Understanding Adaptations: The Importance of Contextualized History in Biological Anthropology

The future of biological anthropology is immense. However, to keep up with changing times and methods, biological anthropology needs to adopt and continue to push new methods. These methods include biocultural approaches, which aid in explaining biological variation as a response to human environmental interactions. Besides furthering the push for biocultural approaches, the need for adding and contextualizing history in terms of participants’ bio histories is important as well. In doing so, biological anthropology can be useful in constructing a narrative of people of African descent. Africa is a diverse continent yet overwhelmingly understudied. Understanding the complexity of the diversity of people of African descent can be used not only to address problems in the community (health disparities) but also to understand human biological evolution as a whole.