Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 552 pages
- Published by: Wadsworth Publishing
- Edition: 11th Edition March 14, 2007
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0495187798
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0495187790
-
Book Dimensions:
10.8 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
- Weighs: 2.4 pounds
Product Description
Jurmain's best-selling text provides you with the course content you need to help you pass your biological/physical anthropology course. Through clear discussions that move from 'description' to interpretation, compelling visual content, cutting-edge research, and interactive multimedia, you'll discover life's history and the place of human beings in the biological world.
About The Author
Robert Jurmain received an A.B. in Anthropology from UCLA, and a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from Harvard. He taught at
San Jose State University from 1975 to 2004 and is now Professor Emeritus. During his teaching career, he taught courses in all major branches of physical anthropology, including osteology and human evolution, with the greatest concentration in general education teaching for introductory students. His areas of research interest are skeletal biology of humans and non-human primates; paleopathology; and paleoanthropology. In addition to his three textbooks, which together have appeared in 27 editions, he is the author of STORIES FROM THE SKELETON: BEHAVIORAL RECONSTRUCTION IN HUMAN OSTEOLOGY (1999, Gordon & Breach Publishers), as well as numerous articles in research journals.
Lynn Kilgore earned her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and holds an affiliate faculty position there. Her primary research interests are osteology and paleopathology. She has taught numerous undergraduate and graduate courses in human osteology, primate behavior, human heredity and evolution, and general physical anthropology. Her research focuses on developmental defects, disease, and trauma in human and great ape skeletons.
Wenda Trevathan is Regents Professor of Anthropology at New Mexico State University, where she has been on the faculty since 1983. She is a biological anthropologist whose research focuses on the evolutionary and biocultural factors underlying human reproduction, including childbirth, maternal behavior, sexuality, and menopause. Her primary publications include works on the evolution of childbirth and evolutionary medicine. She teaches courses in physical anthropology, nutritional anthropology, medical anthropology, evolutionary medicine, and anthropology of reproduction.
New co-author, contributor Russell L. Ciochon is a leading paleoanthropologist specializing in primate and human evolution in Asia, as well as the geochronology of Asian Plio-Pleistocene sites. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California - Berkeley, and teaches at the University of Iowa - Iowa City, where he is Chair of the Department of Anthropology. He teaches courses in hominid and non-human primate evolution, as well as primate behavior, ecology and functional anatomy. Besides co-authoring more than one hundred technical articles, he has also co-written two popular books: DRAGON BONE HILL: AN ICE AGE SAGA OF HOMO ERECTUS (2004, Oxford University Press) and OTHER ORIGINS: THE SEARCH FOR THE GIANT APE IN PREHISTORY (1990, Bantam Books).
Reader ReviewsIf this book is required for your anthropology course, then you're in luck! I appreciate that the authors genuinely enjoy the subject matter, and that it comes through in their writing. The book is very well organized. You can look forward to chapters of reasonable length -- usually 25 to thirty pages, at most. There are lots of colourful pictures and diagrams, though some flowcharts seem like page fillers to me. The margins are used for definitions of new key words and concepts, a very useful feature. Aside: There's a little bit of "handwaving" in the early chapters introducing concepts of genetics. That's unfortunate, but necessary at the same time. So if you're interested in the details, I encourage you to pick up a genetics textbook (I liked Concepts of Genetics), or better yet, take a genetics course. There are certainly debates and controversies in the field. This makes sense, since there are so many unknowns. I appreciate that the authors make mention of differing perspectives and points of view when appropriate.
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