This brief text has been completely revolutionized to present students with the latest contemporary thinking on human evolution, adaptation, and prehistory. It offers students a straightforward and integrated presentation of material, focusing on selected aspects of physical anthropology and prehistoric archaeology as they relate to the origin of humanity, the origin of culture, and the development of human biological and cultural diversity. A New feature entitled "Biocultural Connections" illustrates how cultural and biological processes work together to shape human evolution and behavior, and reflects where the field is today. New coverage on cutting edge topics such as medical anthropology, genetics, environmental toxins, and globalization, demonstrate the usefulness of anthropology today. A new, unique "Epilogue" looks at cultural disease and globalization. "Haviland's text is a truly practical, genuinely educational, useable resource for the teaching of introductory biological anthropology and its findings." "I found the structure and text accessible and comprehensive, and I appreciate the up-to-date references throughout the text." "I have used this book successfully for several semesters, and plan to continue using it. It helps that it is a manageable size; I feel that it appears unintimidating to students." William A. Haviland is professor emeritus at the University of Vermont, where he founded the Department of Anthropology and taught for 32 years. He holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. He has carried out original research in archaeology in Guatemala and Vermont; ethnography in Maine and Vermont; and physical anthropology in Guatemala. This work has been the basis of numerous publications in national and international books and journals, as well as in media intended for the general public. His books include The Original Vermonters, coauthored with Marjorie Power, and a technical monograph on ancient Maya settlement. He also served as consultant for the award-winning telecourse Faces of Culture, and he is co-editor of the series Tikal Reports, published by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Besides teaching and writing, Dr. Haviland has lectured to many professional and nonprofessional audiences in Canada, Mexico, Lesotho, South Africa, and Spain, as well as in the United States. He served as expert witness for the Missisquoi Abenaki of Vermont in an important court case over aboriginal fishing rights. Dr. Haviland was named University Scholar by the Graduate School of the University of Vermont in 1990; received a Certificate of Appreciation from the Sovereign Republic of the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi, St. Francis/Sokoki Band in 1996; and was given a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Center for Research on Vermont in 2006. Now retired from teaching, he continues his research, writing, and lecturing from the coast of Maine. He serves as a trustee for the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, focused on Maine's Native American history, culture, art, and archaeology. His most recent books are At the Place of the Lobsters and Crabs (2009) and Canoe Indians of Down East Maine (2012). Harald E.L. Prins is a University Distinguished Professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University. Academically trained at half a dozen Dutch and U.S. universities, he previously taught at Radboud University (Netherlands), as well as Bowdoin College and Colby College in Maine, and was a visiting professor at the University of Lund, Sweden. Named a Distinguished University Teaching Scholar, he received numerous honors for his outstanding academic teaching, including the Presidential Award in 1999, Carnegie Professor of the Year for Kansas in 2006, and the AAA/Oxford University Press Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching of Anthropology in 2010. His fieldwork focuses on indigenous peoples in the Western Hemisphere, and he has long served as an advocacy anthropologist on land claims and other native rights. In that capacity, Dr. Prins has been a key expert witness in both the U.S. Senate and Canadian courts. His numerous academic publications appear in seven languages, and his books include The Mi'kmaq: Resistance, Accommodation, and Cultural Survival. Also trained in filmmaking, he was president of the Society for Visual Anthropology, and coproduced award-winning documentaries. He has been the visual anthropology editor of American Anthropologist, co-principal investigator for the U.S. National Park Service, international observer in Paraguay's presidential elections, and a research associate at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Dana Walrath, an award-winning writer, artist and anthropologist, is a faculty member of University of Vermont's College of Medicine. After earning her PhD in medical and biological anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, she taught there and at Temple University. Dr. Walrath bro