# Anthropology

Anthropology is the scientific study of humans, human behavior and societies in the past and present. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour and cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the biological development of humans. Visual anthropology, which is usually considered to be a part of social anthropology, can mean both ethnographic film (where photography, film, and new media are used for study) as well as the study of "visuals", including art, visual images, cinema etc. Oxford Bibliographies describes visual anthropology as "the anthropological study of the visual and the visual study of the anthropological".Archaeology, which studies human activity through investigation of physical evidence, is considered a branch of anthropology in the United States and Canada, while in Europe it is viewed as a discipline in its own right or grouped under other related disciplines, such as history.