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ANTH 105: Principles of Biological Anthropology (3 credits)

Professor: T.R. Pickering, Ph.D.
Contact: tpickering@wisc.edu
Office: 5407 Social Science Building
Office Hours: by e-mail appointment

No required text

Course Description: Biological anthropologists seek to understand humans from a biological perspective.
This is, of course, a vast enterprise, impossible to distill into a semester-long course. Instead, the subject
matter is made more manageable at the introductory level by presenting it as a topical survey. Thus, this
course will first review the history and foundational principles of evolutionary biology and then present
lectures on pertinent aspects of human biology, framed in a comparative evolutionary context. This means
that you will learn some basics of human evolution (i.e., paleoanthropology) and primatology (i.e., the
study of the primates, the group of mammals to which humans—along with prosimians, monkeys, and
apes—belong) as fundamental to understanding people as just another and also a unique animal.

In normal times, this course includes a weekly hands-on laboratory (section) component, in which
students meet in smaller groups that are led by teaching assistants. These are not normal times, though,
and so the course (including sections) has been reconfigured this semester in order to be conducted
remotely. As such, your weekly sections are now structured to serve as dedicated, synchronous meetings,
during which time your TA is available to answer questions and clarify issues that may arise from your
viewing of the lectures. There are no assigned readings or section projects, so your final grade will be
based entirely on exam performance (see below). Exams, in turn, are based entirely on lecture material.
This means that your section meetings with TAs have the potential to serve as an essential resource for
you in preparing for exams. There is no attendance requirement, though, so I have instructed the TAs to
close any given meeting after fifteen minutes should she or he not receive any questions in that time span.
The TAs are instructed to keep any given meeting open as long as she or he is receiving questions for the
standard fifty-minute meeting time. You will access section meetings via Blackboard Collaborate, found
on Canvas.

Please note that your TAs are also students, who, like you, have very busy schedules. They have many
responsibilities and interests beyond TAing for Anthropology 105 and are paid very modestly for their
work. Please respect their time and autonomy by making every attempt to reserve your questions and
inquiries for your scheduled section meeting time.

Learning Goal: A major learning goal of this course is for students to gain an appreciation and
introductory-level knowledge of humanity’s evolutionary history and its links to the natural world.

Course Requirements and Methods of Evaluation: Lectures, as outlined in the attached schedule, will be
posted on Canvas. You can view any lecture any time (and multiple times) after it is available on Canvas
(under normal circumstances, there are two lectures per week, so Lectures 1 and 2 would be given in
Week 1, Lectures 3 and 4 in Week 2, and so on; if it helps you to stay organized, we provide a suggested
timeline for viewing lectures and taking exams in the course schedule, below). In preparation for exams,
it is recommended that you view and study each lecture in a unit. Each unit is capped by a 100-point, 50-
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question multiple-choice exam. You can take any exam at any time after it becomes available (i.e., after it
is posted on Canvas), but once you start an exam it is time-locked for a two-hour duration, after which
time it is permanently closed to you. Given that the normal exam time is one hour, this two-hour limit
accommodates McBurney students (in other words, the McBurney accommodation is essentially now
extended to all students). Each unit exam concentrates on material in that particular unit, but quizzes are
technically cumulative, with a knowledge of previous material essential for answering some questions
correctly. Thus, it is advisable to take the exams in order. All exams must be completed by 11:59 pm, 30
April 2021.

Grading scale for exams and the course: 100 – 90 % = A; 89 – 80 % = B; 79 – 70 % = C; 69 – 60 % = D;

<59 % = F. There is no curve on any exam or the final grade.

Except in cases of demonstrable errors by the instructor(s), there are no routes “to get points back” on
exams or the final grade.

There is no extra credit option.

Academic Integrity: Each student is responsible for preparing his or her own work. Cheating and
plagiarism on exams or assignments will not be tolerated. Students who do so receive failing grades for
the exam or assignment. Cases of cheating and plagiarism may be pursued further under the university’s
regulations concerning academic misconduct. Please refer to the university’s guide to academic
misconduct (www.wisc.edu/students/amsum.htm) if you do not know the university’s policy.
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Course Schedule

UNIT ANTH 105 remote lectures Suggested Completion Date

1.INTRODUCTORY L1 (Introduction) 1/29

L2 (The place of humans in nature) 1/29

L3 (What is a human?) 2/5

L4 (Principles of evolution) 2/5

L5 (Ascendancy of the Darwinian 2/12

Paradigm: the basis of the science of
human evolution)

L6 (Hominin evolution, I: apes to 2/12

ape-men)

L7 (Hominin evolution, II: the first 2/19

humans)

UNIT 1 EXAM 2/19

2.FOUNDATIONS L8 (Existing) 2/26

L9 (Sleeping) 2/26

L10 (Climbing) 3/5

L11 (Walking) 3/5

UNIT 2 EXAM 3/12

3.BASICS L12 (Manipulating) 3/19

L13 (Foraging) 3/19

L14 (Eating) 3/26

L15 (Mating) 3/26

L16 (Birthing) 4/9

L17 (Growing) 4/9

UNIT 3 EXAM 4/9

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4.ELEVATION L18 (Laughing) 4/16

L19 (Warring) 4/16

L20 (Expiring) 4/23

L21 (Transcending) 4/23

UNIT 4 EXAM 4/30