Companion to Biological Anthropology
A Companion to Biological Anthropology
The discipline of biological anthropology—the study of the variation and evolution of human beings and their evolutionary relationships with past and living hominin and primate relatives—has undergone enormous growth in recent years. Advances in DNA research, behavioral anthropology, nutrition science, and other fields are transforming our understanding of what makes us human.
A Companion to Biological Anthropology provides a timely and comprehensive account of the foundational concepts, historical development, current trends, and future directions of the discipline. Authoritative yet accessible, this field-defining reference work brings together 37 chapters by established and younger scholars on the biological and evolutionary components of the study of human development. The authors discuss all facets of contemporary biological anthropology including systematics and taxonomy, population and molecular genetics, human biology and functional adaptation, early primate evolution, paleoanthropology, paleopathology, bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, and paleogenetics.
Updated and expanded throughout, this second edition explores new topics, revisits key issues, and examines recent innovations and discoveries in biological anthropology such as race and human variation, epidemiology and catastrophic disease outbreaks, global inequalities, migration and health, resource access and population growth, recent primate behavior research, the fossil record of primates and humans, and much more.
A Companion to Biological Anthropology, Second Edition is an indispensable guide for researchers and advanced students in biological anthropology, geosciences, ancient and modern disease, bone biology, biogeochemistry, behavioral ecology, forensic anthropology, systematics and taxonomy, nutritional anthropology, and related disciplines.
CLARK SPENCER LARSEN is Distinguished University Professor at Ohio State University, USA. He is the founding editor of the book series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past and has served as president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Over the course of his career, he has authored and edited more than 35 books and monographs, including Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behavior from the Human Skeleton, Second Edition (2015) and Our Origins: Discovering Biological Anthropology, Fifth Edition (2020), and was the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.