ABSTRACT
Anthropology, that literally means the study of man or humankind, is divided into two branches: physical (or biological) and cultural. Physical anthropology is concerned with the physical variation in human form. While in the nineteenth century, this variation was understood in crudely evolutionary terms, and was frequently used to justify the superiority of the white European form over other, supposedly more primitive, forms, now physical anthropology stresses only the diversity of human form (as adaptation to diverse environments), not any progress. A similar shift occurs in cultural anthropology, as it matured into a respectable (and indeed fundamental) social science at the beginning of the twentieth century. Thus, an initial concern with the progress of human society and culture (still reflected in the occasional use of ‘primitive’ society), was replaced by a recognition of the diversity of human culture, and the different, but none the less equally complex and valid structures and logics that underpinned these cultures.
