HUMAN ADAPTATION AND VARIATION

Catalog description

(Cross-listed as BIOL 2200.) Is culture an evolutionary adaptation? This course provides an introduction to variation and adaptation within modern human populations. The contributions of culture and biology to variation among human populations will be compared and contrasted. Particular attention will be paid to the role of evolution in shaping populations. Concepts of race/ethnicity and sex/gender will be discussed from anthropological, biological and historical perspectives. The effect of stressors and cultural mitigation of stressors will be discussed. Seemingly harmful variations, such as genetic disease, will be examined from adaptational and cultural perspectives. The genetic, fossil, and linguistic evidence for long-term. migration patterns of humans will be examined to better understand the distribution of human traits today.