Biological Anthropology
Biological Anthropology is the study of the evolution and ecology
of humans and other primates, grounded in an understanding of evolutionary
history and extending to applied subjects such as conservation and human
development.
The UCL Biological Anthropology section is one of the
largest groups of academics in Europe that focuses on these subjects. We conduct
research on several related themes that also form the core of teaching
programmes:
Human ecology
- The interaction between conservation and human development, and rangeland use in sub-Saharan Africa (Homewood)
- Human ecology and aquatic resource use in Asia, with application to the management of natural resources (Garaway)
- Demography, migration, development and refugee studies, especially in West Africa (Randall)
Evolutionary anthropology
- Human evolutionary ecology, including life history, culture and language evolution (Mace)
- Primate ecology, behaviour, and conservation, with current fieldwork focused on the Gashaka Primate Project in Nigeria (Sommer)
- Evolutionary history of humans and other primates, with an emphasis on early hominins from Africa (Skinner)
- Primate origins and evolution, including functional anatomy and the interaction of primate evolution with environmental change (Soligo)
- Evolution of human phenotypic and behavioural diversity, life history theory, hunter-gatherer studies (Migliano)
- Demography of small scale societies, modelling of language diversification, application of new quantitative methods to evolutionary anthropology (Vinicius)
We run a weekly seminar series that cuts
across all of these research areas, as well as three MSc programmes: the MSc in Anthropology, Environment and
Development, the MSc in Human
Evolution and Behaviour, and the MSc in Palaeoanthropology and Palaeolithic Archaeology (with
the Institute of Archaeology).
Biological Anthropology has close ties to
the Centre for Genetic Anthropology and the Centre for the Evolutionary Analysis
of Cultural Behaviour (CEACB), both at UCL. Our section also has teaching and
research links with institutions and organisations around London, including the
Natural History Museum, the Institute of Zoology and the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and LSE.
For further information about the department's areas of research in Evolutionary Anthropology and Human Ecology, see departmental research activities here.
For more information on studying
biological aspects of Anthropology at UCL, please click here
