Donald J. Ortner – författare

This work is the result of decades of research on the Early Bronze Age I skeletal material from the archaeological site of Bâb Edh-Dhrâ' in Jordan. Bâb Edh-Dhrâ' is home to one of the Near East's largest and most carefully documented collections of human skeletal material, which is one of the few sources of information about the inhabitants of this pre-biblical world in the late-fourth and third millennia B.C. This definitive study by physical anthropologists will be consulted for decades by archaeologists and anthropologists working in the Levant, Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as anyone studying ancient Near Eastern migration patterns, skeletal changes, and incidences of diseases.

How Humans Adapt collects the papers, commentaries, and discussions from the 1981 Smithsonian international symposium on human physical and cultural adaptations. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, How Humans Adapt sets out a complex picture of past human adaptations and speculates on how future adaptations may ensure the continued survival of the human race.