physical anthropologyn.

1841 Edinb. New Philos. Jrnl. 30 225 It was a fortunate circumstance that his [sc. Blumenbach's] first literary labour related to the races of man, and that thus physical anthropology became..the primitive form of his future labours.

1873 A. L. Fox in Jrnl. Anthropol. Inst. 2 361 The two expeditions which have lately left this country for Central Africa..have been furnished with detailed notes and queries on general anthropology, physical anthropology, religions, myths, customs, [etc.].

1904 W. L. H. Duckworth Morphol. & Anthropol. ii. 14 This application of the principles of Morphology to the special case of Man constitutes the essence of Physical Anthropology.

1923 A. L. Kroeber Anthropol. i. 5 Biological or physical anthropology—‘Somatology’ it is sometimes called in Anglo-Saxon countries, and simply ‘anthropology’ in continental Europe—has in part constituted a sort of specialization or sharpening of general biology.

1951 E. E. Evans-Pritchard Social Anthropol. i. 3 Physical anthropology..is a branch of human biology and comprises such interests as heredity, nutrition, sex differences, the comparative anatomy and physiology of races, and the theory of human evolution.

1993 Sci. Amer. Aug. 70/3 While trying to decide on a topic for my doctoral dissertation in physical anthropology, I visited the tropical forest on Barro Colorado Island in the Republic of Panama.

1895 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 1 234 [Courses at Chicago:] Physical Anthropological Lab.

1999 Jrnl. Asian Stud. 58 508 Problems of integrating the different perspectives arising from the considerable linguistic, archaeological, and physical-anthropological data begin at a rather basic level.

1874 Jrnl. Anthropol. Inst. 3 368 Its interest..is manifold; it concerns the physical anthropologist, as well as the philologist.

1990 Scope Summer 20/2 One of the more interesting aspects for me, a physical anthropologist, was to examine the skeletal remains for clues that would confirm ideas we already had about the health of these people when they were alive.