Fieldwork
Through out the nineteenth century anthropology was often a hobby of well to do scholars who are able to ravel to out of way places and study exotic people.
A number of anthropologists also analyzed accounts written by other, especially if they could not afford time and expense of a field expedition.
This armchair anthropologist, based on travel diaries and missionary accounts rather than field search, lead to a particular styles of analysis that could not hope to capture the true nature of traditional societies.
Even those who could do field research there was no systematic attempt to meet true research standards.
It was not until the twentieth century that anthropologists became really concerned with the quality of their research and began to develop a set of standard for the field worker.
A leader in the movement toward uncontrolled research methods for cultural anthropology was Bronislow Malinowski.
Born in what is called now Poland, Malinowski was trained in mathematic but early in life he became interested in anthropology.
Fieldwork
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sociology and anthropology
Sociology and anthropology
One important difference between these two fields is that sociology is concerned with the study of our own society, while anthropology is a comparative discipline that focuses in all societies at all times.
Sociology is interested mainly in the present anthropology deals just as much with the past.
However, these contrasts are growing less valid every day as anthropologists adopt sociological methods and sociologists adopt the comparative approach of anthropology.
Another way of looking at the difference between sociology and anthropology is to note that sociology tends to be quantitative, while anthropology tends to be qualitative.
What this means is that the sociologists generalizes from broad surveys of large numbers of people and the anthropologists relies on close knowledge of a few members of a group to form impressions.
Although these impressions might not be valid for the society as a while (quantitative), there are valid in greater depth for the small sample studied (qualitative).
The anthropologists may spend weeks finding the answer to particular question, mainly out of intense personal involvement in the study.
The sociologists, on the other hand, cannot, afford to become badly deeply involved in surveying a larger simple of the society.
The major difference between anthropology and sociology –probably lies in the methods used. Anthropology uses intensive methods of study; sociology tend to employ broader, more extensively methods.
Sociology and anthropology
One important difference between these two fields is that sociology is concerned with the study of our own society, while anthropology is a comparative discipline that focuses in all societies at all times.
Sociology is interested mainly in the present anthropology deals just as much with the past.
However, these contrasts are growing less valid every day as anthropologists adopt sociological methods and sociologists adopt the comparative approach of anthropology.
Another way of looking at the difference between sociology and anthropology is to note that sociology tends to be quantitative, while anthropology tends to be qualitative.
What this means is that the sociologists generalizes from broad surveys of large numbers of people and the anthropologists relies on close knowledge of a few members of a group to form impressions.
Although these impressions might not be valid for the society as a while (quantitative), there are valid in greater depth for the small sample studied (qualitative).
The anthropologists may spend weeks finding the answer to particular question, mainly out of intense personal involvement in the study.
The sociologists, on the other hand, cannot, afford to become badly deeply involved in surveying a larger simple of the society.
The major difference between anthropology and sociology –probably lies in the methods used. Anthropology uses intensive methods of study; sociology tend to employ broader, more extensively methods.
Sociology and anthropology
Sunday, November 8, 2009
The Antiquity and Ancestry of Man
The Antiquity and Ancestry of Man
The history of human culture, in which the history of science is an important, reveals at first a very slow growth with roots in the remote past.
In his various biological aspects man shows evidence of descent from ancestor related to the great apes.
Many facts suggest a vast area in south central Asia north of the Himalayan mountains as the place where the human stem arose.
The time when our ancestors became really human probably could not be stated definitely, even if all the circumstances were known, for the change must have been a very gradual one.
However, it certainly was completed before the beginning of the Pleistocene.
The geological epoch, following the Pliocene and preceding our own Recent Epoch, was distinguished by extraordinary cooling of the earth.
Four times great ice sheets spread southward over lands of the northern hemisphere, and four times they related.
During each of these Ice Ages, distinctive mammals appeared, some of gigantic proportions, and their skeleton, buried by dust storms or in the sediments of the swollen of the warm interglacial ages, enable geologist to recognize deposits laid down in any one age.
On other evidence, geologists estimate the length of these ages in years and the whole epoch is believed by American authorities to have lasted a million years ending about twenty-five thousand years ago.
Very early in the Pleistocene primitive men were living in widely separated localities, probably migrants escaping competition with more progressive races at home.
The most primitive of these is the Trinil man (Pithecanthropus) of Java. He was very ape-like, but recent discoveries (1937) shown anatomical features that distinctively human.
There is however no evidence of distinctively human behavior. It is different with Peking man (Sinanthropus), who inhibited caves eastern China at about the same time.
He had larger brain, and he made tools and fire, - activities as distinctively human as articulate speech.
When he learned a kindle a fire from sparks that flew as he chipped flints to make his crude implements, he made the first application of a physical principle to human needs.
Perhaps earlier in time, but with more modern features the Piltdown man (Eoanthropus) was established in southeastern England in the Pliocene or earliest Pleistocene.
A somewhat later type, of Mid-Pleistocene age, the Neanderthal, pursing the great beasts, overran Europe during the second interglacial period. Around their camp fires they made the first completely flaked flint implement, the hand ax- tool characteristic of the Old Stone Age, Paleolithic.
They in turn, gave way during the last Ice Age, perhaps 150,000 years ago, to modern man Homo sapiens, represented by the Brunn and Co-Magnon races.
The latter left in numerous cave dwellings implements of flint and bone and drawing and sculptures, showing fine powers or observation and great manual dexterity.
The Antiquity and Ancestry of Man
The history of human culture, in which the history of science is an important, reveals at first a very slow growth with roots in the remote past.
In his various biological aspects man shows evidence of descent from ancestor related to the great apes.
Many facts suggest a vast area in south central Asia north of the Himalayan mountains as the place where the human stem arose.
The time when our ancestors became really human probably could not be stated definitely, even if all the circumstances were known, for the change must have been a very gradual one.
However, it certainly was completed before the beginning of the Pleistocene.
The geological epoch, following the Pliocene and preceding our own Recent Epoch, was distinguished by extraordinary cooling of the earth.
Four times great ice sheets spread southward over lands of the northern hemisphere, and four times they related.
During each of these Ice Ages, distinctive mammals appeared, some of gigantic proportions, and their skeleton, buried by dust storms or in the sediments of the swollen of the warm interglacial ages, enable geologist to recognize deposits laid down in any one age.
On other evidence, geologists estimate the length of these ages in years and the whole epoch is believed by American authorities to have lasted a million years ending about twenty-five thousand years ago.
Very early in the Pleistocene primitive men were living in widely separated localities, probably migrants escaping competition with more progressive races at home.
The most primitive of these is the Trinil man (Pithecanthropus) of Java. He was very ape-like, but recent discoveries (1937) shown anatomical features that distinctively human.
There is however no evidence of distinctively human behavior. It is different with Peking man (Sinanthropus), who inhibited caves eastern China at about the same time.
He had larger brain, and he made tools and fire, - activities as distinctively human as articulate speech.
When he learned a kindle a fire from sparks that flew as he chipped flints to make his crude implements, he made the first application of a physical principle to human needs.
Perhaps earlier in time, but with more modern features the Piltdown man (Eoanthropus) was established in southeastern England in the Pliocene or earliest Pleistocene.
A somewhat later type, of Mid-Pleistocene age, the Neanderthal, pursing the great beasts, overran Europe during the second interglacial period. Around their camp fires they made the first completely flaked flint implement, the hand ax- tool characteristic of the Old Stone Age, Paleolithic.
They in turn, gave way during the last Ice Age, perhaps 150,000 years ago, to modern man Homo sapiens, represented by the Brunn and Co-Magnon races.
The latter left in numerous cave dwellings implements of flint and bone and drawing and sculptures, showing fine powers or observation and great manual dexterity.
The Antiquity and Ancestry of Man
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