Anthropology

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE SERIES ON SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY AND ART DECEMBER 18, 1907
ANTHROPOLOGY
BY FRANZ BOAS PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
New York THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1908
COPYRIGHT, 1908, By THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS.
Set up, and published February, 1908.
In attempting to set forth briefly the principal results of anthropological research, I find my task beset with many difficulties. If the clear enunciation of the aims and methods of physical or biological science is not an easy matter, difficulties many times greater are encountered in an attempt to explain the present position of investigation dealing with mankind from the biological, geographical, and psychological points of view,—subjects that seem to lack in unity, and that present a number of most divergent aspects. Owing to the apparent heterogeneity of method, it seems necessary to explain the aims that unify the many lines of anthropological research. I can then proceed to describe what little has been attained, and how we hope to make further progress.
We do not discuss the anatomical, physiological, and mental characteristics of man considered as an individual; but we are interested in the diversity of these traits in groups of men found in different geographical areas and in different social classes. It is our task to inquire into the causes that have brought about the observed differentiation, and to investigate the sequence of events that have led to the establishment of the multifarious forms of human life. In other words, we are interested in anatomical and mental characteristics in so far as they are peculiar to groups of men living under the same biological, geographical, and social environment, and as determined by their past. Thus we are concerned with the effects of the climate and products of a country upon human life, with the influence of heat and of cold upon the bodily frame, with modifications in the life of communities brought about by geographical isolation, and with those due to the sufficiency or insufficiency of food-supply. No less interesting to us are the phenomena of dependence of human life upon those social conditions that find expression in the customary mode of nutrition and occupation; in the effects of contact between neighboring groups of people; in modifications brought about by migrations; and in the forms of life as influenced by the density of population. To understand these modifications, we require a knowledge of individual anatomy, physiology, and psychology, because the establishment of a characteristic social group can be brought about only by a parallel development which occurs in all the individuals exposed to similar influences.