Anthropology is the study of human beings from their origins to their present world-wide diversity.
As an academic discipline, it provides students with a perspective on the nature of our species, underscoring the importance of cultural and language differences for understanding what it means to be human. Biological anthropologists study the past and on-going evolution of primates and the processes that differentiate modern human populations. Archaeologists study the evolution of culture during the past 3 million years, analyzing ancient environments, subsistence, settlement, and trade, as well as modern material culture. Linguistic anthropologists are interested in language change and contact, language typology and universals, the analysis of unwritten languages, and the relationships among language, culture, society and the individual. Anthropologists are employed as teachers and researchers by universities and colleges and sometimes by secondary schools.