ARCH 131 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Hermann Schaaffhausen, Rudolf Virchow, Biocultural Anthropology
19 Feb 2017
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ARCH 131 Notes: Lecture 1:
Intro to Human Origins Studies & Research
Anthropology: The study of people
● Physical Anthropology: Study of human biological evolution and remains
● Archeology: study of past cultures through their material culture remains
○ stuff disappears, bad data set, look at long spans of time, big pic view of human
evolution
● Cultural Anthropology: Study of living cultures
● Linguistics: study of languages
Bio-Cultural Evolution
● Organisms adapt to their circumstances
● We evolve physiologically AND technologically AND socially
Why Do Biological Anthropology
● To understand why we are the way we are, do the things we do etc.
Early Studies of the Distant Past
● History of sciences is focused on male europeans
○ the earliest people to be curious about the natural world, develop systems to
investigate it started thousands and thousands of years ago, made attempts to understand it.
● Arab scholars (during Europe's dark ages)
○ Collected and studied banned books from Europe like Socrates, making
advancements in geography, math
○ Has the oldest universities (Al-Azar, Cairo, 975 AD) (Uni Al-Karaouine, Morocco,
859 AD)
Pre-Scientific Frameworks
● People began looking for natural, not supernatural explanations
● Irish Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656): “the world began in 4004 BC” (Sunday, October 23rd, 9am)
● 1600s/1700s beginnings of naturalists early studies of geology and paleontology seeing fossils, life on
earth was constantly changing
Feldhofer Cave, Germany, 1856: the original Neanderthal
● builders believed it was a cave bear, but Johann Fuhlrott, local teacher realized the bones were humans,
but different from ours, believed in evolution, Hermann Schaaffhausen supported this
● Rudolf Virchow (very prominent researcher) did not believe in evolution, tried to explain away the bones,
believed it was just a modern human bones, was suffering from a disease
Three Important Changes in Thinking
1. People had to understand that the world was much older than they thought
a. James Hutton:
i. Law of Uniformitarianism: “geological ancient conditions were the same as or uniform to
those of today”
ii. we can understand all of the steps to this result, the world IS knowable
b. Charles Lyell:
i. 1835: published original geological book
ii. suggested the world could be as old as 300 million years old (4.5 years), “Extreme
antiquity of the earth”, refuted human evolution
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Physical anthropology: study of human biological evolution and remains. Archeology: study of past cultures through their material culture remains. Stuff disappears, bad data set, look at long spans of time, big pic view of human evolution. We evolve physiologically and technologically and socially. To understand why we are the way we are, do the things we do etc. History of sciences is focused on male europeans the earliest people to be curious about the natural world, develop systems to investigate it started thousands and thousands of years ago, made attempts to understand it. Collected and studied banned books from europe like socrates, making advancements in geography, math. Has the oldest universities (al-azar, cairo, 975 ad) (uni al-karaouine, morocco, People began looking for natural, not supernatural explanations. 1600s/1700s beginnings of naturalists early studies of geology and paleontology seeing fossils, life on. Irish archbishop james ussher (1581-1656): the world began in 4004 bc (sunday, october 23rd, 9am) earth was constantly changing.
