ANTH 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Uniformitarianism, Francesco Redi, Georges Cuvier
1 Jun 2016
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Document Summary
Anthropology as a study attempts to build an understanding of what is means to be human. This understanding is developed by analysing humans from the past (archaeology), in the future (ethnography), and other species related to humans (primatology). A comprehensive understanding of the human species cannot be captured unless we look at humans through different lenses. Each lens (ex. linguistics, sociology, culture, biology) is its own subfield of anthropology. Biological anthropology is the focus of this course. Through the consideration of genetics, evolution, ecology, and primatology, biological anthropology tries to understand how humans came to be the way they are today. It recognizes that humans are products of evolutionary pressures which are exerted by the environment around them. These pressures defined the evolutionary pathway taken by humans. Biological anthropology explains how humans have the capacity for culture, language, art, tools, etc.
