ANTHROPOLOGY is the systematic study humankind. Anthropology has five sub-disciplines. Some anthropologists do not think applied anthropology is a separate sub-discipline, but we will consider it a sub- discipline in this course. The following outline provides a brief summary of each sub-discipline. I. SUB-DISCIPLINES OF ANTHROPOLOGY A. PHYSICAL OR BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: biological dimensions of culture A.1. PALEOANTHROPOLOGY: Fossil evolution of humans A.2. PRIMATOLOGY: Study of primates, such as chimpanzees, to assess what is “human” nature A.3. HUMAN BIOLOGICAL VARIATION: Human population genetics, human biology A. ARCHAEOLOGY: Reconstruction of cultures A.1. PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY: Reconstruction of cultures before writing, (99% of human history) A.2. HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY: Reconstruction of cultures where historical records exist A.3. ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY: Study of living groups to better understand the archaeological record A.4. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY: Archaeology of Greek & Roman Civilizations (often in history or art history departments) A.5. B. CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Study of contemporary cultures B.1. ETHNOGRAPHY: Study of individuals and cultures, detailed studies of one culture B.2. ETHNOLOGY: Comparisons between two or more cultures B.3. ETHNOHISTORY: Historical records about peoples and cultures. B.4. C. LINGUISTICS - Study of relationships between language and culture C.1. HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS: How languages change over time, study of language families and relationships between languages C.2. DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS: Study of sounds and structures of particular languages A.1. SOCIOLINGUISTICS: How language is used in different social contexts A. APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY: the use of anthropological theory and methods to solve contemporary problems and issues.

II. HOW IS ANTHROPOLOGY DIFFERENT FROM OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES? The outline above and online material gives you an overview of anthropology. Many of you have had other anthropology courses so this is not news to you. But the point of going over anthropology is to understand how an anthropology course about the environment might be different from other social science disciplines, such as psychology and sociology. Online materials describe the five sub- disciplines of Anthropology, but it may not be clear as to how anthropology is distinct from the other social science disciplines. Some basic distinctive features of anthropology by comparison to other social sciences: A. Comparative or cross-cultural perspective. Any topic of interest needs to be examined from an extensive cross-cultural perspective. Other disciplines such as psychology and sociology are becoming more cross-cultural, but they tend to select other highly stratified cultures when they discuss cross-cultural perspectives, i.e., Germany, France, Canada, Japan, China. While these are important cultures, they are all highly stratified and hierarchical like our own. We will examine children in a variety of cultures from all parts of the world. B. Biological perspective. All anthropology majors are required to take a course in human biology and evolution. Sociology does not have biological courses and psychology has some human biology courses (e.g., on brain), but they are usually not required of all psychology majors. Consequently, an examination of evolution and human nature and how they influence human-environment interactions are part of this course. C. Time perspective. Anthropologists interested in a particular topic need to examine it the long period of human history. Archaeology and human evolution are integral parts of anthropology. Other disciplines may look at a topic in the last 100 or 200 years, but anthropologists want to go back hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago to understand a topic. Consequently and as you will see next week, we want to understand human-nature interactions over the course of human history. D. Field perspective. The key method in cultural anthropology is called participant-observation—living with and participating in the culture under study, generally for a year or more to learn the language. We like to talk to people in many different contexts. Archaeologists, physical anthropologists, and anthropological linguists also like to spend considerable time in the field. By comparison, sociology tends to rely upon systematic questionnaires and psychology tends to rely upon controlled experiments in the lab setting or systematic questionnaires. By comparison to cultural anthropology, research in sociology and psychology requires less time interacting with people. E. Holistic. Anthropologists tend to think their discipline is more holistic than other disciplines because it examines the interactions between biology, culture and environment. III. WHAT IS CULTURE? Culture is at the core of understanding what anthropology is all about. It is essential to have a working framework for understanding culture because it is in the title of the course and pervades most of the learning units that follow. Also, we focus on understanding human-nature interactions in a relatively small sample of the world’s cultures. If you have the following framework, you should be able to apply it to understanding human-nature relations in any culture. A. Definition of culture: socially transmitted and acquired information (e.g., skills, knowledge) shared by a group. Several definitions exist for culture but I want to emphasize that it is essentially anything socially acquired and shared with a group. One thing we need to understand is that culture is not limited to ethnic groups (e.g., the Navaho or the French). For instance, within the US, people acquire their information about the natural environment in a variety of ways, and people do not agree about what they see and feel about nature, i.e., they have different cultural backgrounds and information. B. Products of culture. Culture is socially transmitted information shared by a group and includes beliefs, knowledge, values, ideologies, good foods to eat, how many spouses you can have, how people think and feel about nature, what people think is beautiful, what people think is right and wrong, where you should live after you get married, etc. I will often refer to all forms of information as “cultural models”. The cultural information in turn generates the following products: 1. Habits and practices. Particular information that we acquire is the source of things we do over and over again (e.g., how we brush our teeth, use bathroom, how often we go to the forest), and these become habits, practices, and customs that we do not think much about. Consequently, peoples’ interactions with the environment feel natural and automatic because we have been doing it for so long. 2. Artifacts and Technology. People use culturally acquired information and knowledge to make tools and technology. The artifacts and technology are used to adapt the diverse natural and social environments. 3. Social Structure and Institutions. Cultural information provides the basis for establishing cultural institutions (e.g., educational, political, economic, legal) that are central to shaping and influencing our daily life. 4. Cultural Niche Construction. All of the above—cultural models, habits/practices, technology, and institutions—establish a niche that we then try to adapt to. We tend to think about how the natural environment—climate, altitude, etc.—influence cultural behaviors, but it is also true that we are adapting to our own culturally constructed environments. For instance, we invent a variety of infant carrying devices (niche construction) which result in holding infants less. Some child advocate groups are concerned about this and are trying to emphasize the importance of holding infants more often. We are trying to respond and adapt to the culturally constructed niche that is contributing to global warming—e.g., cars, produce gasses that impact ozone and climate. 5. It is important to remember 1) culture includes all of the above— cultural models, technology, institutions and 2) culture is both “in our head” (information, knowledge, values) as well as “out there” (technology and institutions). 6. All of the above—cultural models, technology, institutions—are windows by which individuals view their natural environment C. Features of Culture 1. Patterns how we think and feel; patterns emotional reality: Most people realize culture patterns how we think but culture also profoundly influences how we feel. So the aim of this course is not only to understand diverse ways cultures interact with their environment, but to understand that people around the world have STRONG feelings about what is right and wrong about views and interactions with nature. 2. Patterns physical reality; patterns how we perceive physical reality: The physical world exists, but how we perceive that reality is dramatically impacted by our culture. For instance, if you were asked to draw a map of the world, your map would be influenced by where you lived, what maps you had in your elementary school, whether you traveled, etc. When I ask students to do this the area of the U.S. is large by comparison to other areas of the world and is often at the center of their map. 3. Patterns how we categorize reality: What food are edible or not and how we call particular relatives (e.g., in many cultures your mother’s sister’s children are called “siblings”) are examples of how culture classifies reality. 4. Ethnocentric: Culture is by nature ethnocentric. We tend to think Americans are particularly ethnocentric, but fact is that when someone is socialized in a particular way they tend to grow up thinking that this way is universal, common and often the best way. When I explain to Aka about our patterns of children sleeping in their own room in their own beds, they view this as child neglect. Culture tends to give one a sense of moral authority—what is right or wrong. Some cultures may respect diversity more than others, but culture has a profound impact on how we feel and what we think is right. 5. Cumulative: Culture accumulates over time; it changes, has a history and is often integrated (e.g., political-economic system is linked to child care system). 6. Adaptive: Culture in a general sense is adaptive in that humans occupy all parts of the world because culture has enabled us to adapt to deserts, arctic, high elevations, tropical forests, etc. But this does not mean that every aspect of culture is adaptive; we may do things in the environment that can be maladaptive (i.e., lead to decreasing reproductive fitness), such as contribute to destruction of forests or pollution.