Franz Boas

Franz Boas, began his academic career as a student of physics and geopraphy, and it was thought the latter subject that he came to anthropology. The key to Boas's thought lay in the realization, borne in to him on his first field trip, that, contrary to what he had supposed, anthropology is not a branch of geopraphy - that is to say, the culture of a community is not simply a function of its material circumstances, and the human sciences are quite distinct both in contect and in methods from physical sciences.