Anthropology 1001 08 25 2015 Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Prehistory Anthropos Logos man to reason or study o Anthropology Four main differences study of humankind in all times and places The totality of the human experience o Usually study other cultures Reduce ethnocentrism o Field work o Comparative discipline o Holistic Cultural Anthropology Study of customary patterns in human behavior thought and feelings Describes analyzes interprets and explains social and cultural similarities and differences Napoleon Chagnon anthropologist Cultural Anthropology Examples Ethnography o Culture learned shared transmitted cannot be defined o the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures Medical Anthropology Urban Anthropology o Biological and cultural anthropology mash with each other o Studying what its like living in the city vs country o Brian Marks studies NOLA after Katrina Archaeology Study of human cultures through the recovery analysis and interpretation of material culture from past civilizations Considered the cultural anthropology if the human past o Zoo archaeology o Historic Archaeology o Prehistoric Archaeology o Culture Resource Management CRM governmental agency o Ethno archaeology o Nautical Archaeology study of how where ships were made The study of language Allows people to preserve and transmit details of their culture from generation Linguistic Anthropology to generation Historical linguistics Descriptive linguistics Socio Linguistics Biological Anthropology Systematic study of humans as biological organisms o Paleoanthropology Study of our fossil ancestors o Primatology Study of primate behavior and biology o Osteology Study of skeletal biology Physiology and morphology o Bio archeology Archeology of the bones o Forensic Anthropology Biological anthropology examples o Human variation and adaptation Understanding the relationship between human biology and the Study the relationship between nutrition health and cultural environment o Growth and development practices o Molecular anthropology Study the genetic variation of human populations Scientific method Hypothesis testing o Observation o Hypothesis formation o Test the hypothesis o Reject the hypothesis or fail to reject the hypothesis A theory is a hypothesis or series of related hypotheses that have been repeatedly tested and have not been rejected 2 crucial features o falsifiable o cannot be proven either rejected or fail to be rejected Phenomena Creationism 8 27 15 Fixity of species o Aristotle o Science and religion Current Critics of evolution o About half od all Americans don t believe that evolution occurs o The mechanisms of evolution are complex and not easy to understand o People want definitive clear cut answers o Science does not establish absolute truth or prove facts o Belief systems do not deal with objective biological explanations o Christian fundamentalist have worked to eliminate evolution from public school curricula Their efforts have led to the emergence of scientific creationism or intelligent design ID ORIGINS OF EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT Before Darwin Humans are the center of the world 5 planets orbiting moon eatrth is the center of the universe Great Chain of Being from simple to complex ranked from better to worse Archbishop James Ussher Everyone believed him that the earth was very very young John Ray o Species genus group of individuals that mate with one another Carolus Linneaus o Father of taxonomy o Came up with grouping system o Systema naturae 1758 o Binomial nomenclature Classification with two names Species reproductively isolated organisms Mating with your species Erasmus Darwin Comte de Buffon o Darwin s grandpa Dynamic relationship between environment and life Comte de Buffon o Jean Baptiste Lamarck Theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics Lamarckian evolution Animals change in response to their environment Toes Talked about mechanism for change Darwin had better answer more accurate why things change evolution o Georges Cuvier French paleontologist Catastrophism Believed all things are created by supernatural spirits Used catastrophy s in order to explain fossils o Thomas Malthus economist Two principles More individuals ar born in species than reach maturity High death rate before adulthood is a result of struggle for existence Malthus basic theory population vs resources limited Rejects catastrophism Earth shaped by the same geological processes at work resources o James Hutton Founder of modern geology Uniformitarianism today past o Charles Lyell o Mary Anning Fossil collector Ichthyosaurus Plesiosaurus o Charles Darwin Went back to become a clergy in England Took a bio class becomes interested in the living world H M S Beagle boat Galapagos islands part of the voyage Went as a naturalist Was the man of science on the boat Began questioning the fixity of species Saw fossils that looked very similar to the fossils of living organisms today evolution Struggle for survival Population size is limited by food and available water hence struggle for existence Favorable variations tend to be preserve unfavorable destroyed The result is the formation of a new species o SELECTION Artificial Selection Selective breeding of animals to produce traits that we find useful Cows and milk Wolves and dogs As long as there is variation among the offspring limited food and heredity evolution had to take place Natural Selection On the transmutation of species 1842 1844 The voyage of the beagle Charles Darwin o Alfred Russell Wallace Wrote about Darwin s studies in high school Looked up to him Naturalist studying animal and plant life in amazon and southeast Asia Caught malaria and lost all of his notes Came up with the idea of natural selection Wallaces Sarawak law o Darwin and Wallace In 1858 Darwin and Wallace presented at the Linnenan Society meetings The delicate arrangement In December of 1859 Darwin s On the Origin of Species o Thomas Huxley Darwin s Bulldog Human Evolution Evidence on Man s Place in Nature Important features of natural selection VARIATION Environment Reproductive fitness The individual is the unit of natural selection Natural Selection Organisms reproduce faster than the food supply increases No two individuals of a species are alike More individuals exist than can survive More favorable variations will survive Favorable variations are passed on those with unfavorable variations do not Over time the successful