Human Evolutionary Genetics

3 credits

ANTHRO-4885

Anthropology
College of Arts and Science

(cross-leveled with ANTHRO 7885). Human genomes contain a wealth of information such that anthropologists and geneticists have mined global genetic diversity to describe the ancestry of the people all over the world. In doing so, they have described ancient and recent population movements and mixtures, identified genetic signatures of adaptation to local environmental pressures, highlighted the pervasive influence of culture on human biodiversity, and helped wipe away any genetic basis for racial categories in humans. Students in the course apply population genetic methods to public databases using current software to understand how we know what we think we know about human genetic diversity. Prerequisites: ANTHRO 2050, or ANTHRO 2051 and ANTHRO 2052, or BIO_SC 1500, or instructor’s consent.