Anthropology and Human Evolution - OEN2302007

• Title: Antropolgy and Human Evolution
• Guaranteed by: Katedra biologie a environmentálních studií (41-KBES)
• Faculty: Faculty of Education
• Actual: from 2021
• Semester: both
• E-Credits: 4
• Hours per week, examination: 2/0, MC [HT]
• Capacity: winter:unknown / unknown (5); summer:unknown / unknown (5)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: cancelled
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment; priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan; you can enroll for the course in winter and in summer semester
• Guarantor: doc. RNDr. Václav Vančata, CSc.; RNDr. Edvard Ehler, Ph.D.

Annotation

Last update: doc. RNDr. Václav Vančata, CSc. (15.02.2019)

In lectures of Anthropology and Human evolution for Erasmus students will be presented most important topics on human and primate adaptations and variability and primate evolution with stressing of hominid evolution. The course 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.

Literature

Last update: doc. RNDr. Václav Vančata, CSc. (15.02.2019)

Aiello L. and Dean C., 1990: An Introduction to Human Evolutionary Anatomy. Academic Press, London, San Diego.

Bisborough A., 1995: Human evolution. Blackie Academic and Professional, London.

Boesch C., Boesch-Achermann H., 2000. The Chimpanzees of the Taï forest. Behavioural Ecology and Evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Conroy G. C., 1990. Primate Evolution. W. W. Norton and Company, New York.

Conroy G. C., 1997. Reconstructing Human Orignis. Norton and Company, New York.

de Waal F., (ed.) 2001. Tree of Origin. What Primate Behaviour Can Tell Us About Human Social Evolution. Harvard University Press, Cambridge and London.

Fagan B. M., 1989: People of the Earth. An Introduction to the World Prehistory (Sixth edition). Scott, Feresman and Company, Glenview, Boston, London.

Fleagle J. G., 1998: Primate Adaptation and Evolution (2nd ed). Academic Press, London.

Fleagle J. G., Janson C. and Reed K. E., 1999. Primate Communities. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Foley R. A., 1987: Another Unique Species. Patterns in human evolutionary ecology Longman Scientific and Technical, Harlow.

Gamble C., 1995: Timewalkers. The Prehistory of Global Colonization. Penguin Books, London.

Jones S., Martin R., and Pilbeam D., 1995: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Marks J., 1994. Human Biodiversity. Genes, Races, and History. Aldan de Gruyter, New York.

McGrew W. C. 1992. Chimpanzee Material Culture: Implications for Human Evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

McGrew W. C., Marchant L.F., and Nishida T., 1996. Great Ape Societies. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Rowe N., 1996. The Pictorial Guide to the Living Primates. Pogonias Press. New York.

Shoshani J., Groves C. P., Simons E. L. and Gunnell G. F., 1996: Primate phylogeny: morphological vs molecular results. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 5: 102 - 154.

Szalay F., Delson E., 1979. Evolutionary History of the Primates. Academic Press, New York.

Wolpoff M.H., 1999. Paleoantropology. Second edition. McGraw-Hill, Boston.

Wahl F. de, 1991: Peacemaking among Primates. Penguins Books, London.

Wrangham R. W., McGrew W. C., de Waal F. B. M. and Heltne P. G. (eds.), 1994: Chimpanzee Cultures. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Requirements to the exam

Last update: doc. RNDr. Václav Vančata, CSc. (15.02.2019)

Elaboration of two essays one on  general anthropological topics and the second one human evolution or genetics.

Syllabus

Last update: doc. RNDr. Václav Vančata, CSc. (15.02.2019)

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