Four-field approach
The four-field approach in anthropology sees the discipline as composed of the four sub fields of Archaeology, Linguistics, Physical Anthropology, and Cultural Anthropology (known jocularly to students as "stones", "tones", "bones", and "thrones"). The approach is conventionally understood as having been developed by Franz Boas, who developed the discipline of anthropology in the United States. A 2013 re-assessment of the evidence has indicated that the idea of four-field anthropology has a more complex 19th-century history in Europe and North America. It is most likely that the approach was being used simultaneously in different parts of the world, but was not widely discussed until it was being taught at the collegiate level in the United States, Germany, England, and France by 1902. For Boas, the four-field approach was motivated by his holistic approach to the study of human behavior, which included
integrated analytical attention to culture history, material culture, anatomy and population history, customs and social organization, folklore, grammar and language use.