While looking around on the American Association of Physical Anthropologists’ website, I found a link to the Paleoanthropology Society. This is the branch of physical anthropology that specifically looks into the fossils of hominids. The website states that their purpose as a society is to bring together the different kinds of physical anthropology to learn more about hominids. They hold a meeting annually to share papers on all the things they have researched and learned throughout the year. As a side note, they provide financial support to graduate students and others, which I believe is vital to getting the most knowledge possible and getting it widely distributed. The journal they publish is also available for free. I know that there have been journal articles in the past I have been interested in but then run into a price I’m not willing to pay. Free access to information is crucial to education. The more people with opportunities available to them, the more that can be contributed. It is important to get a variety of people involved as they come with all types of perspectives.
An article I found particularly interesting was several pages long and entirely about the pelvic bone of a specific population. It is amazing that such a small thing can contribute so much information to the field. The tiniest of details on these ancient bones tells the scientist a whole story.
Another article discussed animal bones being found and scientists trying to determine if they were boiled. This information can bring forth even more as far as what foods were eaten and other cultural things. This type of cooking helps to make the food more nutritious, which is then evident when Paleoanthropologists study skeletons. The article also discusses how this changed the tools the people worked with. Researching the tools is part of the physical anthropology. Tools can explain changes in diet or why groups may have moved areas. The article about projectile weapons discusses how the advancement of these changed how and what was hunted and gathered. All these different disciplines are intertwined and contribute to each other, making each individual subject relevant and necessary for the broader theme of anthropology overall.
The study of hominid fossils can answer questions about the travels of past populations. The different populations have characteristics about them that have caused them to be distributed into different groups by scientists. As anthropologists see these characteristics showing up elsewhere, it can show how some ended up where they did. The combination of different groups characteristics can also point to when they joined together. This answers all sorts of questions related to the advancement of hominids through evolution.
The purpose of anthropology seems to be answering questions about the culture of the past and how it relates to the present. Paleoanthropology contributes to this through studying the skeletons and other fossils. Sometimes these discoveries raise other questions that you need to use other types of anthropology to answer those questions and vice versa. I think that is why both the AAPA website and Paleoanthropology Society stress bringing all the studies together.

Source:

http://paleoanthro.org/home/

http://physanth.org/