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Anthropology: What it means to be human
Anthropology studies everything people have ever done to make life survivable and meaningful.
Four fields, one question
Cultural anthropology studies living lifeways, linguistics studies communication, archaeology reads behavior from what was left behind, and biological anthropology reads the body. Each is a different kind of evidence for the same question.
Ethnocentrism is the trap
The discipline’s core discipline: explain a practice in its own terms before judging it in yours. Cultural relativism is not approval, it is accuracy before evaluation.
What this course teaches
Nine units cover the four fields in sequence, plus kinship, religion, economic and political systems, and the globalized present.
Flashcard
4F
The four subfields
Cultural, linguistic, archaeological, biological anthropology. Four evidence types, one species.
Check your understanding
Archaeologists infer diet best from: