ANTHROP 3FA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Anthropometry, Biological Anthropology, Fordisc
28 Mar 2019
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Document Summary
European scholars of the 18th through early 20th centuries classified humans into a series of subspecies. Have been used to understand human physical variability. Have also been used to correlate physical with racial and psychological traits. E. g. tried to link cranial size with race and intelligence. Johann friedrich bluembach divided humans into five discrete racial categories: Some early anthropologists placed phenotypes into a hierarchical framework in which the "white" race was considered superior to other races. E. g. physical anthropology was misused by the nazis to categorize "superior" races. Although geographic-based phenotypic differences exist, there is still no such thing as biological races. The biological variation isn"t large or significant enough to represent categorical differences. Genetic different between individual humans todays is miniscule -- about 0. 1% on average. There is greater genetic different within groups than between groups. Geographic patterns in human variation make the estimation of (evolutionary) ancestry from the skeleton possible.
