Anthropology

Anthropology is a social science that studies human beings in a holistic manner. It uses tools and knowledge produced by the natural sciences and other social sciences. The aspiration of the discipline of anthropology is to produce knowledge about humans in various areas, but always as part of a society. Thus, attempts to cover both the biological evolution of our species, the development and the livelihoods of people who have disappeared, the current social structures and diversity of cultural and linguistic expressions that characterize humanity.

Anthropology is an integrative science that studies man in the context of society and culture to which it belongs, and at the same time, as a result of them. It can be defined as the science that deals with the study of the origin and development of the full range of human variability and modes of social behavior over time and space.

The famous anthropologists in England

     

      E.E. Evans‐Pritchard (1902 - 1973)

He is one of the important social anthropologists in England; he is known for his investigations of African cultures, for his exploration of segmentary systems, and for his explanations of witchcraft and magic.

Evans-Pritchard did postgraduate work in anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. After that, he did fieldwork among the Zande and Nuer of what is now South Sudan. 

During his life, Evans-Pritchard was a prolific writer, especially on kinship, religion, and the history of anthropology, his later writings were eclipsed by his earlier work. His later writings were theoretical essays and lectures on the relations between anthropology and other social sciences and revealed a great depth of scholarship but were often controversial and divergent from the trends of the time. 

However, his influence as a teacher in the latter part of his life was considerable, for under his guidance the Oxford school of social anthropology attracted students from many parts of the world; and he sponsored fieldwork in Africa and elsewhere as a member of the Colonial Social Science Research Council. Evans-Pritchard received numerous academic honors. He was a professor of social anthropology at Oxford and a fellow of All Souls College from 1946 to 1970, and he was subwarden from 1963 to 1965.

  

         A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955)

He is a English social anthropologist of the 20th century who developed a systematic framework of concepts and generalizations relating to the social structures of preindustrial societies and their functions. He is known for his theory of functionalism and his role in the founding of British social anthropology.

From 1906 to 1908, Radcliffe-Brown went to the Andaman Islands where his fieldwork won him a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. On an expedition to Western Australia, he concentrated on kinship and family organization. In 1916, he became director of education for the kingdom of Tonga and served as professor of social anthropology at the University of Cape Town between 1920 to 1925, where he founded the School of African Life and Languages. His study called "The Andaman Islanders" contained the essential formulation of his ideas and methods.

He developed a vigorous teaching program involving research in theoretical and applied anthropology in 1925 to 1931. His theory had its classic formulation and application in the social organisation of australian tribes. He attempted to explain social phenomena as enduring systems of adaptation, fusion, and integration of elements. 

His later works include "Structure and Function in Primitive Societ", "Method  in Social Anthropology", and an edited collection of essays entitled "African Systems of Kinship and Marriage", which remains a landmark in African studies.

 

      Jane Goodall 

 She is a british anthropologist and primatologist and she is the world's leading authority on chimpanzees. Goodall is famous for her work among the chimpanzees of Gombe and for her efforts to raise awareness about the plight of both wild and captive chimpanzees. 

One of the great influences on Goodall was anthropologist Louis Leakey. Among Goodall's more significant discoveries were the close-knit social ties and complex relationships within chimpanzee groups, maintained by networks of grooming and food sharing. The most stunning discovery of all was her observation of "tool" use among chimpanzees. Prior to her work it had been asserted that humans were the only creatures that used tools. Goodall repeatedly observed chimps searching for "the perfect twig", then stripping it of leaves, and patiently dipping and withdrawing it into mounds to consume termites. Since then, other animals including birds have been observed using tools.

Since 1986, when it became clear that poaching and habitat destruction were increasing at an alarming rate, Goodall has spent less and less time at Gombe. She has become a tireless lecturer within the United States and elsewhere, advocating not only for habitat preservation and tougher poaching laws, but also for more human treatment of chimpanzees in captivity, within both the medical and entertainment settings. 

There is a video about the Goodall´s Work with the chimpanzees: