Cultures and Groups

Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate,") generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. Different definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity. Although some people identify culture in terms of consumption and consumer goods (as in high culture, low culture, folk culture, or popular culture), anthropologists understand "culture" to refer not only to consumption goods, but to the general processes which produce such goods and give them meaning, and to the social relationships and practices in which such objects and processes become embedded. For the, culture thus includes technology, art, science, as well as moral systems.

Anthropologists most commonly use the term "culture" to refer to the universal human capacity to classify, codify and communicate their experiences symbolically. This capacity has long been taken as a defining feature of the humans. However, primatologists have identified aspects of culture among humankind's closest relatives in the animal kingdom.[1] As a rule, archaeologists focus on material culture (the material remains of human activity), whereas social anthropologists focus on social interactions, statuses and institutions, and cultural anthropologists focus on norms and values. This division of labor reflects the different conditions under which different anthropologists have worked, and the practical need to focus research. It does not necessarily reflect a theory of culture that conceptually distinguishes between the material, the social, and the normative, nor does it reflect three competing theories of culture.