Anthropology 2226A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Australopithecus, Sherwood Washburn, Earnest Hooton

• School: Western University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: Anthropology 2226A/B
• Professor: Ian Colquhoun

Document Summary

The study of humans as group members : not only humans but also nonhuman primates. Anthropology is a field of mediation , connecting things that may seem dissimilar, or opposite, to each other: individual - group, exotic - mundane, human - animal, arts/humanities - social science science. Anthropology is an holistic field of study with diverse methodologies and a bio-cultural outlook. Biological (or, physical) anthropology focusses on the biological history, evolutionary relationships, and adaptive diversity of homo sapiens and other primate species (both extant and extinct) Anthropologists of all kinds will get themselves involved in applied anthropology but there are no known courses in this field. Marks notes (p. 5) that science is commonly wrong : what he doesn"t say is that science represents a self-correcting system of knowledge. That is, even when mistaken interpretations are made, subsequent research will uncover such mistakes and clarify, amend, or correct the situation.