Showing papers on "Biological anthropology published in 2016"

The Primate Origins of Human Nature

Abstract: This book represents a most welcome and most scholarly examination of the origins and evolution of human nature. The breadth of Carel van Schaik’s approach to this subject is quite amazing. He covers everything from the basics of evolutionary and behavioural biology, the fossil evidence of human evolution, behavioural ecology, the origins of technology, the evolution of sexuality, social organization, cognitive capacities and language. There are even chapters dealing with the origins of aesthetic expression, as well as warfare, morality and religion. As a result of his efforts, van Schaik has achieved a valuable synthesis and guide for undergraduate students as well as for those postgraduates who wish to widen their knowledge of comparative primatology, human behaviour and evolution. Teachers in a number of disciplines (anthropology, psychology and the biological sciences) should find that this book provides a valuable resource. The work is carefully structured, with chapters organized under 8 section headings: Evolution, Behavior and Culture; The History of Humans; Subsistence and Technology; Sex and Sexual Selection; Life’s Changes; Social Life; Cooperation; The Cognitive Animal. Each section commences with a clearly written introduction, so that students can address basic concepts, before progressing to the more detailed material in the ensuing chapters. As a textbook, this one succeeds admirably. Inevitably, some topics are discussed only briefly. As an example, in chapter 4, Homo floresiensis merits just 4 lines in the text. However, given that 12 years after their discovery, scholars are still hotly debating the affinities of the Flores fossils, van Schaik was wise to avoid exploring this particular controversy. Of greater concern to me, as somebody who specializes in researching the evolution of sexuality, are some shortcomings in section IV (Sex and Sexual Selection). For example, van Schaik states that ‘despite the great variability of sexual behavior in different species, its function, apart from fertilization, is the same: the avoidance of infanticide’. My own view is that infanticidal behaviour is most unlikely to have played such a pervasive role in primate (including human) evolution [Dixson, 2012, 2015]. Setting this aside, The Primate Origins of Human Nature promises to fulfil the prediction made by the editors of the Foundations of Human Biology series, namely that it represents a ‘landmark work that will help to bring about a reintegration of anthropology’s scattered parts’. Here, the editors refer to the unfortunate intellectual schism which has separated biological anthropology from cultural and social anthropology in many universities. Hopefully, this artificial division is already beginning to break down, and van Schaik’s superb book will help to hasten that process. A.F. Dixson , Wellington Published online: August 20, 2016

Modern Morphometrics In Physical Anthropology

Abstract: modern morphometrics in physical anthropology is available in our digital library an online access to it is set as public so you can get it instantly. Our books collection spans in multiple countries, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Merely said, the modern morphometrics in physical anthropology is universally compatible with any devices to read.

Reauthenticating Race: Na Sejin and the Recycling of Colonial Physical Anthropology in Postcolonial Korea

Abstract: Abstract:What are the roles of colonial physical anthropology in postcolonial societies? Does it simply disappear from the public scene, losing its academic and political utility of providing seemingly scientific justification for colonial racism? Or does it have a renewed life, serving another master in the name of science? The analysis of the postcolonial intellectual trajectories of Na Sejin (also known as Ilchae and Nishiki Seishin), Korea’s foremost anatomist and physical anthropologist, points to an unsavory continuity. Under the new political demands of the postcolonial nation-state, Na, who consciously or unconsciously collaborated with the colonial regime in justifying colonial racial essentialization, did not find it problematic to use body measurements collected and analyzed by his Japanese teachers and colleagues during the Colonial Period to identify the racial characteristics of Koreans. Rather, in postcolonial Korea, which reasserted ethnic uniformity as the constructive lynchpin of the post-Liberation nation-state, Na retooled his skills and reauthenticated the category of “race” to support a discourse of a homogeneous ethnic Korean society using measurable (and therefore seemingly irrefutable) scientific evidence. Recognizing this continuity of physical anthropology through the colonial and postcolonial periods is to discover the long-term legacy of knowledge that originated from German physician-anthropologists in Meiji Japan, a legacy that was mediated and relayed by Japanese progenies in Imperial Japan, and found its unexpected utility in postcolonial Korea.

Biological Anthropology in 2015: Open Access, Biocultural Interactions, and Social Change

Abstract: The year 2015 was an active research year in biological anthropology in many areas, including fossil hominins, ancient DNA, health and disease, and primate research. Particularly noteworthy this year was a sea change in paleoanthropological research when the newest fossil discovery, Homo naledi, was shared both through open-access journal articles and through 3D printable fossil casts. Despite many bright research areas, we continue to struggle with issues of sexual harassment and diversity, as do many sciences, and I discuss positive, substantive actions in these areas. With race, genetics, health, and primates in the news, public interest in biological anthropology is booming. I highlight social media that pull people into well-researched content areas and new books that reflect the breadth of the field.

A antropologia no brasil: é a interdisciplinaridade possível?

Abstract: The history of Anthropology in Brazil was divided in three phases: 1) The pioneers, 2) Formative period, and 3) Contemporaneous phase. The main events and examples of paradigmatic persons were presented for the two first periods, while for the third a list of all the presidents of the Brazilian Association of Anthropology was provided. A similar approach was followed in relation to the subareas in which Anthropology is traditionally subdivided: Social/Cultural Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistics, and Physical/Biological Anthropology. The question asked at the end was whether the interaction among these subareas is possible. The answer is that a really interdisciplinary approach is difficult, but seems to be the best way for frontier research. Therefore, a suggestion is made that Brazilian Postgraduate Programs in Anthropology should seek specialists in the four subareas, through the establishment of clearly interdisciplinary projects. Keywords: History of Anthropology, Anthropology in Brazil , Interdisciplinarity.

A Comparison of the Utility of Craniometric and Dental Morphological Data for Assessing Biodistance and Sex-Differential Migration in the Pacific Islands

Abstract: ........................................................................................................i Acknowledgements...........................................................................................ii Table of

The four-field model of anthropology in the united states

Abstract: This paper assesses the historical and institutional origins of anthropology in the United States in order to understand the development of the four-field model, the persistence of which is considered distinctive of anthropology in the United States. An Atlantic Enlightenment saw the origins of anthropology in the United States. The four fields of anthropology can be traced to the Enlightenment. The four fields were brought together in the context of museums and learned societies in the 19th century United States. The focus of anthropology changed in the early 20th century with the placement of anthropology in the context of the university and the German concept of the defended dissertation as the principal gateway to professionalization (introduced by Boas). Four-field anthropology programs also existed in diverse countries, but did not persist except in the US beyond the early years of the 20th century. Anthropology in the US as a four-field discipline grew throughout the 1930s. After World War II, the discipline expanded greatly in the United States, partly due to the G.I. Bill as well as to increased demand for anthropology courses. Anthropology continued to grow in terms of numbers of institutions offering the PhD and numbers of new doctorates in the field into the 1970s, stabilizing around 400 per year. The usual rank order in number of doctorates per field per year continues to be the same in the early 2000s as it was thirty years ago: cultural anthropology, archaeology, physical anthropology, linguistic anthropology. The four field unity of the discipline came under critical scrutiny in the late 20th century, with the principal criticism being that the holism of the four fields appears to be a function of 19th century museum mentality, but the four fields regardless of cleavages have nevertheless remained together in the same departments in most universities. That trend appears to be continuing in general at the present time in the United States. Keywords: four fields of anthropology, history of anthropology, US university system.

To Document the Undocumentable : Photography in the scientific practice of physical anthropology and race biology

Abstract: To Document the Undocumentable : Photography in the scientific practice of physical anthropology and race biology

Critical biocultural anthropology: A model for anthropological integration

Abstract: Preface We begin with an observation and a particular point of view. American anthropology emerged as an integrative discipline, one which has espoused holism and engaged in a “four-field” conversation since its inception (Boas 1940). There have been challenges to this holistic framing of the discipline as more “myth” than reality (Borofsky 2002; Segal and Yanagisako 2005; see also Calcagno 2003), and equally strong concerns over fragmentation and fissioning of disciplinary subfields that advocate for a holistic anthropology (Peacock 1995; Brown and Yoffee 1992). We come to this essay as anthropologists committed to the vision of anthropology’s unique ability for the integration of multiple perspectives on humans and humanity that is the promise of a four-field, holistic, approach. By ‘four-field’, however, we do not mean four, five or six silos of expertise that can somehow, if uncomfortably, inhabit the single space of a department or discipline. Departments that ‘cover’ and ‘represent’ anthropological breadth, but without integration, are hardly more holistic than those units that eschew one or more perspective (usually from biological anthropology) or that have split into separate departments or programs over seemingly irreconcilable differences in approaches to anthropological sciences. Rather, we are talking about the sort of anthropology that blurs divisions among the subfields, that occupies hybrid spaces at the margins of normative approaches, that bleed into and demand input from other perspectives within and out of anthropology, and that allow for and even privilege the anthropological promise of integration of natural and social sciences and humanities.

Post-interpretive anthropology

Abstract: This paper is an account of two distinctive paradigms in anthropology viewed in historical perspective. The movement away from the objectivism positivist model has been building gradually. Since Bateson's Naven, ethnographic self-consciousness has moved the anthropologist from periphery to center stage, and moved the concept of culture out of anthropology and onto the streets. Interpretive anthropology developed as post-paradigm , post-colonial post-modern , yet to some it appears that interpretive anthropology has replaced one orthodoxy with another. The need for a post-interpretive anthropology is indicated. An examination of the concept of harmony as control is used as illustration of a less cloistered and composite set of strategies that cross paradigms and that follow from the question, [interpretive anthropology , positivist , paradigm harmony , composite , orthodoxy]

Demograpmic studies in anthropology 9505

Abstract: A common definition of the field of biological anthropology is that it concerns the description, causes, and consequences of variability in human biological characteristics. As such it is somewhat surprising that so little attention has been devoted to such an important biological parameter as human demography. In the early development of anthropology there was a brief interest in demography as attempts were made to discover whether some men had found a way to increase longevity. These myths persist with reports of great age in the USSR and the South American Andean region. Anthropologists were also curious about the longevity of our ancestors so that both historical and skeletal studies of mortality were in vogue. At the opposite end of the life cycle considerable effort was expended on the study of sex ratios at birth and the nature of seasonality in birth. Despite these early interests the field of demography was not pursued with any depth until recently. At the moment interest in demographic data is very much on the rise and shows no sign of being near its peak. The reasons for the increased interest can be catalogued into three discrete developments of the 1960s. First, the development of extensive research programs on the nonhuman primate in his natural environment has produced a new body of descriptive data. Second, the development of human population genetics from the general synthetic theory of evolution has indicated the need for new types of demographic data on nonwestern populations. Finally, the strong interest in a subject area best called human ecology has suggested new ways in which we can understand the immediate causes and effects of population differences in demographic characteristics. In this paper we will attempt to highlight the current status of research in these topics even though much of the subject matter has been

We and others. Physical anthropology of Finno-Ugric peoples

Abstract: At the end of 2014, the book Physical Anthropology of Finno-Ugric Peoples was published. It is based on the plentiful and unique but unfi nished life’s work of the outstanding Estonian anthropolog ist Karin Mark (1922–1999). Th e originally unfi nished work was thoroughly complemented on the basis of manuscripts and brought to an end by Leiu Heapost [10]. On this occasion, we should give a short overview of the process of creation of this book and touch on anthropological research in Estonia generally and on some aspects of collecting the materials. In our present-day age of speed and scientifi c progress, the human being as the main value of the nation seems to be somewhat neglected. Th e humans themselves, the features of their appearance, their genes, chromosomes and hereditary characteristics refl ect the formation history of the whole nation. Th e study of human beings is the subject of physical or biological anthropology, which was earlier called simply anthropology. Physical anthropology, as we know, studies the variability of humans’ biological features in time and space. Research of humans’ hereditary characteristics is only a small part of anthropology. Th ere are several methods for studying them. Primarily, Estonians have studied Estonians and the ethnic minorities in Estonia as well as our kindred peoples somatologically, i.e. by measuring and describing their external features. Measuring and describing people of both the present and the past helps us fi nd the external features characterising a person and the whole nation, and explain the course of their historical formation. Th us, measuring of people contributes to understanding of our place in history and the world.

Problems of comparative studies in arctic maritime cultures based on archaeological data

Abstract: Archaeological evidence for the development of the Eskimo Culture and its evolutionary stages is discussed. Although this development is more or less clear for the past two millennia, relations of the Eskimo area with other northern Pacific maritime cultures are far less certain. Differing views concerning the extent to which these various cultures had a common source or were the result of convergent and independent development are presented and discussed. Ecological interpretations of some technological changes shed light on the data as does the evidence of physical anthropology.

The biocultural landscape of zoonotic disease: Examining human-animal vulnerability to anthrax on the Colombian-Venezuelan border

Abstract: Ida, Jennifer A. (M.A., Anthropology) The Biocultural Landscape of Zoonotic Disease: Examining Human-Animal Vulnerability to Anthrax on the Colombian-Venezuelan Border Thesis Directed by Professor Darna Dufour The focus of this thesis is to provide a holistic understanding of the political, cultural, environmental, and biological factors that may be contributing to increased vulnerability to anthrax in Wayuu and non-Wayuu human and livestock communities in La Guajira, Colombia. Qualitative data collection was undertaken during a three month period from May to August 2014. A total of 14 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Wayuu and non-Wayuu herdowners, veterinarians, and government public health officials. Direct observations were collected on rancherías and farms in La Guajira throughout the duration of the study. The findings of this study suggest that the anthrax-drought relationship is mediated by several highimpact factors, primarily large and small scale animal movement. These anthropological insights will contribute to a greater understanding of human-animal relations in complex ecological contexts and to the ongoing reframing of international public health into a more holistic, locallyresponsive, global health practice.

Human Evolution An Introduction To The New Physical Anthropology

Abstract: Thank you very much for reading human evolution an introduction to the new physical anthropology. As you may know, people have search hundreds times for their chosen readings like this human evolution an introduction to the new physical anthropology, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than enjoying a good book with a cup of coffee in the afternoon, instead they cope with some malicious virus inside their computer.

The rise and fall of the biological concept of race

Abstract: This essay briefly analyzes how the concept of race changed in physical anthropology during the later half of the 20th century. Since Johann Blumenbach divided modern humans into five varieties in 1806, racial classification was an essential part of physical anthropology until about the 1950's. Race was considered to be strictly a biological concept, which must be distinguished from the "ethnic group" as a cultural concept. However, the difficulties of defining race as a biological concept and of obtaining consistent racial classification, together with the consideration of issues on racism, led most physical anthropologists to retreat from "racial" studies during the 1960's. Thus, the chapter on race disappeared quickly in textbooks of physical anthropology in the 1960's. At the same time, rapid development in human population genetics opened a new way for studying human geographical diversity, indicating that phylogenetic relationships and "origins" of ethnic groups can be studied much more objectively than the previous "racial" classifications. In this paper, I try to show that the biological concept of human race has now completely collapsed, and propose that race be dealt with as a "social" concept like gender, as contrasted to sex. However, this does not mean that the geographical diversity of humans is not worth studying in biological anthropology. On the contrary, I emphasize that for the integrated understanding of humans as a biological system, the studies of individual as well as geographical diversities are of crucial importance. Some perspectives for future studies are discussed.