Biological Anthropology

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Recommended: The evolutionary theory

In Science, one of the most widely debated topics throughout modern history has been evolution. Our textbook defines evolution, in the field of biology, as the idea that species change over time and have common ancestry (Park, 2014). Species within a population, in order to better adapt to their environment, begin a slow and gradual process of genetic variation. These variations, which often times are advantageous, are able to be passed on to their offspring. Evolution is an ever-changing process that constantly alters the species in a given population. In this paper, I will define and discuss evolution, physical anthropology and how physical anthropologists investigate evolution, cultural anthropology and how this subfield studies evolution, …show more content…

Our textbook defines biological anthropology as, “the process where biological anthropologists focus on humans as a biological species and study such topics as human genetics, human evolution, fossil records, and the biology of living populations. Some even study nonhuman species such as our close relatives the monkeys and apes” (Park, 2014). This is the branch of anthropology that studies everything concerning human biology and their development. There are many different ways physical anthropologists can go about studying evolution. For example, they can take a look at fossil records of organisms and compare their findings to the environment where we currently live. By analyzing these fossils, anthropologists can decipher which species descend from other species and what genetic variations have occurred over generations. The world we reside in today, including the plants and animals that live within the system, is vastly different then the world of our ancestors. These changes help the physical anthropologist determine what is occurring over time to all living organisms and gives a glimpse into the study of evolution. Another method commonly used by physical anthropologists to study evolution is the filed of genetics. By studying genes and the DNA that is passed along by parents to their offspring they can decipher what traits are hereditary, what traits are mutating over time due to some change in the environment they live in, and which species are relatively unchanged over the years. Studying mutations allows the anthropologist to see changes in the DNA. Even a single mutation can have a large effect, but it is the many small mutations, over years, that really change our populations. The flow of genes from one population to another is a very important part of genetic variation. When species reproduce they also introduce a whole new combination of genes into a specific

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