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hello everyone welcome or welcome back
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to my channel my name is Olivia and I
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make videos about anthropology every
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single Sunday and today I am talking
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about the biggest question that I could
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probably talk about on this channel and
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that is what is anthropology and you may
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be surprised that it's a little more
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complicated than you might think so on
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my channel I have many videos about
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anthropology taking a deep dive into
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keywords different themes that you might
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need to know the different topics within
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anthropology but today I am going to be
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sharing with you guys the broad
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definition of anthropology and give you
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a taste of all the things that make
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anthropology anthropology so the first
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thing that we're going to start with is
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this basic definition that you would
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find if you were to Google anthropology
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so according to Google anthropology is
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the study of human societies and
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cultures and their development but let
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me tell you that this definition leaves
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out so much now the one thing that I do
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want you to take away from this Google
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definition that's probably the biggest
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and most basic thing when it comes to
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the field of anthropology is that
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anthropology is the study of humans now
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the Greek root word anthrop means human
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and ology tends to mean the branch of
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knowledge so when you put these two
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things together you have the branch of
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knowledge concerning humans so
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anthropology more broadly is the science
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of human beings and I mean I'm a human
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you're a human I think this should be
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interesting to everybody so now we're
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gonna go beyond this basic Google
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definition and I want to dive in more
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deeply into what really makes
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anthropology anthropology all right so
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this might be obvious but humans are a
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really really broad area of study
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there's a lot that you could learn about
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people and so anthropology as a growing
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field for a long time scientists and
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anthropologists were trying to figure
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out how to break it down into something
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more manageable and so anthropology
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today is broken up into four subfields
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and basically what I mean by this is
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anthropology because it's so broad the
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things that anthropologists study have
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been broken down into four different
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categories now these subfields the four
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main subfields of anthropology are
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biological anthropology cultural
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anthropology linguistic anthropology and
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Archeology these four subfields together
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create the entire field that is
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anthropology now each one of these
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subfields takes a very specialized
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approach when it comes to understanding
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human beings and if you decide to enter
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the field of anthropology you
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unfortunately because the nature of the
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subject is so broad you can't be an
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expert in every single thing so what
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anthropologists do or what students of
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anthropo apology do is they tend to pick
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one field or one subfield of
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anthropology that stands out the most to
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them and specialize in it so during my
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time as an undergraduate student I
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specialized in biological anthropology
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this is the part of anthropology that
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really stood out to me that grabbed my
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attention so my course load was very
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biased in that I was taking a lot more
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biological anthropology courses than
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other like cultural and linguistic
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anthropology courses but a little more
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on that later now I don't want to
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complicate things too early on in this
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video so now we're going to switch gears
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a little bit and I want to give you guys
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a basic introduction into each one of
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the main four anthropology subfields and
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I want you guys to pay attention because
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if one of these subfields does stand out
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to you that could be a clue as to which
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area of anthropology you might want to
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enter into if this is something that
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interests you okay yeah all right so the
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first subfield that we're going to be
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talking about is biological anthropology
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now as I mentioned earlier in the video
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biological anthropology is the one that
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definitely excites me the most it's also
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known as physical anthropology so if you
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ever hear someone talking about physical
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anthropology you can generally assume
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that that's pretty synonymous with
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biological anthropology and biological
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anthropology is the study of human
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biology and evolution now once again
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this is really broad there is a lot that
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gets covered in biological anthropology
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but some of the big things that you
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might learn as a student are natural
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selection The evolutionary history of
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homo sapien so I remember in one of the
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introductory courses that I took I had
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to do a lot of memorizing of all our
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ancient ancestors there's Homo habilis
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homo heidelbergensis homo neanderthalis
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Australopithecus all that kind of stuff
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and guys I have forgotten a lot so it's
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a lot of understanding the past our
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human past biologically and
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evolutionarily speaking but there's also
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more modern Fields within biological
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anthropology including forensics
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molecular anthropology so looking at
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like how our bodies interact with
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disease and so much more so that's
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biological anthropology it's amazing I
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highly encourage you guys to go check it
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out now cultural anthropology I think is
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what people tend to associate the most
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strongly with the field of anthropology
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I think people don't always know that
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Linguistics and biology are involved in
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anthropology but cultural anthropology I
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think tends to get the most attention
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and is the most understood when it comes
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to the field but cultural anthropology
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is the study of human societies human
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cultures and their development so one of
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the biggest forms of research within
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cultural anthropology is something
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called ethnographic field work so you
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have anthropologists immersing
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themselves in in a different part of the
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world this could be a different
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Community a different culture completely
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opposite side of the world the country
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whatever it is and trying to understand
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this culture or a facet of a certain
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culture more deeply so I actually during
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college had the opportunity to read an
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ethnography which is the book for this
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kind of research ethnographic field work
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the research goes into a book called an
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ethnography I had the opportunity to
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read an ethnography written by a
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cultural Anthropologist who studied
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marriage systems in a specific region of
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China in the 1960s and 70s I believe and
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so I think that gives you a good idea of
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what a cultural Anthropologist goes to
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do they're trying to understand a
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specific group of people their Customs
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their Traditions why or why not people
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make certain decisions I did want to say
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that cultural anthropology research gets
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done in a multitude of ways I just think
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that this kind of research the
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ethnographic field study is the most
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popular and most well known so that's
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what I wanted to talk about in this
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section where we describe cultural
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anthropology really quickly if any of
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these subfields are sounding interesting
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to you I do have more in-depth videos on
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my channel going into each of them
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in a lot more detail so if you want to
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check those out I will leave them in the
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description box down below but now on to
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linguistic anthropology now linguistic
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anthropology is a really amazing
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subfield in the field of anthropology
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and it basically examines how language
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impacts human societies and cultures but
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also how we impact language language is
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an ever-growing ever-changing thing that
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all over the world and in many ways is
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what sets humans apart from other
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species so to get to study something and
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examine something that's so uniquely
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human is a really amazing opportunity
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and something that I think often does
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get overlooked when it comes to the
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value of anthropology and understanding
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human societies now the fourth and final
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subfield of anthropology that I do think
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is very well known similar to cultural
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anthropology is the field of archeology
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now archeology is the study of human
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past through material culture and
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cultural remains I think people often
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forget that archeology is you know
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understanding humans and human cultures
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through the physical items that get left
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behind within the archaeological record
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this is called material culture and
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trying to understand not only what the
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physical purpose of these items were for
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the people who use them but also the
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meaning that gets conveyed through
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through certain items that we find in
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the archaeological record
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so an example of this might be gosh I
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did not prepare an example
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an example of this might be people's
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homes right from an ancient civilization
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so maybe some homes were meant for
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higher status individuals not only
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understanding that this home has a
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physical purpose being it's where people
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live but also understanding that certain
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homes represent higher status and convey
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meaning within the society and within
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that culture now obviously these are
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things that are very difficult to
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extract and extrapolate because we don't
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have access to a lot of these societies
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and civilizations but it creates this
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really interesting question and one that
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in a lot of ways will never answer and
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that is you know who are the people of
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the past what did they value what did
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they do and how did we start there and
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get to where we are today so once again
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archeology really just is an amazing
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more historically focused part of
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anthropology that's definitely still
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alive and thriving today now finally I
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wanted to throw in here the fifth
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subfield what Olivia there's only four I
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know technically guys there's four but
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there's one fifth subfield of
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anthropology that often gets left out of
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these introductory videos which is
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exactly why I wanted to mention it here
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and so there is this official unofficial
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depends on who you ask but I think it's
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pretty official fifth subfield of
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anthropology called applied anthropology
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now this is really important and I'm
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going to tell you why so I've talked to
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you guys about anthropology more broadly
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but what does any of that matter right
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anthropology is a research field why
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does any of that research matter in any
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of those subfields if we're not doing
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anything with it right apply it
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anthropology is applying what we've
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learned from biological anthropology
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cultural anthropology linguistic
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anthropology and Archeology applying
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what we've learned from each of these
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subfields into action into our current
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communities and current cultures all
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around the world so let's say you did an
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anthropological study on smoking and the
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impacts of that on a community and we
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learned that it was bad sorry guys I'm
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running out of brain power as we
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approach the end of this video
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if we can look at that anthropological
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study and say wow what can we do with
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this conclusion to actually impact
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people's lives improve people's lives
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for the better that's the whole field of
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Applied anthropology it's using what
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we've learned to actually make changes
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in real cultures and real communities
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all over the world and I think applied
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anthropology is so important I have
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talked about it before on this channel
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it's amazing and wonderful and I think
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everyone should appreciate it and
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respect it so closing out this video you
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guys we are all humans which in itself I
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think is a reason to care about
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anthropology anthropology allows us to
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understand ourselves it allows us to
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understand people on the complete
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opposite side of the world it creates
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this you know understanding for our
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similarities and our differences and is
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such an important field that seriously
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gets overlooked all the time now if any
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of this sounded interesting to you guys
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I have over a hundred videos on my
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channel talking about anthropology deep
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dives into these subfields into key
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terms into my personal experience as a
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UCLA anthropology student
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everything that you can think of so if
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you want to take the plunge and learn
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more about anthropology don't forget to
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go check out any of those videos on my
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channel also don't forget to like And
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subscribe because I mean who doesn't
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want to be a part of a fun little nerdy
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anthropological Community we have a good
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time over here and I love talking to
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everybody in the comment section down
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below so yeah I hope you guys are having
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a great week a great day and I will see
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you all next Monday all right you guys
