Lab Manual and Workbook for Physical Anthropology

Rating:
Summary: A serviceable manual sorely in need of a major update
Review: I use this manual to teach an introductory lab in physical anthropology. The third edition is a small improvement over the second. For beginning students, the photographs and diagrams are not clear enough to teach from and must be supplemented from other sources. Most of the practice problems are fairly good but the book lacks an appendix of answers or an accompanying instructor's manual leaving the instructor to guess at the intent of the authors for some of the more obscure examples. However, considering the dearth of good lab manuals for physical anthropology this is not the worst.

Rating:
Summary: ONLY GAME IN TOWN
Review: I've used this manual for my physical anthropology classes since the 3rd edition, and there has been some improvement. It's the only game in town as far as lab manuals go, although the students also like Kappelman's VIRTUAL LABORATORIES cd-rom.

There's an instructor's manual available for printout from the publisher, but the key has some WRONG answers, which is annoying when one is swamped or has a student assistant grading who may not realize that the key is wrong. For example, the solution to the ABO blood group frequencies in exercise 1.6.3b is wrong and there are some weird stats in exercise 11.2's key, but that might be my mistake.

Some of the info is arcane, and refers to information that is not available in the prefatory chapter in the manual or in most phys anth texts. Specifically, why is it important to know about cingula?

The exercises are a bit redundant and over-long, but that's what the students have told me -- I actually like the way that France has the students build the answers to the problems in stages, going from simple to complex. The pictures in the 5th edition ARE better, but the mechanics of doing the exercises w/pictures can get crazy sometimes, what with flipping back to see this figure or that. Some exercises refer to figures several chapters back, and are a little hard to find.

I know that I will keep using this manual. It's good for undergraduate through graduate students, it represents a huge amount of work on France's part (which I appreciate!) and it's the only game in town.

*** this review refers to the latest, 5th edition.

Rating:
Summary: Caution!
Review: The review quoted here refers to a VERY old edition. The new 5th edition is out now, so please review THAT edition for possible use. Constructive criticism is always welcome.