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Concept
Evolutionary anthropology
Summary
Evolutionary anthropology, the interdisciplinary study of the evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and of the relation between hominids and non-hominid primates, builds on natural science and on social science. Various fields and disciplines of evolutionary anthropology include:
human evolution and anthropogeny
paleoanthropology and paleontology of both human and non-human primates
primatology and primate ethology
the sociocultural evolution of human behavior, including phylogenetic approaches to historical linguistics
the cultural anthropology and sociology of humans
the archaeological study of human technology and of its changes over time and space
human evolutionary genetics and changes in the human genome over time
the neuroscience, endocrinology, and neuroanthropology of human and primate cognition, culture, actions and abilities
human behavioural ecology and the interaction between humans and the environment
studies of human anatomy, physiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and differences and changes between species, variation between human groups, and relationships to cultural factors
Evolutionary anthropology studies both the biological and the cultural evolution of humans, past and present. Based on a scientific approach, it brings together fields such as archaeology, behavioral ecology, psychology, primatology, and genetics. As a dynamic and interdisciplinary field, it draws on many lines of evidence to understand the human experience, past and present.
Studies of human biological evolution generally focus on the evolution of the human form. Cultural evolution involves the study of cultural change over time and space and frequently incorporates cultural-transmission models. Cultural evolution is not the same as biological evolution: human culture involves the transmission of cultural information (compare memetics), and such transmission can behave in ways quite distinct from human biology and genetics. The study of cultural change increasingly takes place through cladistics and genetic models.
Official source
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