Biocultural anthropology can be defined in
numerous ways.
It is the scientific exploration of the relationships
between human biology and culture.
"Instead of looking for the biology underlying
biological roots of human behavior, biocultural
anthropology attempts to understand how culture
affects our biological capacities and limitations."
== 
History ==
Physical anthropologists throughout the first
half of the 20th century viewed this relationship
from a racial perspective; that is, from the
assumption that typological human biological
differences lead to cultural differences.
After World War II the emphasis began to shift
toward an effort to explore the role culture
plays in shaping human biology.
The shift towards understanding the role of
culture to human biology led to the development
of Dual inheritance theory in the 1960s.
In relation to, and following the development
of Dual-inheritance theory, biocultural evolution
was introduced and first used in the 1970s.
== Key research ==
Biocultural approaches to human biology have
been utilized since at least 1958 when American
Biological Anthropologist Frank B. Livingstone
contributed early research explaining the
linkages among population growth, subsistence
strategy, and the distribution of the sickle
cell gene in Liberia.
Human adaptability research in the 1960s focused
on two biocultural approaches to fatigue:
functional differentiation of skeletal muscles
associated with various movements, and human
adaptability to modern living involving different
work types.
"What's Cultural about Biocultural Research,"
Written by William W. Dressler, connects the
cultural perspective of biocultural anthropology
to "cultural consonance" which is defined
as "a model to assess the approximation of
an individuals behavior compared to the guiding
awareness of his or her culture.
This research has been used to examine outcomes
in blood pressure, depressive symptoms, body
composition, and dietary habits.
Dr. Romendro Khongsdier's approach to the
study of human variation and evolution.
"Building a New Biocultural Synthesis" by
Alan H. Goodman and Thomas L. Leatherman.
== Contemporary biocultural anthropology ==
Biocultural methods focus on the interactions
between humans and their environment to understand
human biological adaptation and variation.
Contemporary biocultural anthropologists view
culture as having several key roles in human
biological variation:
Culture is a major human adaptation, permitting
individuals and populations to adapt to widely
varying local ecologies.
Characteristic human biological or biobehavioral
features, such as a large frontal cortex and
intensive parenting compared to other primates,
are viewed in part as an adaptation to the
complex social relations created by culture.
Culture shapes the political economy, thereby
influencing what resources are available to
individuals to feed and shelter themselves,
protect themselves from disease, and otherwise
maintain their health.
Culture shapes the way people think about
the world, altering their biology by influencing
their behavior (e.g., food choice) or more
directly through psychosomatic effects (e.g.,
the biological effects of psychological stress).While
biocultural anthropologists are found in many
academic anthropology departments, usually
as a minority of the faculty, certain departments
have placed considerable emphasis on the "biocultural
synthesis".
Historically, this has included Emory University,
the University of Alabama, UMass Amherst (especially
in biocultural bioarchaeology) [6] [7], and
the University of Washington [8], each of
which built Ph.D. programs around biocultural
anthropology; Binghamton University, which
has a M.S. program in biomedical anthropology;
Oregon State University, University of Kentucky
and others.
Paul Baker, an anthropologist at Penn State
whose work focused upon human adaptation to
environmental variations, is credited with
having popularized the concept of "biocultural"
anthropology as a distinct subcategory of
anthropology in general.
Khongsdier argues that biocultural anthropology
is the future of anthropology because it serves
as a guiding force towards greater integration
of the subdisciplines.
== Controversy ==
Other anthropologists, both biological and
cultural, have criticized the biocultural
synthesis, generally as part of a broader
critique of "four-field holism" in U.S. anthropology
(see anthropology main article).
Typically such criticisms rest on the belief
that biocultural anthropology imposes holism
upon the biological and cultural subfields
without adding value, or even destructively.
For instance, contributors in the edited volume
Unwrapping the Sacred Bundle: Reflections
on the Disciplining of Anthropology argued
that the biocultural synthesis, and anthropological
holism more generally, are artifacts from
19th century social evolutionary thought that
inappropriately impose scientific positivism
upon cultural anthropology.
Some departments of anthropology have fully
split, usually dividing scientific from humanistic
anthropologists, such as Stanford's highly
publicized 1998 division into departments
of "Cultural and Social Anthropology" and
"Anthropological Sciences".
Underscoring the continuing controversy, this
split is now being reversed over the objections
of some faculty.
Other departments, such as at Harvard, have
distinct biological and sociocultural anthropology
"wings" not designed to foster cross subdisciplinary
interchange.
Biocultural approaches were derived from biology
and science yet social theorists are feeling
encroached upon.
The Biocultural approach has also not been
a central concern to anthropologists which
is a contributor to the splitting of the approach
into sociocultural anthropology and biosocial
anthropology.
Biocultural research has shown to contain
a few challenges to the researcher.
"In general we are much more experienced in
measuring the biological than the cultural.
It is also difficult to precisely define what
is meant by constructs such as socioeconomic
status, poverty, rural, and urban.
Operationalizing key variables so that they
can be measured in ways that are enthnographically
valid as well as replicable.
Defining and measuring multiple causal pathways."
== 
See also ==
Biocultural evolution
Cultural neuroscience
Evolutionary anthropology
Sociobiology
