Anthropology is the holistic study of human cultures and the human place in nature.
Anthropology emphasizes comparing human groups to understand the range of normal variation in human behavior and biology, and therefore considers what it is to be human. It helps students gain a fuller understanding of human behavior on a worldwide, long term basis by integrating the subdisciplines of archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics and physical anthropology. The international nature of anthropology makes this field of study increasingly important in our shrinking world. People in all fields of business, politics, medicine, ecology and academia must now deal on a daily basis with people from other cultures, with the success of their enterprise often depending on their ability to understand and communicate with these other people. The contribution of anthropology is in integrating the different concepts from many disciplines into a meaningful understanding of that most complex animal, Homo sapiens.