ANTH 336: The Story of Us: The Evolution of Human Behaviour (Rev. 2 & 3) Report a Broken Link

ANTH 336 is designed to engage students with a selection of subjects and themes within the field of evolutionary anthropology. This subfield is concerned primarily with the biological origins of particular aspects of human behaviour and evolution. In this course, students will gain an appreciation of how evolution has shaped who we are and how some aspects of our behaviour may be adaptations to the social and ecological environments in which our ancestors lived. This course requires students to read and critically analyze both empirical papers and review articles that test hypotheses and summarize findings that form the theoretical basis of evolutionary anthropology. The reading material and required assignments in this course are intended to engage students in the story of humanity, and the hope is that you will be inspired to further explore these and other topics in your exploration of evolutionary (and, more broadly, biological) anthropology.

Unit 1: Understanding Human Behavioural Adaptations


Unit 2: Basic Bones and Stones: A Review of the Human Fossil Record


Unit 3: The Value of a Cross-Species Perspective in Understanding Human Adaptations


Unit 4: Evolutionary Psychology


Read only pp. 1–16 (up to “Implications for the Key Branches of Psychology”)

Unit 5: Human Mate Preference and Pair Bonding: Proximate and Functional Mechanisms


Unit 6: Human Menopause


Unit 7: The Evolutionary Origins of Human Language, Part I: What Is It and Who Has It?


Unit 8: The Evolutionary Origins of Human Language, Part II: Where Did It Come From?


Unit 9: Gene-Culture Evolution and Human Diets


Unit 10: The Adaptive Value of Religion


Unit 11: The Future of Homo sapiens: Are We Still Evolving?


Essay Assignment


Topic 1
Topic 2
Topic 3