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Students of anthropology ask myriad questions about humans, their evolution and cultural development from the past to the present day. Knowing something about the life in the past and how the people in other parts of the world live, makes most of us curious. This is the appeal of anthropology. In this book, in order to capitalize on the students curiosity, we present a wide range of topics authored by experts in physical and social anthropology.

The first section of the book presents significant palaeoanthropological perspective on important stages in human evolution. Exhaustive studies of the femur, neck and shaft angles in modern humans indicate variations related to geographic locale and environment. A recent restudy of the Saldanha endocranial cast does not reveal any non-human features. The purpose of teaching and research in the field of physical anthropology in India has been thoroughly discussed. The importance of the human genome in tackling diseases is another topic covered in this section.

In the second section, besides an interesting global debate on the need to save the core features and values of the institution of family, some methodological issues in the study of Indian diaspora, hangover of colonialism in India today, and the role of bureaucracy as a legacy of British raj in modern India have been dealt with.