Ask An Anthropologist
Ask An Anthropologist is an educational resource for students, teachers, parents, and life-long learners. We encourage anyone interested in anthropology to make use of its content.
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Our species, Homo sapiens, are incredibly unique among the species on Earth today.
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Becoming human brings together interactive multimedia, research and scholarship to promote greater understanding of the course of human evolution.
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Chomp Into the Past
Sitting on the sofa, you flip through a family photo album. You see a young man dressed in a uniform from the 1940s. Your father looks a lot like the man in the black and white photograph. You flip another page and go further back in time.
Thumbs Up
When you tape down your thumb, you’ll get a sense of how hard it would be to do many things if our hands were shaped differently. Even a simple task like placing a straw in a bottle becomes difficult!
A Brief History of History
What does it mean to be human? Take a look at the story of how we became…well…us. The search for our first ancestors who looked and acted like people today is the search for what it means to be human.
Controlling the Code
DNA controls all of your traits. Right? Well, kind of. The environment can actually control how your DNA works. Learn about how it does this through a series of switches known as epigenetic mechanisms.