Anthropology is the study of people and culture. It seeks to produce generalizations about people, their behavior, and culture to develop an understanding of human diversity. It is a broad discipline that includes:

            *the study of existing cultures (Cultural Anthropology)
            *past cultures (Archaeology)
            *humans as biological organisms (Physical Anthropology)
            *language as part of the human experience (Linguistic Anthropology).

Anthropology’s Subdisciplines
*Cultural Anthropology is the study of the knowledge, values, and ways of viewing the world of living peoples. An important goal is to understand the internal logic of another society, to understand why people do what they do.

Upper level classes taught by Dr. Marjorie Snipes and Dr. Lisa Gezon include: Environmental Anthropology, Anthropology of Gender, Ethnographic Field Methods, History of Anthropological Thought, Animals and Culture, Peoples and Cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa, and Myth, Magic and Religion.

*Linguistic Anthropology is the study of language as the most complex set of symbols that humans use to communicate meaning. It recognizes that “it is upon language that culture itself depends—and within language that humanity’s knowledge resides.” American Anthropological Association website (http://www.aaanet.org/anthbroc.htm)

The Upper level class taught by Dr. Gezon is Language and Culture.

*Archaeology is the study of cultural systems through the recovery, analysis, and interpretation of their material remains. Through archaeological data, anthropologists learn about people of the distant and recent past, how they adapt within their environments, and how culture develops and changes over time.

Upper level classes taught by Dr. Karl Steinen include: Archaeology, Seminar on Warfare, Archaeological Field Research, Archaeological Laboratory Methods, North American Archaeology, Archaeology of Georgia, Indians of the Southeastern United States, Contemporary Archaeological Thought, and Archaeological Curation and Collections Management.

*Physical Anthropology is the study of humans as biological organisms, within an evolutionary framework, and with an emphasis on the interaction between biology and culture. It also includes the study of our closest relatives, the non-human primates.
Upper level classes taught by Dr. Julie Wieczkowski include: Physical Anthropology, Primatology, Human Evolution, Forensic Anthropology, and Field Methods in Physical Anthropology.