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History of Anthropology Timeline
(1860 – Present)The history of anthropology traces the development of the systematic study of humans, their cultures, societies, biology, and languages. Emerging as an academic discipline in the 19th century amid European colonial expansion and evolutionary theory, anthropology evolved through key schools such as cultural evolutionism, historical particularism, functionalism, structuralism, and interpretive anthropology. Figures like Edward Tylor, Franz Boas, Bronisław Malinowski, Margaret Mead, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Clifford Geertz shaped its methods and theories, transforming it into a critical, reflexive discipline that continues to address globalization, identity, and human diversity today. More Less
Early Precursors
Biruni's comparative cross-cultural study
1000
Biruni's tradition of comparative cross-cultural study continued in the Muslim world through to Ibn Khaldun's work in the fourteenth century, representing an early non-European tradition of systematic study of human societies.
Image source: Al-Biruni
Ibn Khaldun's work in the Muslim world
1377
Ibn Khaldun carried forward Biruni's tradition of comparative cross-cultural study in the fourteenth century, continuing a long-standing Islamic scholarly engagement with the diversity of human societies.
Image source: Ibn Khaldun
First use of 'anthropology' in English
1593
The first use of the term 'anthropology' in English to refer to a natural science of humanity was apparently in Richard Harvey's 1593 Philadelphus, a defense of the legend of Brutus in British history.
Image source: Library of Alexandria
Jesuit missionaries record ethnographies in Canada
1615
In Canada, Jesuit missionaries such as Fathers LeClercq, Le Jeune and Sagard, in the 17th century, provide the oldest ethnographic records of native tribes in what was then the Dominion of Canada.
Image source: Jesuit missions in North America
Enlightenment and 19th Century
Age of Enlightenment spurs systematic study of humanity
1715 - 1789
Many scholars consider modern anthropology as an outgrowth of the Age of Enlightenment (1715–1789), a period when Europeans attempted to study human behavior systematically, the known varieties of which had been increasing since the fifteenth century as a result of the first European colonization wave. There was a tendency to understand human society as natural phenomena that behaved according to certain principles and could be observed empirically.
Image source: Age of Enlightenment
Kant begins teaching annual anthropology course
1772
Immanuel Kant began teaching an annual course in anthropology in 1772, laying groundwork for one of the first major treatises on anthropology, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, which treats it as a branch of philosophy.
Image source: Immanuel Kant
Kant publishes Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View
1798
It took Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) 25 years to write one of the first major treatises on anthropology, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798), which treats anthropology as a branch of philosophy.
Image source: Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View
Ethnology matures in the United States under Jackson
1829 - 1837
Late-eighteenth-century ethnology established the scientific foundation for the field, which began to mature in the United States during the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829–1837), influenced by the presence of Native American societies.
Image source: Andrew Jackson
Lewis Henry Morgan advocates for the Iroquois
1851 - 1881
Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881), a lawyer from Rochester, New York, became an advocate for and ethnological scholar of the Iroquois, contributing significantly to early American anthropology.
Image source: Lewis H. Morgan
Gobineau's Essay on the Inequality of Human Races
1853 - 1855
Arthur de Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (1853–1855) contains what may be considered the first formulation of scientific racism, whose validity later exhibitions would attempt to illustrate and prove.
Image source: An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races
Key Facts
- Edward Burnett Tylor's 'Primitive Culture' (1871) provided one of the first formal definitions of culture and helped establish anthropology as an academic discipline.
- Franz Boas, often called the 'Father of American Anthropology,' rejected racial determinism and championed cultural relativism and rigorous fieldwork from the late 19th century onward.
- Bronisław Malinowski's participant observation method, developed during his research in the Trobriand Islands (1914–1918), revolutionized ethnographic fieldwork.
- Claude Lévi-Strauss introduced structuralism in the mid-20th century, analyzing cultures through underlying structures of the human mind, particularly in kinship and myth.
- The 'writing culture' critique of the 1980s, led by scholars like Clifford Geertz and James Clifford, made anthropology more reflexive about representation, power, and the researcher's role.
Source
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