Paleoanthropology And Physical Anthropology

Biological Anthropology, or Physical anthropology is one of the major fields in the discipline of anthropology, along side linguistic anthropology, sociocultural anthropology, and the archaeological sciences. As the name suggests, BioAnthropology is focused on the biological aspect of the human experience. By examining the differences in morphology, and biochemical, genetic, and/or ecological conditions amongst groups or populations of peoples, Physical anthropologists seek to uncover information regarding how the biological aspects correlate to the development of the human animal, and how these features fit into the greater picture of general anthropology.

Modern biological anthropology works based upon two main assumptions; firstly, that

Paleoanthropology is a discipline that examines the fossil record in order to gain insight into the development of H. Sapiens through the fossils of hominids and apes. A Paleoanthropologist primarily analysese the morphology of a specimen's body form and dental morphology. Paleoanthropology largely developed as a subspecialization of Paleontology and was eventually incorporated as an anthropological discipline itself. Primatology is the study of non-human primates. A primatologist examines the social behavior and morphology of primates in goals of finding analogous information to better understand human and prehuman developments and actions. Bioarcheology or Biological-archeology is the study of remains in an archeological context. Bioarcheology uses osteological methods to determine features such as age or sex and can be even be used to determine stress or sources of skeletal trauma of remains. Bioarcheology and bioarchaeological methods have had an immense impact on the development of Forensic anthropology and Medical Anthropology. As it deals with determination of the cause of death and identification of remains, it is no surprise that bioarcheology has majorly influenced the forensic anthropological field, however forensic anthropology has more focus on applying legality to the anthropological context than bioarcheology. Medical anthropology is a bit of an

In the early 1950’s BioAnthropologist Sherry Washburn published a paper entitled “The New Physical Anthropology” helping to redefine the field and maximize its scientific usefulness. The New Physical Anthropology urged the field to be focused less on categorization of human phenotypes into races, and more on the evolution of primates and ultimately human evolution. Washburn stated that Race is not a biological element of humankind, and that traits of a population do not indicate a type of person, we are all