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Customer Reviews (2)

good
Somewhat dry but a good theoretical review of the anthropological critiques leveled against the development industry in recent decades.

wrong edition, terrible service
I was guaranteed the 2004 edition and was sent the 2000 edition.When I sent an email asking about returning it, I received a request for the ISBN, sent it, and after that the seller would not reply to my messages.I was stuck with an old edition. ... Read more

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This successful text, now in its seventh edition, offers a biocultural perspective. It integrates basic evolutionary theory, human genetics, coverage of non-human primates, paleoanthropology, and modern population biology to illustrate the physical and behavioral evolution of human beings. New research integrated throughout the text. All Guest Essays are new. A new chapter has been added on Human Growth and Development and timelines have been added before each hominid chapter. Internet resources have been added to the end of each chapter. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

I was FASCINATED, and I am not even in Anthropology
This book, despite the other student's words, was fantastic!I read it night after night FOR FUN!It was so interesting, with good pictures too, that I just picked it up off the shelf even though it had nothing to do with my major.I even gave it to my family to read too, especially since they are fundamentalist Christians who have difficulty even conceiving of the idea of human change and development over time.I was not disappointed with this book in the least....in fact, there were many nights I stayed up reading just as long as my eyes would stay open. Fascinting, comprehensive, thorough, and excellently written. BRAVO!

Boring but comprehensive
This is probably THE most boring physical textbook on the market, but it is also the most comprehensive. As an undergrad, I couldn't stay awake through more than a couple of paragraphs at a time. As an anthropologist, I can't think of a better text
to assign to my students. For the serious student, there simply is no way to avoid this book. It set the standard.

So unlucky that I have to use this book
It is the most boring textbook I've ever seen. Too dull that I nearly fall asleep. Luckily my teacher has excellent lecture notes so I can understand the concepts of physical anthropology.
If you are so unlucky that you have to use this book, I can only wish you have a good teacher. God bless you.

Acceptable (Yawn)
An acceptable intro text for physical anthropology. It's overall scope iswide, and it covers the relevant topic, but it's just so . . . dull. Ittakes a rare person to fall in love with physical anthroplogy after gettingthrough this book. Jurmain et al are in fine anthropological literary form,which means half-asleep and probably on a fiber-reduced diet. This book isso stilted and formulaic that getting through each chapter is a herculeanlabour. It's also fairly childish in its format, with irritating extra" Try This!" questions at the end of each chapter; the sort youdoubtless remember from high school and junior high textbooks and the oneswhich no one - not even the teacher's pet-ever did. The price is alsoridiculously high considering its a non-specialist text for beginners. Comeon guys, gimme a break, the right-wing government where I live alreadybelieves students are made of money.

As an intro text, this is one of the better ones...
I have been using this text as a teacher for several years (through threeeditions).It is accessible and easy to use.The only complaint I have isthat the editions change too frequently and the information contained ispretty much the same.There are better texts but this one is widely usedand a good buy. ... Read more

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Forensic anthropology is a vastly popular and rapidly changing profession, yet to date there has been no volume that reflects the current state of the discipline and forecasts its future. The first comprehensive text in the field, Forensic Anthropology: Contemporary Theory and Practice examines the medical, legal, ethical, and humanitarian issues associated with forensic anthropology, current forensic methods, and bio-historical investigations.
Forensic Anthropology offers a unique synthesis of theoretical and methodological coverage. Rather than simply describing methodology, Komar and Buikstra place forensic anthropology in the broader context of medico-legal death investigations, critically evaluating practical techniques in a scientific framework and detailing the anthropologist's role in relation to both law enforcement and the medical examiner or coroner. The authors review the current state of the field, emphasizing recent changes to the judicial guidelines regarding the admissibility of scientific evidence in court. They highlight the impact of these rulings, the increased need for scientific rigor, and the evolving nature of anthropological studies, preparing students to function effectively in the demanding judicial system that will evaluate their work in the future. The text also stresses the vital importance of research in the development of forensic applications of anthropology.
Forensic Anthropology is enhanced by numerous illustrative case studies and more than ninety photos and illustrations that help to deepen and enrich students' understanding of the material. Coauthored by a top authority in forensic anthropology and an anthropologist whose fieldwork has included medico-legal death investigation in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Darfur, this volume is an in-depth and indispensable guide to the dynamic and rapidly professionalizing field of forensic anthropology. ... Read more

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Comprehensive and engaging, Byers will leave students rejoicing in the thoughtful pedagogy that leads them step-by-step through the most current and detailed forensic anthropology text to date! This one-of-a-kind text offers comprehensive coverage of all of the major topics in the field of forensics with accuracy, intensity, and clarity. Following the protocol developed for the field by Clyde Snow in his 1982 article in the Annual Review of Anthropology, this cutting-edge text includes coverage of all areas in the field. Extensive illustrations and photos ensure that the text is accessible for students. As one reviewer says, "There is no other source available that is so comprehensive in its coverage of the methods and issues in the current practice of forensic anthropology." Another raves, "The first edition has been a big hit with my students, and I have been very pleased with the ease with which this text has corresponded to my class lecture structure ...I am anxiously awaiting the second edition!" ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Use it as an Intro and nothing more
This book is a good introduction for students that has never studied the subject or a student who has very little understanding in the processes involved in Forensic Anthro.There are some errors in the book though; this is annoying, and may add some confusion to the unsuspecting student.

Great book!
Good book for an introductory forensic anthropology course. Doesn't use a lot of technical talk, great examples and case studies. Two thumbs up! ... Read more

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CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: A CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE, Third Edition is a sophisticated synthesis of social and cultural anthropology. Keesing was concerned with the political and ethical implications of anthropological fieldwork and was sensitive to the global conditions of inequality caused by the spread of capitalist relations of production. Thus, his book is more "political" than other introductory texts in the field. Keesing was also committed to the belief that students should not merely memorize terms and theories, but should also be challenged to ponder the deep questions raised by human diversity.Roger Keesing's untimely death in 1992 necessitated that a co-author execute his planned revision. Dr. Andrew Strathern was chosen because, like Keesing, his training is in the British social anthropological tradition, his fieldwork has concentrated on the Pacific, and his recent teaching experience has acquainted him with American cultural anthropology. In this revision, Dr. Strathern preserved Keesing's vision, arguments, and the ethnographies presented as illustrations of Keesing's theories, while also examining each sentence to determine whether its assertions needed to be updated, modified, or abandoned. Small changes made in this way incorporated a larger aim of updating and recasting the book to better fit and reflect a world 20 years since publication of the first edition. ... Read more

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ROUNDTABLE VIEWPOINTS: PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY offers varying perspectives on important issues and provides readers with balanced and fair coverage of a topic to form their own opinion or to support their research. This reader is designed to address a number of different issues regarding physical anthropology. Each issue question is relevant to the topic and guides readers through the readings. The controversy and different views among the captivating readings is readily apparent to the reader and stimulates discussion. The 3-5 selections per issue are current, culled from a variety of sources, and relate to the most popular issues surrounding the topic. In addition to the issue questions and selections, ROUNDTABLE VIEWPOINTS: PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY includes an issue introduction; summary/overview; highlights; critical thinking; challenge questions; and additional reading and/or websites. ... Read more

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This compelling ethnographic study describes how two groups of Romanian industrial workers have fared since the end of socialism. Once labor's elite, the celebrated coal miners of the Jiu Valley and the chemical workers of the Fagaras region had many social privileges and often derived genuine satisfaction from their work. Today, they are a rarely noted casualty of postsocialist transformations. Fear, distance, and alienation are the physical manifestations of stress experienced due to their precarious job status, declining health, and loss of a social safety net. Kideckel traces these issues in the context of labor, political relationships, domestic and community life, gender identities, and health. Drawing on more than three decades of fieldwork, he presents many narratives from select individuals, in their own words, providing a poignant and illuminating perspective on the everyday lives of ordinary people.

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Human tooth size lies central to the fields of dentistry, physical anthropology, human biology, forensic dentistry, and archaeology. An appreciation of the genetic and environmental determinants of tooth size is fundamental to an understanding of the metric variation of teeth in humans. Thus, besides imparting a sound knowledge of the theories of dental inheritance, development and evolution, this book demonstrates the diverse practical applications of odontometrics. ... Read more

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This concise anthropology text presents a balanced introduction to the field of physical anthropology using tables, charts, photo essays and multimedia to bring the study of physical anthropology to life for students. ... Read more

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Race is often defined by its reference to biology, "blood", genes, nature or essence. Yet these concepts are often left unexamined. Integrating material from the history of science, science studies, and anthropological studies of kinship and new reproductive technologies, as well as from studies of race, Peter Wade explores the meaning of such terms and interrogates the relationship between nature and culture in ideas about race.

Wade argues that, over previous centuries in the West, human nature has been conceptualized as a combination of pre-determined and flexible factors. In the twentieth century, despite the nature versus nurture debate, our understanding of what makes up human identity and character continues to blur the boundaries between the two. Exploring the complex interconnection between nature and culture in making persons what they are, Wade argues that these ideas of biology and nature that underwrite racial discourse are more complex than they seem. Using studies of public understandings of genetics and of ideas about the "natural" ties of kinship, he shows that everyday understandings of race still invoke "biology" and "blood", and that the common assumption of a general shift to "cultural racism" is premature.

Offering a clear and insightful explanation of the key issues, Wade argues that biology is not seen as a clearly fixed category. Looking at race from the unusual perspective of anthropology, he develops the idea of biology as a process, and contends that racial identity may become embodied. The sedimentation of the cultural effects of racial identity into the physical body underlies the apparent contradiction between race as fixed and race as flexible. ... Read more

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This new reader edited by Mark K. Sandford presents classic and contemporary articles on key issues dealing with the nature of science, evolution and heredity, primate behavior, human evolution, and modern human variation. ... Read more

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Over thirty years ago, Dian Fossey established the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda to study the behavior and ecology of mountain gorillas.Some of the offspring of the gorillas first studied by Fossey are still being observed today and the long-term observations on known individuals, from birth to death, and data on social behavior within and among the groups have led to an understanding of many aspects of gorilla social structure. Written by scientists who have worked at Karisoke over the years, this book highlights and summarizes what we have learned about the behavior, ecology, and conservation of the genus Gorilla and two other recognized subspecies and provides some comparisons with other gorilla populations elsewhere in Africa. ... Read more

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This is a loose-leaf version of Jurmain/Kilgore/Trevathan/Ciochon's INTRODUCTION TO PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 2009-2010 Edition. ... Read more

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This is an extraordinary contemporary account of witchcraft andwitch-hunting in the modern world. A powerful ethnographic study ofwitch-hunting in 1980s South Africa - a period of rapid social change with the dismantling of apartheid and the reinstating of the ANC - this book demonstrates the extent to which witchcraft must be seen, not as a residue of 'traditional' culture but as part of a complex social drama which is deeply embedded in contemporary political and economic processes.

Isak Niehaus provides the context for this fascinating study of witchcraftpractices. He shows how the witchcraft was politicized against the backdrop of the apartheid state, the liberation struggle and the establishment of the first post-apartheid regime all affected conceptions of witchcraft.Niehaus demonstrates how the ANC and other political groups used witchcraft beliefs to further their own agenda. He explores the increasingly conservative role of the chiefs and the Christian church. In the process, he reveals the fraught nature of intergenerational and gender relations.

The result is a truly insightful and theoretically engaged account of amuch-studied but frequently misunderstood practice. ... Read more

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A forensic investigation requires a team of specialists from many different scientific fields of study along with legal and law enforcement specialists. In recent years, the range of cases on which forensic anthropologists have been consulted has expanded dramatically. The Use of Forensic Anthropology provides these professionals with guidelines for determining how to choose and when to use a forensic anthropologist.

The book begins with a historical overview of the field of forensic anthropology, and then presents basic information about how to approach a forensic recovery site. When skeletal or severely decomposed remains are discovered, normal methods of identification such as facial recognition and fingerprinting are ineffective. This book offers insights on how to find the right professional to assist with these difficult cases.

One of the key features is a chapter which presents a series of ten questions that must be answered, in order, about each case. Using this checklist will ensure the team working on the case that no stone is left unturned. Later chapters examine the relevance of race, ethnicity, and ancestry, determination of time of death, new investigation techniques, DNA, and categories of trauma. The final chapter brings the various parts of the process together to reconstruct a case.

The first responder to a scene with skeletal remains and the law enforcement agencies who become involved will likely be confronted with evidence that they cannot interpret. This volume provides a bridge for these professionals, enabling them to develop a standard protocol for investigating skeletal remains, highlighting important questions that must be answered, and assisting them in finding the right forensic anthropologist to solve the puzzle of an unexplained death.

Customer Reviews (1)

How the real "CSI" stuff works!
As an enthusiastic reader of forensic books - both the science and the fiction - and a watcher of TV forensic dramas, I really think this book provides some great insights into how anthropologists do their work. The authors use understandable language without a lot of jargon and use real cases to tell how they do what they do. The illustrations, even the gross ones, add to the text.



I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries and how anthropologists help solve them.
... Read more

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This is the first major study of the Nuer based on primary research since Evans-Pritchard's classic Nuer Religion. It is also the first full-length historical study of indigenous African prophets operating outside the context of the world's main religions, and as such builds on Evans-Pritchard's pioneering work in promoting collaboration and dialogue between the disciplines of anthropology and history. ... Read more

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In traditional Polynesian societies, tattooing has played a key role in the social construction of the individual. This is the first study to provide a comparative analysis of tattooing in its original setting--based on a comprehensive survey of both written and oral sources. Drawing on modern social theory, psychoanalysis, and anthropological studies, Gell demonstrates the role of tattooing in the complex array of controlling sacredness and protecting the self. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Lots of Good Information, Could Have Been Leaner
While the text is only 315-pages, it is like reading fine print.The author is a "Reader in Anthropology" at the London School of Economics & Political Science.Maybe not my first choice to step forward as an authority on the subject.

"I have just suggested that tattooing is primarily associated with two sociologically defined categories (1) marginalized subcultures (2) preliterate tribal societies.I have further hinted that this distribution is explicable because there is elective affinity between tattooing as an expressive mode and certain lifestyle attributes and value orientations, and that these are the common properties of both categories (1) & (2).It would seem to follow that I must have in the back of my mind some universalist interpretation of what tattooing means.It is indeed true that I have a certain general interpretive idea, but I hope that this need not imply that I am hell-bent on forcing all the available ethnographic data , from whatever source, into a single Procrustean bed of 'tattooing theory'."

Who talks like that?Makes me want to smack him.Its this kind of academia babble that really challenges the reader of this exhausting book.I'll also wager Gell is acting an authority on a subject, and he probably has never gotten a tattoo.So why does it get 4-stars?

Partly because I couldn't give 3.5 and partly because there is nothing else like it that I am aware of.Amid the endless litany of Gell loving to hear himself speak, there is some excellent primary source information on traditional tattooing.It takes real effort and desire to plow through the beginning with all his stupid thoughts like the one above to get to something like:

"We are certainly entitled to regard tattooing as a part of the Samoans' armoury in the field of psychological warfare.Tattoos would be visible in battle, during which those engaged wore only minimal clothing. They certainly must have made warriors more impressive to their opponents, and their gestures of defiance more horrid (and also served to identify slain warriors).As an initiatory episode, tattooing was a means of magically fortifying young men and preparing them for military service..."

I really didn't need to spend $50 to get that, and most of his presentation is typically that awkward/obtuse.In any event, there is a lot of quotation from primary sources that will be of interest to anyone investigated the history or practices of the old cultures associated with Tatau.The Hawaiian section is scant.The Samoan, Tongan, Maori, and Marquesas sections have decent coverage, though each of these cultures should have their own chapter.Tahiti, Fiji, and the Cook Islands equal less than 20-pages.The author really needed to spend time in all these places, and then maybe there would have been more substance to the book.

To really write a book like this, the author needs to do academic research of source materials (which he did rather well), and then, he needs to spend a few years living amongst these cultures (he obviously didn't) and then, HE NEEDS TO GET TATTOOED!Then we'd have a 5-star book. ... Read more