Anthropology and Archaeology

Australopithecus , an extinct genus of the hominid family found in Africa between about 4 and 1 million years ago. At least seven species of australopithecines are now generally recognized, including Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus, A. bahrelghazali, A. anamensis, A. boisei, A. robustus, and A. aethiopicus. Among their many shared anatomical traits were a fully erect posture and bipedal gait. The most "primitive" anatomical feature was a small and apelike braincase, comparable in size to those of gorillas and chimpanzees when measured relative to overall body size. Other species have been reported found, including A. garhi in Ethiopia in 1999. There is considerable disagreement among experts on the number of species that should be included within the genus, and two of the seven species listed above— A. bahrelghazali and A. anamensis —are based on very fragmentary remains. A. afarensis, dating to at least 3.75 million years ago, may be ancestral to all the other species of this genus, with the exception of A. anamensis, a hominid dating to c.4.1 million years ago, discovered in 1994. A. afarensis is known from fossils found at Hadar and Omo, Ethiopia, and Laetoli, Tanzania. The 3.6-million-year-old footprints, preserved in volcanic ash at Laetoli, are commonly attributed to this species. Postcranial skeletal remains show that A. afarensis was relatively small, standing 3.5 to 5 ft (1 to 1.6 m) tall and weighing 45 to 110 lb...

anthropology classification and analysis of humans and their society, descriptively, culturally, historically, and physically. Its unique contribution to studying the bonds of human social relations has been the distinctive concept of culture . It has also differed from other sciences concerned with human social behavior (especially sociology) in its emphasis on data from nonliterate peoples and archaeological exploration. Emerging as an independent science in the mid-19th cent., anthropology was associated from the beginning with various other emergent sciences, notably biology, geology, linguistics, psychology, and archaeology. Its development is also linked with the philosophical speculations of the Enlightenment about the origins of human society and the sources of myth. A unifying science, anthropology has not lost its connections with any of these branches, but has incorporated all or part of them and often employs their techniques. Anthropology is divided primarily into physical anthropology and cultural anthropology. Physical anthropology focuses basically on the problems of human evolution, including human paleontology and the study of race and of body build or constitution (somatology). It uses the methods of anthropometry , as well as those of genetics, physiology, and ecology. Cultural anthropology includes archaeology , which studies the material remains of prehistoric and extinct cultures; ethnography, the descriptive study of living cultures; ethnology...