Ralph Leslie Holloway, Jr. (born 1935) is a

physical anthropologist Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline concerned with the biological and behavioral aspects of human beings, their extinct hominin ancestors, and related non-human primates, particularly from an e ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and research associate with the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 int ...

. Since obtaining his Ph.D from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

in 1964, Holloway has served as a professor of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

at Columbia. Holloway's interests lie in

craniology Phrenology () is a pseudoscience which involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.Wihe, J. V. (2002). "Science and Pseudoscience: A Primer in Critical Thinking." In ''Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience'', pp. 195–203. C ...

, producing

endocast An endocast is the internal cast of a hollow object, often referring to the cranial vault in the study of brain development in humans and other organisms. Endocasts can be artificially made for examining the properties of a hollow, inaccessible sp ...

s, primate behavior,

biology of gender Sex differences in humans have been studied in a variety of fields. Sex determination occurs by the presence or absence of a Y in the 23rd pair of chromosomes in the human genome. Phenotypic sex refers to an individual's sex as determined by the ...

sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the sexes of the same animal and/or plant species exhibit different morphological characteristics, particularly characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most an ...

in the

corpus callosum The corpus callosum (Latin for "tough body"), also callosal commissure, is a wide, thick nerve tract, consisting of a flat bundle of commissural fibers, beneath the cerebral cortex in the brain. The corpus callosum is only found in placental m ...

, and other topics. Holloway's work on the

Taung Child The Taung Child (or Taung Baby) is the fossilised skull of a young '' Australopithecus africanus''. It was discovered in 1924 by quarrymen working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa. Raymond Dart described it as a new specie ...

was one of the first to suggest brain reorganization occurring before the increase of brain size in hominids. His claim that the lunate sulcus, a sulcus which marks the boundary of the occipital lobe, was in a posterior position to that of apes suggests that the reduction of the occipital lobe was accompanied by enlargements of parts of the brain associated with higher cognitive function.

References

External links

Holloway's Columbia Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holloway, Ralph 1935 births Living people Columbia University faculty American anthropologists Sexual dimorphism People associated with the American Museum of Natural History

See also

References

Related readings

External links