Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavior, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. A portmanteau term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the biological development of humans.
Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an evolutionary perspective. This subfield of anthropology systematically studies human beings from a biological perspective.
Dell Hathaway Hymes was a linguist, sociolinguist, anthropologist, and folklorist who established disciplinary foundations for the comparative, ethnographic study of language use. His research focused upon the languages of the Pacific Northwest. He was one of the first to call the fourth subfield of anthropology "linguistic anthropology" instead of "anthropological linguistics". The terminological shift draws attention to the field's grounding in anthropology rather than in what, by that time, had already become an autonomous discipline (linguistics). In 1972 Hymes founded the journal Language in Society and served as its editor for 22 years.
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic anthropologists, linguists, medical anthropologists and applied anthropologists in universities and colleges, research institutions, government agencies, museums, corporations and non-profits throughout the world. The AAA publishes more than 20 peer-reviewed scholarly journals, available in print and online through AnthroSource. The AAA was founded in 1902.
John Reed Swanton was an American anthropologist, folklorist, and linguist who worked with Native American peoples throughout the United States. Swanton achieved recognition in the fields of ethnology and ethnohistory. He is particularly noted for his work with indigenous peoples of the Southeast and Pacific Northwest.
Ethnopoetics is a method of recording text versions of oral poetry or narrative performances that uses poetic lines, verses, and stanzas to capture the formal, poetic performance elements which would otherwise be lost in the written texts. The goal of any ethnopoetic text is to show how the techniques of unique oral performers enhance the aesthetic value of their performances within their specific cultural contexts. Major contributors to ethnopoetic theory include Jerome Rothenberg, Dennis Tedlock, and Dell Hymes. Ethnopoetics is considered a subfield of ethnology, anthropology, folkloristics, stylistics, linguistics, literature and translation studies.
William Henry Holmes, known as W. H. Holmes, was an American explorer, anthropologist, archaeologist, artist, scientific illustrator, cartographer, mountain climber, geologist and museum curator and director.
Digital anthropology is the anthropological study of the relationship between humans and digital-era technology. The field is new, and thus has a variety of names with a variety of emphases. These include techno-anthropology, digital ethnography, cyberanthropology, and virtual anthropology.
Anthropology of media is an area of study within social or cultural anthropology that emphasizes ethnographic studies as a means of understanding producers, audiences, and other cultural and social aspects of mass media.
Biocultural anthropology can be defined in numerous ways. It is the scientific exploration of the relationships between human biology and culture. "Instead of looking for the underlying biological roots of human behavior, biocultural anthropology attempts to understand how culture affects our biological capacities and limitations."
Tom Boellstorff is an anthropologist based at the University of California, Irvine. In his career to date, his interests have included the anthropology of sexuality, the anthropology of globalization, digital anthropology, Southeast Asian studies, the anthropology of HIV/AIDS, and linguistic anthropology.
The Annual Review of Anthropology is an academic journal that publishes review articles of significant developments in anthropology and its subfields. First published by Stanford University Press in 1959 under the name the Biennial Review of Anthropology, it became known as the current title in 1972 when its publication was assumed by Annual Reviews. Don Brenneis and Karen B. Strier have been the editors since 2013. As of 2022, according to Journal Citation Reports, the journal has an impact factor of 4.064, ranking it fifth out of 93 journals in the category "Anthropology".
Frances Jane Hassler Hill was an American anthropologist and linguist who worked extensively with Native American languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family and anthropological linguistics of North American communities.
Ayapa Zoque (Ayapaneco), or Tabasco Zoque, is a critically endangered Zoquean language of Ayapa, a village 10 km southeast of Comalcalco, in Tabasco, Mexico. The native name is Nuumte Oote "True Voice". A vibrant, albeit minority, language until the middle of the 20th century, the language suffered after the introduction of compulsory education in Spanish, urbanisation, and migration of its speakers. Nowadays there are approximately 15 speakers whose ages range from 67 to 90. In 2010 a story started circulating that the last two speakers of the Ayapaneco language were enemies and no longer talked to each other. The story was incorrect, and while it was quickly corrected it came to circulate widely.
Daniel G. Bates is an anthropologist and human ecologist. He is professor emeritus of anthropology at Department of Anthropology, Hunter College, CUNY. He is also the editor-in-chief of Human Ecology.
Alice Mossie Brues was a physical anthropologist.
This bibliography of anthropology lists some notable publications in the field of anthropology, including its various subfields. It is not comprehensive and continues to be developed. It also includes a number of works that are not by anthropologists but are relevant to the field, such as literary theory, sociology, psychology, and philosophical anthropology.
Walter Rochs Goldschmidt was an American anthropologist.
The ontological turn is an increased interest in ontology within a number of philosophical and academic disciplines during the early 2000s. The ontological turn in anthropology is not concerned with anthropological notions of culture, epistemology, nor world views. Instead, the ontological turn generates interest in being in the world and accepts that different world views are not simply different representations of the same world. More specifically, the ontological turn refers to a change in theoretical orientation according to which differences are understood not in terms of a difference in world views, but a differences in worlds and all of these worlds are of equal validity.
Barbara Helen Tedlock is an American cultural anthropologist and oneirologist. She is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Her work explores cross-cultural understanding and communication of dreams, ethnomedicine, and aesthetics and focuses on the indigenous Zuni of the Southwestern United States and the Kʼicheʼ Maya of Mesoamerica. Through her study and practice of the healing traditions of the Kʼicheʼ Maya of Guatemala, Tedlock became initiated into shamanism. She is the collaborator and wife of the late anthropologist and poet Dennis Tedlock.
