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Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an evolutionary perspective. [1] This subfield of anthropology systematically studies human beings from a biological perspective.
As a subfield of anthropology, biological anthropology itself is further divided into several branches. All branches are united in their common orientation and/or application of evolutionary theory to understanding human biology and behavior.
Biological Anthropology looks different today from the way it did even twenty years ago. Even the name is relatively new, having been 'physical anthropology' for over a century, with some practitioners still applying that term. [2] Biological anthropologists look back to the work of Charles Darwin as a major foundation for what they do today. However, if one traces the intellectual genealogy back to physical anthropology's beginnings—before the discovery of much of what we now know as the hominin fossil record—then the focus shifts to human biological variation. Some editors, see below, have rooted the field even deeper than formal science.
Attempts to study and classify human beings as living organisms date back to ancient Greece. The Greek philosopher Plato (c. 428–c. 347 BC) placed humans on the scala naturae , which included all things, from inanimate objects at the bottom to deities at the top. [3] This became the main system through which scholars thought about nature for the next roughly 2,000 years. [3] Plato's student Aristotle (c. 384–322 BC) observed in his History of Animals that human beings are the only animals to walk upright [3] and argued, in line with his teleological view of nature, that humans have buttocks and no tails in order to give them a cushy place to sit when they are tired of standing. [3] He explained regional variations in human features as the result of different climates. [3] He also wrote about physiognomy, an idea derived from writings in the Hippocratic Corpus. [3] Scientific physical anthropology began in the 17th to 18th centuries with the study of racial classification (Georgius Hornius, François Bernier, Carl Linnaeus, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach). [4]
The first prominent physical anthropologist, the German physician Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840) of Göttingen, amassed a large collection of human skulls (Decas craniorum, published during 1790–1828), from which he argued for the division of humankind into five major races (termed Caucasian, Mongolian, Aethiopian, Malayan and American). [5] In the 19th century, French physical anthropologists, led by Paul Broca (1824–1880), focused on craniometry [6] while the German tradition, led by Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), emphasized the influence of environment and disease upon the human body. [7]
In the 1830s and 40s, physical anthropology was prominent in the debate about slavery, with the scientific, monogenist works of the British abolitionist James Cowles Prichard (1786–1848) opposing [8] those of the American polygenist Samuel George Morton (1799–1851). [9]
In the late 19th century, German-American anthropologist Franz Boas (1858–1942) strongly impacted biological anthropology by emphasizing the influence of culture and experience on the human form. His research showed that head shape was malleable to environmental and nutritional factors rather than a stable "racial" trait. [10] However, scientific racism still persisted in biological anthropology, with prominent figures such as Earnest Hooton and Aleš Hrdlička promoting theories of racial superiority [11] and a European origin of modern humans. [12]
In 1951 Sherwood Washburn, a former student of Hooton, introduced a "new physical anthropology." [13] He changed the focus from racial typology to concentrate upon the study of human evolution, moving away from classification towards evolutionary process. Anthropology expanded to include paleoanthropology and primatology. [14] The 20th century also saw the modern synthesis in biology: the reconciling of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel's research on heredity. Advances in the understanding of the molecular structure of DNA and the development of chronological dating methods opened doors to understanding human variation, both past and present, more accurately and in much greater detail.
Biology – The natural science that studies life. Areas of focus include structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy.
Paranthropus is a genus of extinct hominin which contains two widely accepted species: P. robustus and P. boisei. However, the validity of Paranthropus is contested, and it is sometimes considered to be synonymous with Australopithecus. They are also referred to as the robust australopithecines. They lived between approximately 2.9 and 1.2 million years ago (mya) from the end of the Pliocene to the Middle Pleistocene.
Primatology is the scientific study of primates. It is a diverse discipline at the boundary between mammalogy and anthropology, and researchers can be found in academic departments of anatomy, anthropology, biology, medicine, psychology, veterinary sciences and zoology, as well as in animal sanctuaries, biomedical research facilities, museums and zoos. Primatologists study both living and extinct primates in their natural habitats and in laboratories by conducting field studies and experiments in order to understand aspects of their evolution and behavior.
The coracoid process is a small hook-like structure on the lateral edge of the superior anterior portion of the scapula. Pointing laterally forward, it, together with the acromion, serves to stabilize the shoulder joint. It is palpable in the deltopectoral groove between the deltoid and pectoralis major muscles.
Irven DeVore was an anthropologist and evolutionary biologist, and Curator of Primatology at Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. He headed Harvard's Department of Anthropology from 1987 to 1992. He taught generations of students at Harvard both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He mentored many young scientists who went on to prominence in anthropology and behavioral biology, including Richard Lee, Robert Trivers, Sarah Hrdy, Peter Ellison, Barbara Smuts, Henry Harpending, Marjorie Shostak, Robert Bailey, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Richard Wrangham and Terrence Deacon.
The concept of race as a categorization of anatomically modern humans has an extensive history in Europe and the Americas. The contemporary word race itself is modern; historically it was used in the sense of "nation, ethnic group" during the 16th to 19th centuries. Race acquired its modern meaning in the field of physical anthropology through scientific racism starting in the 19th century. With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. In 2019, the American Association of Biological Anthropologists stated: "The belief in 'races' as natural aspects of human biology, and the structures of inequality (racism) that emerge from such beliefs, are among the most damaging elements in the human experience both today and in the past."
The Caucasian race is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. The Caucasian race was historically regarded as a biological taxon which, depending on which of the historical race classifications was being used, usually included ancient and modern populations from all or parts of Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa.
Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship lines within the family Hominidae, working from biological evidence and cultural evidence.
Evolutionary anthropology, the interdisciplinary study of the evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and of the relation between hominids and non-hominid primates, builds on natural science and on social science. Various fields and disciplines of evolutionary anthropology include:
Paranthropus boisei is a species of australopithecine from the Early Pleistocene of East Africa about 2.5 to 1.15 million years ago. The holotype specimen, OH 5, was discovered by palaeoanthropologist Mary Leakey in 1959 at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania and described by her husband Louis a month later. It was originally placed into its own genus as "Zinjanthropus boisei", but is now relegated to Paranthropus along with other robust australopithecines. However, it is also argued that Paranthropus is an invalid grouping and synonymous with Australopithecus, so the species is also often classified as Australopithecus boisei.
Henry Malcolm McHenry is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, specializing in studies of human evolution, the origins of bipedality, and paleoanthropology.
Biocultural anthropology can be defined in numerous ways. It is the scientific exploration of the relationships between human biology and culture. "Instead of looking for the underlying biological roots of human behavior, biocultural anthropology attempts to understand how culture affects our biological capacities and limitations."
Sherwood Larned Washburn, nicknamed "Sherry", was an American physical anthropologist, and "a legend in the field." He was pioneer in the field of primatology, opening it to the study of primates in their natural habitats. His research and influence in the comparative analysis of primate behaviors to theories of human origins established a new course of study within the field of human evolution. He changed the field of anthropology with the publication of his paper The New Physical Anthropology, in 1951, in which he argued, convincingly, that human variation was continuous, and could not be broken up into discontinuous races.
Mongoloid is an obsolete racial grouping of various peoples indigenous to large parts of Asia, the Americas, and some regions in Europe and Oceania. The term is derived from a now-disproven theory of biological race. In the past, other terms such as "Mongolian race", "yellow", "Asiatic" and "Oriental" have been used as synonyms.
Agustín Fuentes is an American primatologist and biological anthropologist at Princeton University and formerly the chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. His work focuses largely on human and non-human primate interaction, pathogen transfer, communication, cooperation, and human social evolution.
Alan H. Goodman is a biological anthropologist and author. He served as president of the American Anthropological Association from 2005 to 2007. With Yolanda Moses, he co-directs the American Anthropological Association's Public Education Project on Race. His teaching, research and writing focuses on understanding how poverty, inequality and racism “get under the skin.” He received his PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Goodman was a pre-doctoral research fellow in stress physiology at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm and a postdoctoral fellow in international nutrition at the University of Connecticut and the Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Health Sciences and Nutrition, Mexico.
The American Journal of Biological Anthropology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal and the official journal of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists. It was established in 1918 by Aleš Hrdlička.
Robert Spencer Corruccini is an American anthropologist, distinguished professor, Smithsonian Institution Research Fellow, Human Biology Council Fellow, and the 1994 Outstanding Scholar at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. As a medical and dental anthropologist, Corruccini is most noted for his work on the theory of malocclusion and his extensive work in a slave cemetery at Newton Plantation in Barbados.
Mary W. Marzke was an American anthropologist. Her research focuses on the evolution of the hominin hand.
Primate archaeology is a field of research established in 2008 that combines research interests and foci from primatology and archaeology. The main aim of primate archaeology is to study behavior of extant and extinct primates and the associated material records. The discipline attempts to move beyond archaeology's anthropocentric perspective by placing the focus on both past and present primate tool use.
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