization happened in ancient Egypt in the 4th millennium BCE. Over the next millennia, other notable civilizations and kingdoms formed in Nubia , Axum , Carthage , Ghana , Mali , and Songhay . Islam began spreading across North Africa in

8201-467: The Caribbean (1938). Feminist anthropology is inclusive of the anthropology of birth as a specialization, which is the anthropological study of pregnancy and childbirth within cultures and societies. Medical anthropology is an interdisciplinary field which studies "human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation". It is believed that William Caudell was the first to discover

8340-514: The Europeans in the 16th century prompted significant transformations. By the end of the 19th century, most of the region had come under Western control. Oceania was dragged into various conflicts during the world wars and experienced decolonization in the post-war period . Historians often limit their inquiry to a specific theme belonging to a particular field. Some historians propose a general subdivision into three major themes: political history , economic history , and social history . However,

8479-527: The Italian Society of Anthropology and Ethnology (1871), and many others subsequently. The majority of these were evolutionists. One notable exception was the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory (1869) founded by Rudolph Virchow , known for his vituperative attacks on the evolutionists. Not religious himself, he insisted that Darwin's conclusions lacked empirical foundation. During

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8618-465: The Western tradition, though he has been criticized as the "father of lies". Along with his contemporary Thucydides , he helped form the foundations for the modern study of past events and societies. Their works continue to be read today, and the gap between the culture-focused Herodotus and the military-focused Thucydides remains a point of contention or approach in modern historical writing. In East Asia

8757-599: The Western world. Exploring and addressing that double bias against women from marginalized racial or ethnic groups is of particular interest in intersectional feminist anthropology. Feminist anthropologists have stated that their publications have contributed to anthropology, along the way correcting against the systemic biases beginning with the "patriarchal origins of anthropology (and (academia)" and note that from 1891 to 1930 doctorates in anthropology went to males more than 85%, more than 81% were under 35, and only 7.2% to anyone over 40 years old, thus reflecting an age gap in

8896-546: The absence of a written record. Since the 20th century, the study of prehistory is considered essential to avoid history's implicit exclusion of certain civilizations, such as those of sub-Saharan Africa and pre-Columbian America . Historians in the West have been criticized for focusing disproportionately on the Western world . In 1961, British historian E. H. Carr wrote: The line of demarcation between prehistoric and historical times

9035-534: The aftermath of World War II , a period that saw economic progress, rapid population growth, and struggles for political stability. In the history of Asia , anatomically modern humans arrived around 100,000 years ago. As one of the cradles of civilization, Asia was home to some of the first ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China, which began to emerge in the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE. In

9174-505: The anthropologist must make his writing consistent with their understanding of literature and other theory but notes that ethnography may be of use to the anthropologists and the fields inform one another. One of the central problems in the anthropology of art concerns the universality of 'art' as a cultural phenomenon. Several anthropologists have noted that the Western categories of 'painting', 'sculpture', or 'literature', conceived as independent artistic activities, do not exist, or exist in

9313-446: The anthropology of 'art' into an anthropology of culturally specific 'aesthetics'. Media anthropology (also known as the anthropology of media or mass media) emphasizes ethnographic studies as a means of understanding producers, audiences, and other cultural and social aspects of mass media. The types of ethnographic contexts explored range from contexts of media production (e.g., ethnographies of newsrooms in newspapers, journalists in

9452-465: The area of research. Cultural anthropology, in particular, has emphasized cultural relativism , holism , and the use of findings to frame cultural critiques. This has been particularly prominent in the United States, from Boas' arguments against 19th-century racial ideology , through Margaret Mead 's advocacy for gender equality and sexual liberation, to current criticisms of post-colonial oppression and promotion of multiculturalism . Ethnography

9591-493: The beginning of globalization . Various social revolutions challenged autocratic and colonial regimes, paving the way for democracies . Many developments in fields like science, technology, economy, living standards, and human population accelerated at unprecedented rates. This happened despite the widespread destruction caused by two world wars , which rebalanced international power relations by undermining European dominance. Areas of historical study can also be categorized by

9730-517: The biological and social factors that have affected the evolution of humans and other primates, and that generate, maintain or change contemporary genetic and physiological variation. Archaeology is the study of the human past through its material remains. Artifacts, faunal remains, and human altered landscapes are evidence of the cultural and material lives of past societies. Archaeologists examine material remains in order to deduce patterns of past human behavior and cultural practices. Ethnoarchaeology

9869-528: The biological development of humans. Archaeology , often termed as "anthropology of the past," studies human activity through investigation of physical evidence. It is considered a branch of anthropology in North America and Asia, while in Europe, archaeology is viewed as a discipline in its own right or grouped under other related disciplines, such as history and palaeontology . The abstract noun anthropology

10008-406: The boundaries between these branches are vague and their relation to other thematic branches, such as intellectual history , is not always clear. Political history studies the organization of power in society, examining how power structures arise, develop, and interact. Throughout most of recorded history, states or state-like structures have been central to this field of study. It explores how

10147-547: The comparison. It is to be presumed fundamentally that the species, man, is a unity, and that "the same laws of thought are applicable to all men". Waitz was influential among British ethnologists. In 1863, the explorer Richard Francis Burton and the speech therapist James Hunt broke away from the Ethnological Society of London to form the Anthropological Society of London , which henceforward would follow

10286-442: The context of their own time, and with due regard to the current dominant ideas of how to interpret the past, and sometimes write to provide lessons for their own society. In the words of Benedetto Croce , "All history is contemporary history". History is facilitated by the formation of a "true discourse of past" through the production of narrative and analysis of past events relating to the human race. The modern discipline of history

10425-514: The development of artistic activities, styles , and movements . Environmental history studies the relation between humans and their environment. It seeks to understand how humans and the rest of nature have affected each other in the course of history. Other thematic branches include constitutional history , legal history , urban history , business history , history of technology , medical history , history of education , and people's history . Some branches of history are characterized by

10564-538: The early 18th century. In 1647, the Bartholins , early scholars of the University of Copenhagen , defined l'anthropologie as follows: Anthropology, that is to say the science that treats of man, is divided ordinarily and with reason into Anatomy, which considers the body and the parts, and Psychology, which speaks of the soul. Sporadic use of the term for some of the subject matter occurred subsequently, such as

10703-428: The evolution of human-like species several million years ago, leading to the emergence of anatomically modern humans about 200,000 years ago. Subsequently, humans migrated out of Africa to populate most of the earth. Towards the end of prehistory, technological advances in the form of new and improved tools led many groups to give up their established nomadic lifestyle, based on hunting and gathering , in favor of

10842-548: The excavator and interpreter of historical Annapolis, Maryland , US, has sought to understand the contradiction between textual documents idealizing "liberty" and the material record, demonstrating the possession of slaves and the inequalities of wealth made apparent by the study of the total historical environment. There are varieties of ways in which history can be organized, including chronologically, culturally , territorially, and thematically. These divisions are not mutually exclusive, and significant intersections are present. It

10981-505: The field of ethnography . Ethnography can refer to both a methodology and the product of ethnographic research, i.e. an ethnographic monograph . As a methodology, ethnography is based upon long-term fieldwork within a community or other research site. Participant observation is one of the foundational methods of social and cultural anthropology. Ethnology involves the systematic comparison of different cultures. The process of participant-observation can be especially helpful to understanding

11120-441: The field of medical anthropology. Currently, research in medical anthropology is one of the main growth areas in the field of anthropology as a whole. It focuses on the following six basic fields: Other subjects that have become central to medical anthropology worldwide are violence and social suffering (Farmer, 1999, 2003; Beneduce, 2010) as well as other issues that involve physical and psychological harm and suffering that are not

11259-441: The field, film production) to contexts of media reception, following audiences in their everyday responses to media. Other types include cyber anthropology , a relatively new area of internet research , as well as ethnographies of other areas of research which happen to involve media, such as development work, social movements , or health education. This is in addition to many classic ethnographic contexts, where media such as radio,

11398-575: The first to use the term ethnology , was formed in 1839 and focused on methodically studying human races. After the death of its founder, William Frédéric Edwards , in 1842, it gradually declined in activity until it eventually dissolved in 1862. Meanwhile, the Ethnological Society of New York, currently the American Ethnological Society , was founded on its model in 1842, as well as the Ethnological Society of London in 1843,

11537-478: The focus of visual anthropology. Economic anthropology attempts to explain human economic behavior in its widest historic, geographic and cultural scope. It has a complex relationship with the discipline of economics, of which it is highly critical. Its origins as a sub-field of anthropology begin with the Polish-British founder of anthropology, Bronisław Malinowski , and his French compatriot, Marcel Mauss , on

11676-425: The following centuries, culminating in the 19th and early 20th centuries when many parts of Asia came under direct colonial control until the end of World War II . The post-independence period was characterized by modernization, economic growth, and a steep increase in population. The history of Europe began about 45,000 years ago with the arrival of the first anatomically modern humans. The Ancient Greeks laid

11815-498: The following millennia, all major world religions and several influential philosophical traditions were conceived and spread, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism , Christianity, and Islam. The Silk Road facilitated trade and cultural exchange across Eurasia , while powerful empires rose and fell, such as the Mongol Empire, which dominated the continent during the 13th and 14th centuries CE. European influence grew over

11954-529: The formal record or study of past events, esp. human affairs" arose in the mid-15th century. With the Renaissance , older senses of the word were revived, and it was in the Greek sense that Francis Bacon used the term in the late 16th century, when he wrote about natural history . For him, historia was "the knowledge of objects determined by space and time", that sort of knowledge provided by memory (while science

12093-542: The former affect the latter. If economic and environmental changes in a community affect access to food, food security, and dietary health, then this interplay between culture and biology is in turn connected to broader historical and economic trends associated with globalization. Nutritional status affects overall health status, work performance potential, and the overall potential for economic development (either in terms of human development or traditional western models) for any given group of people. Psychological anthropology

12232-585: The foundations of Western culture , philosophy , and politics in the first millennium BCE. Their cultural heritage continued in the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine Empire . The medieval period began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century CE and was marked by the spread of Christianity . Starting in the 15th century, European exploration and colonization interconnected

12371-443: The four sub-fields of anthropology have lacked cohesion over the last several decades. Sociocultural anthropology draws together the principal axes of cultural anthropology and social anthropology . Cultural anthropology is the comparative study of the manifold ways in which people make sense of the world around them, while social anthropology is the study of the relationships among individuals and groups. Cultural anthropology

12510-425: The geographic locations they examine. Geography plays a central role in history through its influence on food production , natural resources , economic activities, political boundaries, and cultural interactions. Some historical works limit their scope to small regions, such as a village or a settlement. Others focus on broad territories that encompass entire continents, like the histories of Africa, Asia, Europe,

12649-478: The globe, while cultural, intellectual, and scientific developments transformed Western societies. From the late 18th to the early 20th centuries, European global dominance was further solidified by the Industrial Revolution and the establishment of large overseas colonies. It came to an end because of the devastating effects of two world wars. In the following Cold War era, the continent was divided into

12788-634: The historical record of events that occurred but did not leave significant evidential traces. Silences can happen when contemporaries find information too obvious to document but may also occur if there were specific reasons to withhold or destroy information. Conversely, when large datasets are available, quantitative approaches can be used. For instance, economic and social historians commonly employ statistical analysis to identify patterns and trends associated with large groups. Different schools of thought often come with their own methodological implications for how to write history. Positivists emphasize

12927-418: The human group, considered as a whole, in its details, and in relation to the rest of nature". Broca, being what today would be called a neurosurgeon , had taken an interest in the pathology of speech. He wanted to localize the difference between man and the other animals, which appeared to reside in speech. He discovered the speech center of the human brain, today called Broca's area after him. His interest

13066-684: The individual pieces of evidence fit together to form part of a larger story. Constructing this broader perspective is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of the topic as a whole. It is a creative aspect of historical writing that reconstructs, interprets, and explains what happened by showing how different events are connected. In this way, historians address not only which events occurred but also why they occurred and what consequences they had. While there are no universally accepted techniques for this synthesis, historians rely on various interpretative tools and approaches in this process. One tool to provide an accessible overview of complex developments

13205-457: The influence of religions continued to grow. Missionary religions, like Buddhism, Christianity , and Islam , spread rapidly and established themselves as world religions , marking a cultural shift as they gradually replaced local belief systems. Meanwhile, inter-regional trade networks flourished, leading to increased technological and cultural exchange. Conquering many territories in Asia and Europe,

13344-411: The information content of a source is understood, internal criticism is specifically interested in determining accuracy. Critics ask whether the information is reliable or misrepresents the topic and further question whether the source is comprehensive or omits important details. One way to make these assessments is to evaluate whether the author was able, in principle, to provide a faithful presentation of

13483-402: The interest in the past held by such peoples as Aboriginal Australians and New Zealand Māori , and the oral records they maintained and transmitted to succeeding generations, even before their contact with Europeans. Historiography has a number of related meanings. Firstly, it can refer to how history has been produced: the story of the development of methodology and practices (for example,

13622-482: The last three decades of the 19th century, a proliferation of anthropological societies and associations occurred, most independent, most publishing their own journals, and all international in membership and association. The major theorists belonged to these organizations. They supported the gradual osmosis of anthropology curricula into the major institutions of higher learning. By 1898, 48 educational institutions in 13 countries had some curriculum in anthropology. None of

13761-692: The modern era, available data is often limited, forcing economic historians to rely on scarce sources and extrapolate information from them. Social history is a broad field investigating social phenomena, but its precise definition is disputed. Some theorists understand it as the study of everyday life outside the domains of politics and economics, including cultural practices, family structures, community interactions, and education. A closely related approach focuses on experience rather than activities, examining how members of particular social groups, like social classes , races , genders , or age groups , experienced their world. Other definitions see social history as

13900-416: The move from short-term biographical narrative toward long-term thematic analysis). Secondly, it can refer to what has been produced: a specific body of historical writing (for example, "medieval historiography during the 1960s" means "Works of medieval history written during the 1960s"). Thirdly, it may refer to why history is produced: the philosophy of history . As a meta-level analysis of descriptions of

14039-428: The nature of gift-giving exchange (or reciprocity ) as an alternative to market exchange. Economic Anthropology remains, for the most part, focused upon exchange. The school of thought derived from Marx and known as Political Economy focuses on production, in contrast. Economic anthropologists have abandoned the primitivist niche they were relegated to by economists, and have now turned to examine corporations, banks, and

14178-449: The nature of man". Following Broca's lead, Waitz points out that anthropology is a new field, which would gather material from other fields, but would differ from them in the use of comparative anatomy, physiology, and psychology to differentiate man from "the animals nearest to him". He stresses that the data of comparison must be empirical, gathered by experimentation. The history of civilization, as well as ethnology, are to be brought into

14317-411: The past, covering the processes of collecting, evaluating, and synthesizing evidence. It seeks to ensure scholarly rigor, accuracy, and reliability in how historical evidence is chosen, analyzed, and interpreted. Historical research often starts with a research question to define the scope of the inquiry. Some research questions focus on a simple description of what happened. Others aim to explain why

14456-470: The past, either in writing or by passing on an oral tradition , and attempted to answer historical questions through the study of written documents and oral accounts. From the beginning, historians have used such sources as monuments, inscriptions, and pictures. In general, the sources of historical knowledge can be separated into three categories: what is written, what is said, and what is physically preserved, and historians often consult all three. But writing

14595-406: The past, encompassing eyewitness accounts, hearsay , and communal legends . Counterfactual history uses counterfactual thinking to examine alternative courses of history, exploring what could have happened under different circumstances. Certain branches of history are distinguished by their theoretical outlook, such as Marxist and feminist history . Some distinctions focus on the scope of

14734-418: The past, this third conception can relate to the first two in that the analysis usually focuses on the narratives, interpretations, world view , use of evidence, or method of presentation of other historians. Historians debate whether history can be taught as a single coherent narrative or a series of competing narratives. The historical method is a set of techniques historians use to research and interpret

14873-474: The path of the new anthropology rather than just ethnology. It was the 2nd society dedicated to general anthropology in existence. Representatives from the French Société were present, though not Broca. In his keynote address, printed in the first volume of its new publication, The Anthropological Review , Hunt stressed the work of Waitz, adopting his definitions as a standard. Among the first associates were

15012-441: The press , new media , and television have started to make their presences felt since the early 1990s. Ethnomusicology is an academic field encompassing various approaches to the study of music (broadly defined), that emphasize its cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dimensions or contexts instead of or in addition to its isolated sound component or any particular repertoire. Ethnomusicology can be used in

15151-403: The process involves distinguishing between original works, mere copies, and deceptive forgeries. Internal criticism evaluates the content of a source, typically beginning with the clarification of the meaning within the source. This involves disambiguating individual terms that could be misunderstood but may also require a general translation if the source is written in an ancient language. Once

15290-422: The provision of data, initiation of direct action, and/or the formulation of policy". Applied anthropology is the practical side of anthropological research; it includes researcher involvement and activism within the participating community. It is closely related to development anthropology (distinct from the more critical anthropology of development ). Anthropology of development tends to view development from

15429-451: The pursuit of anthropology by first-wave feminists until later in life. This correction of systemic bias may include mainstream feminist theory , history , linguistics , archaeology , and anthropology. Feminist anthropologists are often concerned with the construction of gender across societies. Gender constructs are of particular interest when studying sexism . According to St. Clair Drake , Vera Mae Green was, until "[w]ell into

15568-457: The result of processes or laws unknown to them then. For them, the publication of Charles Darwin 's On the Origin of Species was the epiphany of everything they had begun to suspect. Darwin himself arrived at his conclusions through comparison of species he had seen in agronomy and in the wild. Darwin and Wallace unveiled evolution in the late 1850s. There was an immediate rush to bring it into

15707-502: The role of gender in history, with a particular interest in the experiences of women to challenge patriarchal perspectives. History is a wide field of inquiry encompassing many branches. Some branches focus on a specific time period. Others concentrate on a particular geographic region or a distinct theme. Specializations of different types can usually be combined. For example, a work on economic history in ancient Egypt merges temporal, regional, and thematic perspectives. For topics with

15846-583: The role of international organizations in these processes. Military history studies the impact and development of armed conflicts in human history. This includes the examination of specific events, like the analysis of a particular battle and the discussion of the different causes of a war. It also involves more general considerations about the evolution of warfare, including advancements in military technology , strategies, tactics, and institutions. Economic history examines how commodities are produced, exchanged, and consumed. It covers economic aspects such as

15985-437: The scholarly production of knowledge. Anthropology engages often with feminists from non-Western traditions, whose perspectives and experiences can differ from those of white feminists of Europe, America, and elsewhere. From the perspective of the Western world , historically such 'peripheral' perspectives have been ignored, observed only from an outsider perspective, and regarded as less-valid or less-important than knowledge from

16124-612: The scientific nature of historical inquiry, focusing on empirical evidence to discover objective truths . In contrast, postmodernists reject grand narratives that claim to offer a single, objective truth. Instead, they highlight the subjective nature of historical interpretation, which leads to a multiplicity of divergent perspectives. Marxists interpret historical developments as expressions of economic forces and class struggles . The Annales school highlights long-term social and economic trends while relying on quantitative and interdisciplinary methods. Feminist historians study

16263-554: The social sciences. Paul Broca in Paris was in the process of breaking away from the Société de biologie to form the first of the explicitly anthropological societies, the Société d'Anthropologie de Paris , meeting for the first time in Paris in 1859. When he read Darwin, he became an immediate convert to Transformisme , as the French called evolutionism . His definition now became "the study of

16402-488: The social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture. It is the branch of anthropology that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems, linking the analysis of linguistic forms and processes to the interpretation of sociocultural processes. Linguistic anthropologists often draw on related fields including sociolinguistics , pragmatics , cognitive linguistics , semiotics , discourse analysis , and narrative analysis. Ethnography

16541-464: The studied event and to consider the influences of their intentions and prejudices. Being aware of the inadequacies of a source helps historians decide whether and which aspects of it to trust, and how to use it to construct a narrative. The selection, analysis, and criticism of sources result in the validation of a large collection of mostly isolated statements about the past. As a next step, sometimes termed historical synthesis , historians examine how

16680-472: The studied topic. Big history is the branch with the broadest scope, covering everything from the Big Bang to the present. World history is another branch with a wide topic. It examines human history as a whole, starting with the evolution of human-like species. The terms macrohistory , mesohistory , and microhistory refer to different scales of analysis, ranging from large-scale patterns that affect

16819-604: The study of the patterns of social relationships in one or more human cultures, or it can refer to the patterns of social relationships themselves. Over its history, anthropology has developed a number of related concepts and terms, such as " descent ", " descent groups ", " lineages ", " affines ", " cognates ", and even " fictive kinship ". Broadly, kinship patterns may be considered to include people related both by descent (one's social relations during development), and also relatives by marriage. Within kinship you have two different families. People have their biological families and it

16958-437: The study of social problems, like poverty, disease, and crime, or take a broader perspective by examining how whole societies developed. Closely related fields include cultural history , gender history , and religious history . Intellectual history is the history of ideas. It studies how concepts, philosophies, and ideologies have evolved. It is particularly interested in academic fields but not limited to them, including

17097-533: The study of the beliefs and prejudices of ordinary people. In addition to studying intellectual movements themselves, it also examines the cultural and social contexts that shaped them and their influence on other historical developments. As closely related fields, the history of philosophy investigates the development of philosophical thought while the history of science studies the evolution of scientific theories and practices. The history of art , another connected discipline, examines historical works of art and

17236-423: The understanding of cognition, emotion, motivation, and similar psychological processes inform or constrain our models of cultural and social processes. History History (derived from Ancient Greek ἱστορία ( historía )  'inquiry; knowledge acquired by investigation') is the systematic study and documentation of the human past . History is an academic discipline which uses

17375-427: The usage of certain texts and documents (by falsifying their claims to represent the "true past"). Part of the historian's role is to skillfully and objectively use the many sources from the past, most often found in the archives. The process of creating a narrative inevitably generates debate, as historians remember or emphasize different events of the past. The study of history has sometimes been classified as part of

17514-469: The use by Étienne Serres in 1839 to describe the natural history, or paleontology, of man, based on comparative anatomy, and the creation of a chair in anthropology and ethnography in 1850 at the French National Museum of Natural History by Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau . Various short-lived organizations of anthropologists had already been formed. The Société Ethnologique de Paris ,

17653-431: The use of land, labor , and capital , the supply and demand of goods, the costs and means of production , and the distribution of income and wealth . Economic historians typically focus on general trends in the form of impersonal forces, such as inflation , rather than the actions and decisions of individuals. If enough data is available, they rely on quantitative methods, like statistical analysis. For periods before

17792-491: The variations among different groups of humans, how the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens has influenced its social organization and culture, and from social sciences , including the organization of human social and cultural relations, institutions, social conflicts, etc. Early anthropology originated in Classical Greece and Persia and studied and tried to understand observable cultural diversity, such as by Al-Biruni of

17931-800: The whole globe to detailed studies of small communities, particular individuals, or specific events. Closely related to microhistory is the genre of historical biography , which recounts an individual's life in its historical context and the legacy it left. Public history involves activities that present history to the general public . It usually happens outside the traditional academic settings in contexts like museums , historical sites , and popular media. Professional and amateur historians discover, collect, organize, and present information about past events. They discover this information through archeological evidence, written primary sources, verbal stories or oral histories, and other archival material. In lists of historians , historians can be grouped by order of

18070-507: The work of Franz Boas and Bronisław Malinowski in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, social anthropology in Great Britain and cultural anthropology in the US have been distinguished from other social sciences by their emphasis on cross-cultural comparisons , long-term in-depth examination of context, and the importance they place on participant-observation or experiential immersion in

18209-552: The young Edward Burnett Tylor , inventor of cultural anthropology , and his brother Alfred Tylor , a geologist. Previously Edward had referred to himself as an ethnologist; subsequently, an anthropologist. Similar organizations in other countries followed: The Anthropological Society of Madrid (1865), the American Anthropological Association in 1902, the Anthropological Society of Vienna (1870),

18348-601: Was accompanied by other intellectual developments, such as humanism and the Enlightenment , which ushered in secularization . In modern history, beginning at the end of the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution transformed economies by introducing more efficient modes of production. Western powers established vast colonial empires , gaining superiority through industrialized military technology. The increased international exchange of goods, ideas, and people marked

18487-422: Was borrowed from Latin (possibly via Old Irish or Old Welsh ) into Old English as stær ("history, narrative, story"), but this word fell out of use in the late Old English period. Meanwhile, as Latin became Old French (and Anglo-Norman ), historia developed into forms such as istorie , estoire , and historie , with new developments in the meaning: "account of the events of a person's life (beginning of

18626-457: Was concerned with the "pre-capitalist" societies that were subject to evolutionary "tribal" stereotypes. Sahlin's work on hunter-gatherers as the "original affluent society" did much to dissipate that image. The second area was concerned with the vast majority of the world's population at the time, the peasantry, many of whom were involved in complex revolutionary wars such as in Vietnam. The third area

18765-705: Was in that sense that Aristotle used the word in his History of Animals . The ancestor word ἵστωρ is attested early on in Homeric Hymns , Heraclitus , the Athenian ephebes ' oath, and in Boeotic inscriptions (in a legal sense, either "judge" or "witness", or similar). The Greek word was borrowed into Classical Latin as historia , meaning "investigation, inquiry, research, account, description, written account of past events, writing of history, historical narrative, recorded knowledge of past events, story, narrative". History

18904-468: Was mainly in Biological anthropology , but a German philosopher specializing in psychology, Theodor Waitz , took up the theme of general and social anthropology in his six-volume work, entitled Die Anthropologie der Naturvölker , 1859–1864. The title was soon translated as "The Anthropology of Primitive Peoples". The last two volumes were published posthumously. Waitz defined anthropology as "the science of

19043-506: Was on colonialism, imperialism, and the creation of the capitalist world-system . More recently, these political economists have more directly addressed issues of industrial (and post-industrial) capitalism around the world. Applied anthropology refers to the application of the method and theory of anthropology to the analysis and solution of practical problems. It is a "complex of related, research-based, instrumental methods which produce change or stability in specific cultural systems through

19182-500: Was populated by Sadlermiut until the early 20th century when they were wiped out by an epidemic. This article related to a river in Nunavut , Canada is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Kivalliq Region , Nunavut location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This bird-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Anthropology Anthropology

19321-399: Was provided by reason , and poetry was provided by fantasy ). In an expression of the linguistic synthetic vs. analytic/isolating dichotomy, English like Chinese (史 vs. 诌) now designates separate words for human history and storytelling in general. In modern German , French , and most Germanic and Romance languages , which are solidly synthetic and highly inflected, the same word

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