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{{Anthropology |types |topimage=Primate skull series with legend cropped.png|topcaption={{hlist |[[Primate]] skulls. From left to right: [[Human skull|Human]] |[[Common chimpanzee|Chimpanzee]] |[[Orangutan]] |[[Macaque]]}}}}
'''Biological anthropology''', also known as '''physical anthropology''', is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct [[Hominini|hominin]] ancestors, and related non-human [[
== Branches ==
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[[File:Johann Friedrich Blumenbach.jpg|thumb|right|125px|[[Johann Friedrich Blumenbach]]]]
[[File:FranzBoas.jpg|thumb|125px|[[Franz Boas]]]]
Biological Anthropology looks different today than it did even twenty years ago. The name is even relatively new, having been 'physical anthropology' for over a century, with some practitioners still applying that term.<ref>Ellison, Peter T. (2018). "The evolution of physical anthropology". ''American Journal of Physical Anthropology''. '''165.4''': 615-625. 2018.</ref> Biological anthropologists look back to the work of [[Charles Darwin]] as a major foundation for what they do today. However, if one traces the intellectual genealogy and the culture back to physical anthropology's
Attempts to study and classify human beings as living organisms date back to ancient Greece. The Greek philosopher [[Plato]] ({{circa}} 428–{{circa}} 347 BC) placed humans on the ''[[scala naturae]]'', which included all things, from inanimate objects at the bottom to deities at the top.<ref name="Spencer1997">{{cite book|last=Spencer|first=Frank|date=1997|chapter=Aristotle (384–322 BC)|title=History of Physical Anthropology|editor-last=Spencer|editor-first=Frank|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QP8u1RHKQAUC&q=Plato%2C+Aristotle+physical+anthropology&pg=PA107|volume=1|location=New York City, New York and London, England|publisher=Garland Publishing|isbn=978-0-8153-0490-6|pages=107–108}}</ref> This became the main system through which scholars thought about nature for the next roughly 2,000 years.<ref name="Spencer1997"/> Plato's student [[Aristotle]] ({{circa}} 384–322 BC) observed in his ''[[History of Animals]]'' that human beings are the only animals to walk upright<ref name="Spencer1997"/> and argued, in line with his [[teleology|teleological]] view of nature, that humans have [[buttocks]] and no tails in order to give them a cushy place to sit when they are tired of standing.<ref name="Spencer1997"/> He explained regional variations in human features as the result of different climates.<ref name="Spencer1997"/> He also wrote about [[physiognomy]], an idea derived from writings in the [[Hippocratic Corpus]].<ref name="Spencer1997"/> [[Scientific method|Scientific]] physical anthropology began in the 17th to 18th centuries with the study of [[Race (human classification)|racial classification]] ([[Georgius Hornius]], [[François Bernier]], [[Carl Linnaeus]], [[Johann Friedrich Blumenbach]]).<ref>Marks, J. (1995) ''Human Biodiversity: Genes, Race, and History''. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.</ref>
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Biological Anthropology}}
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