Anthropology 1026F/G Chapter 1: Chapter 1 Summary and Defs Understanding Humans

• School: Western University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: Anthropology 1026F/G
• Professor: Andrew Nelson

Document Summary

Physical anthropology studies aspects of human biology emphasizing evolutionary perspectives, nonhuman primates, and the hominin fossil record. Physical anthropologists are interested in how hominins came to possess culture and how this process influenced the direction of human evolution. Physical anthropologists especially regarding the study of early hominins work closely with many specialists from archaeology, geology, chemistry, and other disciplines that form the interdisciplinary field of paleoanthropology. Archaeology provides time depth for our understanding of humans as biocultural organisms. As with paleoanthropology of which prehistoric archaeology is a key component archaeological research involves input from many related disciplines. This collaborative examination of the archaeological record yields nearly all we know if not all we are likely to ever know about prehistoric human behaviour and activities. Evolution: a change in the genetic structure of a population from one generation to the next, the term is also frequently used to refer to the appearance of a new species.