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Anthropology

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	While perhaps not a pleasant thought, lice have long been a part of human history. Studying the <OpenstaxTerm>coevolution</OpenstaxTerm> relationship between humans and lice has shed much light on human story. Dr. David <OpenstaxTerm>Reed</OpenstaxTerm>, the Curator of Mammals and Associate Director of Research and Collections at the University of Florida Museum, has been studying the coevolution of humans and lice, an area of research that has developed only within the last 20 years. Reed’s groundbreaking research has the potential to fill in some big gaps in humans’ rather sketchy fossil record and provides important data that might have applications in medicine and biology. Two questions that this research has already begun to ask are when did we become less hairy and when did we start wearing clothes.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00001" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/c9ef78966e2e132f4a260594c069a258e2836239" alt="(a) Small, insect-like creature with six legs. (b) Small, insect-like creature with six legs. (c) Small, insect-like creature with six legs." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="1227" height="493" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="1227">
	Figure 5.31 There are three types of lice associated with humans: (a) crab or pubic louse; (b) body louse; (c)) head louse. The coevolution of humans and lice is a developing area of research. (credit: (a) Noizyboy1961/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0; (b) Janice Harney Carr, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain; (c) Dr. Dennis D. Juranek, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	<a href="#fig-00001">Figure 5.31</a> shows three types of lice associated with humans: the head louse (<OpenstaxEm>Pediculus humanus capitis</OpenstaxEm>), the body louse (<OpenstaxEm>Pediculus humanus corporis</OpenstaxEm>), and the crab louse or pubic louse (<OpenstaxEm>Pthirus pubis</OpenstaxEm>). Body lice infest clothing and lay their eggs on fibers in the fabric. Head and pubic lice infest hair, laying their eggs at the base of hair fibers. The human head and body lice (genus <OpenstaxEm>Pediculus</OpenstaxEm>) share a common ancestor with chimpanzee lice, while crab lice (genus <OpenstaxEm>Pthirus</OpenstaxEm>) share a common ancestor with gorilla lice. By tracking louse variations, scientists have been able to determine when the head louse and pubic louse diverged, enabling estimates as to when we lost our extra hair and when we started to wear clothes. It is interesting to note that the divergence of the genus <OpenstaxEm>Pediculus</OpenstaxEm> (head and body lice) correlates with the divergence of the human lineage from chimpanzees about six million years ago. Research on lice also provides further support for the Out of Africa model of human migration. Reed has observed that the genome of African lice shows a higher degree of genetic diversity than that of lice found elsewhere in the world, supporting the hypothesis that both humans and lice existed in Africa first.
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<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Many hypotheses about what may have triggered the loss of hair in humans point to <OpenstaxTerm>thermoregulation</OpenstaxTerm>, the need to control body temperature in extreme conditions. Living in the heat of the savanna, humans needed a cooling mechanism to enable them to be better hunters. Other evidence of adaptation to the heat includes the appearance of sweat glands, which are more numerous in humans than in other primates. Another theory about the cause of the loss of hair among humans suggests that it was an adaptation to control parasites on the body. Did people immediately throw on clothes after losing all of that extra body hair? Reed’s research suggests that the wearing of clothes was not something that happened quickly. Humans lost body hair about a million years ago and didn’t start wearing clothes until around 170,000 to 190,000 years ago. That’s about 830,000 years living in their birthday suits! When humans began to wear clothes, the body louse adapted structures that enabled them to attach to clothes instead of hair.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00002" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/95992d0b3c038e97372e2c0cce8ffd5eb5b626ab" alt="Model of a man, naked from the waist up, with his arms crossed over his chest as if he is cold." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="572" height="800" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="572">
	Figure 5.32 Humans lost most of their body hair about a million years ago. (credit: “Neanderthal” by Eden, Janine and Jim/flickr, CC BY 2.0)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Profiles in Anthropology </OpenstaxNoteTitle> <OpenstaxH3> Molly Selba </OpenstaxH3><OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00003" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/de4e1e61282581fa26f53bef29818d98842da73b" alt="A group of women sit around a table. One holds a skull and addresses the others." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="800" height="449" />
	<OpenstaxFigureText width="800">
		Figure 5.33 Molly Selba (holding skull) leading a study session. (credit: Molly Selba, Public Domain)
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		Personal History: From the time Molly was young, she knew she wanted to be an anthropologist.
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		She took an archaeology class at the local community college when she was a high school student and went to field school over the summer. In college, she completed a double major in archaeology and anthropology, with a minor in Museums and Society. She later gained experience working with different museum collections and held internships at the Baltimore City Medical Examiner’s Office and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. After completing her undergraduate degrees, she knew that she wanted to pursue anthropology as a full-time career and began working towards her master’s and doctorate in biological anthropology.
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		Area of Anthropology: For Molly the most interesting thing about biological anthropology is the information that bones can tell us. Initially she was interested in what the history of disease could tell us about the lives of people in the past, but as she worked with biological anthropologists, her focus shifted to understanding how evolution can impact the shape of different bones.
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	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		She received her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and her Master’s degree from the University of Florida, where she is currently a PhD candidate. Her research interests include comparative anatomy, cranial morphology, and anatomical sciences education. She is most interested in how cranial morphology varies within and between species and how it is impacted by factors such as evolution and selective breeding practices. Her earlier research focused on the differences in cranial morphology in dogs created by artificial selection for facial reduction. Her dissertation research currently focuses on a comparative study of facial reduction across bats, primates, and dogs.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
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		Accomplishments in the Field: For Molly her most important accomplishment in the field of anthropology has been in education and outreach. Throughout her time in graduate school, she was involved in school visits, working with teachers to facilitate the inclusion of human evolution into existing science curricula. She has specifically focused on helping educators find teaching materials that are culturally inclusive and responsive. She has led multiple professional development workshops for teachers on the same topic and has visited over two dozen classrooms and interacted with over 1,200 students in the last four years. Making science accessible to K-12 educators is an extremely important part of being a researcher, and she believes everyone in academia should strive to be effective science communicators.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		“Studying biological anthropology helps us better understand our origin story as a species. It helps us recognize why our anatomy is the way that it is, how morphological changes over time can take place, and why we have such a diversity of life on earth. Just being able to recognize and identify our anatomy is only half the challenge—more important is our understanding why various traits are adaptive, how structure relates to function, or why leftover anatomical traits still persist in our body to this day.”
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
</OpenstaxNote>

5.4.2 How the Genome of Lice Can Fill in the Gaps

1 What Is Anthropology?

1.1 The Study of Humanity, or "Anthropology Is Vast"

1.1.1 The Heart of Anthropology: Central Narrative and Commitments

1.1.2 Central Commitment #1: Exploring Sociocultural Diversity

1.1.3 Central Commitment #2: Understanding How Societies Hold Together

1.1.4 Central Commitment #3: Examining the Interdependence of Humans and Nature

1.2 The Four-Field Approach: Four Approaches within the Guiding Narrative

1.2.1 Biological Anthropology

1.2.2 Archaeology

1.2.3 Cultural Anthropology

1.2.4 Linguistic Anthropology

1.2.5 How the Four Fields Work Together: The Example of Race

1.3 Overcoming Ethnocentrism

1.3.1 Enculturation and Ethnocentrism

1.3.2 Primitivism and Orientalism

1.4 Western Bias in Our Assumptions about Humanity

1.4.1 Primitivism and Orientalism in Popular Culture

1.4.2 The Bias of Backwardness

1.5 Holism, Anthropology’s Distinctive Approach

1.5.1 Society as an Integrated Whole

1.5.2 Sources of Contradiction, Conflict, and Change

1.6 Cross-Cultural Comparison and Cultural Relativism

1.6.1 Relativism Is Not “Anything Goes”

1.6.2 Morality, Activism, and Cultural Relativism

1.7 Reaching for an Insider’s Point of View

1.7.1 The Challenge of Representing Others

1.7.2 Collaborative Methods of Representation

1.7.3 Working across Cultures toward Common Goals

1.7.4 Suggested Readings

2 Methods: Cultural and Archaeological

2.1 Archaeological Research Methods

2.1.1 Archaeological Techniques

2.1.2 Archaeological Dating Methods

2.2 Conservation and Naturalism

2.2.1 Early Efforts

2.2.2 Salvage Anthropology

2.2.3 Museum Collections

2.2.4 Interpretation and Voice

2.3 Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.1 The Development of Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.2 Perspective and Interpretation in Ethnography

2.4 Participant Observation and Interviewing

2.4.1 Participant Observation

2.4.2 Interviewing Informants

2.4.3 Ethical Considerations

2.5 Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

2.5.1 Differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Information

2.5.2 Modeling

2.5.3 The Science of Anthropology

2.6 Collections

2.6.1 Archives

2.6.2 Three-Dimensional Collections

2.6.3 Ownership

2.6.4 Suggested Readings

3 Culture Concept Theory: Theories of Cultural Change

3.1 The Homeyness of Culture

3.2 The Winkiness of Culture

3.3 The Elements of Culture

3.3.1 Culture Is What We Make

3.3.2 Culture Is What We Do

3.3.3 Culture Is What We Think

3.4 The Aggregates of Culture

3.4.1 Symbols

3.4.2 Ritual

3.4.3 Social Structure

3.5 Modes of Cultural Analysis

3.5.1 Evolution, Adaptation, and Historical Particularism

3.5.2 Functionalism

3.5.3 Structuralism

3.5.4 Ontology

3.6 The Paradoxes of Culture

3.6.1 Paradox 1: Culture Is Continuous, but It Changes

3.6.2 Paradox 2: Culture Is Bounded but Mobile

3.6.3 Paradox 3: Culture Is Consensual but Contested

3.6.4 Paradox 4: Culture Is Shared, but It Varies

3.6.5 Suggested Readings

4 Biological Evolution and Early Human Evidence

4.1 What Is Biological Anthropology?

4.1.1 Looking to the Deep Past

4.1.2 Exploring What It Means to Be Human

4.2 What’s in a Name? The Science of Taxonomy

4.2.1 Defining the Science of Taxonomy

4.2.2 Defining a Species

4.3 It’s All in the Genes! The Foundation of Evolution

4.3.1 The Units of Life

4.3.2 Gregor Mendel and the Laws of Heredity

4.3.3 Mendelian Inheritance in Humans

4.4 Evolution in Action: Past and Present

4.4.1 Early Evolutionists and the Fixity of Species

4.4.2 Charles Darwin’s Role in Changing Views of the Natural World

4.4.3 Understanding Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection

4.5 What Is a Primate?

4.5.1 What Is a Primate?

4.5.2 Primate Behavioral Variation

4.5.3 Explaining Primate Success

4.5.4 Primate Classification and Taxonomy

4.6 Origin of and Classification of Primates

4.6.1 Understanding Concepts of Time

4.6.2 Fossils and Dating Methods

Question	Answer
an interaction between different species that influences each species’ evolution; the simplest case of this is predator-prey relationships.	coevolution
an adaptation that allows the body to control and regulate body temperature.	thermoregulation