Very simply, anthropology is the study of all people in all places at all times. It is the holistic study of cultures and the inter-workings of all of their parts, as well as human biological variation, human origins, and human interactions with their environments.
Core to anthropology is the concept of culture. Culture is shared, learned, adaptable, and changing. It is learned attitudes, beliefs and ideals shared by a group. Anthropology studies cultures as they are—without ethnocentrism—through ethnology and ethnography. Traditional methods employed by anthropologists are participant observation, surveys, interviews, archival research, life histories, genealogies, and photography.
There are four fields in anthropology:
» Cultural: Studies contemporary cultures in an effort to create cross-cultural understanding.
» Linguistic: Studies the use of language and communication systems and how they relate to human behavior.
» Physical: Studies human evolution from our earliest hominid ancestry to modern human biological variation.
» Archeology: Studies past cultures through the physical remains they have left behind, such as culturally modified objects, cooking hearths, middens, etc'
In addition, applied anthropology is often considered a fifth field. It applies anthropological methods in a practical way to help solve problems faced by contemporary cultures.
Most of all, anthropology is fun!