Download ANT 570 Principles of Physical Anthropology History of Physical

ANT 570
Principles of Physical
Anthropology
History of Physical
Anthropology
http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/bindon/ant570/
A Cultural Construction of the
History of Physical Anthropology
 Since
Physical Anthropology as currently
known is less than 200 years old, depiction
of its early roots depends on how we
characterize the modern day science.
 Two basic themes underlie most current
definitions of Physical Anthropology:
Human Variability
 Human Origins
Studies of Human Variation and
Human Evolution
7 Periods of Development
 Ancient
Roots
Differences and Origins
 The
Renaissance
Empiricism and Science
 Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries
Nat
ur
al
i
s
m andMan’
sPl
acei
nNat
ur
e
Homer (fl. 1200 - 850 B.C.)
Periods of Development
 PrePre-Darwin
Nineteenth Century
Racial Origins
 PostPost-Darwin
Nineteenth Century
Evolution and Racial Origins
 1900
- 1950
Description and Discovery
 1950
-
The New Physical Anthropology
 Iliad
and Odyssey acknowledge variability
Aethiopians: the most remote of men
A
race divided, whom with sloping rays
The rising and descending sun surveys
CubitCubit-men: African pygmies
 Cubit
was the distance from finger tip to elbow,
about 17 - 22”
 Said to be responsible for sending back the
migrating cranes each summer
 To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise, and order through the midway sky;
To pigmy nations wounds and death they bring
1
Homer
 Humans
are depicted as the result of
degeneration from an earlier, bigger,
stronger race
Herodotus, Democritus
 Herodotus

References to a former age when giants
populate the earth
fierce Tydides stoops; and from the fields
Heaved with vast force, a rocky fragment wields.
Not two strong men the enormous weight could
raise,
Such men as live in these degenerate days
 The giant myths appear to be related to the
appearance of Old world Megalithic sites
Observed skulls of Egyptians and Persians fallen in
battle
–Egyptians, who shave their heads from birth, have strong
skulls due to exposure
–Persian skulls are brittle due to the constant wearing of felt
hats
 Then
Hippocrates (c. 460 - 377 B.C.)
 Early
medical practitioner and teacher
 Corpus Hippocraticum,
Hippocraticum, 70 treatises
Viewed the body as an organism and claimed that
it could not be understood without an
understanding of the relationship between the
environment, behavior, and the body
Humoral system accounted for disease

(fl. 5th Century B.C.)
Historiae argues environmental cause of variability
between groups of men


Dark skin of Aethiopians due to their habitual exposure
Listed three different groups of Aethiopians
 Democritus
(fl. 5th Century B.C.)
Origin of men from water and mud
Hippocrates, 2
 Airs,
Waters, Places,
Places, treatise on
influence of the environment on health
and temperament
Provides comparisons of the peoples of
Asia Minor with Europe and Egypt
 Recognized
two fundamental somatotypes
(body build or habitus types)
–Phthisic:
Phthisic: long, thin, and choleric (Easily angered;
badbad-tempered; showing or expressing anger)
–Apoplectic: short, squat, and phlegmatic (Having or
suggesting a calm, sluggish temperament;
unemotional)
Health was a function of the balance between blood,
phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile in the body
These ideas resurfaced in the 18th and 19th
centuries
Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C.)
St. Augustine (354(354-430)
F
i
r
s
tuseoft
er
m“
ant
hr
opol
ogi
st
”i
nEthics
to
desc
r
i
beamanwhowas“
notagoss
i
p,nota
t
al
kerabouthi
ms
el
f
”
 Historia Animalium describes similarities
between man, apes, and monkeys, but does
not attribute these to common ancestry
 Environmental causes of variation
Wooly hair of Aethiopians due to arid climate
Straight hair of Scythians due to moist air
 De
Civitate Dei Contra Paganos
emphasizes both monogenesis and the
Scala Naturae
All men born everywhere, no matter how
strange they appear to us, are descended
from Adam
Man is midway between angels and beasts
 He
reckoned that 6,000 years had
elapsed since the creation of Adam
2
Leonardo da Vinci (1452(1452-1519)
Renaissance
 14th
- 17th Centuries: Transition from
medieval to modern philosophy
From interpretations of natural phenomena based
on the bible to science and empiricism
 Rise
of commercial capitalism
Voyages of exploration and discovery lead to the
discovery of vast cultural and physical differences
between human populations
Perceptions of categorical differences rather than
continuous differences between groups
 In
Notebooks he questions the environmental
hypothesis in accounting for human variation
The black races in Ethiopia are not the product of
the sun; for if black gets black with a child in Scythia,
Scythia,
the offspring is black; but if black gets a white
woman with child the offspring is grey
 Supports
an early hereditarian argument based
ont
hepoweroft
hemot
her
’
sseed
And this [above] shows that the seed of the mother
has power in the embryo equally with that of the
father
Leonardo da Vinci (1452(1452-1519)
 Interested
in human growth and development
Studied changing proportions of both sexes at
different stages from infancy to maturity
 He
noted the similarity between living and fossil
shellfish and argued that the fossils were of
organic origin, not supernatural
Andreas Vesalius (1514(1514-1564)
First
modern human anatomy text:
De humani corporis fabrica libri
septem
This is the first widespread
anatomical work based on the
empirical method
Vesalius produced the first detailed
and naturalistic drawings based on
human dissection
Magnus Hundt (1449 - 1519)
de hominis dignitate…,
dignitate…,
published in 1501 was one of the first
books of the Renaissance to be
published with anatomical woodcut
illustrations
 First anatomical text to use the term
anthropology in the context of human
anatomy
 Antropolgium
Andreas Vesalius (1514(1514-1564)
 Notes
an environmentallyenvironmentally-mediated
relationship between race and the
shape of the skull
It seems that certain nations have something
peculiar in the shape of their head. The Genoese,
and more particularly the Greeks and Turks,
almost exhibit a round shape. To this also (which
not a few of them think elegant and consider well
adapted to turbans which they use various ways)
the midwives sometimes contribute at the urgent
request of the mother. The Germans, indeed,
have a very flattened occiput and a broad head,
because the boys always lie on their backs in their
cradles.
3
Tys
on’
sWor
k
Edward Tyson, 1650 - 1708




British Father of
“
Pr
i
mat
ol
ogy
”
Renowned Comparative
Anatomist
Systematic, detailed
anatomical study
Debunked myths about
“
Wi
l
dMen”and
“
Py
gmi
es
”
18th Century-Enlightenment
Century--Enlightenment
 Monogenism:
All humans had a single origin
from Adam and Eve.
The origin of the the different races is seen as
being environmentally determined through a
process of degeneration from Europeans
 Polygenism:
Different races are descendants
of different Adams, separate creations,
separate species
Rejects Buf
f
on’
scriterion
scriterion of interfertility for species

Many polygenists,
polygenists, especially in America, maintained that
the races did not successfully interbreed
 OrangOrang-Outang,
Outang,
sive Homo sylvestris:
sylvestris: or the
anatomy of a pygmy compared to that of a
monkey, an ape, and a man. (1699)
To which is added a philological essay concerning
the pygmies, the cynocephali, the satyrs, and
sphinges of the ancients.
 Work
based on a dissection of the first
recorded anthropoid ape imported into
England
18th Century-Enlightenment
Century--Enlightenment
 Differential
Carolus Linnaeus, 1707 - 1778
 Swedish
Botanist
of Taxonomy
 Viewed the task of
classification as one
of attempting to
understand the
pattern of the Scala
Naturae
 Father
Worth
Races ranked on various criteria, usually
assertions about behavior or personality, judged to
assess intelligence or moral standards
The rankings are used either to bolster the Scala
Naturae or protoproto-evolutionary relationships
Such rankings are highly subjective and loaded
with potential for ethnocentric abuse, with the
highest rank always being reserved for the race of
the anthropologist doing the ranking
Linnaeus
 Systema
Naturae (1735 - 1766)
Original and ten revised editions
 By
1758 edition, man is considered to be a
separate species (sapiens
(sapiens)) within the genus
Homo,
Homo, of the order Primates.
Primates.
 Man is divided into four geographic varieties
Variety is a group with many deviations from the
species type in both heritable and nonnon-heritable
characteristics
4
Varieties of Linnaeus
 Linnaeus
ranked the four geographic varieties
of man along the Scala Naturae with
Europeans at the peak and Africans farthest
from the angels
Homo sapiens europaeus:
europaeus: White, sanguine,
active, acute, a discoverer, muscular
Homo sapiens asiaticus:
asiaticus: Sallow, melancholy, stiff
Homo sapiens americanus:
americanus: Red, choleric, erect
Homo sapiens afer:
afer: Black, phlegmatic, crafty, lazy,
choleric, relaxed
 NonNon-geographic
variants
Homo sapiens ferus:
ferus: Wild man, all fours, hairy
Homo sapiens monstrous:
monstrous: Giants, mutants
Homo sapiens troglodytes:
troglodytes: ape rumors?
George Louis Leclerc,
Leclerc, Comte
de Buffon, 1707 - 1788
 French
naturalist and
author
 From 1739 he was
keeper of the Jardin du
Roi in Paris
 His monumental
compendium on natural
history, Histoire Naturelle
(44 vols., 1749–1804)
Buffon
Buffon
 Saw
classification as sterile work
range of variation, subscribing to
the Scala Naturae,
Naturae, as the pattern of life
 Debunked macroevolution which he saw as
i
nher
enti
nLi
nnaeus’hi
er
ar
c
hi
calsy
st
em
 Varieties of the Human Species (1749)
described physical and cultural variation of
many different human groups
 Described
 While
denying the existence of
macroevolution, supporting fixity of species,
he espoused microevolution
The differences between populations of a species
(including humans) were the result of their
accommodation to local environmental conditions
He explained dark skins of Africans as a result of
exposure to the intensity of the sun in the tropical
climates
He felt that Africans showed little genius
Argued that slavery was morally wrong
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach,
1752 - 1840
 German
Anatomy
Professor
 Father of Physical
Anthropology
 Father of Craniology
 Founder of
Anthropology in
Germany
Blumenbach
 While
inheriting the mantle of human
classifier from Linnaeus, he also diverged:
Classified man as separate from non human
primates (Order Bimanus vs. Quadrumana)
Quadrumana)
On second attempt (1781), he divided man into
five races versus the four of Linnaeus

Spl
i
tLi
nnaeus’Asi
ansi
nt
oMongol
i
ansf
ormostofAsi
a
and Malayans for Southeast Asia
Ref
ut
edt
heex
i
st
enceof“
wi
l
dmen”and
“
t
r
ogl
ody
t
es
”ofear
l
i
ercl
as
si
f
i
cat
i
ons
5
Blumenbach Position




Bl
umenbach’
s
skull collection

Blumenbach related skull
shape to racial classification
He did so by placing a skull
between his feet and looking
down at it
This became known as the
"Blumenbach position"
He used this technique to
classify his skulls into five
categories
One is still in relatively
general use: "Caucasian."
How Blumenbach coined
t
het
er
m “Caucasi
an”
 Caucasian
variety. I have taken the
name of this variety from Mount
Caucasus… becauset
hi
s
neighbourhood … pr
oducest
hemost
beautiful race of men, I mean the
Georgian; and ... in that region, if
anywhere, it seems we ought with the
greatest probability to place the original
forms of mankind
Blumenbach
 In
On the Natural Variety of Mankind (1775;
1781; 1795)
Advocates Monogenism
Points out that the varieties blend into one another
in imperceptible ways
Felt that differences in skull shape and skin color
(among other traits) had been caused by the
environment
Debunk
edLi
nnaeus’
r
anki
ngsoft
her
aceswhi
l
e
explaining racial origins as degeneration from the
Caucasian type

19th Century
 PrePre-Darwinian
(1859) arguments about
the origin of races of man
 PostPost-Darwinian developments in the
origin and evolution of the races of man
 Separate schools of anthropology
develop in the England, U.S., Germany,
and France
Took special exception to arguments about mental
limitations of Africans
James Cowles Prichard,
1786 - 1848
 Researches
into the Physical History of
Man (1836)
 British physician who made a study of
anthropology by meeting sailors of many
different races as they came to port in his
hometown of Bristol.
 Strongest British spokesman for
monogenism, coco-founder of the
Ethnological Society of London
Samuel George Morton,
1799 - 1851
 Physician
from Philadelphia
convinced of inferiority of
African populations
 Measured cranial capacity (volume of
braincase) to assess differential worth
 Very careful technician, published
extensive list of measurements of
cranial capacities
 Polygenist,
6
Mor
t
on’
sRa
c
i
alRa
nki
ng
s
Racial
Category
Caucasian
Mongolian
Malay
American
Ethiopian

Mor
t
on’
s
Averages
(inches3)
87
83
81
82
78
Goul
d’
s
Averages
(inches3)
87
87
85
86
83
Nosi
gni
f
i
cantdi
f
f
er
encesbyGoul
d’
sr
e-calculations
Rudolph Virchow,
Virchow, 1821 - 1902
 German
physician, Father of Pathology
for scientific development of the
field of anthropology in Germany in the latter
part of the 19th Century
 He was a grudging evolutionist, having
diagnosed the original Neanderthal fossils
(1856) as being a modern human that had
experienced pathological skeletal changes
 Responsible
Pierre Paul Broca,
1824 - 1880
 Founder
of French
Anthropology
 First Society of
Anthropology (1859)
 First School of
Anthropology (1876)
 Instigated the study
of Craniometry
Robert R. Marett (1866 - 1943)
 Primarily
of interest because his
tutelage of Hooton in 1912 - 1913
 Working on the palaeolithic cave site of
La Cotte,
Cotte, St. Brelard,
Brelard, Jersey in the
Channel Islands from 1910 - 1914
Recovered some hominid teeth and some
archaeological remains
Broca
 Attempted
to quantify differential worth
Ratio of radius to humerus: a high ratio is
apeape-like, hence lower worth.
 Found
Caucasians scored higher than
Hottentots, Eskimos, and Australians and
discarded the ratio in favor of measures with
whites furthest from the apes
Larger brain indicates more intelligent
 Men
> Women; Eminent Men > Mediocre Men;
Superior (Caucasian) > Inferior (Other races)
Franz Boas, 1858 - 1942
 German
Physicist
of
Columbia
Department of
Anthropology
 Responsible for
growth studies being
incorporated into
anthropology
 Founder
7
Boas
 Boas
was a strong opponent of hereditarian
arguments about the difference between
races
Undertook migrant studies that documented
anatomical plasticity in traits that had long been
viewed as quintessential components of race:
skull measurements
 First
anthropology PhD in the US was a
growth study done by one of his students
Hrdlicka
 Trained
physical anthropologists in careful
scientific tradition at the Smithsonian, but did
not have a cadre of students because he was
not situated at a university
 Launched the American Journal of Physical
Anthropology in 1918
 Founding member of the American
Association of Physical Anthropologists in
1930
Sir Arthur Keith
dissection of primates (those from Siam
and others he arranged to receive from the
London Zoo) and of human fetuses formed
the basis of his doctoral dissertation on the
evol
ut
i
onofman’
ser
ec
tpost
ur
e
 Met Dubois in 1895 and examined the
r
emai
nsof“
Java”mant
hatwer
ebr
i
ef
l
ymade
available
Ales Hrdlicka, 1869 - 1943
 Tr
ai
nedatBr
oc
a’
s
institute in Paris in
1896
 Br
oughtBr
oc
a’
s
ideas to the U.S.
 Directed
anthropology at the
Smithsonian 1903 1943
Sir Arthur Keith, 1866 - 1955
 Scottish
physician
Keith was awarded a copy of The Origin of
Species for his distinctive work in anatomy
during his first year of medical studies
 First
medical post was with a a mining
company in Siam
Dissected monkeys in a malaria study, but
became fascinated by the comparative
anatomical aspects of his studies
Sir Arthur Keith
 His
He was convinced that it was a primitive human
 Became
conservator at the Royal
College of Surgeons in London, 1912
 Ancient types of Men published in 1911,
addressed the significance of the known
hominid fossils to date
 Became strongly embroiled in Piltdown,
its most influential spokesman not
i
nvol
vedi
nt
he“
di
scover
i
es”atPi
l
t
down
8
Earnest Albert Hooton
(1887 - 1954)
Sir Arthur Keith
 Ke
i
t
h’
sl
abor
at
or
yi
nt
heear
l
ypar
toft
hi
s
century was a hotbed of training and
influence for anthropologists, especially in the
areas of African Paleoanthropology and
American Physical Anthropology:
Raymond Dart
Edward Albert Hooton
Louis S.B. Leakey

Trained in classics:
 BA at Lawrence College
in 1907
 PhD at Wisconsin in
1911

Studied anthropology
as a Rhodes Scholar at
Oxford
 Diploma in 1912
 B.Litt
B.Litt.. In 1913
Hooton
E.A. Hooton
 While
at Oxford, Hooton became involved in
the Channel Island project of Marett
Introduced to Keith by Marett and a lifelong
friendship ensued
Published The Ancient Inhabitants of the Canary
Islands based on work with Keith in 1915
 Hired
at Harvard in 1913 to resuscitate the
program in Physical Anthropology
 Among
the first anthropologists trying to
establish physical types of the races by
measuring thousands of individuals
Whereas previous workers had focused on
minutiae of the skull, Hooten and colleagues
added the body: constitution
Hooten was especially interested in associations
between constitution and criminality
Advocated eugenic sterilization to prevent criminal
behavior as late as 1937

At the same time he denied racial classification as a valid
criterion for eugenic action
Hooton
“
Ther
ei
snoant
hr
opol
ogi
cal
gr
oundwhat
soeverf
or
selecting any soso-called racial group, or any ethnic or
national group, or any linguistic or religious group for
preferment or for condemnation. Our real purpose
should be to segregate and to eliminate the unfit,
worthless, degenerate and antisocial portion of each
racial and ethnic strain in our population . . By the
sterilization of its insane, diseased, and criminalistic
elements. The candidates for such biological
extinction would not be selected on the basis of Aryan
or Semitic descent, blond hair or black skin, but solely
on the score of their individual physical, mental and
mor
al
bankr
upt
cy
.
”
E.A. Hooton
 Graduated
his first doctoral student in 1926
many students that went on to
foster academic physical anthropology:
 Produced
Shapiro, Washburn, Howells, Brues, Coon,
Birdsell,
Birdsell, Garn, Hunt, Lasker, etc.
 Ho
ot
on’
swor
kwasacc
ess
i
bl
et
ot
hel
ay
public in books like Up from the Ape and
Apes, Man and Morons
9
American Physical Anthropology
in the Academy after World War
II
 In
addition to Harvard, Departments of
Anthropology like Arizona, Berkeley,
Chicago, Columbia, UCLA, Michigan,
Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were the
locus of activity in physical anthropology
 All of these programs were headed by
Hoot
on’
sst
udent
sorst
udent
sofhi
s
students
William W. Howells
 PhD
The Peopling of Melanesia As Indicated by Cranial
Evidence from the Bismarck Archipelago
 Established
the strong presence of physical
anthropology in the department at the
University of Wisconsin
 Returned to Harvard faculty to replace
Hooton on his death in 1954
 Renowned as a generalist and specialist
Writings accessible to the public like Hooton
Mankind So Far (1944), The Heathens (1948), and
Back of History (1954)
Sherwood L. Washburn
 Trained
heavily in
anatomy with LeGros
Clark, among others
 PhD under Hooton in
1940
A Preliminary Metrical
Study of the Skeleton of
Langurs and Macaques
 Taught
at Columbia
University Medical
School
Paul T. Baker



Undergraduate at New Mexico,
accepted at Harvard as one of
Hoot
on’
sl
astst
udent
s
Completed his PhD under
Howel
l
saf
t
erHoot
on’
sdeat
h
(1956)
Research Professorship at Penn
State in 1957
 Became anchor of strong physical
program at Penn State
under Hooton in 1934
Sherry Washburn
 With
Theodosius Dobzhansky, important
evolutionary geneticist, Washburn organized the
influential international symposium on the "Origin
and Evolution of Man" held at Cold Spring
Harbor, Long Island, New York, in the summer of
1950, which served to redefine the field of
physical anthropology
 Taught at University of Chicago and later at U.C.,
Berkeley
 In addition to reshaping physical anthropology,
he was instrumental in establishing primate
studies as an integral part of academic
anthropology
Paul Baker
 As
influential as Paul is his wife Thelma, who
ac
t
edast
hegoodc
opt
oPaul
’
sbadandal
so
helped to polish students much like Reiter
had for Paul at New Mexico
 Paul went on to direct two of the most
influential studies in the field of Human
Biology, each lasting more than a decade and
involving dozens of students
High altitude adaptation: Man in the Andes (1976)
Modernization, Migration and Health: The
Changing Samoans (1986)
 Elected
to the National Academy of Sciences
Served as chair of Anthropology Section 1983 1986
10
My Academic Genealogy
Sir Arthur
Keith
 Physical
Earnest A.
Hooton
Sherwood
Washburn
William W.
Howells
Stanley M.
Garn
Janet
Sawyer
Paul T.
Baker
Edward E.
Hunt, Jr.
M.A., Ph.D., Penn State
B.A., U.C., Berkeley
The“Ne
w”Phys
i
c
al
Anthropology
Robert R.
Marett
Anthropology up to 1950 was very
descriptive: Careful measurements and
anatomical details
 Resembled in most aspects a science of the
early 19th century-pre--Darwin
century--pre
 In the 1930s and 40s, a host of biologists,
paleontologists and others contributed to the
synthetic theory of evolution
Jim Bindon
The“Ne
w”Phys
i
c
al
Anthropology
 At
the instigation of Washburn and
Dobzhansky, anthropologists got together
with biologists in 1950 at the symposium on
“
Or
i
gi
nandEvol
ut
i
onofMan”hel
datCol
d
Spring Harbor, New York.
 Many articles and books emanated from this
symposium, including the piece by Washburn
assigned for class.
Biological Anthropology Today
 The
field of biological anthropology today is
embraces a broad diversity of topics, perhaps
best illustrated by the range of papers
presented at the annual meetings of the
American Association of Physical
Anthropology
 Ma
nyoft
he“
new”phys
i
c
alant
hr
opol
ogy
directions are finally being followed
Sources
 Brace,
C.L. and M.F.A. Montagu. 1965.
Man’
sEvol
ut
i
on. New York: Macmillan.
 Penniman,
Penniman, T.K. 1965. A Hundred
Years of Anthropology.
Anthropology. 3rd Revised
Edition. London: Gerald Duckworth &
Co.
 Schiller, F. 1979. Paul Broca. Berkeley:
U.C. Press.
Sources
 Slotkin,
Slotkin,
J.S. 1965. Readings in Early
Anthropology.
Anthropology. Chicago: Aldine.
 Spencer, F. (editor). 1982. A History of
American Physical Anthropology, 193019301980.
1980. New York: Academic Press.
 Spencer, F. 1986. Ecce Homo.
Homo.
Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood
Press.
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