UPSC Mains · Anthropology optional
Anthropology one-pager notes
Read in sequence Indian → theory → biological pack 79 notes
Biological anthropology Physical anthropology: genetics, evolution, primates, variation, health and identification. 17 notes
Genetics and cell biology All notes in this topic 9
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Genetics and cell biology
01Human uniqueness
Species to family, then why the human brain is expensive and how cooking helped pay the bill.
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Genetics and cell biology
02Cell and DNA
From cell to chromosome address: how DNA copies and how a gene becomes a protein.
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Genetics and cell biology
03Mitosis and meiosis
Body cells copy; gametes shuffle. Same optional, two divisions.
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Genetics and cell biology
04Mendelism
Pea ratios as grammar; blood groups and polygenes as the human small print.
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Genetics and cell biology
05Blood groups and HLA
Red-cell antigens, pregnancy risk, and immune genes as population markers.
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Genetics and cell biology
06Hardy–Weinberg
New alleles, stable mixes, and the null model of a population that never actually exists.
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Genetics and cell biology
07Evolutionary forces
What moves gene frequencies — and why eugenics is history to criticise, not a method to copy.
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Genetics and cell biology
08Pedigree and karyotype
How we read inheritance on paper, in twins, and under the microscope.
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Genetics and cell biology
09DNA techniques
Lab tools with names, molecules and uses — plus consent.
Evolution, skeleton and living primates All notes in this topic 3
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Evolution, skeleton and living primates
01Organic evolution
Organic evolution for Paper 1 biology — not Tylor’s cultural ladder.
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Evolution, skeleton and living primates
02Skeleton and gait
Walk first, then the vault, pelvis and platform foot — with the birth and back costs.
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Evolution, skeleton and living primates
03Primates
Humans as primates: anatomy, groups, and a quantitative gap in language.
Variation, ecology, health, forensic All notes in this topic 5
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Variation, ecology, health, forensic
01Race and variation
Measure variation; refuse ranking. Indian ‘race’ schemes are colonial type-lists.
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Variation, ecology, health, forensic
02Human ecology
Bodies in ecosystems: genes, short-term physiology, clothes and policy.
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Variation, ecology, health, forensic
03Medical anthropology
Germs, meaning, hunger and the political body.
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Variation, ecology, health, forensic
04Growth and ageing
From fetus to longevity villages — class, hormones and population theory.
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Variation, ecology, health, forensic
05Forensic and applied
Bones, DNA and performance — applied physical anthropology with ethics.
Archaeological anthropology Time, fossils, stone ages and Indian protohistory. 6 notes
Dating and methods All notes in this topic 1
Hominins and genus Homo All notes in this topic 2
Stone ages and Indian cultures All notes in this topic 3
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Stone ages and Indian cultures
01Stone ages
From cores to villages: technology, art, dog, and food production.
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Stone ages and Indian cultures
02Harappa and Chalcolithic
Bronze Age streets and copper villages — Indian Lower Palaeolithic is a later, separate page.
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Stone ages and Indian cultures
03Indian Lower Palaeolithic
The source pack closes here: first durable stone cultures of India, not a Harappa footnote.
Social and cultural anthropology Indian field, caste and tribe, Paper 1 society, theory schools, and named ethnographers. 53 notes
Indian field and civilisation All notes in this topic 7
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Indian field and civilisation
01Phases of anthropology
Vidyarthi timeline as bullets + table — Formative to Evaluative.
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Indian field and civilisation
02Indology
Definition plus three stances with examples and book-view vs field-view.
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Indian field and civilisation
03Varnashrama and karma
Varna, ashrama, purushartha, rina, karma flow as bullets.
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Indian field and civilisation
04Civilisation and traditions
Civilisation anthropology: folk–urban, great/little traditions, two-way cultural flow.
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Indian field and civilisation
05Sacred Complex and NMS
Gaya components, NMS triad, restudy bullets.
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Indian field and civilisation
06Village and agrarian studies
Why villages were studied, how they work as systems, and agrarian change after reforms.
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Indian field and civilisation
07Ethnicity and regionalism
Identity politics and institutions: ethnicity, region, dormitories, and false claims.
Caste All notes in this topic 7
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Caste
01Caste system
Definition, features, origins table, field examples.
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Caste
02Caste perspectives
Seven theorist blocks — clear explanatory points each.
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Caste
03Caste, gender and assertion
How hierarchy sits on women’s lives, pollution rules, and village faction fights.
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Caste
04Caste among non-Hindus
Conversion changes the religious name; ranked marriage and honour often continue inside the community.
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Caste
05Jajmani and caste capital
Hereditary service economy and modern caste networks — reciprocity, exploitation, capital.
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Caste
06Caste politics and violence
Democracy meets caste: parties, Dalit assertion, violence and contested honour councils.
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Caste
07Future of caste
Ritual fade vs political harden — balanced factors and modernisation-of-tradition.
Tribes and policy All notes in this topic 8
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Tribes and policy
01Tribal India concepts
Concept and category: tribe theories, schedules, indigeneity, PVTGs and denotified communities.
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Tribes and policy
02Colonial impact and movements
How colonial rule hit tribes—and how revolts and movements answered back.
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Tribes and policy
03Tribal policy debate
Compare table of three poles plus Bose bridge.
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Tribes and policy
04Tribal administration and PESA
Protected integration as technique: Schedules, gram sabha under PESA, Xaxa fixes.
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Tribes and policy
05Forest rights and tribal problems
Forests, land and welfare gaps—from colonial reservation to FRA and beyond.
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Tribes and policy
06Anthropology in tribal development
From gazetteer listing to planning advice to rights-based fieldwork — including the Birhor experiment.
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Tribes and policy
07Tribal community cases
Compact ethnography cards: location, society, economy, issues for key communities.
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Tribes and policy
08Andamanese peoples
Four island peoples, not one ‘Andaman tribe’. Contact is a public-health and rights question.
Economy, politics, kinship, religion, methods All notes in this topic 7
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Economy, politics, kinship, religion, methods
01Research methods
How anthropologists actually know — and how methods smuggle theory.
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Economy, politics, kinship, religion, methods
02Economic anthropology
Is every society a market with fewer shops — or a different kind of economy?
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Economy, politics, kinship, religion, methods
03Subsistence systems
How people get food — and how the state names and squeezes those ways.
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Economy, politics, kinship, religion, methods
04Political anthropology
From camp suggestion to monopoly of force.
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Economy, politics, kinship, religion, methods
05Culture and society
Designs for living, ranks, and how people move — or cannot.
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Economy, politics, kinship, religion, methods
06Marriage and kinship
If the definition cannot survive Nayar, rewrite the definition.
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Economy, politics, kinship, religion, methods
07Religion and magic
Meaning, group, rite — and the open system called science.
Theory schools All notes in this topic 11
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Theory schools
01Classical evolutionism
Unilinear ladders explained: culture, kinship stages, magic–religion–science, then critique.
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Theory schools
02Diffusionism
Why traits spread by contact: three schools, criteria of form/quantity, culture areas.
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Theory schools
03Historical particularism
Each culture’s unique history: relativism, fieldwork, four fields, anti-theory critique.
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Theory schools
04Functionalism
Organic analogy, synchronic study, needs hierarchy and social structure — with examples.
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Theory schools
05Structuralism
Mind’s hidden codes: binaries, alliance, totems good to think, myth mythemes.
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Theory schools
06Culture and Personality
How culture and personality shape each other — configurations, Samoa, BPS, national character.
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Theory schools
07Neo-evolutionism
Energy, technology and multiple paths — White, Steward, Childe, Sahlins, Service.
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Theory schools
08Cultural ecology
Environment–subsistence–organisation: culture core steps and comparative examples.
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Theory schools
09Cultural materialism
Practical problems drive culture: infrastructure first, with classic Harris cases.
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Theory schools
10Symbolic and interpretive
Culture as meaning: thick description, rituals as operators, and kinship as a symbolic system.
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Theory schools
11Postmodern anthropology
Who speaks for whom: reflexivity, grief as method, power/knowledge, and the limit of a single grid.
Thinkers Named ethnographers 13
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Thinker
01Ananthakrishna Iyer
Pioneer ethnographer of the South — works, academic role, method, limits.
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Thinker
02S.C. Roy
First Indian ethnographer shelf — Munda, Oraon, Asura, Parha, law.
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Thinker
03G.S. Ghurye
Features, women, politicisation, assimilation line, census for/against.
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Thinker
04Verrier Elwin
Books/studies plus numbered NEFA five principles.
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Thinker
05N.K. Bose
HMTA steps, Juangs, continuum compare, unity pyramid, criticism.
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Thinker
06Fürer-Haimendorf
Morungs, return study, Central India + NE shelf, women themes.
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Thinker
07D.N. Majumdar
Transition, Chor ka Ek Gaon shelf, polyandry, desanskritisation hook.
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Thinker
08Irawati Karve
Zones table, markets, displacement, inheritance, epic themes.
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Thinker
09Leela Dube
Seed–earth ideology, gender construction, Kalpeni + Islam.
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Thinker
10M.N. Srinivas
Full study points — Coorgs to NEPR dominant caste + criticism.
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Thinker
11Modernisation and S.C. Dube
Modernisation debates plus Dube’s village ethnography and development critique.
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Thinker
12T.N. Madan
Householding as a moral economy: marriage, children and kinship duty among Kashmiri Pandits.
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Thinker
13Veena Das
How catastrophe rewrites kinship, law and neighbourhood speech — then how people repair a livable everyday.
Linguistic anthropology Language, cognition, and linguistic minorities in India. 3 notes
Language and cognition All notes in this topic 2
Linguistic minorities All notes in this topic 1
Quick FAQs
How should I use these one-pager notes?
Read in sequence or open a field (biological, archaeological, social-cultural, linguistic). Each card is a revision page on a school, thinker, or classic frame.
What order should I revise theory in?
After the Indian anthropology block, revise theory starting with classical evolutionism, then diffusionism, historical particularism, functionalism, structuralism, Culture and Personality, neo-evolutionism, cultural ecology, cultural materialism, symbolic/interpretive, cognitive anthropology, and postmodern anthropology.
Did Vidyarthi originally list four phases?
His classical scheme is Formative, Constructive and Analytical. Evaluative (roughly 1990 onward) is a later addition students should still know.
What are the NEFA five principles?
Develop along their genius; respect land and forest; build local capacity; avoid over-administration; judge by human character, not spend — the integrationist creed.
Sacred Complex vs Nature–Man–Spirit Complex?
Sacred Complex (Gaya) maps geography, performances and specialists in a Hindu pilgrimage centre. NMS links tribal ecology, social organisation and belief.
Where is Culture and Personality?
In the Theory group after structuralism: Benedict, Mead (including the Freeman debate), Kardiner–Linton, Du Bois, and National Character studies.
Where is biological anthropology in these notes?
After the Theory group: living beings and genetics through primates, race, ecology, medical anthropology, growth and forensic applications — then archaeology/hominins, then economy, politics, kinship, religion, language and methods, following the biological-anthropology pack sequence.
Are Andamanese and Nicobarese the same topic?
No. Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa and Sentinelese are Andamanese PVTGs. Nicobarese and Shompen belong to a different Nicobar story — keep the island groups apart in answers.