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Overview of Cultral Anthropology

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The earth today is composed of approximately seven billion people and not one of us is exactly the same. Since the conception of time people have expressed themselves in different and unique ways through differing culture with values, norms, and worldviews. Anthropology attempts to describe these differences with its four disciplines: Cultural, Archaeological, Physical, and Linguistic. Explaining and deciphering the meaning in each discipline will show how each culture differs through the four mediums of discovering them. Cultural anthropology is a vast discipline of anthropology that attempts to study human society and culture by analyzing similarities and differences between them. In order to study them, anthropologists compose an ethnography, or a conclusive study of a culture and its people. It strives to construct a model of the culture that can transferred into a book, article, film, etc. In order to do the aforementioned, anthropologists usually immerse themselves completely in the culture, living with the culture they hope to observe and learn from. They factor internal and external factors that affect and change the culture, then analyze the way they interact with these forces. This is of paramount importance because a good portion of what comprises a culture is what surrounds the culture. This constructs the world views, normality’s, beliefs, customs, and rituals. The result of the ethnography is then viewed holistically as a ethnology, or an examination, interpretation, and comparison of the ethnography. This is used to compare and contrast different cultures to see what impacts and, in essence, forms a culture and all of its views. It is important to note that the ethnology is not only comprised from this viewpoint; thus, it uses the other three disciplines of anthropology to form a more complete analysis of the respected culture. To become part of this exciting field of work, one may look for an opportunity to travel to a different culture and explore an aspect of their culture to either add or create a new section of data. Archaeological Anthropology uses human remains to reconstruct and then further describe their findings in order to interpret human behavior and how culture plays a part in it. People are naturally expressive beings, needing different mediums to show and express themselves. Because of this, the findings of the past have a great deal of information to display about their respective cultures.

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