Larsen Clark S. (ed.) A Companion to Biological Anthropology

2nd Edition. — Wiley-Blackwell, 2023. — 668 p.The discipline of biological anthropology - the study of the variation and evolution of human beings and their evolutionary relationships with past and living hominin and primate relatives - has undergone enormous growth in recent years. Advances in DNA research, behavioral anthropology, nutrition science, and other fields are transforming our understanding of what makes us human.A Companion to Biological Anthropology provides a timely and comprehensive account of the foundational concepts, historical development, current trends, and future directions of the discipline. Authoritative yet accessible, this field-defining reference work brings together 37 chapters by established and younger scholars on the biological and evolutionary components of the study of human development. The authors discuss all facets of contemporary biological anthropology including systematics and taxonomy, population and molecular genetics, human biology and functional adaptation, early primate evolution, paleoanthropology, paleopathology, bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, and paleogenetics.Updated and expanded throughout, this second edition explores new topics, revisits key issues, and examines recent innovations and discoveries in biological anthropology such as race and human variation, epidemiology and catastrophic disease outbreaks, global inequalities, migration and health, resource access and population growth, recent primate behavior research, the fossil record of primates and humans, and much more.A Companion to Biological Anthropology, Second Edition is an indispensable guide for researchers and advanced students in biological anthropology, geosciences, ancient and modern disease, bone biology, biogeochemistry, behavioral ecology, forensic anthropology, systematics and taxonomy, nutritional anthropology, and related disciplines.Clark Spencer Larsen is Distinguished Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at The Ohio State University. He has served as president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists and as editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. He is the author or editor of more than 25 books and monographs, including Advances in Dental Anthropology (with Marc A. Kelley, 1991), Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behavior from the Human Skeleton (1997), Skeletons in Our Closet: Revealing Our Past through Bioarchaeology (2002), and Our Origins: Discovering Physical Anthropology (2008).