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Archaeology, Anthropology, and the Culture Concept
Author(s) -
WATSON PATTY JO
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1995.97.4.02a00110
Subject(s) - anthropology , sociocultural anthropology , sociocultural evolution , applied anthropology , sociology , cultural anthropology , four field approach , material culture , anthropology of art , archaeology , history , art history , contemporary art , performance art
The culture concept has been central to anthropology since the formational period of the discipline. Yet for much of the discipline's history it was used without explicit definition. Recent attempts to define it have yielded a range of varied formulations in the subdisciplines of archaeology and sociocultural anthropology. Does this mean that the center of anthropology—shared belief in a unified culture concept—has been destroyed? Quite the opposite, the author concludes—the debate has yielded benefits.