Evolution within the field of Physical Anthropology is the Idea that “species change over time and have a common ancestry”(Park 2009, p36). With this in mind, the field of Physical Anthropology, also known as Biological Anthropology, can be used to explore and investigate the evidence of the human evolution. Within Biological Anthropology, evolution is observed as the change of humans and human ancestors over time. These changes that occur do not take place over night, nor do they happen over a decade. It takes thousands of years to produce changes in an organism to the effect that it would be classified as evolution. Physical Anthropologists study the remains of Hominins and other ancestors of humans to discover the link that connects us all. They also study other creatures to compare them to humans in an effort to understand where humans come from and what makes us human (Gonder, 2013).
One way that Physical Anthropologists have found links of evolution from early Humans and Neanderthals is through dental evidence found and investigated by Professor Alan Mann. He concluded that modern humans did in fact evolve from Neanderthals by finding links in the dental history of each species. Though his evidence is disputed by some, like any other scientific evidence, there have been some that support him and have come to the same conclusion of the relationship between Humans and Neanderthals. One piece of evidence that supports his theory is from a group of researchers from Germany that came to the conclusion in May 2010 “ based on DNA analysis, that Neanderthals and humans had mated, and 1 to 4 percent of the human genome of non-Africans today came from Neanderthals” (Patel, 2011). Mann goes on to say that through his research of human evolution, Evolution is not perfect and there are flaws that exist. One of these flaws he describes is the fact that the Human brain has grown to the point that the brain case has expanded, in turn the dental area has shrunk and now many people need their wisdom teeth extracted because of it (Patel, 2011). This is just one of the many extraordinary results of evolution. Others have concluded that it is quite easy to establish evolution by way of dental examinations of our ancestors. Bigham states “Considerable evidence exists that shows that the importance of large teeth and jaws was reduced as humans developed over the last 50,000 years”(Bigham, 2005). With this evidence of changes in human dental structure over the last 50,000 years, it is hard to argue the presence of evolution.
Though Physical Anthropology is a great avenue to examine and explore Human evolution, it is however not the only way to observe evolutionary process. Cultural Anthropologists have also studied the evolutionary process from their field. Take for instance the formation of tools and progressive food gathering techniques that took place in ancient human history and even the advances of today’s culture that changes humans day to day lives. This is seen as cultural evolution and is a huge part of the evolution of humans.
O’Neil states “The cultural developments of Homo erectus essentially began a new phase of our evolution--one in which natural selection was altered by cultural inventions. This has been referred to as Biocultural Evolution “( O'Neil, 1999). O’Neil goes on to state that the changes that occur from cultural evolution helped early humans adapt to their environment in ways that biological evolution could not. These changes include the use of caves as shelters, new ways to obtain food such as high in fat animals that would in change help them survive cold winters and the inclusion of fire to battle of the cold helped early humans in ways biological change could not, or at least not as fast (O'Neil, 1999). In theory, if not for these changes in cultural evolution, early humans would not have been able to adapt and therefore not survived. With this ability to adapt to the environment through cultural change instead of biological change, early humans in some ways beat natural selection. Professionals within the field of Cultural Anthropology can investigate evolution by way of finding ways humans adapted through history to their environment and other problems they encountered.
When comparing Physical Anthropology to Cultural Anthropology there are similarities and differences. If not for both biological and cultural evolution, the human race as we know it would not exist today. One way that both of these field have connected is the evolution of the human teeth. Today the average human consumes considerably more meat than the ancient human did. Therefore over time teeth have evolved from “herbivorous dentition” to more pronounce k-9 teeth to eat meat ( Bigham, 2005). This in conjunction with the cultural evolution of early humans from gathering plants, berries, eggs and other non-meat food to the ability to hunting and the evolution of hunting practices shows how these to evolutionary processes have simultaneously stabilized and secured human dominance and survivability from an evolutionary standpoint. In some ways, for a common person that has no connection to Anthropology, the view of Physical evolution is much easier to view than that of Cultural Anthropology due to the ways that each field is portrayed. However when further examining the huge cultural advances of humans, there is more evidence of Cultural Evolution than that of physical. This is not to say that one is more important than the other, because without either of these evolutionary processes, homo-sapiens would not exist.
After investigating both realms of Anthropology, there have been numerous things that have been interesting and exciting. One that was very interesting is the evolution of the Human teeth that has gradually taken place over many years. The evolution of the human brain and the size increase drastically increased the size of the brain cavity and therefore limited the size of the area for teeth which leads many today to have their wisdom teeth in the rear of the mouth taken out. This is quite extraordinary because, as stated before, it shows that evolution is not perfect and has flaws. Through the study of two different fields of Anthropology, it shows that not just one field is important and that all fields interact and have critical information of the human evolution, and combined produces the big picture of human history.