Biomechanics in anthropology

Michael Berthaume; Sarah Elton

doi:10.1002/evan.22019

Biomechanics in anthropology

Michael Berthaume^*, Sarah Elton

^*Corresponding author for this work

Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

Abstract

Biomechanics is the set of tools that explain organismal movement and mechanical behavior and links the organism to the physicality of the world. As such, biomechanics can relate behaviors and culture to the physicality of the organism. Scale is critical to biomechanical analyses, as the constitutive equations that matter differ depending on the scale of the question. Within anthropology, biomechanics has had a wide range of applications, from understanding how we and other primates evolved to understanding the effects of technologies, such as the atlatl, and the relationship between identity, society, culture, and medical interventions, such as prosthetics. Like any other model, there is great utility in biomechanical models, but models should be used primarily for hypothesis testing and not data generation except in the rare case where models can be robustly validated. The application of biomechanics within anthropology has been extensive, and holds great potential for the future.

Original language	English
Article number	e22019
Journal	EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY
Volume	33
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.22019
Publication status	Published - Apr 2024

Keywords

anthroengineering
biomechanics
evolution
evolutionary anthropology
evolutionary biomechanics
four-field anthropology
four-field approach

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10.1002/evan.22019

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title = "Biomechanics in anthropology",

abstract = "Biomechanics is the set of tools that explain organismal movement and mechanical behavior and links the organism to the physicality of the world. As such, biomechanics can relate behaviors and culture to the physicality of the organism. Scale is critical to biomechanical analyses, as the constitutive equations that matter differ depending on the scale of the question. Within anthropology, biomechanics has had a wide range of applications, from understanding how we and other primates evolved to understanding the effects of technologies, such as the atlatl, and the relationship between identity, society, culture, and medical interventions, such as prosthetics. Like any other model, there is great utility in biomechanical models, but models should be used primarily for hypothesis testing and not data generation except in the rare case where models can be robustly validated. The application of biomechanics within anthropology has been extensive, and holds great potential for the future.",

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KW - four-field anthropology

KW - four-field approach

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Biomechanics in anthropology

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Keywords

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