In all four fields of anthropology (Cultural, Archaeology, Linguistics, and Physical Anthropology) women have made significant contributions to establishment and growth of the field. In addition to providing role models for future generations, the earliest women in the field pioneered pivotal studies, generating new questions and venues for research. The discussion of women in anthropology
War is armed combat (fighting with weapons) between warriors or soldiers from two different political communities. This definition puts emphasis on learning to use weapons because learning to use weapons is socialization for armed combat. Warfare by definition is differentiated from other forms of killing—those that occur within political communities; these are, namely, homicide, political
Anthropology has the highest regard for rigorous and honest research. Most anthropologists respect the internal, culturally defined explanations of truth of the people they study (emic) while doing scientific research (edic). Both types of research are part of cultural anthropology. In both cases, social facts are determined by observation; this requires actual field research. Both
The nature of time is a topic of commanding interest to scholars in many different academic disciplines. Anthropology has been concerned with time in two major ways. The first is how human beings create and express time, including the generic, universal, homogenous time of science that many people take for granted. The second concern is
Late Stone Age North and West Africa have been stereotyped as a monolithic culture in two hypotheses: the African Aqualithic and the Neolithique de Tradition Soudanis. Lithic diversity was ignored in favor of a broad-based cultural tradition defined by remains from aquatic activities and by the supposed observance of wavy-line and dotted wavy-line pottery. However
In the late 19th century, anthropology emerged as an academic discipline against a background of intellectual foment and rapid advances in the sciences. During this formative time, religion was the subject of many travelogues, popular books, and scholarly studies. Nineteenth-century European colonial expansion, and the scholarship it engendered, exposed the Western world to a large
The major thesis of political anthropology is that politics cannot be isolated from other subsystems of a society. Political anthropology has defined its interest in how power is put to use in a social and cultural environment. Power is defined as political influence to accomplish certain aims. Through cultural interpretation, the political culture defines certain
To anyone with a rudimentary understanding of paleontology and anthropology, it may not be readily apparent that these disciplines can be in any way related to one another or useful in informing the other’s primary interests. Anthropology, broadly speaking, is concerned with the study of human culture and behavior, with data provided directly by investigations
Orality, a term used in anthropology to interpret the performances of “verbal art,” was not a term created or defined by anthropologists for their particular use. It is a very old concept, formulated as the opposite of “literacy,” and has a long history in the humanities. It is encrusted with many beliefs and ideas that
Law and anthropology (or legal anthropology) examines the relationship among society, culture, and law in societies at various levels of political, economic, and social complexity. Legal anthropology is a sub-field of the discipline of anthropology; however, its subject matter is also a focus of interdisciplinary analysis in fields such as criminal justice, law, philosophy, and