00044 - Anthropology

Learning outcomes

The student will acquire basic knowledge of Primate phylogeny, human evolution, and biodiversity and environmental adaptability of current human populations. In particular, the student is able to: - evaluate the potential and limitations of fossil records and genetic-molecular data for reconstructing human evolutionary history; - explain human biodiversity from a phylogenetic and adaptive perspective.

Course contents

• Introduction to Anthropology: definition and history of the discipline
• Nonhuman primates: biogeography and systematics
• Evolution of apparatuses and functions (locomotion, bipedalism, encephalization, articulate language)
• Climatic and environmental transitions and cultural transitions
• The human evolution: the study of fossils and molecular data
• Origins and spread of Homo sapiens
• The Neolithic transition
  
• The biological and cultural factors of human biodiversity
• Evolution of the human-environment relationship
• Biological and cultural adaptations to the environment
• From races to populations
• Anthropometry and Osteometry
• The Anthropocene

Readings/Bibliography

Manuale di Antropologia. Evoluzione e biodiversità umana (a cura di Luca Sineo, Jacopo Moggi Cecchi), 2022, Utet Università, 640 pp., 27,00 €.

Teaching methods

frontal lessons accompained by the observations of non human and human Primates skeletons and casts of fossil remains.

Assessment methods

oral exam

Teaching tools

Videoprojector, PC, laboratories, 

Office hours

See the website of Maria Giovanna Belcastro