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Q4. List the branches of physical anthropology?
Ans. Physical anthropology, branch of anthropology concerned with the origin,
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evolution, and diversity of people. Physical anthropologists work broadly on three major
sets of problems: human and nonhuman primate evolution, human variation and its
significance (see also race), and the biological bases of human behaviour. The course
that human evolution has taken and the processes that have brought it about are of
equal concern. In order to explain the diversity within and between human populations,
physical anthropologists must study past populations of fossil hominins as well as the
nonhuman primates. Much light has been thrown upon the relation to other primates
and upon the nature of the transformation to human anatomy and behaviour in the
course of evolution from early hominins to modern people—a span of at least four
million years.
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a) Paleoanthropology: The study of human evolution is multidisciplinary,
requiring not only physical anthropologists but also earth scientists,
archaeologists, molecular biologists, primatologists, and cultural anthropologists.
The essential problems are not only to describe fossil forms but also to evaluate
the significance of their traits. Concepts such as orthogenesis have been replaced
by adaptive radiation (radiant evolution) and parallel evolution. Fossil hominins
of considerable antiquity have been found in Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe,
and few areas lack interesting human skeletal remains. Two problems requiring
additional research are (1) the place, time, and nature of the emergence of
hominins from preceding hominoids and (2) the precise relationship of fully
anatomically modern Homo sapiens to other species of Homo of the Pleistocene
Epoch (i.e., about 2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago), such as the Neanderthal.
b) Primatology: Nonhuman primates provide a broad comparative framework
within which physical anthropologists can study aspects of the human career and
condition. Comparative morphological studies, particularly those that are
complemented by biomechanical analyses, provide major clues to the functional
significance and evolution of the skeletal and muscular complexes that underpin
our bipedalism, dextrous hands, bulbous heads, outstanding noses, and puny
jaws. The wide variety of adaptations that primates have made to life in trees and
on the ground are reflected in their limb proportions and relative development of
muscles.Free-ranging primates exhibit a trove of physical and behavioral
adaptations to fundamentally different ways of life, some of which may resemble
those of our late Miocene–early Pleistocene predecessors (i.e., those from about
11 to 2 million years ago). Laboratory and field observations, particularly of great
apes, indicate that earlier researchers grossly underestimated the intelligence,
cognitive abilities, and sensibilities of nonhuman primates and perhaps also
those of Pliocene–early Pleistocene hominins (i.e., those from about 5.3 to 2
million years ago), who left few archaeological clues to their behaviour.

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