Introduction to Biological Anthropology What is Anthropology Prof Pete says the study of humankind viewed from the perspective of all people and all times What qualifies as human history All of the collective experience of our biological ancestors But how far does this go back The chimps monkeys count Any two legged upright walking ape counts Understanding them helps us understand modern humans Primatology is within anthropology In the past our more distant ancestors behaved like primates we see today All of the creatures to whom we are closely related relatively speaking Characteristics of hominids Bipedalism Specialized dentition special teeth Material culture and tools Not exclusively a hominid thing because chimps also use tools Speech and language Modern humans are the only creature that has language Lots of things communicate but its not language Dogs don t sit around thinking they respond to stimuli Humans think abstractly We can prepare for events and the future Human language is based on concepts we can t see yet we understand and describe and pass on to other people Hunting and food production We are capable of abstract thought other primates are not What is culture and what does it include Learned behavior that is transmitted from person to person A human universal Includes strategies for dealing with the natural environment WE CAN T LIVE WITHOUT IT Every human has learned certain behaviors that have been picked up and passed on Culture originally was a strategy to help us survive in the natural environment That s where culture gets its start Now culture is much more complicated It is a learned behavior It has no genetic or biological basis Culture can be items or ideas For example religion and values along with technologies Cultural relativity Culture is Relative Culture relativity Each culture should be understood within its own context and not judged by other cultures norms You must understand how culture A helps them in their society It doesn t mean one culture is better it means each one benefits societies in different ways Cannibalism New Guinea 20th century Gender Roles Saudi Arabia 21st Century Culture is Persuasive All Humans are ethnocentric We think our culture is the best and works the best But we must understand that just because culture A works for us it may not work for people living in culture B 4 subfields of anthropology Archaeology Social Cultural Linguistics Physical or Biological Applied anthropology Using specialized knowledge to help solve a culture s specific problems Most cultural anthropologists today are applied anthropologists Historic vs prehistoric archaeology Artifacts material culture Artifacts Objects or materials made or modified for use by hominids They are a subset of material culture They are a kind of material culture Material Culture Physical manifestations of human activates includes tools art and structures An example is cave paintings 5 subfields of physical anthropology Paleoanthropology Primatology Osteology Paleopathology Forensic Anthropology Linguistic anthropology Like culture language is a unique human characteristic Not surprisingly language and culture are related We were told things or read them we didn t observe them ourselves Language helps us understand things we can t observe in front of us Studies the construction and use of language by human societies Origins of language in general Specific languages and their relationships to other languages What you see and what is important to a culture is reflected in the language Biocultural evolution The scientific method The mutual interactive evolution of human biology and culture We are the products of millions of years of evolution AND our immediate circumstances The things we do and create there s no limit to them and this can affect the culture and biology Hypothesis A provisional explanation of a phenomenon Experiment A method of testing hypotheses that must yield data and can be replicated by others Data Facts from which conclusions can be drawn Theory A broad statement concerning the nature of a phenomenon that has been verified through rigorous testing Can be refined over time Scientific Law An indisputable scientific truth very few exist Hypothesis vs theory Hypotheses are ideas or informed opinions that lack sufficient supporting data and favorable experimental results Theories have been tested to the extent that the outcome of any additional testing is not in doubt Before Darwin The Rise of Science Taxonomy Linnaeus Taxonomy and Systematics study of classification and relationships of organisms Linnaeus Naming system for all living organisms and clustered hierarchy The system Linnaeus came up with for naming and classifying living organisms is still used today and allows scientists from all over the world to understand each other Each species has a name composed of a genus and species He also came up with a hierarchical classification that all living organisms could be placed within in kingdom phylum class order family genus and species This led to the belief that related organisms shared a common ancestor Linnaeus work led Darwin to recognize that if all life was separately and divinely created it was done so in a manner that completely mimics evolution Biology and Ecology Lamarck Evolutionary Biology study of organisms and their changes over time Lamarck Inheritance of acquired characteristics Argued that plants and animals changed over time evolved Darwin proposed natural selection as the explanation for how evolution occurred Lamarck proposed inheritance of acquired characteristics Lamarck thought that for example giraffes stretched their necks to reach food more and more and the stretched neck got passed down to the offspring Geology Hutton and Lyell Uniformitarianism Geology The study of Earth James Hutton Scottish geologist who came up with uniformitarianism Recognized that wind and rain caused erosion and these particles of the ground could then be redeposited and form the layered rock we call strata But this took millions of years and that is how he came up with the age of the Earth His ideas are based on uniformitarianism the assumption that the processes that occur today are the same ones that have occurred in the past Charles Lyell Evidence for the antiquity of the Earth Lyell tests Hutton s ideas and confirmed it would take millions of years for the geological strata to form Paleontology Hooke Cuvier Catastrophism Paleontology The study of