Tag Anthropology

Family, memories at core of anthropologist’s new book

December 5, 2007

A UW–Madison anthropologist first decided to write a book about her family when she was 10 years old, a decision she made while growing up in Bombay, the child of an American mother and an Indian father.

Tool-wielding chimps provide a glimpse of early human behavior

November 12, 2007

Chimpanzees inhabiting a harsh savanna environment and using bark and stick tools to exploit an underground food resource are giving scientists new insights to the behaviors of the earliest hominids who, millions of years ago, left the African forests to range the same kinds of environments and possibly utilize the same foods.

Curiosities: Why do we have fingernails?

May 21, 2007

Fingernails are essentially flattened versions of claws, and they evolved in all primates — including humans — to support broad fingertips, says UW–Madison anthropology…