Anthropology & Psychology

• Branches of Anthropology

  • Cultural
  • Physical
• Cultural Anthropology

  Studies behaviour in cultures (habits, beliefs, food, clothing, music)
• Physical Anthropology

  Studies evolution and adaptation to environmental stresses (opposable thumbs)
• Subfields of Cultural Anthropology

  • Linguistics
  • Archaeology
• Subfields of Physical Anthropology


  • Biological Anthropology
  • Primatology
  • Forensic Anthropology
• Biological Anthropology


  How diseases and illnesses genetically transmitted and caused by environmental/social conditions
• Primatology

  Thinking/communication patterns of primates from distant evolutionary relationships in past
• Forensic Anthropology

  Discovery of clues in physical injuries, analysis of DNA, providing information in homicide cases, investigation of mass murders
• Humans

  • Ability to walk upright, communicate, think, problem solve and evolved generation after generation physically/cognitively which makes us Human
  • Most dominant species on earth due to our human biological evolution like fossils and cultural remains, but also the study of biological evolution at a molecular level (the study of DNA)
• Carolus Linnaeus

  Classified plants and animals based on their anatomical structures, understood that animals and plants are fixed and cannot be changed, revised his idea of cross-breeding within plants that pollen from one plant is given to another plant species, is fertilized and then creates a hybrid of the plant
• Linnaeus' theory was challenged when there was physical evidence in various rock strata within the Earth that indicated how these plants and animals have disappeared in the past during different periods of time
• Jacque Boucher de Crevecoeur de Perthes

  Discovered a sign of humanity along the Somme River in France when he noticed how there were stones along the river that were shaped or molded into tools/weapons proving humans were capable of producing primitive tools at one point in society supporting evolution
• Charles Darwin

  • Initial discovery was based on seashells in the Andes Mountains of South America when he found out that these seashells prove that these mountains have been underwater because of earthquakes
  • Greatest discovery on the Galapagos Islands, when he observed some unique species and noticed that each group varied in size and colour, some had the ability to reproduce in large numbers, and that species adapted to these changes in environment and some did not
  • Description of the finches supported his theory as some had this selective advantage that resulted in this theory of survival of the fittest
• Natural selection

  When species are forced to evolve/adapt to changing environmental conditions or face extinction instead
• Survival of the fittest

  When these species have evolved, adapted and survived and passed on these survival characteristics to their offspring
• Gregor Mendel


  Conducted a process of breeding experiments with true-breeding plants and that once he crossbred two true-breeding plants of different colours, he would anaylze the resulting flowers to have either one colour or the other. He then concluded that these flowers do not blend, and instead keep their individuality and that one flower's dominant trait dictated the colour. When he fertilized the next generation of plants, it contained sex cells of the first generation of true-breeding plants and was similar to how humans inherit genes from their parents
• Earth's History: Tree of life is estimated to be 4.6 billion years old, Broken down to a 60 min clock where 50 mins (single cell organism), 10 mins (animal/mammal life), 1/100th of second (hominids)
• Flores Man


  An adult female about a meter tall, described as the most extreme, included in the extended human family and has lived about 18,000 years ago. Scientists named this fossil the Homo Floresiensis and she is 95,000 to 12,000 years old. The brain is grape-fruit sized (a quarter the size of Homosapiens) and it had made stone tools, lit fires and hunted for meat. It was found on the isolated island of Flores
• Why does this finding rewrite our knowledge of human history?
• Normal sexual activity for early hominids


  They would come into heat and behave sexually during their menstrual cycle. Some would flirt with males in their social group, touching them, frolicking with them and more. By the 12th or 14th day, they would experience ovulation and reach a peak in their monthly period of heat. If it occurred in the wet season, the female would be standing near fruit trees with some companions. A few days after her ovulation, her sexual desire would disappear and would travel normally until her estrus returns next month
• Variations in behavior that made females sexier


  • Usually long monthly cycles translating to longer periods of heat
  • Ability to copulate during pregnancy
  • Resuming sexual behavior before weaning of their children
• Complications of walking favored those protohominid females

  Selection for walking had produced a female with a smaller birth canal resulting in females to have difficulty delivering their young. Most of them died as well. These complications occurred from walking upright (bipedalism)
• New problem for the mother who delivered an immature young


  Mother had the risk of predators (they spent their time carrying, feeding and looking after young)
• Advantages for new mothers if they got a lot of male Attention

  • Females would get extra meat when a male carted an eland back to camp
  • Attendant males would follow the mothers wherever they went
• Key to getting male attention

  Coming into heat & beginning her day with sex
• How did this male attention benefit

  • New Mother and infant - safety and food
  • Pregnant female - tended to live longer and have children
  • Free female - safety and food
• Most fundamental exchange the human race would ever make

  Males and Females were learning to divide their labors to exchange meat and vegetables and to share their daily catch. Constant sex had begun which tied men and women to one another, resulting in economic dependence that was further tightening the knot between them
• The second stage of warming lasted 5 million years
• Katsura tree


  Had broad leaves for protection and camouflage, was the one that helped make an ideal environment for primates to evolve
• Postorbital septum


  Those who have it have a fulvia with many small photoreceptor cells which detect light and are critical for sharp vision. The importance of it is that it holds the eyeball in place so images are focused more
• Advantage for primates who could see in more than two colours

  It gave them the advantage to find food easily, where red showed trees that were good in nutrients
• Developments with chimpanzees which possessed good eyesight


  • Identifying expressions
  • Capable of seeking colour
• Africa is known as the cradle for humanity
• Early hominids


  The use of tools allowed the ability to articulate speech
• Early hominids chose to eat meat
• Over the last 7 million years, there have been 20 other species and the homo sapiens are the ones alive today
• High protein content of meat

  Resulted in larger and complexer brains
• Homosapiens have been around for 200,000 years
• What gave homosapiens the edge over Neanderthals


  • The skull is rounded in homosapiens, whereas Neanderthals had flat bases
  • Neanderthals' larynx is higher than larynxes in homosapiens so Neanderthals couldn't speak as much, we have speech which separates us from Neanderthals
• The purpose of the Nacirema article was to examine the different exotic cultures and critiquing the cultural anthropology papers from the past