Department of Anthropology
& Archaeology
Department of Anthropology
& Archaeology
Welcome to the
AnthroSite
Anthropology is the study of people, how they developed physically and culturally, and how they live and interact among themselves and with others. Antrhopology is a four field apprach that includes cultural anthropology, archaeology, physical anthropology and linguistics.
The courses of the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology present the richness in human variation and cultural diversity, and transmit the anthropological and archaeological perspective as a way of thinking, a way of problem solving, and as a model for future learning. For many students, anthropology becomes a framework for integrating knowledge and a system of organization for their formal education. The anthropological perspective is holistic; that is, each piece or aspect of a culture is viewed within the context of the whole culture. Unique among the social sciences and humanities, anthropology studies people and behavior in a cross-cultural perspective. It has accumulated the world’s largest database of knowledge about humans living in hunter-gatherer, horticultural, herding, nomadic, peasant, island, urban, industrial, and post-industrial societies. It combines sciences with humanities, biology with culture, history with prehistory, in both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the human condition. Anthropology studies commonalties as well as differences in the cultural behavior of humans. This aspect of the discipline has wide ramifications for expanding the students' world-view and approaches to other studies by increasing their awareness of ethnocentric bias.
The evolution of human life and its varied expressions on the face of the globe today has proceeded as an interplay of physical, social, and cultural factors. Anthropologists and archaeologists study various aspects of this development, whether in the remains of ancient civilizations, or in the isolated mountains of New Guinea, among nomads of the Middle East, or in urban areas of industrialized societies like New York City, in order to further understand the human experience. Anthropology studies humanity in the broadest sense, including 27% of the world’s population belonging to nonliterate cultures. With a methodology developed over the past 150 years, anthropologists study different cultures by living with the people, experiencing their lives as they themselves do, developing an empathetic knowledge which allows a total balanced view of a way of life.
The Anthropology Department office 3307 James Hall is open every day from 9AM to 5 PM.
Contact Information:
Postal address:
Brooklyn College
2900 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11210
Telephone: 718 951 5507 Fax: 718 951 3169
E-mail: Linda Vergara
General Information:
Send mail to abankoff@brooklyn.cuny.edu
with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: January 2002