ANTH100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Human Genetic Variation, Genetic Drift, Gene Flow

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTH100
• Professor: Maria Liston

Document Summary

Provide examples of how physical characteristics in human populations may represent adaptations arising from natural selection. Discuss how environmental factors may be sources of evolutionary change. Discuss how cultural factors may be sources of evolutionary change. Explain the challenges faced in dividing human populations into different races and why modern anthropologists avoid these classifications. Discuss how contemporary anthropologists assess the relationship between intelligence and race. Genetics and evolution: evolutionary processes affecting genetic diversity within and between populations. Environment: the variation among individuals and population that springs from their unique life experiences ad interactions with the environment. Culture: variation stemming from disparate cultural beliefs and practices inculcated during an individuals formative years and reinforced throughout life. Each may play a role in long-term evolutionary change in a species and a change in external, observable characteristics. The four principal processes of evolution that influence the genetic makeup of a population are: