Introduction to Biological Anthropology

Catalog description

This course covers topics on human evolution and modern human diversity, focusing on humanity’s biological roots and modern appearance. To understand the present human physical and social condition, we must understand our evolutionary past. This course reconstructs this past utilizing data from the primate fossil record as well as comparative evidence from modern monkeys and apes. This is a science course based on evolutionary biology. At the end of the course, students will better understand where humans fit into the animal kingdom, as well as how those characteristics that make humans unique may have evolved. The course addresses: the place of humans within the mammalian evolutionary lineage; evolutionary theory; human population genetics; behavior of monkey and apes; and human evolution and modern human diversity.