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.

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.

The old physical anthropology

Abstract: In the eighteenth century, workers in general biology, medicine, and physical anthropology knew little about human physiology. As a result, they heavily stressed mystical, essentialist classifications of organisms, constitutional types, and diseases. Comparative morphology and diagnostic systems prevailed. At different times and for somewhat different reasons, these older paradigms were abandoned and newer ones adopted. Late in this scientific revolution, in the midtwentieth century, the new physical anthropology was born.

Life and death at Teposcolula Yucundaa: Mortuary, archaeogenetic, and isotopic investigations of the early colonial period in Mexico

Abstract: Two mid-16 century cemeteries are investigated at the Mixtec site of Teposcolula Yucundaa and shown to be related to the unidentified cocoliztli pandemic of 1545-1548. Through archaeogenetic and oxygen stable isotope analysis it is shown that the interred individuals are local Mixtecs, and mortuary analysis sheds light on both Christian and traditional religious practices at the site. Mitochondrial haplogroup frequencies do not support severe population bottlenecking during the 16 century epidemic period, and carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis does not support a shift away from maize consumption, despite evidence for increased wheat production at the site. In order to further refine Middle American stable isotope-based paleodietary models, a large-scale empirical study was conducted on the isotopic diversity of regional crop plants, and an experimental feeding study in swine was developed to determine the isotopic effects of nixtamalization on mineralized tissues.