Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Anthropology - Physical

Mammalian oocytes occupy a critical nexus in reproduction as they not only contribute half the genetic makeup of the embryo but also provide virtually all of the cytoplasmic building blocks required for sustaining embryogenesis. The journey that transforms a primordial germ cell into a mature oocyte (or egg) capable of fertilisation and embryonic development is of unrivalled complexity. The end-product of this remarkable developmental process is the mature egg, now replete with macromolecules and organelles, and poised to support embryonic development if fertilisation should occur. Given...

David P. Barash and Judith Eve Lipton, coauthors of acclaimed books on human sexuality and gender, discuss the theories scientists have advanced to explain these evolutionary enigmas (sometimes called...

In one sense, human heads function much like those of other mammals. We use them to chew, smell, swallow, think, hear, and so on. But, in other respects, the human head is quite unusual. Unlike other animals, even our great ape cousins, our heads are short and wide, very big brained, snoutless, largely furless, and perched on a short, nearly vertical neck. Daniel E. Lieberman sets out to explain how the human head works, and why our heads evolved in this peculiarly human way.

Exhaustively researched and years in the making, this innovative book documents how the many...

The peoples who inhabited Europe during the two millennia before the Roman conquests had established urban centers, large-scale production of goods such as pottery and iron tools, a money economy, and elaborate rituals and ceremonies. Yet as Peter Wells argues here, the visual world of these late prehistoric communities was profoundly different from those of ancient Rome's literate civilization and today's industrialized societies. Drawing on startling new research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology, Wells reconstructs how the peoples of pre-Roman Europe saw the world and their place...

In this masterly, state of the art work, Ulf Hannerz maps the contemporary social world of anthropologists and its relation to the wider world in which they carry out their work.
Raising fundamental questions such as 'What is anthropology really about?', 'How does the public understand, or misunderstand, anthropology?' and 'What and where do anthropologists study now, and for whom do they write?' Hannerz invites anthropologists to think again about where their discipline is going.
Full of insights and practical advice from Hannerz's long experience at the top of the discipline,...