Unit 1Introduction to Anthropology, Evolutionary Theory, Principles of Inheritance, and Modern Human Biological DiversityAnthropology•Biocultural approach: a perspective that considers the interrelationship between our biology (e.g., what we inherit) and behavior (e.g., what we learn) •Holistic: considering all aspects of humans (e.g., biology, spirituality, or behavior) •Comparative (cross-cultural): comparative among different groups of people emphasizing not judging •Ethnocentrism: the belief in the inherent superiority of one’s own ethnic group or culture with an attitude of judgment or negative overtone (e.g., there’s no way like the American way) •Cultural relativism: the idea that all cultures are viewed within their own historical and environmental context •Fieldwork: a time of data collection (e.g., living and studying among a group of people, excavating a site, looking through archives, or looking at boxes of artifacts in a lab)•Four subfields •Linguistic •The scientific study of language and how sound’s made •The personal perspective and how language’s used •Sociolinguistics incorporates a lot of behavior. Think of it as social language. How do we learn when it’s appropriate to say and not say things? That incorporates culture. •Cultural •Learned behavior that’s distinct among groups of people, passed down through generations, and evolutionary •Wealth, economics, kinship, marriage and family, attitudes toward healthcare and disease, entertainment, industry, or use of space•Archaeological •The study of material remains (i.e., anything manufactured by humans; e.g., pottery, ceramics, lithic, architecture, weapons, or technology) of a culture learning about the past •Excavating, cataloguing, reconstructing, and interpreting •Classical (e.g., ancient Egypt and Rome), New World vs. Old World, historic vs. prehistoric, crossover specialities (e.g., zooarchaeology or archaeobotany), academic vs. cultural resource management •Biological •The study of human biological evolution and biocultural variation •The study of other nonhuman primatesAmerican Anthropology•Franz Boas!•Father of American Anthropology who set the standard for how people are trained and how people practice it today called the “4-field” (biocultural) perspective •Professor at Columbia University who trained the first generation of anthropologists who received and perpetuated degrees in this country •Alěs Hrdliěka!•Contemporary of Boas •Field anthropologist for many years then curator at the Smith Museum •The “great organizer” who studied human variation by compiling a collection of skulls •Started the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and the American Association of Physical AnthropologistsHistory of Evolutionary Thought•Charles Darwin!•Evolution: Species change. •Adaptive radiation: the idea that multiple similar species descend from a common ancestor •Gradualism: the idea that changes within populations occur gradually •Natural selection: the recognition of the influence of the environment•Middle Ages •Order •Stasis (e.g., born a servant → die a servant) •Religious beliefs •Great chain of being: Supreme being existed at the top of a natural order, the world. •Natural world •Hierarchy •Fixity of species: the idea that the supreme being created this order, and nothing has been changed ever since •Young earth •Political system•14th-18th centuries •Renaissance and Enlightenment •Technological advances (e.g., microscope, telescope, printing press, laws of motion and gravity, and compass) •Exploration → diversity (e.g., plants, animals, and people don’t look the same; naturalists)Darwin’s Influences•Carolus Linnaeus developed binomial nomenclature classification system, the basis of modern taxonomy. •Buffon: the King’s botanist for decades who noticed that population variation could be impacted by environmental conditions (e.g., drought or season) •Lamarck!•One of the first to explain how change happens •When an organism experiences stress, its body could respond to that need then pass that onto offspring. •Inheritance of acquired characteristics (“Lamarckism”): Characteristics acquired in an individual’s lifetime are inherited by their offspring. •Falsified? Epigenetics where the environment can impact the switching on/off of genes, which can be passed on•Cuvier!•Comparative anatomy; noted extinct lifeforms in fossil records •Catastrophism: Periodically there’d be catastrophic events that’d impact either a smaller local area or worldwide and would wipe out living forms that were there (i.e., extinction). •Lyell: uniformitarianism!•Geological processes (e.g., weather events) from the past are the same that are working today. •The earth or landscape’s constantly changing. •The earth’s very old. •Thomas Malthus!•Demographer •Population size is limited by resource availability → competition among individuals.•Alfred Wallace!•Contemporary of Darwin from a modest family with lots of education and experiences •Independently came up with the idea of natural selection and corresponded with Darwin •Charles Darwin •Came from a wealthy family •Changed his major multiple times (e.g., geology, theology, biological sciences, and medicine) •Joined a scientific expedition around the globe •Published Origin of the Species on natural selectionContrast Darwin to Lamarck•Giraffe neck length: Start with biological variation. Selective pressure impacts the population such that long necks can reach their resources. Population’s average neck length through time and succeeding neck length is long. •Medium ground finches: Start with biological variation in beak size and robusticity. The more common variety was the small beak that correlated well with their preferred food source of small soft seeds. A drought killed off the food source. What was left was a large hard seed that was difficult for them to eat. Individuals with a large robust beak could manage it. 84% of their population died. Those individuals who survived passed on their genes. •Peppered moths: Start with biological variation in coloring, light and dark. Light moth was common and roosted on trees. The gray variety became less common, and the darker variety became more common. Several things probably contributed to this. One of the