Subjects: Anthropology

When studying how personality develops, we cannot ignore the role that sex and gender may play nor can we overlook the biological factors that may influence and differentiate male and female behaviors. Determining whether gender roles influence personality and social identity or vice versa may be difficult, but we know that gender roles vary greatly from culture to culture. It is also recognized that every culture has individuals who are transgenders?people who do not fall neatly within the proscribed male and female categories. Western cultures prefer to think exclusively in male and female gender roles, but many other cultures have created a ?third gender? or even a ?fourth gender? in which to place these individuals. As individuals, we not only need to know who we are but also how we fit in and belong to the culture we were born into. Sometimes it gets complicated.

This film focuses on three types of subsistence patterns: foraging, horticultural/ agricultural, and pastoralism. What all subsistence systems have in common is the need for water. Who controls the water is at the heart of human survival. In the postindustrial era, traditional subsistence activities have been relegated to hobbies, such as hunting, fishing, and berry picking. The next time you ask ?What?s for dinner?? think about what it took to get food to your table.

The key trait that makes a hominoid a hominin is evidence for bipedalism. In this video experts discuss the physical changes that must occur for the transition to bipedalism including the more forward positioning of the foramen magnum, the large hole through which the spinal cord passes into the skull, a pelvis that becomes more bowl-shaped rather than the long blade-like pelvis of a chimpanzee, a longer leg, and a foot with springy arches. Important discoveries are examined in the time period from four to one million years ago including East African discoveries such as Australopithecus anamensis and the famous ?Lucy? specimen. The history of discovery in South Africa is reviewed starting with the first Australopithecus, the Taung child, and the more rugged genus Paranthropus. Finally, you will learn about the first member of our genus, Homo habilis.

About 1.8 million years ago, a new species of Homo appears in East Africa, a species that will exist longer than any other hominin. This lesson focuses on that new species: Homo erectus, the first hominin to leave Africa. In this lesson, you will follow the migrations of this species. You will explore the history of what paleoanthropologists have discovered concerning this widespread hominin in Java and in China and learn how the recent discoveries in the Republic of Georgia have turned much of what we knew about Homo erectus on its head. Finally, you will learn about a new type of tool industry that lasts for more than a million years.

Around 780,000 years ago a new species of Homo appears, perhaps descended from the hominins that lived in Spain and Italy between 900,000 and 800,000 years ago. This time period, called the Middle Pleistocene, is marked by alternations of glaciations and interglacials. The new species is called Homo heidelbergensis. Around 125,000 Homo heidelbergensis gives rise to the Neandertals. The Neandertals are the main focus of this video lesson. You will see that the Neandertals were a robust people adapted for a cold, harsh environment. Their survival depended on more than just biology, however. A major factor to their survival was their stone tool culture, known as the Mousterian

Exlains the four-fields of anthropology, defines the concept of hilsm, and describes how anthroplogists approach their subject matter form a holistic and comparative cross-cultural perspective in order to reach the braodest and most inclusive conclusions possible on their subject of interest. Each field, cultural, physical (biological), linguistic anthropology, and archaeology, are described and situational material is included to illustrate how each field functions and interconnects with the others. This video also introduces the student to the way anthropologists carry out their analyses through rigorous fieldwork and participant observation in order to create the ethnographies that describe human cross-culturally.

Humans are biological organisms that have a place in the natural world. To understand what it means to be human we need to understand how we became human. The video introduces the topic of biology by looking at an important evolutionary force, natural selection, and how it has affected a species of fox living on islands off of the California coast. Next, the ultimate source of variation is examined as the hereditary material, DNA, is examined. Genes, alleles, and proteins are discussed as part of normal human physiology and with their involvement with inherited genetic diseases. How the hereditary material is distributed to offspring is the focus of meiosis by which sex cells are formed. Crucial here is that there are different combinations that lead to variation between each sex cell. Mutations give rise to new variations on which natural selection can act upon. In the final segment of the video, population genetics is showcased. A human case of natural selection, sickle-cell trait, is highlighted. Non-Darwinian forces of evolution, gene flow and genetic drift, are explored and the video ends with a discussion of how the evolutionary forces can change a population.

This video succinctly presents a portrait of what it is to be a primate with adaptation to an arboreal environment. The suite of traits that distinguish primates are presented along with a comparison to other types of mammals. Then the video delves into the adaptations and traits that distinguish the various type of primates from one another. Prosimians, tarsiers, New World monkeys, Old World monkeys, and hominoids are all adroitly described and distinguished. The types of locomotor patterns, diets, and habitats used by primates are interwoven throughout.

This lesson tackles why we study the behavior of nonhuman primates and how their behavior patterns can be related to human behavior and evolution. Experts discuss their field study experiences and what they learned about the behavior of their subjects. Social structure and social organization are related to impact on reproductive success. The central mother-infant bond is explored, along with patterns of affiliative and aggressive behaviors in social groups. Nonhuman capacities for language and culture are also addressed in interesting ways

Experts at the cutting edge of paleoanthropological research show how it?s done. In this video, students are introduced to the ways researchers gather data in order to answer the basic human question: Who are we and where do we come from? The multidisciplinary approach to this research is shown through interviews with established paleoanthropologists and with researchers in related areas such as archaeology, geology, the reconstruction of paleoenvironments, geomorphology, paleontology, and paleobotany. There is a strong focus on Koobi Fora, one of the most important field sites in paleoanthropology. In the last segment, relative and chronometric dating methods are explained in ways that will demonstrate state-of-the-art methods for discerning how old a specimen is.