Authors: Chad Oliver
A
surprising
number
of
people,
if
they
have
heard of
anthropology
at
all,
have
only
a
confused
impression
that
it
has
something
to
do
with
old
bones
and dinosaurs.
There
is
some
excuse
for
connecting
it
with bones,
and
none
at
all
for
dragging
in
the
dinosaurs.
Anthropology
is
a
rather
large
word,
but
it
is
nothing
to
be
afraid
of.
Anthropology
is
the
science
of man,
the
science
of
you
and
me.
As
Dr.
Clyde
Kluckhohn
once
phrased
it,
“An
anthropologist
is
a
person who
is
crazy
enough
to
study
his
fellow
man.”
More specifically,
anthropologists
concern
themselves
with groups
of
men
and
their
cultures.
There
are
two
main
divisions
of
anthropology,
physical
and
cultural.
Physical
anthropology
concerns
itself primarily
with
man
as
a
physical
animal—his
skeleton, his
race,
how
he
is
put
together.
Cultural
anthropology
deals
with
aspects
of
human
behavior
beyond
the physical
level—how
do
peoples
live,
how
are
societies put
together,
what
do
people
do,
and
what
have
they done
in
times
past.
The
further
divisions
of
anthropology—ethnology,
ethnography,
applied
anthropology and
the
rest—need
not
concern
us
here.
In
connection with
this
book,
however,
the
division
of
archaeology should
be
mentioned.
Archaeology
is
a
part
of
cultural
anthropology,
and
it
is
the
study
of
the
remains of
man’s
material
culture—his
tools,
his
weapons,
his pottery,
his
temples
and
homes—from
its
first
appearance
in
time,
and
overlapping
the
period
of
reliable written
records.
Archaeologists
dig
up
history
out
of the
earth,
history
that
was
never
written
down.
There
are
no
dinosaurs
in
anthropology,
for
the
good and
simple
reason
that
anthropology
concerns
itself with
man.
Dinosaurs,
despite
certain
comic
strips
to the
contrary,
lived
many
millions
of
years
before
the coming
of
the
first
man.
So
we
will
have
to
struggle along
without
the
giant
reptiles
in
this
book,
but
they will
not
be
missed.
Man
himself
is
the
most
fascinating
animal
that
ever existed
on
the
face
of
the
earth.
Anthropology
is
a
young
science,
as
sciences
go, but
it
is
a
very
important
one.
It
is
not
merely
a
collection
of
odd
facts
about
ancient
times
and
quaint customs
of
the
Indians.
Rather,
it
is
a
technique
that helps
us
to
understand
ourselves.
In
a
world
of
atomic energy
and
warring
nations,
nothing
is
more
important
than
learning
to
control
and
correctly
utilize
the vast
forces
that
mankind
has
at
its
disposal.
If
we
are to
survive,
we
must
first
learn
to
understand. That
is
what
anthropology
is
all
about.
Science
fiction
writers
are
often
guilty
of
extrapolation,
but
this
is
nothing
to
become
unduly
alarmed about.
No
extrapolationists
have
been
investigated
by the
F.
B.
I.,
and
they
are
not
subversive
in
any
way. When
a
writer
extrapolates,
he
simply
discusses
the unknown
in
terms
of
the
known.
For
example,
no
one of
you
now
reading
these
words
has
yet
lived
in
tomorrow,
unless
you
have
a
time
machine
or
two
up your
sleeve.
Nevertheless,
you
could
safely
predict
a number
of
things
about
that
tomorrow
that
you
have never
seen.
You
could,
for
instance,
predict
that
the sun
would
rise
and
you
would
have
a
better
than
fair chance
of
being
right.
You
could
go
on
and
predict some
of
the
things
that
would
happen
to
you—you would
go
to
school,
or
play
baseball,
or
eat
three
meals a
day,
or
go
fishing
down
by
the
river.
You
have
never seen
tomorrow,
but
you
can
tell
with
some
accuracy what
your
family
will
be
like,
how
your
family
makes a
living,
what
your
beliefs
and
customs
will
be.
This is
extrapolation;
you
are
discussing
tomorrow
in
terms of
yesterday
and
today.
Inevitably,
you
will
make some
mistakes,
but
you
will
have
a
batting
average that
will
be
a
lot
healthier
than
one
produced
by
mere wild
guessing.