A curator for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Doug Owsley painstakingly rebuilds skeletons, helping to identify them and determine their cause of death. He has worked on several notorious cases -- from mass graves uncovered in Croatia to the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon -- and has examined historic skeletons tens of thousands of years old. But the discovery of Kennewick Man, a 9,600-year-old human skeleton found along the banks of Washington's Columbia River, was a find that would turn Owsley's life upside down.

Days before Owsley was scheduled to study the skeleton,...

• Identifies every component of the...

Are humans unique? This simple question, at the very heart of the hybrid field of biological anthropology, poses one of the false of dichotomies--with a stereotypical humanist answering in the affirmative and a stereotypical scientist answering in the negative.

The study of human biology is different from the study of the biology of other species. In the simplest terms, people's lives and welfare may depend upon it, in a sense that they may not depend on the study of other scientific subjects. Where science is used to validate ideas--four out of five scientists preferring a...

Designed to accompany Introduction to Forensic Anthropology: A Textbook, Fourth Edition, this laboratory manual provides students in academic laboratory courses hands-on experience with the major processes of forensic anthropology.

This unique, step-by-step workbook introduces students to all the procedures of the forensic anthropology protocol while providing even, balanced coverage of the core topics. Tear-out exercise worksheets reinforce the methodologies of forensic anthropology and enhance student comprehension. Each chapter contains detailed explanations of the...

Written specifically for courses that cover biological anthropology and archaeology, this superbly illustrated new text offers the most balanced and up-to-date introduction to our human past.

• Devoting equal time to biological anthropology and prehistory, this text exposes students to the many sides of major controversial issues, involving students in the scientific thought process by allowing them to draw their own conclusions.
• Amidst discussions of bones and artifacts, the text maintains a focus on people, demonstrating to students how biological anthropology and...

For years, researchers have used the theoretical tools of engineering to understand neural systems, but much of this work has been conducted in relative isolation. In Neural Engineering, Chris Eliasmith and Charles Anderson provide a synthesis of the disparate approaches current in computational neuroscience, incorporating ideas from neural coding, neural computation, physiology, communications theory, control theory, dynamics, and probability theory. This synthesis, they argue, enables novel theoretical and practical insights into the functioning of neural systems. Such insights...