Brief Background about Biological Anthropology

What is Biological Anthropology?

Biological anthropology (also called physical anthropology), then, is an interesting mixture of social studies and biological studies; several other ingredients make it even more fascinating. The two primary concept areas that tend to hold biological anthropology together are human evolution and human biosocial variation; there are many topics that can be studied within these two concept areas.

In order to grasp how humans evolved from earlier life forms, we can look at our closest relatives, the primates. Primates include us (Homo sapiens), the apes, the monkeys, and prosimians, such as the lemur. We can learn about primate behavior by studying them in the wild, as Jane Goodall did with chimpanzees in Africa, or by studying them in small captive colonies. These studies by primatologists are particularly important now because many primates are endangered animals, and our knowledge of their behavior and environment may help them, and us, to survive in the future.

Australopithecus afarensis

Australopithecus aethiopicus

Homo erectus

Homo neanderthalensis

Neanderthal

Cro-magnon

Modern Sapiens

We can use the techniques of archaeology to uncover the skeletal remains of our ancestors from the distant past. The exciting findings of human paleontology (the study of fossils) have pushed back our ancestry as tool-using humans who walked on two legs to several million years ago. As Louis Leakey showed us, our early human ancestors probably hunted and foraged for food on the continent of Africa long before North and South America or Australia were inhabited by people. Although we have learned a great deal about our ancestors within the last few decades, we are far from having a clear picture of our evolutionary history, and there is still much more to learn.

The knowledge that biological anthropologists gather on living populations falls into several overlapping categories. Again, evolution and biosocial variation are underlying themes in studies that deal with nutrition, child growth, health in societies, the genetics of human populations, and adaptation (adjustment) to the environment. For example, we try to understand how Eskimos have survived in the harsh cold of the Arctic using clever behavioral adaptations as well as biological adaptations. As another example, the presence of a strange disease in New Guinea natives led to the discovery of a whole new class of infectious organisms, and also won its discoverer, Dr. Carlton Gajdusek, the Nobel Prize.

Adaptation, Variation, and Change

Adaptation - refers to the processes by which organisms cope with environmental forces and stresses, like those posed by climate and topography (terrains) or landforms.

Humans, like other animals, use biological means or adaptations to fit their environments.

Humans are unique in also having cultural means of adaptation.

Human history tells us that the social and cultural means of adaptation have become increasingly important.
Humans have devised diverse ways of coping with the range of environments.

For million of years, hunting and gathering of nature's bounty- foraging- sole basis of human subsistence.
It took only a few thousand years for food production (cultivation of plants and domestication of animals) around 12,000 - 10,000 years ago.
Early civilization to economic and industrial revolutions- link all peoples of the world.
"The cultures of world peoples need to be constantly rediscovered as these people reinvent them in changing historical circumstances" (Marcus and Fischer 1986, p.24).

Ethnography and Ethnology compared

ETHNOGRAPHY

Based on field work.
First hand, personal study of local settings.
Entails spending a year or more in another society, living with the local people and learning about their way of life.
Ethnographer remains an alien in that particular society.
Participant observers.Provides an account of a particular community, society or culture.
Ethnographers gather data, organize, describe, analyze and interpret to build and present that account which may be in the form of a book, article, or film.

ETHNOLOGY

• Examines, interprets, analyzes, and compares the results of ethnography – the date gathered in different societies.
• Uses data to compare and contrast and make generalizations about society and culture.
• Attempts to identify and explain cultural differences and similarities to test hypotheses and build theory to enhance our understanding of how social and cultural systems work.
• Gets its data for comparison not just from ethnographers but also from other subfields. Ex. Archaeological anthropology (archaeology) reconstructs, describes, and interprets human behavior and cultural patterns through material remains – prehistoric culture (period before invention of writing, around 6,000 years ago).

Overview

ANTHROPOLOGY

• scientific and humanistic study of the human species and its immediate ancestors.
• exploration of human diversity in time and space
• confronts basic questions of human existence: how we originated, how we have changed, and how we are still changing.
• holistic. Holism refers to the study of the whole human condition: past, present and the future; biology, society, language, and culture. Deals on human problems and social change.
• comparative and cross-cultural, systematically compares data from different populations and time periods.
• 4 subfields or subdisciplines: CULTURAL, ARCHAEOLOGICAL, BIOLOGICAL, and LINGUISTIC anthropology

Socio-Cultural Anthropology

Biological/Physical Anthropology

Archaeological Anthropology

Linguistic Anthropology

HUMAN SPECIES

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• Culture is a key aspect of human adaptability and success.
• Cultures are traditions and customs
• transmitted through learning, that guide the beliefs and behavior of the people exposed to them.
Cultural anthropology – examines cultural diversity of the present and the recently past.
Archaeology – reconstructs behavior by studying material remains.
Biological anthropologists – study human fossils, genetics, and bodily growth and development. Also study non human primates (monkeys and apes).
Linguistic anthropology – considers how speech varies with social factors and over time.
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2 dimensions –
1. Academic
2. Applied
Academic (general / theoretical) – ideas/concepts. Ex. 4 subfields of anthropology
Applied anthropology- uses knowledge to identify and solve social problems.
Examples :
• developmental anthropology
• cultural resource management (CRM) –involves preserving significant information about the past and saving sites if still significant and allow destruction if they are not anymore significant.
• forensic anthropology
• study of linguistic diversity in classrooms (sociolinguistics –relation between social and linguistic variation)

INTERDISCIPLINARY/INTERRELATIONSHIPS
1.Sciences
2.Humanities

Natural (e.g.,biology) and Social Sciences (e.g., sociology)

Cross-cultural perspective to the study of

economics
politics
psychology
art
music
literature
society in general

Human Adaptability

Humans – among world’s most adaptable animals.

Adaptability and flexibility – basic human attributes

Human diversity – subject matter of anthropology.

Examples:

Andes of South America – people wake up in villages 16,000 feet above sea level, then travel upward 1,500 ft higher to work in tin mines.

People survive malaria in tropical countries.

Men have walked on the moon.

Most people think that anthropologists study fossils and non industrial, non-Western cultures, and many of them do.
But anthropology is much more than the study of nonindustrial peoples.
It examines all societies –ancient and modern, simple and complex.
Other social sciences focus on a single society like the U.S. or the Philippines.
Anthropology offers a unique cross-cultural perspective by comparing the customs of one society with those of others.

People share society – organized life in groups – with other animals, including wolves, lions, and even ants.

Culture is distinctly human. It is the full range of learned human behavior patterns.

English Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his book, Primitive Culture, published in 1871, said that culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Of course, it is not limited to men. Women possess and create it as well. Since Tylor's time, the concept of culture has become the central focus of anthropology.

Culture is transmitted through learning rather than biological inheritance. Culture is not itself biological, but it rests on certain features of human biology.

Micro Enculturation – process by which people learn traditions by growing up in a particular/limited society.

Questions like-
Mysteries of Human origins/ Hominid biology
Hominids – members of the zoological family that includes fossil and living humans.
When did our ancestors separate from those great aunts and great uncles whose descendants are the apes?
Homo sapiens started when and where?
How has our species changed?
What are we now and where are we going?
Our genus, Homo, has been changing for more than 1 million years.
Humans continue to adapt and change both biologically and culturally.

Adaptation – refers to the processes by which organisms cope with environmental forces and stresses, like those posed by climate and topography (terrains) or landforms.
Humans, like other animals, use biological means or adaptations to fit their environments.
Humans are unique in also having cultural means of adaptation.

Course Description and Course Outline

Course Description:
The course will introduce to the students concepts, fundamental theories, and perspectives vital in understanding human beings as biological and social entities. Concentration will be made on cultural diversity as distinct among societies, as well as the cultural changes that they underwent. In so doing, the students are expected to describe their local culture and understand its social significance.

Course Outline:

The Basics of Anthropology

• What is anthropology?
• The subdisciplines of anthropology
• Anthropology and other academic fields
• Applied Anthropology
• Ethnography and Ethnology

Physical Anthropology : A Brief Background

• Primates
• Hominid Evolution

Cultural Diversity

• What is culture?
• Components of Culture
• Characteristics of Culture
• Universal, Particular, and General Culture
• Cultural Change
• Ethnicity
• Ethnic groups and Ethnicity
• Ethnic relations

Human Diversity and Race

• Race : A discredited concept in Biology
• Social Race

Language and Communication

• Animal communication
• Nonverbal communication
• Structure of Language
• Language, Thought and Culture
• Sociolinguistics

Making a Living

• Adaptive strategies and Transformation of Societies

Families, Kinship, and Descent

• Marriage
• Political Systems
• Bands and Tribes
• Origin, Function, and Expression of Religion
  Kinds of Religion
  Religion and Change
  Social Control
  

The Modern World

• Modern World System
• Industrialization
• Stratification
• World System Today
• Colonialism and Development
• Cultural exchange and Survival
• Applied Anthropology

References:

Border, R. and Maltz, D. (2001). Applying Cultural Antrhopology: An Introductory Reader. Mayfield Publishing Company. USA
Kottak, C. (2002). Cultural Anthropology. 9th Edition. McGraw-Hill, Inc. USA.
Kottak, C. (2004). Anthropology. The Exploration of Human Diversity. 10th Edition. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. New York, USA.
Kottak, C. (2005). Mirror for Humanity: A Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. 2nd Edition. McGraw-Hill, Inc. USA
Lenkeit, R.E. (2004). Introducing Cultural Anthropology. 2nd Edition. McGraw-Hill Inc., USA.
http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/theory.htm
http://www.anthro.mankato.msus.edu/information/biography/index.pl
http://www.wsu.edu/gened/learn-modules/top_culture
http://www.tamu.edu/anthropology/news.html