The Anthropoloy Research Paper Social Sciences Essay

Site Visit
Student's Name
Institutional Affiliation
Culture definition
Culture refers to the outstanding characteristics that define a specific group of people. Such characteristics could be in the manner in which they communicate with one another, carry out their activities or the beliefs that they have about life. People from different parts of the world have different cultures (Delaney & Kaspin, 2017). However, marinating a person's culture is not easy because we constantly interact with people from other cultures and, hence, end up leaning their way of life. A person can still decide to stick to their culture, regardless of the amount of influence that they receive from the external world in order to change. Also, culture is also defined by the tools that people use to carry out daily activities. For instance, the ancient Greek was identified with the use of clay to make tools. In the modern culture, people use metals to make similar items. This is an indication that culture is evolving and is being affected by the changes in technology.
Site description
I choose to observe the activities that were going on in a parking lot that was under construction at 4 pm. The process of excavation was underway, and this means that the site had piles of reds soil and potholes that were left during the excavation process. As well, the people did not seem to be very enthusiastic about the work, and this could be explained by the fact that they had been working the whole day and were already tired. There was a specific person who was giving the machine attendants instructions on what to do. Another part of the crew was seated on some stones near the excavation site. I also noticed a pile of metallic objects that were placed on the far end of the parking lot. The metals had much rust indicating that they had been buried in that place for ages. Also, there was a foul smell that was coming out of a broken sewer line. The surrounding has tall trees and grass. There is also a five-story building that will be served by the parking lot.
Anthropological concepts
Language and Communication
Language and communication are anthropological concepts which define the manner in which people in a given site communicate with one another. Their use of language can be a key identifying factor of the cultural differences between them (Richards & Schmidt, 2014). It can also be used to determine whether they are from the same culture. According to the use of language and communication in the parking lot, it is clear that the workers are from different cultures. For instance, the man who was instructing the machine operators was using both verbal and non-verbal cues to pass information. The use of nonverbal cues plays an important role in emphasizing on the words of the speaker. Given the fact that the place was boisterous from the excavation, then non-verbal communication was the best option to ensure that the machine operators understood all the instructions that they were being given. From the physical appearance of the workers, one could easily tell that they were from different racial origins. For ...