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Article ID: CBB165299061

A historiographical perspective on contemporary biological anthropology (2023)

Bernardo Yáñez Macías Valadez (Author)

Almagest
Volume: 14
Issue: 2
Pages: 64-72
Publication date: 2023
Language: English

URI: https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/abs/10.1484/J.ALMA.5.136759

DOI: 10.1484/J.ALMA.5.136759

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Linguistics Archaeology Ethnography Molecular anthropology Primatology Evolutionary developmental biology Physical anthropology Historiography Modern North America: United States; Canada

The history of North American physical anthropology is a relevant topic for historians and philosophers of science. In this paper I offer a schematic perspective that accounts for a three-level historiographical narrative that includes: i) the “prehistory” of physical anthropology; (ii) the new physical anthropology; and (iii) the construction of a biological anthropology. First, I argue that historiography is a useful methodology for conducting epistemological analyses. Next, I delve into these three historical stages and contrast them in order to establish some guiding principles for each of them. For instance, the “prehistory” of physical anthropology is characterized by a parametric tradition, while the new physical anthropology considers measurement only as the first step of physical anthropological analyses; the second is to contextualize and explain what these measures represent in a biocultural context. Biological anthropology, on the other hand, is an extension of the new physical anthropology that includes theoretical, methodological and conceptual aspects of contemporary evolutionary biology, primatology, molecular anthropology, etc. In addition, it considers the other branches of anthropology: ethnography, archaeology, linguistics as fundamental frameworks towards a comprehensive and integral anthropology. I close with some concluding remarks that highlight the relevance of biological anthropology not only in the context of the Social Sciences and Humanities, but beyond.

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Article Vincent Jullien; Carmen Martínez-Adame (2023) Foreward. Almagest (pp. 6-14). unapi

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