biological sciences

There's plenty of textbooks on the subject of physical anthropology, of varying quality. This, however, is by far the most theory-oriented, detailed, and clear. Compared to a text like Jurmain's (2004) this book truly caters to an intelligent undergraduate who's capable of understanding what Australopithecus boisei means. I assign it to my students with the understanding that students rise to the expectations we as instructors hold for them. I found Jurmain's text to be belittlingly simplistic. Thanks Boyd and Silk!

I was assigned this book for my physical anthropology class. Overall, it's very easy to understand. THe authors explain difficult concepts well for the most part, and they usually include diagrams or pictures to reinforce the point. Granted the chapters on genetics weren't the easiest things on earth to understand, but I had a firm biology background from high school so it was not an issue. The authors also do a good job of making the concepts very interesting and alive, a difficult task for a college textbook.

Overall, it's a great book and very informative.

I never thought that I would enjoy biological anthropology, let alone understand it well, but this text has made the class easy and even fun (seriously, I'm not joking). The book is layed out simply with outlines at the beginning of each chapter and clear subheadings within the chapters to help get across the main points. The points are all connected together nicely to leave the reader with a complete picture of human evolution.