Biological Anthropology Review

Flashcards for vocabulary review

Cultural Anthropology

The study of human societies, especially cross-culturally.

Archaeology

The study of the material culture of past peoples, including artifacts.

Linguistic Anthropology

The study of language, its history, and its use.

Biological Anthropology

The study of human biological evolution and biocultural variation.

Paleoanthropology

Fossil records of ancestral humans and primate kin.

Skeletal Biology and Osteology

Study of skeletons, patterns, and processes of human growth, physiology, and development.

Paleopathology and Bioarchaeology

The study of disease in ancient human populations, bones, and nutrition.

Forensic Anthropology

Deals with the analysis of human remains in legal contexts.

Primatology

The study of non-human primates and their anatomy, genetics, behavior, and ecology.

Primates

A group of mammals with complex behavior and varied forms of locomotion, including lemurs, monkeys, and apes.

Culture

Learned behavior transmitted from person to person.

Language

A set of written or spoken symbols used by humans to refer to things.

Hominins

Humans and human-like ancestors, including extinct bipedal relatives.

Bipedalism

Walking on two feet, a key characteristic of hominins.

Loss of Honing Canine

The loss of the honing canine, originally for leafy diet, indicating a change in diet.

Material Culture and Stone Tools

Reliance on tools for processing food.

Theory

Set of hypotheses rigorously tested/validated, leads to generally accepted explanation for specific phenomena.

Scientific Law

Irrefutable truth of natural phenomena.

Species

A group of closely related organisms having the potential to interbreed and produce offspring.

Uniformitarianism

The natural processes of today are the same as those in the past.

Carolus Linnaeus

Method of classifying plants and animals using binomial nomenclature.

Genus

Includes one or more species (e.g., canis).

Catastrophism

Natural disasters responsible for geological changes throughout Earth's history.

Lamarck(ism)

Evolution is marked by the inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Thomas Malthus

Argued for limits of human population growth due to resource constraints.

Natural Selection

Organisms with specific features are able to adapt to their environment, survive, and reproduce.

Adaptive Radiation

Diversification of an ancestral group into new forms adapted to specific environmental niches.

Gemmules

Units of inheritance; representative gemmules for body parts in reproductive organs (Darwin).

Blending Inheritance

Phenotype of an offspring is a uniform blend of parents’ phenotypes.

Mendelian Inheritance

The transmission of genetic material/traits from parents to offspring.

Law of Segregation

During gamete formation, paired unit factors segregate randomly.

Law of Independent Assortment

During gamete formation, segregating pairs of unit factors assort independently.

Gene

Basic unit of inheritance; a sequence of DNA on a chromosome.

Allele

One or more alternative forms of a gene; dominant or recessive.

Genotype

Genetic makeup of a trait made of 2 alleles (e.g., GG, Gg, gg).

Phenotype

Physical appearance of genes (e.g., yellow or green).

Genetic Drift

Random change in frequency of different forms of a gene; most drastic changes in small, relatively homogenous populations.

Founder Effect

When a small group migrates to a new region and is reproductively isolated.

Gene Flow

The diffusion/spread/exchange of new genetic material from one population to another.

Taxonomy

System of organizing/classifying/naming past and modern life forms; reflects degree of relatedness.