Department of Anthropology

Penn State University

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Anthropology is the study of people and their evolution. Anthropologists study human origins and human culture from a comparative perspective. This allows them to understand why people look the way they do, why they make the things they make, and why their societies run as they do. Anthropologists formulate generaliizations about human diversity based on comparative biological, archaeological, and cultural studies. Anthropologists at Penn State study many aspects of the human condition, from genetic variation among living peoples, to the human and nonhuman primate fossil record, to the history and manifestations of human material culture throughout the world, to modern human social organization and demography.

REcent faculty books published . . .

David Puts, biological anthropologist, recently published a new book titled, The Evolution of Human Sexuality: An Anthropological Perspective. This book examines such topics
as sexes and genders, competition for mates, attractiveness, sexual conflict, marriage, sexual orientation, and parenthood from an evolutionary anthropological perspective.

For additional information on Dr. Puts

David Puts Human Sexuality Book David Puts Picture
 

Ken Weiss

The Mermaid's Tale

Anne Buchanan

Ken Weiss, biological anthropologist, and Anne Buchanan recently published a new book titled "The Mermaid's Tale: Four Billion Years of Cooperation in the Making of Living Things" (2009, Harvard Press), that summarizes many of their ideas on the nature, and genetic basis of complex traits.

For additional information on Dr. Weiss and Dr. Buchanan