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Biological Anthropology

Sections

• Faculty
• General Description
• Courses
• Recent Student Theses

Faculty

• Robert Anemone (269-387-4133)
• Jacqueline Eng (269-387-3981)

Faculty Research Interests

• bioarchaeology, paleopathology, skeletal biology, nutrition and trauma (Dr. Eng)
• interregional interaction, imperialism, frontiers (Dr. Eng)
• functional morphology, primate locomotion and anatomy (Dr. Anemone)
• vertebrate paleontology, Eocene primates and mammals of the Western US (Dr. Anemone)
• growth and development and primate life history (Dr. Anemone)

 

General Description

Biological Anthropology is concerned with the place of humans and our nearest relatives, the Primates, within the biological world.  As such, Biological Anthropology includes a variety of different approaches and sub-specialties to the study of human biology, including (but not limited to) paleoanthropology, skeletal biology, human variation and adaptation, anthropological genetics, primatology, and comparative primate anatomy.  The central paradigm of all Biological Anthropology is the notion that our species (Homo sapiens) is the result of the evolutionary process, that we have evolved like all other living things, and that our biology provides a necessary base of knowledge from which to interpret our behavior and place in the world.  Most biological anthropologists today take a Biocultural approach in their work, in which they recognize the importance of both human biology and the varieties of human culture in making us who we are. Our departmental strengths in Biological Anthropology include the areas of human and primate evolution, growth and development, comparative anatomy, skeletal biology and bioarchaeology.

Biological anthropologists are the primary researchers interested in reconstructing the evolutionary past of humans and of the entire Primate Order.  Paleoanthropologists recover fossils in the field and attempt to reconstruct their behavior and evolutionary relationships based on the anatomy of the fossils.

Biological anthropologists are also the primary behavioral researchers working with the living Primates.  Primatologists work all over the world where natural populations of primates are found, as well as in zoos and primate centers, where the behavior of these animals can be studied in captivity.  They attempt to understand patterns of social behavior.

Skeletal biologists and bioarchaeologists excavate and analyze human remains from archaeological sites dating to both historic and prehistoric periods of human existence.  Diet and nutrition, disease and health, sex and age at death, and many other aspects of human biology can be recovered as a result of bioarchaeological analysis of human skeletal remains.

 

Courses

Undergraduate Courses

• Race, Biology, and Culture (ANTH 1500)
• Introduction to Biological Anthropology (ANTH 2500)
• Primate Evolution (ANTH 3500)
• Human Osteology (ANTH 3510)
• Faunal Analysis (ANTH 3520)
• Bioarchaeology (ANTH 3530)
• Growth and Development (ANTH 3540)
• Primate Behavior and Ecology (ANTH 4500)

Graduate Courses

• Human Biology (ANTH 5100)
• Research Methods (ANTH 5300)
• Human Evolution (ANTH 5500)
• Evolution of Human Culture (ANTH 5510)
• Forensic Anthropology (ANTH 5520)
• Topics in Biological Anthropology (ANTH 5450)
• Seminar in Biological Anthropology (ANTH 6030)

 

Recent Student Theses (1990 - 2003)

Undergradute Honor's Theses

• Skeletal lesions in tuberculosis: an update and reappraisal
• Functional aspects of the Neanderthal pelvis in locomotion
• Stature estimation from footprints

Graduate Theses

• Children's tool making capabilities: implications for hominid intelligence models and skill acquisition theory
• Childhood health and nutrition: an exploration of enamel hypoplasia studies using the Milwaukee County Institutional Grounds cemetery
• Interpreting diet by age, status, and gender, and establishing weaning patterns using trace element analysis on human remains from Umm el Jimal, Jordan
• Age, status, and gender: mortality patterns and mortuary practices at Umm el-Jimal, Jordan
• Evidence for the endoparasite Giardia lamblia in human paleofeces from Salts Cave, Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky
• A study of the correlation between alcoholism and fingerprint patterns
• Dermatoglyphics and criminal behavior
• A histological approach to taphonomy: The freeze-thaw cycle and water immersion
• Reconsidering the auricular surface as an indicator of age at death
• The accuracy of US age estimation standards when used to age US and Bosnian skeletal samples.