ANTHROPOLOGY 325
BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF HUMAN SOCIETIES
Instructor: Charles E. Hilton Classroom: Goodnow 109
Office: Goodnow 302 Class time: T TH 12:45-2:05pm
Phone: 641-269-4325 Office Hrs: Tues. & Thurs. 3:30-5pm
email: hiltonc@grinnell.edu or by appt.
Course Purpose:
This course will discuss major issues related to reconstructing and attempting to understand key bio-behavioral complexes of human behavior. In order to address these issues, the course will draw heavily from neontological studies of living primates and modern human foragers. This will allow us to examine and place many features/traits considered uniquely human into an evolutionary and comparative framework so as to understand when these bio-behavioral complexes may have appeared in human evolutionary history. We will discuss how researchers attempt to determine the appearance of these traits in our fossil ancestors.
Course Requirements:
Readings: The readings are a series of short articles from the current biological anthropology and human behavioral ecology literature. Several articles covering a particular topic related to hominid behavioral ecology are assigned each week. All students are expected to be prepared to discuss the assigned articles in a thorough and well-informed manner.
Topic presentations: Each student is expected to lead at least one class discussion of the assigned articles. This requires you to choose a discussion topic, provide an overview and summary of the key points of the articles assigned and discuss their relevance to understanding fossil hominid behavior. Each presenter will have to prepare for her/his presentation for that week, this should include previewing the paper with your instructor. Although you will not be graded on your presentation, a lack of preparation leading to a poor presentation reflects poorly on you.
Class Attendance and Participation:
While missing a class is sometimes unavoidable, the class format requires active participation. Thus, lack of attendance will affect your grade. Missing class five times will be considered an automatic withdrawal.
Exams/Papers: No exams will be given for this course. Instead you are required to submit two short writing assignments. Each assignment is to be a concise review (7 pages double spaced) of one of the articles discussed in class. This review should summarize the article, discuss the relevant merits of the approach (e.g., did it test a hypothesis; was the data appropriate; were the results convincing; if so why; if not why). Your review should point out the positive and negative aspects of the article. In your review, you can also reference other relevant papers.
The first review is due on 15 March by 5pm.
The second review is due on 10 May by 5pm.
Course Outline:
Wk 1-2 Introduction to class format
Background to Behavioral Ecology
E.A. Smith (1992) Evolutionary Anthropology Parts I.
B. Winterhalder and E.A. Smith (2000) Analyzing adaptive strategies: Human behavioral ecology at twenty-five.
R. Foley (1992) Evolutionary Ecology of Fossil Hominids.
Wk 3 Primate Social Structure
C. H. Hanson (1992) Evolutionary Ecology of Primate Social Structure.
L. A. Isbell (1994) Predation on Primates: Ecological Patterns and Evolutionary Consequences.
Wk 4 Feeding Strategies
J. E. Lambert (1998) Primate digestion: Interactions among anatomy, physiology, and feeding ecology.
J. M. Sept (1994) Beyond bones: archaeological sites, early hominid subsistence, and the costs and benefits of exploiting wild plant foods in east African riverine landscapes.
Wk 5 Brain Evolution
L. C. Aiello and P. Wheeler (1995) The expensive-tissue hypothesis.
R. I. M. Dunbar (1998) The social brain hypothesis.
Wk 6 Life History
C. Ross (1998) Primate life histories
E. L. Charnov and D. Berrigan (1993) Why do female primates have such long lifespans and so few babies? Or life in the slow lane.
P. C. Lee (1996) The meanings of weaning: growth, lactation, and life history.
Wk 7 Matings
E. Cashdan (1996) Women’s mating strategies.
C. P. Van Schaik and A. Paul (1996) Male care in Primates: does it ever reflect paternity.
Wk 8 Human female reproductive ecology
B. I. Strassmann (1996) Energy economy in the evolution of menstruation.
J. S. Peccei (2001) Menopause: Adaptation or epiphenomenon?
J. F. O’Connell, K. Hawkes, and N. G. Blurton Jones (1999) Grandmothering and the evolution of Homo erectus.
Wk 9 Food sharing
B. Winterhalder (1996) Social foraging and the behavioral ecology of intragroup resource transfers
R. Bird (1999) Cooperation and Conflict: the behavioral ecology of the sexual division of labor.
Wk 10 Aspects of Hominid growth and development
B. H. Smith and R. L. Tompkins (1995) Toward a life history of the Hominidae
Dean, C. et al. (2001) Growth processes in teeth distinguish modern humans from Homo erectus and earlier hominins.
H. Kaplan et al., (2000) A theory of human life history evolution: Diet, intelligence, and longevity.
Wk 11- Approaches to fossil hominids
H. M. McHenry (1994) Behavioral Ecological Implications of early hominid body size.
K. Rosenberg and W, Trevathan (1995/1996) Bipedalism and human birth: the obstetrical dilemma revisited.
Wk 12 Fossil hominid meat-eating??
R. J. Blumenschine, J. A. Cavallo, and S. D. Capaldo (1994) Competition for carcasses and early hominid behavioral ecology: A case study and conceptual framework.
J. S. Oliver (1994) Estimates of hominid and carnivore involvement in the FLK Zinjanthropus fossil assemblage: some socioecological implications.
Wk 13 Forager Mobility
L. R. Binford (1980) Willow smoke and dog’s tails: Hunter-gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site formation.
R. L. Kelly (1992) Mobility/sedentism: concepts, archaeological measures, and effects.
L. R. Binford (1989) Isolating the transition to cultural adaptations: an organizational approach.
Wk 14 TBA
*** Note: There will be no classes on April 10 & 12 due to the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.