Synopses & Reviews
Many aspects of human activity involve energy transfer of some type. Human Energetics in Biological Anthropology examines some of the ways in which measurements of energy intake, expenditure and balance have been used to study human populations by biological anthropologists and human biologists. The book provides an integration of human adaptation and adaptability approaches, placing these issues in an ecological context by considering traditional subsistence economies in the developing world. This is the first volume to present such an integrated approach, and will be useful in the teaching of biological anthropology, human population biology, nutritional anthropology, and third world nutrition at senior undergraduate and graduate student level.
Review
"...[the study] results in a useful examination of the strategies employed by humans to satisfy their energy requirements, as well as the probable origins of these strategies." William A. Stini, The Quarterly Review of Biology
Synopsis
Human Energetics in Biological Anthropology considers various ways in which measurements of energy intake, expenditure and balance have been used to study human populations by biological anthropologists and human biologists. Central to this approach is the concept of adaptation and adaptability, placed in as ecological context by considering such processes in traditional subsistence economies in the developing world. The book will be useful to students in biological anthropology, nutritional anthropology, and third world nutrition.
Table of Contents
Preface; 1. Introduction; Part I. Theory and Methods: 2. The individual and the group; 3. Methods; 4. Modelling; Part II. Energetics and Anthropology: 5. Reproductive performance; 6. Growth and body size; 7. Energy, effort and subsistence; 8. Energetics and human evolution; 9. Energy balance and seasonality; References; Index.