Presenter: Lecturer:
Track 5.2
Let’s look at the branches of anthropology. In the first year here, you study the discipline in general, but in your second year, you specialize. Firstly, there is cultural anthropology. In this branch, we look at particular cultures and try to understand their attitudes and beliefs.
And secondly, we have linguistic anthropology. This branch looks at the way that language has developed from prehistoric times. Thirdly, archaeological anthropology. Here we look at the evidence of customs and habits from ancient cultures. Finally, there is biological anthropology, which considers the differences between human beings and our closest animal relatives, the apes. So that’s cultural, linguistic, archaeological and biological. Which branch are you most interested in? Well, you don’t have to decide now!
Now, let’s hear a little bit about the history of the discipline. In fact, it is a very old subject. The name comes from Greek … anthropos in Ancient Greek means ‘a human being’, and ology is, of course, the study of something. The first important person is Herodotus, who studied human beings in terms of culture in the 5th
century before the Common Era. He was
mainly a historian – in fact, he is sometimes called the Father of History, but he is also, in some ways, the father of anthropology, although he did not use that term. He wrote the history of different countries, including his own. He wrote about kings and battles, like all historians through the ages. But Herodotus also studied the people themselves. He didn’t stay at home and simply write down the stories which he had heard. He actually visited foreign countries and conducted interviews with people from the culture. That is very important. It is still a major way in which anthropologists do their research. He described customs and habits that were very different from those of his own culture, Ancient Greece. For example, he wrote about the Minoan culture, where the women were more important than the men. He also described the Scythians, who practised human sacrifice in their culture. Remember these examples. We’ll come back to them later.
Quite a long break then before the next important people in anthropology. In the 14th century CE, there were two famous
travellers. Firstly, there was Marco Polo from Italy, who visited India and China. Secondly, Ibn Khaldun, who travelled from Tunisia throughout the Middle East and Africa. They brought back amazing stories of other cultures, like Herodotus had done.
Now, some people believed the stories of exotic cultures, and some didn’t. In fact, by the Middle Ages, some people called Herodotus the Father of Lies, not the Father of History. But in the 15th
and 16th and 16th centuries, people from Europe started to
centuries were the age of exploration. It began with Christopher Columbus, in 1492. He sailed from Spain to the Americas, which was a new world for people from Europe. In the next 200 years, Spanish, French and British colonists sailed to the Americas. These travellers found cultures that were very different from their own. For example, they encountered the Aztecs in Central America, who sacrificed humans, in the same way that the Scythians did in Herodotus’s books. They met the Iroquois in North America, who believed that women were more important than men – just like the Minoans in the writings of Herodotus.
believe once again that other cultures existed with very different customs. Why did this happen? The 15th
Oh, sorry. I see that we’re running out of time. I must just mention the last point – and the most important point – about anthropology. The old view and the modern view.
For most of history, up to the 20th century, anthropologists took an ethnocentric view. This means that they looked at other
cultures from the standpoint of their own culture. They said, in effect, ‘My culture is normal. If your culture is different from mine, your culture is abnormal.’ In many cases, they went much further. They said, ‘We are civilized. You are uncivilized.’ In some cases, they even said, ‘I must force you to be civilized.’ So that is the old view. But, for most people and all anthropologists, this ethnocentric view has changed now. Anthropologists today say, ‘Your culture is different from mine, but both cultures are normal.’ And they go much further. They say, ‘Cultural diversity is important – in other words, we need different cultures in the world.’ In fact, the General Conference of UNESCO said in 2001, ‘... cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature.’
Actually, if we go back to the beginning, this was the view of Herodotus, 2,500 years ago. He believed that we should be proud of the achievements of our own culture, but we should also be proud of the achievements of other cultures. But, even today, some people do not accept the view of Herodotus, or the view of modern anthropologists. They believe that only their own culture is acceptable and other beliefs and attitudes must be changed, by violence if necessary. There are many examples. For instance, minorities in some regions are forbidden from religious worship that is different from the local culture. They are not allowed to celebrate the holidays of their culture.
OK. I am right out of time. To sum up, anthropology is a very wide subject which has been studied for centuries, but it is still very relevant today. Anthropologists can explain cultural diversity and help to stop it becoming the cause of cultural conflict and terrorism. Thank you ... and I hope to see you all here at the beginning of the next term.
Transcripts 203
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216
