Human Energetics in Biological Anthropology PDF Download

Author: Stanley J. Ulijaszek
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521432955
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Looks at energy intake, expenditure and balance in traditional subsistence populations.

Author: C. G. N. Mascie-Taylor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521453992
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Plasticity refers to the ability of many organisms to change their biology or behaviour to respond to changes in the environment, particularly when these are stressful. Humans are, perhaps, the most plastic of all species, and hence the most variable. This book reflects on the history of research in this area, state-of-the-art research methods and discoveries and needs for future research in human plasticity and variability. Topics discussed include child growth, starvation, disease of both young and old and the effects of migration, modernisation and other life-style changes. The book will be especially useful to biological anthropologists, human biologists and medical scientists interested in knowing more about how and why humans vary.

Author: Michael A. Little
Publisher: WCB/McGraw-Hill
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Author: David Parkin
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857451529
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Given the broad reach of anthropology as the science of humankind, there are times when the subject fragments into specialisms and times when there is rapprochement. Rather than just seeing them as reactions to each other, it is perhaps better to say that both tendencies co-exist and that it is very much a matter of perspective as to which is dominant at any moment. The perspective adopted by the contributors to this volume is that some anthropologists have, over the last decade or so, been paying considerable attention to developments in the study of social and biological evolution and of material culture, and that this has brought social, material cultural and biological anthropologists closer to each other and closer to allied disciplines such as archaeology and psychology. A more eclectic anthropology once characteristic of an earlier age is thus re-emerging. The new holism does not result from the merging of sharply distinguished disciplines but from among anthropologists themselves who see social organization as fundamentally a problem of human ecology, and, from that, of material and mental creativity, human biology, and the co-evolution of society and culture. It is part of a wider interest beyond anthropology in the origins and rationale of human activities, claims and beliefs, and draws on inferential or speculative reasoning as well as 'hard' evidence. The book argues that, while usefully borrowing from other subjects, all such reasoning must be grounded in prolonged, intensive and linguistically-informed fieldwork and comparison.

Author: Sara Stinson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118108043
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 787

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Book Description
This comprehensive introduction to the field of human biology covers all the major areas of the field: genetic variation, variation related to climate, infectious and non-infectious diseases, aging, growth, nutrition, and demography. Written by four expert authors working in close collaboration, this second edition has been thoroughly updated to provide undergraduate and graduate students with two new chapters: one on race and culture and their ties to human biology, and the other a concluding summary chapter highlighting the integration and intersection of the topics covered in the book.

Author: Barry Bogin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108434487
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 593

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Book Description
Discusses the biocultural and evolutionary factors that direct growth, and intrinsic and extrinsic factors affecting individual development.

Author: Ann E. Caldwell
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319304097
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 99

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Book Description
​The science of human physical activity and fitness is ripe for a novel theoretical framework that can integrate the ecological, genetic, physiological and psychological factors that influence physical activity in humans. Physical inactivity dominates most developed nations around the world, and is among the leading causes of disease burden and death worldwide. Despite the wide array of physical and mental health benefits, few people get the recommended level of physical activity to achieve these benefits. Current research on physical activity has not, as of yet, been successful for the development of effective exercise interventions. Several researchers have advocated a more integrative approach that takes evolutionary history into account, but such a framework has yet to be advanced. To that aim, the first goal of this book is to present a comprehensive evolutionary and life history framework that highlights the domain-specific aspects of the evolved psychology and physiology that can lead to a more integrated and complete understanding of physical activity across the lifespan. It summarizes and extends previous work that has been done to understand the ways natural selection has shaped physical activity in humans in traditional and modern economies and environments. In many ways, humans are adapted to be physically active. Overall, however, natural selection has shaped a flexible, but energy conscious system that responds to environmental and individual costs and benefits of physical activity to optimally allocate a finite energetic budget across the lifespan. This system is adapted to respond to cues of resource scarcity and high levels of obligatory physical activity, and conserves energy to favor allocation in ways that increase the likelihood of reproductive success and survival. This nuanced application leads to a more thorough understanding of the circumstances that natural selection is predicted to favor both sedentary and active behaviors in predictable ways across the lifespan. The second goal of this book is to synthesize and interpret cross-disciplinary research (from biological and evolutionary anthropology and psychology; epidemiology; health psychology; and exercise physiology) that can illuminate original approaches to increase physical activity in modern, primarily sedentary contexts. This includes a breakdown of the human lifespan to discuss the predicted costs and benefits of physical activity at each stage of life in order to differentiate the obstacles to physical activity and exercise that are functionally adaptive—or were in the environments that they evolved—and identifying which factors are more modifiable than others in order to develop interventions and environments that are more conducive to physical activity. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

Author: William R. Leonard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521780162
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Author: Peter T. Ellison
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351493515
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 489

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Book Description
The study of human reproductive ecology represents an important new development in human evolutionary biology. Its focus is on the physiology of human reproduction and evidence of adaptation, and hence the action of natural selection, in that domain. But at the same time the study of human reproductive ecology provides an important perspective on the historical process of human evolution, a lens through which we may view the forces that have shaped us as a species. In the end, all actions of natural selection can be reduced to variation in the reproductive success of individuals.Peter Ellison is one of the pioneers in the fast growing area of reproductive ecology. He has collected for this volume the research of thirty-one of the most active and influential scientists in the field. Thanks to recent noninvasive techniques, these contributors can present direct empirical data on the effect of a broad array of ecological, behavioral, and constitutional variables on the reproductive processes of humans as well as wild primates. Because biological evolution is cumulative, however, organisms in the present must be viewed as products of the selective forces of past environments. The study of adaptation thus often involves inferences about formative ecological relationships that may no longer exist, or not in the same form. Making such inferences depends on carefully weighing a broad range of evidence drawn from studies of contemporary ecological variation, comparative studies of related taxonomies, and paleontological and genetic evidence of evolutionary history. The result of this inquiry sheds light not only on the functional aspects of an organism's contemporary biology but also on its evolutionary history and the selective forces that have shaped it through time.Encompassing a range of viewpoints--controversy along with consensus--this far-ranging collection offers an indispensable guide for courses in biological anthropology, human biology, and primatology, along with

Author: Jonathan C. K. Wells
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521884209
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 395

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Book Description
Integrates medical and evolutionary data on the role of body fat in human biology, including the current obesity epidemic.