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Anthropology (/?æn???'p?l?d?i/, from Greek ?????p??, anthropos, "human"; -????a, -logia) is the study of humanity. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, and the humanities.[1] Ethnography is both one of its primary methods and the text that is written as a result of the practice of anthropology and its elements. Since the work of Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, anthropology has been distinguished from other social science disciplines by its emphasis on in-depth examination of context, cross-cultural comparisons (socio-cultural anthropology is by nature a comparative discipline), and the importance it places on long-term, experiential immersion in the area of research, often known as participant-observation. Cultural anthropology in particular has emphasized cultural relativity and the use of findings to frame cultural critiques. This has been particularly prominent in the United States, from Boas's arguments against 19th-century racial ideology, through Margaret Mead's advocacy for gender equality and sexual liberation, to current criticisms of post-colonial oppression and promotion of multiculturalism. The anthropologist Eric Wolf once described anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences."[2] Contemporary anthropologists claim a number of earlier thinkers as their forebears, and the discipline has several sources; Claude Lévi-Strauss, for example, claimed Montaigne and Rousseau as important influences. Ancient and medieval writers and scholars may be considered forerunners of anthropology, insofar as they conducted or wrote detailed studies of the customs of different peoples, including the Greek writer Herodotus, often called the "father of history" and the Roman historian Tacitus, who wrote many of our only surviving contemporary accounts of several ancient Celtic and Germanic peoples. Herodotus first formulated some of the persisting problems of anthropology. John of Plano Carpini's report of his staying among the Mongols was unusual in its detailed depiction of a non-European culture.[3] Marco Polo's systematic observations of nature, anthropology, and geography were ahead of his time.[4] Such a diverse and detailed account of the lands that he journeyed earned Polo the name "the father of modern anthropology."[5] Another candidate for one of the first scholars to carry out comparative ethnographic-type studies in person was the medieval Persian scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni in the 11th century, who wrote about the peoples, customs, and religions of the Indian subcontinent. Like modern anthropologists, he engaged in extensive participant observation with a given group of people, learnt their language and studied their primary texts, and presented his findings with objectivity and neutrality using cross-cultural comparisons.[6] He wrote detailed comparative studies on the religions and cultures in the Middle East, Mediterranean and especially South Asia.[7][8] Biruni's tradition of comparative cross-cultural study continued in the Muslim world through to Ibn Khaldun's work in the 14th century.[6][9]
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