Anthropology Anthropology Anthropology from the Greek word human consists of the study of humankind see genus Homo It is holistic in two senses it is concerned with all humans at all times and with all dimensions of humanity A primary trait that traditionally distinguished anthropology from other humanistic disciplines is an emphasis on cross cultural comparisons This distinction has however become increasingly the subject of controversy and debate with anthropological methods now being commonly applied in single society group studies.
In the United States 'anthropology' is traditionally divided into four sub disciplines. physical anthropology which studies primate behavior human evolution and population genetics this field is also sometimes called biological anthropology. cultural anthropology called social anthropology in the United Kingdom and now often known as socio cultural anthropology Areas studied by cultural anthropologists include social networks diffusion social behavior kinship patterns law politics ideology religion beliefs patterns in production and consumption exchange socialization gender and other expressions of culture with strong emphasis on the importance of fieldwork i e living among the social group being studied for an extended period of time. linguistic anthropology which studies variation in language across time and space the social uses of language and the relationship between language and culture and
 archaeology which studies the material remains of human societies Archaeology itself is normally treated as a separate but related field in the rest of the world 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 mediums of understanding its cultural values.
More recently some anthropology programs began dividing the field into two one emphasizing the humanities and critical theory the other emphasizing the natural sciences and empirical observation.
Historical and institutional context
 Main Article History of anthropology.The anthropologist Eric Wolf once characterized anthropology as the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences Understanding how anthropology developed contributes to understanding how it fits into other academic disciplines.
Contemporary anthropologists claim a number of earlier thinkers as their forebearers and the discipline has several sources However anthropology can best be understood as an outgrowth of the Age of Enlightenment It was during this period that Europeans attempted systematically to study human behavior Traditions of jurisprudence history philology and sociology developed during this time and informed the development of the social sciences of which anthropology was a part At the same time the romantic reaction to the Enlightenment produced thinkers such as Herder and later Wilhelm Dilthey whose work formed the basis for the culture concept which is central to the discipline.
These intellectual movements in part grappled with one of the greatest paradoxes of modernity as the world is becoming smaller and more integrated people's experience of the world is increasingly atomized and dispersed As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels observed in the.
 All old established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed They are dislodged by new industries whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material but raw material drawn from the remotest zones industries whose products are consumed not only at home but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants satisfied by the production of the country we find new wants requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes.