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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.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The race concept dominated the study of human biological variation for centuries as mentioned in this paper, and a number of anthropologists questioned the scientific value of the race concept prior to, and especially after, the Second World War.
Abstract: The race concept dominated the study of human biological variation for centuries. Prior to, and especially after, the Second World War, a number of anthropologists questioned the scientific value o...

16 citations

Book
01 Jan 2006
TL;DR: Harrison and Darnell as discussed by the authors presented a history of Canadian anthropology, focusing on the pre-professional history of the field and the early years of Canadian anthropology, as well as the development and evolution of the discipline.
Abstract: 1 Historicizing Traditions in Canadian Anthropology / Julia Harrison and Regna Darnell Part 1: Situating Ourselves Historically and Theoretically 2 Disciplinary Tribes and Territories: Alliances and Skirmishes between Anthropology and History / A.B. McKillop 3 Toward a Historiography of Canadian Anthropology / Robert L.A. Hancock Part 2: The Pre-professional History of Canadian Anthropology 4 The Erasure of Horatio Hale's Contributions to Boasian Anthropology / David Nock 5 Marius Barbeau and the Methodology of Salvage Ethnography in Canada, 1911-51 / Andrew Nurse 6 Iroquoian Archaeology, the Public, and Native Communities in Victorian Ontario / Michelle A. Hamilton Part 3: Locating our Subjects 7 Canadian Anthropology and the Ethnography of "Indian Administration" / Noel Dyck 8 Canadian Anthropology and Ideas of Aboriginal Emendation / Colin Buchanan 9 A Comparative History of "Cultural Rights" in South Africa and Canada / Evie Plaice 10 Canadian Anthropologists in China Studies / Josephine Smart and Alan Smart Part 4: Documenting Institutional Relations 11 Departmental Networks in Canadian Anthropology / Regna Darnell 12 Canadian Anthropology as a Situated Conversation / Richard K. Pope 13 Anthropology and Sociology at the University of British Columbia from 1947 to the 1980s / Elvi Whittaker and Michael Ames 14 Anthropology at Universite Laval: The Early Years, 1958-70 / Marc-Adelard Tremblay 15 Expatriates in the Ivory Tower: Anthropologists in Non Anthropology University Departments / James B. Waldram and Pamela J. Downe Part 5: Connections and Comparisons 16 Constituting Canadian Anthropology / David Howes 17 The Historical Praxis of Museum Anthropology: A Canada-US Comparison / Cory Willmott 18 Commodifying North American Aboriginal Culture: A Canada-US Comparison / Kathy M'Closkey and Kevin Manuel 19 Canadian Anthropology and the Cold War / Nelson H.H. Graburn 20 Texts and Contexts in Canadian Anthropology / Penny Van Esterik 21 Just a Little Off-Centre or Not Peripheral Enough: Paradoxes for the Reproduction of Canadian Anthropology / Vered Amit Postscript Notes and Acknowledgments References Contributors Index

16 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Physical anthropology originated as an independent scientific discipline during the eighteenth century, and has been affected by an epistemological error from the very beginning, because of the problematic aspects in explaining human biological variability using the taxonomic sub-specific category of race.
Abstract: Key Words: Physical anthropology, forensic anthropology, evolution, Linnaeus, Darwin, Broca, Blumenbach, Carleton Coon, Cavalli-Sforza, F. Boas, Margaret Mead, Ashley Montagu, R. Lewontin, S. J. Gould, L. Lieberman, dismantling race, nazi-fascist racism. A Wrong Approach Modern science try to understand the phenomena of nature through the formulation of hypotheses and their subsequent empirical control by comparing predictions and observations. If a scientific hypothesis receive the empirical validation then it become part of the construction of a paradigm; otherwise, the hypothesis must be simply rejected if falsified by experimental results (Popper 1934; Kragh 1987). That was not the case of the construction of the "anthropological dogma" of human biological concept of race. Physical anthropology originated as an independent scientific discipline during the eighteenth century, and has been affected by an epistemological error from the very beginning. In fact, the existence of races was considered the basic principle of physical anthropology instead of just being a hypothesis amenable to empirical investigation, and therefore for about two centuries physical anthropologists refused to be led by the only criterion of truth that natural sciences recognize, namely empirical validation. However, all scholars who dedicated themselves to that futile classificatory exercise unintentionally contributed to demonstrate that they were involved in a false paradigm, because of the problematic aspects in explaining human biological variability using the taxonomic sub-specific category of race. This difficulty in identifying human races was proved by the high number of subdivisions suggested, which included two to sixty-three races, and differences in the traditional definition of race: Race as synonymous of sub-species, ethnic group, population, and so on (Darwin 1871; Count 1950; Biasutti 1967; Could 1981; Brace 1982). Why did so many physical anthropologists refuse to test the hypothesis of whether human biological variability could be neatly subdivided according to the taxonomic sub-specific categories of race? Why did so many physical anthropologists accept the racial paradigm? Three main constrains, two external and one internal to the scientific process, contributed to this serious error in scientific logic. First, the history of the cultural context from which physical anthropology originated. Second, the history of the social context in which physical anthropologists formulated the concept of race. Third, the broad process of construction of theories within Biological Sciences. The Cultural Context which Conditioned Physical Anthropologists The first reason emerged from a western culture idea that biological and ethnic diversity is very ancient. This concept developed in Egypt during the second millennium B.C., and represented a deep change in perspective. In fact, before then not only humanity but the whole world was considered as a unit. The Egyptians subdivided humankind into four groups, one of which was made up by themselves. They in fact called themselves Remet which simply means "man". In their paintings of the fifteenth century B.C. they were portraid in red, while the Asiatics named Aamu in yellow, the populations of sub-Saharan Africa, the Nubians named Nehesyu, in black, and the Libyans, as well as some western populations named Tjemehu, with yellow hair and blue eyes (Bresciani et al. 1993; Gardiner 1947). Still in ancient times, the father of history Herodotus (490/480430/420 B.C.) gave a physical description to a great number of people in his Historie, and Pliny the Elder (23-79) in his Naturalis historic explained physical differences between Africans and Europeans as a direct consequence of climate. After Herodotus all long-distance travellers, up to the origin of physical anthropology, left descriptions of the peoples they met (Daumas 1957; Duchet 1971; Geymonat 1973). …

16 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202322
202245
202111
202016
201921
201832