This Seventeenth Edition of ANNUAL EDITIONS: Physical Anthropology provides convenient, inexpensive access to current articles selected from the best of the public press. Organizational features include: an annotated listing of selected World Wide Web sites; an annotated table of contents; a topic guide; a general introduction; brief overviews for each section; a topical index; and an instructor's resource guide with testing materials. USING ANNUAL EDITIONS IN THE CLASSROOM is offered as a practical guide for instructors. ANNUAL EDITIONS titles are supported by our student website, www.mhcls.com/online.

UNIT 1. The Evolutionary Perspective

1. 46648 The Facts of Evolution, Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters, Henry HoltandCo., 2006

Evolutionary theory is rooted in a rich array of data from the past. While the specifics of evolution are still being studied and unraveled, the general theory is the most tested in science over the past century and a half.

2. 46649 Happy Birthday, Linnaeus, Richard Conniff, Natural History, December 2006/January 2007

Carl Linnaeus and his greatest rival, Comte de Buffon, were towering figures in their day. Although each despised the other, they together launched one of the greatest intellectual quests in history as they sought to understand life on Earth in all of its diversity.

3. 43075 Evolution in Action, Jonathan Weiner, Natural History, November 2005

More than 250 scientists around the world are documenting evolution in action. Some of the most dramatic cases result from the ecological pressures which human beings are imposing on the planet.

4. 32945 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense, John Rennie, Scientific American, July 2002

Opponents of Evolution are trying to tear down real science by setting forth a series of specious arguments. In reality, they intend to use intelligent design theory as a “wedge” in order to re-open science classrooms to discussion of God. This article consists of a series of rebuttals to some of the most common “scientific” arguments raised against the idea of evolution.

5. 40756 Why Should Students Learn Evolution?, Brian J. Alters and Sandra M. Alters, Defending Evolution in the Classroom, May 2001

In explaining how organisms of today got to be the way they are, the evolutionary perspective helps us to make sense out of the history of life and explains relationships among species. It is an essential framework within which scientists organize and interpret observations, and make predictions about the living world.

6. 43077 Designer Thinking, Mark S. Blumberg, Basic Instinct, Thunders Mountain Press, 2005

When we are confronted with complexity and see no path to how that complexity came about, the appeal of the argument from design is immense. Yet, says the author, the complexity of life can be accounted for by the trial and error process of natural selection with a result that has the appearance of being designed.

7. 43078 The Perimeter of Ignorance, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Natural History, November 2005

Over the centuries, many scientists have invoked the hand of God when they reach the boundaries of their understanding. When they feel certain about their explanations, however, God gets hardly a mention.

UNIT 2. Primates

8. 43079 The 2% Difference, Robert Sapolsky, Discover, April 2006

Now that scientists have decoded the chimpanzee genome, we know that we share 98% of our DNA. So how can we be so different? The answer lies in the fact that a very few mutations make for some very big differences.

9. 14704 The Mind of the Chimpanzee, Jane Goodall, Through a Window, April 2000, Soko

It has long been recognized that the differences in anatomy and physiology between apes and humans is a matter of degree. Because of the work of Jane Goodall, we have come to realize that there is continuity in mental and emotional development as well.

10. 32948 Got Culture?, Craig Stanford, Significant Others, Basic Books, 2001

The rudimentary cultural abilities of the chimpanzee not only sharpens our understanding of our uniqueness as humans, but it also suggests an ancient ancestry for the mental abilities that weand the chimpanzees have in common.

11. 10871 Dim Forest, Bright Chimps, Christophe Boesch and Hedwige Boesch-Achermann, Natural History, September 1991

Contrary to expectations, forest-dwelling chimpanzees seem to be more committed to cooperative hunting and tool use than are savanna chimpanzees. Such findings may have implications for the course of human evolution.

12. 43080 Why Are Some Animals So Smart?, Carel Van Schaik, Scientific American, April 2006

Observations of orangutans in the wild show that the more individuals have an opportunity to learn from one another, the more innovative and intelligent they become.

13. 40758 How Animals Do Business, Frans B.M. de Waal, Scientific American, April 2005

In contrast to classical economic theory which views people as profit maximizers driven by pure selfishness, recent studies show that both people and animals occasionally help one another, even when there is no obvious benefit to the help.

14. 19724 Are We in Anthropodenial?, Frans de Waal, Discover, July 1997

To endow animals with human emotions and mental qualities has long been a scientific taboo, but the more we learn about them, especially our closer relatives, the more it seems that there really are similarities.

15. 40759 A Telling Difference, Stephen R. Anderson, Natural History, November 2004

Some animals such as the bonobo named Kanzi have amazing communication skills, however, the evidence that they are capable of abstractions and grammatical structure that humans have is lacking.

UNIT 3. Sex and Society

16. 9123 What Are Friends For?, Barbara Smuts, Natural History, February 1987

An understanding of friendship bonds among baboons is not only destroying our stereotypes about monkeys in the wild, but is also calling into question traditional views concerning the relationships between the sexes in early hominid evolution as well.

17. 10870 What's Love Got to Do with It?, Meredith F. Small, Discover, June 1992

The bonobos use of sex to reduce tension and to form alliances is raising some interesting questions regarding human evolution. Does this behavior help to explain the origins of our sexuality, or should we see it as just another primate aberration that occurred after the split from the human lineage?

18. 16488 Apes of Wrath, Barbara Smuts, Discover, August 1995

Whether or not males beat up on females in a particular species seems to have a great deal to do with who is forming alliances with whom. This, in turn, has powerful implications as to what can to be done about sexual coercion in the human species.

19. 29636 Mothers and Others, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Cooperation, Empathy, and the Needs of Human Infants, May 2001

In many species, including our own, mothers are assisted in rearing their offspring by others. The more we adhere to this evolutionary heritage of “cooperative breeding,” the more likely we are to raise emotionally healthy children.

UNIT 4. The Fossil Evidence

20. 40761 The Salamanders Tale, Richard Dawkins, The Ancestors Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution, October 2004

To identify two different species with distinct names implies a discontinuity between them. Yet, if they were part of an evolutionary sequence, one begetting the other, the continuous reality contradicts the discontinuity implied in the names. It is no wonder, therefore that Dawkins claims that “names are a menace to evolutionary history.”

21. 43081 African Trailblazers, Ann Gibbons, The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors, Doubleday, April 2006

In one way or another, the pioneers in the pursuit of our earliest ancestors did not have it easy. They struggled against incredible odds. They challenged the prevailing scientific opinion. Yet, in spite of it all, they maintained the courage of their convictions and contributed greatly to the story of human evolution.

22. 37685 Hunting the First Hominid, Pat Shipman, American Scientist, January-February 2002

In searching for the first hominid to branch off from the apes, it helps to take note of the key features that distinguish apes from people. Such a list can be misleading, however, since not all of these features arose simultaneously and we do not even know which came first.

23. 43082 Digital Ancestors Walk Again, Carl Zimmer, Discover, October 2005

Powerful new scanning machines are allowing paleoanthropologists to look inside the fossils of ancient hominids and see things that, until now, have been shrouded in mystery.

24. 46651 The Origin of Childhood, Christopher P. Sloan, National Geographic, November 2006

At 3.3 million years old, the Dikika baby is the most complete specimen of her time and offers new clues about how our ancient ancestors may have straddled the line between ape and human.

25. 46652 Made in Savannahstan, Marek Kohn, New Scientist Magazine, July 1–7, 2006

The prevailing view in Paleoanthropology has been that our ancestors evolved human-like traits in Africa before striking out for Europe and Asia. Recent evidence points to another possibilitythat early hominids expanded out of Africa at an earlier stage and then returned to the ancestral continent as Homo erectus.

26. 9130 Scavenger Hunt, Pat Shipman, Natural History, April 1984

Microscopic analyses of tooth wear and cut marks on bone, combine with an increased understanding of the advantages of bipedalism, point in the direction of a “Man the Scavenger” model rather than “Man the Hunter.”

27. 41197 The Scavenging of “Peking Man”, Noel T. Boaz and Russell L. Ciochon, Natural History, March 2001

Dragon Bone Hill in China is the site of the cave that yielded the first, and still largest, cache of fossils of Homo erectus pekinensis. In the process of applying new methods of analysis to the evidence, the authors try to determine whether these relatives of ours used fire, were cannibals, were hunters or were the hunted.

28. 46653 Man the Hunted, Donna Hart and Robert W. Sussman, Man the Hunted, Westview Press, 2005

The authors present a convincing case that predation was an important factor in human evolution. The only twist in their theory is that our ancestors were more often the hunted than they were the hunters.

UNIT 5. Late Hominid Evolution

29. 9133 Hard Times Among the Neanderthals, Erik Trinkaus, Natural History, December 1978

In spite of the coarseness of their life-style and the apparent violence between individuals, Neanderthal skeletal remains reveal a prehistoric record of affection and respect, and they should be accorded the status of human beings.

30. 37687 Rethinking Neanderthals, Joe Alper, Smithsonian, June 2003

Contrary to the widely held view that Neanderthals were evolutionary failures, they persisted through some of the harshest climates imaginable. Over the past 200,000 years, they made some rather sophisticated tools and had a social life that involved taking care of the wounded and burying the dead.

31. 24595 The Gift of Gab, Matt Cartmill, Discover Magazine, November 1998

While the origin of human language is rooted in aspects of psychology and biology that we share with our close animal relatives, our kind of communication seems to be associated with making tools and throwing weapons.

32. 37688 We Are All Africans, Pat Shipman, American Scientist, November-December 2003

For decades, paleoanthropologists have argued over two competing theories about the origin of our kind: the “Out of Africa hypothesis” and the “Multiregional hypothesis.” Now, three new lines of evidence have converged to offer convincing support for just one of them.

33. 40765 The Littlest Human, Kate Wong, Scientific American, February 2005

An astonishing find in Indonesia suggests that a diminutive hominid, perhaps down-sized from Homo erectus, co-existed with our kind in the not so distant past.

UNIT 6. Human Diversity

34. 38642 Skin Deep, Nina G. Jablonski and George Chaplin, Scientific American, October 2002

Although recent migrations and cultural adaptation tend to complicate the picture, human skin color has evolved to be dark enough to prevent sunlight from destroying the nutrient folate, but light enough to foster the production of vitamin D.

35. 16486 Black, White, Other, Jonathan Marks, Natural History, December 1994

With regard to classifying human beings, the central message ofanthropology is: you may group humans into a small number of races if you want to, but you are denied biology as a support for it.

36. 35924 How Real Is Race?, Carol Mukhopadhyay and Rosemary C. Henze, Phi Delta Kappan, May 2003

The authors claim that race is not a scientifically valid biological category. Instead, as a historically specific way of thinking about, categorizing and treating human beings, race is a cultural invention.

37. 37690 Does Race Exist?, George W. Gill, Nova Online, October 12, 2000

Although the author understands why many physical anthropologists are able to ignore or deny the concept of race, George W. Gill claims that his experience in the area of forensic physical anthropology compels him to stand “clearly more on the side of the reality of race than on the ‘race denial side.”

38. 21405 The Tall and the Short of It, Barry Bogin, Discover, February 1998

Rather than being able to adapt to a single environment, we canthanks to our genetically endowed plasticity change our bodies to cope with a wide variety of environments. In this light, research suggests, we can use the average height of any group of people as a barometer of the health of their society.

UNIT 7. Living with the Past

39. 46654 Gracilization of the Modern Human Skeleton, Christopher B. Ruff, American Scientist, November/December 2006

While the bones of our ancestors show that the human skeleton was once stronger than it is today, studies of modern athletes demonstrate that we are still able to achieve considerable strength. If nothing else, the skeletons in our closet can teach us some valuable lessons about modern life-styles and their consequences.

40. 21536 The Viral Superhighway, George J. Armelagos, The Sciences, January/February 1998

The modern world is becoming a viral superhighway. Environmental disruptions and international travel have brought on a new era in human illness, one marked by diabolical new diseases.

41. 40725 The Inuit Paradox, Patricia Gadsby, Discover, October 2004

The traditional diet of the Far North, with its high-protein, high-fat content, shows that there are no essential foodsonly essential nutrients.

42. 17627 Dr. Darwin, Lori Oliwenstein, Discover, October 1995

The application of Darwin's theory of evolution to the understanding of human diseases will not only help us better treat the symptoms of diseases, but also promises to help us understand how microbes and humans have evolved in relation to one another.

43. 9118 Curse and Blessing of the Ghetto, Jared Diamond, Discover, March 1991

Tay-Sachs disease is a choosy killer, one that for centuries targeted Eastern European Jews above all others. By decoding its lethal logic, we can learn a great deal about how genetic diseases evolveand how they can be conquered.

44. 10882 The Saltshakers Curse, Jared Diamond, Natural History, October 1991

Physiological adaptations that at one time helped West Africans and their descendants cope with unusually high salt loss may now be predisposing American blacks to hypertension and a premature death.