What is anthropology?
study of humankind; viewed from the perspective of all people and all times
What is physical anthropology?
-study of human biological evolution and human biocultural variation
-exploration and study of everywhere humans and their ancestors lived
-seeking to understand evolution, what we were in the past, who we are today, and where we will go in the future.
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What two concepts underlie the definition of physical anthropology?
1. every person is a product of evolutionary history
2. each of us is the product of his or her own individual history
genome
the genetic makeup within a person (chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA) that represents all the inheritable traits
Four branches of anthropology?
cultural, archaeology, linguistic, physical (biological)
sociolinguistics
the science of investigating language's social contexts
language
set of written or spoken symbols that refer to things other than themselves
artifacts
material objects form past cultures
biocultural approach
the scientific study of the interrelationship between human biology/genetics and culture (learned behavior)
hominin
humans and humanlike ancestors
The hominins' finger and toe bones indicate what?
a lot of time spent in trees, holding on to branches, moving from limb to limb
-forced scientists to reject Darwin's hypothesis that the origin of human bipedalism was linked to the shift from life in the trees to life on the ground
Where did Darwin hypothesize the earliest hominins originated?
in grasslands; recent studies refute this idea
social learning
the capacity to learn form other humans, enabling the accumulation of knowledge across many generations
How do physical anthropologists know what they know?
they derive knowledge via the scientific method
-involves observations, the development of questions, and the answering of those questions
-scientists formulate and test hypotheses that they hope will lead to theories about the natural world
morphology
physical shape and appearance
bipedalism
walking on two feet
arboreal
tree-dwelling; adapted to living in the trees
nonhoning canine
upper canine that is not sharpened against the lower third premolar
anatomical
pertaining to an organisms physical structure
terrestrial
life-forms, including humans that live on water vs. living in water or in trees
What makes us human and different from other animals?
-physical appearance
-intelligence
-six unique physical and behavioral characteristics: 1.bipedalism
2. non honing chewing
3. complex material culture and tool use
4. hunting
5. speech
6. dependence on domesticated tools
scientific law
a statement of fact describing natural phenomena