Biological Anthropology : A Synthetic Approach to Human Evolution

This new edition of Biological Anthropology is evolutionary in perspective in the belief that evolution is the only unifying theory that can clearly explain the existing array of biological and cultural data. The basics of anthropological theory and human genetics are introduced before the topics of vertebrate evolution, primate evolution and social behavior, human evolution and behavior, and human variation and adaptation. In each section, behavior, morphology, adaptation, and ecology are discussed to provide the comparative basis for human origins. Includes expanded sections on genetics, with a new chapter on classic genetics (Ch. 2), and a new chapter on Darwinian evolution (Ch. 3); a new chapter on the living primates, their distribution and anatomical adaptations (Ch. 7); an expanded section on Homo, including a new chapter on Homo sapiens sapiens; and a new chapter on hominoid and human behavior (Ch. 13), which combines the evolution of hominoid behavior and the evolution of human social behavior.

Noel T. Boaz is founder of the International Institute for Human Evolutionary Research in Oregon and Professor of Anatomy at Ross University School of Medicine. Dr. Boaz received his Ph.D. in biological anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley in 1977 and is currently working on his M.D. degree. A paleoanthropologist with many years of field experience in Africa, his most recent research has been on Chinese Homo erectus. Other research interests include earliest hominid origins, paleoecology, evolutionary medicine, and forensic anthropology. In 1999, Dr. Boaz was scientific planning director in Bosnia for Physicians for Human Rights. His most recent publications include Eco Homo (1997), an ecological history of the human species, and Evolving Health (2002), an application of human evolutionary biology to preventive medicine.

Alan J. Almquist is Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Hayward. Dr. Almquist received his Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1974 at the University of California, Berkeley. A dedicated teacher, he has also headed the Clarence Smith Museum of Anthropology at Hayward and has undertaken fieldwork at early hominid sites in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Current research interests include the evolution of human sexual behavior and paleoanthropology. Publications include Milestones in Human Evolution (1993) edited with Ann Manyak; a reader, Human Sexuality (1995) with Andrei Simic and Patricia Omidian; and Contemporary Readings in Physical Anthropology (2000), a collection of articles from the New York Times, edited by Dr. Almquist and published by Prentice Hall.