Three factors that have influenced cultural diversity are continental drift, genetic variation and political conflict. Geologists theorize that a supercontinent called Pangea existed almost 250 million years ago. Subsequently, it broke apart into the seven continents that exist today. Research focused upon early human development has discovered origins of human migration near Africa, nearly 750,000 years in the past (see Reference 1). Over countless millennia, human activity spanned the globe, as humans explored new terrain to develop cultures that were vastly different from one another. Genetic variations within these far-flung populations were passed on differentially to offspring, producing external and internal differences among people. Political conquest also inspired cultural diversity, indirectly anticipating pivotal advancements in arts and sciences.
Language emerges from cognitive activity. Anthropological studies into the development of human language center upon the development of the human brain. The human brain has evolved over the course of history, according to anthropologists. Evidence suggests that an ancestor to human beings is a genus of extinct hominids called Australopithecus, which existed nearly 4 million years ago. While the human brain is much different from the brains possessed by these ancestors, it also bears much in common with them. Fragmentary fossil evidence paired with observation of living nonhuman primates indicates that these ancient creatures may have communicated with a system of call and response. Thus, human language bears antecedents in communication systems used by human forerunners (see Reference 2).
Information uncovered from ancient burial sites has been indispensable in helping anthropologists reconstruct eras before recorded history. Burials dating as far back as 70,000 years ago (belonging to the Mousterian tradition, of the Middle Paleolithic period) were probably ritualistic in nature, and they probably included funerary wreaths as well as the use of family burial plots (see Reference 3).
Nevertheless, inadvertent burials also provide valuable information to anthropologists. For example, wooden spears found alongside broken animal bones suggest that hunting was an activity essential to Lower Paleolithic creatures who lived in 400,000 B.C. (belonging to the Acheulian tradition). Fossil evidence suggests that human beings originated from such creatures.
Based upon differences that occur between common personality types, social stratification is a staple of every society. Social stratification occurs for a variety of reasons, including as a result of hierarchical systems based on kinship, economic disparities within a society, political inequalities and gender roles. Generally, anthropologists view race as a social construction, which means that stratification based on race is social in nature rather than based on principles of biology.
Many fields of study are covered under the umbrella of anthropology. Biological anthropology, cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology are chief among these various fields of study. Biological anthropology may involve elements of medicine, neurology and paleontology, and is focused on the study of the human body and skeleton to extract data useful for the development of theories of human behavior. Cultural anthropology is often based on active fieldwork, to observe differences between different cultures. Linguistic anthropology concentrates on how people socialize, develop identities and ideologies through their use of language.