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For more than 50 years, biological anthropology has argued against the use of the biological race concept. Despite such efforts, aspects of the concept remain in circulation within society and within the discipline itself. As commonly articulated, anthropology's rejection of the biological race concept lacks an evolutionarily based explanatory grounding. Biological patterns of variation in living humans do not map onto commonly utilized categorizations of race, but this knowledge does not explain why human evolution has not produced such structures. This article attempts to offer one such explanation by constructing a biocultural framing of race around ancestry. By examining ancestry through two related lenses, genealogical and genetic, it is shown that the coherence of race as a biological concept has been disrupted by demographic changes in our recent evolutionary past. The biological construction of race is invalid not because it is impossible but because evolutionary forces have actively worked against such patterns in our evolutionary past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous populations worldwide are experiencing social, cultural, demographic, nutritional, and psychoemotional changes that have a profound impact on health. Regardless of their geographical location or sociopolitical situation, health indicators are always poorer for indigenous populations than for nonindigenous ones. The determinants of this gap are multiple and interactive, and their analysis requires a biocultural framework. Indigenous populations suffer from lower life expectancy, high infant and child mortality, high maternal morbidity and mortality, heavy infectious disease loads, malnutrition, stunted growth, increasing levels of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases, substance abuse, and depression. The devastating effects of colonization, the loss of ancestral land, and language and cultural barriers for access to health care are among the most salient themes characterizing the poor health situation of indigenous people. Anthropology is extremely well suited to address the interplay among social, economic, and political forces that shape the local experiences of illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous circumpolar populations have experienced profound transitions in lifeways over the past half-century as a result of economic development. Although there have been positive aspects of this social transformation, most circumpolar groups today have a triple burden of disease, with a modestly elevated infectious disease level, an elevated and increasing burden of chronic conditions such as obesity and cardiovascular disease, and high rates of mental health-related challenges. The health of contemporary circumpolar populations is not easily characterized because of dramatic regional differences that stem from socioeconomic disparities among nonindigenous groups, individual population histories, lifestyle factors, environmental pollution, and underlying biological variation. Overall health and well-being range from excellent among the Sami of Sweden and Norway to extremely poor among marginalized native populations in northern Russia. Circumpolar groups today are not only threatened by continued regional economic development and pollution, but also uniquely vulnerable to global climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]