ANTH 102 - Introduction to Physical Anthropology

(3 units) CO4

Biological and evolutionary origins of humans, with consideration of population genetics, living primates, fossil records and human variation.

Prerequisite(s): MATH 120 or Corequisite. Corequisite(s): MATH 126 or higher; ANTH 110L.

Grading Basis: Graded
Units of Lecture: 3
Offered: Every Fall and Spring

Student Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. explain the differences between evolutionary biology, based on scientific principles, and intelligent design or creation science, based on faith and belief systems.
2. explain how natural selection, genetic drift, and mutation have produced the biological differences among human populations (e.g., in skin color, eye color and form, blood group gene frequencies, body size, fingerprints, dental mo
3. analyze the primary types of environmental stress affecting human evolution, including climate, disease, nutrition, and demography. They will evaluate also how humans adapt through behavioral, physiological, and genetic means.
4. recognize how humans fall within the larger biological world (as primates, mammals, vertebrates, bilaterians), and describe what they owe to the rest of the animal kingdom that contributes to their current evolutionary form and what constitutes uniquely human traits both behaviorally and biologically.
5. recognize that above other biological changes in hominid evolution, the one that set humans in a new direction was the development of bipedal locomotion and that some of the hallmarks of humanity developed within the last 50,000 years.

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