Biological Anthropology Biological Anthropology is the study of human variation, adaptation, and evolution. At the University of Georgia, our biological anthropology faculty study how nutrition, ecology, disease, poverty and vulnerability shape— often dramatically— human growth and development, human well-being, and evolutionary processes. They examine human biological and behavioral variation through behavioral ecology, biocultural human biology, medical anthropology, bioarchaeology and biochemical analyses. Currently, faculty and students are pursuing several lines of research. One trajectory is to better understand the relationship between changing socio-ecological environments and human physiology, health, and wellbeing in resource-poor communities in the past and present. A second trajectory uses cutting edge technology to reconstruct diets from the tissue chemistry of humans and non-human primates. A third trajectory seeks to understand how natural selection and cultural inheritance influence human behavioral phenotypes. Current research includes: Human skeletal populations from Europe as well as non-human primates to clarify relationships between environmental impacts across time. Primate behavior and conservation with wild and captive western gorillas, Sri Lankan langurs, and South American tufted capuchins. Research in Panama and Bolivia on how environment, biology, and culture shape human health and disease.
