When did the study of anthropology begin?

So, When Did This Anthropology Thing Get Started, Anyway?

Anthropology. It’s a big word, right? But really, it’s just the study of us – humans! Everything from why we do what we do, to our bodies, our languages, our past, and our present. Now, while it only officially became a “thing” in the mid-1800s, people have been pondering these questions for way longer than that.

Think way, way back. We’re talking ancient Greece. Guys like Herodotus, kicking around in the 400s BC, were already scribbling down notes about different cultures they encountered in the Persian Empire. You could almost say he was one of the first travel bloggers, just without the Wi-Fi! Then you have Ibn Khaldun, centuries later, trying to figure out what makes civilizations tick – what helps them rise and, sadly, what makes them fall. Pretty deep stuff.

But let’s fast forward a bit. The real turning point? Probably the Age of Enlightenment. Suddenly, everyone was obsessed with figuring out human behavior in a systematic way. And with Europeans jet-setting (well, sailing) all over the globe, they were bumping into all sorts of different societies. Naturally, they started trying to make sense of it all.

Now, the mid-19th century is when things really got interesting. Darwin dropped his bombshell about evolution, and bam! Suddenly, everyone’s thinking about where we came from. Fossils were popping up left and right, including Neanderthals, and the race to understand our origins was on.

Early theories were… well, a bit rough around the edges, let’s just say. Think of it like this: some folks figured societies were all climbing the same ladder, with Europeans smugly sitting at the top, calling themselves “civilized.” Others thought cultures spread like jam on toast, with ideas just oozing from one place to another. Problem was, these theories were often super biased.

Enter Edward Burnett Tylor. This guy’s a big deal. He basically wrote the first anthropology textbook in 1871! He defined culture as this whole messy mix of knowledge, beliefs, art, morals – basically everything you learn as part of a society. Then you’ve got Lewis Henry Morgan, mapping out these stages of cultural evolution. Anthropology was officially on the map!

But the 20th century brought a major shake-up. A guy named Franz Boas – “the father of American anthropology” – basically said, “Hold on a minute! We can’t just judge other cultures by our own standards!” He pushed for understanding cultures on their own terms, which meant getting your boots dirty, doing fieldwork, and ditching those biases.

And speaking of fieldwork, Bronisław Malinowski was all about diving in headfirst. He hung out with the Trobriand Islanders and showed how their customs actually made sense for their society. It wasn’t just random weirdness; it all had a purpose!

Thanks to Boas, anthropology really took off in American universities in the 20s and 30s. He shaped it into a “four-field” discipline, covering everything from culture to bones to language to ancient artifacts. Pretty comprehensive, right?

These days, anthropology is still evolving. We’re tackling huge issues like globalization, gender, health, and the environment. We’re using all sorts of new tools and ideas. While guys like Boas and Malinowski laid the groundwork, there were tons of other brilliant minds involved, like Alfred Radcliffe-Brown and Marcel Mauss, each adding their own flavor to the mix.

So, the next time someone asks you when anthropology started, you can tell them it’s a long and winding story. It’s a story that stretches from ancient historians to modern-day researchers, all trying to answer the same big question: what does it mean to be human? And honestly, I think that’s a question worth asking.