Human Adaptation: The Biosocial Background
Underlying the anthropological study of humans is the principle that there is a reality to which a human must adapt for survival. Populations must adapt to the realities of the physical world and maintain a proper fit between their biological makeup and the pressures of the various niches of the world. Social groups must develop adaptive mechanisms in the organization of their social relations if there is to be order, regularity, and predictability in patterns of cooperation and competition. This book presents an introduction to anthropology that is unified and made systematic by its focus on adaptations that have accompanied the evolution of humans, from non-human primates to inhabitants of vast urban areas in modern industrial societies.

Human Adaptation contains over forty outstanding essays that are intended to serve as an introduction to physical anthropology, archeology, and linguistics from the point of view of the processes of adaptation. The organization of these selections contains a balance between biological and prehistoric cultural adaptations. They provide coherence for the study of human evolution. Several selections, notably those in connection with linguistic adaptations, deal with contemporary people in order to shed light on earlier evolutionary processes. More than half of the selections deal with biological evolution.

This volume unifies the subject matter of anthropology within a single and powerful explanatory framework and incorporates the work of the most renowned anthropological experts on man.

1103136262
Human Adaptation: The Biosocial Background
Underlying the anthropological study of humans is the principle that there is a reality to which a human must adapt for survival. Populations must adapt to the realities of the physical world and maintain a proper fit between their biological makeup and the pressures of the various niches of the world. Social groups must develop adaptive mechanisms in the organization of their social relations if there is to be order, regularity, and predictability in patterns of cooperation and competition. This book presents an introduction to anthropology that is unified and made systematic by its focus on adaptations that have accompanied the evolution of humans, from non-human primates to inhabitants of vast urban areas in modern industrial societies.

Human Adaptation contains over forty outstanding essays that are intended to serve as an introduction to physical anthropology, archeology, and linguistics from the point of view of the processes of adaptation. The organization of these selections contains a balance between biological and prehistoric cultural adaptations. They provide coherence for the study of human evolution. Several selections, notably those in connection with linguistic adaptations, deal with contemporary people in order to shed light on earlier evolutionary processes. More than half of the selections deal with biological evolution.

This volume unifies the subject matter of anthropology within a single and powerful explanatory framework and incorporates the work of the most renowned anthropological experts on man.

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Human Adaptation: The Biosocial Background

Human Adaptation: The Biosocial Background

by Yehudi A. Cohen (Editor)
Human Adaptation: The Biosocial Background
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Human Adaptation: The Biosocial Background

Human Adaptation: The Biosocial Background

by Yehudi A. Cohen (Editor)

Overview

Underlying the anthropological study of humans is the principle that there is a reality to which a human must adapt for survival. Populations must adapt to the realities of the physical world and maintain a proper fit between their biological makeup and the pressures of the various niches of the world. Social groups must develop adaptive mechanisms in the organization of their social relations if there is to be order, regularity, and predictability in patterns of cooperation and competition. This book presents an introduction to anthropology that is unified and made systematic by its focus on adaptations that have accompanied the evolution of humans, from non-human primates to inhabitants of vast urban areas in modern industrial societies.

Human Adaptation contains over forty outstanding essays that are intended to serve as an introduction to physical anthropology, archeology, and linguistics from the point of view of the processes of adaptation. The organization of these selections contains a balance between biological and prehistoric cultural adaptations. They provide coherence for the study of human evolution. Several selections, notably those in connection with linguistic adaptations, deal with contemporary people in order to shed light on earlier evolutionary processes. More than half of the selections deal with biological evolution.

This volume unifies the subject matter of anthropology within a single and powerful explanatory framework and incorporates the work of the most renowned anthropological experts on man.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780202363844
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Publication date: 11/15/2010
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 536
Product dimensions: 7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 1.10(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; I: Issues and Concepts in the Study of Adaptation; 1: Genes, Culture, and Man; 2: Genetic Drift and Selection of Gene Systems; 3: How to be Human; 4: The Meaning of Fitness and the Future of Man; 5: Natural Selection in Man: Some Basic Problems; 6: The Cultural Animal; 7: Behavior and the Origin of Man; II: Incipient Adaptations: Monkeys and Apes; 8: Adaptive Functions of Primate Societies; 9: Observations on the Ecology and Social Behavior of the Mountain Gorilla; 10: The Behavior of Chimpanzees in their Natural Habitat; 11: Baboon Ecology and Human Evolution; 12: Social Units of a Free-Living Population of Hamadryas Baboons; 13: Kinship and the Family in Monkeys, Apes, and Man; 14: Status; III: Explorations in the Natural History of Human Adaptations; 15: The Protocultural Foundations of Human Adaptation; 16: The Evolution of the Human Hand; 17: Man as Tool-Maker; 18: Genetics and the Races of Man; 19: Man for All Seasons; 20: Hominid Adaptations; 21: Neanderthalers; IV: Adaptations in Local Populations; 22: Anthropological Implications of Sickle Cell Gene Distribution in Africa; 23: Adaptation and Variation Among Hunter-Gatherers; 24: The Effect of Chronic Exposure to Cold on Temperature and Blood Flow of the Hand; 25: Human Adaptation to High Altitude; 26: Mineral Metabolism and Behavior: Abnormalities of Calcium Homeostasis; 27: The Spearman and the Archer; 28: Bushman Hunter-Gatherers: A Study in Human Ecology; V: Speech as a Human Adaptation; 29: The Human Revolution; 30: The Capacity for Language Acquisition; 31: Functions of Speech: An Evolutionary Approach; 32: Urbanism, Migration, and Language; 33: Linguistic Relativity and Determinism; 34: Signifying and Marking: Two Afro-American Speech Acts; VI: Beginnings in Cultural Adaptation: Archeological Explorations; ; 35: Food Production in Prehistoric Europe; 36: Ecological Zones and Economic Stages; 37: Habitat, Culture, and Archeology; 38: Some Aspects of Prehistoric Society in East-Central Arizona; 39: Cultural Ecology of Nuclear Mesoamerica; 40: Farming Systems and Political Growth in Ancient Oaxaca; 41: Irrigation in the Old Acolhua Domain, Mexico; 42: Investigating the Origins of Mesopotamian Civilization; 43: The Study of Ancient Mesopotamian Settlement Patterns and the Problem of Urban Origins; 44: Early Civilizations, Subsistence, and Environment
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