Chapter 1: What is Physical Anthropology?

I. What is Anthropology?
a. The study of human evolution and human variation
b. 2 Key concepts:
i. each person is a product of evolutionary history
• includes all biological changes that have brought humans to present forms
ii. each person is a product of an individual life history
• combination of genetics and environment (including social and cultural)
II. Six Steps to Humanness
a. 7 mya: bi-pedalism (6.8 mya: Humanoids)
b. 5 mya: Non honing chewing
i. loss of a large canine as the other apes have
c. 2.5 mya: complex material culture and tool use
i. people depend completely on culture for day to day living and species survival
d. 1 mya: Hunting
i. group pursuit of animals for food
e. 2.5 mya: Speech
i. The only animal that communicates by talking
f. 11 mya: Dependence of domesticated foods
i. Development of ability to raise domesticated plants and animals
III. The Nature of Science
a. We seek predictable explanations for phenomena
b. Steps of Scientific Investigation:
i. Empirical Observation
ii. Identification of Variables
iii. Hypothesis Formulation
iv. Hypothesis Testing
v. Development of Generalizations
IV. What is a Theory?
a. A Statement based on confirmed Hypothesis
b. The general theory of evolution has been validated not only through fossils, but through
comparative anatomy, comparative growth and development studies, molecular biology, and
cytogenetics

Key Terms:
• Anthropology • Applied Anthropology
• Cultural Anthropology • Paleoanthropology
• Archeology • Primates
• Linguistics • Primatology
• Applied Anthropology • Genetics
• Physical/Biological Anthropology • Forensics Anthropology
• Culture • Theory
• Data • Science
• Artifacts • Empirical
• Sociolinguistics • Hypothesis
• Ethnography
 Chapter 2: The Development of the Evolutionary Theory
-Views on the Essence of Humans, Nature, and Time-
I. Anthropocentricity: Everything Depends on man/ Humans are the center of creation/universe
a. most influential and far reaching of the early views was the idea of Human superiority
b. Immutable: staying the same (original, no evolution)
c. in 1636, Archbishop James Ussher of Ireland said the Earth was created in 4004 BCE (from
generations of the Bible (only~6,000 years old)
II. Questioning Old Ideas
a. 16th century: Nicolas Copernicus showed that Earth is not the center of the universe
b. Creationist Carolus Linnaeus created a taxonomic classification of life. It's importance rests in
the following:
i. It imposed order upon nature's infinite variation ( according to anatomical similarites)
ii. It provided a means of “seeing” possible changes and ancestral relationships
iii. It included humans as one of the categories
c. The Age of Exploration: Technological and Political developments brought upon social changes;
what about immutability?
III. Early Evolutionary Ideas
a. Buffon (1707 – 1788) addressed the struggle for survival and the variation within species, and
the influence of the environment on change within species
b. Erasmus Darwin (1731 – 1802) presented the idea that all of life evolved from a single origin
c. Lamark (1744 – 1829) articulated a systematic theory of organic diversity: the idea of acquired
characteristics
i. their only correct idea: changes occur across generations because of environmental changes
d. Cuvier (1769 – 1832) developed the idea of catastrophism (layer = stratum)
i. each stratum represented a catastrophe that killed most life forms
e. Lyell (1797 – 1875) in Principles of Geology, advanced the theory of uniformitarianism
i. Natural forces at work today have been at work for a long time
f. Malthus, Darwin (1809 – 1882) noted that populations grow more rapidly than resources. More
individuals are born than life and reproduce
IV. Darwinian Natural Selection
a. a Particular population within a species
b. Biological Variation (traits which are inherited)
c. Environmental context (tall trees)/Selective Agents (leaves w/ giraffes)/Selective Pressure
d. Differential fertility/different rates of reproductive success/fitness
Key Terms:
• Species/ Reproductive Isolation • Natural Selection
• EvolutionaryAdaptation • Fixity of Species
• Adaptive Radiation • Reproductively Isolated
• Environmental • Binomial nomenclature
• Habitat • Taxonomy
• Fossils • Catastrophism
• Microevolution • Uniformitarianism
• Macroevoution • Reproductive success
• Biocultural Evolution • Selective Pressures
• Genetics • Fitness
 Chapter 3
• Discrete Traits means either one or the other, no gray area
I. Pea Plant Discrete Traits: Flower Position (Axial/Terminal), Flower Color (White/Purple), Plant
Height (Short/Tall), Pea Shape (Round/Wrinkled), Pea Color (Yellow/Green), Pod Shape
(Inflated/Constricted), Pod Color (Yellow/Green)
i. For each trait there are two hereditary factors that don't mix
ii. Hereditary Factors: Genes, 2genes, Alleles
II. The Mechanisms of Hereditary
a. Mendel crosses true-breeding plants to create Hybrids. The flowers were all violet.
b. He self-pollinated the hybrids & approximately ¼ had white flowers,
c. Dominant & Recessive traits: the observable trait is dominant while the present & not
observable is recessive.
III. Mendelian Inheritance
a. For each trait, an individual has 2 hereditary factors, 1 from each parent. These traits do not
blend; they are discrete.
IV. Principle of Segregation
a. As sex cells develop, the traits separate. They form sex cells that contain one or the other trait
b. At fertilization, sex cells from each parent combine, forming new arrangements of the
hereditary units.
V. Principle of Independence
a. The consideration of the simultaneous inheritance of more than one trait the inheritance patterns
of different traits are independent of each other
VI. Mendelian Inheritance in Humans
a. Mendel's hereditary units are called genes
b. Alleles are alternate forms of genes
c. In reference to alleles, an individual could be homozygous dominant, homozygous recessive, or
heterozygous. Some human characteristics are inherited in a simple Mendelian patterns (traits
determined by one gene only)
VII. Cytogenetics
a. Cytogenetics – it is the study of the mechanism of heredity within the cell.
b. Two types of organisms:
i. prokaryote: one cell
ii. eukaryote: many cells
c. Two types of cells:
i. somatic (body) cells
ii. Gamete (reproductive) cells
d. The genetic material is found in the nucleus of the cell (eukaryotic)
e. Later became apparent that genetic material was the nucleus of the cell
f. Homologous Chromosomes – same size
g. Autosome – first 22 pairs (homologous); 23rd pair: sex chromosome
i. Men: 1 pair of homologous chromosome
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