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History of anthropology in this article refers primarily to the 18th- and 19th-century precursors of modern anthropology. The term anthropology itself, innovated as a Neo-Latin scientific word during the Renaissance, has always meant "the study (or science) of man". The topics to be included and the terminology have varied historically.
The term strongly suggests natural selection, yet Spencer saw evolution as extending into realms of sociology and ethics, so he also supported Lamarckism. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Spencer developed an all-embracing conception of evolution as the progressive development of the physical world, biological organisms, the human mind, and human culture and societies.
Magnus Hundt's Antropologium de hominis dignitate, natura et proprietatibus, de elementis, partibus et membris humani corporis, published in Leipzig in 1501, serves to explain the body not only anatomically and physiologically, but philosophically and religiously too, stating that humans were created in the image of God and represent a microcosm of the world as God created it.
It is believed that William Caudell was the first to discover the field of medical anthropology. Currently, research in medical anthropology is one of the main growth areas in the field of anthropology as a whole. It focuses on the following six basic fields: [55] The development of systems of medical knowledge and medical care
The one has been the salvaging of distinct cultural forms of life from a process of apparent global Westernization. With both its romantic appeal and its scientific intentions, anthropology has stood for the refusal to accept this conventional perception of homogenization toward a dominant Western model.
Ethnoecology is a field of environmental anthropology, and has derived much of its characteristics from classic as well as more modern theorists. Franz Boas was one of the first anthropologists to question unilineal evolution, the belief that all societies follow the same, unavoidable path towards Western civilization.
Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions, and institutions. A common analogy called the organic or biological analogy, popularized by Herbert Spencer , presents these parts of society as human body "organs" that work toward the proper functioning of the ...
Cultural ecology as developed by Steward is a major subdiscipline of anthropology. It derives from the work of Franz Boas and has branched out to cover a number of aspects of human society, in particular the distribution of wealth and power in a society, and how that affects such behaviour as hoarding or gifting (e.g. the tradition of the potlatch on the Northwest North American coast).