Visit our textbook-specific Online Learning Center Web site at www.mhhe.com/relethford8e to access the exercises that follow.
Human Adaptability
http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/bindon/ant475/.
Dr. Jim Bindon's Human Adaptability Web site provides his University of Alabama anthropology students with a selection of interesting articles on human adaptability. All of these articles will open as Adobe (.PDF) files. You can either save them to your hard drive or read them online. (Please abide by the terms stipulated by JSTOR.)
Read the Paul T. Baker article "The Adaptive Limits of Human Populations" (Man, 19 (1984): 1–14 at http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/bindon/ant475/Readings/r1.pdf. Baker argues in broad outline that all hominin populations that came after Homo erectus adapted to environmental and cultural stress. However, the adaptive process of the past created implications for life in the modern world, and with it, further stresses. Andean Amerindians and Samoan examples are given.
Baker defines adaptation as "simply any biological or cultural trait which aids the biological functioning of a population in a given environment." In what ways does he speculate that this happened? Did all hominin populations solve their survival and reproductive problems in similar fashion?
Stresses are defined as "those natural or cultural environmental forces which potentially reduce the population's ability to function in a given situation." Besides climate and food, what, according to Baker, were some of the stresses hominin populations dealt with?
Does it now seem likely that morphological differences within Homo erectus groups could be attributed to the diversity of environmental change?
Baker assumes that most Homo erectus forms "contributed to the genetic and cultural repertoire of Homo sapiens." What was the end result, and what evidence (cultural or otherwise) indicates that this was happening among succeeding hominin populations?
In spite of evidence indicating technological and cultural variation, Baker feels that with adaptation, these changes also produced biological stress. What are some possible stresses he identifies?
What effect did water vapor variation and ultraviolet radiation have? Infectious disease and alterations in potential food sources?
Return to Dr. Bindon's home page. Scroll down to the "Bergmann's Rule and the Thrifty Genotype" link. This 1997 American Journal of Physical Anthropology article was co-authored by Drs. Bindon and Baker. Read the article at http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/bindon/ant475/Readings/r7.pdf.
How is "Bergmann's Rule" defined?
In what ways has modernization affected the Bergmann formula?
In what geographic region were population samples drawn for the longitudinal study referenced in the article?
What is the "thrifty genotypes" hypothesis, and what genetic condition does it specifically address? Which specific populations does the hypothesis reference?
How is genetic predisposition to NIDDM (non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus) explained by this hypothesis?
Why did modernization among the target population require modification of the "thrifty genotypes" model?
