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.
It is a subfield of anthropology that provides
a biological perspective to the systematic
study of human beings.
== Branches ==
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.
Paleoanthropology is the study of fossil evidence
for human evolution, mainly using remains
from extinct hominin and other primate species
to determine the morphological and behavioral
changes in the human lineage, as well as the
environment in which human evolution occurred.
Human biology is an interdisciplinary field
of biology, biological anthropology, nutrition
and medicine, which concerns international,
population-level perspectives on health, evolution,
anatomy, physiology, molecular biology, neuroscience,
and genetics.
Primatology is the study of non-human primate
behavior, morphology, and genetics.
Primatologists use phylogenetic methods to
infer which traits humans share with other
primates and which are human-specific adaptations.
Human behavioral ecology is the study of behavioral
adaptations (foraging, reproduction, ontogeny)
from the evolutionary and ecologic perspectives
(see behavioral ecology).
It focuses on human adaptive responses (physiological,
developmental, genetic) to environmental stresses.
Bioarchaeology is the study of past human
cultures through examination of human remains
recovered in an archaeological context.
The examined human remains usually are limited
to bones but may include preserved soft tissue.
Researchers in bioarchaeology combine the
skill sets of human osteology, paleopathology,
and archaeology, and often consider the cultural
and mortuary context of the remains.
Paleopathology is the study of disease in
antiquity.
This study focuses not only on pathogenic
conditions observable in bones or mummified
soft tissue, but also on nutritional disorders,
variation in stature or morphology of bones
over time, evidence of physical trauma, or
evidence of occupationally derived biomechanic
stress.
Evolutionary psychology is the study of psychological
structures from a modern evolutionary perspective.
It seeks to identify which human psychological
traits are evolved adaptations – that is,
the functional products of natural selection
or sexual selection in human evolution.
Evolutionary biology is the study of the evolutionary
processes that produced the diversity of life
on Earth, starting from a single common ancestor.
These processes include natural selection,
common descent, and speciation.
== History ==
=== Origins ===
Biological Anthropology looks different today
than it did even twenty years ago.
The name is even relatively new, having been
'physical anthropology' for over a century,
with some practitioners still applying that
term.
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
and the culture back to physical anthropology's
beginnings--going further back than the existence
of much of what we know now as the hominin
fossil record--then history focuses in on
the field's interest in 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.
This became the main system through which
scholars thought about nature for the next
roughly 2,000 years.
Plato's student Aristotle (c. 384–322 BC)
observed in his History of Animals that human
beings are the only animals to walk upright
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.
He explained regional variations in human
features as the result of different climates.
He also wrote about physiognomy, an idea derived
from writings in the Hippocratic Corpus.
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).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).
In the 19th century, French physical anthropologists,
led by Paul Broca (1824-1880), focused on
craniometry while the German tradition, led
by Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), emphasized
the influence of environment and disease upon
the human body.In the 1830s and 1840s, physical
anthropology was prominent in the debate about
slavery, with the scientific, monogenist works
of the British abolitionist James Cowles Prichard
(1786–1848) opposing those of the American
polygenist Samuel George Morton (1799–1851).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.
However, scientific racism still persisted
in biological anthropology, with prominent
figures such as Earnest Hooton and Aleš Hrdlička
promoting theories of racial superiority and
a European origin of modern humans.
=== "New Physical Anthropology" ===
In 1951 Sherwood Washburn, a former student
of Hooton, introduced a "new physical anthropology."
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.
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.
== Notable biological anthropologists ==
== See also ==
Anthropometry, the measurement of the human
individual
Biocultural anthropology
Ethology
Evolutionary anthropology
Evolutionary biology
Evolutionary psychology
Human evolution
Paleontology
Primatology
Sociobiology
