Biological anthropology in the context of "Human evolution"

Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity that crosses biology and sociology, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. The term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological (or physical) anthropology studies the biology and evolution of humans and their close primate relatives.

Archaeology, often referred to as the "anthropology of the past," explores human activity by examining physical remains. In North America and Asia, it is generally regarded as a branch of anthropology, whereas in Europe, it is considered either an independent discipline or classified under related fields like history and palaeontology.

An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values, and general behavior of societies. Linguistic anthropology studies how language affects social life, while economic anthropology studies human economic behavior. Biological (physical), forensic, and medical anthropology study the biology and evolution of humans and their primate relatives, the application of biological anthropology in a legal setting, and the study of diseases and their impacts on humans over time, respectively.

Human biology is an interdisciplinary area of academic study that examines humans through the influences and interplay of many diverse fields such as genetics, evolution, physiology, anatomy, epidemiology, anthropology, ecology, nutrition, population genetics, and sociocultural influences. It is closely related to the biomedical sciences, biological anthropology and other biological fields tying in various aspects of human functionality. It wasn't until the 20th century when biogerontologist, Raymond Pearl, founder of the journal Human Biology, phrased the term "human biology" in a way to describe a separate subsection apart from biology.

It is also a portmanteau term that describes all biological aspects of the human body, typically using the human body as a type organism for Mammalia, and in that context it is the basis for many undergraduate University degrees and modules.

The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biological anthropology, evolutionary anthropology, social anthropology, cultural anthropology, visual anthropology and medical anthropology, as well as sub-specialisms within these, and interests shared with neighbouring disciplines such as human genetics, archaeology and linguistics. It seeks to combine a tradition of scholarship with services to anthropologists, including students.

The RAI promotes the public understanding of anthropology, as well as the contribution anthropology can make to public affairs and social issues. It includes within its constituency not only academic anthropologists, but also those with a general interest in the subject, and those trained in anthropology who work in other fields.

The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid) is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. The Caucasian race was historically regarded as a biological taxon which, depending on which of the historical race classifications was being used, usually included ancient and modern populations from all or parts of Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa.

Introduced in the 1780s by members of the Göttingen school of history, the term denoted one of three purported major races of humans (those three being Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid). In biological anthropology, Caucasoid has been used as an umbrella term for phenotypically similar groups from these different regions, with a focus on skeletal anatomy, and especially cranial morphology, without regard to skin tone. Ancient and modern "Caucasoid" populations were thus not exclusively "white", but ranged in complexion from white-skinned to dark brown.

Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship lines within the family Hominidae, working from biological evidence (such as petrified skeletal remains, bone fragments, footprints) and cultural evidence (such as stone tools, artifacts, and settlement localities).

The field draws from and combines primatology, paleontology, biological anthropology, and cultural anthropology. As technologies and methods advance, genetics plays an ever-increasing role, in particular to examine and compare DNA structure as a vital tool of research of the evolutionary kinship lines of related species and genera.

Human Biology is a peer reviewed scientific journal, currently published by Wayne State University Press. The journal was established in 1929 by Raymond Pearl and is the official publication of the American Association of Anthropological Genetics. The focus of the journal is human genetics, covering topics from human population genetics, evolutionary and genetic demography and quantitative genetics. It also covers ancient DNA studies, evolutionary biological anthropology, and research exploring biological diversity expressed in terms of adaptation. The journal also publishes interdisciplinary research linking biological and cultural diversity from evidence such sources as archaeology, ethnography and cultural anthropology studies, and more. As of February 14, 2020, the journal is on Volume 90, Issue 4. The journal's current editor is Ripan S. Malhi (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign).

Anthropometry (/ænθrəˈpɒmɪtrɪ/ , from Ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος (ánthrōpos) 'human' and μέτρον (métron) 'measure') refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthropology and in various attempts to correlate physical with racial and psychological traits. Anthropometry involves the systematic measurement of the physical properties of the human body, primarily dimensional descriptors of body size and shape. Since commonly used methods and approaches in analysing living standards were not helpful enough, the anthropometric history became very useful for historians in answering questions that interested them.

Today, anthropometry plays an important role in industrial design, clothing design, ergonomics and architecture where statistical data about the distribution of body dimensions in the population are used to optimize products. Changes in lifestyles, nutrition, and ethnic composition of populations lead to changes in the distribution of body dimensions (e.g. the rise in obesity) and require regular updating of anthropometric data collections.