As a discipline, anthropology investigates both the biological and the sociocultural aspects of humanity in all its diversity. Undergraduate concentrators may choose to specialize in either biological or cultural anthropology. Within cultural anthropology they may further specialize in ethnology, archaeology or linguistic anthropology. Biological Anthropology considers areas such as human evolutionary history, the causes of present-day genetic diversity, the possible biological bases of human behavior, and the social behavior of nonhuman primates. It draws on the evidence and concepts of various other disciplines, including biology, paleontology, and ecology.
Ethnology focuses on the sociocultural systems of human societies.
The core of ethnology is the detailed participation in and observation of living groups of people. Traditionally, anthropologists concentrated on societies very different from their own, but many also choose to examine social groups in industrialized and state-level societies. Archaeology studies the sociocultural systems of past societies through its focus on their material remains, including tools, buildings, animal and plant remains, and pottery. Through such analyses, archaeologists formulate explanations for social persistence and change. Linguistic Anthropology examines the ways in which people negotiate, contest, and reproduce cultural forms and social relations through language, and the ways in which language provides insights into the nature and evolution of culture.