A fully revised and forward-looking new edition of the bestselling companion text to the field of biological anthropology
Few scientific fields are developing as rapidly as biological anthropology, the study of humans as an organism, our anatomy and behavior, and our evolutionary relationships with our hominin and primate relatives. Advances in genetic and ancient and modern DNA research, behavioral anthropology, nutrition science, and more have contributed to enormous growth in a subject area that is reshaping our understanding of what makes us human.
This fully revised second edition of A Companion to Biological Anthropology offers a comprehensive overview of the modern field of biological anthropology, exploring current issues, controversies, and future directions within the field. Authoritative yet accessible, the companion comprises 36 fully up-to-date articles by worldwide leading authorities in biological anthropology, including revised versions of all but one of the articles from the first edition, as well as six brand-new articles, and many new contributing authors
Building on the success of the first edition, the volume provides a foundational reference work for scholars and students alike. Readers of A Companion to Biological Anthropology, Second Edition will also find:
- New chapters on the leading topics in the exploration of the biological and evolutionary elements of the study of human development
- A text edited by a leading scholar in the field with contributions from both established scholars and newly rising stars in the field
- Articles on new and emerging subfields such as epidemiology and novel infectious disease, global inequalities, genomics, race and human variation, global population growth, the fossil record of primates and humans, and more
A Companion to Biological Anthropology is an essential guide for researchers and advanced students in biological anthropology, as well as students and researchers in related fields such as geosciences, ancient and modern disease, bone biology, biogeochemistry, behavioral ecology, forensic anthropology, systematics and taxonomy, nutritional anthropology, paleogenetics, and much more.
Notes on Contributors x
Acknowledgments xx
Foreword xxii
1 The Breadth and Vision of Biological Anthropology 1
Clark Spencer Larsen
Part I: History 13
2 Foundation and History of Biological Anthropology 15
Michael A. Little and Jane E. Buikstra
Part II: The Present and the Living 39
3 Evolution: What It Means and How We Know 41
Kenneth M. Weiss and Anne V. Buchanan
4 Systematics, Taxonomy, and Phylogenetics: Ordering Life, Past and Present
55
Alexis Uluutku and Bernard Wood
5 Diversity, Ancestry, and Evolution: The Genetics of Human Populations 73
John H. Relethford
6 Human Population Genomics: Diversity and Adaptation 87
Dennis H. ORourke
7 Race, Racism, and Racial Thinking: Implications for Biological
Anthropology 103
Rachel Caspari
8 Human Life History Evolution: Growth, Development, and Senescence 122
Douglas E. Crews and Barry Bogin
9 Climate-Related Human Biological Variation 140
Cynthia M. Beall
10 Infectious Disease and Epidemiology: Dealing with the Present and
Preparing for Future New Epidemics 167
Lisa Sattenspiel and Carolyn Orbann
11 Evolutionary Insights into the Social and Environmental Drivers of Health
Inequality: The Example of theGlobal Epidemic of Overweight and
Cardiovascular Diseases 184
Christopher W. Kuzawa and Melissa B. Manus
12 Ancient DNA and Disease 199
Anne Stone
13 Paleogenomics: Ancient DNA in Biological Anthropology 210
C. Eduardo Guerra Amorim
14 Demography, Including Paleodemography 223
Lyle W. Konigsberg George R. Milner, and Jesper L. Boldsen
15 Nutritional Anthropology: Contemporary Themes in Food, Diet, and
Nutrition 244
Darna L. Dufour and Barbara A. Piperata
16 Ongoing Evolution: Are We Still Evolving? 262
Fabian Crespo
17 Primates Defined 277
W. Scott McGraw
18 Primate Behavior, Social Flexibility, and Conservation 300
Karen B. Strier
19 Behavioral Ecology: Background and Illustrative Example 314
James F. OConnell and Kristen Hawkes
20 Brain, Cognition, and Behavior in Humans and Other Primates 329
Elaine N. Miller and Chet C. Sherwood
Part III: The Past and the Dead 345
21 Taphonomy and Biological Anthropology 347
Luis L. Cabo, Dennis C. Dirkmaat, and Andrea M. Zurek-Ost
22 Primate Origins: The Earliest Primates and Euprimates and Their Role in
the Evolution of the Order 365
Mary T. Silcox and Sergi López-Torres
23 Catarrhine Origins and Evolution 381
David R. Begun
24 The Human Journey Begins: Origins and Diversity in Early Hominins 400
Scott W. Simpson
25 Early Homo: Systematics, Paleobiology, and the First Out-of-Africa
Dispersals 421
G. Philip Rightmire
26 Panmixis in Middle and Late Pleistocene Human Subspecies: The
Genetic/Genomic Revolution inPaleoanthropology 440
Fred H. Smith and Whitney M. Karriger
27 Bioarchaeology: Transformations in Lifestyle, Morbidity, and Mortality
458
George R. Milner and Clark Spencer Larsen
28 Paleopathology: A Twenty-first Century Perspective 474
Jane E. Buikstra
29 Forensic Anthropology: Current Issues 494
Douglas H. Ubelaker
30 Diet reconstruction and Ecology 510
Margaret J. Schoeninger and Laurie J. Reitsema
31 Current Concepts in Bone Biology 527
Mary E. Cole, James H. Gosman, and Samuel D. Stout
32 Deducing Attributes of Dental Growth and Development from Fossil Hominin
Teeth 544
Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg
33 Skull: Function New Directions 559
Qian Wang and Rachel A. Menegaz
34 Dental Microwear Analysis: Wear We Are Going, Wear We Have Been 572
Christopher W. Schmidt and Peter S. Ungar
35 Primate Locomotion: A Comparative and Developmental Perspective 587
Michael C. Granatosky and Jesse W. Young
36 Teaching Biological Anthropology: Pedagogy of Human Evolution and Human
Variation 603
Briana Pobiner
Index 622
CLARK SPENCER LARSEN is Distinguished University Professor at Ohio State University, USA. He is the founding editor of the book series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past and has served as president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Over the course of his career, he has authored and edited more than 35 books and monographs, including Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behavior from the Human Skeleton, Second Edition (2015) and Our Origins: Discovering Biological Anthropology, Fifth Edition (2020), and was the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
