A Companion to Biological Anthropology

by Clark Spencer Larsen (Editor)

Overview

A Companion to Biological Anthropology

The discipline of biological anthropology—the study of the variation and evolution of human beings and their evolutionary relationships with past and living hominin and primate relatives—has undergone enormous growth in recent years. Advances in DNA research, behavioral anthropology, nutrition science, and other fields are transforming our understanding of what makes us human.

A Companion to Biological Anthropology provides a timely and comprehensive account of the foundational concepts, historical development, current trends, and future directions of the discipline. Authoritative yet accessible, this field-defining reference work brings together 37 chapters by established and younger scholars on the biological and evolutionary components of the study of human development. The authors discuss all facets of contemporary biological anthropology including systematics and taxonomy, population and molecular genetics, human biology and functional adaptation, early primate evolution, paleoanthropology, paleopathology, bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, and paleogenetics.

Updated and expanded throughout, this second edition explores new topics, revisits key issues, and examines recent innovations and discoveries in biological anthropology such as race and human variation, epidemiology and catastrophic disease outbreaks, global inequalities, migration and health, resource access and population growth, recent primate behavior research, the fossil record of primates and humans, and much more.

A Companion to Biological Anthropology, Second Edition is an indispensable guide for researchers and advanced students in biological anthropology, geosciences, ancient and modern disease, bone biology, biogeochemistry, behavioral ecology, forensic anthropology, systematics and taxonomy, nutritional anthropology, and related disciplines.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781119828044
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	03/06/2023
Series:	Wiley Blackwell Companions to Anthropology
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	672
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 1.72(d)

About the Author

CLARK SPENCER LARSEN is Distinguished University Professor at Ohio State University, USA. He is the founding editor of the book series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past and has served as president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Over the course of his career, he has authored and edited more than 35 books and monographs, including Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behavior from the Human Skeleton, Second Edition (2015) and Our Origins: Discovering Biological Anthropology, Fifth Edition (2020), and was the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

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Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors x

Acknowledgments xx

Foreword xxii

1 The Breadth and Vision of Biological Anthropology 1
Clark Spencer Larsen

Part I: History 13

2 Foundation and History of Biological Anthropology 15
Michael A. Little and Jane E. Buikstra

Part II: The Present and the Living 39

3 Evolution: What It Means and How We Know 41
Kenneth M. Weiss and Anne V. Buchanan

4 Systematics, Taxonomy, and Phylogenetics: Ordering Life, Past and Present 55
Alexis Uluutku and Bernard Wood

5 Diversity, Ancestry, and Evolution: The Genetics of Human Populations 73
John H. Relethford

6 Human Population Genomics: Diversity and Adaptation 87
Dennis H. O’Rourke

7 Race, Racism, and Racial Thinking: Implications for Biological Anthropology 103
Rachel Caspari

8 Human Life History Evolution: Growth, Development, and Senescence 122
Douglas E. Crews and Barry Bogin

9 Climate-Related Human Biological Variation 140
Cynthia M. Beall

10 Infectious Disease and Epidemiology: Dealing with the Present and Preparing for Future New Epidemics 167
Lisa Sattenspiel and Carolyn Orbann

11 Evolutionary Insights into the Social and Environmental Drivers of Health Inequality: The Example of theGlobal Epidemic of Overweight and Cardiovascular Diseases 184
Christopher W. Kuzawa and Melissa B. Manus

12 Ancient DNA and Disease 199
Anne Stone

13 Paleogenomics: Ancient DNA in Biological Anthropology 210
C. Eduardo Guerra Amorim

14 Demography, Including Paleodemography 223
Lyle W. Konigsberg George R. Milner, and Jesper L. Boldsen

15 Nutritional Anthropology: Contemporary Themes in Food, Diet, and Nutrition 244
Darna L. Dufour and Barbara A. Piperata

16 Ongoing Evolution: Are We Still Evolving? 262
Fabian Crespo

17 Primates Defined 277
W. Scott McGraw

18 Primate Behavior, Social Flexibility, and Conservation 300
Karen B. Strier

19 Behavioral Ecology: Background and Illustrative Example 314
James F. O’Connell and Kristen Hawkes

20 Brain, Cognition, and Behavior in Humans and Other Primates 329
Elaine N. Miller and Chet C. Sherwood

Part III: The Past and the Dead 345

21 Taphonomy and Biological Anthropology 347
Luis L. Cabo, Dennis C. Dirkmaat, and Andrea M. Zurek-Ost

22 Primate Origins: The Earliest Primates and Euprimates and Their Role in the Evolution of the Order 365
Mary T. Silcox and Sergi López-Torres

23 Catarrhine Origins and Evolution 381
David R. Begun

24 The Human Journey Begins: Origins and Diversity in Early Hominins 400
Scott W. Simpson

25 Early Homo: Systematics, Paleobiology, and the First Out-of-Africa Dispersals 421
G. Philip Rightmire

26 Panmixis in Middle and Late Pleistocene Human Subspecies: The Genetic/Genomic Revolution inPaleoanthropology 440
Fred H. Smith and Whitney M. Karriger

27 Bioarchaeology: Transformations in Lifestyle, Morbidity, and Mortality 458
George R. Milner and Clark Spencer Larsen

28 Paleopathology: A Twenty-first Century Perspective 474
Jane E. Buikstra

29 Forensic Anthropology: Current Issues 494
Douglas H. Ubelaker

30 Diet reconstruction and Ecology 510
Margaret J. Schoeninger and Laurie J. Reitsema

31 Current Concepts in Bone Biology 527
Mary E. Cole, James H. Gosman, and Samuel D. Stout

32 Deducing Attributes of Dental Growth and Development from Fossil Hominin Teeth 544
Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg

33 Skull: Function – New Directions 559
Qian Wang and Rachel A. Menegaz

34 Dental Microwear Analysis: Wear We Are Going, Wear We Have Been 572
Christopher W. Schmidt and Peter S. Ungar

35 Primate Locomotion: A Comparative and Developmental Perspective 587
Michael C. Granatosky and Jesse W. Young

36 Teaching Biological Anthropology: Pedagogy of Human Evolution and Human Variation 603
Briana Pobiner

Index 622

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Even with so many topics of biological anthropology discussed, due care is given in each section by the authors to include enough information to give an adequate foundation and then expand upon it in subsequent sections. I would highly recommend this book – there is something in it for everyone. I was pleased to come away from it having learnt something myself.” (Primate Eye, 1 February 2012)

"For those of us who teach introduction to physical (or biological) anthropology on a regular basis, the book provides an efficient avenue to catch up on diverse topics in the field." (American Journal of Human Biology, 2011)

"Recommended. Upper-divisions undergraduates and above." (Choice , 1 April 2011)

Editorial Reviews

Even with so many topics of biological anthropology discussed, due care is given in each section by the authors to include enough information to give an adequate foundation and then expand upon it in subsequent sections. I would highly recommend this book – there is something in it for everyone. I was pleased to come away from it having learnt something myself.”  (Primate Eye, 1 February 2012)

"For those of us who teach introduction to physical (or biological) anthropology on a regular basis, the book provides an efficient avenue to catch up on diverse topics in the field." (American Journal of Human Biology, 2011)

"Recommended. Upper-divisions undergraduates and above." (Choice , 1 April 2011)

From the Publisher