Biocultural evolution

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is orphaned as few or no other articles link to it.
Please help introduce links in articles on related topics. (May 2008)

Biocultural evolution is an evolutionary process that is the result of culture's interaction with biology throughout human evolutionary history.

The human predispositon for culture is perhaps one of the most critical aspects of human evolution and as such has had significant effects both on human and nonhuman biology.

Some examples of biocultural adaptations would be lactose tolerance, the maintenance of the sickle-cell allele in some tropical populations, and cold adaptation.

[edit] Bibliography

ADAMS, Richard N. (1991) "Social Evolution and Social Reproduction" New Literary History. Volume 22. Number 4. Pages 857-876

BRACE, C. Loring (1995) "Biocultural Interaction and the Mechanism of Mosaic Evolution in the Emergence of 'Modern' Morphology" American Anthropologist. Volume 97. Number 4. Pages 711-721.

LOPREATO, Joseph (1990) "From Social Evolutionism to Biocultural Evolutionism" Sociological Forum. Volume 5. Number 2. Pages 187-212.

WILEY, Andrea S (1992) "Adaptation and the Biocultural Paradigm in Medical Anthropology: A Critical Review" Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Volume 6. Number 3. Pages 216-236