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Author: Rada Dyson-hudson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000309940
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
Most anthropologists agree that a comprehension of adaptation and adaptive processes is central to an understanding of human biological and behavioural systems. However, there is little agreement among archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and human biologists as to what adaptation means and how it should be analyzed. Because of this lack of a common underlying theory, method, and perspective, the subdisciplines have tended to move apart, and anthropology is no longer the integrated science envisaged at its inception in the nineteenth century. In this book, the authors–both biological and cultural anthropologists–use a common theoretical framework based on recent evolutionary, ecological, and anthropological theory in their analyses of biological and social adaptive systems. Although a synthesis of the subdisciplines of anthropology lies somewhere in the future, the original essays in this volume are a first attempt at a unified perspective.
Author: Rada Dyson-hudson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000309940
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Get Book Here
Book Description
Most anthropologists agree that a comprehension of adaptation and adaptive processes is central to an understanding of human biological and behavioural systems. However, there is little agreement among archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and human biologists as to what adaptation means and how it should be analyzed. Because of this lack of a common underlying theory, method, and perspective, the subdisciplines have tended to move apart, and anthropology is no longer the integrated science envisaged at its inception in the nineteenth century. In this book, the authors–both biological and cultural anthropologists–use a common theoretical framework based on recent evolutionary, ecological, and anthropological theory in their analyses of biological and social adaptive systems. Although a synthesis of the subdisciplines of anthropology lies somewhere in the future, the original essays in this volume are a first attempt at a unified perspective.
Author: Massimo Livi Bacci
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521368711
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 174
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Book Description
In this essay, the mechanisms of biological, social and cultural nature linking subsistence, mortality and population are discussed.
Author: Michael H. Crawford
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461567696
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 536
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Book Description
This volume examines the interrelationship of ecology, subsistence pat terns, and the observed genetic variation in human populations. Hence, the book is divided conceptually into the following categories: nonhuman primates, hunters and gatherers, nomads, swidden agriculturalists, peas ant farmers, religious isolates, and modern and urban aggregates. While many of these populations have experienced (and are experiencing) ac culturation as a result of contact with technologically more advanced groups, the genetic structures described in this volume attempt to recon struct the traditional patterns as well as genetic changes because of con tact. Most chapters also integrate biological (genetic), social, and de mographic data within an ecological frame thus presenting a holistic view of the population structures of ecologically distinct groups. The first chapter examines the body of early nonhuman primate lit erature that emphasized ecological determinism in effecting the popula tion structure of our primate ancestors-relatives. It also examines more recent literature (since 1970) in which it became apparent that greater flexibility exists in primate social structure within specific environmental frameworks. Thus, it appears that our nonhuman primate evolutionary heritage is not one of ecological determinism in social organization but one of flexibility and rapid change suggesting the evolutionary success of our species is based upon a system of flexibility and that social ad aptations can be accomplished in a number of diverse ways.
Author: Michael A. Little
Publisher: Research Monographs on Human P
ISBN: 0195050169
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 358
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Book Description
This book is a careful integration of the social and biological sciences, drawing on anthropology, biology, human ecology and medicine to provide a comprehensive understanding of how our species adapts to natural and man-made environments.
Author: Rebecca Huss-Ashmore
Publisher: UPenn Museum of Archaeology
ISBN: 9781931707015
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 152
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Book Description
The health impacts of changing behavior and lifestyle in a range of prehistoric, historic, and extant populations are examined in this volume. Of particular interest to the authors is the identification of issues that link past and present, and the ability of research on disease in the past to shed light on modern health problems. MASCA Vol. 9
Author: Stephen Molnar
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317347714
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 509
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Book Description
Basic text for the sophomore/junior level course in Human Variation or Human Diversity taught anthropology or biology departments. This classic introduction to human variation, has been thoroughly updated to include the issues and controversies facing the contemporary study of diversity.
Author: Emilio F. Moran
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472081028
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 504
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Book Description
A reassessment of the ecosystem concept for anthropology
Author: Nancy Howell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351522701
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 412
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Book Description
First published in 1979, this is a classic study of the population of the Bushmen of the Kalahari Deselt of Botswana. Using methods that are simple and fully illustrated, the author presents empirical descriptions of the fertility, mortality, and marriage patterns of the now famous !Kung hunter-gatherers. The !King "Bushman" people of the Kalahari desert in Africa occupy an anomalous position in the world of science. They have been selected for intensive study precisely because they are geographically, socially, and economically removed from modern, industrialized society, living in a sparsely settled and remote portion of an enormous semidesert. The !Kung maintain the language and culture of a fully develop hunting and gathering society with (until very recently) no dependence on cultivated plants, no domesticated animals other than the dog, no stratification system based on kinship or occupation, no power or authority structure extending further than the local bands composed of a few related families, no wage labor, no use of money, and no settled sites of occupation. At the same time, the !Kung have become well-known figures to students—both undergraduate and professional—of Western social science. The faces of !Kung informants gaze from the covers and the illustrations of many texts in anthropology and sociology. Why has all this attention been developed around the !Kung people? Part of the answer lies in the people themselves. The !Kung are a physically attractive people, with slender, graceful bodies and open small-featured faces that are appealing and photogenic. Their culture is simple and has its striking features. The struggle for subsistence, the click language, the emphasis on sharing and humility, the drama of the curing dances in which individuals go into trance and speak directly to spirits to cure sickness, and the pervasive humor, teasing, and playfulness of the !Kung style are all features that are relatively easy to convey and interesting to l earn about. This work covers areas such as marriage, fertility, disease, mortality, history, and the projected future of the !Kung. This book will be of interest to students of demographic studies, anthropology, and African studies.
Author: William H. Durham
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804721561
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 658
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Book Description
Charles Darwin's "On the Origins of Species" had two principal goals: to show that species had not been separately created and to show that natural selection had been the main force behind their proliferation and descent from common ancestors. In "Coevolution," the author proposes a powerful new theory of cultural evolution--that is, of the descent with modification of the shared conceptual systems we call "cultures"--that is parallel in many ways to Darwin's theory of organic evolution. The author suggests that a process of cultural selection, or preservation by preference, driven chiefly by choice or imposition depending on the circumstances, has been the main but not exclusive force of cultural change. He shows that this process gives rise to five major patterns or "modes" in which cultural change is at odds with genetic change. Each of the five modes is discussed in some detail and its existence confirmed through one or more case studies chosen for their heuristic value, the robustness of their data, and their broader implications. But "Coevolution" predicts not simply the existence of the five modes of gene-culture relations; it also predicts their relative importance in the ongoing dynamics of cultural change in particular cases. The case studies themselves are lucid and innovative reexaminations of an array of oft-pondered anthropological topics--plural marriage, sickle-cell anemia, basic color terms, adult lactose absorption, incest taboos, headhunting, and cannibalism. In a general case, the author's goal is to demonstrate that an evolutionary analysis of both genes and culture has much to contribute to our understanding of human diversity, particularly behavioral diversity, and thus to the resolution of age-old questions about nature and nurture, genes and culture.
Author: Sharon Warner Methvin
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780815330493
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
Health care policy and proposals for national health care reform have become some of the most contentious political issues of the decade. Garland Publishing announces a new series addressing the most significant issues in the area of health care policy and the business of health care in the United States. books in this multidisciplinary series will include studies of health care practice, the health care business, the implications of multicultural perspectives on health care for public policy, the impact of insurance on health care, and debates over national health care policy, including health care reform. This collection of timely works will offer significant scholarly perspectives on one of the most important issues in public policy.Identifies five kinds of povertyThis study chronicles the lives of 47 Oklahoma women and their experiences with poverty. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, the author examines the relationship between the age at which a woman first gives birth, her marital status then and later in life, and her corresponding risk for entering and exiting poverty. Five categories of women in poverty are identified in the research: Welfare Dependent, Cyclers, Combiners, Temporary Poverty, and Self Sufficient. The author illustrates each type of poverty through insightful case studies which include quotes from the ethnographic interviews and quantitative analysis. The book addresses a variety of the women's experiences, ranging from sexual activity, contraceptive practices, and intimate relationships to their straggles as primary caretakers dealing with education, employment, and government assistance.Discusses feminization of povertyThe study finds thatmany women shift between welfare dependency and husband dependency because of occupational segregation, primary child-rearing responsibilities, and other cultural factors. The research describes the relationships between low wages for women, their marriage and education
