Biological anthropology

About: Biological anthropology is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1126 publications have been published within this topic receiving 12757 citations. The topic is also known as: biological anthropology & somatology.

Dental Anthropology: Introduction to dental anthropology

Abstract: ‘Show me your teeth and I will tell you who you are’, Baron Georges Cuvier, the great eighteenth–nineteenth century zoologist and anatomist, is supposed to have said. This comment was really in the context of comparative anatomy, and refers to Cuvier's delight in reconstructing whole extinct animals from fossil fragments of their dentitions, but it will do just as well for human teeth. For anthropologists studying archaeological, fossil and forensic remains, the teeth are possibly the most valuable source of evidence in understanding the biology of ancient communities, following the course of evolution and identifying an individual from their fragmentary remains. Dental anthropology might therefore be defined as a study of people (and their close relatives) from the evidence provided by teeth. Teeth have a distinct anatomy and physiology, all their own and wholly different to the biology of the skeleton, and teeth are also unique amongst the resistant parts of archaeological and fossil remains in having been exposed on the surface of the body throughout life. Dental anthropology can therefore be studied in the mouths of living people, using much the same techniques as are employed for ancient remains. It is thus not surprising that practising dentists have always been prominent amongst dental anthropologists, with anatomists and other oral biologists from schools of dentistry, in addition to researchers whose training lies more in biological anthropology. The exposure of teeth in the living mouth is also very useful when training anthropologists, as everyone carries their own reference material with them – students can just open their mouths and look in a mirror.

Understanding race and human variation: why forensic anthropologists are good at identifying race.

Abstract: American forensicanthropologists uncritically accepted the biological race concept from classic physical anthropology and applied it to methods of human identification. Why and how the biological race concept might work in forensic anthropology was contemplated by Sauer (Soc Sci Med 34 1992 107-111), who hypothesized that American forensic anthropologists are good at what they do because of a concordance between social race and skeletal morphology in American whites and blacks. However, Sauer also stressed that this concordance did not validate the classic biological race concept of physical anthropology that there are a relatively small number of discrete types of human beings. Results from Howells (Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 67 1973 1-259; Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 79 1989 1-189; Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 82 1995 1-108) and others using craniometric and molecular data show strong geographic patterning of human variation despite overlap in their distributions. However, Williams et al. (Curr Anthropol 46 2005 340-346) concluded that skeletal morphology cannot be used to accurately classify individuals. Williams et al. cited additional support from Lewontin (Evol Biol 6 1972 381-398), who analyzed classic genetic markers. In this study, multivariate analyses of craniometric data support Sauer's hypothesis that there are morphological differences between American whites and blacks. We also confirm significant geographic patterning in human variation but also find differences among groups within continents. As a result, if biological races are defined by uniqueness, then there are a very large number of biological races that can be defined, contradicting the classic biological race concept of physical anthropology. Further, our results show that humans can be accurately classified into geographic origin using craniometrics even though there is overlap among groups.

Medical Anthropology: Contemporary Theory and Method

Abstract: Introduction by Carolyn F. Sargent and Thomas M. Johnson Theoretical Perspectives The Therapeutic Process by Thomas J. Csordas and Arthur Kleinman Political Economy in Medical Anthropology by Soheir Morsy A Critical-Interpretive Approach in Medical Anthropology: Rituals and Routines of Discipline and Dissent by Margaret Lock and Nancy Scheper-Hughes Emotion and Psychopathology by Janis H. Jenkins Clinically Applied Anthropology by Noel J. Chrisman and Thomas M. Johnson Medical Systems Ethnomedicine by Arthur J. Rubel and Michael R. Hass Ethnopsychiatry by Charles C. Hughes Ethnopharmacology: The Conjunction of Medical Ethnography and the Biology of Therapeutic Action by Nina L. Etkin Studying Biomedicine as a Cultural System by Lorna Amarasingham Rhodes Health Issues in Human Populations Disease, Ecology, and Human Behavior by Peter J. Brown, Marcia C. Inhorn, and Daniel J. Smith Anthropology and Studies of Human Reproduction by Carole H. Browner and Carolyn F. Sargent Alcohol and Drug Studies by Linda A. Bennett and Paul W. Cook, Jr. Culture, Stress, and Disease by William W. Dressler Nutrition in Medical Anthropology by Sara A. Quandt Methods in Medical Anthropology Research Designs in Medical Anthropology by Pertti J. Pelto and Gretel H. Pelto Epidemiology and Medical Anthropology by William R. True Policy and Advocacy Bioethics in Anthropology by Patricia Marshall and Barbara Koenig Professionalization of Indigenous Healers by Murray Last International Health and Development by Sandra S. Lane and Robert A. Rubinstein References Index

A Century of Skeletal Biology and Paleopathology: Contrasts, Contradictions, and Conflicts

Abstract: For the first half of the 20th century, biological anthropology stagnated in a state in which racial typology was its major theoretical and methodological focus. In 1951, Sherwood Wash burn proposed the "new physical anthropology" that would move biological anthropology beyond description. Washburn repositioned it into a science that focused on process, theory, and hypothesis testing. The commitment to a process-oriented biological anthropology has been slow, but there has been progress. Biocultural studies and functional anatomy have produced a more dynamic science characterized by hypothesis testing and a heightened concern for causality. Unfortunately, a return to historical particularism has limited progress. An increasing interest in forensic application and resurgent interest in measures of population distances and migrations represents a reversion to an earlier descriptive past. [Keywords: adaptation, osteology, evolution, history]