Lecture notes to day-in-the-life of an anthropologist - ANTHRO 128P PDF

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Lecture notes to day-in-the-life of an anthropologist. Notes provided by professor. Summary of Lectures 1a/1b - ANTHRO 128P...

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Lecture #1 notes Why study primates? And why study them in an anthropology department? (1) Studying animal behavior in general can illuminate general principles about the evolution of behavior in humans (and other animals). (2) Homologies. Primates are our closest living relatives, and may therefore give us special insights into the characteristics of our recent common ancestors. (3) Analogies. Primates give us special insight into the evolution of particular social traits because virtually all primate species live in complex social organizations -- so they need to adapt to many of the same selective pressures that act on humans. (Studies of other complexly social creatures -- such as cetaceans, elephants and social carnivores -can afford us similar insights.) Convergent evolution causes organisms to independently evolve very similar adaptations (e.g. wings of bat and wings of bird) because they are exposed to similar selective pressures. Comparative method -- allows you to examine the relationships between particular selective pressures and particular traits, by controlling for phylogeny. (4) Curiosity. A day in the life of a primatologist and a capuchin group. I will present a slide show about capuchin field research. Refer to chapter 1 in Manipulative Monkeys for details of what happens in a typical day of research. The following clip, filmed by UCLA media people during a quick trip to Lomas Barbudal, shows my team working in the field: http://lbmp.anthro.ucla.edu/monkeys/videos/ (There is a link to this on the class website’s main page.) And the following website, made by a former field assistant of mine, depicts a day in the life of an infant monkey (Winslow Homer), portraying how we record everything that happens in his day: howtobeamonkey.org Below are the links to the short 11-minute video about the “Lomas Barbudal Monkey Project” that I will show in class: In English: https://lbmp.anthro.ucla.edu In Spanish: http://vimeo.com/13409519 These short films portray the social dynamics of Abby’s group in 2008-9, so the older monkeys in this clip are monkeys whose early lives are discussed in the book you will read (Manipulative Monkeys). You may want to see this film again towards the end of the course, after reading about the history of this group. Throughout the course, as you read Manipulative Monkeys, you may want to refer to this collection of short film clips that show the behaviors you will be reading about:

http://lbmp.anthro.ucla.edu/ethogram-behavioral-videos/...