Biological Anthropology is the study of physical and behavioral aspects of humans, primate relatives, and our extinct ancestors, from both traditional anthropological and evolutionary perspectives. Biological anthropology includes bioarcheology, forensic anthropology, paleoanthropology, primatology, molecular anthropology, human behavioral ecology, and human biology. This discipline is diverse, utilizing patterns of human biological variation to infer behaviors of past peoples, biological and social lived experiences in archaeological and forensic contexts, and evolutionary relationships, trajectories, and adaptations of extinct human and non-human primate species.
Research and teaching
UNLV has specialists who are at the forefront of new theoretical perspectives, discoveries, and methods in forensics, bioarchaeology, human biology, and paleoanthropology. Areas of research and teaching include:
- The phylogeny of early human species
- Craniofacial adaptations in Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Homo.
- Inferring sexual dimorphism in human evolution
- Evolutionary and functional constraints in primates and human facial variation
- Methods of human skeletal analysis, including fragmentary bone identification, biological profile estimation, trauma analysis, and paleopathology
- Investigating health disparities in archaeological, historic, and forensic contexts
- Intersection of reproduction, nutrition, and behavior - both in human evolutionary biology and social life in contemporary small-scale societies
Courses include:
- ANTH 102: Introduction to Biological Anthropology
- ANTH 110L: Introduction to Biological Anthropology Lab
- ANTH 365: Bones, Bodies and Trauma: Forensic Studies in Anthropology
- ANTH 426/626: Medical Anthropology
- ANTH 444/644: Bioarchaeology
- ANTH 460/660: Primate Evolution
- ANTH 461/661: Human Evolution
- ANTH 462/662: Human Osteology
- ANTH 464/664: Dental Anthropology
- ANTH 467/667: Health and Disease in Antiquity
- ANTH 475/675: Evolutionary Medicine
- ANTH 478: The Anthropology of Pregnancy and Birth
- ANTH 762: Laboratory Seminar on Osteology
Explore our work:
Collections
The Department maintains some human skeletal material, in addition to fossil hominin casts, as well as digital collections of human, primate, and fossil material.
To find out more information about the biological collections at UNLV, contact Dr. Jennifer Byrnes.