Attempting Holism:  The Four Fields of Anthropology

I. Biological Anthropology
        A. The 45rpm version of human evolution
                1. Evolution and natural selection
                2. Homonid history (evolution time line)
                            a. Australopithicines  (5 mya - 1.4 mya), found in southern and eastern Africa
                            -Lucy: 3.5 million years ago, bipedal but small brain, an Australopithicus aferensis:
                                            
                        b. Homo habilis (2.5mya - 1.8mya) and the first tools:
                                              
                        c. Homo erectus (1.7mya - 400,000)

                        d. Homo sapiens around 200,000
                                -a human Eve at 200,000 years ago in East Africa?
                                -mitochondrial DNA evidence
                        -Homo floresiensis?  18,000 y.a. in Indonesia
  
        B. Problems and potentials of being human
                1. opposable thumbs and tool use  (watch out for the dolphins)
                2. bipedalism
                3. big brains
                4. r and K strategies of reproduction
                5. language and culture
        C. Race
                1. physiology and genetics
                2. as a social category
        D. What they do
                1. paleo-anthropologists
                2. primatologists
                3. human variation
                4. Bio-archaeology (see Prof. Tiffany Tung's work)
                5. forensic anthropology
                        Bill Bass and the Univ. of Tenn. "Body Farm"
                        physical anthropology facial reconstruction
                        Clyde Snow and the Argentinean and Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Teams
                        Guatemalan forensic anthropology (NYTimes 8/30/02)

II. Archaeology
        A. Lessons from the past
                1. the rise and fall of civilizations (Prof. John Janusek's work)
                2. unwritten histories
        B. Methods
                1. scarcity of data
                2. satellite imagery and new computer models (see work of Prof. Francisco Estrada-Belli)
                3. mass spectrometry, isotope isolation analyses, and early diets
                4. dirt archaeology
        C. What they do
                1. historical archaeology (Prof. Bill Fowler's work)
                2. Vanderbilt's Cancuen project (Prof. Arthur Demarest)
                            -ancient Maya city in Guatemalan rainforest
                            -involving the modern Indians in reconstruction
                            -promoting development projects that will benefit the Indians
                3. William Rathje's Garbage Project

III. Linguistics
        A. Descriptive versus prescriptive linguistics
                1. documenting actual language use
                2. enforcing norms of language use
                3. grammatical rules
        B-. Technical linguistics
                1. phonology: perceived sounds
                2. hearing differences: minimal pairs
                3. unusual sounds: the clicks of African languages
                                       -hear the sounds of an African "click" language
                                - http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~llsroach/fue/clicks1.wav 
                                - http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~llsroach/fue/clicks2.wav   
                4. tonal languages
                5. phonetic maps and learning language
                6. grammar

        C. Socio-linguistics: study of language use and social meanings
        D. Historical linguistics
        E. What they do
                1. code-breaking
                2. computer languages and artificial intelligence
                3. marketing
                4. Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) Markers
                            -cf.. Chaucer

IV. Cultural Anthropology
        A. Culture
        B. Ethnography
        C. What they do
                    Why We Do What We Do (NPR, 8/3/00) with Clotaire Rapaille

          
          

For more information, see:

Brian Fagan, People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Prehistory

William Rathje, Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage

Michael Brown, The Search for Eve

Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson, Death’s Acre: In side the Legendary Forensic Lab, the Body Farm, Where the Dead DO Tell Tales.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_2.htm --the biological anthropology tutorials by Dr. Dennis O'Neil at Palomar College