Physical Anthropology: The Essentials, International Edition

Description

Concise, well-balanced, and comprehensive, PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: THE ESSENTIALS, 9E, International Edition introduces you to physical anthropology with the goal of helping you understand why it is important to know about human evolution. With a new framework that emphasizes 'connections', the reader is shown how humans are biologically connected to all other life, including our distant ancestors and our contemporary primate cousins, as well as how closely modern human populations are related to each other. Supported by new chapter-opening visual diagrams, a completely new art and map program, outstanding visual photographs and Photo Essays, as well as pedagogy such as "What's Important" boxes that put key chapter concepts into perspective for students, this text continues to help students master basic biological principles of physical anthropology and so be able to better understand human origins and our place in the biological world. Altogether, PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: THE ESSENTIALS, 9E, International Edition integrates coverage of the latest fossil finds with relevant technologies to be the most up-to-date text available.

Lynn Kilgore earned her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder, where she now holds an affiliate faculty position. Her primary research interests are osteology and paleopathology. She has taught numerous undergraduate and graduate courses in human osteology, primate behavior, human heredity and evolution, and general physical anthropology. Her research focuses on developmental defects as well as on disease and trauma in human and great ape skeletons. Robert Jurmain received an A.B. in Anthropology from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from Harvard. He taught at San Jose State University from 1975 to 2004 and is now Professor Emeritus. During his teaching career, he taught courses in all major branches of physical anthropology, including osteology and human evolution, with the greatest concentration in general education teaching for introductory students. His research interests are skeletal biology of humans and non-human primates, paleopathology, and paleoanthropology. In addition to his three textbooks, which together have appeared in 30 editions, he is the author of STORIES FROM THE SKELETON: BEHAVIORAL RECONSTRUCTION IN HUMAN OSTEOLOGY (1999, Gordon Breach Publishers), as well as numerous articles in research journals. Wenda Trevathan is Regents Professor (Emerita) of Anthropology at New Mexico State University, where she taught from 1983 to 2009. She is a biological anthropologist whose research focuses on the evolutionary and biocultural factors underlying human reproduction, including childbirth, maternal behavior, sexuality, and menopause. Her primary publications include works on the evolution of childbirth and evolutionary medicine. Her most recent book is ANCIENT BODIES, MODERN LIVES: HOW EVOLUTION HAS SHAPED WOMEN'S HEALTH (2010, Oxford University Press). She has taught courses in physical anthropology, nutritional anthropology, medical anthropology, evolutionary medicine, and anthropology of reproduction.

1. Introduction to Physical Anthropology. 2. The Development of Evolutionary Theory. 3. The Biological Basis of Life. 4. Heredity and Evolution. 5. Modern Human Biology: Patterns of Variation and Adaptation. 6. Macroevolution: Processes of Vertebrate and Mammalian Evolution. 7. Survey of the Living Primates. 8. Primate Behavior. 9. Primate and Hominin Origins. 10. The First Dispersal of the Genus Homo: Homo erectus and Contemporaries. 11. Premodern Humans. 12. The Origin and Dispersal of Modern Humans. 13. The Anthropological Perspective on the Human Life Course. 14. Legacies of Human Evolutionary History: Effects on the Individual.