When You Say Anthropology...

No, I don't mean dinosaurs!

Hello hello, fellow subscribers, or should I say fellow musers!

Thank you so much for taking the time to come and read my very first Substack post! Before we go further, I’d like to give a special Shoutout to the people who took a chance and subscribed before I put even this first post out!

Shoutout to the First 3 Subscribers/Fellow Musers:
Lonely Robot Theme
Moe
Dylan
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*A note to anyone who listens to the voice recording instead of reading the post:
After the conclusion of this post, I give an explanation for why I record the way that I record. Thank you for listening!*

Also, please check out Lonely Robot Theme’s Substack, which takes a fantastic look at how Loneliness is portrayed in cinema, books, and culture!

"Anthropology is the science which tells us that people are the same the whole world over-except when they are different." ~ Nancy Banks-Smith

Welcome to my first official post for Musings of an Anthropology Student substack! I hope this finds you well, and if you’re not having the best day, I sincerely hope that this post will help brighten your day!

As mentioned in the “About” section of my homepage, I’m currently an anthropology student getting a degree in…you guessed it…anthropology! But you may find yourself asking…what the fuck is anthropology? Are there dinosaurs involved? Wait, you mean that’s a different profession? Dude, I’m so confused! Can you please clear this shit up for me?

Of course, my fellow human (and any non-earthlings reading this*), I will be more than happy to clear this shit up for you, as will almost all anthropologists!

As a reminder, this is what I wrote in the “About” section concerning anthropologists:

Anthropologist:
Someone who has studied and is getting or has a degree in the field of Anthropology, which in short form is the study of humans and culture. There are four fields of Anthropology: Cultural Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistics, and Physical/Biological Anthropology.

—>Not always in that order!

I am going to give an explanation in my own words about what I know about the subfields, but at the end of this post there are a few links to a few websites that also give further and/or clearer explanations. Please consider this post as a more general introduction post-I’ll be writing separate deep-dive posts about the different sub-fields and their various methods.

Let’s start with the word Anthropology. The word comes from the ancient Greek language:
Anthropos=humans
Logia=study
<Thank you crazy Ancient Greek peeps with your crazy-ass human-like gods!>

Sooooo anthropology is literally the Study of Humans. Humans=People…not dinosaurs, although I highly sympathize with those dinos and would love to give them a hug if I knew that they wouldn’t eat me or crush me to death with their body weight-bless their hearts, they just want to be understood too, ya know? *There there, T-Rexy, there there. I think Prof. Philosoraptor has a question?*

Anywaaaayyysss…Speaking of graffiti…Let’s talk about anthropology and start with…

Archaeology!
Let’s start with everyone’s favorite subfield Archaeology. In short form, archaeology is the study of material culture left behind by human ancestors. A well-known specialization within archaeology is Egyptology-the study of Ancient Egypt. However, there are many other specializations as well including Classical Era (Ancient Greek/Roman/sometimes Egypt?), prehistorical, colonization, etc. Many of my classes have been archaeology based, but please don’t ask me to remember what I’ve learned (unless you’re one of my instructors that I’ve had, and you accidentally came across this Substack and are now aware that I can write shit better when I’m not being graded on it!…They know who they are…)…although, joking aside, I hope that what I’ve learned will come through on these posts!

Now, what is material culture, you ask? Material culture has a large range. It can be pyramids, clothing, cars, railway nails, utensils for eating/serving food, potsherds, pots and pans, buildings, the previously mentioned graffiti-also known as cave art/rock art, stone tools and tools that make the stone tools (also called lithics) etc. Some examples of things today that can be considered cultural material are iPods, iPads, Tesla cars, laptops, apartment complexes, VCR’s, VHS’, designer bags/clothes/accessories, air pods, boomboxes, folding tables, e-readers, etc…y’all get the idea, right? Good, because my brain can’t think of other things right now…cardboard boxes, cat toys, other kinds of toys…okay, let’s move onward!

Physical/Biological Anthropology:
Another subfield is physical/biological anthropology. This field looks at humanity through a genetic lens. This field looks at the evolution of humanity from the earliest, identifiable human to modern human. This also includes looking at human genetic markers, DNA, RNA, human skeletal remains to determine migration routes, etc. There is a sub-subfield under this subfield called Forensic Anthropology.

You’ve probably seen the TV shows Bones, the NCIS series (all of them, some of them?), Criminal Minds, etc. Yeah, while probably not a completely accurate portrayal, some forensic anthropologists (like in those shows) do in fact work with law enforcement in all levels of government to help solve cases. They also work in research labs, medical clinics, things not gov’t related, etc. In fact, a professor that I’ve had a few classes with is a bio-archaeologist.

Linguistic Anthropology:
There is also the sub-field of linguistic anthropology. My understanding is that this field studies how language connects humans together by looking at how language came to be.

…I’m going to be honest, fellow muser…I actually don’t know anything about linguistic anthropology except for the definition. Why is that? Welp, I have discovered that while I enjoy reading about languages and their origins, and also using a different language other than my mother-tongue to explain a thing(s) in a cultural context (Ex: the 7 Greek words used to describe the different types of love, the many words used to explore the concept of life and death from a cultural perspective, the Ancient Egyptian words to describe different aspects of the soul, saying Carpe Diem instead of “Seize the Day!”, etc.), I’ve found that I personally have little to no interest delving into linguistic anthropology. Doesn’t mean that I absolutely don’t find it interesting-as mentioned, I do find some aspects interesting…

I can promise at least one specific, well-written, thought-out post about this particular sub-field. However, if there’s enough interest, I’ll make a few more posts about it. I will happily delve into this sub-field for you, fellow muser! If not alot of interest is shown, however, then I will go with my original plan and integrate linguistic anthropology within my future posts concerning specific areas of anthropology as a field of study.

Language and how it came about is very important-it just takes someone with much more patience than I to really get into the nitty gritty details of how it came to be! I guess I’m rambling in this section because I want to not come across as too biased-even though I’m clearly getting caught favoring the other three sub-fields.

Let’s take a quick pause at Castle Aaarrgggg before we go into the last sub-field! *What? That’s what it said on the cave wall! Aaarrrgggg…*

<Also, shameless plug, see that pretty magenta-ish color button right below this? Like what you’re reading and/or hearing? Click/Hit/Samash that button! Still not convinced? That’s alright, we’ll continue onward!>

Cultural Anthropology:
The last sub-field to be talked about in this lovely post is Cultural Anthropology, which is the study of people and cultures currently alive and present today. Huzzah! In this field, humans interact with other humans…intentionally! *Gasp!* Whodathunk that was even possible! Okay, let’s move on, so pretty pretty please…pick your jaw up off the floor, clean it, and reattach it to your face however you think it’s suppose to go.

Got it on? Kind of-fantastic! Let’s go!

One aspect of Cultural Anthropology that is *highly* encouraged is called participant observation. Participant observation is when an anthropologist (and sometimes their protege<s>) observe what’s going on around them. This usually includes a shitton of people-watching, but absolutely not in a creepy way…at least, not intentionally creepy. Observation is just one of the many methods anthropologists use in their research!

Speaking of that shit, yo, let’s talk about some general methods!

Methods
Methods vary depending on what sub-field an anthropologist goes into, but over all, all anthropologists tend to be open to participating in most cultural traditions when invited to do so. That may include helping set up for a festival/celebration and participating, partaking in parts of ceremonies (this is known as cultural immersion, and sometimes it’s for science, sometimes for personal curiosity), even simply holding a conversation with someone to learn more about them as an individual, or as previously mentioned just simply watching and making observations. That doesn’t necessarily mean that all they do is sit and people-watch. Sometimes it’s as simple as going throughout their day, seeing something that catches their interest, and taking a moment to observe and maybe jot down some notes to go back to later, which can then-surprisingly-become part of a study.

I’ll admit I was going to delve into trying to explain the various methods………but then I remembered that this is an intro post and that I can do more posts specifically about the different methods that anthropologist use! Huzzah!

I will list some methods, though, because it would be rude of me to keep you beautiful musers on a cliff…hanger. Don’t worry about there not being an explanation-I promise I will cover methods in another post! Without further ado, some methods are:
~Ethnography
~Cultural immersion
~Participant observation
~Surveys
~Group Studies
~GIS (Geographical Information Systems)
~CT Scanners
~DNA
~…and so much more that will be talked about soon!

Pop-Up Trivia: Can you guess ( with just your brain, not Google or another search engine, or books, or technology except yo brain) which method goes with which field? <It’s okay if you don’t get it right, I just thought it would be something fun to do after reading all the other things I wrote on this post. Hint: Some methods overlap with multiple fields!>

…So…why…not history…?
Now you may be asking yourself: Why the hell would someone want to become an anthropologist when they can just as easily become a historian? The way that I understand it is something along the lines of history tends to take a broad look at the past and present and doesn’t usually focus on specifics-specifics being humans. Anthropology looks at what is skipped over by historians and looking through what has fallen through the cracks in history with the focus specifically being on…humans!

I realize that this explanation may not be enough for some musers, so please take a look at this article from National Geographic that gives insight to the field of anthropology and what I have been attempting to convey. You can also find information about becoming an anthropologist here and here. If you don’t want to read the first three links, then here’s a YouTube video I found (*cough* two days before posting this *cough cough*) that explains what I was trying to say about said differences but a little better (I think, haha).

Conclusion
As you can see, fellow musers, anthropology is more than just another part of history-it helps put a deeper perspective to history by diving deep and using science, culture, and language. There are multiple methods used, and anthropology can be applied to…well…pretty much anything! There are anthropology majors in all sorts of fields that are not considered anthropology related. Gasp!

I also hope that this post has cleared up any confusion whatsoever that anthropology has absolutely nothing to do with paleontology and its dinosaurs (sorry T-Rex!). There is a field of anthropology called paleoanthropology but again…human-based, not dino based!

If you’ve made it this far…thank you thank you! I truly appreciate you taking the time to read or listen to this post and I hope that you’ll subscribe (either as a free subscriber or paid subscriber) if you haven’t already! If you want to wait until I put a few more posts out, I won’t be mad…I’ll be a little sad…but I won’t be mad.

*A little housekeeping:
1.) While I do believe that alien life forms exist, I don’t subscribe to alien conspiracies, including ones about Illuminati, lizard people, shadow gov’t, etc. I love sci-fi < proud Star Wars/TNG-Voyager-Trekkie!>, and also have quite an imagination, but I draw the line at conspiracies, especially those that get inflamed and carried out on false premises (looking at you January 6, 2021). I’ll do a few posts looking at conspiracies, but please remember that I personally don’t subscribe to them. Thank you!

2.) You may have noticed that I say “Quote/End Quote” “Meme/<Insert Description>/End Meme”-I will be doing this in case someone comes across my posts who cannot see or read very well, but would want to hear my post spoken, even if they have someone available at the time to find the post to read it out loud to them. Having gone to a school aimed for students with learning disabilities and very much understanding what it’s like to not have people understand your own perceived disability, I want to try to be understanding and accommodating to people who may not speak well, who may not see nor hear well, and who may not speak English well but can understand it.

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References:
A.) National Geographic, Feb. 2, 2023
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/history-branches-anthropology/

B.) American Anthropological Association
1.) https://www.americananthro.org/AdvanceYourCareer/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=2150
2.) https://www.americananthro.org/LearnAndTeach/Landing.aspx?ItemNumber=24168&navItemNumber=736

C.) Youtube: Alivia Brown

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Thanks again, and remember, Carpe Diem, dear muser! <Carpe Diem—>Seize the day!>

Apologies, for those who were listening to the voice-recording! I’ve added a Subscribe button, so that you don’t have to go through the hassle of what I mentioned with the other three buttons!