Showing papers on "Biological anthropology published in 2012"

The original sin of cognitive science

Abstract: Classical cognitive science was launched on the premise that the architecture of human cognition is uniform and universal across the species. This premise is biologically impossible and is being actively undermined by, for example, imaging genomics. Anthropology (including archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistics, and cultural anthropology) is, in contrast, largely concerned with the diversification of human culture, language, and biology across time and space—it belongs fundamentally to the evolutionary sciences. The new cognitive sciences that will emerge from the interactions with the biological sciences will focus on variation and diversity, opening the door for rapprochement with anthropology.

The Biological Anthropology of Living Human Populations: World Histories, National Styles, and International Networks

Abstract: We introduce a special issue of Current Anthropology developed from a Wenner-Gren symposium held in Teresopolis, Brazil, in 2010 that was about the past, present, and future of biological anthropology. Our goal was to understand from a comparative international perspective the contexts of genesis and development of physical/biological anthropology around the world. While biological anthropology today can encompass paleoanthropology, primatology, and skeletal biology, our symposium focused on the field’s engagement with living human populations. Bringing together scholars in the history of science, science studies, and anthropology, the participants examined the discipline’s past in different contexts but also reflected on its contemporary and future conditions. Our contributors explore national histories, collections, and scientific field practice with the goal of developing a broader understanding of the discipline’s history. Our work tracks a global, uneven transition from a typological and essentialist...

Guardian angel on a nation's path : contexts and trajectories of physical anthropology in Brazil in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Abstract: In this paper I analyze the trajectory of Brazilian physical anthropology from the late nineteenth century to the early decades of the twentieth century, framing it within the prevailing historical and sociopolitical context. The focus will be on the research and reflections of anthropologists at the Museu Nacional (National Museum) in Rio de Janeiro, one of Brazil’s most influential anthropological research centers, from 1870 to 1930. The main aim is to understand why these anthropologists distanced themselves from explanatory approaches that placed mestizos and other non-Europeans on inferior levels in the hierarchy of human races. I argue that the position taken by physical anthropology at the National Museum was the result of far-reaching intellectual and political dynamics operating well beyond academic borders. Anthropologists from the National Museum—and Edgard Roquette-Pinto in particular—shared the nationalist ideals defended by a portion of the early twentieth-century Brazilian intelligentsia. I...

Humanizing Evolution Anthropology, the Evolutionary Synthesis, and the Prehistory of Biological Anthropology, 1927-1962

Abstract: In this paper I explore the various attempts to integrate anthropology-and anthropologists-within the wider synthesis of evolution in the interval of time between 1927 and 1962 by tracking intersecting individuals and groupings at critical junctures such as conferences, commemorative events, and collaborative publications. I focus on the discipline as a unit of historical analysis and on a series of rhetorical arguments used to discipline and bound areas of study that grounded the secular philosophy of evolutionary humanism. I trace the beginnings of an originary narrative and offer a kind of prehistory of what was first referred to as "human evolution" and then "biological anthropology" an area of study that brought humans into the discipline of evolutionary biology. I examine the key roles played by "architects" of the evolutionary synthesis-such as Theodosius Dobzhansky, Julian Huxley, G. G. Simpson, and Ernst Mayr-and their relations with the anthropologists Sherwood Washburn, Ashley Montagu, and Sol Tax at pivotal meetings such as the Cold Spring Harbor meeting of 1950, the Darwin centennial at the University of Chicago in 1959, and a number of Wenner-Gren symposia culminating with the Burg Wartenstein symposium (no. 19) that saw the emergence of the new "molecular anthropology"

Racial Hybridity, Physical Anthropology, and Human Biology in the Colonial Laboratories of the United States

Abstract: In the 1920s and 1930s, U.S. physical anthropologists imagined Hawai‘i as a racial laboratory, a controllable site for the study of race mixing and the effects of migration on bodily form. Gradually a more dynamic and historical understanding of human populations came to substitute for older classificatory and typological approaches in the colonial laboratory, leading to the creation of the field of human biology and challenges to scientific racism. Elite U.S. institutions and philanthropic foundations competed for the authority to define Pacific bodies and mentalities during this period. The emergent scientific validation of liberal Hawaiian attitudes toward human difference and race amalgamation or formation exerted considerable influence on biological anthropology after World War II, but ultimately it would fail in Hawai‘i to resist the incoming tide of continental U.S. racial thought and practice.

The Origins of Anthropological Genetics

Abstract: Although we often date the conflict of “molecules and morphology” in biological anthropology to the 1962 Wenner-Gren conference “Classification and Human Evolution,” the roots of the conflict extend considerably deeper In the first half of the twentieth century, two established research traditions applied genetic data to problems in physical anthropology: racial serology and systematic serology These had a tense relationship with the more mainstream areas of racial anthropology and primate taxonomy Both produced conclusions that were often difficult to reconcile with traditional physical anthropology but that laid claim to the authoritative voices of genetics and evolution They were also less relevant and less threatening to general anthropology than the other movement for the application of genetics to anthropological problems—eugenics—had been I discuss the relations of genetics to anthropology as manifested in the areas of eugenics, race, and primate taxonomy in the early twentieth century and the

Why be against darwin? Creationism, racism, and the roots of anthropology†

Abstract: In this work, I review recent works in science studies and the history of science of relevance to biological anthropology. I will look at two rhetorical practices in human evolution--overstating our relationship with the apes and privileging ancestry over emergence--and their effects upon how human evolution and human diversity have been understood scientifically. I examine specifically the intellectual conflicts between Rudolf Virchow and Ernst Haeckel in the 19th century and G. G. Simpson and Morris Goodman a century later. This will expose some previously concealed elements of the tangled histories of anthropology, genetics, and evolution-particularly in relation to the general roles of race and heredity in conceptualizing human origins. I argue that scientific racism and unscientific creationism are both threats to the scholarly enterprise, but that scientific racism is worse.

Biological Anthropology at the Southern Tip of Africa Carrying European Baggage in an African Context

Abstract: One of the biggest surprises in the rise of apartheid in South Africa in the 1940s was that, unlike in prewar Germany, it was not rooted in the physical anthropology of the previous decades. The engineers of apartheid were, for the most part, Afrikaans-speaking ethnologists operating out of the Afrikaans-medium universities, where little or no physical anthropology was taught. The University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town, both English-medium schools based on the traditions of British academia, were the centers of biological anthropology. Although none of the early practitioners from these schools were directly involved in the implementation of the apartheid policy, their strict typological approach to human variation provided a solid growth medium in which the government policies could develop without credible scientific opposition.

The SAGE Handbook of Social Anthropology

Abstract: VOLUME ONE Preface: The Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and the Commonwealth - John Gledhill and James Fairhead Foreword: Thinking Anthropologically, About British Social Anthropology - John L. Comaroff and Jean Comaroff Introduction: Flying Theory, Grounded Method - Richard Fardon PART ONE: INTERFACES - Edited by Cris Shore and Richard A. Wilson Introduction: Anthropology's Interdisciplinary Connections - Cris Shore and Richard A. Wilson Anthropology and Linguistics - Alessandro Duranti Anthropology and Psychology - Christina Toren Anthropology of Biomedicine and Bioscience - Sarah Franklin Anthropology and Art - Arnd Schneider Anthropology, Media and Cultural Studies - Kevin Latham Anthropology and Public Policy - Cris Shore Anthropology and Law - Sally Engle Merry Anthropology and History - Jane K. Cowan Anthropology and Archaeology - Julian Thomas Anthropology, Economics and Development Studies - Keith Hart Anthropology and the Political - Jennifer Curtis and Jonathan Spencer Anthropology and Religious Studies - Martin Mills Anthropology and Museums - Brian Durrans Anthropology and Gender Studies - Henrietta L. Moore Anthropology and the Postcolonial - Richard Werbner Anthropology and Literature - C.W. Watson PART TWO: PLACES - Edited by Mark Nuttall Introduction: Place, Region, Culture, History: From Area Studies to a Globalized World - Mark Nuttall The Circumpolar North: Locating the Arctic and Sub-Arctic - Mark Nuttall Replacing Europe - Sarah Green Retroversion, Introversion, Extraversion: Three Aspects of African Anthropology - David Pratten Refiguring the Anthropology of the Middle East and North Africa - Glenn Bowman Southwest and Central Asia: Comparison, Integration or Beyond? - Magnus Marsden South Asia: Intimacy and Identities, Politics and Poverty - Patricia Jeffery and Roger Jeffery Modernization and its Aftermath: The Anthropology of Japan - D.P. Martinez The Emerging Socio-Cultural Anthropology of Emerging China - J.S. Eades Archipelagic Southeast Asia - Roy Ellen Australasian Contrasts - Nicolas Peterson, Don Gardner and James Urry Australia - Nicolas Peterson Melanesia - Don Gardner New Zealand/Aotearoa - James Urry Two Indigenous Americas - Kathleen Lowrey and Pauline Turner Strong North America - Pauline Turner Strong South America - Kathleen Lowrey North and Latin American National Societies from a Continental Perspective - John Gledhill and Peter Wade Migration and Other Forms of Movement - Vered Amit The Cosmopolitan World - Nigel Rapport The Indigenous World - Robert K. Hitchcock and Maria Sapignoli VOLUME TWO PART THREE: METHODS - Edited by the late Olivia Harris and Veronica Strang Introduction: Issues of Method - Richard Fardon and Veronica Strang Fieldwork Since the 1980s: Total Immersion and its Discontents - Janet Carsten Between Routine and Rupture: The Archive as Field Event - Tristan Platt The Role of Language in Ethnographic Method - Susan Gal The Ethnographic Interview in an Age of Globalization - Joshua Barker Interpreting Texts and Performances - Karin Barber Blurred Visions: Reflecting Visual Anthropology - Rupert Cox and Christopher Wright Artefacts in Anthropology - Liana Chua and Amiria Salmond Knowledge and Experimental Practice: A Dialogue Between Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies - Penelope Harvey Twenty-first Century Ethics for Audited Anthropologists - Nayanika Mookherjee Ethics Out of the Ordinary - Michael Lambek Researching Zones of Conflict and War - Paul Richards Conflicts and Compromises? Experiences of Doing Anthropology at the Interface of Public Policy - Tim Allen and Melissa Parker From Participant-Observation to Participant-Collaboration: Some Observations on Participatory-cum-Collaborative Approaches - Paul Sillitoe Comparative Methods in Socio-Cultural Anthropology Today - Andre Gingrich PART FOUR: FUTURES - Edited by Trevor H.J. Marchand Introduction: Anthropologies to Come - Trevor H.J. Marchand Section 4.1: Neo-Darwinism, Biology and the Brain Sciences Anthropology and Neo-Darwinism - Robin I.M. Dunbar Cognition, Evolution and the Future of Social Anthropology - Harvey Whitehouse Neuroanthropology - Greg Downey Knowledge in Hand: Explorations of Brain, Hand and Tool - Trevor H.J. Marchand Section 4.2: After Development: Environment, Food, Energy, Disaster Environment and Society: Political Ecologies and Moral Futures - James Fairhead and Melissa Leach Anthropological Encounters with Economic Development and Biodiversity Conservation - Laura M. Rival New Directions in the Anthropology of Food - Jakob A. Klein, Johan Pottier and Harry G. West Water, Land and Territory - Veronica Strang The Anthropology of Disaster Aftermath - Edward Simpson Section 4.3: Demographics, Health and the Transforming Body Demographies in Flux - Sophie Day New Medical Anthropology - Helen Lambert The Anthropology of Drugs - Axel Klein Transforming Bodies: The Embodiment of Sexual and Gender Difference - Andrea Cornwall Section 4.4: New Technologies and Materialities New Materials and New Technologies: Science, Design and the Challenge to Anthropology - Susanne K chler Anthropology and Emerging Technologies: Science, Subject and Symbiosis - Ron Eglash From Media Anthropology to the Anthropology of Mediation - Dominic Boyer Anthropology in the New Millennium - Christopher Pinney Afterword: A Last Word on Futures - Marilyn Strathern

The birth of physical anthropology in late imperial Portugal

Abstract: In this article I analyze the emergence of the field of physical anthropology in the metropolitan academic sphere of the Portuguese Empire during the late nineteenth century. I suggest that Portugal’s relatively peripheral position combined with a complex internal conjuncture of political instability and economic impotence gave early Portuguese physical anthropology a less explicitly “colonial” orientation than in other, more central Western European imperial powers. I describe the various national and international exchanges leading to the birth of this naturalist anthropological tradition at the University of Coimbra, drawing particular attention to the foundational role played by the technological assemblage of large osteological collections aimed at the study of the somatic characteristics of the metropolitan “white” population. I situate these technical developments in the context of wider sociocultural and politico-economic processes of both “nation building” and “empire building.” These processes h...

Human Population Biology in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

Abstract: Human population biology can be identified as the biocultural study of living humans from evolutionary, historical, populational, developmental, biomedical, and anthropological perspectives. Biological anthropology really “came of age” during the second half of the twentieth century, after the end of World War II. Human population biology, as a subfield of biological anthropology, was a part of this “scientific maturation” of the discipline. Contributions to the postwar transformation of living population studies were (1) wartime studies of military personnel exposed to novel environments, (2) an increase in young academic professionals with new ideas, (3) a decrease in both racist (racialist) attitudes and interest in race typology, and (4) the explosion of research and literature on human biology and behavior.

Em busca do Brasil: Edgard Roquette-Pinto e o retrato antropológico brasileiro (1905-1935)

Abstract: This dissertation deals with the history of physical anthropology and discussions about race and nation at the beginning of the twentieth century, focusing on the anthropological studies carried out by the doctor and anthropologist Edgard Roquette-Pinto. As a scientist linked to the National Museum between 1905 and 1935, he dedicated his trajectory to researching the anthropology and ethnography of Brazil, through which he sought not only to describe the formative racial characteristics of the country, but also to valuate the biological feasibility, psychological character and social conditions of the population. By linking Roquette-Pinto’s nationalist activism, his public actions and his dialogue with the anthropological thought of the time, the aim of the dissertation is to analyze the relations between anthropology, nation and politics, emphasizing the national and international frontiers involved in the debate. As it will be demonstrated, Roquette-Pinto’s anthropology was based both on a national context and Brazilian intellectual and scientific concerns, and the international debate on race and populations. On the one hand, the dissertation analyzes the interlocution and the controversies between the anthropologist and Brazilian writers, such as Euclides da Cunha, Manoel Bomfim, Oliveira Vianna, Renato Kehl and Gilberto Freyre, seeking to understand how controversies about racial miscegenation, immigration and the settlement of Brazil were central to the construction of interpretations, diagnostics and projects of national reform. On the other, it is also shown how his anthropological writing was constructed in dialogue with physical anthropologists, historians and foreign eugenists, mostly German and American, including Charles Davenport, Madison Grant, Eugen Fischer, Rudiger Bilden and Franz Boas. One of the arguments defended in this dissertation is that the anthropology of Roquette-Pinto becomes more intelligible when analyzing the international debate involving anthropological studies and intellectual networks. The dissertation is a contribution both for the history of anthropology in Brazil and for the history of the circulation of ideas about race, national identity and population in an international context.

African genesis : perspectives on hominin evolution

Abstract: List of contributors Foreword J. T. Francis Thackeray 1. African genesis: an evolving paradigm Sally C. Reynolds 2. Academic genealogy Peter Ungar and Phillip V. Tobias Part I. In Search of Origins: Evolutionary Theory, New Species, and Paths into the Past: 3. Speciation in hominin evolution Colin Groves 4. Searching for a new paradigm for hominid origins in Chad (Central Africa) Michel Brunet 5. From hominoid arboreality to hominid bipedalism Brigitte Senut 6. Orrorin and the African ape/hominid dichotomy Martin Pickford 7. A brief history and results of 40 years of Sterkfontein excavations Ronald J. Clarke Part II. Hominin Morphology Through Time: Brains, Bodies and Teeth: 8. Hominin brain evolution, 1925-2011: an emerging overview Dean Falk 9. The issue of brain reorganisation in Australopithecus and early hominids: Dart had it right Ralph L. Holloway 10. The mass of the human brain: is it a spandrel? Paul R. Manger, Jason Hemingway, Muhammad Spocter and Andrew Gallagher 11. Origin and diversity of early hominin bipedalism Henry M. McHenry 12. Forelimb adaptations in Australopithecus afarensis Michelle S. M. Drapeau 13. Hominin proximal femur morphology from the Tugen Hills to Flores Brian G. Richmond and William L. Jungers 14. Daily rates of dentine formation and root extension rates in Paranthropus boisei, KNM-ER 1817, from Koobi Fora, Kenya M. Christopher Dean 15. On the evolutionary development of early hominid molar teeth and the Gondolin Paranthropus molar Kevin L. Kuykendall 16. Digital South African fossils: morphological studies using reference-based reconstruction and electronic preparation Gerhard W. Weber, Philipp Gunz, Simon Neubauer, Philipp Mitteroecker and Fred L. Bookstein Part III. Modern Human Origins: Patterns, and Processes: 17. Body size in African Middle Pleistocene Homo Steven E. Churchill, Lee R. Berger, Adam Hartstone-Rose and Headman Zondo 18. The African origin of recent humanity Milford H. Wolpoff and Sang-Hee Lee 19. Assimilation and modern human origins in the African peripheries Fred H. Smith, Vance T. Hutchinson and Ivor Jankovic 20. Patterns of Middle Pleistocene hominin evolution in Africa and the emergence of modern humans Emma Mbua and Gunter Brauer 21. Integration of the genetic, anatomical, and archaeological data for the African origin of modern humans: problems and prospects Osbjorn M. Pearson Part IV. In Search of Context: Hominin Environments, Behaviour and Lithic Cultures: 22. Animal palaeocommunity variability and habitat preference of robust australopiths in South Africa Darryl J. de Ruiter, Matt Sponheimer and Julia Lee-Thorp 23. Impacts of environmental change and community ecology on the composition and diversity of the southern African monkey fauna from the Plio-Pleistocene to the present Sarah Elton 24. African genesis revisited: reflections on Raymond Dart and the 'Predatory Transition from Ape(-Man) to Man' Travis R. Pickering 25. Shared intention in early artefacts: an exploration of deep structure and implications for communication and language John A. J. Gowlett 26. Sibudu Cave: recent archaeological work on the Middle Stone Age Lyn Wadley 27. The oldest burials and their significance Avraham Ronen Index.

Health and lifestyle in the paleoamericans: early holocene biocultural adaptation at lagoa santa, central brazil

Abstract: ............................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... v Vita .................................................................................................................................. viii List of Tables ................................................................................................................. xvii List of Figures ............................................................................................................... xxix Chapter 1 : Introduction .................................................................................................. 1 Problem ........................................................................................................................... 1 Hypothesis ....................................................................................................................... 7 Dissertation organization................................................................................................. 9 Chapter 2 : The first Americans in the New World .................................................... 12 Colonization of the New World .................................................................................... 13 Place of origin ............................................................................................................ 13 Route(s) of migration................................................................................................. 16 Number of migrations ................................................................................................ 18 Date of arrival ............................................................................................................ 20 Paleoamerican lifestyle ................................................................................................. 26 Demography and mobility ......................................................................................... 27 Subsistence ................................................................................................................ 30 Early Archaic societies .................................................................................................. 38 Food production ......................................................................................................... 39 Mobility ..................................................................................................................... 42 xi Summary ....................................................................................................................... 45 Chapter 3 : Lagoa Santa................................................................................................. 47 History of research in Lagoa Santa ............................................................................... 52 Craniometric tradition in Lagoa Santa .......................................................................... 61 Osteological indicators of health in Lagoa Santa .......................................................... 63 Recent Lagoa Santa research......................................................................................... 68 Archaeology ............................................................................................................... 68 Paleoenvironment ...................................................................................................... 74 Santana do Riacho site .................................................................................................. 77 Prehistory of central Brazil ........................................................................................... 78 Models for lifestyle and health: summary ..................................................................... 81 Summary ....................................................................................................................... 85 Chapter 4 : Bioarchaeology and health ........................................................................ 87 Definition ...................................................................................................................... 87 Theoretical context ........................................................................................................ 89 Bioarchaeology in a global context ............................................................................... 95 Osteological markers of health ...................................................................................... 99 Oral health and diet .................................................................................................. 100 Activity (workload, mobility, and accidental injury) .............................................. 106 Infectious disease ..................................................................................................... 112 Systemic stress in growth and development ............................................................ 115 Interpersonal violence and warfare .......................................................................... 121 Temporal variation in health ....................................................................................... 123 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 125 Chapter 5 : Materials and methods ............................................................................. 126 Museum collections..................................................................................................... 127 Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro (MNRJ) ........................................................... 127 Museu de Historia Natural da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (MHN-UFMG) ................................................................................................................................. 134 xii Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP) ........................................................................... 141 Summary .................................................................................................................. 146 Methods ....................................................................................................................... 148 Comparative sample ................................................................................................ 148 Sex and age estimation ............................................................................................ 155 Statistical analysis.................................................................................................... 158 General methodology .............................................................................................. 164 Inter-observer error .................................................................................................. 167 Oral health and diet .................................................................................................. 169 Degenerative joint diseases (DJD) .......................................................................... 173 Mobility ................................................................................................................... 176 Trauma ..................................................................................................................... 178 Infections ................................................................................................................. 181 Infection versus trauma ........................................................................................... 184 Stature ...................................................................................................................... 185 Linear enamel hypoplasias ...................................................................................... 190 Cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis ................................................................. 191 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 193 Chapter 6 : Results........................................................................................................ 195 Oral health and diet ..................................................................................................... 196 Caries (tooth count) ................................................................................................. 196 Caries (individual count) ......................................................................................... 213 Caries (tooth type) ................................................................................................... 218 Caries (position) ...................................................................................................... 219 Caries (dental tissue) ............................................................................................... 221 Pulp exposure .......................................................................................................... 223 Abscess (alveolus count) ......................................................................................... 224 Abscess (Individual count) ...................................................................................... 243 Abscess (tooth type) ................................................................................................ 248 xiii Antemortem tooth loss (AMTL).............................................................................. 250 Tooth wear ............................................................................................................... 256 Summary ..............................................................

The Myth of Race

Abstract: This chapter divides the question "What is race?" into two questions. The first is "How can we understand the variation in physical appearance among human beings?" It is answered by reviewing evidence from evolutionary biology and biological anthropology that shows that the human species has no races in the biological sense. Physical appearance varies gradually around the planet; and more distant populations are more different from one another than closer ones. The second question is, "How can we understand the kinds of racial classifications (folk taxonomies) applied to differences in physical appearance among human beings?" The answer is provided by evidence from cultural anthropology and cross-cultural psychology, including the author's research comparing racial folk taxonomies in eight cultures. The concept of race varies widely from culture to culture, and cognate racial terms in different languages have different meanings.

Physical Anthropology at the Caribbean Primate Research Center: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract: Physical (biological) anthropology has played a central role in the development of the Caribbean Primate Research Center (CPRC) and has had a profound impact on its research perspectives. Likewise, research arising from the CPRC and its units has helped shape the field of physical anthropology, as we know it today. This latter influence has occurred through publications and the application of techniques and approaches applied or developed at the Center, and also through the mentoring and training efforts of researchers who transmit their professional experiences to future generations of physical anthropologists. In addition, although beyond the scope of this chapter, it is hoped that historians of science will find that the contained information provides the necessary foundation for investigating the degree to which CPRC research has had an impact on the development of theories, concepts, and methods central to physical anthropology.

What Is Science in Anthropology

Abstract: The governing documents of the American Anthropological Association repeatedly refer to anthropology as a “science.” What does science mean in this context? And is it true that anthropology is a “science”? These are questions with which anthropologists have wrestled for generations, yet no clear answer has emerged. That these questions are still important was demonstrated following the 2010 AAA annual meeting. The executive board removed the word science from the association’s long-range plan and sparked a brief, though widely publicized, controversy. The important point is that if members of the AAA did not find “science” in anthropology important, the changes to the long-range plan would not have been controversial. Earlier discussions of science in anthropology suggest that anthropologists have always been confused about what science means in the context of anthropology. Leslie White (1949:3–7), for example, defined anthropological science as “sciencing”; that is, what people who call themselves anthropological scientists do. Although this idea seems almost prophetic of contemporary understandings of science, it is not a particularly useful definition. Eric Wolf (1964:13) provided a similarly ineffectual definition: “Anthropology is both a natural science, concerned with the organization and function of matter, and a humanistic discipline, concerned with the organization and function of mind.” Psychologists might argue that the organization and function of mind is a scientific concern, and there are certainly those in fields such as environmental ethics who would see a concern with the organization and function of matter as an obviously humanistic one. Marvin Harris (1979:27) defined science in anthropology as “an epistemology which seeks to restrict fields of inquiry to events, entities, and relationships that are knowable by means of explicit, logicoempirical,

New approaches to dental anthropology based on the study of twins

Abstract: Grant Townsend, Michelle Bockmann, Toby Hughes, Suzanna Mihailidis, W. Kim Seow and Alan Brook

A Useless Colonial Science? Practicing Anthropology in the French Colonial Empire, circa 1880-1960

Abstract: Physical anthropology is quite often presented as one of the favorite and most nefarious tools of colonial rule. Approved by science, racial categories shaped colonial segregationist practices, and reciprocally, colonial empires offered anthropologists new opportunities to survey differences among various people. Practices and discourses of physical anthropology thus directly and indirectly spread and deepened modern racism. There are obviously many links between colonial experiences and racism that need to be thoroughly explored. Building on the history of anthropology as well as on the impressive renewal of interest in colonial history for the last two or three decades, I focus on the cumulative anthropological situations created by investigations in physical anthropology in the French Empire from the 1880s till the 1950s to analyze their circumstances, the agendas in which they made sense, and their scientific and political results. Such investigations were indeed scarce, and beyond exceptional displays, such as universal and colonial fairs, anthropologists were at a loss to offer convincing support to colonial and metropolitan authorities. What, then, were the rationalities behind these quite demanding investigations? French physical anthropology tried to qualify as a colonial science in the 1910s and then in the 1940s, but with what results?

Joseph S. Weiner and the foundation of post-WW II human biology in the United Kingdom.

Abstract: Both the United States and the United Kingdom experienced a transformation in the science of physical anthropology from the period before World War II until the post-war period. In the United States, Sherwood L. Washburn is credited with being a leading figure in this transformation. In the United Kingdom, two individuals were instrumental in bringing about a similar change in the profession. These were Joseph S. Weiner at the University of Oxford and Nigel Barnicot at the University of London, with Weiner playing the principal role as leader in what Washburn called the “New Physical Anthropology,” that is, the application of evolutionary theory, the de-emphasis on race classification, and the application of the scientific method and experimental approaches to problem solving. Weiner's contributions to physical anthropology were broad-based—climatic and work physiology, paleoanthropology, and human variation—in what became known as human biology in the U.K. and human adaptability internationally. This biographical essay provides evidence for the significant influence of J.S. Weiner on the post-war development of human biology (biological or physical anthropology) inthe U.K. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Anthropology and History

Abstract: EXAM INSTRUCTIONS: Time allowed: from Wednesday 9 th of May at 9.00am to Friday 11 th May by 4.30pm. Penalty for lateness: 1 point for every ten minutes late after 4.30pm. Candidates should choose ONE question to discuss.

Resposta ao trabalho de Kent e Santos: "'Os charruas vivem' nos Gaúchos: a vida social de uma pesquisa de 'resgate' genético de uma etnia indígena extinta no Sul do Brasil"

Abstract: Human actions, including scientific research, are structured in individual and collective contexts. Kent and Santos's paper considered that in a particular scenario, but when they consider this fact they also give opportunity to interpretive actions. The most important is that the authors draw attention to emerging areas of the biological sciences, whose results could not only assist in understanding the dynamics involved in "doing science", but also as how human actions may be far from being understood only within a cultural-reductionist context. In this way, the authors introduce more elements to the debate on the need to persist, and the legitimacy of the barriers that separate biological anthropology, in which human genetics is inserted, and sociocultural anthropology.