Biological adaptability of Australian Aboriginal people

Book section

The Human Adaptability section of the International Biological Programme (IBP/HA) was launched in December 1962, with a conference at the CIBA Foundation in London. This lasted precisely for the duration of the last great London fog, a circumstance, which Collins and Weiner (1977) describe as 'imposing a monastic seclusion on the participants who were thus obliged to remain together almost continuously for five days'. The outcome was a framework and policy for human biology research which was global in outreach. Although the main focus of the Australian IBP/HA programme was New Guinea, with studies of human biology, kuru, and multidisciplinary village-based human ecology (Collins and Weiner 1977), there was a tradition of human biological research among Australian Aboriginal people which began in the 1920s, and which was pursued throughout the period of the IBP/HA Programme without formal initiation by the convenors of this programme. In retrospect, much of this work was highly innovative, and informs our understanding of hunter–gatherer adaptations to the present day. In this chapter, the history of human biology research prior to, and during the Australian IPB/HA Programme among Australian Aboriginal people is outlined and developments in human adaptability research subsequent to the IBP/HA Programme described.

Authors: Ulijaszek, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Host title: Human adaptability: past, present, and future: the first Parkes Foundation Workshop, Oxford, January 1994
• Pages: 157-182
• Publication date: 1997-01-01
• Edition: Publisher's version
• ISBN: 0198548575
• Language: English
• Keywords: Human ecology; Human Adaptability Project (International Biological Programme); Human adaptability; Adaptation (Biology); Aboriginal Australians; Human evolution
• Subjects: Anthropology