Evolutionary anthropology

Summary

Evolutionary anthropology, the interdisciplinary study of the evolution of human physiology and human behaviour[1] and of the relation between hominids and non-hominid primates, builds on natural science and on social science. Various fields and disciplines of evolutionary anthropology include:

Evolutionary anthropology studies both the biological and the cultural evolution of humans, past and present. Based on a scientific approach, it brings together fields such as archaeology, behavioral ecology, psychology, primatology, and genetics. As a dynamic and interdisciplinary field, it draws on many lines of evidence to understand the human experience, past and present.

Studies of human biological evolution generally focus on the evolution of the human form. Cultural evolution involves the study of cultural change over time and space and frequently incorporates cultural-transmission models. Cultural evolution is not the same as biological evolution: human culture involves the transmission of cultural information (compare memetics), and such transmission can behave in ways quite distinct from human biology and genetics. The study of cultural change increasingly takes place through cladistics and genetic models.

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References edit

  1. ^ Gibson, Mhairi A.; Lawson, David W. (2015). "Applying evolutionary anthropology". Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews. 24 (1): 3–14. doi:10.1002/evan.21432. ISSN 1520-6505. PMC 4480655. PMID 25684561.