Anthropology is a scientific field of study with several divisions.
One division, cultural anthropology , focuses on an understanding of the way that people live in different societies or cultures around the world. Cultural anthropologists often conduct studies of peoples whose customs are quite different from our own and they attempt to explain the reasons for these complex patterns of social behavior. Another division, archaeology , is concerned with understanding societies that existed in the past. Archaeologists excavate or survey the remains of societies that existed many thousands of years ago or the remains of societies from recent times. A third division, linguistic anthropology, studies the nature of human languages.