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Anthropology and Human Evolution

Class at Faculty of Education |
OENBB1701Z

Syllabus

1) Antropology - definition and major topics. Human variability - morphology, regulations and genetics.

2) Morphology - body size and its adaptive meaning, ecological adaptations, adaptations of cranium, brain and sensory organs, adaptations of locomotor apparatus

3) Ecology, reproduction and social structure, behavioural ecology and socio-biology

4) Anthropological methods - morphology, morphometrics, molecular anthropology

5) Ontogeny and life histories - meaning of the ontogeny as an adaptive mechanism, heterochronies and allometry, growth rates and growth regulation, behaviour, morphology and growth mechanisms, sexual dimorphism and sex differentiation, adaptations of populations

6) Primates - introduction to primatology, basic definitions, taxonomy, biogeography and ecology, Theoretical aspects of primate phylogeny - theories on macroevolutionary and microevolutionary processes, adaptive strategy, adaptive and exaptive radiations, life forms, speciation, evolutionary and phylogenetic systematics

7) Prosimians, Anthropoids - New World monkeys, Old World monkeys

8) Apes - hylobatids, orangutans and African apes

9) Origins of the primates, primate evolution in Paleogene

7) Differentiation of apes and hominids, origin of hominids and its ecological perspectives, major hominid features

8) The oldest hominids, the evolution of early australopithecines, basic featurer of Ardipithecus and Australopithecus, definition of afarensis group

9) Differentiation of australopithecines and origin of genus Homo; robust australopithecines their origin and differentiation, specialization and specific features of robust australopithecines, origin and taxonomy of early Homo

12) Evolution of genus Homo - Lower Pleistocene, Middle and Upper Paleolithic evolution of Homo sapiens - hunter or hunter-gatherers, material culture and it adaptive meaning, major adaptive processes in Homo sapiens evolution

13) Ecological aspects of human evolution, ecology of paleolithic man, transition from Paleolithic to the early agriculture, colonisation of the world by hominids, behavioural ecology and biogeography of hominids

Annotation

The course for Non-Erasmus students includes three main parts - generala issues of physical anthropology, primatology and Evolutionary anthropology. General issues introduces to the major problems of anthropology like human variability and otnogeny and the major factors, methods of anthropology, human diversity and human behavious.

Primalogical part should present: Basic features of the order Primates and also those of prosimians and anthropoids, detail information on biology, biogeography, ecology, social structure and life history of individual families, subfamilies and genera. Seminars are focused on life of individual primate groups in wild, or in captivity, their ecology and social structure.Evolutionary anthropology part provide theoretical information on primate phylogeny with a special regard to hominid evolution and fossil evidence on evolution of individual primate groups.

Special attention is paid to hominine phylogeny, evolution of genus Homo and its species, biological and cultural diversification of Homo sapiens from Paleolithic till Neolithic.