Anthropology

The science of the origin and evolution of human beings, of the formation of human races, and of the normal variations in the physical structures of human beings. The basis for determining the place occupied by anthropology among the sciences was laid by F. Engels, who defined anthropology as the science covering “... the transition from the morphology and physiology of humanity and of races of humanity to history” (Dialektika prirody,1969, p. 158). In many other countries the term “anthropology” is also applied to ethnography and archaeology, in addition to the natural science of human beings.
Anthropology in the sense in which it is understood in Soviet science comprises the following basic divisions: human morphology, the theory of anthropogenesis, and race studies. A complex of disciplines collectively known as human biology has been undergoing vigorous development since the middle of the 20th century.
==Human morphology==
Human morphology is subdivided into the disciplines of somatology and merology. Somatology studies the regularities of individual variability in the human organism as a whole, sexual dimorphism in the structure of the body, age-linked changes in the dimensions and proportions of the body from the embryonic period until advanced age, and the effects of various biological and social conditions on the structure of the body and on the human constitution. This study is intimately linked with medicine and is of essential importance in establishing norms of physical development and tempos of growth in gerontology and other fields. Merology studies variations in specific parts of the human organism. Comparative anatomical research, which is a division of merology, is devoted to comparing each distinct organ and system of organs of the human body with its counterparts in other vertebrates, principally mammals and especially primates. The ultimate aim of these investigations is to clarify the genetic links between humans and other beings and the place of humans in the animal world.
Paleoanthropology studies the bone remnants of fossilized humans and of those animals closely related to humans—the higher primates. Comparative anatomy and paleoanthropology, as well as embryology, serve to clarify questions of the origin and evolution of humanity; thus, these disciplines are included in the study of anthropogenesis. Anthropogenesis is intimately related to philosophy and also to the archaeology of the Paleolithic period, the geology of the Pleistocene epoch, the physiology of the higher nervous activity of humans and primates, psychology and animal psychology, and so forth. This division of anthropology is also concerned with such questions as the place occupied by humans in the overall system of the animal world, the relationship of the human being as a zoological species to the other primates, methods of retracing the path by which the development of the higher primates proceeded, investigation of the role of labor in the origin of humanity, delineation of stages in the process of human evolution, and the study of the conditions of and reasons for the development of the modern human being.
==Race studies==
Race studies is the division of anthropology that concerns itself with the study of human races. It is sometimes referred to (not quite accurately) as “ethnic anthropology”; strictly speaking, this term refers only to the study of the racial composition of distinct ethna—that is, tribes, peoples, and nations—and to the origin of those communities. But in addition to the problems mentioned, race studies also involves the classification of races, the history of the formation of races, and the factors involved in the appearance of races—such as selective processes, isolation, mixing and migration, climatic conditions, and the general geographical environment. In the area of racial investigation’that is centered on the study of ethnogenesis, anthropological research is carried out jointly with linguistic, historical, and archaeological research. In the study of the motive forces behind the origin of races, anthropology is closely linked with genetics, physiology, zoogeography, climatology, and the general theory of speciation. The study of races in anthropology is important in answering many questions, such as that of the original birthplace of present-day humans. This study also sheds light on the use of anthropological materials as a historical source, on systematics (and primarily small systematic units), on the cognition of the regularities of population genetics, and on the refinement of certain questions of medical geography. Race studies are important in the scientific validation of the struggle against racism.
Some scientists include in the concept of human biology almost all of the divisions of anthropology, enriched by the methods and facts of the allied biological disciplines. It would be more correct to apply the term “human biology” only to the very important division of anthropology that studies the physiological, biochemical, and genetic factors affecting variations in the structure and development of the human organism. In particular, this division includes research on blood hemoglobin, blood groups, the phenomena of twinning, and the relationship of the human constitution to the physiological and chemical features of the human organism and to susceptibilities to specific diseases. The study of the hereditary nature of normal physical criteria and population genetics must also be included here—this encompasses a wide range of topics, such as the stability of type with time and the roles of crossbreeding and isolation within the confines of groups of homogeneous racial composition. No less important is the study of the effect on human morphology of nutrition, climate, soil makeup, and water composition and the capacity of the human organism to undergo adaption to different environmental conditions.
==Research techniques==
Anthropology studies variations in the dimensions and shape of the body by means of descriptions and measurements. The descriptive method has become known as anthroposcopy, and the measuring method has become known as anthropometry. The role of statistical methods is crucial in the processing of anthropometric data. Important special techniques of anthropological research are craniology, osteology, odontology, anthropological photography, taking of impressions of skin surface patterns on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, taking plaster casts of face masks, and taking plaster casts of the internal cavities of the skull (endocranial casts). Techniques of hematological research are currently popular in anthropology, as well as techniques of microanatomy, biochemistry, roentgenology, tracing of family trees, prolonged (long-term) and transverse (synchronous) studies of groups, techniques for breaking up the mass of the body into fractions, applications of radioactive isotopes, various photometric methods, and others. Race studies have benefited from the so-called geographical method—that is, cartographic distributions of distinct racial criteria and superposition of such charts on each other. This method, combined with ethnographic and historical data, constitutes the basis of race analysis.
Methods for restoring the live appearance of a person from his or her skull remains on the basis of a study of the relationship between skull features and the shape of the soft parts of the face are of particular importance in teaching, museum work, and criminal or forensic science. This work has been carried out on a large scale in the USSR since 1927, first by M. M. Gerasimov and later by his colleagues.
==Brief historical review==
The ancient Greeks enriched the science of human beings with many observations and ideas. The field of medicine, particularly the contributions made by Hippocrates (circa 460–377 B.C.), shed light on the influence of climate and nature on illness and on human physical features. With his doctrine of the humors that are present in the human organism and the four temperaments, he predicted the way in which research would be conducted on the physiological differences between types of human constitutions and the relationships between those differences and morphological features (habits). Another source for the accumulation of facts that would later be incorporated into the field of anthropology were the observations made about different peoples by Greek travelers, Herodotus (fifth century B.C.) in particular. The greatest contribution to anthropology was made by naturalists and philosophers, who earlier than two millennia ago were already discussing the importance of the human hand and its relevance to the high position occupied by the human species among the other animals (Socrates and Anaxagoras), the survival in nature of those beings whose structure is harmonic, and the inexorable disappearance of deformed and abnormal specimens (Empedocles). Aristotle constructed a hierarchy of species with a sequential arrangement of the degree of perfection of organization and found a place in the system for humans above the apes and other mammals.
During the Renaissance general progress in the development of the sciences and sharply growing interest in the physical and spiritual life of humanity were of great importance to the development of anthropological knowledge. An enormous step forward was made in the study of human anatomy because of the work of Vesalius, Leonardo da Vinci, and others. Some anatomists and artists paid close attention to variations in human organs and to different types of human body structures. The German artist A. Dürer, for example, wrote a special treatise entitled Four Books on Human Proportion (1528).
The great geographical discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries broadened the horizons of anthropological knowledge and acquainted Europeans at least superficially with the racial types of peoples in east Asia (the travels of Piano Carpini, Rubruquis, and Marco Polo), the Americas (C. Columbus), eastern Siberia (S. Dezhnev), Tierra del Fuego, and Oceania (F. Magellan). The importance for anthropology of Magellan’s world voyage was greatest in the sense that, by confirming the existence of the antipodes, it demonstrated the incompatibility of science with the biblical legend of the creation of humanity in some “Holy Land.” The first descriptions of the anatomy of anthropomorphic apes, by the Englishman E. Tyson, who studied the corpse of a chimpanzee in 1699, were significant events in the history of anthropology in the 17th century. The first more or less serious attempts to construct scientific hypotheses on the origin of the human species and its place in nature were ventured in the 18th century by J. La Mettrie, D. Diderot, C. Helvétius, and G. Buffon in France; by I. Kant in Germany; and by A. N. Radishchev in Russia. Also of great importance to anthropology were the activities of the Swedish naturalist C. Linnaeus, who singled out the order of primates from among the mammals in his work System of Nature (first edition, 1735; 10th edition, 1758) and subdivided that order into four genera: humans, apes and monkeys, lemuis, and bats. Following his binary nomenclature scheme, Linnaeus designated humans by the term Homo sapiens and subdivided the species into four races matching the then well-known continents: Homo sapiens europaeus, Homo sapiens asiaticus, Homo sapiens africanus, and Homo sapiens americanus. This was by no means the only attempt to arrive at a classification of human races in the 18th century. The work of the Frenchman F. Bernier (1684) was followed by a system of races constructed by G. Buffon, another by I. Kant, another by the German anatomist and anthropologist J. Blumenbach, and others. Knowledge about the anthropological types present in Australia and in Oceania became widespread, principally because of the voyages of J. Cook; the anthropological types present in Siberia became better known as a result of expeditions by Russian scientists.
Comparative anatomical studies of primates made further progress. Attempts were made to develop methods of comparative description in anthropology by the Dutch anatomist P. Camper, who suggested using comparisons of humans and animals based on measurements of facial angles. Another major event in the history of anthropology was the confirmation in biology of the theory of evolution. The French naturalist J. Lamarck and, to a much greater degree, C. Darwin exerted an enormous influence on all divisions of anthropology and specifically on the development of the question of the position of humanity in the organic world. Lamarck devoted several pages in his Philosophy of Zoology (1809) to the problem of anthropogenesis, while C. Darwin produced two major works on the subject: The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). As a result of this work, as well as that done by Darwin’s successors—principally the British scientist T. Huxley and the German scientist E. Haeckel—interest intensified in the fossilized remnants of the bones of apes and early humans, in comparative anatomy and comparative physiology of the primates, and in paleolithic tools and geological dating of paleolithic tools. Attention was given to the study of variations in the structure of the human body and related forms, in the relationship between the individual growth of humans and other primates, and in their positions in the system of animal life. A large number of fossilized remnants of higher primates and hominids has been found in the 20th century: australopitheci, gigantopitheci, pithecanthropi, Neanderthal people, and others. The greatest contributions to the study of these materials are attributed to the French scientists M. Boule, H. V. Vallois, and J. Riveteau; the German scientist G. Schwalbe; the British scientists A. Keith, W. E. Le Gros Clark, and L. Leakey; the American scientists F. Weidenreich and A. Hrdlička; the Dutch scientists E. Dubois, G. G. R. Koenigswald, and L. Bolk; the Swiss scientists J. Hürzeler and A. Schultz; the Czech scientist E. Vlček; and many others.
The evolutionary principle has been extended to the study of human races, so that the classification tables have been replaced in race studies by the construction of genealogical trees. Research on continuous variability has been developed, as well as new, refined methods of accounting for slight differences between similar races. As a result of the unification of procedures, errors in investigation have been lessened, and it is now possible to compare the results of measurements carried out by different scientists. The statistical processing of huge masses of materials required the development of mathematical techniques capable of handling calculations of not only arithmetic means but also of criteria characterizing the regularities of distributions and the spread of characteristics and the degree of correlation between dimensions (biometry). By the 20th century applications of mathematical statistics capable of introducing high accuracy into the study of age-linked morphology, individual variability, and professional, athletic, and applied anthropology had come into their own.
The establishment of anthropology as an independent science dates back to the middle of the 19th century. Here the greatest contribution is attributed to the French surgeon, anatomist, and anthropologist P. Broca, who founded the Society of Anthropology of Paris in 1859 , which had a program of studies including the biology of the human species in the context of human culture. Soon after the founding of the society, a laboratory for anthropological research was organized in Paris (1868), followed by a school of anthropology (1875). Anthropological institutions were founded in other countries: for example, in London (1863), in Moscow (1864), in Madrid (1865), in Florence (1868), in Berlin (1869), and in Vienna (1870). The appearance of these anthropological societies and the emphasis in some of their programs on the study of human races are partially accounted for by the historical circumstances of the time.
The 19th century was characterized by an enormous sweep of colonial expansion. Public attention in Europe was attracted to this and to the sharpening national question. Italy’s struggle for freedom and unity and the fate of the population of Alsace and Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War gave rise to new ways of defining the concepts of “nation” and “race.” It is generally known that it was precisely the question of the separation of Ireland from Britain that stimulated T. Huxley to further develop the concept of “race.” The race question acquired even greater urgency in connection with the civil war that raged between the northern and southern states in the USA (1861–65). These events were to have a powerful influence on the position taken by some anthropological societies vis-à-vis the race problem. For example, the president of the London Anthropological Society, J. Hunt, who was a partisan of the slaveowners, made an attempt in his program speech “On the Negro’s Place in Nature” (1864) to provide a scientific foundation for the “theory” of racial inequality. Efforts to synthesize the two major areas of anthropology, the theory of anthropogenesis and the theory of races, typified the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. The absence of any dialectical understanding of the process of human evolution occasionally led to the false conception of the modern races as the progressive development of humanity arrested at different stages. Reactionary trends such as social Darwinism, anthroposociology, and political anthropology made their appearance. These pseudosciences constitute different forms of racism, which lay at the basis of the state ideology of Hitler’s Germany and which wreaked untold havoc on humanity. After the defeat of German fascism, racist theories continued to be propagated in several countries outside the USSR, notably in the Republic of South Africa, in Rhodesia, and in the USA.
A correct synthesis of race studies and anthropogenesis, and by the same token the methodological validation of anthropology as a single unified discipline, became possible only when the theory of the qualitative distinctiveness of human evolution gained acceptance. This theory has been applied most consistently in the works of Soviet anthropologists, who have inherited and continued the progressive democratic traditions of their precursors and teachers.
Anthropology came into being in Russia in the early 18th century. The Kunstkammer founded by Peter I can be considered the forerunner of Russian museums. It accorded an important place to anatomical displays, as well as displays of various freaks and monstrosities. The foundations for the development of the study of human anatomy in Russia were laid by the works of A. P. Protasov, S. G. Zabelin, A. M. Shumlianskii, and others. The Great Northern Expedition (1733–43) was organized in the 18th century, and the instructions compiled by G. F. Miller, who was a participant in the expedition, developed an anthropological study program in some detail. Valuable anthropological information on the peoples of Siberia and the Far East were collected by S. P. Krasheninnikov (1755) and by the participants of the academic expedition under the supervision of P. S. Pallas (1768–74). In the early 19th century Russian navigators and research scientists made more than 30 voyages around the world that enriched science with ethnographic and anthropological data on the many peoples of the world. One work dealing with the question of the place of people in nature was A. N. Radishchev’s treaţise entitled On Man, His Mortality and Immortality, which was written in 1792–96, while the author was in exile at Ilim. The anthropological contributions of K. M. Ber, who augmented the craniological collection of the anatomy department of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, were of outstanding importance in the 19th century. Ber was instrumental in laying the foundation for the theory of the monogenetic origin of human races and improving procedures for taking human skull measurements. He also contributed to the development of anthropology by incorporating ethnographic and anthropological research into the program of the Geographic Society, founded in 1845. Revolutionary democratic activists, particularly N. G. Cher-nyshevskii, also played a major part in the development of anthropology by disseminating propaganda based on a materialist outlook and validating the idea that differences among cultures arose because of the different historical vicissitudes experienced by different peoples and not because of their racial affiliations. A great contribution to anthropology was made by N. N. Miklukho-Maklai, principally through his investigations of the racial composition and culture of the Papuans and other peoples of Oceania and also through his scientific validation of the theory of the monophyletic origin of humanity. He was the first in Russian anthropology to provide a scientific foundation for the concept of the equality of the races. A. P. Bogdanov, a professor of zoology and founder of the anthropological school at Moscow University, exerted an enormous influence on the development of anthropology in Russia. In 1864 he founded the Anthropology Division of the Society of Amateur Naturalists, which became a center for racial and other anthropological research. Bogdanov organized an anthropological exposition in Moscow in 1879, for which he gained international renown. His collections were the basis of the Museum of Anthropology of Moscow University. Bogdanov’s successor in this work was D. N. Anuchin, who combined anthropology, ethnography, archaeology, and geography in his research. In 1919, Anuchin collaborated with V. V. Bunak in founding the subdepartment of anthropology at Moscow University, and in 1922 they founded the Institute of Anthropology. Bunak played a significant role in developing all of the divisions of anthropology in the USSR.
Soviet anthropology is characterized by the enormous sweep and scope of research in its many divisions, the planning of research projects, and the development of unified methods. In the field of the theory of anthropogenesis, ethnical anthropology, and human morphology, vast amounts of material have been accumulated and major theoretical generalizations have been made. In the field of anthropogenesis, studies are being made of the comparative anatomy of the different organs of humans and apes. Basic trends in the development of the primate brain and specific features of the human brain texture have been explained in connection with the development of labor and speech in humans (Iu. G. Shevchenko and others). Some research has been devoted to the evolution and structure of the hand (E. I. Danilova). The relationships between human ontogeny and human phylogeny are being studied, and the basic positions of the theory of phylembryogenesis put forth by A. N. Severts-ov have been confirmed in reference to the available anthropological material. Some important discoveries have been made of fossilized lower-order catarrhine monkeys in southeastern Europe and remnants of the dentition of a hominid ape dating back to the Tertiary period in the Caucasus. Special significance is attached to findings of bone remnants of Mousterian people in a cave at Kiik-Koba in the Crimean Peninsula (G. A. Bonch-Osmolovskii, 1924), in a cave at Teshik Tash in Central Asia (A. P. Okladnikov, 1938), and in a cave at Starosel’e in the Crimea (A. A. Formozov, 1953), as well as the molar of a Mousterian hominid in the Dzhruchula cave in the Caucasus (L. K. Gabuniia and others, 1961). On the basis of these and other abundant factual data, a step-by-step theory of human evolution has been elaborated, and light has been shed on the systematics and genealogy of the human being, the structure and way of life of his closest ancestors, the original homeland of humans, and the tempos, factors, and phenomena pertaining to irregularities and nonuniformities in human evolution (M. S. Voino, M. A. Gremiatskii, G. F. Debets, V. I. Kochetkova, M. F. Nesturkh, Ia. Ia. Roginskii, M. I. Uryson, E. N. Khrisanfova, V. P. Iakimov, and others).
In the division of race studies, systematic collections of anthropological material from almost all of the vast territories of the USSR are of major importance. These data make it possible to solve the problems of the origin and formation of the many peoples of the USSR through utilization of both modern and fossilized materials as historical sources. The very concept of a “human race” has been subjected to analysis; so have the degrees of dynamism and stability of a race, the relationship between race and constitution, and various techniques of racial analysis (M. S. Akimova, V. P. Alekseev, V. V. Bunak, I. I.Gokhman, V. V.Ginzburg, G. F. Debets, T. S. Konduktorova, M. G. Levin, N. S. Rozov, T. A. Trofimova, N. N. Cheboksarov, A. I. Iarkho, and others). Studies have been done on the age-linked variability of racial characteristics in children (N. N. Miklashev-skaia) and in adults (A. I. Iarkho and G. L. Khit’). Investigations in the area of population genetics based on somatic and serological materials have been greatly intensified (Iu. G. Rychkov). Generalizations have been made on the systematics, mutual affinity, and origin of human races.
In the field of human morphology, the following have undergone development: the study of physical development, body proportions, constitution, relationships between different dimensions of the body, growth regularities (specifically the periodization of the growth process and nonuniformities in the growth of distinct segments of the body), and methods of anthropometry (D.I. Aron, V. V. Bunak, P. N. Bashkirov, P. I. Zenkevich, A. A. Malinovskii, V. G. Shtefko, A. I. Iarkho, and others). The study of relationships between morphological traits and functional traits has been expanded (T. I. Alekseeva and others). Detailed studies have been made of dermatoglyphics (M. V. Volotskoi, T. D. Gladkova, and P. S. Semenovskii). Racial and sexual peculiarities in dentition have been studied by A. A. Zubov.
Soviet anthropology has carried out extensive research on the very urgent problem of acceleration—that is, the almost universally observable acceleration of the growth and physiological development of children (V. G. Vlastovskii and V. S. Solov’eva).
Applications of mathematical techniques to the solution of anthropological problems have also been studied—that is, problems such as establishing regularities in the variability of physical characteristics and criteria and combinations of those characteristics, factor analysis of intragroup variations, studies of the measure of correspondence between the distribution of measurable criteria on the normal curve, analysis of intergroup variability, and in particular the reality of differences between groups of people—territorial groups, professional groups, and so forth (M. V. Ignat’ev, Iu. S. Kur-shakova, A. V. Pugacheva, V. P. Chtetsov, and others).
There are also opportunities for applying anthropological knowledge to industry: anthropological standards have been set for articles of clothing, footwear, headgear, gloves, bus seats, railway car seats, school desks, and so forth.
Anthropological data have been proven to be of direct benefit in forensic medicine, particularly in the compilation of composite portraits based on oral descriptions and tables facilitating determination of sex, age, and racial affinities from bone remnants with greater or lesser accuracy. An-thropogenetics has found application in resolving paternity disputes.
In addition to Moscow University, where there is the specialized Institute of Anthropological Studies and where cadres of specialists in anthropology are being trained in the anthropology department of the biological faculty, research on anthropology is carried on in the USSR in various laboratories, at institutes of the Academy of Sciences, in universities and other institutions located in Leningrad, Kiev, Tbilisi, Tartu, Riga, Tomsk, and other cities. Special note should be taken of the development of anthropology in the sister republics: in the Georgian SSR (M. G. Abdushelishvili), Kazakh SSR (O. Ismagulov), Uzbek SSR (L. V. Oshanin, V. Ia. Zezenkova, and K. Nadzhimov), Ukrainian SSR (L. P. Nikolaev and V. D. Diachenko), and Estonian SSR (u. M. Aul’ and K. Iu. Mark).
Anthropological institutions in the USSR are carrying on extensive work in the dissemination of knowledge among the general population by publishing books and pamphlets and by sponsoring lectures on topics concerned with the creation of human life and human types, the creation of the human races, and so forth. The Museum of the Institute of Anthropological Studies of Moscow University and the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Leningrad play a major role in publicizing and disseminating anthropological knowledge.
===REFERENCES===
Anuchin, D. N. “Beglyi vzgliad na proshloe antropologii i na ee zadachi v Rossii.” Russkii antropologicheskii zhurnal,1900, no. 1.Bunak, V. V. “Sovremennoe sostoianie i ocherednye zadachi sovetskoi antropologii.” Voprosy antropologii,1962, issue 10.Bunak, V. V., M. F. Nesturkh, and Ia. Ia. Roginskii. Antropologiia: Kratkii kurs. Moscow, 1941.Ginzburg, V. V. Elementy antropologii dlia medikov. Leningrad, 1963.Levin, M.G. Ocherkipo istoriiantropologii v Rossii. Moscow, 1960.Roginskii, Ia. Ia., and M.G. Levin. Antropologiia,2nd ed. Moscow, 1963.Grimm, G. Osnovy konstitutsional’noi biologii i antropometrii. Moscow, 1967.
Human Biology. Oxford, 1964.
Jubilé du Centenaire de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris. Paris, 1959.Martin, R. Lehrbuch der Anthropologie in systematischer Darstellung, 3rd ed., vols. 1–2. Stuttgart, 1956–60.Montagu, A. An Introduction to Physical Anthropology, 3rd ed. Springfield, 1960.
===PERIODICAL LITERATURE===
Voprosy antropologii. Moscow (since 1960).
L’Anthropologie. Paris (since 1890).
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. London (since 1871).
Zeitschrift für Morphologie und Anthropologie Stuttgart (since 1899).
Przeglad Anthropologiczny. Poznan (since 1926).
L’Anthropologie. Prague (1923–41).
American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Philadelphia (since 1918).
Current Anthropology. Chicago (since 1960).IA. IA. ROGINSKII [2–308–21
Category:Science