History and Philosophy of Biological Anthropology

Catalog description

This course provides an introduction to the history of biological anthropology from its origins to today. It begins with the foundation of anthropology as a field before focusing in on the emergence of physical/biological anthropology in the 19th century and subsequent incorporation of evolutionary theory and genetics. This includes the history of the study of human variation, comparative morphology, skeletal biology, primate evolution, paleoanthropology, molecular anthropology and the development of field primatology. The shifting intellectual paradigms of the discipline will be discussed, including how biological anthropology integrated ideas and techniques from geology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, psychology, and zoology, to become a multidisciplinary field of diverse intellectual and methodological approaches. Students will come away from the course with a deep understanding of the history of biological anthropology.