ABSTRACT
Anthropology is the academic discipline that studies the breadth of human experience. The word ‘anthropology’ derives from the Greek ‘anthropos’ word meaning human and ‘logos’ meaning discourse or science. The foundational meanings of these terms highlight the ambitious remit and intent of the discipline to produce a ‘science of humans.’ Anthropologists are perhaps best known for their association with culture. They have traditionally studied a range of topics related to it, including kinship, marriage, religion, power, ritual, custom, belief systems, symbols, language, myth, gender, and institutions. Anthropological topics and questions about people, their relationships with one another, and practices predate the establishment of anthropology as a distinct discipline, which most agree began around the mid-19th century. Culture theory has also hypothesised about both the origins of human culture and how cultural components such as customs, ideas, and practices spread or are ‘diffused’ from one culture to another.
