202-791: Human history is the record of humankind from prehistory to the present . Modern humans evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago and initially lived as hunter-gatherers . They migrated out of Africa during the Last Ice Age and had populated most of the Earth by the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago. Soon afterward, the Neolithic Revolution in West Asia brought the first systematic husbandry of plants and animals, and saw many humans transition from
404-499: 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
606-415: A multi-layered network of cooperating, distinct, or even competing social groups – from families and peer groups to corporations and political states . As such, social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms , languages , and traditions (collectively termed institutions ), each of which bolsters human society . Humans are also highly curious , with
808-559: A nomadic life to a sedentary existence as farmers in permanent settlements . The growing complexity of human societies necessitated systems of accounting and writing . These developments paved the way for the emergence of early civilizations in Mesopotamia , Egypt , the Indus Valley , and China , marking the beginning of the Ancient period in 3500 BCE. These civilizations supported
1010-668: A theory of mind . The human mind is capable of introspection , private thought , imagination , volition , and forming views on existence . This has allowed great technological advancements and complex tool development through complex reasoning and the transmission of knowledge to subsequent generations through language . Humans have had a dramatic effect on the environment . They are apex predators , being rarely preyed upon by other species. Human population growth , industrialization, land development, overconsumption and combustion of fossil fuels have led to environmental destruction and pollution that significantly contributes to
1212-638: 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
1414-414: A central government, a complex economy and social structure, and systems for keeping records. These cultures variously invented the wheel, mathematics, bronze-working, sailing boats, the potter's wheel , woven cloth, construction of monumental buildings, and writing. Polytheistic religions developed, centered on temples where priests and priestesses performed sacrificial rites. Writing facilitated
1616-443: A consequence of better nutrition, healthcare, and living conditions. The average mass of an adult human is 59 kg (130 lb) for females and 77 kg (170 lb) for males. Like many other conditions, body weight and body type are influenced by both genetic susceptibility and environment and varies greatly among individuals. Humans have a far faster and more accurate throw than other animals. Humans are also among
1818-705: A core area in Central Asia and Iran. They oversaw the Timurid Renaissance of art and architecture. Since at least the 4th century, Christianity has played a prominent role in shaping the culture, values, and institutions of Western civilization, primarily through Catholicism and later also Protestantism . Europe during the Early Middle Ages was characterized by depopulation, deurbanization , and barbarian invasions, all of which had begun in late antiquity . The barbarian invaders formed their own new kingdoms in
2020-605: 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
2222-411: 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
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#17328556394522424-669: 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
2626-419: A few other places), saw the emergence of agriculture and permanent human settlement ; in turn, this led to the development of civilization and kickstarted a period of continuous (and ongoing) population growth and rapid technological change . Since then, a number of civilizations have risen and fallen, while a number of sociocultural and technological developments have resulted in significant changes to
2828-463: A great capacity for altering their habitats by means of technology, irrigation , urban planning , construction, deforestation and desertification . Human settlements continue to be vulnerable to natural disasters , especially those placed in hazardous locations and with low quality of construction. Grouping and deliberate habitat alteration is often done with the goals of providing protection, accumulating comforts or material wealth, expanding
3030-612: A higher body fat percentage. At puberty , humans develop secondary sex characteristics . Females are capable of pregnancy , usually between puberty, at around 12 years old, and menopause , around the age of 50. As omnivorous creatures, they are capable of consuming a wide variety of plant and animal material, and have used fire and other forms of heat to prepare and cook food since the time of Homo erectus . Humans can survive for up to eight weeks without food and several days without water . Humans are generally diurnal , sleeping on average seven to nine hours per day. Childbirth
3232-475: A human can lose personhood (such as by going into a persistent vegetative state ). Humans are apes ( superfamily Hominoidea ). The lineage of apes that eventually gave rise to humans first split from gibbons (family Hylobatidae) and orangutans (genus Pongo ), then gorillas (genus Gorilla ), and finally, chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan ). The last split, between the human and chimpanzee–bonobo lineages, took place around 8–4 million years ago, in
3434-581: A more barrel-shaped chests in contrast to the funnel shape of other apes, an adaptation for bipedal respiration. Apart from bipedalism and brain size, humans differ from chimpanzees mostly in smelling , hearing and digesting proteins . While humans have a density of hair follicles comparable to other apes, it is predominantly vellus hair , most of which is so short and wispy as to be practically invisible. Humans have about 2 million sweat glands spread over their entire bodies, many more than chimpanzees, whose sweat glands are scarce and are mainly located on
3636-499: A much clearer picture of life at the time. Between the 8th and 6th century BCE, Europe entered the classical antiquity age, a period when ancient Greece and ancient Rome flourished. Around this time other civilizations also came to prominence. The Maya civilization started to build cities and create complex calendars . In Africa, the Kingdom of Aksum overtook the declining Kingdom of Kush and facilitated trade between India and
3838-602: A new contender that quickly surpassed both of these empires. Muhammad , the founder of Islam, initiated the early Muslim conquests in the 7th century. He established a new unified polity in Arabia that expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate , culminating in the establishment of Muslim rule on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe) by 750 CE. The subsequent Abbasid Caliphate oversaw
4040-612: A political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rents from lands and manors. Kingdoms became more centralized after the decentralizing effects of the breakup of the Carolingian Empire . In 1054, the Great Schism between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches led to the prominent cultural differences between Western and Eastern Europe. The Crusades were
4242-410: 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
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#17328556394524444-400: A result, humans are a cosmopolitan species found in almost all regions of the world, including tropical rainforest , arid desert , extremely cold arctic regions , and heavily polluted cities; in comparison, most other species are confined to a few geographical areas by their limited adaptability. The human population is not, however, uniformly distributed on the Earth 's surface, because
4646-558: A series of religious wars waged by Christians to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Muslims and succeeded for long enough to establish some Crusader states in the Levant . Italian merchants imported slaves to work in households or in sugar processing. Intellectual life was marked by scholasticism and the founding of universities, while the building of Gothic cathedrals and churches was one of
4848-459: 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
5050-632: A similar species. Migrating out of Africa , they gradually replaced and interbred with local populations of archaic humans. Multiple hypotheses for the extinction of archaic human species such as Neanderthals include competition, violence , interbreeding with Homo sapiens , or inability to adapt to climate change . Humans began exhibiting behavioral modernity about 160,000–60,000 years ago. For most of their history, humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. The Neolithic Revolution , which began in Southwest Asia around 13,000 years ago (and separately in
5252-515: A simple linear or branched progression but involved interbreeding between related species . Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution. DNA evidence suggests that several genes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non sub-Saharan-African populations, and Neanderthals and other hominins, such as Denisovans , may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day non sub-Saharan-African humans. Human evolution
5454-451: A successful labor increased significantly during the 20th century in wealthier countries with the advent of new medical technologies. In contrast, pregnancy and natural childbirth remain hazardous ordeals in developing regions of the world, with maternal death rates approximately 100 times greater than in developed countries. Both the mother and the father provide care for human offspring, in contrast to other primates, where parental care
5656-503: A variety of periodizations. Humans evolved in Africa from great apes through the lineage of hominins , which arose 7–5 million years ago. The ability to walk on two legs emerged after the split from chimpanzees in early hominins, such as Australopithecus , as an adaptation possibly associated with a shift from forest to savanna habitats. Hominins began to use rudimentary stone tools c. 3.3 million years ago, marking
5858-463: 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
6060-406: A wide variety of plant and animal material. Human groups have adopted a range of diets from purely vegan to primarily carnivorous . In some cases, dietary restrictions in humans can lead to deficiency diseases ; however, stable human groups have adapted to many dietary patterns through both genetic specialization and cultural conventions to use nutritionally balanced food sources. The human diet
6262-467: A writing system and used the concept of zero in their mathematics. West of the Maya area, in central Mexico, the city of Teotihuacan prospered due to its control of the obsidian trade. Its power peaked around 450 CE, when its 125,000–150,000 inhabitants made it one of the world's largest cities. Technology developed sporadically in the ancient world. There were periods of rapid technological progress, such as
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6464-511: Is 38 weeks, but a normal pregnancy can vary by up to 37 days. Embryonic development in the human covers the first eight weeks of development; at the beginning of the ninth week the embryo is termed a fetus . Humans are able to induce early labor or perform a caesarean section if the child needs to be born earlier for medical reasons. In developed countries, infants are typically 3–4 kg (7–9 lb) in weight and 47–53 cm (19–21 in) in height at birth. However, low birth weight
6666-521: 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
6868-485: Is a mixture of the two parental sets. Among the 23 pairs of chromosomes, there are 22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes . Like other mammals, humans have an XY sex-determination system , so that females have the sex chromosomes XX and males have XY. Genes and environment influence human biological variation in visible characteristics, physiology, disease susceptibility and mental abilities. The exact influence of genes and environment on certain traits
7070-424: Is a population decline in the winter months of this realm. Humans established nation-states in the other seven realms, such as South Africa , India , Russia , Australia , Fiji , United States and Brazil (each located in a different biogeographical realm). By using advanced tools and clothing , humans have been able to extend their tolerance to a wide variety of temperatures, humidities , and altitudes. As
7272-447: 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,
7474-515: 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
7676-570: Is an example of a Neolithic religious or civic site. Metalworking was first used in the creation of copper tools and ornaments around 6400 BCE. Gold and silver soon followed, primarily for use in ornaments. The first signs of bronze , an alloy of copper and tin , date to around 4500 BCE, but the alloy did not become widely used until the third millennium BCE. The Bronze Age saw the development of cities and civilizations . Early civilizations arose close to rivers, first in Mesopotamia (3300 BCE) with
7878-439: 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
8080-402: Is characterized by a number of morphological , developmental , physiological , and behavioral changes that have taken place since the split between the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees . The most significant of these adaptations are hairlessness , obligate bipedalism, increased brain size and decreased sexual dimorphism ( neoteny ). The relationship between all these changes
8282-456: Is common in developing countries, and contributes to the high levels of infant mortality in these regions. Compared with other species, human childbirth is dangerous, with a much higher risk of complications and death. The size of the fetus's head is more closely matched to the pelvis than in other primates. The reason for this is not completely understood, but it contributes to a painful labor that can last 24 hours or more. The chances of
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8484-510: Is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies 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
8686-584: 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
8888-421: Is dangerous, with a high risk of complications and death . Often, both the mother and the father provide care for their children, who are helpless at birth . Humans have a large, highly developed, and complex prefrontal cortex , the region of the brain associated with higher cognition. Humans are highly intelligent and capable of episodic memory ; they have flexible facial expressions, self-awareness , and
9090-472: Is generally aging, with the median age around 40 years. In the developing world , the median age is between 15 and 20 years. While one in five Europeans is 60 years of age or older, only one in twenty Africans is 60 years of age or older. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarians (humans of age 100 or older) worldwide. Humans are omnivorous , capable of consuming
9292-443: Is inherited only from the mother, geneticists have concluded that the last female common ancestor whose genetic marker is found in all modern humans, the so-called mitochondrial Eve , must have lived around 90,000 to 200,000 years ago. Most human reproduction takes place by internal fertilization via sexual intercourse , but can also occur through assisted reproductive technology procedures. The average gestation period
9494-456: 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
9696-408: Is mostly done by the mother. Helpless at birth , humans continue to grow for some years, typically reaching sexual maturity at 15 to 17 years of age. The human life span has been split into various stages ranging from three to twelve. Common stages include infancy , childhood , adolescence , adulthood and old age . The lengths of these stages have varied across cultures and time periods but
9898-414: 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
10100-513: Is not well understood. While no humans – not even monozygotic twins – are genetically identical, two humans on average will have a genetic similarity of 99.5%-99.9%. This makes them more homogeneous than other great apes, including chimpanzees. This small variation in human DNA compared to many other species suggests a population bottleneck during the Late Pleistocene (around 100,000 years ago), in which
10302-934: 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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#173285563945210504-495: Is prominently reflected in human culture and has led to the development of food science . Anthropology Anthropology 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
10706-457: 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 ,
10908-566: Is that the early waves of migration died out and all modern non-Africans are descended from a single group that left Africa 70,000–50,000 years ago. H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Australia 65,000 years ago, Europe 45,000 years ago, and the Americas 21,000 years ago. These migrations occurred during the most recent Ice Age , when various temperate regions of today were inhospitable. Nevertheless, by
11110-500: 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
11312-445: Is the subject of ongoing debate. Hylobatidae ( gibbons ) Pongo abelii Pongo tapanuliensis Pongo pygmaeus Gorilla gorilla Gorilla beringei Pan troglodytes Pan paniscus Homo sapiens (humans) Until about 12,000 years ago, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers . The Neolithic Revolution (the invention of agriculture ) first took place in Southwest Asia and spread through large parts of
11514-654: Is typified by an unusually rapid growth spurt during adolescence. Human females undergo menopause and become infertile at around the age of 50. It has been proposed that menopause increases a woman's overall reproductive success by allowing her to invest more time and resources in her existing offspring, and in turn their children (the grandmother hypothesis ), rather than by continuing to bear children into old age. The life span of an individual depends on two major factors, genetics and lifestyle choices. For various reasons, including biological/genetic causes, women live on average about four years longer than men. As of 2018 ,
11716-629: Is viewed as a discipline in its own right or grouped under other related disciplines, such as history and palaeontology . The abstract noun anthropology 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
11918-689: The Athenian Empire (454–404 BCE), which was defeated by a Spartan-led coalition during the Peloponnesian War . Philip of Macedon unified the Greek city-states into the Hellenic League and his son Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) founded an empire extending from present-day Greece to India. The empire divided into several successor states shortly after his death, resulting in the founding of many cities and
12120-959: The Ayyubids in the 12th century, and them later by the Mamluks in the 13th century. In the Maghreb and Western Sahara , the Almoravids dominated from the 11th century, until it was subsumed by the Almohad Caliphate in the 12th century. The Almohad's collapse gave rise to the Marinids in Morocco, the Zayyanids in Algeria, and the Hafsids in Tunisia. In Nubia the Kingdom of Kush
12322-534: The British Empire expanded to become the world's largest empire . A tenuous balance of power among European nations collapsed in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War , one of the deadliest conflicts in history. In the 1930s, a worldwide economic crisis led to the rise of authoritarian regimes and a Second World War , involving almost all of the world's countries . The war's destruction led to
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#173285563945212524-568: The Caral–Supe civilization is the oldest complex civilization in the Americas. Astronomy and mathematics were also developed and the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. There is evidence of a severe drought lasting about a hundred years that may have caused the decline of these civilizations, with new ones appearing in the aftermath. Babylonians came to dominate Mesopotamia while others, such as
12726-501: The Church would provide centralized authority and education. In the Middle East, Islam became the prominent religion and expanded into North Africa. It led to an Islamic Golden Age , inspiring achievements in architecture , the revival of old advances in science and technology, and the formation of a distinct way of life. The Christian and Islamic worlds would eventually clash, with
12928-470: The Homo genus. The name " Homo sapiens " means 'wise man' or 'knowledgeable man'. There is disagreement if certain extinct members of the genus, namely Neanderthals , should be included as a separate species of humans or as a subspecies of H. sapiens . Human is a loanword of Middle English from Old French humain , ultimately from Latin hūmānus , the adjectival form of homō ('man' – in
13130-648: The Indus script . In China, writing was first used during the Shang dynasty (1766–1045 BCE). Transport was facilitated by waterways, including rivers and seas, which fostered the projection of military power and the exchange of goods, ideas, and inventions. The Bronze Age also saw new land technologies, such as horse-based cavalry and chariots , that allowed armies to move faster. Trade became increasingly important as urban societies exchanged manufactured goods for raw materials from distant lands, creating vast commercial networks and
13332-606: 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
13534-566: The Kingdom of England , the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire declaring a series of holy wars to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims . In the Americas, between 200 and 900 CE Mesoamerica was in its Classic Period , while further north, complex Mississippian societies would arise starting around 800 CE. The Mongol Empire would conquer much of Eurasia in the 13th and 14th centuries. Over this same time period,
13736-823: The Late Bronze Age collapse that affected many Mediterranean civilizations between 1300 and 1000 BCE. The foundations of many cultural aspects in India were laid in the Vedic period (1750–600 BCE), including the emergence of Hinduism . From around 550 BCE, many independent kingdoms and republics known as the Mahajanapadas were established across the subcontinent. Speakers of the Bantu languages began expanding across Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa as early as 3000 BCE until 1000 CE. Their expansion and encounters with other groups resulted in
13938-721: The Mali Empire in Africa grew to be the largest empire on the continent, stretching from Senegambia to Ivory Coast . Oceania would see the rise of the Tuʻi Tonga Empire which expanded across many islands in the South Pacific. By the late 15th century, the Aztecs and Inca had become the dominant power in Mesoamerica and the Andes , respectively. The early modern period in Europe and
14140-572: The Old World over the following millennia. It also occurred independently in Mesoamerica (about 6,000 years ago), China, Papua New Guinea , and the Sahel and West Savanna regions of Africa. Access to food surplus led to the formation of permanent human settlements , the domestication of animals and the use of metal tools for the first time in history. Agriculture and sedentary lifestyle led to
14342-582: The Poverty Point culture , Minoans and the Shang dynasty , rose to prominence in new areas. The Late Bronze Age collapse around 1200 BCE resulted in the disappearance of a number of civilizations and the beginning of the Greek Dark Ages . During this period iron started replacing bronze, leading to the Iron Age . In the 5th century BCE, history started being recorded as a discipline , which provided
14544-697: The Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Qin Shi Huang was an adherent of the Legalist school of thought and he displaced the hereditary aristocracy by creating an efficient system of administration staffed by officials appointed according to merit. The harshness of the Qin dynasty led to rebellions and the dynasty's fall. It was followed by the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE), which combined the Legalist bureaucratic system with Confucian ideals. The Han dynasty
14746-593: The Sui dynasty (581–618). The Chinese were confronted by Turkic nomads, who were becoming the most dominant ethnic group in the region. Originally the relationship was largely cooperative but in 630, the Tang dynasty began an offensive against the Turks by capturing areas of the Ordos Desert . In the 8th century, Islam began to penetrate the region and soon became the sole faith of most of
14948-751: The Tigris and Euphrates , followed by the Egyptian civilization along the Nile River (3200 BCE), the Norte Chico civilization in coastal Peru (3100 BCE), the Indus Valley civilization in Pakistan and northwestern India (2500 BCE), and the Chinese civilization along the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers (2200 BCE). These societies developed a number of shared characteristics, including
15150-679: The Yellow River Valley may have cultivated millet by 7000 BCE. Pigs were the most important domesticated animal in early China. People in Africa's Sahara cultivated sorghum and several other crops between 8000 and 5000 BCE, while other agricultural centers arose in the Ethiopian Highlands and the West African rainforests. In the Indus River Valley , crops were cultivated by 7000 BCE and cattle were domesticated by 6500 BCE. In
15352-766: The colonization of the Americas and the Columbian Exchange . This expansion led to the Atlantic slave trade and the genocide of Native American peoples . This period also marked the Scientific Revolution , with great advances in mathematics , mechanics , astronomy and physiology . The late modern period (1800–present) saw the Technological and Industrial Revolution bring such discoveries as imaging technology , major innovations in transport and energy development . Influenced by Enlightenment ideals,
15554-482: The compass , one of China's Four Great Inventions . In Africa, the Kingdom of Kush prospered through its interactions with both Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa. It ruled Egypt as the Twenty-fifth Dynasty from 712 to 650 BCE, then continued as an agricultural and trading state based in the city of Meroë until the fourth century CE. The Kingdom of Aksum , centered in present-day Ethiopia, established itself by
15756-702: The early Muslim conquests , the Islamic Golden Age , and the commencement and expansion of the Arab slave trade , followed by the Mongol invasions and the founding of the Ottoman Empire. South Asia had a series of middle kingdoms , followed by the establishment of Islamic empires in India. In West Africa, the Mali and Songhai Empires rose. On the southeast coast of Africa, Arabic ports were established where gold, spices , and other commodities were traded. This allowed Africa to join
15958-492: 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
16160-530: The printing press greatly affected subsequent history. During the early modern period , spanning from approximately 1500 to 1800 CE, European powers explored and colonized regions worldwide, intensifying cultural and economic exchange. This era saw substantial intellectual, cultural, and technological advances in Europe driven by the Renaissance , the Scientific Revolution , and the Enlightenment . By
16362-543: The sack of Constantinople in 1204. In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the Mongols , swept through the region but were eventually eclipsed by the Turks and the founding of the Ottoman Empire in modern-day Turkey around 1299. Steppe nomads from Central Asia continued to threaten sedentary societies in the post-classical era, but they also faced incursions from the Arabs and Chinese. China expanded into Central Asia during
16564-606: The stirrup (India, 2nd century BCE and Central Asia, 1st century CE), both of which diffused widely throughout the world. The Chinese learned to make silk and built massive engineering projects such as the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canal . The Romans were also accomplished builders, inventing concrete , perfecting the use of arches in construction, and creating aqueducts to transport water over long distances to urban centers. Most ancient societies practiced slavery , which
16766-656: The 10th and 9th millennia BCE. Pastoral societies based on nomadic animal herding also developed, mostly in dry areas unsuited for plant cultivation such as the Eurasian Steppe or the African Sahel . Conflict between nomadic herders and sedentary agriculturalists was frequent and became a recurring theme in world history. Neolithic societies usually worshiped ancestors, sacred places, or anthropomorphic deities . The vast complex of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, dated 9500–8000 BCE,
16968-571: The 18th century, the accumulation of knowledge and technology had reached a critical mass that brought about the Industrial Revolution , substantial to the Great Divergence , and began the modern period starting around 1800 CE. The rapid growth in productive power further increased international trade and colonization , linking the different civilizations in the process of globalization , and cemented European dominance throughout
17170-540: 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
17372-411: 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,
17574-577: The 19th century. Over the last quarter-millennium, despite the devastating effects of two world wars , there has been a great acceleration in the rates of growth of many domains, including human population , agriculture, industry, commerce, scientific knowledge, technology, communications, military capabilities, and environmental degradation . The study of human history relies on insights from academic disciplines including history , archaeology , anthropology , linguistics , and genetics . To provide an accessible overview, researchers divide human history by
17776-518: The 1st century CE as a major trading empire, dominating its neighbors in South Arabia and Kush and controlling the Red Sea trade. It minted its own currency and carved enormous monolithic stelae to mark its emperors' graves. Successful regional empires were also established in the Americas, arising from cultures established as early as 2500 BCE. In Mesoamerica, vast pre-Columbian societies were built,
17978-522: The 4th century BCE after the conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon . Both Christianity and Islam developed from the beliefs of Judaism . The millennium from 500 BCE to 500 CE saw a series of empires of unprecedented size develop. Well-trained professional armies, unifying ideologies, and advanced bureaucracies created the possibility for emperors to rule over large domains whose populations could attain numbers upwards of tens of millions of subjects. International trade also expanded, most notably
18180-625: The 5th century BCE, epitomized by thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle . The first Olympic Games were held in 776 BCE, marking a period known as " classical antiquity ". In 508 BCE, the world's first democratic system of government was instituted in Athens . Axial Age ideas shaped subsequent intellectual and religious history. Confucianism was one of the three schools of thought that came to dominate Chinese thinking, along with Taoism and Legalism . The Confucian tradition, which would become particularly influential, looked for political morality not to
18382-459: 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
18584-567: The 9th century, when it succumbed to pressure from new invaders—the Vikings , Magyars , and Arabs. During the Carolingian era, churches developed a form of musical notation called neume which became the basis for the modern notation system. Kievan Rus' expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, Vladimir the Great adopted Orthodox Christianity as
18786-510: The Americas and Europe experienced a period of political revolutions known as the Age of Revolution . The Napoleonic Wars raged through Europe in the early 1800s, Spain lost most of its colonies in the New World , while Europeans continued expansion into Africa – where European control went from 10% to almost 90% in less than 50 years – and Oceania. In the 19th century,
18988-657: The Americas, squash was cultivated by at least 8500 BCE in South America, and domesticated arrowroot appeared in Central America by 7800 BCE. Potatoes were first cultivated in the Andes of South America, where the llama was also domesticated. It is likely that women played a central role in plant domestication throughout these developments. Various explanations of the causes of the Neolithic Revolution have been proposed. Some theories identify population growth as
19190-616: The Axial Age saw the emergence of transformative philosophical and religious ideas that developed in many different places mostly independently of each other. Chinese Confucianism , Indian Buddhism and Jainism , and Jewish monotheism all arose during this period. Persian Zoroastrianism began earlier, perhaps around 1000 BCE, but was institutionalized by the Achaemenid Empire during the Axial Age. New philosophies took hold in Greece during
19392-467: 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
19594-727: The Greco-Roman era in the Mediterranean region. Greek science , technology , and mathematics are generally considered to have reached their peak during the Hellenistic period, typified by devices such as the Antikythera mechanism . There were also periods of technological decay, such as the Roman Empire's decline and fall and the ensuing early medieval period. Two of the most important innovations were paper (China, 1st and 2nd centuries CE) and
19796-758: The Islamic Golden Age, an era of learning, science, and invention during which philosophy , art , and literature flourished. Scholars preserved and synthesized knowledge and skills of ancient Greece and Persia the manufacture of paper from China and the decimal positional numbering system from India. At the same time, they made significant original contributions in various fields, such as Al-Khwarizmi 's development of algebra and Avicenna 's comprehensive philosophical system. Islamic civilization expanded both by conquest and based on its merchant economy. Merchants brought goods and their Islamic faith to China , India , Southeast Asia , and Africa . Arab domination of
19998-527: 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
20200-600: The Mediterranean-European world, political unity was always eventually restored. After the fall of the Eastern Han dynasty and the demise of the Three Kingdoms, nomadic tribes from the north began to invade, causing many Chinese people to flee southward. The post-classical period, dated roughly from 500 to 1500 CE, was characterized by the rise and spread of major religions while civilization expanded to new parts of
20402-621: The Mediterranean. In West Asia, the Achaemenid Empire 's system of centralized governance became the precursor to many later empires, while the Gupta Empire in India and the Han dynasty in China have been described as golden ages in their respective regions. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, Europe entered the Middle Ages . During this period, Christianity and
20604-615: The Middle East ended in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks , migrating south from the Turkic homelands. The Seljuks were challenged by Europe during the Crusades , a series of religious wars aimed at rolling back Muslim territory and regaining control of the Holy Land . The Crusades were ultimately unsuccessful and served more to weaken the Byzantine Empire, especially with
20806-623: The Near East ( c. 1450 –1800) began with the final defeat of the Byzantine Empire , and the rise of the Ottoman Empire . Meanwhile, Japan entered the Edo period , the Qing dynasty rose in China and the Mughal Empire ruled much of India. Europe underwent the Renaissance , starting in the 15th century, and the Age of Discovery began with the exploring and colonizing of new regions. This included
21008-639: The Norte Chico culture emerged in Peru around 3100 BCE. The Norte Chico built public monumental architecture at the city of Caral , dated 2627–1977 BCE. The later Chavín polity is sometimes described as the first Andean state, centered on the religious site at Chavín de Huantar . Other important Andean cultures include the Moche , whose ceramics depict many aspects of daily life, and the Nazca , who created animal-shaped designs in
21210-615: The Romans. The Republic became an empire and by the time of Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), it had established dominion over most of the Mediterranean Sea. The empire continued to grow and reached its peak under Trajan (53–117 CE), controlling much of the land from England to Mesopotamia. The two centuries that followed are known as the Pax Romana , a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in most of Europe. Christianity
21412-665: The Southeast Asia trading system, bringing it contact with Asia; this resulted in the Swahili culture . China experienced the relatively successive Sui, Tang, Song , Yuan , and early Ming dynasties . Middle Eastern trade routes along the Indian Ocean, and the Silk Road through the Gobi Desert , provided limited economic and cultural contact between Asian and European civilizations. During
21614-649: 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
21816-598: The administration of cities, the expression of ideas, and the preservation of information. It may have independently developed in at least four ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia (3300 BCE), Egypt (around 3250 BCE), China (1200 BCE), and lowland Mesoamerica (by 650 BCE). The earliest system of writing was the Mesopotamian cuneiform script , which began as a system of pictographs , whose pictorial representations eventually became simplified and more abstract. Other influential early writing systems include Egyptian hieroglyphs and
22018-493: The advent of the Paleolithic era. The genus Homo evolved from Australopithecus . The earliest record of Homo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimen LD 350-1 from Ethiopia, and the earliest named species is Homo habilis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago. The most important difference between Homo habilis and Australopithecus was a 50% increase in brain size. H. erectus evolved about 2 million years ago and
22220-505: 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
22422-446: 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
22624-465: 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
22826-473: The available food, improving aesthetics , increasing knowledge or enhancing the exchange of resources. Humans are one of the most adaptable species, despite having a low or narrow tolerance for many of the earth's extreme environments. Currently the species is present in all eight biogeographical realms , although their presence in the Antarctic realm is very limited to research stations and annually there
23028-595: The beginnings of archaic globalization . Bronze production in Southwest Asia, for example, required the import of tin from as far away as England. The growth of cities was often followed by the establishment of states and empires. In Egypt, the initial division into Upper and Lower Egypt was followed by the unification of the whole valley around 3100 BCE. Around 2600 BCE, the Indus Valley civilization built major cities at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro . Mesopotamian history
23230-561: The best long-distance runners in the animal kingdom, but slower over short distances. Humans' thinner body hair and more productive sweat glands help avoid heat exhaustion while running for long distances. Compared to other apes, the human heart produces greater stroke volume and cardiac output and the aorta is proportionately larger. Like most animals, humans are a diploid and eukaryotic species. Each somatic cell has two sets of 23 chromosomes , each set received from one parent; gametes have only one set of chromosomes, which
23432-517: 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
23634-640: The collapse of most global empires, leading to widespread decolonization. Following the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945, the United States and the USSR emerged as the remaining global superpowers . This led to a Cold War that saw a struggle for global influence, including a nuclear arms race and a space race , ending in the collapse of the Soviet Union. The current Information Age , spurred by
23836-618: The combined eastern and western Roman Empire in the 4th century AD. Bubonic plagues , first recorded in the 6th century AD, reduced the population by 50%, with the Black Death killing 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa alone. Human population is believed to have reached one billion in 1800. It has since then increased exponentially, reaching two billion in 1930 and three billion in 1960, four in 1975, five in 1987 and six billion in 1999. It passed seven billion in 2011 and passed eight billion in November 2022. It took over two million years of human prehistory and history for
24038-420: 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
24240-426: The continent, gradually replacing or interbreeding with local populations of archaic humans. Humans began exhibiting behavioral modernity about 160,000–70,000 years ago, and possibly earlier. This development was likely selected amidst natural climate change in Middle to Late Pleistocene Africa. The "out of Africa" migration took place in at least two waves, the first around 130,000 to 100,000 years ago,
24442-407: The creation of the first cities and states . Cities were centers of trade , manufacturing , and political power . They developed mutually beneficial relationships with their surrounding countrysides , receiving agricultural products and providing manufactured goods and varying degrees of political control in return. Early proto-cities appeared at Çatalhöyük and Jericho , possibly as early as
24644-563: The desert called Nazca lines . The Olmecs of Mesoamerica developed by about 1200 BCE and are known for the colossal stone heads that they carved from basalt . They also devised the Mesoamerican calendar that was used by later cultures such as the Maya and Teotihuacan . Societies in North America were primarily egalitarian hunter-gatherers, supplementing their diet with the plants of the Eastern Agricultural Complex . They built earthworks such as Watson Brake (4000 BCE) and Poverty Point (3600 BCE), both in Louisiana. From 800 to 200 BCE,
24846-423: The desire to understand and influence phenomena having motivated humanity's development of science , technology , philosophy , mythology , religion , and other frameworks of knowledge ; humans also study themselves through such domains as anthropology , social science , history , psychology , and medicine . There are estimated to be more than eight billion living humans . Although some scientists equate
25048-461: The development of the Internet and Artificial Intelligence systems, sees the world becoming increasingly globalized and interconnected. Early human settlements were dependent on proximity to water and – depending on the lifestyle – other natural resources used for subsistence , such as populations of animal prey for hunting and arable land for growing crops and grazing livestock. Modern humans, however, have
25250-399: The displacement of the Pygmy peoples and the Khoisan , and in the spread of mixed farming and ironworking throughout sub-Saharan Africa, laying the foundations for later states. The Lapita culture emerged in the Bismarck Archipelago near New Guinea around 1500 BCE and colonized many uninhabited islands of Remote Oceania , reaching as far as Samoa by 700 BCE. In the Americas,
25452-501: The early 20th century, there has been continuous human presence in Antarctica through research stations and, since 2000, in space through habitation on the International Space Station . All modern humans are classified into the species Homo sapiens , coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 1735 work Systema Naturae . The generic name " Homo " is a learned 18th-century derivation from Latin homō , which refers to humans of either sex. The word human can refer to all members of
25654-548: The emergence of early civilizations . An urban revolution took place in the 4th millennium BCE with the development of city-states , particularly Sumerian cities located in Mesopotamia . It was in these cities that the earliest known form of writing, cuneiform script , appeared around 3000 BCE. Other major civilizations to develop around this time were Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley Civilisation . They eventually traded with each other and invented technology such as wheels, plows and sails. Emerging by 3000 BCE,
25856-440: The end of the Ice Age some 12,000 years ago, humans had colonized nearly all ice-free parts of the globe. Human expansion coincided with both the Quaternary extinction event and the Neanderthal extinction . These extinctions were probably caused by climate change, human activity, or a combination of the two. Beginning around 10,000 BCE, the Neolithic Revolution marked the development of agriculture , which fundamentally changed
26058-402: The establishment of regional empires and acted as a fertile ground for the advent of transformative philosophical and religious ideas, initially Hinduism during the late Bronze Age , and later Buddhism , Confucianism , Greek philosophy , Jainism , Judaism , Taoism , and Zoroastrianism during the Axial Age . The following post-classical period , from about 500 to 1500 CE, witnessed
26260-505: 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
26462-441: 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
26664-441: 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,
26866-441: 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,
27068-421: 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
27270-448: The force of law but to the power and example of tradition. Confucianism would later spread to Korea and Japan. Buddhism reached China in about the 1st century CE and spread widely, with 30,000 Buddhist temples in northern China alone by the 7th century CE. Buddhism became the main religion in much of South, Southeast, and East Asia. The Greek philosophical tradition diffused throughout the Mediterranean world and as far as India, starting in
27472-542: 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
27674-443: 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
27876-402: The frontiers hastened internal dissolution. The Han dynasty fell into civil war in 220 CE, beginning the Three Kingdoms period, while its Roman counterpart became increasingly decentralized and divided about the same time in what is known as the Crisis of the Third Century . From the Eurasian Steppe, horse-based nomads dominated a large part of the continent. The development of the stirrup and
28078-511: The genomes of 1,184 individuals from 11 populations and identified 1.6 million single nucleotide polymorphisms . African populations harbor the highest number of private genetic variants. While many of the common variants found in populations outside of Africa are also found on the African continent, there are still large numbers that are private to these regions, especially Oceania and the Americas . By 2010 estimates, humans have approximately 22,000 genes. By comparing mitochondrial DNA , which
28280-463: The global average life expectancy at birth of a girl is estimated to be 74.9 years compared to 70.4 for a boy. There are significant geographical variations in human life expectancy, mostly correlated with economic development – for example, life expectancy at birth in Hong Kong is 87.6 years for girls and 81.8 for boys, while in the Central African Republic , it is 55.0 years for girls and 50.6 for boys. The developed world
28482-632: The human ability to communicate. Signs of early artistic expression can be found in the form of cave paintings and sculptures made from ivory, stone, and bone, implying a form of spirituality generally interpreted as animism or shamanism . The earliest known musical instruments besides the human voice are bone flutes from the Swabian Jura in Germany, dated around 40,000 years old. Paleolithic humans lived as hunter-gatherers and were generally nomadic . The migration of anatomically modern humans out of Africa took place in multiple waves beginning 194,000–177,000 years ago. The dominant view among scholars
28684-418: 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
28886-443: The human lifestyle. Genes and the environment influence human biological variation in visible characteristics, physiology , disease susceptibility, mental abilities, body size, and life span. Though humans vary in many traits, humans are among the least genetically diverse species. Any two humans are at least 99.5% genetically similar. Humans are sexually dimorphic : generally, males have greater body strength and females have
29088-400: The human lifestyle. Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa , in at least 11 separate centers of origin . Cereal crop cultivation and animal domestication had occurred in Mesopotamia by at least 8500 BCE in the form of wheat, barley , sheep, and goats. The Yangtze River Valley in China domesticated rice around 8000–7000 BCE;
29290-500: The human population to reach one billion and only 207 years more to grow to 7 billion. The combined biomass of the carbon of all the humans on Earth in 2018 was estimated at 60 million tons, about 10 times larger than that of all non-domesticated mammals. In 2018, 4.2 billion humans (55%) lived in urban areas, up from 751 million in 1950. The most urbanized regions are Northern America (82%), Latin America (81%), Europe (74%) and Oceania (68%), with Africa and Asia having nearly 90% of
29492-435: The human population was reduced to a small number of breeding pairs. The forces of natural selection have continued to operate on human populations, with evidence that certain regions of the genome display directional selection in the past 15,000 years. The human genome was first sequenced in 2001 and by 2020 hundreds of thousands of genomes had been sequenced. In 2012 the International HapMap Project had compared
29694-482: 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
29896-567: The late Miocene epoch. During this split, chromosome 2 was formed from the joining of two other chromosomes, leaving humans with only 23 pairs of chromosomes, compared to 24 for the other apes. Following their split with chimpanzees and bonobos, the hominins diversified into many species and at least two distinct genera. All but one of these lineages – representing the genus Homo and its sole extant species Homo sapiens – are now extinct. The genus Homo evolved from Australopithecus . Though fossils from
30098-460: The late 1340s, and killed tens of millions of Europeans in six years; between a quarter and a third of the population perished. Africa was home to many different civilizations. In the 7th century North Africa saw the extinguishment of Byzantine Africa and the Berber kingdoms in the Early Muslim conquests . From the 10th century the Arabian empire's African territory was consumed by the Fatimid Caliphate centred on Egypt, who were supplanted by
30300-427: The late 14th century formed a personal union with Poland . The Late Middle Ages were marked by difficulties and calamities. Famine, plague, and war devastated the population of Western Europe. The Black Death alone killed approximately 75 to 200 million people between 1347 and 1350. It was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history. Starting in Asia, the disease reached the Mediterranean and Western Europe during
30502-425: The late 5th century BCE, several Greek city states checked the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars . These wars were followed by the Golden Age of Athens , the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilization , including the first theatrical performances . The wars led to the creation of the Delian League , founded in 477 BCE, and eventually
30704-413: The main factor, leading people to seek out new food sources. Others see population growth not as the cause but as the effect of the associated improvements in food supply. Further suggested factors include climate change, resource scarcity, and ideology. The transition to agriculture created food surpluses that could support people not directly engaged in food production, permitting far denser populations and
30906-537: The massive trade routes in the Mediterranean Sea, the maritime trade web in the Indian Ocean , and the Silk Road . The kingdom of the Medes helped to destroy the Assyrian Empire in tandem with the nomadic Scythians and the Babylonians . Nineveh , the capital of Assyria, was sacked by the Medes in 612 BCE. The Median Empire gave way to successive Iranian states, including the Achaemenid (550–330 BCE), Parthian (247 BCE–224 CE), and Sasanian Empires (224–651 CE). Two major empires began in modern-day Greece . In
31108-501: The most common and widespread species of primate , and the last surviving species of the genus Homo . They are great apes characterized by their hairlessness , bipedalism , and high intelligence . Humans have large brains , enabling more advanced cognitive skills that enable them to thrive and adapt in varied environments, develop highly complex tools , and form complex social structures and civilizations . Humans are highly social , with individual humans tending to belong to
31310-406: The most notable being the Zapotec civilization (700 BCE–1521 CE), and the Maya civilization, which reached its highest state of development during the Mesoamerican classic period (c. 250–900 CE), but continued throughout the post-classic period. The great Maya city-states slowly rose in number and prominence, and Maya culture spread throughout the Yucatán and surrounding areas. The Maya developed
31512-428: 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
31714-449: 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
31916-509: The ongoing mass extinction of other forms of life. Within the last century, humans have explored challenging environments such as Antarctica , the deep sea , and outer space . Human habitation within these hostile environments is restrictive and expensive, typically limited in duration, and restricted to scientific , military , or industrial expeditions. Humans have visited the Moon and made their presence known on other celestial bodies through human-made robotic spacecraft . Since
32118-442: The only primates to have short, relatively flush canine teeth . Humans have characteristically crowded teeth, with gaps from lost teeth usually closing up quickly in young individuals. Humans are gradually losing their third molars , with some individuals having them congenitally absent. Humans share with chimpanzees a vestigial tail, appendix , flexible shoulder joints, grasping fingers and opposable thumbs . Humans also have
32320-418: The outstanding artistic achievements of the age. The Middle Ages witnessed the first sustained urbanization of Northern and Western Europe and lasted until the beginning of the early modern period in the 16th century. The Mongols reached Europe in 1236 and conquered Kievan Rus' , along with briefly invading Poland and Hungary . Lithuania cooperated with the Mongols but remained independent and in
32522-474: The palm of the hand and on the soles of the feet. It is estimated that the worldwide average height for an adult human male is about 171 cm (5 ft 7 in), while the worldwide average height for adult human females is about 159 cm (5 ft 3 in). Shrinkage of stature may begin in middle age in some individuals but tends to be typical in the extremely aged . Throughout history, human populations have universally become taller, probably as
32724-418: 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
32926-440: The period referred to as ancient India's golden age. The resulting stability helped usher in a flourishing period for Hindu and Buddhist culture in the 4th and 5th centuries, as well as major advances in science and mathematics. In South India , three prominent Dravidian kingdoms emerged: the Cheras , Cholas , and Pandyas . In China, Qin Shi Huang put an end to the chaotic Warring States period by uniting all of China under
33128-464: The population density varies from one region to another, and large stretches of surface are almost completely uninhabited, like Antarctica and vast swathes of the ocean. Most humans (61%) live in Asia; the remainder live in the Americas (14%), Africa (14%), Europe (11%), and Oceania (0.5%). Estimates of the population at the time agriculture emerged in around 10,000 BC have ranged between 1 million and 15 million. Around 50–60 million people lived in
33330-498: The population, though Buddhism remained strong in the east. From the 9th to 13th centuries, Central Asia was divided among several powerful states, including the Samanid , Seljuk , and Khwarazmian Empires . These states were succeeded by the Mongols in the 13th century. In 1370, Timur , a Turkic leader in the Mongol military tradition, conquered most of the region and founded the Timurid Empire . Timur's large empire collapsed soon after his death, but his descendants retained control of
33532-441: 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
33734-422: 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
33936-451: 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
34138-401: The remains of the Western Roman Empire. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, most of the new kingdoms incorporated existing Roman institutions. Christianity expanded in Western Europe, and monasteries were founded. In the 7th and 8th centuries, the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty established an empire covering much of Western Europe; it lasted until
34340-408: 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
34542-409: The rise of Islam and the continued spread and consolidation of Christianity while civilization expanded to new parts of the world and trade between societies increased. These developments were accompanied by the rise and decline of major empires, such as the Byzantine Empire , the Islamic Caliphates , the Mongol Empire , and various Chinese dynasties . This period's invention of gunpowder and of
34744-467: The same period, civilizations in the Americas, such as the Mississippians , Aztecs , Maya, and Inca reached their zenith. Before the advent of Islam in the 7th century, the Middle East was dominated by the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires, which frequently fought each other for control of several disputed regions. This was also a cultural battle, with Byzantine Christian culture competing against Persian Zoroastrian traditions. The birth of Islam created
34946-437: 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
35148-404: The second ( Southern Dispersal ) around 70,000 to 50,000 years ago. H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Eurasia 125,000 years ago, Australia around 65,000 years ago, the Americas around 15,000 years ago, and remote islands such as Hawaii , Easter Island , Madagascar , and New Zealand in the years 300 to 1280 CE. Human evolution was not
35350-547: The sense of humanity). The native English term man can refer to the species generally (a synonym for humanity ) as well as to human males. It may also refer to individuals of either sex. Despite the fact that the word animal is colloquially used as an antonym for human , and contrary to a common biological misconception , humans are animals . The word person is often used interchangeably with human , but philosophical debate exists as to whether personhood applies to all humans or all sentient beings , and further if
35552-409: 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
35754-488: 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
35956-504: The soul. Sporadic use of the term for some of the subject matter occurred subsequently, such as 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 ,
36158-406: The species Homo heidelbergensis . Humans continued to develop over the succeeding millennia, and by 100,000 years ago, were using jewelry and ocher to adorn the body. By 50,000 years ago, they buried their dead, used projectile weapons, and engaged in seafaring. One of the most important changes (the date of which is unknown) was the development of syntactic language , which dramatically improved
36360-452: The spread of Greek culture throughout conquered regions, a process referred to as Hellenization . The Hellenistic period lasted from the death of Alexander in 323 BCE to 31 BCE when Ptolemaic Egypt fell to Rome. In Europe, the Roman Republic was founded in the 6th century BCE and began expanding its territory in the 3rd century BCE. Priorly, the Carthaginian Empire had dominated the Mediterranean, however lost three successive wars to
36562-429: The state religion. During the High Middle Ages , which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and crop yields to increase. The establishment of the feudal system affected the structure of medieval society. It included manorialism , the organization of peasants into villages that owed rents and labor service to nobles, and vassalage ,
36764-604: 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
36966-433: The term "humans" with all members of the genus Homo , in common usage it generally refers to Homo sapiens , the only extant member. All other members of the genus Homo , which are now extinct, are known as archaic humans , and the term "modern human" is used to distinguish Homo sapiens from archaic humans. Anatomically modern humans emerged around 300,000 years ago in Africa, evolving from Homo heidelbergensis or
37168-427: The transition are scarce, the earliest members of Homo share several key traits with Australopithecus . The earliest record of Homo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimen LD 350-1 from Ethiopia , and the earliest named species are Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago. H. erectus (the African variant is sometimes called H. ergaster ) evolved 2 million years ago and
37370-428: The use of horse archers made the nomads a constant threat to sedentary civilizations. In the 4th century CE, the Roman Empire split into western and eastern regions, with usually separate emperors. The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 CE to German influence under Odoacer . The Eastern Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire , was more long-lasting. In China, dynasties rose and fell, but, in sharp contrast to
37572-432: 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
37774-406: 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
37976-441: The works of Aristotle . It began to be used in English, possibly via French Anthropologie , by 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
38178-500: The world and trade between societies intensified. From the 10th to 13th centuries, the Medieval Warm Period in the northern hemisphere aided agriculture and led to population growth in parts of Europe and Asia. It was followed by the Little Ice Age , which, along with the plagues of the 14th century, put downward pressure on the population of Eurasia. Major inventions of the period were gunpowder , guns, and printing, all of which originated in China. The post-classical period encompasses
38380-440: The world's 3.4 billion rural population. Problems for humans living in cities include various forms of pollution and crime , especially in inner city and suburban slums . Most aspects of human physiology are closely homologous to corresponding aspects of animal physiology. The dental formula of humans is: 2.1.2.3 2.1.2.3 . Humans have proportionately shorter palates and much smaller teeth than other primates. They are
38582-408: 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),
38784-411: Was legalized by Constantine I in 313 CE after three centuries of imperial persecution . It became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 CE while the emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan religions in 391–392 CE. In South Asia, Chandragupta Maurya founded the Maurya Empire (320–185 BCE), which flourished under Ashoka the Great . From the 4th to 6th centuries CE, the Gupta Empire oversaw
38986-465: Was characterized by frequent wars between city-states, leading to shifts in hegemony from one city to another. In the 25th–21st centuries BCE, the empires of Akkad and the Neo-Sumerians arose in this area. In Crete, the Minoan civilization emerged by 2000 BCE and is regarded as the first civilization in Europe. Over the following millennia, civilizations developed across the world. By 1600 BCE, Mycenaean Greece began to develop. It flourished until
39188-415: Was comparable in power and influence to the Roman Empire that lay at the other end of the Silk Road. As economic prosperity fueled their military expansion, the Han conquered parts of Mongolia, Central Asia, Manchuria , Korea, and northern Vietnam. As with other empires during the classical period, Han China advanced significantly in the areas of government, education, science, and technology. The Han invented
39390-407: 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
39592-416: 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
39794-557: Was not a simple linear or branched progression but involved interbreeding between related species . Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution. DNA evidence suggests that several genes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non- sub-Saharan African populations. Neanderthals and other hominins, such as Denisovans, may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day non-sub-Saharan African humans. Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago from
39996-506: 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
40198-446: Was particularly prevalent in Athens and Rome , where slaves made up a large proportion of the population and were foundational to the economy. Patriarchy was also common, with men controlling more political and economic power than women. The ancient empires faced common problems associated with maintaining huge armies and supporting a central bureaucracy . In Rome and Han China, the state began to decline, and barbarian pressure on
40400-478: Was succeeded by the Christian kingdoms of Makuria , Alodia , and Nobatia . In the 7th century Makuria conquered Nobatia to become the dominant power in the region and resisted Muslim expansion. They later entered a severe decline following civil war and Arab migrations to the Sudan and had disintegrated by the 15th century, giving rise to the Funj Sultanate . Human Humans ( Homo sapiens , meaning "thinking man" or "wise man") or modern humans are
40602-402: Was the first archaic human species to leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia. H. erectus also was the first to evolve a characteristically human body plan . Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago from a species commonly designated as either H. heidelbergensis or H. rhodesiensis , the descendants of H. erectus that remained in Africa. H. sapiens migrated out of
40804-449: Was the first hominin species to leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia. Perhaps as early as 1.5 million years ago, but certainly by 250,000 years ago, hominins began to use fire for heat and cooking. Beginning about 500,000 years ago, Homo diversified into many new species of archaic humans such as the Neanderthals in Europe, the Denisovans in Siberia , and the diminutive H. floresiensis in Indonesia . Human evolution
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