1832-1917

Regarded as one of the founding fathers of anthropology. His approach was cultural evolutionism in line with the evolutionism of Darwin. He belived in a universal development of society and religion.
He was also one of the first to define the term 'culture' in an anthropological sense.

1884-1942

Renowned for being the first to write thouroughly on the methodology of 'participant observation'. Malinowski, who was born in poland, conducted series of fieldwork among the Trobriand islanders, where he discovered the Kula network and exchange systems. His theoretical approach was functionalism.

1872-1950

Mauss' main attribution to anthropology was his classic work "The Gift". He argued that gifts are never free, but always inquires a reciprocal exchange. A gift was in his words a 'total social phenomenon'. The reciprocal exchanges, he believed, was the glue that held societies together.

1858-1942

Founding father of american anthropology, or cultural anthropology.
Boas' main attribution to anthropology was 'cultural relativism' as a rejection of the evolutionistic approaches of his time. He believed that cultures should be studied and explained empirically.

Boas died in the arms of a younger anthropologist by the name of Claude Lévi-Strauss. His last words is said to be: "I have a new theory about culture..."

1908-2009 (died 100 years old)

Lévi-Strauss is the founding father structuralism within anthropology and his perspective was developed from the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure. He argued that culture is made up of series of categorizations that are comprehensible in their relations only.

1881-1955

Anarchist Brown among friends.
British anthropology and founder of structural functionalism. He believed cultures and societies to be analogous to organisms. Societies and cultures he said consists of institutions with specific functions that are related within a social structure.

1926-1984

Foucault iz freeench! Like other french anthropologists the emphasis in his approaches are on structure