The term anthropic unit (from Greek , 'human') is used with different meanings in archaeology, in measurement and in social studies.
In archaeology
In archaeology,
anthropic units are strata or deposits of material containing a high proportion of man-made detritus. For example:
[Massimo Vidale (1990). Study of the Moneer South East Area A Complex Industrial Site of Moenjodaro. East and West. Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO). 40(1/4): 301-314. ]
In measurement
Following the coinage of the term "anthropic principle" by
Brandon Carter in 1973–4,
[Brandon Carter (1974). Large number coincidences and the anthropic principle in cosmology. Confrontation of cosmological theories with observational data; Proceedings of the Symposium, Krakow, Poland, September 10–12, 1973. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing. pp. 291–298.] units of measurement that are on a
human scale are occasionally referred to as "anthropic units", as for example here:
[Brian William Petley (1985). The fundamental physical constants and the frontier of measurement. Bristol; Boston: A. Hilger. p. 120.]
In social studies
In fields of study such as sociology and ethnography, anthropic units are identifiable groupings of people. For example:
[J. J. Thomson (1896). Address by the President to the Mathematical and Physical Section. Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. New Series, 4 (90): 392-402. ]
and:
[Jacob Robert Kantor (1944 1929). An outline of social psychology. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Edwards Brothers. p. 120. Accessed June 2013.]
