| title | Hocbigg - Anthropology |
|---|---|
| description | Path to a free self-taught education in Anthropology! |
Anthropology is the study of humanity across deep evolutionary time, geographical space, and cultural diversity. Sociology, economics, and history tend to focus on particular institutions or periods. Anthropology compares widely and treats human biology, language, social organization, and material culture as connected.
This curriculum is for independent learners, polymaths, and career-changers coming to anthropology for the first time. You need no background in the social sciences, evolutionary biology, or linguistics. It focuses on conceptual foundations, analytical mental models, and empirical findings, and leaves out general research methodology, thesis writing, and graduate-level field techniques.
The curriculum follows the discipline's standard four-field approach, with an orientation at the start and a theoretical synthesis at the end:
- Start with Introduction to Anthropology to learn the four-field structure, the concept of culture, and cultural relativism.
- Sociocultural Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, Archaeological Anthropology, and Linguistic Anthropology form the core empirical body of the discipline. They are listed in the conventional order, but you can study them in any sequence that suits your interests.
- Finish with Anthropological Theory, which ties the four subfields together by tracing the debates that shaped how anthropologists interpret evidence, from nineteenth-century social evolutionism and historical particularism to structuralism and post-structuralism.
For each subject, pick the primary textbook or syllabus that fits your learning style (open-access online texts or comprehensive print volumes, for example), and use the course guides or lectures to reinforce it.
This curriculum covers only the baseline that every anthropologist shares. After you have worked through it, you can branch out:
- Explore subfields like medical anthropology, political ecology, and bioarchaeology in Advanced Topics.
- Apply ethnographic, linguistic, and archaeological methods to tangible deliverables in Projects.
- Read landmark monographs and influential historical essays in Readings.
- Watch full-length university lectures and documentary courses in Courses.
- Forums:
- Subreddits:
- Discord servers:
- Other:
- Savage Minds (anthropology blog and forum)
- Fediverse Group: Anthropology (Mastodon group)
- You can also use GitHub issues. If a course has a problem or the curriculum needs a change, start the conversation there. Read more here.
Surveys the four-field discipline of anthropology and shows how cultural, biological, archaeological, and linguistic perspectives combine to explain human life.
Introduction to Anthropology (OpenStax / Jennifer Hasty et al.): A peer-reviewed open textbook that covers all four traditional subfields along with culture, evolution, and human diversity.
Anthropology: Appreciating Human Diversity (Conrad Phillip Kottak): A print alternative to the OpenStax volume with a broad, case-rich overview of the four subfields.
Introduction to Anthropology (MIT OpenCourseWare / Graham Jones): A complementary university syllabus and study schedule with readings and assignment prompts on contemporary anthropological questions.
Investigates cultural variation, social institutions, kinship, political and economic systems, religion, and the effects of globalization across human societies.
Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology (American Anthropological Association / Nina Brown et al., eds.): A free, modular introductory textbook written by practicing anthropologists, covering the major topics in cultural anthropology.
Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology (Thomas Hylland Eriksen): A narrative-driven alternative that draws on the British and European social anthropology traditions and uses real-world ethnography.
Anthropology: Understanding Societies and Cultures (FutureLearn / University of Newcastle): A complementary three-week online course with video and discussion that introduces culture, kinship, and ethnographic fieldwork.
Explores human biological evolution, evolutionary genetics, non-human primate behavior, the hominin fossil record, and biocultural adaptations in living human populations.
Explorations: An Open Invitation to Biological Anthropology (American Anthropological Association / Beth Shook et al., eds.): The peer-reviewed open-access textbook for evolutionary theory, paleoanthropology, primate biology, and human variation.
Our Origins: Discovering Biological Anthropology (Clark Spencer Larsen): A widely adopted university textbook, and an alternative to Explorations, with detailed anatomical diagrams, fossil reconstructions, and bioarchaeological case studies.
Introduction to Human Evolution (Adam Van Arsdale / YouTube): A complementary open video lecture series by a paleoanthropologist covering evolutionary genetics, fossil discoveries, and hominin adaptations. Search "Introduction to Human Evolution Adam Van Arsdale" on YouTube.
Examines how material culture, site stratigraphy, dating technologies, and spatial analysis are used to reconstruct ancient lifeways, the agricultural transition, and the rise of complex societies.
Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice (Colin Renfrew & Paul Bahn): A comprehensive standard textbook on archaeological theory, scientific field techniques, dating methods, and excavations worldwide.
Digging into Archaeology: A Brief OER Introduction to Archaeology with Activities (Amanda Wolcott Paskey & AnnMarie Beasley Cisneros): A short, free open-access alternative that covers core archaeological concepts and includes practical exercises for independent study.
Archaeology: from Dig to Lab and Beyond (FutureLearn / University of Reading): A complementary interactive course that walks through an actual excavation step by step, from artifact processing to post-dig analysis.
Examines language as a primary vehicle of cultural meaning, covering semiotics, linguistic relativity, performativity, language socialization, and the links between speech, power, and identity.
Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology (Laura M. Ahearn): A focused introductory textbook that treats language as social action and covers agency, indexicality, and speech communities.
Language, Culture, and Society: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology (Zdenek Salzmann, James Stanlaw, & Nobuko Adachi): An alternative introductory textbook that covers the formal mechanics of language and the sociolinguistic dimensions of identity, gender, and power.
Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics (Coursera / Universiteit Leiden): A complementary video course that gives a working foundation in descriptive linguistics, including phonetics, syntax, and language acquisition, to support your study of linguistic anthropology.
Traces the intellectual history of anthropology from 19th-century unilineal evolutionism and historical particularism through functionalism, structuralism, and post-structuralism to contemporary critique.
Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History (R. Jon McGee & Richard L. Warms): A primary-source reader that anthologizes foundational theoretical essays, from classical theorists to modern post-structuralist and feminist thinkers, with thorough editorial annotations.
Anthropological Theory (MIT OpenCourseWare / Susan S. Silbey): A complementary university syllabus and study guide with analytical reading questions that pair classic theoretical statements with ethnographic case analyses.