The commission, composed of a worldwide group of scholars, aims at discussing and sharing information about all the disciplines related to biological anthropology. The principal goals of the commission are to divulge new discoveries, discuss new theories and share innovative methodologies correlated to the study of human extinct and extant populations in a biological and evolutionary perspectives.
Biological anthropology is in continuous improvement thanks to the discovery of new fossils and innovation in methodology development, that’s why researchers must constantly keep abreast of new advances in this field. In this context, bringing together several researchers from different fields related to this discipline is one of the pillars of this commission. Indeed, the interdisciplinary and international aspect of the commission is a plus to improve and share our knowledge, point of views, and to stay informed of what is happening in the world of anthropology. In this sense, the commission’s intention is to galvanize the research in biological anthropology encouraging discussion between research groups from different institutions.
Parallelly, the advancement and development of methodological approaches in this specific field may represent a disadvantage for some researchers, either because of the instruments cost (i.e. software), complexity of the methods/instruments utilization, or difficulty to gather and build conspicuous reference collections. In this framework, a specific focus of the commission is to promote the utilization of open-source solutions for the application of advanced methodologies and, more generally, open science practices to encourage sharing protocols and raw data.
Concretely, as part of the action of the commission, scientific meetings will be organized yearly in different specific topics, and special sessions organized by different members of the commission will take place during the UISPP congresses.