Genetics
- LAST REVIEWED: 06 May 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 11 January 2012
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0068
- LAST REVIEWED: 06 May 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 11 January 2012
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0068
Introduction
The inherited traits that shape human variation have been a major focus of anthropologists and biologists alike. Recently, molecular genetic tools have provided a massive array of possibilities to address anthropological questions in novel, powerful ways, leading to the formation of the young and exciting field of genetic anthropology. However, application of genetic knowledge to anthropology is still in its infancy and many methodological, theoretical, institutional, and ethical issues remain to be addressed for a complete integration of genetics with anthropology. Still, over the past decades, several high-profile discoveries using genetic tools have changed the way anthropologists think about some of the fundamental questions related to human biological and cultural diversity. These include determining how genetically similar we are to our primate cousins; proving an African origin for our species; noting the myriad migrations that define the biological and ancestral variations within and between human populations; detailing the demographic impact of the transition to agriculture, and so forth. All were explored to unprecedented depths thanks to genetic tools. Also exciting has been the recent focus of genetic anthropology on local adaptations, such as resistance to disease (e.g., malaria) and the impact of technological and cultural transformation in human history on genomic variation. As our understanding of the human genome deepens and, more important, as the extent of the interplay between biology and culture is unveiled, genetic anthropology can position itself potentially to address very difficult questions about human nature, the interaction between nature and society, and human variation in general.
Bibliographies
Genetic anthropology research is primarily published as peer-reviewed journal articles. PubMed is an extremely comprehensive bibliographic resource that includes almost all of the peer-reviewed citations that relate to biomedical research, including nearly all major genetic anthropology articles. However, it is important to note that material listed in PubMed consists overwhelmingly of journal articles and not books. A significant portion of the discussion that relates to data concerning the ethical, societal, legal, and cultural context of production and the impact of genetic anthropology is published as books or in nonbiomedical journals. This requires incorporation of bibliographic resources other than PubMed.
A free-of-charge database of journal articles curated by the US National Library of Medicine. The database includes more than twenty million citations and is the most comprehensive and most accessed database for biomedical research. Content of most of the journals that publishes genetic anthropology research is indexed in this database.
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Article
- Africa, Anthropology of
- Aging
- Agriculture
- Anorexia Nervosa
- Anthropology and Theology
- Anthropology of Islam
- Anthropology of Kurdistan
- Anthropology of the Senses
- Anthrozoology
- Antiquity, Ethnography in
- Applied Anthropology
- Archaeological Education
- Archaeology
- Archaeology, Historical
- Archaeology, Indigenous
- Archaeology of Childhood
- Archives
- Art/Aesthetics
- Autoethnography
- Bakhtin, Mikhail
- Bass, William M.
- Beauty
- Belief
- Benedict, Ruth
- Binford, Lewis
- Bioarchaeology
- Biocultural Anthropology
- Bioethics
- Biological and Physical Anthropology
- Biological Citizenship
- Boas, Franz
- Bone Histology
- Bureaucracy
- Business Anthropology
- Capitalism
- Cargo Cults
- Caribbean
- Caste
- Charles Sanders Peirce and Anthropological Theory
- Childhood Studies
- Christianity, Anthropology of
- Citizenship
- Cobb, William Montague
- Code-switching and Multilingualism
- Cognitive Anthropology
- Cole, Johnnetta
- Colonialism
- Commodities
- Consumerism
- Cultural Materialism
- Cultural Relativism
- Cultural Resource Management
- Culture
- Culture and Personality
- Culture, Popular
- Cyber-Archaeology
- Dalit Studies
- Dance Ethnography
- de Heusch, Luc
- Design, Anthropology and
- Diaspora
- Digital Anthropology
- Disability and Deaf Studies and Anthropology
- Douglas, Mary
- Drake, St. Clair
- Dreaming
- Durkheim and the Anthropology of Religion
- Economic Anthropology
- Embodiment
- Emotion, Anthropology of
- Environmental Anthropology
- Ethics
- Ethnoarchaeology
- Ethnocentrism
- Ethnography
- Ethnomusicology
- Ethnoscience
- Europe
- Evans-Pritchard, E. E.
- Evolution, Cultural
- Evolutionary Theory
- Feminist Anthropology
- Film, Ethnographic
- Folklore
- Food
- Forensic Anthropology
- Francophonie
- Frazer, Sir James George
- Geertz, Clifford
- Gender
- Gender and Religion
- Gene Flow
- Genetics
- Genocide
- Global Health
- Globalization
- Gluckman, Max
- Healing and Religion
- Health and Social Stratification
- Health Policy, Anthropology of
- Heritage Language
- HIV/AIDS
- Human Adaptability
- Human Evolution
- Human Rights
- Human Rights Films
- Humanistic Anthropology
- Hurston, Zora Neale
- Identity
- Identity Politics
- Indigeneity
- Industrial Archaeology
- Institutions
- Interpretive Anthropology
- Intertextuality and Interdiscursivity
- Kinship
- Laboratories
- Language and Emotion
- Language and Law
- Language and Media
- Language and Race
- Language and Urban Place
- Language Ideology
- Language Socialization
- Leakey, Louis
- Legal Anthropology
- Legal Pluralism
- Liberalism, Anthropology of
- Linguistic Anthropology
- Linguistic Relativity
- Linguistics, Historical
- Literacy
- Literary Anthropology
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude
- Magic
- Malinowski, Bronisław
- Maritime Archaeology
- Marriage
- Material Culture
- Mathematical Anthropology
- Matriarchal Studies
- Mead, Margaret
- Media Anthropology
- Medical Anthropology
- Mediterranean
- Memory
- Mendel, Gregor
- Mesoamerican Archaeology
- Mexican Migration to the United States
- Migration
- Militarism, Anthropology and
- Missionization
- Modernity
- Morgan, Lewis Henry
- Multispecies Ethnography
- Museum Anthropology
- Myth
- Narrative in Sociocultural Studies of Language
- Nationalism
- Needham, Rodney
- NGOs, Anthropology of
- Paleolithic Art
- Paleontology
- Performance Studies
- Performativity
- Personhood
- Perspectivism
- Pilgrimage
- Political Anthropology
- Postprocessual Archaeology
- Postsocialism
- Poverty, Culture of
- Primatology
- Processual Archaeology
- Psycholinguistics
- Psychological Anthropology
- Public Archaeology
- Public Sociocultural Anthropologies
- Race
- Religion
- Religion and Post-Socialism
- Religious Conversion
- Reproductive Technologies
- Rhetoric Culture Theory
- Rural Anthropology
- Sahlins, Marshall
- Sapir, Edward
- Scandinavia
- Science Studies
- Secularization
- Semiotics
- Settler Colonialism
- Sex Estimation
- Sexuality
- Shamanism
- Skeletal Age Estimation
- Social Anthropology (British Tradition)
- Social Movements
- Socialization
- Socio-Cultural Approaches to the Anthropology of Reproduct...
- Sociolinguistics
- Space and Place
- Stable Isotopes
- Structuralism
- Sub-Saharan Africa, Democracy in
- Surrealism and Anthropology
- Technological Organization
- Tourism
- Trans Studies in Anthroplogy
- Transnationalism
- Turner, Victor
- Urban Anthropology
- Value
- Violence
- Virtual Ethnography
- Visual Anthropology
- Whorfian Hypothesis
- Willey, Gordon
- Witchcraft
- Wolf, Eric R.
- Writing Culture
- Youth Culture