The Field

Anthropology is the study of humans, past and present, in all their diversity. It's a broad field that encompasses four subfields: cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology. We seek to understand the diversity and commonalities that bind us together as a species. Anthropologists aim to be holistic in their approach to understanding humanity, and often straddle the lines of the social and stem sciences.

The Anthropology Department at UMass is represented by all four sub-fields offering a well-rounded and holistic approach to understanding the complexity of human experiences.

Cultural anthropology focuses on the interplay of culture, history, and personal identity across modern culture groups. Cultural anthropologists produce ethnographies—richly developed written and/or filmed descriptions of people in specific social, historical, and cultural settings. Courses in cultural anthropology emphasize the reading, viewing, and comparing of ethnographies to discern what is common and what is different among human groups, and then to account for both similarities and differences.

Archaeologists interpret culture from past populations based on material artifacts, ecological changes, tools, settlements, and artistic and monumental productions through excavation. Archaeologists are acutely aware that there is no single authoritative interpretation of the past and take special steps to be scientifically rigorous and attend to alternative explanations, especially those coming from the descendants of the ancestors whose lifeways are being investigated.

Biological anthropology studies humans from a biological perspective, including their evolution, genetics, primatology, and skeletal biology. In addition, biological anthropologists aim to understand the factors that explain human biological diversity in the world at the present, whether in the way our bodies look and work, or in the ways they develop and change over the life span, or in how we exhibit health and disease.

Linguistic anthropology focuses on the study of human languages in their social and cultural contexts. Language is not only a medium of communication, but it also structures thought and the perception of reality. Linguistic anthropologists may actively work to understand ancient languages or preserve modern languages on the verge of extinction, trace language change over time and space, or examine the social and political importance of language use.