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In the Anthro department at ISU all three major sub-disciplines of anthropology are covered. For the M.A., students choose one as a focus but our undergrads get to learn about them all. Binding these sub-disciplines together is a shared methodical approach to the study of human experiences around the world and through time.
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Sociocultural anthropologists normally work with living peoples and focus on the concept of culture. We use “culture” to mean all of the beliefs and customs that we learn as members of a society. Sociocultural anthropologists are interested in many issues such as:
On a basic level, sociocultural anthropology investigates difference and similarity within and between human populations. This is done by looking at topics such as kinship, migration, and colonization/decolonization.
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Biological anthropologists focus on questions having to do with evolutionary theory, our place in nature, adaptation, and human biological variation. They study other primates (primatology), the fossil record (paleoanthropology), prehistoric people (bioarchaeology), and the biology (e.g., health, cognition, hormones, growth and development) and genetics of living populations. They want to understand how humans adapt to diverse environments, how biological and cultural processes work together to shape growth, development, and behavior.
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Like the rest of anthropology, archaeology is a comparative discipline; it assumes basic human continuities over time and place, but also recognizes that every society is the product of its own particular history and that within every society there are commonalities as well as variation. Archaeologists study past peoples and cultures, from the deepest prehistory to the recent past, through the analysis of material remains, ranging from artifacts and evidence of past environments to architecture and landscapes.
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