Dundee, United Kingdom

Anatomy and Advanced Forensic Anthropology

Language: English Studies in English
University website: www.dundee.ac.uk
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Anatomy
Anatomy (Greek anatomē, “dissection”) is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science dealing with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its beginnings in prehistoric times. Anatomy is inherently tied to embryology, comparative anatomy, evolutionary biology, and phylogeny, as these are the processes by which anatomy is generated over immediate (embryology) and long (evolution) timescales. Human anatomy is one of the basic essential sciences of medicine. Anatomy and physiology, which study (respectively) the structure and function of organisms and their parts, make a natural pair of related disciplines, and they are often studied together.
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humans and human behaviour and societies in the past and present. Social anthropology and cultural anthropology study the norms and values of societies. Linguistic anthropology studies how language affects social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the biological development of humans.
Forensic Anthropology
Forensic anthropology is the application of the anatomical science of anthropology and its various subfields, including forensic archaeology and forensic taphonomy, in a legal setting. A forensic anthropologist can assist in the identification of deceased individuals whose remains are decomposed, burned, mutilated or otherwise unrecognizable, as might happen in a plane crash. Forensic anthropologists are also instrumental to the investigation and documentation of genocide and mass graves. Along with forensic pathologists, forensic dentists, and homicide investigators, forensic anthropologists commonly testify in court as expert witnesses. Using physical markers present on a skeleton, a forensic anthropologist can potentially determine a victim's age, sex, stature, and ancestry. In addition to identifying physical characteristics of the individual, forensic anthropologists can use skeletal abnormalities to potentially determine cause of death, past trauma such as broken bones or medical procedures, as well as diseases such as bone cancer.
Anthropology
Cultural anthropology is not valuable because it uncovers the archaic in the psychological sense. It is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering the normal.
Edward Sapir Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry (1932), p. 515
Anthropology
Economics and cultural anthropology … have as their clear presuppositions one or the other of the two states of nature. Locke argued that man’s conquest of nature by his work is the only rational response to his original situation. … Economics comes into being as the science of man’s proper activity, and the free market as the natural and rational order. … Rousseau argued that nature is good and man far away from it. So the quest for those faraway origins becomes imperative. … What economists believe to be things of the irrational past—known only as underdeveloped societies—become the proper study of man, a diagnosis of our ills and a call to the future. … Economists teach that the market is the fundamental social phenomenon, and its culmination is money. Anthropologists teach that culture is the fundamental social phenomenon, and its culmination is the sacred. Such is the confrontation—man the producer of consumption goods vs. man the producer of culture, the maximizing animal vs. the reverent one.
Allan Bloom (1987) The Closing of the American Mind. p. 361-363
Anthropology
Anthropology is destined to revolutionise the political and the social sciences as radically as bacteriology has revolutionised the science of medicine.
M.G. de Lapouge cited in: Thorstein Veblen (1898) "Why is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science" in: The Quarterly Journal of Economics Volume 12, 1898.
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