Talk:Anthropology/Archive 2

inlaws
What do we call our son in laws brother relation to us —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.101.65.213 (talk) 21:06, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Your "Son-in-law's brother" Slrubenstein  |  Talk 23:15, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

History of anthropology and further work on this article
I do believe this article is on the right track, although the parts on the various nations might eventually need to be broken out into other sections and then summarized for this article. I want to keep the ordinary reader in mind, and there's so much of anthropology that's interesting (and which people expect to hear about) that isn't included here. We need to buff up the links to other articles within the anthropology project.

I have more citations on the history of anthropology and somewhere have the name of whoever it was that gave the keynote address on hunter-gatherers that I mentioned in my recent edit. I'll find it and put that in, too. There needs to be a section on "common topics" in anthropology, which would include (in addition to kinship/social structure, language, etc.) the early documentation of strange or marginal practices (it was a really big deal) and on anthropological controversies (feminist anthropology has its own article, which needs work and is little more than a start; applied anthropology has a fascinating history, etc.)

Anthropological theory seems to be the main focus of this article, as opposed to ethnographic writing, which is interesting. I'm mulling that over, need to reread the whole article.Levalley (talk) 22:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If we are going to draw on that keynote address, we don't just need the name, we need the proper and full citation for where a reader can find the address. That said, I do not see how the existence or extinction of hunter-gatherers is relevant to the section - I do not see how it is relevant to whether anthropologists largely work in the third world or first world, close to home or far.  I do not see how it is relevant to the question of whether an anthropology provides an etic account or an emic account. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Four subfields approach
Just wanted to go on record as not opposing, in anyway, the use of this organizational scheme, just don't think it's merely an American viewpoint at this point in time. It isn't an issue that needs much discussion, it's useful and well-understood as a way of introducing people to anthropology. I would expect a great deal of what is in this article, therefore, to be moved to pages about the four subfields, eventually, as there really isn't a "history of overall" anthropology that can be contained in one article. The rise of each subfield can be treated on its own page. With this in mind, I'll continue to try and help improve this article. Anthropology, as it is understood by the general public, is usually "cultural anthropology." However, educated laypersons will ask an anthropologist, "Where do you dig?" I'm going to make a list (on my user page) of things I think the typical person would expect to see in a general article about anthropology. A lot of what is here is very well-written, but rather theoretical. A "lands and peoples" approach would be one addition that would make the page more interesting and a better reference for those in other fields (or just the interested reader) to peruse.Levalley (talk) 22:29, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Anthropology
I do not understand this edit. The paragraph is about a conflict between those who think Western anthropologists conduct research in exotic places (primitive people, third world) versus those who think anthropologists can conduct research close to home.


 * If that's what it is about, it's not clear. Indeed, the entire article jumps from point to point without much logic - who are "those who think Western anthropologists conduct research in exotic places"?  Well - most of the reading public, right?  Who is in the second group (those who think...close to home)?  Virtually no laypeople.  But - the article just jumped from talking about what anthropology is to what "people think anthropology is."  Two different things, no warning.  BTW, both should be addressed.  If I were writing this article from scratch, I'd put "What many people think anthropology is" at the top of the article - however, one would have to find a source for that statement (and as it stands right now -there aren't enough sources for either of the statements you just said the paragraph was about.
 * I agree with everything you say, except that it was clear to me that the paragraph was about the belief that anthropologists work in third world countries when more and more are working "at home" (which I consider poorly presented). Slrubenstein  |  Talk 00:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Your edit introduces a theoretical/methodological point about emic and etic.


 * Which, unless the paragraph has a better topic sentence, could easily be seen as the subject of the paragraph. However, I will take the statement out, myself, as soon as I get a chance to - but I'll add a topic sentence (based on what you just wrote here) and put this dialogue on talk page for the article (where it belongs).

I do not object to your adding material on this distinction, but it seems like a separate point. I can see how they are related but they are still separate issues - one is "where do anthropologists work" and the other is "how do anthropologists work."


 * Which, would you say, is actually the topic of the paragraph? Above, you indicate that the paragraph is about "where" they work (and yet, the distinction isn't geographical, it's about "exotic and faraway," two empty terms.  If you really think you can parse "how" and "where" properly, fine - but "faraway" and "exotic" are going to be heard by most people as being about place, not method.
 * Yeah, I think whoever wrote it was trying to talk about where anthropologists work. In fact, I think a lot of people think anthropologists work in "exotic" or primitive places so it is a good idea to have a paragraph addressing this. Don't you? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't they be separate paragraphs or sections? By the way, what is your cource for, "The term used by many anthropologists for an objective study (or attempted objective study) of a culture not own's own is etic?" This strikes me as wrong. I do not see any reason why an anthropologist cannot produce an etic account of her own culture. Surely an English-speaking linguist can descrobe English phonetics. Why can't an English anthropologist provide an etic account of English culture or some portion of it?


 * I'll get the sources together - I'd begin with almost any introductory textbook in anthropology, but in particular Womack's Being Human comes to mind. She is citing someone else, though, so I'll find the original sources.  I linked to the sources on the discussion between Marvin Harris and the others who invented the term on the page on etic and emic - you might want to check out Headlandt's article, the link is on the etic/emic page (where it belongs).  It's not about phonetics.  So you think "etic" means "inside one's own culture"?  Where, may I ask,  are you getting that view?  Would it be rude for me to ask what your background in anthropology is, at this point?


 * Come again? Where did I write "etic" means "inside one's own culture"? I'd rather you not ask what my background in anthropology is because our personal background is irrelevant.  But you are quite within your rights to ask where I get my view from.  I read Kenneth Pike, Ward Goodenough, and Marvin Harris because those seem to me to be the most commonly cited sources.  Am I wrong? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I also must point out that "Still, it seems to be a valid generalization that anthropology from its beginnings in the late 19th century until the late 1960s, focused primarily on etic analysis (or thought it did). In 1970, at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association, a keynote address focused on just this shift, as it was pointed out that hunter-gatherers were in effect, extinct and unavailable for study, and small groups with unusual languages were regularly becoming extinct" violates NPOV. It is not for any editor to suggest what may or may not be a valid generalization or a valid anything. If you have a significant view from a reliable and verifiable source that forwards this generalization, we can put it in with the proper citation. Moreover, you need to provide a verifiable source for the claim that a keynote address claimed thatr hunter-gatherers are extinct. My library doesn't have "Proceedings of the Annual Meetng 1970" - can you provide a proper citation so I can order it through inter-library loan? Also, it is not clear to me hoe the existence or extinction of hunter-gatherers bears on etic analysis. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 15:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll find the citation - and until then, I'll take it out. However, I have to say it's a pretty well known address ( I should know the name of the speaker, but I'm bad with names and good with dates).  I will revert my edits, paste this dialogue onto the talk page there.  It's not a book - you probably won't be able to get it through interlibrary loan.  The AAA has a newsletter in which it publishes the proceedings of the meetings, as do nearly all academic associations.  I don't know the date of the newsletter, but it is cited in (once again) many introductory textbooks.  since you are apparently a stickler for immediate citations (rather than immediate article improvement), I'll remember that.  I work in a different manner and would prefer the article make sense first.  Trust me, the citatations are available - but it's the kind of scutwork I don't have time to do.  So, it's an issue of (once again), Wikification managing to bore and/or annoy away potential editors.Levalley (talk) 00:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter whether it is a well-known address or not - my point is (1) our policy, the source has to be verifiable, if it is not we cannot use it. Does the newsletter publish the contents of the address?  From what you say, we just cannot use this source as it does not meet wikipedia policy.  I don't mean to bore you, but we have policies for a reason.  Be that as it may, you still haven't explained to me how the extinction of hunter-gatherers by the 1970s means that anthropology from the 19th century to the 1960s focused primarily on etic analysis, or thouht it did.  Does the keynote address say that anthropologists from the 19th century thought they were doing etic analysis?  I just do not follow the logic.  Sorry to bore you, I really want to understand. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

As one should be able to see from that dialogue, citations and sources are much desired (and I agree). So with that being said, I won't be adding anything to the article in the near future, but I am going to go through it section by section, note where it is under-cited, needs facts (claiming some book is "classic" is an extravagant claim in anthropology - there's an entire literature just on that topic).

See my user page for the topics that I thought would be in an encyclopedic entry on anthropology (not organized, just mentioned). I wrote it off the top of my head - but it wasn't hard to see that my view of what the article should be and what the article is are quite different. I'll just stick to basic wiki-procedures and hope that someone else actually finds the time to edit the article.Levalley (talk) 00:31, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I am confused. Are you bored and annoyed by my sharing my concerns, especially about citations?  Or. as you say here, do you agree that we need properly cited material? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 01:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Copyediting problems/critical thinking problems
Has anyone really not noticed that the sentence in the lead paragraph that starts "In Great Britain" makes no sense? If something is "originally divided" into two parts, one part of which contains subparts, how can it be said that there were originally two parts. Archaeology doesn't start in one place (has no origin), but is somehow subsumed (when? who says?) under "physical anthropology"? If so, then it would be hard to find a point in time for this division (much less to say it was an "original" division. Note that the verb choice indicates that this is a process, rather than a definition.  If it were written as a sort definition or even historical statement:  In Great Britain, anthropology was de facto divided into two parts, at approximate ________ point in time), that might make sense. Good luck finding that point in time, though. I'm going to put a copyedit notice on this article, as much is needed. I am too involved in the subject matter for this to be an article I can copyedit - someone else needs to go through the whole article and copyedit for problems like this one. I will, however, add fact tags as needed (many, many are needed).Levalley (talk) 00:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Citations needed
Where's the citation for archaeology being viewed as part of cultural anthropology in Great Britain? There aren't that many universities in Great Britain - one would probably want to go with the views of, say, Cambridge or Oxford. This is not the current state of how their departments are set up - so if it refers to some points of time in the past (since the 1890's), shouldn't it be clear that it was in the past and has now changed? Why does the article lead with such a confusing (and ultimately irrelevant) kind of "fact"? At any rate, citation is needed (badly). I've got a whole library of books on the history of anthropology here, and can't find any major author who states any such thing as that in Great Britain, some division was made of the subject matter into two parts, with one of the parts (cultural) being divided into further subparts.Levalley (talk) 00:43, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Kuper citation
First, an inline citation from Kuper's work needs to be in place for such a sweeping generalization (footnote 3). Second, in looking at reviews of Kuper's work, it's obvious there's a lot of controversy about his conclusions. Thirdly, Kuper intended only to cover social anthropology in Britain up until the 1960's and does very little on the history of archaeology. There's a whole separate view on the subject, in the history of archaeology. In other words, starting an article on "anthropology in general" with a citation from someone who studied only British social anthropology up until 1960 is a serious error in analytic thinking. Wikipedia needs to focus on what anthropology is - right now. And use citations that are uncontroversial, etc. One improvement would be to have the page of the book from which this incredible generalization was taken, another improvement would be to have at least one citation from an archaeologist who agrees.Levalley (talk) 00:53, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The citation says it is pages 2-3, so my guess is that the sentence is paraphrase of whateve he says on pages 2-3.  If there is controvery about this view, the solution is to provide another significant view from a notable source, with a citation, to add the other view.  I know that his book only goes up to the 1960s but since the sentence is talking about "originally" (if that is what Kuper says), then that is besides the point, right?  I agree with you that the article should provide an account of anthropology today.  I see nothing wrong with describing how it came to be this way. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 01:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see where Kuper says that the distinction is "original" - just that it exists. It would be very hard, I'd think to find a moment in a general field like anthropology where a sudden distinction was made - the distinction between biological and sociocultural evolves, wavers, coalesces, moves again, etc - and I don't read Kuper has having stated anything like a firm conclusion on the origins of some kind of two-field method in early British anthropology.  Do you read him that way?  On pp 2-3 or any other pages?  It seems to me he might hint at that view in his introduction, but it is, after all, the introduction - there's got to be a better way of wording this.  I am wondering whether it's important enough to even try and fix.Levalley (talk) 20:12, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If he does not say "original," I say we should delete the word "original." If he provides a year, perhaps we should add the year. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 00:16, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Eric Wolf
Why, oh, why is Eric Wolf so important that he leads the history section? Don't history sections usually begin with "earliest time period" and not a general quote on the subject? Start with the Greeks, footnote it, go on to the various medieval attempts at ethnography.

Even better, define "ethnography" and introduce basic terms far earlier. History of anthropology not so important as it would appear - and section is not balanced.Levalley (talk) 01:05, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I do not know why the Wolf quote is there. The Wolf quote is not about the history of the subject at all!  It is about the institutional context.  Wolf seems to be saying anthropology can be a social science or a humanity.  Where would you put discussion of the institutional context? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 01:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know, exactly. I've tried to rework the lead paragraphs so that the reader will at least know that the article may cover "institutional context," by which I would assume is meant:  anthropology inside universities, professional associations, anthropology inside other institutions particularly museums, anthropologists as grant-receiving personnel, etc.  This would be, in and of itself, a rather long and boring section (my opinion, obviously) and so far, there is no such section.  So, until it gets written, I've changed the header and removed the quote.  I like Eric Wolf (and the quote) and am thinking that it would be interesting to gather together a bunch of quotes from anthropologists about what anthropology is, perhaps on a separate page linked to this one - it would be fun and interesting!  I've already provided a link to a guy in Britain who is collecting quotes just on what cultural anthropologists say culture is, and organizing them by time.  We should incorporate what he says into the cultural anthropology page.

On another topic, I am asking for help in getting an infobox for this page, so that we can list the subfields right up top, and then make sure each of the subfields has its own infobox listing further subfields, so that the entire branching array of main anthropological topics is covered. I'd want to focus on major articles that are well written - and so I'm going through and looking at the four subfields plus other subfields (I see no reason to follow the four subfield method at this point in time, it is a Wiki after all, and so much more flexible). The links on the biological anthropology page (so named now, rather than physical anthropology - so I need to go through this article and make that change all the way through) are good - I'm checking linguistics and cultural anthropology ASAP.Levalley (talk) 20:17, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Nationalistic and historic perspective; topic sentences
Since the approach this article takes is to mention history of theory first, then anthropologists by nationality, and then random aspects of other parts of anthropology (poorly cited), it seems only fair to mention the structure of the article (and the reasoning behind it) in the lead section. I've added citations for everything I've added. I have more citations if needed. Mind at least attempt to direct to pages or chapters. Anthropology is not divided up by nations; the history section here is woefully inadequate (as it would be for any large field of science). I need to take a look at how "physics" or "philosophy" organizes itself. But, anthropology (being newer than any of those two fields) should so state, and actually trace 1) the origin of the term (shocking that this article doesn't do more on Kant!) and 2) the development of the field a) as an academic discipline  and b) in general. With that in mind, I now feel comfortable not changing the scope of this article (such as it is), but instead now editing each section with a view that the article is about anthropologists by nation, first (anthropology itself is a distant point), and then random topics in anthropology. See my talk page for the topics I think should be worked in (and could be worked in, in fewer words than are here; I also will be disputing issues about who is "classic" in each subsection and whether the history section has consensus/neutrality. With citations.  Lots of 'em.Levalley (talk) 03:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

History and institutional context
Here go comments on this section. First, these two things have already received some mention in the lead paragraphs; I find it odd and redundant to go ahead with this section. That being said, if this section is to come next, then it needs to actually contain A) a history of anthropology (with more than one secondary source - and either go by secondary sources or be silent, as every single anthropologist would have a slightly different view)   and B) something about "institutional context"  (which has absolutely no meaning to me (as an anthropologist) and which needs to be in brackets and have its own separate article.  What, indeed, does it mean and where is it actually explored in this article?  I propose (if it is necessary to follow this outline) to have it say "history" and that's it - because that's almost entirely what the section is about, and it is weak as it is.  Also it is a history of theory primarily and not a history of anthropology.  Perhaps these should be broken out into subpages eventually.  If it were me, I'd go with "history of anthropology" first - meaning, "how has anthropology appeared to others in the time that it has existed? What's it for? What does it do? What are its hallmarks and achievements? What are its main concepts (as a science)? Who does it (without reference to nationality, but with reference to who does anthropology, as generally conceived in anthropology textbooks, both introductory and intended as introductory (such as Levi-Strauss, Lowie, Tylor, Harris, Spindler and Spindler, and many many others. They all say similar things, so it can be summarized.Levalley (talk) 03:24, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Note that, under "history of anthropology" it is claimed in the second paragraph that certain persons are part of the history of anthropology because they "they conducted or wrote detailed studies of the customs of different peoples." First, it is in no way claimed by any one of the references that these were studies. They were accounts, journals, writings, but not necessarily studies (and that's accoring to the references given. However, more important, the reader is now asked to assume that anthropology is about "customs of different peoples," which is mentioned for the first time here as if the reader already knew that.  In fact, it should have been mentioned in the lead.  If the leading paragraphs followed the citations now indicated, it would have mentioned that all three historians of anthropology agree that Cultural anthropology (which is what this lonely section seems mostly to be about - where is physical? archaeological? linguistic?) is the main part of the field. But this needs to be said to the poor reader who comes here, hoping to learn what anthropology is (perhaps before signing up for a course in it; or reading a book in it; or to further basic knowledge of it.)  I intend to change this to make the section headers reflect what is actually in the sections.Levalley (talk) 04:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Sticking to copyediting
This sentence:

The anthropologist Eric Wolf once described anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences."

is great - except that it would belong in the first section (what is anthropology?) and not in the second (history of anthropology or anthropological theory - I'm still deciding which it is). And why, out of the hundreds and hundreds of comments about what anthropology is (by anthropologists) would Wolf take precedence? Especially in an historical section? Makes no sense.

I realize this makes the lead paragraph of the second section weak, but that is something that needs to be fixed on a content level, not a copyediting level.Levalley (talk) 03:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

History of Anthropology section
I construe this title to include both "history of anthropology in general" and "history of anthropological theory." Just as in physics, theory and data go hand in hand (see Scientific Method, Physics, Theory for further viewpoints. The section is not quite up to snuff in doing both - and I would suggest it lean toward "anthropology" more than "anthropological theory," conswtantly emphasizing contributions that contributed to both, and leaving main contributors to one or the other (but not both) to separate sections.  For example, Levi-Strauss is both a major fieldworker/ethnographer AND a historian of anthropology (etc.)  By contrast, Marvin Harris, while a fieldworker, is by far better known for his contributions to anthropological theory and in particular, to the history of anthropology.  He is, in my view, the major historian of anthropology, although Erickson and Murphy (drawing heavily on Harris - see their bibliography, compare theirs to his, etc.) do add a few later notions; Harris got old and could not keep appending his history - but his IS a history, there is no way around it.Levalley (talk) 03:54, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I am still adding footnotes to the breadth of anthropology section (just before history), in order to support claims that Jane Goodall, Louis Leakey and many others are subsumed under anthropology (as mentioned in the lead section when mentioning enterprises that gave rise to anthropology - Leakey is from the 1930's, btw; bears mentioning; each of the four subfields or six subfields (British style) plus some others neither American nor British should be included in the lead.Levalley (talk) 05:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Levi-Strauss is just barely contemporary (this article could benefit from a definition of "contemporary") - he's 100 years old or more. He hasn't written much in a decade or more. Two decades, I'm thinking. Still, he's very important, so just saying he's "contemporary" isn't enough to establish him as the first person mentioned - although he's a lot more relevant (since his statement was about history) than Wolf (whose statement was about general anthropology - although everyone knows Wolf was speaking of cultural and not not general anthropology).Levalley (talk) 05:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Marvin Harris was not a historian, and The Rise of Anthropological Theory is explicitly polemical, so I do not see why you favor it over Kuper, who also wrote a history of American anthropology. even better of course would be works by real historians, and that are respected as such. I do not know what work by Levi-Strauss you consider a major work of history, although I would consider anything he writes a valuable primary source.  His The Story of Lynx was published in English about 15 years ago, i am not sure what he has published since but he certainly remains frequently cited.  Several of course have been critical of the quality of his fieldwork. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:14, 6 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Levi-Strauss's last p

Most people think anthropology is Cultural Anthropology
Let's admit it, most of this article is about cultural (and even then, just its theoretical aspects) rather than all the other subfields (regardless of which nation names theme). In researching for editing and copyediting this article, I found a couple of citations (Marvin Harris, I believe) stating that most people think "cultural anthropology" when they hear "anthropology." I don't think Wikiarticles need to take opinion polls as to the scope of their topics, but I mentioned the article's bias (sorry for the word - I'm trying to think of a better one) because, well, this article has virtually nothing to say about the history of archaeology, biological anthropology or linguistics. It follows the "usual" path of calling "Anthropology" and "cultural anthropology" by the same name. I think this linguistic fact should be mentioned early on and nearly all of the article removed to the cultural anthropology page, btw. Then, broad accounts of various subfields (starting with The FOur - since all national approaches regard them as valuable - they are anthropological universals) and then other subfields not necessarily counted or named exclusively by some one national tradition. The national stuff should be moved (and would make a very good artile on) National Traditions in Anthropology. Anthropology (national traditions) would be a good name for it. Anthropology deserves this kind of treatment in an encyclopedia. Anthropology includes within it realm of study s the very impulse that makes someone try to be "encyclopedic" and certainly, many of the "early anthropologists" mentioned in anthropolgy history books are...encyclopedists, something that needs to be said in an article on general anthropology (encyclopedias are general; anthropology has a similar overall goal - it just gets broken down into lots and lots of subpages, all the time).Levalley (talk) 05:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with your approach in general. I know people say "anthropology" as shorthand for "cultural anthropology" but we have another article on cultural anthropology (which also needs lots of work); this article should cover the breadth of topics reported on in American Anthropologist and Current Anthropology or perhaps better put, express the range of subsections of the AAA.  I think the reason why this article was in such a poor state and also why the other fields of anthropology are so undeveloped is a symptom of a general problem at Wikipedia which is that most editors do not know how to research stuff they do not know about, and most editors only know a narrow range of stuff.  Anyway, so far I am enjoying most of your edits and as I said find your geenral approach sensible. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:00, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

What I'm trying to do in the lead
Give evidence that there are more than two, three or four subfields in contemporary anthropology, while still preserving the four subfield approach that seems so necessary to any introduction to the field; focus on more than cultural anthropology (article is heavily biased toward cultural anthropology). In the last paragraph of the lead section, I've mentioned this bias and would like to be able to either justify (I'm almost there) this bias (Marvin Harris's book is probably the best citation regarding why most of anthropology seems to be "cultural," but his book is now 40 years old and I need to look at newer things; I think the bias is probably not as strong as it was - which leaves this article sort of hanging). Perhaps some of what is in this article needs to be moved to Cultural anthropology article. At any rate, I tried to give a broader overview of the range of things anthropologists actually do and what anthropology is, and to include the names (and citations) for people regarded as important enough to appear in most or all introductory textbooks, monographs on history, and journal articles on anthropological history and theory. Where I meant to be citing a particular fact on a particular page, I did so. Where I meant to refer the reader to an entire book, in order to understand a major section of the field, I cited the entire book.Levalley (talk) 18:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Template, portal and outline
Just fyi, in response to a request, I've left some notes at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthropology. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:58, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Editing and so forth for the "History section"
The section tries to do a lot (maybe too much). I've made it begin with the simplest possible history of the term "anthropology." Then, I am reordering the section so that it makes use of time as a principle - earliest potential anthropology should come first - not Enlightenment (Levi-Strauss's influences) then Ancient, then Medieval. Should be Ancient first, etc. I am not done. There are crucial problems. For example, one person is claimed to be a Medieval or early Enlightenment "anthropologist" because of "ethnographic reports," but "ethnographic reports" have only scarcely been introduced as part of anthropology in the first place (because to dwell too long on ethnography would skew the article toward cultural anthropology, not anthropology in general). I added something about ethnography to the lead section, just so some sense can be made of the history section. If we're going to claim that ethnographic reports (detailed reports about everything from the physiognomy to the sex habits to arts and music of a people and anything else about them) are the essence of anthropology, as adduced historically, then we better mention what they are earlier on. It is true that ethnography places a role in both bio and cultural anthropology. However, the section on the Ancients and on the Medieval (I haven't edited beyond that yet) neglect biological anthropology. Harris (one of the main sources) doesn't neglect bio approaches nearly as much as this article does, I've got his volumes on hand and will be adding to these sections for balance. It would be helpful if we had already introduced the four subfield concept at this point (or something like it) so we could trace the history of archaeology and anthropological linguistics as well, at least briefly. Also, the reader could be pointed off to subpages (already in progress) that would be helpful. I've asked for help with an infobox to do this, although I am strongly in favor of listing more than four subfields near the top of the page. OTOH, if each of those four branches off into the other subfields, that would be fine - but we need to make it clear that we're following this rubric for encyclopedic/conventional reasons, not because anthropology itself is always so divided or naturally lends itself to this kind of four way division.Levalley (talk) 21:20, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Copyediting
I'm trying to copyedit as I go, but since this is a field in which I've spent about 45 years, I keep getting distracted by content. Still, I am trying to fix copyediting errors as I go. If any other copyeditors happen by, I'd be very grateful if they'd have a look. Sometimes can't see the forest for the trees.Levalley (talk) 21:21, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Anthropologists by nationality section
I've taken this paragraph:

In this article, Anthropology is discussed primarily according to the national identity of the persons doing the anthropology. In Great Britain anthropology is divided into physical anthropology and cultural anthropology, which itself was divided into archaeology, technology, ethnology (the comparative study of different peoples, focusing on material culture, language, religion and other social institutions) and sociology (the comparative study of social phenomena). In the United States Anthropology traditionally has comprised four fields: physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistics and cultural anthropology. Today, in Britain, Archaeology and Sociology are generally taught as separate subjects, and ethnology was renamed social anthropology and emerged as the leading focus of anthropology. Anthropology in other countries generally follows one or both of these models. Throughout anthropology, emergent approaches calling themselves biocultural or sociobiological are gaining adherants.

which is designed to lead into a later section and removed it fron the lead section, in order to use it later, when the actual subject of it is about to be introduced. Right now, I'm thinking that this whole interesting subtopic (which is so well-researched) should be moved to its own page. I also think that a list of important pages (in understanding general anthropology) should be in the infobox at the top and that the "Anthropologists by national tradition" article should be mentioned there.Levalley (talk) 21:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

History of anthropology
Since we have an entire separate page on this subject (and the two used to overlap substantially and there's no sense in a big long section here while having a thorough article someplace else), I am going to look at how other big subjects (like philosophy and physics) handle this issue. Since we have our wonderful infobox now, the reader is easily directed to the History of Anthropology page - so I am going to merge whatever content is unique to this page with the content over on that page and delete the History of Anthropology section. Instead, I think the second section of the article should contain some of what is in the lead, plus a host of other things, under the Heading. "What is Modern Anthropology?" or something like that. Anthropologists are very fond of posing questions rather than providing answers, and I have a host of quotes to show that many anthropologists have stated, about their field, "anthropology is always in flux, always changing." I would love to have a "current anthropology" topics box to (separate from the infobox) as there are anthropology articles created every day and many have been front page feature articles. A list of former lead articles in anthropology somewhere here would be great, too. Little by little. I'm going to list some tasks that need work over om the Anthropology Project page.Levalley (talk) 23:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * See WP:Summary style, for an explanation of why short summary sections are used throughout, with a main template at the beginning of each. The article Earth (a WP:Featured article) is a perfect example of this in action. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:10, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Basics of the field section
I am still trying to set up the use of any major concepts that the reader is going to encounter later in the article, anticipate the rest of the article (so that it makes sense), introduce categories into which the main parts of anthropology might go. I took out these two paragraphs (most of which I wrote myself, so it's not like I'm ruining someone else's prose):


 * Naturally, in order to accomplish a complete science of human beings, and considering that all human beings are potentially both subjects and observers of themselves, anthropology has had to develop and attempt to define basic concepts such as culture, human ecology, and lineage or local breeding population, just to name a few. Many different books have been written about "what is culture," for example, although modern introductory textbooks frequently start with E.B. Tylor's classic view, written in 1871 and generally regarded as a modern use of the word culture:  "Culture ... is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."  There are many views on this single concept in anthropology.  The notion of culture is important in all the subfields of anthropology (one of the behavioral traits of the entire genus to which Homo sapiens belongs is "culture-bearing", often studied through analysis of tool traditions such as the Olduwan or the Acheulian.


 * The deep past of human culture is reconstructed using not only archaeological analysis, but also population genetics, mitochondrial DNA and other genetic markers, as well as studies of linguistic change Historical and comparative linguistics, as a separate subfield, is responsible for intriguing data and hypotheses, on its own, often providing confirming or non-confirming data for workers involved in archaeological digs or human gene cline studies.

At this point, these paragraphs are redundant and may belong in the separate articles on those particular fields. I'm trying to edit with a view to improving a whole host of subpages, not just increase the verbiage on this one (although it's hard - I welcome comments and aid!)Levalley (talk) 00:37, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Four field approach section
Is very confusing. It cites a bunch of "leading" anthropologists as saying two things (when in fact, none of them has all that much to say about the topic; and they are ranged on various sides of the question; S. Yanagisako's article, for example, seems to be instructive about the nature of the terms, not involved in some raging debate).Levalley (talk) 01:47, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I find it in general very interesting and informative. This is not to say that it is perfect by any means.  Your recent edits to the introduction to the article create a redundancy.  This in no way is a criticism of your edits, most of which I like.  My point is simply that the article now describes the four fields in two different places and it should do so only in one place i.e. the material you added and this section should be merged.  I have no problem with following your views as to the organization of the article i.e. discussing the four fields up top.  That means some of the material from this section can be moved into what you wrote.  Not all - but I think we should not through out the baby with the bathwater.  Do you think it makes sense to distinguish between a description of anthropology (which would include a description of the four fields with lots of links to other articles) in one place (io.e. where you put it) and an account of the debate over whether the four field approach will continue to be institutionalized as such in the academy later in the article? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:34, 8 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, I see the redundancy. I'm pretty unhappy with the article as it is.  If I came to an article on Physics or Philosophy, I'd want to see what some of the major trends and findings are, not lengthy sections on who has been a physicist or a philosopher (they have their own separate pages, just as the anthropologists do).  I'd want to know right away what physics is about - and if we're going to use the four subfield approach (it's certainly part of most introductory textbooks) it should be much higher in the article.  One should not have to wade through History of Anthropology (which has its own article) to get there.  I keep wondering why none of the major findings of any branch of anthropology are near the lead.  I'm going to remove the example of holism from the first section.  I agree that the four subfield part from further on should be merged into the top - and I should edit out some of the other stuff I said both to make room for it and to make the article more compact.  I'm thinking that "Four Subfields" should be the second section (I have a stack of about 30 textbooks in biological anthropology, archaeology, and cultural who mention the four subfields by their first or second pages; it's just standard these days - except of course that's hard to find a parallel text or course in linguistics...I only have one textbook (fairly new) in anthropological linguistics, and it too mentions the four subfields approach.


 * And yes, the debate over the four subfields (which is a minor debate in anthropology, having arisen very late in its history and not relating to any of the unresolved earlier debates such as "What is a human universal?" "How is marriage defined?"  "How many kinship systems are there and which are simplest/most complicated?"  "Do any of these data line up with the primitive vs. modern continuum or the rural vs. urban continuum...?"  These are debates which, in my view, are much closer to the top of any anthropological hierarchy of debates - as they have been around for a long time and concerned the luminaries of the field.  this four subfield thing - and I reiterate that some of the four subfields "debate" mentioned isn't even a debate, it's just commentary by anthropologists of note, such as Sylvia Yanagisako, but I agree that some mention of its elementary nature should be included.  Also, I need to find a way to point out that the academy doesn't own the word "anthropology" - almost anyone can be an anthropologist, just not necessarily in the academic sense, and anthropologists frequently cite non-anthropologists as sources - not to mention, of course, founding much of their work on discussions/fieldwork with non-anthropologists.  Maybe an entire section on the institutionalization of anthropology is in order - I believe it can be done without original research.


 * I do thank you for your continued watching over this article and your comments, I'm very willing to rewrite, I just want the article to be really good and both tell what anthropology is (in all its aspects) as well as point to academic anthropology as encyclopedia field. Anthropology and Wikipedia have a lot in common.Levalley (talk) 17:23, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is Chagnon a bad example?
The sources do support the text (I find it highly unlikely that you even went and read them, actually - but if you had, you'd notice that yes, he's interested in the actual alleles, as well as the protein uptake, as well as the marriage customs, as well as the words about marriage customs and is the first to publish on all those things about an Amazonian people, thus providing an excellent example of holism. You've taken out a whole section on holism, which is crucial.  I would have been willing to rewrite the first paragraph - now I think the article is back in its original, sketchy form.  I withdraw my offer to do the merger on the four subfields right now, but will go through and check every citation (the article is poorly cited - and you think my citations on Chagnon are poor???)  That's just amazing to me.  At any rate, the so-called "debate" on the four subfields is not a debate, it'[s a discussion, it is poorly sourced (doesn't even include major papers on the topic, which fizzled out, as a topic, almost as soon as it started - which is quite common in anthropology).

The reification of this article into something that anthropology is not means that some other articles need to be written. I am going to edit articles on major anthropologists and what they say anthropology is. It will contradict much of what this article says - one of the main things many people say about anthropology is that it is always in flux. However, this article makes it sound as if it is on firm (four subfield) foundations. I think the article should be rated as C or start quality and of high importance. I'll contact people from the Anthropology project (besides myself) and see if I can get people to look it over. I agree that Chagnon could have been taken out of the lead paragraph - but the point still stands, and everything I wrote about the basic concepts of anthropology should be there - early on, so that the rest of the article makes sense. As it stands now, it doesn't make sense. I'm going to revert to some of my earlier edits when I get a chance to do so and take out the Chagnon stuff, there's no point in "throwing the baby out with the bathwater," as you say.

Would Jared Diamond be an acceptable example? Marvin Harris? Or is there a view that there has never been an anthropologist in the general sense of the term? If so, that's an interesting way to approach anthropology - and none of the cultural anthropologists mentioned in the history section should be in this section. They should be moved to "history of cultural anthropology," not to "history of anthropology," which if the subfield approach is the primary fact of the field and which, if no one works in more than two subfields, means that anthropologists (general ones) don't exist. The field could still exist, but not as embodied by its personnel.Levalley (talk) 17:32, 8 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, for one thing I do not think it is necessary or appropriate to put an individual example in the introduction. I agree by the way entirelly with the point about holism as such, I just think it can be made effectively without an example.  As for Chagnon, although he collaborated with biologists, I do not consider his research to be biological anthropology.  He flirted with sociobiology, an attempt to import a reductionist kind of evolutionary theory into social science.  But his use of an evolutionary reasoning to interpret his cultural data is not what I think most anthropologists mean by holism.  He certainly never did any original research in genetics or human osteology (for example).  If you want an example may I suggest Jonathan Marks or Nadia Abu al Haj - he has written about cultural anthropology and the human genome, she has brought to gether archeology and cultural anthropology.  There was an issue of AE a couple ofyears ago on cultural anthropologists interpreting the human genome project, I think they would be better examples than Chagnon.  But honestly, I would prefer no single example in the lead.  I am sure that we can make the point about holism compelligly.  Maybe in the body we can have sections on research that bridges two or more of each of the four fields, and encourage putting in many examples? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 21:52, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Why does the article focus on anthropologists by nationality?
What's the resaoning there? It seems to counter the entire contemporary enterprise of anthropology, which is not nationalistic. At any rate, I'd like to see some citations that this is the way that anthropology is usually defined (by its national traditions). Otherwise, I think the entire section to go off to a subpage.

I'd like to see this article focus on what anthropology is, and what its main findings are. Like the other articles for disciplines (see physics, philosophy, sociology, etc.) At least mention that it's about Homo sapiens!Levalley (talk) 01:57, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I realize I wrote most of this, but without the rest of what I wrote, it is stranded. Who really cares how anthropologists organize themselves, if they have come to an article on what anthropology is? So here it is: it should go under "institutionalization" of anthropology section - when someone gets the enthusiasm together to add such a section.

Today, anthropology is an established science, with academic departments at most universities and colleges. The single largest organization of anthropologists is the American Anthropological Association, (founded 1902) whose membership includes anthropologists of all nations. Levalley (talk) 02:00, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason to talk about anthropologists by nation in an article about general anthropology. Define general anthropology first, then break out into subtopics. Here's the part I took out:

In this article, anthropology is discussed primarily according to the national identity of the persons doing the anthropology. In Great Britain anthropology is divided into physical anthropology and cultural anthropology, which itself was divided into archaeology, technology, ethnology (the comparative study of different peoples, focusing on material culture, language, religion and other social institutions) and sociology (the comparative study of social phenomena). In the United States anthropology traditionally has comprised four fields: physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistics and cultural anthropology. Today, in Britain, Archaeology and Sociology are generally taught as separate subjects, and ethnology was renamed social anthropology and emerged as the leading focus of anthropology. Anthropology in other countries generally follows one or both of these models.Levalley (talk) 02:02, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * please see comment below. I think anthropology is both an academic discipline and a profession and how it is institutionalized is as relevant as its theory and methods, personally. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 03:29, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

my goof
Quiddity called my attention to an edit I do notremember making and did not intend to make. All i can do is apologize and say I do not understand what happened. Apparently I did a massive revert. The only way I could see to undo what I did was to restore the earlier version. Alas, this also "undoes" two recent edits by Levalley. One was his deletion of information about the AAA, the other was his deletion of a statement that this article takes a national approach. As far as i can tell, the latter section is not in the version I just restored - if you can find it Levalley, feel free to delete and again I am sorry to inconvenience you. I do see the statement about the AAA and am not deleting it because it seems like useful information but Levalley if you can give me your reason for deleting it, I won't put up much of an argument but I do ask you consider moving it to another section if you do not like where it is, rather than a wholesale delete. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 03:27, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm keeping copies of the various versions of the page. I agree the information should stay - but needs to be repositioned.  The professionalization of the field is an interesting topic, but it is not a main topic - needs to go near where antropology by nationality is discussed.  There's still a huge gap, which I tried to fill by putting in more about what anthropology actually is and does, its major premises and findings - this is an article about anthropology, not anthropologists, after all.  However, obviously, all relevant information should be worked in.  As it is, many things are missing, second half of article is disorganized.  Subpages are clearly in order and would be great to work on.  The article takes a national appproach only because it doesn't contain a bunch of other information.  I'm not going to get into a big discussion about this at this time - but I will continue to revise the article and to collect information and advice from fellow anthropologists, which I intend to use in editing this article.  There's no reason to mention, in the lead, that a national approach is used - especially when several nations are left out for no apparent reason.  That is a minor subtopic in "what is anthropology."Levalley (talk) 17:44, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with everything you say. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 18:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for restoring the part about "Homo sapiens" and Omo. I think it is really important to start the article with an anthropological definition of "what is a human being."  While there is disagreement about which other hominids are "human," there is no disagreement whatsoever that Homo sapiens is human, and that its earliest remians are found in Africa.  What do people think about where further information on the anthropology of Homo sapiens?Levalley (talk) 17:47, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess I'd say anthropology in its broadest sense is the scientific study of genus Homo (which must necessarily include social and cultural anthropology, since all species of genus Homo have been - presumably - social and symbolic beings; thus a scientific study must include these extrasomatic or extragenetic features), but primarily H. sapiens becaude that is the species we have the most data on. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 18:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Anthropology Project members
Thanks for coming over to look at the article again. Please leave comments and your view on the overall quality of this article. If you think a particular section needs reworking (or to be added), please state. Note that non-anthropologists have mentioned that the article is boring. See my talk page for my views on what should get a mention.Levalley (talk) 18:00, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Accepting your invites on both the Wikiproject Anthropology page and this talk page - to have another look at this core project article, I confirm the article IS still a bit long and a bit hard going .. and it is not totally easy, simple, clear nor truly useful for those who may just be searching the internet for a quick introduction and/or doing a first-time search on study/career options etc


 * It would be my suggestion (with which others from the project may not agree!) that:


 * the overall focus or emphasis of this article be substantially shifted away from anthropology as theory and a history of anthropologists around the world .. (instead taking advantage of wikilinking to shift some of this discussion (and reduce the size of the page) right down to bare mention of theory, anthropologists etc


 * the overall emphasis of this article be shifted more towards a simple presentation of anthropology as a coherent discipline offering range of avenues and/or directions of inquiry (see current infobox subfields).. plus some introduction to the primary international & national insitutions upon which the discipline has been founded, without which anthropology would not exist.


 * the general history of might, therefore, be shifted in focus from nations and anthropologists (who might all have their own wikilinked articles) .. to a more internationally sweeping institutional and discplinarian history ... capped off instead with a summary of the discipline's achievements/ contributions to modern society .. and a forecast as to it's current and future direction


 * It could be a useful and interesting exercise to see how much of the current article can be moved off into their own articles (and/or merged with existing articles) .. following which above suggested theory-anthropologist => discpline-institution shift in emphasis/focus can start to be introduced (with lots of images!!)


 * Any thoughts - possibly before starting to proceed with some of the suggestions/ shift recommended above? Bruceanthro (talk) 14:26, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Very well put, Bruce. I think the history and national pages should be subpages (very much worth reading for the interested reader).  It will be hard to write the international/disciplinary overview, perhaps keeping it to mention of major institutes and associations would be helpful.  It is the last section - contributions to modern society - that I think most people are interested in.  Obviously, the study of human origins and the establishment of a chain of events in human evolution is a major accomplishment of the field (and that transformed all parts of anthropology).  Right now, the article doesn't even mention this.  A basic course in biological anthropology would at least mention Lucy, Donald Johanson and colleagues, and the fact that there is no longer a "Missing Link."  On the cultural side, the notion that there's an overall or global culture (that all human beings share something) has been around since Kant's book on anthropology (and fleshed out since then).  For linguistics, the Chomskyian revolution is still reverberating, with enormous implications for other areas of human behavior.  Archaeology/prehistoy continues to benefit from amazing new technologies and breakthroughs in the other subfields, as well as from outside anthropology (ultrasound techniques for example, new dating techniques) and new techniques for studying fiber (Wikipedia is a bit weak on new information and publishing in archaeology, but there's been so much of it, just in the two areas I follow:  Europe and North America) that it's both exciting and daunting to try and scope it out.  In other areas of the world, the very lack of archaeological data (or bric-a-brac, as some call it) is notable.  Humans lived in Africa for a very long time before they emerged in waves across the rest of the world, often with explosive force.  The incredible briefness of civilization itself (V. Gordon Childe's definition) ranged against the length of time Homo sapiens is a major finding; the even shorter time period during which we've been "industrial" stands out in stark contrast to the length of time we've been Paleolithic or even Neolithic.  I'm going to take a look at the Archaeology article next, now that it's linked to this page.  I know the Biological Anthropology page needs works (and links and subarticles, particularly on specific anthropologists).  But if you could edit down this article to a proper length and guide people to the relevant subpages, that would be great.Levalley (talk) 18:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with much of the above, although I think Terry Deacon's work on the evolution of language transcends Chomsky's. I think in biological andthropology we need to explore the tension between the discourse of researchers, for whom the concept "population" displaces (and is not a mere substitution for) "race," and forensic anthropologists who continue to use the language of race.  In linguistics, an important anthropological finding that many do not et is that of speech community and dialect (that dialect is not an "inferior" form of "language") and the concept of code-switching. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 21:36, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You can hold that view, of course, but Chomsky is still a benchmark. Look through basic textbooks in linguistics and in every other area of anthropology, he's regularly mentioned.  If Deacon is to be mentioned, mention him alongside Chomsky.  Deacon, in my view, is not a clearcut representative of the transformation of linguistics (have you ever watched Gene Searchinger's series of interviews with modern linguists?  It's about 3 hours long...it's available in most university media libraries...take note of what the younger linguists have to say.  Deacon is never mentioned.  Deacon is more of a cultural anthropologist (symbolic school), in my view.  Yes, code-switching is important, but I can think of about 100 findings that are equally as important (across the various subfields).  Chomsky's views on syntax are regarded as the "third revolution" in linguistics.  But, if you can find citations placing Deacon in a similar realm of importance, please provide them.  I haven't seen his work cited much, recently.  I am very interested.  I have the citations regarding Chomsky's importance, regarding "Syntactic Structures," from various decades, they're not where I am right now, but I'll have them next week.Levalley (talk) 21:59, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


 * We can start with using Wikipedia's own resources. Syntactic structures is already mentioned as influential, and there are no disputes on its page as of now.  Symbolic species has a few problems (point of view problems, actually).  These should be cleaned up, then both works should be mentioned here.  In general, I think that's the way to proceed with improving this article - to link to as many influential works in anthropology as possible, but first, those works (and their creators) need to be cleaned up.  My own view is that the works themselves are the crucial thing, not when the person who wrote them was born or where that person is employed, etc.Levalley (talk) 22:04, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I think Deacon is a biological anthropologist, not a cultural anthropologist. You are of course right about it just being my opinion.  I in no way deny the historical importance of Chomsky.  In his favor, Deacon is an anthropologist.  He does not claim to be a linguist, his interest is human evolution, not language as such.  Insofar as he makes claims about the evolution of language in genus Homo, I think the work of a biological anthropologist is more relevant than a non-anthropological linguist ... as to why linguists writing about human evolution do or do not cite Deacon or other biological anthropologists is an interesting matter for discussion but here I think the issue is notability within anthropology and I repeat: Chomsky is notable (even as a non-anthropologist among anthropologists) but Deacon is an anthropologist.  As to code-switching, I am glad you can think of 100 equally important findings.  I did not think this was a pissing contest.  I thought we were soliciting suggestions.  I suggested two.  Is my input less valuable because i did not provide 100 suggestions?  I guess so, but I still the the two suggestions are good suggestions. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 22:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Good point about where Deacon should be referenced/referred to. I just checked his recent work, and it's clear he's not working in linguistics (so my point still stands about mentioning Chomsky as a major figure in linguistics).  Deacon should be mentioned as a major figure in biological anthropology, particularly cognitive neuroscience which is an emerging interdisciplinary field.  Anthropology as part of many interdisciplinary collaborations would be a useful topic for this article.  If you want the article to mention hundreds of separate findings throughout, that's fine - put it in.  I'm just saying that there's no particular reason to have code-switching (even as one of Deacon's major findings - first, he wasn't the first to study it, second, it's not his only finding, and third, there are many others).  I am paying attention to what others have written (above) about this article needing to be shorter, less boring, and less detailed - putting in code-switching just as a random of example of what kinds of breakthroughs an anthropologist might make seems to me to be counter to that sentiment.Levalley (talk) 23:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I never said code-switching was Deacon's idea, not sure where you got that idea from. As to code-switching, well, I guess there is no particular reason to mention Johansen or Lucy - except that they are important in biological anthropology.  The same can be said for code-switching.  You wrote, "A basic course in biological anthropology would at least mention Lucy, Donald Johanson and colleagues, and the fact that there is no longer a "Missing Link.""  So I assumed you would like it for others to use your same reasoning process (what would one expect in a basic linguistic anthropology course?) and I thought, "code switching."  How is code swtishing random, and your set of selections not random?  If you want the article to be less boring and detailed, let's cut Johansen and Lucy.  Your 18:08, 10 April 2009 post provides a jumble of things to add to the article - many of which I would fully support! - but I hardley thought that you were the kind o editor who would suggest things to add and then reject it when other editors tried to do just what you were doing, suggesting important concepts, especially ones from beyond culural anthropology, that should be included.  I'd say code-switching is as important as debunking "the mising link," even more important! Slrubenstein   |  Talk 02:35, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Resources, Further Reading, etc.
Heavily biased toward cultural anthropology, which is inappropriate for this page. Needs some general anthropology references or major works in all four subfields. Needs an external links page, especially as anthropology is a field with plenty of daily/monthly news. http://anthropology.net/ comes to mind, there are others, I'll try to put together a section.Levalley (talk) 19:19, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

It IS BP not BC
Anthropologists, dealing as they do in prehistory, RARELY use BCE OR CE.

We just use BP. And that's mentioned/allowed in Wikipedia's standards for dates. Please don't make all the dates off by 2000 years simply to impose history on prehistory. Saying humans arose approximately 198,000BCE is certainly not the way it's put in most anthropological publications. 200,000BP is correct.Levalley (talk) 16:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

From the Wikipedia Manual of Style:

'''.
 * Abbreviations indicating long periods of time ago—such as BP (Before Present), as well as various annum-based units such as ka (kiloannum) and kya (thousand years ago), Ma (megaannum) and Mya (million years ago), and Ga (gigaannum or billion years ago)—'''are given as full words and wikilinked on first occurrence.

I'll put the link in.Levalley (talk) 16:49, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

We now have two sections on the four fields; other organizational issues
I believe the debate about whether or not anthropology is divided into four (or three or five or ten) subfields is outside the scope of Wikipedia. I think Wikipedia should both state that four fields are traditional (adding "in the United States" if one wants to hint at the alleged debate) but should add that there are many other ways of dividing up anthropology (as the article now states in the first section on the four fields). Then, some of the old section on four fields could be spliced into the new section and the old section deleted. Then, the pages on History of Anthropology and Anthropology by Nationality should be separate, with a cursory overview of the history of anthropology (focusing more on what is done in the field than on its theory) remaining here. The section on anthropology by nationality should be on its own page. If we could mention those subpages at the top of the main page, that would be great.Levalley (talk) 19:37, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Another note: some people consider primatology a subfield of biological anthropology, many consider it a completely different field. I have no idea what is meant by "four subfield approach" in this article, btw (and I've been a professional anthropologist for 30 years). Some universities in the US went with a three subfield approach from the beginning, some went with a four subfield approach, some had primatology in the anthropology program then subdivided it out, some had primatology in a separate program from the beginning. Unless someone wants to disentangle all of this, I suggest we use the four subfield approach as a mere convention - the "debates" about its usefulness are beside the point. No one believes that the word 'anthropology' is automatically subdivided into any particular number of subfields, only that, conventionally, universities and journals have used this approach (apparently more in America than elsewhere, although a brief perusal of random university catalogs from around the globe and at different periods of time make this a weak claim, I believe). At any rate, as I'm transferring info from the lower half of the article (about the 4 fields) to the top, I'm trying to make sense of what has already been said - not always easy. BTW, the object of biological anthropology is not merely the physical human being. Biological anthropology is as holistic in the object of its study (the complete human) as any other part of anthropology, it just seeks biological understanding. So, for example, when primatologists study chimp politics (and they do, there's a vast literature on it), they are still "biological anthropologists," I suppose (according to Wikipedia) but they are not studying physical humans. When geneticists study the genes involved in the syntax protein, they are also speaking about language - which is not purely physical, but has involves meaning as well. Terrence Deacon's work is a good example of this kind of cognitive science - it is not merely about "physical humans." Levalley (talk) 19:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone actually tried to read through the current "four subfields" section - about halfway down the article page? What's that last sentence about Tinbergen suddenly doing there in an otherwise organized paragraph about biological anthropology? Taking that out. It might go somewhere, but not there. Here it is if anyone wants to try and find a home for it in the article:

On the basis of Tinbergen's four questions a framework of reference or "periodic table" of all fields of anthropological research (including humanities) can be established.

The remaining part of the four subfield section is confusing and has too many dependant clauses stuck into sentences.Levalley (talk) 19:52, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I had alwayes heard, "Four-field approach" or "We have a three-field department" e.g. sociolinguistics is a subfield of the field, linguistics. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:56, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Here, in its entirety, is a recent version of the former Four Subfields section, for cannibalization and reworking into the top of the article, where it rightly belongs:

The "four field" approach and its relationship to modern anthropology
The "four field" or "subfield" approach to anthropology apparently originated in the United States,. Anthropology programs in other nations frequently use a three field approach As with nearly any anthropological topic, there is ongoing dialogue as to whether the four field idea makes sense theoretically or pragmatically in the structure of American academic institutions. Supporters consider anthropology holistic in two senses: it is concerned with all human beings across times and places, and with all dimensions of humanity (evolutionary, biophysical, sociopolitical, economic, cultural, linguistic, psychological, etc.); also many academic programs following this approach take a "four-field" approach to anthropology that encompasses physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistics, and cultural anthropology or social anthropology. However, in practice, some colleges are unable to mount full-fledged programs in all four fields, others allow one or more fields to have their own departments.

The definition of anthropology as holistic and the "four-field" approach are disputed by some anthropologists, that consider those as artifacts from 19th century social evolutionary thought that inappropriately impose scientific positivism upon cultural anthropology in particular. The pressure for the "integration" of socio-cultural anthropology (inherently associated with the humanities), with "biological-physical anthropology" (inherently associated with the natural sciences), has been criticized as an inappropriate imposition of positivism (the belief that the only proper knowledge is that derived from the scientific method) upon cultural anthropology. This criticism argument has been raised towards the development of sociobiology in the late 1960s (by cultural anthropologists such as Marshall Sahlins), and towards the "four field holism" of American Anthropology. While originating in the US, both the four field approach and debates concerning it have been exported internationally under American academic influence. (for more details see the section on the relations with the natural sciences and the Humanities)

The four fields are:


 * Biological or physical anthropology seeks to understand the physical human being through the study of human evolution and adaptability, population genetics, and primatology. Subfields or related fields include paleoanthropology (study of evolutionary history of the human species), anthropometrics, forensic anthropology, osteology, and nutritional anthropology.
 * Cultural anthropology (sometimes called Social anthropology or socio-cultural anthropology) is the investigation, often through long term, intensive field studies (including participant-observation methods), of the culture and social organization of a particular people: language, economic and political organization, law and conflict resolution, patterns of consumption and exchange, kinship and family structure, gender relations, childrearing and socialization, religion, mythology, symbolism, etc. (U.S. universities more often use the term cultural anthropology; British universities have tended to call the corresponding field social anthropology, and for much of the 20th century emphasized the analysis of social organization more than cultural symbolism.) In some European countries, socio-cultural anthropology is known as ethnology (a term coined and defined by Adam F. Kollár in 1783 that is also used in English-speaking countries to denote the comparative aspect of socio-cultural anthropology.) Subfields and related fields include psychological anthropology, folklore, anthropology of religion, ethnic studies, cultural studies, anthropology of media and cyberspace, and study of the diffusion of social practices and cultural forms.
 * Linguistic anthropology seeks to understand the processes of human communications, verbal and non-verbal, variation in language across time and space, the social uses of language, and the relationship between language and culture. It is the branch of anthropology that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems, linking the analysis of linguistic forms and processes to the interpretation of sociocultural processes. Linguistic anthropologists often draw on related fields including anthropological linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, semiotics, discourse analysis, and narrative analysis.
 * Archaeology studies the contemporary distribution and form of artifacts (materials modified by past human activities), with the intent of understanding distribution and movement of ancient populations, development of human social organization, and relationships among contemporary populations; it also contributes significantly to the work of population geneticists, historical linguists, and many historians. Archaeology involves a wide variety of field techniques (remote sensing, survey, geophysical studies, coring, excavation) and laboratory procedures (compositional analyses, dating studies (radiocarbon, optically stimulated luminescence dating), measures of formal variability, examination of wear patterns, residue analyses, etc.). Archaeologists predominantly study materials produced by prehistoric groups but also includes modern, historical and ethnographic populations. Archaeology is usually regarded as a separate (but related) field outside North America, although closely related to the anthropological field of material culture, which deals with physical objects created or used within a living or past group as a means of understanding its cultural values.

A number of subfields or modes of anthropology cut across these divisions. For example, medical anthropology is often considered a subfield of socio-cultural anthropology; however, many anthropologists who study medical topics also look at biological variation in populations or the interaction of culture and biology. They may also use linguistic analysis to understand communication around health and illness, or archaeological techniques to understand health and illness in historical or prehistorical populations. Similarly, forensic anthropologists may use both techniques from both physical anthropology and archaeology, and may also practice as medical anthropologists. Environmental or ecological anthropology, a growing subfield concerned with the relationships between humans and their environment, is another example that brings cultural and biological—and at times, archaeological—approaches together, as it can deal with a broad range of topics from environmentalist movements to wildlife or habitat conservation to traditional ecological knowledge and practices. Biocultural anthropology is a broad term used to describe syntheses of cultural and biological perspectives. Applied anthropology is perhaps better considered an emphasis than a subfield in the same sense as the standard four; applied anthropologists may work for government agencies, nongovernmental agencies, or private industry, using techniques from any of the subfields to address matters such as policy implementation, impact assessments, education, marketing research, or product development.

More recently, anthropology programs at several prominent U.S. universities have begun dividing the field into two: one emphasizing the humanities, critical theory, and interpretive or semiotic approaches; the other emphasizing evolutionary theory, quantitative methods, and explicit theory testing (over idiographic description), though there have also been institutional pressures to rejoin at least one high-profile split department. At some universities, biological anthropology and archaeology programs have also moved from departments of anthropology to departments of biology or other related fields. This has occasioned much discussion within the American Anthropological Association, and it remains to be seen whether some form of the four-field organization will persist in North American universities.

As might be inferred from the above list of subfields, anthropology is a methodologically diverse discipline, incorporating both qualitative methods and quantitative methods. Ethnographies—intensive case studies based on field research—have historically had a central place in the literature of sociocultural and linguistic anthropology, but are increasingly supplemented by mixed-methods approaches. Currently, technological advancements are spurring methodological innovation across anthropology's subfields. Radiocarbon dating, population genetics, GPS, and digital video- and audio-recording are just a few of the many technologies spurring new developments in anthropological research.

Note that some of it has already been moved into the upper part of the article...that's why it need not be in both places. Some of it doesn't need to be in the article, at all, IMO, but help move it, if you can.Levalley (talk) 20:00, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

new sections needed
I propose we have a section on "anthropology as an academic institution" near the bottom of the article and take all the parts about department politics, departments dividing up, academic controversies over who gets what part of the discipline, etc. and stick it there.
 * agreed. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

One of the anthropology project members mentioned that the article should contain a "significant contributions of anthropology" section near the top. I agree, but haven't had a chance to work on it. One thing that should be mentioned is the work anthropology has done - across all disciplines - on reconstructing human evolution/the deep human past.Levalley (talk) 20:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It is a nice idea. The critique of race which has developed over the 20th century is an obvious contribution, your point about human evolution is also very important. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 16:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Dangling paragraph in history section
Much as I love him (he's probably my favorite anthropologist) and would like to see him stay in this article, I took out this abrupt transition (and, since most anthropologists trace their intellectual lineages to someplace, almost any anthropologist could have been mentioned here, so L-S shouldn't be the only one):

Contemporary anthropologists claim a number of earlier thinkers as their forebears, and the discipline has several sources; Claude Lévi-Strauss, a French cultural anthropologist, for example, claimed Montaigne and Rousseau as important influences. Several books have been written on the history of anthropology, primarily on the history of anthropological theory, although the major theoretical works on the history of anthropology cited here focus as well on the data collected within anthropology, and on anthropological methods.

Also, the bibliographic part (which I think I wrote) is just redundant. Whittling this article down a bit is a goal.--Levalley (talk) 20:44, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

History section and the rest of the article
Starts out with history, jumps to "anthropology by nation" then back to history again. The post World War II section is weak and peters out without getting very far. I suggest, since there's a main article on anthropology, most of it be merged over there (will take some work). The anthropology by nation section needs its own page, but needs to be referenced at the top of this page and the history page. That would help the readability of this article a lot. The controversies in anthropology section can be expanded, there are several other controversies besides our involvement in the military. The article should end with a few citations of notable contemporary work (awards done, current conference topics, etc) in various fields.

As it is, this article has lots of great information, but needs better organization, as an article. It needs a much better "See Also" section.Levalley (talk) 17:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * As you can probably tell, I've read this article more than a few times by now, including from a copyedit point of view. I think it is well-written, has no significant tone, grammar, syntax, spelling or punctuation problems, so I'm taking the copyedit tag off.  If anyone disagrees, put it back on but please try to point out the sections where copyedit is need (there's a huge backlog of articles to be copyedited on Wikipedia).  What it needs more than anything is reorganization (especially in the lower third, where the sections get short and disconnected from each other, and sometimes move into slightly off-topic areas.  It's a hard article to write, it's worse than trying to write about "what is wikipedia," as anthropology changes all the time.Levalley (talk) 22:18, 24 April 2009 (UTC)


 * In case anyone cares, I am in the process of researching who those redlink people are and seeing if they meet notability requirements (and if not, why they are in the article when the points they reference have been made by many anthropologists.) However, I'd like to write as many new bios on anthropologists as I can this summer, so I'll try to get those blue.Levalley (talk) 22:20, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Origin of Social Anthropology
Social Anthropology in modern terms has bee originally developed by Germans and Austrians. One of the first who has worked in that field has been the geographer Alexander v. Humboldt in the early 19th century. Today the "Institut für Völkerkunde" in Vienna still exists.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnologie#Antike_bis_fr.C3.BChe_Neuzeit —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.154.222.235 (talk) 08:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

to have sex —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.86.113.61 (talk) 20:56, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Someone should create a new article
Is there anyone who has specialization in Sociology and Anthropology?

If there is, someone should create a new article on how similar sociology and anthropology are. Sociology and Anthropology are so similar to each other especially with Cultural Anthropology.

I cannot believe that no one has created an article talking about their similarities and none of the Sociology and Anthropology articles mention their very close relationship together.

If anyone has specialization in both fields or at least know them very well, please someone or people should create an article talking about how they are so similar to each other and how Cultural Anthropology is almost a duplicate study of Sociology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 (talk • contribs) 20:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * It's an interesting topic, but would probably count as original content, which isn't quite what wikipedia is about. The similarity between anthropology and sociology is probably related to the latter predominating in continental Europe. Whereas sociology did-away with its less credible scientific bits in the late 19th century, anthropology, to me, seems more resolutely scientific (yet, without drawing upon positivism, which is a bit odd.. Perhaps it's more like psychoanalysis in that wholly metaphysical sense?). The other thing I'd have to say on the topic is that sociology is less anthropomorphic subject (ie. it is more anti/post-humanist) after the influence of the better nuggets of post-structuralist thought, particularly Michel Foucault... --Tomsega (talk) 18:31, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Changes to final paragraph
I've undone the edits I made to the final paragraph. I've decided it's pointless (and useless) to try and put them in. The entire article is disorganized, has no main outline, follows no train of thought and makes odd claims such as "such and such book is a classic", without any kind of rational whatsoever. I thought that what I put in was much more common sense and less extravagant than many of the things said in the article - however, here's the dialogue between me and another editor about those edits (from my talk page):

First paragraph
Is not too bad. But is there a reason why this article keeps coming back to anthropologists as opposed to anthropology? At any rate, the first paragraph is passable.

Incorporate as many parts of anthropology as possible
Over the past few weeks, I've spoken to a lot of colleagues about what's happened in anthropology in the last 30-40 years (some of them go back that far). Everyone agrees that anthropology has either attracted new disciplinary fields to publish and convene inside the AAA, but that the early focus (in the 1950's at least) on the four fields is part of why anthropology now has so many distinct sections or units. These include: Ethnology, Environmental, Archaeology, Africanist, Feminist, Political and Legal, Biological, Museum, Educational, Culture and Agriculture, Evolutionary Anthropology (which includes many people from molecular biology and related sciences, many of them Primatologists), Cultural, Middle Eastern, Anthropological Sciences (another group trained in both anthropology and other sciences, not necessarily related to evolution, for example, allied to forensics), East Asian, Humanistic, Latin American and Caribbean, Medical, Linguistics, Psychological, Anthropology of Consciousness, Europe, Food and Nutrition, North American, Religion, Work, Urban and National/Transnational, Visual, Practice of Anthropology (aka Applied). These are the subgroups in American anthropology (British anthropology has fewer sections). I listed them more or less in the order they're on the AAA page, and bolded the traditional four "subfields". There is also, obviously, a General Anthropology section.

If you're wondering where primatology is, in the above schema, it's in Biological, which has its own subgroups. Ethnomusicology and ethnopoetics are organized in two places (at least), Ethnology (which is huge in and of itself) and Humanistic.

One thing I wanted to pull out of this list is that one way anthropology has always used to organized itself when it tries to simplify its work, is regional. Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia have apparently been incorporated into the "indigeneous" section, presumably the only large land mass in that section is Australia. This is an extremely important way that anthropology has proceeded and organized itself, since many anthropologists have specialized in "everything about one place," when possible.

I want the article to be readable by people who know little or nothing about anthropology, and to that end, have looked at all my introductory textbooks (I must have 35-30, publishers are generous with these things). The four "subfield" approach is mentioned in all of them, sometimes very briefly. Additional "subfields" are mentioned in most of them, depending on which subfield the textook is in (and there are only a couple of general anthropology textbooks at the introductory level).

So one of my goals is to better integrate this page with the various regional projects, and to have a list of the regions (and subregions) somewhere, and get Anthro Project tags on appropriate pages about regions. I'd like to have all of the above fields have articles and be under the "See Also" section (we don't have to mention every single one of them in the lead, but working more of them into the body of the article would be good.

One more thing: I really think we need a separate page on Anthropologists.  That's where all the stuff about particular anthropologists goes, as well as a discussion of the rather well-known fact that one need not be trained in anthropology to be an anthropolgist (either academically, in terms of publishing, or in terms of findings). So, someone like George Collier (sometimes called the founder of Psychological Anthropology and a chief editor in anthropology monographs for 40 years, professor of anthropology at Stanford for more than 30 years - and that's a program with fairly high rankings), had a doctorate in psychology, but was hired as an anthropologist after he did extensive fieldwork with the Menominee (a Native American group). Also, there are a large number of authors who anthropologists quote as if they are anthropologists or about whom anthropologists say "provides one of the best ethnographic accounts on X," when that person is a novelist or a filmmaker or documentarian whose work contributed to preserving visual or other aspects of a particular culture (like Camus and his Black Orpheus). Thor Hyderdahl is listed here on wikipedia as an ethnographer (which he certainly was) and the number of times he's cited in anthropological works (even if just to argue with him, although recently, sometimes to vindicate some of his theories) is larger than many living academic anthropologists.

I'm not proposing any huge changes right away, just a gradual reconstruction of this page as we add subpages. My own enthusiasms were leading me to doing the regional work first (most anthropologists belong to both a theoretical subfield and a regional subfield, if one wanted to study the entire planet, one would need to belong to a lot of associations and read a lot of journals - each of these subfields has lots of publications). So I'm agreeing with SLRubenstein that we should call the four "subfields" fields, so that the word "subfield" is available for all the others. Nearly all the others can easily be subsumed under one of the four main fields (although not always; consciousness is a big exception). Some of the subfields are actually methods (like the science group) and used through the four fields, but perhaps a table with brief descriptions (near the bottom) could clarify this. If you are wondering why I'm so excited about including all the parts of anthropology that we can, it's because one never knows which parts of the field are going to be coming up with the most interesting things, at any given moment. If you get a chance, take a look at the Science section's homepage (Carol Ember, who should have her own page if she doesn't) is the president-elect - scroll down to their news section (courtesy of Texas A & M, interesting stuff there):

Science news in anthropology from Texas A & M

Or look at the awards given in Biological Anthropology this year (who can resist wanting to know more about orangutans):

Orangutan research (yes, that's how they spell it)

Wouldn't it be great if we could have an anthropological news box on this page and promote various current stories from all fields/subfields (whatever we end up calling them)?

FYI
If people who watch this page are also interested in how Wikipedia is governed, be sure to check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Advisory_Council_on_Project_Development. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'm always interested in how Wikipedia works.LeValley 20:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

First section is much improved
I'm not good at following edit histories, but the opening paragraphs have evolved over the last year, and in the right direction. There is some clarity here for the average encyclopedia reader, and starts well. Good job!LeValley 20:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The citations are strong and actually quite interesting (the link to the Renaissance roots of anthropology is an excellent choice). I see the "Be Bold" instruction at the top of the article - and I'm guessing it's there because this article is really long, goes into detail about certain subfields but not others, meaning that those sections should be moved either to their subfield pages or to their own pages (Anthropology across all nations needs to be somewhere else - article makes it look as if there's been a great deal of research and consensus about anthropology-by-nationality, when in fact, it's a fairly minor topic in the discipline as a whole, and there is little consensus about it).  I'm not feeling bold at all today, but perhaps in future I will.LeValley 21:03, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

The study of "Man"??
I suggest modifying this to "the study of humanity." There are not a lot of anthropologists out there who would refer to anthropology as the study of "Man" these days, for good reason. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.255.64.10 (talk) 18:22, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It used to be "the study of humanity.", but it was just changed by an anonymous editor today. Thanks for changing it back. Arthena(talk) 21:09, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

And what good reason might that be? Being a pussboy who thinks his balls will be chopped off if he doesn't pollute everything with his retarded "gender equality" bullshit?

Why don't you losers do the same with "feminism" then? I mean, it's allegedly a movement about "gender equality" yet it's called "feminism". Lol.

And as for this: " Cultural anthropology in particular has emphasized cultural relativism, holism, and the use of findings to frame cultural critiques.[6] This has been particularly prominent in the United States, from Boas's arguments against 19th-century racial ideology, through Margaret Mead's advocacy for gender equality and sexual liberation, to current criticisms of post-colonial oppression and promotion of multiculturalism."

So it's the HIV of western society? Why would anybody support "multiculturalism" when it is demonstrably disastrous? Particularly when it involves cultures that demonstrably laugh at the "tolerance" of your morose civilization. Ugh. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.219.47.47 (talk) 02:12, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I would actually make a change to that as well (I am an anthropology graduate from the University of Kansas). While the study of anthropology has a large H. sapiens component, anthropology in a more general sense is a study of primates (human and non-human). The AAA org also lists biological anthropology as a discipline within anthropology as "....interested in human biological origins, evolution and variation. They give primary attention to investigating questions having to do with evolutionary theory, our place in nature, adaptation and human biological variation. To understand these processes, biological anthropologists study other primates (primatology), the fossil record (paleoanthropology), prehistoric people (bioarchaeology)...." For example, Birute Galdikas was a classically trained anthropologist that became super famous for her work on orangutans (i.e. Leakey's Angels).

http://bruceowen.com/introbiological/201-08s-09-LivingPrimates.pdf http://www.aaanet.org/about/whatisanthropology.cfm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birut%C4%97_Galdikas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.124.107.31 (talk) 03:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Anthropology is interested in non-human primates because the study of them can give information about human evolution - not for their own sake - that would be zoology. Anthropology is the study of humans - sometimes humans are best understood by comparing with that which is non-human, but that doesn't change the basic point.·Maunus· ƛ · 12:16, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

There is some sort of strange, biological anthropology slant to this entry. Anthropos does not mean Homo sapiens or human being in ancient Greek; the whole point of the word is that it refers to "humanity" and the study of "man", which is a stand in for the noton of "people", in a philosophical, not biological, sense. Modern science has wrenched biology from philosophy only recently. Without question the entry should read "humanity", and the biological approach to the study of humanity should be relegated to a sub- discipline, as it is in the approach to anthropology taken by academic departments and the academic discipline in general. 72.235.140.254 (talk) 16:12, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with that reasoning completely.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I can help, but I'm overwhelmed
Hi. I'm a graduate student (interdisciplinary, with one area of focus in anthropology). I saw the request for an expert. Besides having focused on this area for my graduate work, I would be able to get in touch with experts who might not otherwise edit wikipedia - but I'm new at wiki editing, and I want to make sure my changes would be accepted by the many communities that are now paying attention to this article. I'll take a closer look to see what I can do, but please let me know how I can help. Earthliz (talk) 20:44, 16 April 2010 (UTC)earthliz

Hi. I'm well versed in anthropology too (just about to have a meeting about fieldwork, exciting!) i'm up for improving this page, but it will take work. I think Ingold and Erikksen are good places to start, as they have a verbose and eloquent grasp of what anthropology is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.149.96 (talk) 07:59, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Someone should create a new article
Is there anyone who has specialization in Sociology and Anthropology?

If there is, someone should create a new article on how similar sociology and anthropology are. Sociology and Anthropology are so similar to each other especially with Cultural Anthropology.

I cannot believe that no one has created an article talking about their similarities and none of the Sociology and Anthropology articles mention their very close relationship together.

If anyone has specialization in both fields or at least know them very well, please someone or people should create an article talking about how they are so similar to each other and how Cultural Anthropology is almost a duplicate study of Sociology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 (talk • contribs) 20:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * It's an interesting topic, but would probably count as original content, which isn't quite what wikipedia is about. The similarity between anthropology and sociology is probably related to the latter predominating in continental Europe. Whereas sociology did-away with its less credible scientific bits in the late 19th century, anthropology, to me, seems more resolutely scientific (yet, without drawing upon positivism, which is a bit odd.. Perhaps it's more like psychoanalysis in that wholly metaphysical sense?). The other thing I'd have to say on the topic is that sociology is less anthropomorphic subject (ie. it is more anti/post-humanist) after the influence of the better nuggets of post-structuralist thought, particularly Michel Foucault... --Tomsega (talk) 18:31, 31 October 2009 (UTC)


 * There can be a lot of similarities between the two, but the primary difference is in how investigations are carried out. If a cultural anthropologist and a sociologist started to investigate, for example, drug behavior, the sociologist would be more inclined toward surveys of as representative a sample as possible. The cultural anthropologist would instead use ethnographies and life histories with a few individuals, as well as possibly a material culture investigation depending on the question being investigated. It is not so much subject matter as it is how the investigation is carried out. I noticed quite a bit of tension between the two disciplines at my alma mater regarding the validity of various techniques. The sociologist stereotypically was looking at statistical studies, while the anthropologist was interested in comparative narratives. Thus, the two are not almost duplicates. Both have their own issues, neither come to absolute conclusions due to methodological weaknesses inherent to the disciplines, but both have important things to say depending on how investigations are framed. Notrapturedyet (talk) 03:34, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that. But surely, if there are two entire scientific fields, with thousands of people studying them, there must some reliable reference distinguishing between them?  I second the motion of Canto2009: I'm sure I can't be the only person that's fuzzy about the difference. Paul Magnussen (talk) 18:40, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

there's an old joke that sociology is just anthropology for westerners. but the user who said that the difference is the research methods is correct. and, the difference between socih, anthro, and Psychology, is that psychology thinks you can learn things about people by experimenting on them. which, neither anthropology nor sociology conduct structured experiments on people because that would be a violation of ethics. psychology by contrast, while they admit people will lie to you on a survey (which, sociology's entire premise is that survey data is always correct) routinely collect their data through putting people in artificial situations and controlling variables. Anthro, by contrast, collects all of their information in the form of ethnographies, which, are basically a cross between a research paper and a memoir. because of this it's considered the most squishy and the least scientific.

this is because the basic premise of cultural anthropology is that you learn more by keeping your ears open than you do by talking. say there's a humanitarian problem somewhere. the sociologist stomps in with a fistful of surveys they wrote up at home about how to solve what they think the problem must be. where the anthropologist is more subtle, they hang out, make friends, do work, integrate themselves into the society until they know who to talk to about what the problem could be, they are thus in a better position to maybe get something closer to the full story. sociology, anthropology, psychology, all of the human sciences are very young, share a lot of the same beginnings, and are approaching the problem of understanding people, but the crucial difference IS that they are approaching that question from different angles.

I would love to cite a source on this, but I just have an anthro minor and TBH most anthro is oral tradition. so, I can say I learned it from Richard Ferro who Learned it from Margret Mead who learned it from Franz Boaz but that lineage isn't going to pass muster here. kind of unfortunate really. 98.247.146.29 (talk) 07:32, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Meninism
"Feminist anthropology is a four field approach to anthropology (archeological, biological, cultural, linguistic) that seeks to reduce male bias in research findings" I suggest we add Meninism to this page: "Meninist anthropology is a four field approach to anthropology (archeological, biological, cultural, linguistic) that seeks to reduce feminist bias in research findings" 77.164.174.47 (talk) 22:50, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Changes to final paragraph
I've undone the edits I made to the final paragraph. I've decided it's pointless (and useless) to try and put them in. The entire article is disorganized, has no main outline, follows no train of thought and makes odd claims such as "such and such book is a classic", without any kind of rational whatsoever. I thought that what I put in was much more common sense and less extravagant than many of the things said in the article - however, here's the dialogue between me and another editor about those edits (from my talk page):

First paragraph
Is not too bad. But is there a reason why this article keeps coming back to anthropologists as opposed to anthropology? At any rate, the first paragraph is passable.

The first paragraph doesn't make any sense. It distinguishes ethnography from anthropology, but then states, "Ethnography is one of its primary research designs as well as the text that is generated from anthropological fieldwork." SAY WHAT? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.130.0.5 (talk) 23:18, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

honestly I think the problem is this page was written by anthropologists who don't conform to wiki standards, and then edited by wikipedia people who don't know anything about anthropology so they stripped off the uncited but correct information. anthro conducts ethnographic research, in that you start with a question or a hypothesis/premise for research you want to undertake, and after your fieldwork you write an ethnography, which is a book detailing that research, the information collected, and the story of how you got it and what happened. which, distinguishes anthropology from other fields of inquiry because you don't design an experiment and test it. 98.247.146.29 (talk) 07:40, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Incorporate as many parts of anthropology as possible
Over the past few weeks, I've spoken to a lot of colleagues about what's happened in anthropology in the last 30-40 years (some of them go back that far). Everyone agrees that anthropology has either attracted new disciplinary fields to publish and convene inside the AAA, but that the early focus (in the 1950's at least) on the four fields is part of why anthropology now has so many distinct sections or units. These include: Ethnology, Environmental, Archaeology, Africanist, Feminist, Political and Legal, Biological, Museum, Educational, Culture and Agriculture, Evolutionary Anthropology (which includes many people from molecular biology and related sciences, many of them Primatologists), Cultural, Middle Eastern, Anthropological Sciences (another group trained in both anthropology and other sciences, not necessarily related to evolution, for example, allied to forensics), East Asian, Humanistic, Latin American and Caribbean, Medical, Linguistics, Psychological, Anthropology of Consciousness, Europe, Food and Nutrition, North American, Religion, Work, Urban and National/Transnational, Visual, Practice of Anthropology (aka Applied). These are the subgroups in American anthropology (British anthropology has fewer sections). I listed them more or less in the order they're on the AAA page, and bolded the traditional four "subfields". There is also, obviously, a General Anthropology section.

If you're wondering where primatology is, in the above schema, it's in Biological, which has its own subgroups. Ethnomusicology and ethnopoetics are organized in two places (at least), Ethnology (which is huge in and of itself) and Humanistic.

One thing I wanted to pull out of this list is that one way anthropology has always used to organized itself when it tries to simplify its work, is regional. Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia have apparently been incorporated into the "indigeneous" section, presumably the only large land mass in that section is Australia. This is an extremely important way that anthropology has proceeded and organized itself, since many anthropologists have specialized in "everything about one place," when possible.

I want the article to be readable by people who know little or nothing about anthropology, and to that end, have looked at all my introductory textbooks (I must have 35-30, publishers are generous with these things). The four "subfield" approach is mentioned in all of them, sometimes very briefly. Additional "subfields" are mentioned in most of them, depending on which subfield the textook is in (and there are only a couple of general anthropology textbooks at the introductory level).

So one of my goals is to better integrate this page with the various regional projects, and to have a list of the regions (and subregions) somewhere, and get Anthro Project tags on appropriate pages about regions. I'd like to have all of the above fields have articles and be under the "See Also" section (we don't have to mention every single one of them in the lead, but working more of them into the body of the article would be good.

One more thing: I really think we need a separate page on Anthropologists.  That's where all the stuff about particular anthropologists goes, as well as a discussion of the rather well-known fact that one need not be trained in anthropology to be an anthropolgist (either academically, in terms of publishing, or in terms of findings). So, someone like George Collier (sometimes called the founder of Psychological Anthropology and a chief editor in anthropology monographs for 40 years, professor of anthropology at Stanford for more than 30 years - and that's a program with fairly high rankings), had a doctorate in psychology, but was hired as an anthropologist after he did extensive fieldwork with the Menominee (a Native American group). Also, there are a large number of authors who anthropologists quote as if they are anthropologists or about whom anthropologists say "provides one of the best ethnographic accounts on X," when that person is a novelist or a filmmaker or documentarian whose work contributed to preserving visual or other aspects of a particular culture (like Camus and his Black Orpheus). Thor Hyderdahl is listed here on wikipedia as an ethnographer (which he certainly was) and the number of times he's cited in anthropological works (even if just to argue with him, although recently, sometimes to vindicate some of his theories) is larger than many living academic anthropologists.

I'm not proposing any huge changes right away, just a gradual reconstruction of this page as we add subpages. My own enthusiasms were leading me to doing the regional work first (most anthropologists belong to both a theoretical subfield and a regional subfield, if one wanted to study the entire planet, one would need to belong to a lot of associations and read a lot of journals - each of these subfields has lots of publications). So I'm agreeing with SLRubenstein that we should call the four "subfields" fields, so that the word "subfield" is available for all the others. Nearly all the others can easily be subsumed under one of the four main fields (although not always; consciousness is a big exception). Some of the subfields are actually methods (like the science group) and used through the four fields, but perhaps a table with brief descriptions (near the bottom) could clarify this. If you are wondering why I'm so excited about including all the parts of anthropology that we can, it's because one never knows which parts of the field are going to be coming up with the most interesting things, at any given moment. If you get a chance, take a look at the Science section's homepage (Carol Ember, who should have her own page if she doesn't) is the president-elect - scroll down to their news section (courtesy of Texas A & M, interesting stuff there):

Science news in anthropology from Texas A & M

Or look at the awards given in Biological Anthropology this year (who can resist wanting to know more about orangutans):

Orangutan research (yes, that's how they spell it)

Wouldn't it be great if we could have an anthropological news box on this page and promote various current stories from all fields/subfields (whatever we end up calling them)?

FYI
If people who watch this page are also interested in how Wikipedia is governed, be sure to check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Advisory_Council_on_Project_Development. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'm always interested in how Wikipedia works.LeValley 20:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

First section is much improved
I'm not good at following edit histories, but the opening paragraphs have evolved over the last year, and in the right direction. There is some clarity here for the average encyclopedia reader, and starts well. Good job!LeValley 20:32, 15 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The citations are strong and actually quite interesting (the link to the Renaissance roots of anthropology is an excellent choice). I see the "Be Bold" instruction at the top of the article - and I'm guessing it's there because this article is really long, goes into detail about certain subfields but not others, meaning that those sections should be moved either to their subfield pages or to their own pages (Anthropology across all nations needs to be somewhere else - article makes it look as if there's been a great deal of research and consensus about anthropology-by-nationality, when in fact, it's a fairly minor topic in the discipline as a whole, and there is little consensus about it).  I'm not feeling bold at all today, but perhaps in future I will.LeValley 21:03, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Social Vs Cultural
are two very distinct traditions reflecting european vs american understandings respectively. that the latter is inadmissable as a qualification to an lse phd programme is testament to their difference. social is rooted in the british and french tradition of studying social systems, the way society works. cultural is more interested in a geertz inspired explication of cultural difference. the former is more of a social science, the latter more of a humanity, and this page should reflect that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.140.107 (talk) 13:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to editors to vote/discuss definition of science in Talk:Science
There has been an extensive discussion on the Talk:Science of what the lead definition of the science article should be. I suspect this might be an issue that may be of interest to the editors of this page. If so, please come to the voting section of the talk science page to vote and express your views. Thank you. mezzaninelounge (talk) 18:34, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/thumb.htm== reconstruction of african history ==

given that anthropology is a method of reconstructing histroy how can it be used toreconstruct african history

http://www.holocaust.cz/cz2/resources/documents/antisemitism/nazi/giftpilz/giftpilz

simplified intro
The intro used to say :Anthropology's basic concerns are "What defines Homo sapiens?", "Who are the ancestors of modern Homo sapiens?", "What are humans' physical traits?", "How do humans behave?", "Why are there variations and differences among different groups of humans?", "How has the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens'' influenced its social organization and culture?" and so forth. I changed this to Anthropology asks "What defines Homo sapiens?", "Who are the ancestors of modern Homo sapiens?", "What are humans' physical traits?", "How do humans behave?", "Why are there variations and differences among different groups of humans?", "How has the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens influenced its social organization and culture?" and so forth.''Saturdayseven (talk) 15:22, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it sounds weird to personalize an academic discipline that way, and the simplification achieved is a question of two words less.·Maunus· ƛ · 17:11, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I see your point Saturdayseven (talk) 19:51, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

United States bias
This article is heavily biased towards United States anthropology. Especially in the introduction and overview section where US views and disputes are assumed to be the standard for all of anthropology.Miradre (talk) 10:36, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have any evidence it isn't?·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:53, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The burden of evidence is on you if you want to generalize claims regarding US anthropology to anthropology worldwide.Miradre (talk) 12:56, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * No it is not. You put up the tag- now you justify that there are views that are left out of the article.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:03, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I am only noting that intro and overview section is heavily dominated by descriptions of US anthropology and views and disputes in the US. Material regarding anthropology in other parts of the world is mostly lacking.Miradre (talk) 13:07, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You need to somehow show that they are different from the US, and that they do not also see the views and disputes in the US as of central concern. Otherwise your complaint is vacuous. We cannot include statements about developments inanthropology in other countries unless there is a reason to believe that it differs from what is described already.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:09, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I am agnostic regarding whether they are the same as in the US or not. But claiming without sources that US anthropology is the same as worldwide anthropology is very dubious OR.Miradre (talk) 13:14, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If you want a source for that do are differences see for example "A Historical Overview on Anthropology in China" Mingxin Liu, Anthropologist, 5(4): 217-223 (2003). States clearly that Chinese anthropologists do not simply imitate western anthropological theories in their work.Miradre (talk) 13:24, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

If you have expertise on Chinese anthropology, by all means add it. My Chinese friends tell me anthropology in China is atrophied for political reasons. Do you want to add something about Fen? Slrubenstein  |  Talk 14:06, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * My point is simply that the article is biased towards US anthropology. Personal experiences by WP editors are of course not reliable sources.Miradre (talk) 14:11, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * No your point is just tendentious editing, the article gives considerable attention to UK and French anthropologists, and other countries. Who is notable but excluded?  WHo do you want to add? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 21:28, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * In the most important parts of the article, the intro and the overview section, US views and disputes are are assumed to be the standard for all of anthropology. See above for that for example Chinese views are different.Miradre (talk) 21:31, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Another example. Even for the similar western nations there those who argue that there are national differences regarding anthropology: Miradre (talk) 21:59, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * There are historical reasons why anthropology has been centered and developed in the US (often by European anthropologists practicing in the US). For the first part of the discplines history anthrpology was about white men from Europe and the US studying everybody else - only in the second half of the 20th century did anthropology starts to develop independently in other countries - but still very much influenced by US anthropology. (Margaret Mead was one of those who argued that every country should have its own school). If you query is about making mention of how non-"western" anthropologies have gradually seprated themselves from the Western-centric main branch then I applaud the effort. If it is about making it look as if anthropologists elsewhere still believe in biological race, which frankly seems more likely to be your aim in doing this, then I want to remind you about your topic ban.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:42, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * All of your claims are unsourced and are dubious or incorrect.Miradre (talk) 08:48, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Nope. If you knew more about the topic you'd not need sources - but of course I shouldn't assume that you do. I'll be happy to source any specific claims you want to read more about.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:45, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You make the claims, you have the burden of evidence. Wikipedia policy.Miradre (talk) 07:36, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * yeah, you're right. You are making a claim that anthropology in the US is different than it is everywhere else. Back it up. The article is already sourced as is. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:45, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not claiming that US anthropology represents the world by by having US anthropology views and disputes dominate the intro and overview section. It is those making such claims who must present the sources. I have already also presented sources regarding China and even other Western nations being different.Miradre (talk) 16:49, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you know anything at all about the history of the discipline of anthropology? Because if you do it should be easy for you to understand why the US is the central scene of the development of the theoretical foundations of the discipline. There is no introduction to anthropology that will not describe the development of the discipline in this way. Now if you want to add more you need to be SPECIFIC about which claims in the article are giving undue weight to US trends. Start by giving an example of a claim the article is making that is not supported - then I will source it. Right now you are talking in general terms that are impossible to take seriously.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:15, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Again, please give sources for your claims. Please read WP:V. I have given sources above; you have not.Miradre (talk) 17:16, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * A question is not a claim. Answer the question.  Tell us what about anthropology is different in other countries that you think is of sufficient to belong in the article.  Just explain to us what exactly you are talking about. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:24, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * See the sources I have already given above. No one else has presented any sources for claims.Miradre (talk) 17:31, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You are being evasive. What sources? Slrubenstein   |  Talk
 * See my edits above at 13:24, 6 August 2011 and 21:59, 6 August 2011.Miradre (talk) 19:20, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

The web doesn't count. Now, you want to write a section on Chinese anthropology, fine - please tell us what books by Chinese anthropologists you will read and thn draw on to add to this article an account of Chinese anthropology. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 22:51, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * When did I say I want to write a section on Chinese anthropology? I am pointing out that article is biased by assuming that US views and disputes are identical with worldwide views and disputes in anthropology.Miradre (talk) 22:55, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * This could be fixed by clearly stating what views and disputes are United States ones and that there are other views in other nations. Material could also be moved from the intro and overview to some US specific section.Miradre (talk) 22:59, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It is you who are doing the assuming - you are assuming that sources about general anthropology written for an american audience does not reflect anthropology globally. The article is written based on sources - unless you have something that contradicts those sources there is no way in the world we can start changing the article.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:40, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Again see the sources at my edits above at 13:24, 6 August 2011 and 21:59, 6 August 2011.Miradre (talk) 23:43, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * WOuld you please tell us what those sources say exactly and how it contradicts the current state of the article. We are not going to do that work for you.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:45, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Both sources state that there are national differences regarding anthropology. For example regarding China, "Chinese anthropology has developed from the initial stage of simply introducing and indiscriminately imitating western academic theories into a more mature stage of comprehensively analyzing western anthropological theories, and combining these with Chinese reality to blaze new trails." This overview do not detail exactly what all the differences are. The same regarding the differences between western nations as stated in the other source. But my point is that US anthropology is not the same as world anthropology.Miradre (talk) 09:14, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * But surely, the article provides references of several contemporary Chinese anthropologists - why not read their work and write up a section on the kinds of problems they address, their methods and theoretical engagements? Slrubenstein  |  Talk 16:27, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Certainly I may do if I get the time. But that would not solve the problem which is extreme prominence and assumption of universality given to US views and debates in the introduction and overview sections. It needs to be clarified what are US views and debates and much of the material should preferable be moved to an US specific section.Miradre (talk) 21:09, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * That is nonsense. It is certainly alright to include non-US views where such might be demonstrably different from the mainstream (which happens to be US). There is no way that it could be justified to separate out a specific US section. Anthropology was developed by Europeans and Americans for the first 150 years of its existence and the US continues to be the global center of the discipline in every way. You are simply incorrect when you assume that the fact that there exists some measure of local diversity means that  "US views and debates" are not also a part of global anthropology. If you want to suggest that certain issues or views are particular to the US you would need to present good reliable sources that state that explicitly  and not sources that can only be interpreted that way through liberal amounts of OR. Read any anthropology undergraduate textbook from Europe or the US and you will see no such division. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:02, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Again, I have given a source showing national differences also for western nations. You have given no source for any of your claims. If your claims were correct you should have no trouble finding sources showing that US anthropological views are universals. In addition to the source I have already given here is another for China: Miradre (talk) 22:30, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You have not presented a single example of a view that is claimed to be universal in the article but which is in fact US specific. Untill you do this your complaint is spurious. The fact that sources say that there are individual traditions in different countries does not automatically lead to the conclusion that anything currently in the article claimed to be universal for anthropology is in fact not. You have wasted all the talkpage space above arguing without making any tangible argument. That is frustrating.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:32, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Even the current intro admits some extremely large differences also between western nations like archaeology not being apart of anthropology in Europe. Despite this a dispute in the US during a specific, limited time period regarding positivist traditions is described av being universal for all of anthropology in the intro. Cultural relativism is described as being universally accepted by everyone. There are also regional statements like this in the overview section: "However, seen in a positive light, anthropology is one of the few places in many American universities where humanities, social, and natural sciences are forced to confront one another." Miradre (talk) 04:02, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I had been annoyed at that last sentence (one of the few places) myself, and would love to remove it entirely. I can find a lot of citations for the general (not universal) acceptance of cultural relativism as a basic principle of anthropolog - not just in the US. There is also no reason that i am aware of to see the science/humanism phenomenology/positivism debate as a US phenomenon.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:09, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The recent removals were excellent edits. I'd like to call attention to the following removal from the Overview section:

On the one hand this has led to instability in many American anthropology departments, resulting in the division or reorganization of sub-fields (e.g. at Stanford, Duke, and most recently at Harvard). However, seen in a positive light, anthropology is one of the few places in many American universities where humanities, social, and natural sciences are forced to confront one another. As such, anthropology has also been central in the development of several new (late 20th century) interdisciplinary fields such as cognitive science, global studies, human-computer interaction, and various ethnic studies.
 * That link is broken/dead, anyway. And yet if that last part is true, that is:

Anthropology is one of the few places where humanities, social, and natural sciences are forced to confront one another. As such, anthropology has also been central in the development of several new (late 20th century) interdisciplinary fields such as cognitive science, global studies, human-computer interaction, and various ethnic studies. [paraphrased]
 * . . . then it is informative enough to be put back in, don't you think? – Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX   )  03:12, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * A PS to the above... I found a reliable source for that statement as I have paraphrased it at this website, well, for all but the human-computer interaction part (that Wikipedia article doesn't even mention anthropology, by the way), so I'm going to return that sentence to the Overview section. It will be devoid of "non-globalization". –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX   )  04:35, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * That is a Wikipedia clone. It is not a reliable source. It is like Wikipedia citing itself as a source.Miradre (talk) 06:37, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you certain of that? I'm pretty careful about sniffing out clones, and that website did not appear to be one.  Also, the quoted line did not include "human-computer interaction", which was another clue that the bio-nation site is not a clone. –  Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX   )  09:09, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The link goes to an article with almost exactly the same text and structure as this Wikipedia article. An obvious clone. Miradre (talk) 07:22, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

As a member of the CSB project, it might be inappropriate to refer to the project in this case. The CSB project tends to focus upon newer and less established articles than this one. There have been what might be some valid arguments above both for and against the need for "globalization" in this article, so I substituted the Globalize template, which allows for a direct link to this talk page section (and also does not contain the sometimes inflammatory word "bias"). If globalization is not required, then the tag can be removed; however, if it does come to light that there is too much weight given to the USA in this article, then such improvement might lead to a better stab at FA status. – Paine Ellsworth  (  C LIMAX   )  08:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding cultural relativism see this link:. Classical CR is described as having "a characteristically American flavor". Also according to it there seems to be considerable variation in acceptance among anthropologists with many anthropologists today only supporting a very weakened version as a "rule of thumb". As a separate issue the opposition by the American Anthropological Association against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights seem a controversy notable enough to mention somewhere in the article. Miradre (talk) 05:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Well classic cultural relativism is of course something that influenced the development of anthropology in the US in the first half of the 20th century. It is of course right that nowadays cultural relativism is something very different than it was then- "a weakened version" if you will although that doesn't make that much sense for reasons I don't want to discuss here. I agree about the human rights opposition.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:18, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The overview section still describes archeology as part of anthropology while globally this would be a local exception rather than the general rule.Miradre (talk) 05:58, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Regarding the so called universal debate and split in anthropology regarding positivism. Here is a source saying otherwise: . ""American anthropology has since its beginning in the late 19th century had this uneasy configuration of four subfields," she said. "European anthropologists have always regarded the situation as an accident of American history." Also, the conflict is not just about "positivist" methods but also about the classical nature vs. nuture/biology vs. culture debate. This should be mentioned.Miradre (talk) 06:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You seem to be misunderstanding that - the four field division has nothing to do with the modernism/postmodernism positivism/humanism split. The four field division is definitely thought of as peculiar outside of the American tradition, but the positivism/humanism debate still applies. I think the nature - nurture issue is entangled with the positivism debate but they don't align completely and I would want to see a good secondary source that describe them together in order to describe them as being related.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:38, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I am only quoting what the source says. In which on view is that this American division contributes to the "positivist" debate. If for example archeology is already separated from social anthropology, then archeologists cannot complain that "positivist" or "biological" perspectives are being ignored by the majority in the department who are social anthropologists. Also, you did not replay regarding cultural relativism. Miradre (talk) 07:31, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * They can and they do - it is very possible to be a social anthropologist and a positivist at the same time - that is a large part of the debate. Latour basically wrote "We have never been Modern" as a piece in the European positivist/humanist debate in anthropology and sociology. You are confused about what the stanford article (which is by the way not a very high quality source) says. I replied re cultural relativism above. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:11, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Obviously do not all social anthropologists have exactly the same view. Here is a more modern view on the archeology/social anthropology schism in the US: . Note that this problem would be absent in most of the world where archeologists are not sorted under anthropology. Miradre (talk) 08:46, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It should also be a mentioned that there more generally are various national differences and traditions like that Chinese anthropology today does not just simply imitate western academic theories. Miradre (talk) 06:16, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I would support inclusion of something to that effect once you show us how chinese anthropological theory deviates significantly from other traditions. It makes no sense when you say "does not simply imitate" its not about imitating it is about participating and buyilding on - I don't think you will be able to show that China is somehow not building on western anthropological theories. You may be able to show that they are taking them in new directions but that does not create the kind of divided local traditions that you seem to be talking about.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:42, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Even if they do build in part on western ideas that was not my point. Which is that there are significant differences between nations, some argue also between western nations, which should be pointed out. It makes no sense to have the US as the "default" in the intro and overview when for example archeology is not part of anthropology in most of the world. Miradre (talk) 07:31, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that the article should not spend mocyh time, especially not in the lead on the American four field approach. I really don't see what would be gained by mentioning "significant differences between nations" without describing what those differences in fact are (except for the possibility of making readers believe that the differences are more significant than they may in fact be). If you find literature that explains what these supposed significant differences are and preferably how they came about, then I am all in favor of inclusion. I am also all in favor of toning down the US specificity - however as I said most of anthropologys history happened in the US academic circle, sparked mostly by European scholars. That means that there is a large, shared basis for anthropology which is strictly "western" and yet global - and local developments depart from this - I don't think you will be able to discern which elements are "US specific" and which are "global" untill you do some more reading about this topic. Try for example Hylland Eriksens, "What is Anthropology" for a non-US view of the discipline. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:11, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Some specific differences in China would be that anthropology is very much aligned with the interests of the state. Archeology is in part about gaining national prestige. Cultural anthropology is in part about helping the government rule well. There are also various other oddities like: "Anthropometry (the measurement of human physical features such as head size, feet size) remains an important and active field of study in China today based on the strength of its applied linkage with consumer product development in Chinese industries." There is also some interesting official (and also among students and the public) divisions of anthropology branches into first-tier and second-tier sciences depending on how practically useful the different branches are seen to be. Also, the positivist debate in China is likely completely absent with positivism being the unchallenged default.(In Search of Anthropology in China, Josephine Smart, in "World Anthropologies: Disciplinary Transformations in Systems of Power"). Miradre (talk) 08:46, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Given that it has been something like a year and a half with no action related to the assertion of the bias tag, and it seems to be only one individual who is making that assertion, I am going to remove it; upon reviewing the article I don't see any inherent bias; and the lack of specific mention of Chinese practices does not by itself mean bias exists; it simply means that the article could use expanding to include that additional information. Ironlion45 (talk) 04:09, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

World Anthropologies
I've found what seems to be promising sources regarding the development of local anthropological traditions outside of the West.: http://www.unc.edu/~aescobar/text/eng/escobar.2005a.restrepo.CritiqueAnth.25-2.pdf http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00141844.1982.9981229 http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=zFD0mRFlWQcC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=international+anthropologies&ots=t0Au4WZ_er&sig=gMZyea_IRW6jYH8ronaRZ9Qw1PQ#v=onepage&q=international%20anthropologies&f=false http://www.unc.edu/~aparicio/WAN/HusseinHelmerIndigAnthrop.pdf If noone else does I will be looking into this when I am back from the field in september.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 05:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Misuse of sources
This article has been edited by a user who is known to have misused sources to unduly promote certain views (see WP:Jagged 85 cleanup). Examination of the sources used by this editor often reveals that the sources have been selectively interpreted or blatantly misrepresented, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent.

Please help by viewing the entry for this article shown at the page, and check the edits to ensure that any claims are valid, and that any references do in fact verify what is claimed.

I searched the page history, and found 4 edits by Jagged 85 (for example, see this edits). Tobby72 (talk) 19:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Academic entries having problem staying on the main Anthropology page - see Maunus
I am the instructor for a third-year level Anthropology course on Anthropological Theory (Spring, 2012). The students had a course project to add Anthropological Theory entries to Wikipedia, and to add sources to existing Wikipedia entries. All material was taken down immediately by Maunus, citing various concerns such as not academic, or biases, even though many of the entries were also described as 'good.' In looking at the talk page it seems that issues with Maunus and his editing has been ongoing for a year. The Anthropology page could use revision; it is not complete, properly cited, and this has already been flagged by Wikipedia at the top of the entry. We have been trying to improve the content, but have been repeatedly blocked. Our course is now over, and Wikipedia has unfortunately lost the skills of many interested students, and their instructor whose credentials include a Ph.D and over ten years of university teaching experience. Wikipedia promotes being a collaborative tool for research and knowledge. It would be unfortunate if future students might look up the Anthropology entry for their own research and learning and continue to see an inadequate entry. This problem has also been logged at the Dispute Reolution page. The idea of open access and shared knowledge is a good one, and Wikipedia has the potential to be an ever more valued resource, and a leading open source scholarly resource. How do the Wikipedia contributors feel about this topic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lpetrillo (talk • contribs) 17:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The students inserted a long essay on archaeology into the overview section of the article on anthropology. They never responded on the talkpage or engaged in discussion. It is great when educators decide to use wikipedia as an instruction tool, but they should be prepared to engage in dialogue about the quality of the edits with other editors and defend their inclusions with arguments. Noone has blocked anything - the content which I judeged to be outside of the scope was removed I gave a rationale for that and even approached the student on their talkpage without ever being answered. I know of no "issues" with my editing behavior and if there were the correct way to approach that would be to contact me personally. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:52, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Generative Anthropology and Fundamental Anthropology missing?
Generative Anthropology and Fundamental Anthropology missing? Eric Gans and Rene Girard — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.48.204.94 (talk) 17:18, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Sociocultural Anthropology
Made some minor amendments to make the section more about sociocultural anthropology and less about cultural anthropology. Removed reference to synonymy with cultural and social anthropology -- they are not -- Made some terms less definite to reduce controversy. Corrected description of SCCS, and provided academic reference to SCCS. Michael Fischer (talk) 14:37, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Intro
Added wp reference to the commonwealth, changed soc ant ... generally refererred to as soc-cult anthro to sometimes ... hard to reference the negative, but it is not generally so referred to. I hear the term once every few years in GB, Europe and the CW all of which I travel extensively within. It is true that folks like Bob Layton will sometimes use the term for cover, as cultural anthropology as such is highly suspect in the UK, and culture is losing ground in more recent years for a variety of reasons. Michael Fischer (talk) 15:03, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

American anthropology ... and what about British, etc?
I've boldly gone ... to fix a large digression in Culture by splitting out a new article, American anthropology, and have added a 'further' link here. It is at once clear that this creates some kind of overlap; I note that the parent article is already rather large, and that it does not sharply distinguish between US, UK, and other approaches to its subject.

Perhaps it would be helpful to create short sections "in summary style" on those topics, with 'main' links to those sub-articles. That might involve moving some material to the sub-articles, or creating new material. A navbox might be in order. Other solutions may be possible, I have no opinion on how it might best be done. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:10, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The American/UK anthropology is largely the same as the Cultural/Social anthropology difference. I think the best solution would be to have one on CUltural anthropology and one on History of Anthropology in the US.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:29, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Intro's "...distinguished from ethnology"
The addition of "distinguished from ethnology" is based on an incorrect reading of the provided source, Han F. Vermulen's "The German Invention of Völkerkunde: Ethnological Discourse in Europe and Asia, 1740–1798" (2006, .pdf at external link). From that source: "Cultural and social anthropology are direct offshoots of ethnology. and the study of cultured groups is widely pursued today" (p. 125)] This proceeds a discussion about the author's oppositional construction of ethnology from "anthropological discourse, subsequently defined as either the philosophical or the physical study of man" (Vermulen 2006, p. 125; emphasis mine). The "anthropology" of the source's definition is pointedly not cultural or social anthropology, but instead biological or philosophical. Therefore, cultural anthropology in the U.S. and social anthropology in the U.K. and Europe are developments out of ethnology, not distinguished from it. Pinchme123 (talk) 17:57, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Above .pdf is available courtesy of the author's own website. Pinchme123 (talk) 18:02, 19 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm glad you brought that up. The relationship of the matter to the refs in the intro IS a bit confused. On the very 1st sentence we get four refs, one of which is quoted without quotes, and it isn't the one closest to the quote. I do not know how or why it got confused and I don't care. Currently it seems over-condensed and not a good fit with the refs. I want to fix it bit by bit. There are two ways to go from here with that first sentence: drop all the refs but one, or state multiple definitions. I think the editor would want multiple definitions and that seems a little more in the direction of WP so that is the way I'm going. It means a slight expansion of the 1st paragraph.Botteville (talk) 22:06, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
 * That is not how we use the term "ethnology" in American anthropology at least. Here ethnology refers to a comparative and theoretical study of human societies, the quest for "universal" principles of culture and society. Whereas Anthropology is the empirical and historical study of human societies through ethnography, archeology, biological and linguistic analyses. This understanding may be a kind of relic of the American tradition and Boas' introduction of fieldwork as the core methodology, as opposed to the text base comparative ethnology of Tylor and Frazer. In Denmark the anthropology department at the university of Copenhagen is basically what we would call socio-cultural anthropology in the US and the ethnology department is focused on folklore and ethnicicity in Europe. The terms are not clear cut and do not really refer to distinct traditions but rather are used very in very different senses in different local and national traditions.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 04:33, 23 March 2015 (UTC)
 * OK I'll remember that or refer to it again but for the moment we need some basic word and subject origin material, which I am preparing. The one statement that is there, that is incorrect. You'll see.Botteville (talk) 02:44, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The other thing is that it is a mistake to base the definition of the discipline on its historical uses. In the past the term anthropology had man different meanings and did not constitute a coherent discipline. When the word anthropology was used by Kant, the French or German anatomists, or even Tylor or Morgan it had a very different meaning than it has today, where it is a coherent discipline with professional journals and organizations, and a relatively well established subject matter and gamut of schools and approaches. Boas was the first to move anthropology towards becoming a coherent professional discipline based on the four field approach. But today three of the four fields generally consider themselves to be separate from anthropology. Today anthropology means proto-typically socio-cultural anthropology, and those specific approaches within archeology, linguistics or human biology that draws on the methods and theories of cultural anthropology. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 03:20, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Three links in the article,
Each one seeking happiness...
 * at video Anthropology ?
 * at Cong dong Nhan Hoc_VietNam
 * at Nhan Hoc Viet Nam

With the first link there are copyright issues. I'll never forget the time I put up a youtube video on facebook. I got a nasty and threatening message that said, this video is not yours to share and if you ever do it again we will come to your house and cut off your hands, thief. The second two I presume are in Vietnamese. With all due respect to the great and wonderful Vietnamese people,most of us can't read them and therefore can't verify what they say. If you can speak English, don't you know, it is very rude to speak Vietnamese in an English-speaking audience. I know we often put up German, Spanish, and whatnot links, but those are in languages we can to some degree understand, and most have English alternatives. You got any of those with Roman subtitles?Botteville (talk) 02:43, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Removing these makes perfect sense.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 23:28, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Another link: As far as I can see this link adds nothing encyclopedic, it only tells you what reviews you can buy. I going to say, it is a commercial site.Botteville (talk) 23:19, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Annual Review of Anthropology
 * Annual Review of Anthropology is one of the main anthropology journals. It doesnt publish book reviews but annual review articles of different subfields of anthropology. It is a good resource certainly, but I am ont sure we need to add journals to the see also/EL section. generally my view is that the default number of External links is zero. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 23:28, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Founder
Anthropology has many founders: Morgan, Tylor, Boas, Malinowski are frequently mentioned as such. Sometimes Kant is mentioned because he used the word, and Hundt because he apparently was the first to coin it. I have never ever heard Broca described either as an anthropologist or as a major figure within the discipline - much less as a founder. He worked on human anatomy, sure, but that is not the same as anthropology even when carried out in an "school of anthropology". I removed Broca's image from the template. Please dont include it without consensus to do so and some solid sources identifying him as a major figure in the discipline - more major than any of the more traditionally named founders. Also why even include a pictur of a founder, many other images could better represent the discipline.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 02:57, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I believe the caption stated that Broca was founder of modern anthropology, which is a big difference. I suppose editors may have their own favorites in this respect, so inclusion of a picture of a "founder" may indeed be inappropriate.  The ibox needs an image, though, so what would you like to see there?
 * File:P anthropology.png
 * File:UBC Museum of Anthropology First Nations sea wolf carving.jpg
 * File:1911 Britannica-Anthropology-2.png
 * Three is my leaning, though either of the other two would be acceptable to me. – Paine EllsworthC LIMAX ! 04:05, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * He was not the founder of modern anthropology in any sense, way or form. He was a pioneer in the study of human anatomy and therefore could be considered important to the field of physical anthropology. But he worked in a period where the term "anthropology" did not have the meaning it has had the past 100 years since Franz Boas founded the field as a modern scientific discipline (which he did, the others mentioned above founded specific important concepts and approaches). Pictures 1 or 2 are acceptable. Picture 3 gives undue weight to physical anthropology, which is not the core discipline of contemporary anthropology. Indeed many of its practitioners do not consider themselves anthropologists.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 04:29, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello Maunus. First of all, let me say I don't mind your changing the picture. Fine. Also, if you want to collapse the box, fine. The design looks good at the moment. This is a sort of pick-the-best design thing. I'm sure you are just as capable of design as I. No contention. I'm not going to fight you on that. However, you say Broca was NOT an anthropologist and founded nothing. Sorry, I have material completey to the contrary. No, he did not found a school, he founded general anthropology. Representatives of HIS organization helped found the British organization of which Tylor was a member. But, I have not put this material in yet. I wanted to clean up some refs first. I told you it was going in. Don't you think there was a general phase before any schools began? Tylor was a relative late-comer. But, let me put my information in, which I have just been researchng. I believe the subject is anthropology, including its origin. You can't exclude physical anthropology from being anthropology. What do you do with Leakey and all those people? Now, there is one more point. It is not up to YOU to decide what is anthropology and what not. Ant such statement needs references. We have worked so well together previously let us see if we can't continue that. Quotes, references. That is what I mean by basic material.Botteville (talk) 08:41, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Then start using some actual sources and references yourself Botteville. I cant provide references to prove a negative. Show me some actual anthropology books, textbooks for example that mention Broca as a founder, or memes and memeplexes as important concepts. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:46, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Theoretical differences - start of discussion on balance and accuracy
OK, I think I can summarize the problem. It appeared in the old introduction, with multiple definitions crammed into one or two lines. Of course there are different points of view, and one or two statements are not going to cover them. But, I think we should understand something. The editors' points of view do not count! You can't arbitrarily remove physical anthropolgy on the grounds that you do not think it is anthropology. I mean, you can, but that is contrary to WP policy. You can insist on references no doubt. This is not a search for the one true anthropology in the minds of the editors. We don't get to do that. The experts do. So, it is true that consensus is a big part of WP. On the other hand, if the consenting editors are unaware of a topic, such as the history of the foundation of anthropology, their consensus is not of much encyclopedic value. Consensus is not the whole ball game, only part of it.

Now, why would you think I would argue about a picture?.That is only a matter of decoration. If the picture is relevant it is nothing I would argue about. Maunas, I think you have a contending editor on that score.

My main thrust is that the article misrepresents the history of anthropology. I don't think that is Wikipedian or right. I'm going by the foundation of the Anthropological Society of London, the first anthroplogical society in Britain. Would you not agree that is a major innovation? If not, what were Tylor and his brother doing there? Representatives of Broca's organization were there. I don't want to turn this into a fault-finder, but Broca is considered by the French to be the founder of general anthropology, a fact of which our editors (such as you) don't seem to be aware. Broca was the first with the modern anthropological organizations. It is really too bad you did not wait for my expansion of that section. Now, Broca was not just a physical anthropologist. He had an interest in ethnology as well. In any case our theoretical differences reduce to these as far as I can see: I'm going by the first meeting of the Anthropological society of Britain. It was preceded by one other, the one in France.
 * There is a general anthropology, which counts as anthropology.
 * There is a physical anthropology, which counts as anthropology.
 * There is a history of anthropology, which belongs in the article. Of course there are many "founders," so I agree with you that the presentation of only one is perhaps not balanced. I selected Broca because he founded the first anthropological association, of which I guess you were not aware, while the British one was the second, and the French do credit him with being the founder. I'm happy just to say that some consider him the founder of anthropology. That is true regardless of what you personally may think of it.

So, that is my platform. Anything less I consider totally out of balance. Frankly, I have trouble understanding the article the way it is. Like the old introduction, it assumes too much. It may be, the subject is creating an article that is too long. I certainly would consider splitting of another article, say "Anthropology, history of the concept". I do not think your stance that only the neo-evolutionist cultural anthropologists can be considered to have the true anthropology is balanced. I have not opposed you so far and you argued agreeably, so far. I think if you are going to make an opposition you have to pick your ground. This is my ground. The article misrepresents anthropology on editorial opinion. Your view of Broca and of general and physical anthropology as not true anthropology is unbalanced and mistaken. I still have another section coming, which I am going to call "Arrival of anthropology in Britain." There is pretty clear evidence that anthropology did not originate in Britain and Tylor did not originate it. I do follow the convention, however, that he defined cultural anthropology. Now, you say, you hope more people sign up for anthropology and that you can keep the people you have. Let's see if that is true. Please give reasons for any deletions you make. Please back up your reasons with quotations from other sources or references to them. Thanks. By the way I like the multiple box scheme. I don't really know what I can do with it, as it seems to solve the problem You just pick the right box. Well, it is going to be few days before my next secion, so be patient.Botteville (talk) 10:58, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * No, YOU provide sources for your inclusions. Any material that is unsourced can be challenged and removed by any editor. And please use sources that are authoritative works about anthropology as a discipline. Not all early uses of the word "anthropology" actually refers to the discipline called anthropology today. Broca's use is one of those. Just find some general introductions to Anthropology and see if they mention him. I have yet to see one that does. And I have taught both general and physical anthropology and read many different textbooks. Tylor by the way neither practiced nor founded cultural anthropology, which is an entirely American invention by Boas. Tylor practiced ethnology, of the type today called "armchair anthropology". The school he founded became "social Anthropology" later with the influence of Durkheim on Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown. By the way I have not said that physical anthropology is not "true anthropology", it is (at least in the US, in much of Europe it isnt), but it is not the main or prototypical field of anthropology, and many of its practitioners do not even consider themselves anthropologists. I am not looking for true anthropology, I am looking for an article that reflects the general literature on anthropology and general literature on the topic does not place the foundation of the discipline in France in the early 19th century. You may think that it should and that doing so would be more accurate, but Wikipedia does not really care about your wish to revise the history of the discipline. What we do agree on is that the current state of the article is terrible and that it needs to be rewritten. But it needs to be rewritten based on the best available general sources on the topic. Not based on what our own research of the disciplines history has led us to believe. The solution is sources and references, on that I agree with you also. So bring them ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:48, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The "Darwinian Rvolution" section gives an immense amount of undue weight to Broca and his rabbits and conversion to Darwinism. It might be appropriate for an article specifically about the history, but not in the general article on anthropology to give this amount of detail about what amounts to a footnote in the history of the discipline.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The source Schiller 1979, is not an appropriate source for an entire section of this article since it is about Paul Broca and the founding of French Anthropology specifically, and not a general work on anthropology or its history. Broca and early French anthropology might merit a line at most in this general article.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:40, 26 March 2015 (UTC)


 * A source: "A History of Anthropology" by Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Finn Sivert Nielsen (Pluto Press, 2001), describes many precursors of Modern Anthropology, including Rousseau, Montesquieu, Kant and Herder. But it does not mention Paul Broca even once. The founders it posits are Morgan, Marx, Tylor, Frazer, Boas and Durkheim.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:42, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Some quotations from the above mentioned book:
 * "Still, the only nineteenth-century anthropologist to rival Morgan in influence was Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917)." p. 22
 * "Both Durkheim and Weber are still considered important enough to generate frequent book-length commentaries. But of all the classical sociologists, Durkheim has been most significant for anthropology, in part because he himself was concerned with many anthropological themes, in part because of his direct and immediate influence on British and French anthropology" p. 29
 * "But Tylor’s most significant contribution to modern anthropology is his definition of culture." p. 23
 * "In Great Britain, anthropology would be reshaped into social anthropology during the interwar years – a sociologically based, comparative discipline with core concepts such as social structure, norms, statuses and social interaction. In the USA, the discipline became known as cultural anthropology. Here, Tylor’s broad definition of culture, abandoned in Britain in favour of a concept of society, was retained."
 * "In the USA, the influence of ‘classical sociology’ only made itself felt many years later, and was never as strong as in Europe. The main influence here was rather from Bastian and the Völkerkunde school, which was brought into American anthropology by its (German) founding father, Franz Boas. The leading American anthropologists of the early twentieth century were therefore oriented towards cultural history, linguistics and even psychology rather than sociology" p. 29
 * "The men whose work will form the backbone of this chapter were Franz Boas (1858–1942), Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942), A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881–1955) and Marcel Mauss (1872–1950). Between them, they effected a near-total renovation of three of the four national traditions discussed in the previous chapter – the American, the British and the French." p. 37 (In a chapter titled "Four Founding Fathers") ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:55, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

A second source is Henrika Kucklik's "A New History fo Anthropology" 2009. It does mention Broca and th foundation of the French society and analyzes the reasoning behind Broca's changing "ethnologie" for "anthropologie". It is stated that in Broca's usage "anthropology" was meant to put the biological study of man at the center of the discipline. Another French society of "ethnographie" was founded in 1859 exactly as a counter weight to Broca's biological reductionism. It is stated that in France, "anthropology" was used for what we today would call "physical anthropology" whereas what we today call socio-cultural anthropology was called "ethnologie". "Broca however is mostly treated under the heading "Polygenism in France", and his racial anthropometric approach is described basically as a problematic cul de sac for the discipline which was not overcome until the 1930s when French anthropology was redefined by Mauss.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:12, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Some quotes from Kucklik:
 * "Disputes about race led a member of the ESL, James Hunt, to form a rival organization, the Anthropological Society of London (ASL) in 1863, named after Paul Broca’s Société d’anthropologie de Paris. (Then, “anthropology” denoted emphasis on humans’ physical characteristics.) The ASL embraced polygenism, and, though it was anti-Darwinian, hypothesized connections between human and lower animal forms". p. 54
 * "The Société ethnologique chose to study human races, which it assumed were distinct and stable, relying on hypotheses formulated by Edwards as early as 1829. It attempted methodical examination of the intellectual, moral, linguistic and historical characteristics of the world’s races. Thus, the Société created a systematic and coherent research program, focusing both on human societies and on persons as biological individuals. After the death of its creator in 1842, it grew weaker, its activities diminishing further after the revolution of 1848, until it finally dissolved in 1862 (Blanckaert 1988b). Nevertheless, its research program of “the scientific study of human races” was taken up and continued after 1859 by the Société d’anthropologie of Paris, created by Paul Broca. The change that had been made in terminology from ethnology to anthropology can be traced to a theoretical shift and to a tactical choice, both of which would insure the success and durability of the new society to the present day. (The change also stabilized the meaning of the terms “anthropologists” and “ethnologists” as they were used in France until the 1930s.) " p. 98
 * "Beginning in 1859, the Société d’anthropologie did not restrict itself to anthropometry. Nevertheless, by making biology the basis of his endeavor, Broca introduced a hierarchy among the different specialized fields that made up “anthropology defined broadly”" p. 98
 * "The role of polygenesis in French anthropology can be appreciated from the debate in the Société d’anthropologie de Paris, founded in 1859 as representing both positivist and polygenist views (Harvey 1983). The Society’s founding spirit was the neuro-anatomist Paul Broca (1824–80) who, the previous year, had laid out his views on human evolution in a series of lectures at the Société de Biologie on human and animal hybridity, hybridity providing the theoretical justification for polygenesis." p. 231
 * "Thus, the influential and greatly respected Catholic anatomist and anthropologist Armand de Quatrefages, who understood the role of natural selection in the shaping of populations, was placed in the paradoxical position of having to support Darwin against the polygenist evolutionists of the Société d’Anthropologie." p. 232
 * "With regard to methodology, Broca stressed anthropometric methods of craniology and comparative anatomy in the elaboration of racial typology. Broca and his polygenist associates engineered an award to Carl Vogt, a leading Darwinian, in 1867,in spite of the latter’s opposition to polygenism. Vogt had written authoritatively on the simian origins of mankind. By 1870, Broca’s position had shifted in the direction of accepting evolution, but with a multiple origin model, in order to preserve polygenism (Harvey 1983: 296–7). When members of the Society formed a teaching arm, the École d’Anthropologie in 1876, Broca became the first holder of the chair of general anthropology. When he died in 1880, leadership of both the Society and the School passed to a group of “scientific materialists,” evolutionists who opposed polygenism. " p. 232

More of discussion of balance
Whoa, professor. This is the sort of thing I might have expected from an academic. All right, I think I can live with it. However, let me say, if I were taking a course of yours I would certainly drop it immediately. You are too contentious and opinionated and you like to use authority to browbeat. Not for me. You make a bunch of opinionated statements that aren't backed up and you discount my sources and everything I say. No way, Jose. First of all, I have not given you any unsourced material, so leave it there for the moment, please. I did give sources for the inclusions, so I don't know what you are talking about. Second, you are trying to impose YOUR opinion of what anthropology is and is not. Professor or not, you don't get to do that. Tylor, you say, is not a cultural anthropologist. Why, I never heard of such a thing! Darwinism not important? What do you do with Marett, who says, over and over, anthropology IS Darwin? You know what, professor? I think you have tipped your hand. You're one of those creationists who are trying to remove evolution from anthropology. Why don't you contact the Leakey foundation and see what they think? So, I don't think too much of your opinions and I don't like your use of Wikipedia to promulgate them. You aren't speaking for Wikipedia, you're speaking for your personal views. This is part of the problem of having a professional on Wikipedia. You want to retain professorial rights. Your view is definitely NOT balanced. I don't know what you will do when I start checking your references, line by line, as I plan to do. I certainly hope they are in order.

So, where do we go from here? I am glad I smoked YOU out in the open, so now we can be honest. You're making this an issue that can't be walked away from, but it was only a matter of time, was it not? There are some positive points of our interaction. You do have some things to say I can connect with. Actually, my bark is worse than my bite. As I said in another discussion, I have had a lot of friends with the creationist view that I have liked pretty well. It was with regret that I had to disagree with them. I like YOU too and It pains me that I have to disagree with you. However one of your virtues is that you seem to leave an out somewhere. So, despite the professorial noise, it seems possible to negotiate a solution. We are probably going to have to do that many times.

So, the issues on the table are, what is anthropology, and how far we should go into the history here. And don't give the source baloney. Whatever source I say is automatically discredited by you!
 * the introduction defines anthropology. So, unless you want to start attacking those definitions, that is the way it has to be. Physical anthropology is in and so is Broca, the French anthropologist.
 * There might be a question about how much material on individuals should be included. I can see how you might think Broca has too much, and the article is after all pretty long. I can move most of that to the article on Broca, which currently gives us little clue. Then I can simplify the hstorical material there. You seem to prefer the classificatory approach, which is legitimate. So, we could reduce the "history" section to a few paragraphs more than the etymology.
 * The etymology that was there was one line, totally unsatisfactory. I can't let that go by. But, there is a question whether that should be there either. If we went for the history of the anthropological concept idea, then we could reduce that to mere statement that it means "the study or science of man" in the intro. I don't see one statement as being the basis for a section, just as I didn;t see the worth of a one-statement intro.

So, what do you think professor? If you are all done getting angry (and unfair) maybe you could tell me 1) shall we start another article on the history and move the etymology to there, or 2) keep some sort of section here but reduce it by moving material on individual anthropologists to their articles?

By the way, to end on a more positive note, I recognize that you have done a lot of design and writing on anthropology. I would not have you think I do not appreciate it. Surely you did not expect that all your views on the topic would be accepted as the word of God? Ciao. PS I can't spend all my time on this but I intend to see it to a conclusion. I don't know what you are going to do when I start in on your references, but let's cross that bridge later. Please do get your thoughts together and let me know which way to procede. I do not insist on anything current if there is another way. I may continue work on the citations.Botteville (talk) 15:56, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Could you spare the personal remarks? I will give you the chance to refactor before I read the rest of your reply.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:27, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a reciprocal request. Don't read the rest of the reply if you find it troubling. I can summarize. I need your opinion on some questions you have raised. You have objected to the material on Broca because it overemphasizes one individual, correct? If not let me know. I can solve that problem for you by reducing Broca. Tossing it out is unacceptable. The other alternative is to move it elsewhere. There are 2 choices. 1) a history of anthropology article. I can look for one or as a last resort write one 2) Rewrite the Broca article, which is scanty at this point..At this moment my inclination is the Broca article. Got any thoughts? The second issue is whether material on the early development of anthropology should be included. I could reduce it to a paragraph. Or, I could move it to a hisory article. Which would you prefer? Finally, the etymology material. What to do with it? Thank you for your suggestions on the boxes. I regard that issue as closed.Botteville (talk) 16:54, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Weight given to individuals or specific events or topics within an article should be based on the weight they are given in the literature on the topic of the article. Hence, the best way to asses how much weight Broca should have in an article about anthropology or the history of anthropology is to see how much weight he is given in general works about those topics. In the first book specifically on the history of anthropology that I got from my shelf Broca was not mentioned once. That suggests that zero weight is appropriate, unless other similar sources are found that give him more weight than Hylland's History. However in the spirit compromise we can mention him and the founding of the French society in a sentence. The rest should probably be moved to the article on Broca, it does indeed look scant and he is certainly very worthy of a good and substantial article. I also think that a section on the history of usage of the term anthropology is i order in this article. And I think the history section should be substantial, perhaps with subsections on the anthropological traditions in different countries (France, UK, US, Germnany, Russia perhaps). Broca would then fit well in the section on France.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:01, 26 March 2015 (UTC)


 * So let it be written, so let it be done (do you remember Yul Brenner as Pharoh in "The Ten Commandments?") This is a lot of work we have outlined for me here. I think it best to start with Broca, to get him, so to speak, out of your face. The planned section on the arrival of anthropology in Britain can wait until I am ready. I have it in a Word document, no rush. These articles have been around for years (like me). I will have to research all these societies in different countries. The Germans were a little early with diffusionism.


 * I am not opposing your assessment but I suggest it is not a historical assessment. Naturally Broca does not count for much as a current anthropologist. He is not current. He is best known for the Broca region but that in fact is physical anthropology. I was reading Richard Leakey's assessment of when the anatomical evidence of a speech capabilty began. He waxed anatomical. Broca is of interest to me because at the time of his involvement he was a key influence on the foundation of the Anthropological Society of London, the first of its kind in Britain. Past historical figures sometimes get eclipsed, which is why I think he was not in the one book you checked. I got no trouble finding him in the books of the times on the Internet. But, I have no wish to bore you. I do tend to be more of a historian. I worked extensively on the three-ages article and the stone age.


 * Well, thank you for your input. Implementation of it will be slow but I promise to keep working on it steadily. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 19:51, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * That sounds good. I did find mention of Broca in the second book I looked at which was more detailed, it mentioned his foundation of the French society, but mostly described his role as a proponent of polygenism and resistance to Darwinian unigenism. I have inseerted quotes from both books in the section above. Perhaps they will help you in your work on expanding the history section.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:04, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * OK. Not much to say. Have to get to work on it. We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when.Botteville (talk) 04:21, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

History of anthropology
Well, that was sooner than expected! Right away in fact. I just made a discovery that changes the entire picture: History of anthropology. This article was intended as a sister article to it. It says in the other article, for modern developments, see this article. I think we could have saved a lot of time if this article had been marked better. I guess you didn't know about it either or you surely would have mentioned it. So, we don't want much of a history section here. We do want markers up front that for the history of anthropology see the other article. So, the thing for me to do apparently is work on the history article. You seem to want some history here, so I can reduce it to a paragraph or two and then put in a "main" for the history article. Which means, we don't want etymology here, but over there. Also, how much anthropology is in ancient times needs to be considered. Naturally we want this one to be in good shape also. I guess it takes persistence to sort all this material out. So, I'll be putting some markers in here. Then I will working on Broca and the History article simultaneously as well as looking at refs here. My main effort will now shift to history. What is said here then will be a mere shadow of what is said there. The "inserts" as you put it will mainly disappear, except, as you say for a reduced presence, or brief mention. I'm going now, I'm tired. For a while you will find me at any of these 3 articles plus a few I was doing brief work on before that needs to be finished. I suppose my approach is matrix. I won't apologize for wasting your time as I do not think it was wasted. We have a clearer picture now of what we want, and good intelligence precedes effective operations.Botteville (talk) 04:55, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Dangers of anthropology
Worth a mention of the field being a menace to economic development?

http://politics.heraldtribune.com/2011/10/10/rick-scott-wants-to-shift-university-funding-away-from-some-majors/

Hcobb (talk) 17:34, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Not, really no.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:14, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Why is this linked to Primates?
What sort of Monkey business is this?

Puns aside, why is this under primates? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.196.23.15 (talk) 05:53, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Try looking through Evolution and Scientific classification and then get back to us if you still have any questions. (More seriously, because of the biological section.) — Llywelyn II   18:42, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Nope. Wikipedia is and the pronunciation of this term is straightforward but dependent on regional accents. Rather than include, , , , //, //, , &c. and the variations in stress mentioned [http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/8416? at the OED] we should just leave it for Wiktionary and not clutter the lead at all. — Llywelyn II   18:42, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Lead
Ditto on suggesting we don't treat this like a 7th grade book report and start out by giving a paragraph of different dictionaries' definitions. The OED, EB, and (for this topic) AAA are all great sources but "cultural or social anthropology" and "[the study of] society and culture" aren't "different catalogues": they're precisely the same catalogue. They're also precisely the same thing as the cultural anthropology mentioned in the first paragraph and the "social... sciences" mentioned by the AAA definition. Ditto "physical anthropology" and "[the study of humanity's] biology and evolutionary history", the biological anthropology mentioned in the first paragraph and the "biological sciences" mentioned by the AAA. We don't have a word count limit and there's no need to restate the exact same point four times in two paragraphs.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems to be citing a particular academic's POV in the lead of the article. If Wolf really is the last word on anthropology and has no one credible who disagrees with him on the topic, that's fine (if dubious), but the lead should explain that before citing his authority in such a prominent and definitive place. — Llywelyn II   18:59, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Meanwhile, the lead should also cover how socio/cultural anthropology is different from sociology and how physical anthropology is different from evolutionary biology, &c. — Llywelyn II   21:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 April 2020 and 13 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): VMV 1102-143.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:25, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Britannica
Highly outdated, obviously, but for treatment of the field's history (and example of scientific racism), Wikisource has — Llywelyn II   20:48, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Poles in mythology
Now we have a new article Poles in mythology, Please see and include suitable improvements, if any, in article Poles in mythology.

Rgds

Mahitgar (talk) 09:08, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

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Adding "human races" to the opening sentence
Does not seem social-scientific, nor does it appear to enjoy consensus. Please respond, IP. El_C 18:30, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Anthropology for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Anthropology is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

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Categorisation
Humanities is a grandparent category of Category:Anthropology. Hence the standard procedure is to not categorise the main article. PPEMES (talk) 14:55, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
 * My apologies! I've reverted myself. --Pinchme123 (talk) 02:06, 15 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks. PPEMES (talk) 09:02, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Anthropogeny and Evolutionary anthropology
Could use some attention, they are pretty poor articles. The latter is unsourced, the former has a big section whose factual accuracy is disputed. Doug Weller talk 18:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The former appears to be half or more of WP:OR (much of the section that is factually disputed). Of the sourced content, there are only four sources that aren't more than 120 years old; one of the "newer" sources is incorrectly marked as 1985 - that's the year it may have been republished - when it's originally from 1933 and one of the other three sources is a non-peer reviewed book from the early 1990s. And I know this isn't necessarily indicative of anything, but the first two pages of a popular search engine results for "anthropogeny" are dictionaries, thesauruses (thesaurii?), a research division at a single U.S. university with the word in its name, and references to said research division. I don't see how it that article rises to the level of notability and honestly my advice would be to delete it. Hopefully someone else has a better prognosis for it. --Pinchme123 (talk) 20:13, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Anthropology is a science
Given the use of "scientific" in this article's lead has been removed more than once, after I restored it more than once, I think it's a good idea to open a dialogue here. How does one even provide additional sourcing for what I thought until now was an innocuous (and already-sourced) claim, that anthropology is a science?

Two of the sources used for the first sentence:


 * Merriam-Webster: the science of human beings [source]


 * Encyclopedia Britannica: Anthropology, 'the science of humanity,' [source]

Usually such tertiary sources are disfavored for secondary sources. However, I think that, given the context of discussing a discipline itself, it's useful to rely on tertiary sources, since secondary sources by anthropologists would really be primary sources about anthropology, yeah? These 'tertiary' sources are really more like secondary sources in this context.

For what anthropologists themselves use, the following eight professional organizations (nine, if you count a second signatory on one text - which I've excluded because it calls itself an advisory council) all describe anthropology as scientific in their association titles, About pages, Statements of Purpose, official statements by their executive boards, etc. They are from a wide range of subdisciplinary backgrounds and are from internationally-diverse places.


 * 1) European Association of Social Anthropologists: In this respect, anthropology is uniquely a knowledge for the 21st century, crucial in our attempts to come to terms with a globalised world, essential for building understanding and respect across real or imagined cultural divides, and it is not only the ‘most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences’, but also the most useful of the basic sciences. [source]
 * 2) American Anthropological Association: The purposes of the Association shall be ... to advance anthropology as the science that studies humankind in all its aspects, through archeological, biological, ethnological, and linguistic research; [source]
 * 3) International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences: Through its Scientific Commissions, the IUAES stimulates the convergence of research interests among anthropologists, and the dissemination of research findings through publications. [source]
 * 4) Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA): WHEREAS, [SHA and Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology] wish to reaffirm and strengthen this association in order to advance their mutual commitment to encourage responsible cultural resource stewardship, promote the interests of scientific inquiry, and provide for the dissemination of knowledge [source]
 * 5) The Society for Applied Anthropology: The Society has for its object the promotion of interdisciplinary scientific investigation of the principles controlling the relations of human beings to one another, and the encouragement of the wide application of these principles to practical problems, and shall be known as The Society for Applied Anthropology. [source]
 * 6) Society of Forensic Anthropologists (SOFA): SOFA is committed to scientific and ethical standards, professional growth and educating the medicolegal community on the use of forensic anthropology. [source]
 * 7) American Association of Physical Anthropologists: Physical anthropology is a biological science that deals with the adaptations, variability, and evolution of human beings and their living and fossil relatives. [source]
 * 8) Society for American Archaeology: When people remove an artifact without recording its precise location, we lose that context forever. At that point, the artifact has little or no scientific value. Context is what allows archaeologists to understand the relationships between artifacts and between archaeological sites. And: Paleontologists, archaeologists, and other scientists such as geologists, chemists, and biologists often work together to better understand ancient environments. [source]

Hopefully this is enough?

--Pinchme123 (talk) 04:07, 21 October 2020 (UTC)


 * There is no doubt that anthropology is a social science, but the phrasing that anthropology is the scientific study of humanity connotes the purpose of the field with the pursuit of objective, knowable, and universal truths about human beings based on the socially and culturally-embedded parameters of science. The omission of the "scientific" lead allows for later discussion of the nuanced role of science and scientific methodologies within anthropology, as well as a broader description of the nature of research associated with the field. Also, this might not be especially relevant to my point, but the page for sociology describes it as the study, not the scientific study of social behavior and society, despite it undoubtedly also being a social science. I just think leaving it broad will allow for a more detailed discussion of the complicated relationship between anthropology and science with regard to scientific racism and colonialism. Thanks for your input anyway though!

Akhinden (talk) 05:17, 21 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Also I just wanted to add: the use of the word "study" does not preclude scientific study, but instead encompasses methodologies and anthropological theories that employ both scientific and non-scientific approaches - ultimately allowing for a more inclusive definition.

Akhinden (talk) 15:02, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is based upon what reputable sources say. Please consult the Reliable Sources page to get a sense of what Wikipedia considers a reliable source and then provide some to support your opinion here. Otherwise this, while certainly an interesting argument, constitutes Original Research, which is not permitted on article pages. --Pinchme123 (talk) 15:12, 21 October 2020 (UTC)