As a field, anthropology brings an explicit, evolutionary approach to the study of human behavior. In North America the discipline's largest branch, cultural anthropology, applies the comparative method and evolutionary perspective to human culture. Ethnographers compare what they see and hear themselves with the observations and findings of studies conducted in other societies. Originally, anthropologists pieced together a complete way of life for a culture, viewed as a whole. Today, the more likely focus is on a narrower aspect of cultural life, such as economics, politics, religion or art.
Cultural anthropologists seek to understand the internal logic of another society.
It helps outsiders make sense of behaviors that, like face painting or scarification, may seem bizarre or senseless. We can turn the principle around and see our everyday surroundings in a new light, with the same sense of wonder and discovery anthropologists experience when studying life in a Brazilian rain-forest tribe. Though many picture cultural anthropologists thousands of miles from home residing in thatched huts amid wicker fences, growing numbers now study U.S. groups instead, applying anthropological perspectives to their own culture and society. The organization of systems of sound into language has enabled Homo sapiens to transcend the limits of individual memory. Speech is the most efficient medium of communication since DNA for transmitting information across generations.