The old physical anthropology

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, workers in general biology, medicine, and physical anthropology knew little about human physiology. As a result, they heavily stressed mystical, essentialist classifications of organisms, constitutional types, and diseases. Comparative morphology and diagnostic systems prevailed. At different times and for somewhat different reasons, these older paradigms were abandoned and newer ones adopted. Late in this scientific revolution, in the midtwentieth century, the new physical anthropology was born.In his book The Structure of Scientific Reuolutions, Kuhn (1977) noted that scientific disciplines sometimes experience drastic transformations of theory and methods. At such a time, conflicts of ideas become intensified. Once the older generation of conservatives has retired and a new consensus is reached, research is devoted to solving puzzles based on the new paradigm or conceptual orientation. The present paper examines and contrasts a series of paradigms in physical anthropology, and discusses reasons why the older formulations gave way to newer ones a t critical points in the history of the field.At one of these junctures, Washburn (1951) wrote "The New Physical Anthropology," an essay which is the obverse of the title of the present paper. In his review, Washburn predicted that experimental anatomy and a reduction in the number of somatic measurements would be typical of future work in the discipline. These forecasts have not been borne out, and he certainly underestimated the luxuriance of ideas and measurements which modern researchers use.In a later paper, Washburn (1953) outlined the strategies of the older physical anthropology, and contrasted them with newer paradigms. His formulation can serve as a springboard for the present discussion, which deals more fully than he did with the philosophical assumptions of early physical anthropology and its intimate intellectual ties with general biology and medicine. Washburn noted that the old physical anthropology mainly undertook a relatively static, typological classification of human races past and present, constitutional variants, and fossil and living primates. Descriptions of differences were often ends in themselves rather than consequences of theoretical presuppositions. In other words, the facts should speak for themselves. The methods used were about 80% anthropometric measurements and 20% morphological observations. Interpretations of data were based more on historical conjectures than on well-ordered theories taken from genetical, developmental, or evolutionary biology. Although Washburn's description is apt, it fails to account for the historical origins of the older physical anthropology, or for its close connections with eighteenth and nineteenth century biology and medicine.Actually, these three fields were closely linked because the same researchers often worked in all of them. As a result, the paradigms of biology, medicine, and physical anthropology were similar, but have since been modified and abandoned at differ...

Carleton Stevens Coon: 1904–1981

“…This book for the first time established this principle on a strong scientific foundation. Indeed, Races was a major landmark in the emergence of the "new" physical anthropology (Hunt, 1982).…”

Artificial cranial deformation in South America: a geometric morphometrics approximation

“…Broca, 1878Broca, , 1879Dembo and Imbelloni, 1938;Gosse, 1855Gosse, , 1861Hrdlicka, 1912;Imbelloni, 1924e25;Neuman, 1942;Topinard, 1879). These traditional classifications were produced mainly by pooling crania that presented similarities in external vault morphology (Imbelloni, 1924e 25, 1933b and using a typological (Hull, 1992;Hunt, 1981;Sober, 1992) approach. This procedure is subject to significant observer error, and it has limited capacity for the study of morphological variation.…”

The old and the new physical anthropology in the careers of E. A. Hooton and W. M. Krogman

“…In an earlier paper (Hunt, 1981), I traced a number of ideas in physical anthropology to classical antiquity, with some parallel developments in the Far East as well. Physical anthropology shares with medicine and even some of the mantic arts, such as palmistry, iridology, and phrenology, an interest in the human body, its structure, functions, history, and destiny.…”