Introduction: Human Origins.pdf (original) (raw)

A rift runs through anthropology. Year on year we explain to our students that anthropology is the overarching study of what it means to be human; and yet our discipline is fragmented. We can, we explain, study humans as biological beings, understanding the anatomical, physiological and life-history differences between ourselves and the other great apes, or the Neanderthals. Or we can study humans within their own communities as cultural beings, analysing the rituals they perform and the stories they tell. What defines us as Homo sapiens compared with other hominins appears a tractable scientific area of enquiry. Interpretations of cultural voices, values and meanings feel by contrast negotiable and contested, throwing into question the prospect of scientific objectivity. On each side of this divide data takes different forms and is collected quite differently; theory and hypothesis are applied with hypothetico-deductive method, inductively or not at all; and epistemologies are radically opposed.