Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past. Anthropologists study everything about being human, including our origins as a species, our present-day cultures, and how humanity interacts with the environment. Anthropology takes a broad approach to understanding the many different aspects of the human experience. Some anthropologists consider what makes up our biological bodies and genetics, as well as our bones, diet, and health. Others look to the past to see how human groups lived hundreds or thousands of years ago and what was important to them. Around the world, they observe communities as they exist today, to understand the practices of different groups of people from an insider’s perspective. And they study how people use language, make meaning, and organize social action in all social groups and contexts.
Anthropology is divided into three subfields: sociocultural, biological, and archaeology. Sociocultural anthropology interprets the content of particular cultures, explains variation among cultures, and studies processes of cultural change and social transformation. Biological anthropology studies a variety of aspects of human evolutionary biology. Some examine fossils and apply their observations to understanding human evolution; others compare morphological, biochemical genetic, and physiological adaptations of living humans to their environments; still others observe behavior of human and nonhuman primates (monkeys and apes) to understand the roots of human behavior. Archaeology studies the material remains of present and past cultural systems to understand the technical, social and political organization of those systems and the larger cultural evolutionary process that stand behind them.
Anthropologists typically hold graduate degrees, either doctorates or masters degrees. Some anthropologists hold undergraduate degrees in other fields than anthropology and graduate degrees in anthropology. Anthropology encompasses a wider range of professions including the rising fields of forensic anthropology, digital anthropology, and cyber anthropology. Anthropologists can work as professors, work for corporations, nonprofit organizations, as well government agencies. The field is very large and people can do a lot as a cultural anthropologist.
