Introduction to anthropology

Anthropology, perhaps more than anyother discipline, illuminates the humanexperience. Anthropologists introduce us to societies in every quarter of the globe;tell us about the lifestyles, customs, andworld views of social groups other thanour own; and thus enable us to test ourtheories of humanity as well as our preconceptions of other people. It is the purposeof this book to introduce the student tothis cross-cultural approach to the studyof human values and behavior.The text also presents the story ofhuman evolution. It describes how members of the human family, and theirforebears, developed physically as theyadapted to a wide variety of environments.It also describes our cultural evolutionfrom the earliest cultures represented bycrude stone tools to those that gave birthto the first cities.Students who look carefully at the cultures presented here will begin to discovernot only the universals but also the varieties of human experience. They willrealize that every culture chooses fromamong different alternatives and makesdifferent adaptations to resolve such questions as "How will we maintain orders?"or "How will we deal with our naturalresources?" Human values and behaviorare part of an ongoing process, a processthat probably began in Africa millions ofyears ago -when the first members of thehuman family appeared-and continues inmodern complex societies.