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.

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.

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?