Biological Anthropology: Concepts and Connections

Biological Anthropology: Concepts and Connections shows the relevance of anthropological concepts to today's students and encourages critical thinking. Throughout the text and especially in its many “Connections” features, Agustin Fuentes links anthropological concepts and questions to students lives.

One of the top scholars in the field of biological anthropology, Agustin Fuentes current research looks at the big questions of why humans do what they do and feel the way they feel. He is committed to an integrated, holistic anthropological approach. Fuentes wrote this text to help answer the “so what” questions and make anthropological knowledge relevant to everyday life.

Agustín Fuentes completed a B.A. in Zoology and Anthropology, and an M.A.& Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research and teaching interests include the evolution of social complexity in human and primate societies, conflict negotiation across primates, including humans, and reproductive behavior and ecology. He is also interested in issues of human-nonhuman primate interactions, disease and pathogen transfer. Fuentes recent work includes publications such as “Its Not All Sex and Violence: Integrated Anthropology and the Role of Cooperation and Social Complexity in Human Evolution” in the American Anthropologist, “Re-visiting conflict resolution: Is there a role for emphasizing negotiation and cooperation instead of conflict and reconciliation?” in R. Sussman and A. Chapman Eds., The Origins and Nature of Sociality Aldine de Gruyter, Pub. He has published two edited volumes and is currently in the process of finishing three other texts. His current research projects include assessing behavior and disease transmission in human-monkey interactions in Asia and Gibraltar and examining the roles of cooperation, social negotiation, and patterns of niche construction in human evolution.