What is Anthropology?

Originally published on Medium

What is Anthropology?

Not the retail store.

People always ask “what’s your major?”, and when I tell them “anthropology” many simply nod and say, “cool” — especially if they really have no idea what that means.

Some may try to guess,

“Dinosaurs!”

*buzzer sound* Wrong, thanks for playing.

“Like the store?”

Uh, No. Yes, I did work there in high school — pure coincidence.

“…that’s…people, right?”

…warmer…

“The study of humanity?”

*ding ding ding* We have a winner.

The most common definition of anthropology is the study of people and cultures, both past and present, and their development.

Beyond that, there are several sub-disciplines within anthropology. The major ones being:

Archaeology — Indiana Jones. *just kidding* These anthropologists are out in the field digging in sites for years. Again though, archaeologists dig for humans, human ancestors, and human cultural materials and structures… not dinosaurs.

Linguistic — study of languages, semantics, morphology, how it’s used, cultural relationships, and more. Language is inherently human, and we use it everyday.

Biological — human biology, ancient ancestors, modern and ancient DNA, human kinesiology…monkeys. Just as important as anthropologists that study human biology are those who study our other primate ancestors!

Cultural — the largest branch of anthropology. Cultural ethnographers often live amongst various cultural groups for long periods of time to study their culture. Studying human cultures and social groups expands common knowledge of human social and behavioral interaction; making us all more globally aware as a result.

There are many subfields beyond the ‘core four’. For example, Visual Anthropologists study the history of cultural representation in photography, film, and other media. Sound anthropologists study the history of sonic and sensory experiences across cultures — to name a few.

What does this have to do with Insitome? Everything!

Your genetic journey began hundreds of thousands of years ago with the first Homo sapiens and even millions of years before that with our primate ancestors. Anthropologists study these ancestors as well as modern humans to understand who we are and how we got here. With Insitome, science and anthropology work together to chronicle the greatest story ever told: the one you carry in your DNA.