History of anthropology facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

The history of anthropology is about how people have studied humankind over time. The word "anthropology" means "the study of humans." This field has grown a lot, and what it covers has changed over the years. This article focuses on the early days of anthropology, mainly in the 1700s and 1800s. For how modern anthropology developed after 1900, you can look at the main Anthropology article.

What Does "Anthropology" Mean?

The word "anthropology" comes from two old Greek words: anthrōpos, meaning "human being" or "humankind," and -logia, meaning "study." So, it literally means "the study of human beings."

This word wasn't used in ancient Greece or Rome. It first appeared in scholarly Latin in France during the Renaissance. From there, it became "anthropologie" in French and then "anthropology" in English. It's like other "–ology" words, such as "biology" (study of life) or "archeology" (study of ancient things).

Even though the word itself is newer, some ancient writers explored ideas that we now consider part of anthropology. They wrote about different groups of people and their ways of life.

Anthropology as the "Science of History"

Marvin Harris, a historian of anthropology, said that anthropology is "the science of history." He didn't mean history in the usual sense of specific past events. Instead, he meant it as the "natural history of society" or the "universal history of mankind." This idea was popular in the 1700s and 1800s.

Just like natural history looks at plants and animals from the past and present, cultural or social history looks at how societies have developed over time. This includes both recorded history and prehistory. It focuses on how social systems and ways of life have changed.

Many 19th-century anthropologists believed that societies developed according to certain rules or "laws." Harris wanted to bring back this idea, suggesting that similar situations tend to lead to similar results in human societies. He called his own idea "cultural materialism," which looks at how technology and the environment shape culture.

Harris also believed that we learn about societies by observing people's actions and thoughts. He said that institutions (like governments or schools) aren't physical things; only people are. When people act in society, they follow these "laws of history" without even knowing it.

He also talked about "emic" and "etic" views. An "emic" view is how people within a culture understand their own world. An "etic" view is how an outside observer describes it. Good anthropology tries to understand both.

Early Ideas Like Anthropology

Some early writings, even before the word "anthropology" was used, had ideas similar to what anthropologists study today. These are sometimes called "proto-anthropology." They often combined travel writing with ideas about how societies work.

Ancient Times

Many experts believe that some ancient Greek and Roman writers explored topics that are now part of anthropology.

Herodotus

Herodotus (around 484 – 425 BCE) was a Greek writer. He wrote about the wars between the Greeks and Persians. But he didn't just write about battles. He also described the different peoples within the Persian Empire and to its north. He was often the first to record details about these groups.

Herodotus gathered information by reading other accounts, interviewing people, and taking his own notes during his travels. People have called him the "Father of History" and also the "Father of Anthropology" because of his detailed descriptions of different cultures. He called his way of traveling and taking notes "theorizing," which meant exploring with a scientific purpose. He looked at people's daily lives, customs, and laws.

Tacitus

The Roman historian Tacitus (around 56 – 120 CE) also wrote important accounts of ancient Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic peoples. His writings are some of the only surviving records from that time.

Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, some scholars also did comparative studies of different peoples.

Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a Persian scholar from the Islamic Golden Age, wrote about the people, customs, and religions of India. He lived among the people, learned their language, and studied their texts. He tried to be objective and compare cultures, much like modern anthropologists.

Medieval European scholars also contributed. John of Plano Carpini wrote a detailed report about his time among the Mongols, which was unusual for its time because it described a non-European culture in detail.

Marco Polo's detailed observations of nature, people, and geography also showed how humans varied across different places. His accounts were so thorough that he's sometimes called "the father of modern anthropology."

Renaissance

The term "anthropology" in English, meaning a natural science of humanity, first appeared in Richard Harvey's book in 1593. He used it to describe the part of history that looks at people's families, skills, and actions.

The Enlightenment and Anthropology

Many scholars see modern anthropology as growing out of the Age of Enlightenment (1715–1789). During this time, Europeans started to study human behavior in a more organized way. This was partly because European countries were exploring and colonizing many new parts of the world, encountering many different cultures.

Fields like law, history, and sociology began to look more like their modern forms and helped shape the new "social sciences," including anthropology.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) taught a course on anthropology and wrote a major book about it. However, he never left Germany or studied other cultures directly. Still, he helped make anthropology a topic of serious philosophical study.

During this period, there was a belief that human society, like nature, followed certain rules that could be observed. Studying the languages, cultures, and objects of people in colonies was seen as similar to studying the plants and animals of those places.

Early anthropology was divided. Some believed in "unilineal evolution," meaning all societies went through the same stages from simple to advanced. Others had different ideas, like "diffusionism," where ideas spread from one culture to another. Many 19th-century thinkers saw non-European societies as clues to how early human societies in Europe might have been.

Modern Anthropology: A Quick Look

Eric Wolf, an anthropologist, once called anthropology "the most scientific of the humanities, and the most humanistic of the social sciences." Understanding its history helps us see where it fits in with other subjects.

Anthropology grew from the study of "natural history," which included studying human beings, especially those in European colonies. This is why, for example, an early anthropologist like Lewis Henry Morgan could write about both the Iroquois people and beavers! This also explains why artifacts from African or Native American cultures were sometimes displayed in natural history museums alongside dinosaur bones, while European art was in fine arts museums. Luckily, museum practices have changed a lot since then.

Modern anthropology uses scientific methods, including interviews and "participant-observation" (where researchers live with and participate in the culture they are studying). It also uses the idea of evolution. A key idea is "culture," which anthropologists see as both a universal human ability to learn and adapt, and as the specific beliefs and practices of different groups. Anthropology tries to understand all parts of human life: biological, linguistic, material, and symbolic.

Different Ways Anthropology Developed Around the World

As academic subjects became more specialized in the 1800s, anthropology became distinct from biology and from purely historical studies. A common criticism was that other social sciences often focused only on Western societies, while anthropology focused on "others."

Britain

In Britain, anthropology developed alongside the expansion of the British Empire. Museums, like the British Museum, were important for displaying artifacts. Sadly, there were also "human zoos" where people from colonies were put on display, showing the darker side of this period. This practice, which was very popular, showed how people were often seen as "savages" to be studied.

By the late 1800s, anthropology started to look more like it does today. There was a belief that all societies went through the same evolutionary stages, from primitive to advanced. Non-European societies were sometimes seen as "living fossils" that could help understand Europe's past.

E.B. Tylor and James Frazer

Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) and James Frazer (1854-1941) are seen as early leaders of modern social anthropology in Britain. They mostly learned about other cultures by reading books and reports from missionaries and travelers, rather than doing fieldwork themselves.

Tylor believed in the idea of societies progressing through stages. He also suggested that cultures could share similar traits through independent invention, inheritance from ancestors, or by spreading from one group to another. Tylor defined culture as "that complex whole, which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by [humans] as [members] of society."

Frazer studied religion, myths, and magic. His famous work, The Golden Bough, compared religious beliefs and symbols from around the world. Neither Tylor nor Frazer focused on how different parts of a culture fit together or on long-term fieldwork.

Bronislaw Malinowski and the British School

Around the early 1900s, some anthropologists felt that simply categorizing cultural elements wasn't enough. They wanted to understand how societies worked *in the present*. This led to a new focus on long-term fieldwork.

In 1898, Cambridge University sent a team to the Torres Strait Islands. Their findings set new standards for describing cultures.

Later, Bronisław Malinowski (1884–1942) found himself stuck in New Guinea during World War I. He used this time to do very intensive fieldwork, living with the people he studied. His book, Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), became a classic. It showed how important it was to get "the native's point of view" by living among them. He also suggested that social institutions work to meet people's needs.

A. R. Radcliffe-Brown also published an important work in 1922. He developed "structural functionalism," which looked at how different parts of a society work together to keep the social system balanced and harmonious.

Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown were very influential because they trained many students and built up university departments. Radcliffe-Brown, in particular, spread his ideas about "Social Anthropology" by teaching across the British Commonwealth. Their students produced many famous studies, like The Nuer by Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard.

After World War II

After World War II, anthropologists like Max Gluckman and the "Manchester School" added new ideas. They looked at conflicts within societies and how individuals navigate social structures.

British anthropology had a big impact, helping to change views on religion, promote cultural relativism (understanding cultures on their own terms), and shift focus from historical development to how societies work in the present.

Today, British anthropology is very diverse and connects with many other social theories. In British Commonwealth countries, social anthropology is often separate from physical anthropology (which studies human biology) and archaeology.

Canada

Canadian anthropology started with records from travelers and missionaries, like the Jesuit missionaries in the 1600s, who wrote about native tribes. The academic field in Canada has been influenced by both British and American traditions, creating a mix called "Socio-cultural" anthropology.

George Mercer Dawson of the Geological Survey of Canada supported anthropology, helping the field grow in Canada. Later, a Division of Anthropology was created within the Geological Survey in 1910.

Anthropologists from England and the USA, like the linguist Edward Sapir, helped shape Canada's unique style of anthropology.

France

French anthropology has a less clear history than British or American traditions. Many influential French writers in anthropology were trained in sociology or philosophy.

Marcel Mauss

Most people consider Marcel Mauss (1872–1950) to be the founder of French anthropology. He was the nephew of the famous sociologist Émile Durkheim. Mauss and his colleagues used studies of different cultures to analyze societies that were not as complex as European nations.

Two of Mauss's works are still very important: Essay on the Gift, which analyzed how exchange and giving gifts work in societies, and his study on the idea of the "person" across cultures.

Between the World Wars, French interest in anthropology often mixed with art movements like surrealism. Most "ethnologie" (the French term for ethnography) was done in museums, like the Musée de l'Homme.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

Above all, Claude Lévi-Strauss helped make anthropology an official academic field in France. His theory of structuralism, which looked at the hidden structures in language and symbols, had a huge impact across many subjects. Lévi-Strauss also connected with American and British anthropologists and set up research centers in France.

Other important French thinkers in the 1970s included Pierre Clastres, who studied "primitive societies" and argued that they actively resisted having a powerful state. He believed that leaders in these societies were only spokespeople and had no real power over their own people.

Pierre Bourdieu, another major French thinker, also worked in both sociology and anthropology. His fieldwork among the Kabyle people in Algeria was anthropological, while his studies of fashion and culture in Europe were sociological.

United States

From the early 1800s to the early 1900s, anthropology in the United States was greatly shaped by the presence of Native American societies. Early work was done by people from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Smithsonian Institution.

During the 1830s, a period when Native Americans were forcibly removed from their lands and slavery was strongly defended, a group called the "American School of Anthropology" became prominent. They supported the idea of "polygenism," meaning that different human "races" had separate origins. This idea was used to justify slavery and discrimination.

However, this view was challenged. Frederick Douglass, a famous abolitionist, directly attacked these ideas, arguing that they were used to excuse slavery.

Lewis Henry Morgan

Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881), a lawyer, became a scholar of the Iroquois people. He compared religions, governments, and especially family systems (kinship) across different cultures. Like others at the time, Morgan believed societies moved through stages: "savagery," "barbarism," and "civilization." He often used technology, like bow-making, to show a culture's stage of development.

Franz Boas

Franz Boas (1858-1942) was a key figure in establishing academic anthropology in the United States. He disagreed with the idea of a single evolutionary path for all societies. Boas believed in careful, detailed observation and was skeptical of broad generalizations. For example, he studied immigrant children to show that biological "race" was not fixed and that behavior came from learning, not just biology.

Influenced by German ideas, Boas argued that the world had many distinct "cultures," not just societies at different levels of "civilization." He believed each culture needed to be studied on its own terms.

Boas fought against discrimination towards immigrants, Black people, and Native Americans. Many American anthropologists followed his lead in working for social reform. Boas also helped create the "Four Field Approach" in American anthropology, which divides the subject into four main areas: sociocultural anthropology (studying cultures and societies), biological anthropology (studying human evolution and biology), linguistic anthropology (studying language), and archaeology (studying past cultures through their remains).

Boas trained many students at Columbia University, including Alfred Kroeber, Robert Lowie, Edward Sapir, and Ruth Benedict. They produced detailed studies of Native American cultures, which helped challenge the idea of a single evolutionary process. Kroeber and Sapir's focus on Native American languages also helped make linguistics a broader science, not just focused on European languages.

Later, students like Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict explored "Culture and Personality," looking at how individual personalities are shaped by cultural and social forces. Their books, like Coming of Age in Samoa, became very popular.

Other Countries

Anthropology developed differently in other parts of the world. In southern and central Europe, anthropologists often worked with folklorists and linguists to build cultural ideas about nationalism. They focused on local groups and their folk cultures.

Russia had a mix of influences. It had many distinct, non-industrial peoples, similar to the Americas. But it also participated in the nationalist movements of Central and Eastern Europe. After the 1917 Revolution, anthropology in the Soviet Union was heavily shaped by Marxist ideas about social evolution.

In Greece, there was a study of folklore called laographia since the 1800s. After World War II, Anglo-American anthropologists introduced new ways of studying cultures from an outside perspective.

In Italy, the study of ethnology (the study of cultures) was not as prominent as other fields, but it still had important researchers like Ernesto De Martino.

Some German and Austrian scholars also contributed to cultural anthropology, studying both non-Western societies and Western civilization itself.

India

Asian countries and former British colonies like India also developed their own ways of studying anthropology. In India, the Asiatic Society was founded in 1784. While anthropology wasn't a separate subject then, scholars studied language, history, and sciences.

The British administration's census operations, starting in 1881, provided a lot of anthropological information. The first Census Commissioner, Sir H.H. Risley, even classified the Indian population into "races" in 1908. After India gained independence, the census focused more on economic development.

The first professional anthropology journal in India, the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, was founded in 1886. Anthropology was also included in the first Indian Science Congress Association meeting in 1914.

The first Department of Anthropology in India was set up at Calcutta University in 1920. Important Indian anthropologists, some trained abroad, became founding teachers there. These included Saratchandra Mitra, Ramaprasad Chanda, and Panchanan Mitra. They developed a strong tradition of fieldwork in social-cultural anthropology and physical measurements in physical anthropology.

Another important journal, Man in India, was started in 1921 by Sarat Chandra Roy. He discussed major Western theories like evolutionism and functionalism, and also tried to combine ancient Indian philosophy with Western anthropological ideas. Panchanan Mitra, known for his book Prehistoric India (1923), shared similar views.

Bhupendranath Datta (1880–1961), the younger brother of Swami Vivekananda, also made important contributions. He studied sociology and anthropology abroad and wrote pioneering works on Indian society and culture from a Marxist perspective.

Over time, other universities in India also developed strong anthropology departments. The Anthropological Survey of India, a large government organization, was established by Dr. B.S. Guha. It focused on a holistic approach, combining anthropology with other sciences like biochemistry and linguistics.

A 2001 report showed that most anthropology departments in India were created after 1960, especially in states with many tribal populations. Most departments teach all sub-disciplines of anthropology.

Indian anthropologists emphasized collecting data from the field more than building theories. For example, Professor S.R.K. Chopra discovered early human fossils in the Siwalik hills. Nirmal Kumar Bose, as Director of the Anthropological Survey of India, led a huge project to collect data on the social, economic, and cultural aspects of villages across India. The results were published in Peasant life in India (1961), showing the diversity and unity of rural India. Bose believed anthropologists had a responsibility to use their knowledge to help build a more equal nation.

The "People of India" project, launched in 1985 by Dr. K.S. Singh, was another massive effort. It aimed to create profiles of all communities in India and study how they were affected by change. Over 600 scholars participated, identifying and describing thousands of communities.

After independence, Indian anthropologists also focused on nation-building. T.C. Das studied the Bengal famine in 1949, using fieldwork to show the suffering of the people. His data was later used by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. Das's study of the Purum Kuki tribe also became important in international debates about kinship theories.

Anthropologists like Surajit Sinha and Irawati Karve studied the social impact of resettling refugees and people displaced by large development projects like dams. B.K. Roy Burman conducted a pioneering study on the social effects of industrialization in Rourkela. Indian physical anthropologists also contributed to understanding human biology, growth, nutrition, and health, aiming to help build a healthy nation.

The way anthropology developed around the world has taken many different paths.

Recent Developments

In the mid-20th century, American anthropology began to look more closely at its own history. In 1967, Marvin Harris published The Rise of Anthropological Theory, which examined how anthropological ideas developed. George W. Stocking, Jr. also started a school of thought that looked at the historical background of anthropological movements.