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In this present brief essay, I describe the main ideas of the work "Ancient Society", published in 1871, by the anthropologist Henry Lewis Morgan (1818-1881). Morgan is one of the first anthropologists in the United States. Henry Lewis Morgan is framed in classical evolutionism school and he is contemporary of other evolutionists like Tylor. The author represents a key figure in the "renaissance" of evolutionary ideas from the thirties of the twentieth century to be inspiration of cultural ecology, cultural materialism and the anthropology of kinship from the midtwentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians of pre-professional anthropology in nineteenth-century U.S. society have generally emphasized the roles of individuals and institutions in the development of the field. Their reliance on particular kinds of archives and sources has led some of them to neglect the work of intellectuals of color, many of whom had important anthropological insights. Thus, the hegemonic genealogies of U.S. anthropology make it difficult to discern alternative understandings of the emerging field before the Civil War by virtually eliminating dissenting voices. This paper calls attention to the anthropological thought of James McCune Smith- intellectual, former slave, and radical abolitionist-and situates his perspective in the sociohistorical context of antebellum America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When thinking about human evolution across the disciplines, terms such as "anthropological genetics" or "genetic anthropology" that brazenly defy the existence of the two-cultures divide seem to promise important insights. They refer to the application of genetic techniques to the past of humankind and human groups, a fact emphasized most strongly by the expression "genetic history." Such daring linguistic alliances have been forming since 1962 when the name "molecular anthropology" was introduced in the American context. This was an opportune moment for biochemists and physical chemists to enter anthropology, because in the U.S. a rapprochement between the fields was aimed for. However, a belief in and a discourse of a hierarchy of disciplines structured along the lines of methodology and epistemic object worked as an obstacle to the achievement of transdisciplinarity. Especially the DNA-sequence, initially approached through the proxy of the protein, was regarded as the most informative historical document due to its distance from the environment and its amenability to rigorous scientific techniques. These notions had a particular power at a time when anthropology was confronted with its legacy of race science. For some, the perceived objectivity of the new molecular approaches and the neutrality of molecules would render anthropology more natural-scientific and by inference less culturally contaminated. Others, to the contrary, believed that this legacy demanded a holistic and ethically reflexive anthropology. The different perceptions thus went along with different understandings of such crucial terms as "anthropology" and "history." In the paper, I revisit interfaces between different anthropological fields in the U.S. context and suggest that the beliefs in a hierarchy of approaches as well as in a nature free from culture embodied in the DNA-sequence has worked as one of the primary obstacles to an integration of these fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a broad range of ways in which anthropological research was linked to military and intelligence agencies during the Cold War, and it examines evidence and implications of the l976 findings by the US. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (chaired by Senator Frank Church) that during the 1950s and 1960s "massive ". amounts of international research were covertly funded by the CIA. The reasons anthropologists did not more critically consider why or how their work aligned with the interests of the CIA and Pentagon are considered, and the implications of post--World War II disciplinary decisions to ignore political dimensions of research in favor of ethical considerations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthropology was established in the USA during the middle of the nineteenth century. From the beginning, archaeology was considered a part of the discipline, a notion that continues to this day. However, over the course of the past 160 years, periodically, the place of archaeology within anthropology is questioned. Often, this has a reflection in the growth or shrinking in membership of the Archaeology Division of the American Anthropological Association. I explore these trends and try to explain them in terms of the history of anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a discussion of American anthropological practices that developed in the late nineteenth century. Approach in the study of the development of natural history museums linking colonialism, classification, science, and display; American anthropology and gathering of artifacts; Two trends in exhibition practices; Use of metonymic substitution.

A foreword to the journal "American Ethnologist" is presented.