THE MAIN ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCHOOLS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS - SCIENCE - 2025

The Anthropological schools are the different approaches used within anthropology to study the human being as a whole. Each of them uses a different explanation for phenomena such as culture, language, societies and the biological evolution of humanity.

Since the appearance of the so-called General Anthropology in the nineteenth century, and especially after the formulation of Charles Darwin's theories on evolution, anthropology separated from the rest of the natural sciences and became an independent field of study, with their own rival schools and theories.

Although there are a large number of different schools of thought within anthropology, some of the most important are evolutionism, diffusionism, the American school, and the French school.

Top schools in anthropology

Throughout the history of anthropology, different currents of thought have dominated the scientific community. Each of these has particular characteristics that differentiate it from the rest, especially in terms of the way of studying human behavior.

However, all these schools are concerned with generating knowledge about the human being, its evolution and the influence of culture and biology in its way of behaving.

Evolutionism

Evolutionism was one of the first anthropological currents to emerge after the appearance of Darwin's evolutionary theories. Some of its greatest exponents were Morgan (1818 - 1881), Tylor (1832 - 1917) and Frazer (1854 - 1941).

At the beginning of the 19th century, various currents of thought appeared in Europe that tried to understand human behavior for the first time without resorting to mythological or religious explanations. Therefore, anthropological evolutionism is one of the first scientific currents in history to try to understand the human being.

Some of the most important characteristics of evolutionism are the following:

- Based on the ideas of Darwin, the proponents of this school of thought believed that the human being goes from the simple to the complex, both at a biological level (through the evolution of species) and at a social level.

- Human behavior is compared with that of animals, in such a way that they try to establish similarities with other species to understand people.

- Many of the characteristics of human beings can be explained due to the pressures exerted by natural selection and sexual selection.

One of the main concerns of early evolutionary thinkers, especially Morgan, was the evolution of families throughout history.

For this reason, this scientist proposed a model in which the human family structure went from polygamy to the nuclear and monogamous family, which he considered typical of advanced cultures.

American School of Anthropology

The American school of anthropology focuses on culture as the main object of study. In this context, culture is understood as the human capacity to classify and represent experiences in a symbolic way, in such a way that the symbols are understood by the rest of the population.

In general, the American school of anthropology is considered to be divided into four branches: biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, cultural anthropology, and archeology.

- Biological anthropology

American biological anthropology focuses primarily on two fundamental issues: how culture evolved in human societies, and whether we are the only species that has culture or, on the contrary, there are others that also have it (especially other primates).

Therefore, one of the most important debates in this branch of American anthropology is what exactly is considered culture and what is not.

Many scientists consider culture only that related to human activity, but this definition has changed over time.

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The second branch of the American school, linguistic anthropology, studies the relationship between culture and language. This relationship has been observed since ancient times, and the difference between languages ​​is considered one of the most important distinctions between cultures.

The founder of American anthropology, Franz Boas, went so far as to say that the language of a community is the most important part of its shared culture.

Some scientists even believe that language can determine thought and culture in such a way that they cannot be separated.

- Cultural anthropology

The third branch of the American school is cultural anthropology. It is based on the study of the evolution of human culture throughout history, from uncivilized or "barbarian" societies to modern-day societies.

Students of cultural anthropology see the historical process as linear, in such a way that humans have gone from simple and disorganized cultures to others much more complex and structured.

- Archeology

Finally, the fourth branch of the American anthropological school is archeology. Although it is also related to other sciences, in this context it is responsible for finding tangible evidence on the evolution of culture over time.

French sociological school

The French sociological school was formed in the period between the last decade of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century. The main exponent of this current of thought was Emile Durkheim.

This author was one of the main proponents of sociology as an independent social science. Therefore, his work focused on the study of the interdependence of different social phenomena.

The aim of the French anthropological school was to achieve a theory capable of unifying all the cultural phenomena of human beings by studying both the history and the society of the moment.

Diffusionism

Diffusionism is a school of thought in anthropology whose main idea is that the traits of some cultures are diffused towards others nearby. The most extreme version of this current, known as hyperdiffusionism, considered that all cultures should come from one.

Thus, this ancestral culture would have spread throughout the world through great migrations; some thinkers of this current, like Grafton Smith, believed that this original culture had to be located in Egypt.

However, today, despite the fact that some cultural traits are known to have been diffused, the mechanism of parallel evolution is also known.

That is, modern anthropologists consider that some similar cultural traits between different civilizations may have evolved independently in each of these.

References

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2. "The french school of sociology" in: Encyclopedia. Retrieved on: February 26, 2018 from Encyclopedia: encyclopedia.com.
3. "Anthropology" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: February 26, 2018 from Wikipedia: es.wikipedia.org.
4. "Diffusionism and acculturation" in: Anthropology. Retrieved on: February 26, 2018 from Anthropology: anthropology.ua.edu.
5. "American anthropology" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: February 26, 2018 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.