人类学关注的是现在和过去在世界各地的人类所有事物。在其范围内，它在社会科学中是独一无二的。大多数学科只关注现代文明，或者只关注生活的各个方面，例如政府或经济。人类学对所有人类社会都感兴趣，并将生命视为一个复杂的整体，而不是其各个部分的总和。人类学试图理解的是人类的整体经验。<br>人类学的广度反映在人类学的四个子领域中。身体人类学研究生物进化以及遗传如何调节我们的生活方式。文化人类学通过研究全世界当代文化中巨大的生活方式差异，试图解释不同民族在生活过程中的异同。考古学使用专门的技术探查人类史前史，探索了远
Anthropology is concerned with everything that is human, in all parts of the world, both present and past. It is unique among the social sciences in its scope. Most disciplines focus only on modern civilization or concentrate on single aspects of life, such as government or the economy. Anthropology is interested in all human societies and views life as a complexly integrated whole that is more than the sum of its parts. It is the human experience as a whole that anthropology seeks to understand.<br>The breadth of anthropology is reflected in its four subfields. Physical anthropology studies biological evolution and how heredity conditions the ways we conduct life. Cultural anthropology, by studying the enormous diversity of lifeways in contemporary cultures throughout the world, attempts to explain both differences and similarities in the way different peoples carry out the process of living. Archaeology explores the human past far beyond the range of written records, using specialized techniques to probe human prehistory. Linguistic anthropology investigates the nature of language and the critical role it has played in developing our unique intellectual capabilities and behavior. The central concept in anthropology is culture, and it is this vital idea which binds the subfields into an integrated discipline.