Anthropometry, the measurement of human morphology, is used in a wide range of applied and research contexts. In this volume, anthropologists, human biologists, physiologists, nutritionists and clinical scientists describe many of the ways in which anthropometry is used, and discuss problems associated with different methods of assessment. Topics include the measurement of growth asymmetry and variability in adult body size, measurement error and statistical issues in anthropometry, and the construction and use of growth charts in growth monitoring. The use of anthropometry in assessments of...

This book is about the process of doing research in human biology. Seasoned researchers share their experiences working on problems of interest to biological anthropologists, including environmental stresses, population genetics, parasitic vectors and vital records. They describe obstacles encountered and successful strategies employed in their own studies and in those of others that may be of use to beginning researchers in this area.

Many aspects of human activity involve energy transfer of some type. Human Energetics in Biological Anthropology examines some of the ways in which measurements of energy intake, expenditure and balance have been used to study human populations by biological anthropologists and human biologists. The book provides an integration of human adaptation and adaptability approaches, placing these issues in an ecological context by considering traditional subsistence economies in the developing world. This is the first volume to present such an integrated approach, and will be useful in the teaching...

Human Paleobiology provides a unifying framework for the study of past and present human populations to a range of changing environments. It integrates evidence from studies of human adaptability, comparative primatology, and molecular genetics to document consistent measures of genetic distance among subspecies, species, and other taxonomic groupings. These findings support the interpretation of human biology in terms of fewer number of populations characterized by higher levels of genetic continuity than previously hypothesized. Using this as a basis, Robert Eckhardt goes on to analyze...

Plasticity refers to the ability of many organisms to change their biology or behavior to respond to changes in the environment. Humans are probably the most plastic of all species, and hence the most variable. This is the first book to examine the history of research in this area and it provides information on state-of-the-art research methods and discoveries. It also maps out some areas of future research in human plasticity and variability. Topics discussed include child growth, starvation, diseases of both young and old, and the effects of migration, modernization and other life-style...

Migration and colonization are major forces affecting the frequency, spatial pattern and spread of genes in human populations. Here, Alan Fix reviews theories of migration developed by biologists and social scientists and surveys patterns of migration in a diverse sample of human populations. Using these empirical studies, he evaluates models of migration developed by population geneticists and explores more realistic models using computer simulation. He then shows the relevance of studies of migration as a microevolutionary process to the understanding of longer term global patterns of human...

The human genetic make-up of Latin America is a reflection of successive waves of colonization and immigration. There have been few works dealing with the biology of human populations at a continental scale, and while much data is available on the genetics of Latin American populations, most information remains scattered throughout the literature. This volume examines Latin American human populations in relation to their origins, environment, history, demography and genetics, drawing on aspects of nutrition, physiology, and morphology for an integrated and multidisciplinary approach. The...

The recent revolution in molecular genetics, which has already made such a significant impact in the biomedical sciences, is now becoming established in biological anthropology. New techniques have enabled anthropologists to study biological variation at the molecular level, and a wealth of exciting information on human and non-human primate populations is now becoming available for the first time. This volume presents a selection of pioneering research studies in which molecular techniques have been used to address key questions, for example about the human genetic system, the geographical...

The First Boat People concerns how people travelled across the world to Australia in the Pleistocene. It traces movement from Africa to Australia, offering a new view of population growth at that time, challenging current ideas, and underscoring problems with the 'Out of Africa' theory of how modern humans emerged. The variety of routes, strategies and opportunities that could have been used by those first migrants is proposed against the very different regional geography that existed at that time. Steve Webb shows the impact of human entry into Australia on the megafauna using fresh evidence...

Until now, studies of dental and skeletal growth and development have often been treated as independent disciplines within the literature. Human Growth in the Past takes a fresh perspective by bringing together these two related fields of inquiry in a single volume whose purpose is to place methodological issues of growth and development in past populations within a strong theoretical framework. Contributions examine a variety of aspects of human growth in the past, drawing from both paleoanthropological and bioarchaeological data. The book covers a wide spectrum of topics, from patterns of...