Cultural Anthropology Exam #2 Study Guide: Ch. 7-10

Neolocal residence rules are found most commonly among which people groups?

Industrialized peoples

As humans adapt to their environment they also alter it, often dramatically. therefore, the text uses the term _____ instead of adaptation

Interaction

The ____ system distinguishes between parallel cousins and cross cousins.

Iroquois

Which of these is an advantage of cultivation?

It can support a higher population density than foraging.

What seems to be the best explanation for the practice of polyandrous marriage?

It keeps the family land holdings together.

Which of the following is NOT a necessary characteristic of money?

Money is produced or minted by a national government.

What does the internationalization of capital and labor, an aspect of market globalization, refer to?

Moving factories to regions where the labor is cheap

The way of life in which people tend, breed, and harvest the products of livestock is termed

Pastoralism.

How does herding or pastoralism differ from the keeping of livestock practiced by cultivators?

Pastoralists rely on natural pasturelands within their territories to feed their animals

Which of these is true in matrilineal descent systems?

Paternal and maternal uncles usually play different roles.

What is the term for a marriage in which one man has multiple wives?

Polygyny

Cognatic descent is especially common among which people groups?

Polynesians and the Maori of New Zealand

Which of these is NOT one of the market principles around which a market economy is organized?

Prices and trading practices are closely regulated by the government.

What is the one type of economic exchange found in all human populations?

Reciprocity

Which of these statements about polyandrous marriage is FALSE?

Responsibility for the wife and children is shared equally by all the brothers/husbands.

What is the anthropological meaning of the term peasants?

Rural people who live by a combination of subsistence agriculture and market sale

What is the term for the form of cultivation involving clearing a plot of trees, planting crops for a year or two, and then abandoning the plot?

Shifting cultivation

What is the term for a marriage in which one man marries women who are sisters?

Sororal polygyny

Which of these are NOT important criteria in constructing kinship terminologies?

Status or rank of the referent

Which of the following statements about rural peasants of many countries is true?

They grow most of their food using family labor rather than wage labor.

What is the effect of having endogamous marriage rules?

They maintain social distance between groups of different social ranks.

Along with all other aspects of culture, marriage patterns and practices are constantly changing.

True

Among indigenous groups, membership in groups is assigned by kinship.

True

An exception to the culturally universal incest taboo was among the ancient Hawaiians.

True

Avunculocal residence brings the male relatives in a matrilineal system to live in the same area.

True

Foragers do not alter their environments much compared with cultivators and herders.

True

Foragers have varied and healthy diets and work fewer hours than people in other forms of production

True

From an anthropological perspective, kinship is a cultural phenomenon.

True

Generalized reciprocity is the dominant form of exchange in hunter-gatherer societies.

True

Gifts are more important socially than they are materially.

True

Human adaptation to the environment is primarily through cultural means.

True

If individuals inherit property only from their mother's side, then their descent system is probably matrilineal.

True

In a postindustrial economy, many people do not produce tangible material products; they work providing services.

True

In many societies, marital alliances are important for the survival of the entire group, not just the persons being married.

True

Individual choice in joining a group is most important in cognatic systems.

True

Industrialization is based on harnessing energy from fossil fuels.

True

Intensive agriculture has a greater potential than horticulture in the production of a food surplus.

True

Kinship diagrams help anthropologists to understand geneologies using unique symbols to represent all members of a family.

True

Knowing who one's relatives are is a matter of social learning.

True

Leslie White theorized that energy capture is the most important factor in powering cultural change.

True

Many groups of people do not have a single residence pattern; rather, where people live varies over time.

True

Market exchange means that goods and services are bought and sold at a price measured in money.

True

Matrilocal households traditionally occurred because of long male absences but are now common in modern, industrialized societies.

True

Money as a medium of exchange must be portable, easily divisible, and scarce enough to be valuable.

True

Nearly all other peoples have some institution that is recognizably "marriage."

True

No particular people or culture typifies matrilineal or patrilineal kinship; there is a lot of diversity in these systems.

True

One common form of redistribution in preindustrial societies is tribute.

True

Polygynous marriage is very often beneficial for both men and women.

True

Polygyny and polyandry are more widely permitted than actually practiced.

True

The Industrial Revolution has had a major impact on subsistence over the years, developing major factories and increasing production of goods.

True

The descent system of most pastoralists is patrilineal.

True

The global factory has been characterized as exploitative, a result of mass industrialization.

True

The production of ethanol from sugarcane yields a lot more energy than is required to produce it compared with the production/yield ratio of ethanol from corn.

True

The social boundaries of extended families are not clearly defined.

True

The transfer of pigs from a man and his relatives to the relatives of his bride that occurs among some peoples of the Pacific Islands would be considered a form of bridewealth.

True

The ways people harness the resources and cope with the problems of living in a particular environment are important influences on many dimensions of a culture.

True

There is no universal form or type of marriage.

True

Throughout discussions on kinship and family, marriage and residence, one fact remains: cultures are dynamic and these systems will continue to change throughout future generations.

True

How do bilateral kinship systems differ from other kinship systems?

Unlike both cognate and unilineal systems, bilateral systems have no large, property holding groups.

Which of these statements about redistribution is true?

Wherever redistribution is practiced, it is sometimes used to enhance the wealth and prestige of some of those in authority.

Humans organize themselves in order to obtain resources and solve problems efficiently. The three components of this social organization are division of labor, patterns of cooperation, and

allocation of resources.

Among the Ju/'hoansi, hunters share their kill with all members of the group. This is particularly important

as a means of insurance against the uncertainty of successful hunting.

The most common form of negative reciprocity is

barter.

The text suggests that the best explanation for the incest taboo is

biological, with cultural variations.

The most common form of all marital exchange throughout the world is

bridewealth.

Redistribution

can take the form of tribute.

The unilineal descent groups that have the greatest genealogical depth are termed a. extended families.

clans.

Your father's sisters' children and your mother's brothers' children are your

cross cousins.

The Eskimo terminological system is associated with

either bilateral or cognatic kinship.

In matrilineal societies

elder men make decisions about the use of land and other resources.

Even groups that are largely self-sufficient engage in exchange with other groups. Anthropologists suggest that this is because

exchange creates and sustains relationships that are necessary for other reasons

The three processes involved in making a living are turning resources into products, the consumption of products, and

exchange.

Rules that prohibit marriage within a person's own group are called

exogamous.

Groups who cooperate and have mutual obligations based on their descent from a shared ancestor who lived three or four generations ago are called

extended families.

Adoption is an example of

fictive kinship.

Traditionally, the Yanomamo of South America

formed marriage alliances with other villages for political purposes.

When parents provide children with food, shelter and other things, this is an example of

generalized reciprocity

Among hunter-gatherers, the dominant form of exchange is

generalized reciprocity.

Unlike most foragers, the people Northwest Coast of North America

had more defined property rights.

The Western Shoshone would congregate in the mountains in the fall in order to

harvest pine nuts.

Foraging as a way of life

has almost disappeared due to the loss of their lands

Unlike foragers, horticulturists usually

have ownership rights held by kin groups over specific parcels of land.

Compared with other types of groups, foragers

have social and economic equality among members of the band.

Among the Ju/'hoansi, the practice of "insulting the meat"

helps maintain egalitarianism.

The majority of matrilineal cultures are

horticulturists.

Among foragers ____ is men's work.

hunting

The way of making a living that shelters people from nature and keeps them from having to interact directly with the natural environment is

industrialism.

Evidence indicates that ____ is a prerequisite for the development of civilization.

intensive agriculture

Matrilineal descent

is less common than patrilineal descent.

Cross-culturally, marriage

is not necessarily a matter of personal or individual choice.

In most societies marriage is important because

it creates social relationships that provide for the needs of children.

The term for all the relatives that one recognizes through both sides of one's family is

kindred.

A small matrilineal group that traces descent from a woman who lived only four or five generations earlier has ____ a larger group tracing descent from a woman who lived ten generations earlier.

less genealogical depth than

Globalization of production refers to

manufacturing commodities in different countries than where companies are registered.

The integration of the economies of most of the world's nations into a single exchange system is termed a. internationalization of labor.

market globalization.

The statistical data showing the increase of approval of same-sex relationships indicates that

marriage systems are dynamic, just like culture, and will continually change.

Among the Hopi, husbands go to live with the families of their wives. Fathers and children are of different lineages, and the mothers and mothers' brothers are the primary disciplinarians. The Hopi are

matrilineal and matrilocal.

In a ____ system, people inherit property from their mothers or from their mother's brothers.

matrilineal descent

When women control or own important resources and their labor is also important, then the postmarital residence pattern is most likely to be

matrilocal.

Your ____ are your parallel cousins.

mother's sisters' children and your father's brothers' children

Among kinship-based peoples most groups are

multifunctional.

Most groups in Western industrial societies are

non-overlapping.

A ____ descent system traces kinship relationships through the male line.

patrilineal

More than 90 percent of all cultures using the Omaha terminological system are

patrilineal.

When brothers live with their parents, as well as their own nuclear families, this is called

patrilocally extended family.

The term for a marriage in which one woman has multiple husbands is ____.

polyandry

The purpose of sororate marriage is to

preserve affinal ties.

The most important influences on postmarital residence are

property right and inheritance forms.

The Tikopians of the South Pacific are divided into four patriclans, each of which is divided into several patrilineages that are in turn comprised of several extended families each. The extended families are comprised of several nuclear families. This is an example of

segmentary organization.

Many rural peasants

sell their products or labor to earn money for some household purchases.

In the United States many people marry, divorce, and re-marry. The term for this is

serial monogamy.

In a postindustrial economy people work in

services

Marshall Sahlins noted that the kind of reciprocity that occurs between individuals or groups depends on

social distance between them.

Among many African peoples, if a woman dies her kin group is obliged to replace her with another woman with no additional bridewealth paid. This practice is termed

sororate.

In the early 1990s, many Americans became concerned about same-sex marriage being legal across states; thus

the Defense of Marriage Act was passed by congress.

The earliest plant domestication occurred in

the Middle East.

In societies with an avunculocal residence pattern, married couples live with or near

the husband's mother's brother.

A clan is considered totemic when

the members symbolically identify with the supernatural powers of plants, animals, or natural forces.

In rural areas, if land is continually divided and inherited by each son, eventually there is not enough land left to support a family. One solution is primogeniture, which is

the practice of inheritance by the eldest son only.

Herders are able to live in very difficult terrain because

their herds can eat vegetation that humans cannot digest, and turn it into milk and meat.

The pattern of nomadic herding in which pastoralists take their herds up- and down-slope depending on the productivity of the pasturelands is called

transhumance.

When a culture emphasizes either the maternal or the paternal relatives but not both, this is termed ____ descent.

unilineal

Cross-culturally, the most common way of emphasizing some kinds of kinship relationships and de-emphasizing others

uses the sex of the connecting relatives as the basis of defining kin.

For the most part, native peoples in the New World got most of their meat from

wild animals.

Prior to European contact, peoples of the Andes domesticated which animal(s)?

All of the above

Which of these is an advantage of pastoralism?

All of these are advantages of herding

The internationalization of capital and labor has resulted in

All of these are part of the internationalization of capital and labor.

The membership of clans and lineages does not always follow the prescribed norms due to a. lack of sufficient resources owned by the group.

All of these are reasons membership may not be well-defined.

A bilateral kindred is

All of these are true of bilateral kindred.

Foraging bands

All of these are true of foraging bands.

Compared with foragers and horticulturalists, people who depend on intensive agriculture

All of these are true of intensive agriculturalists.

In a lineage

All of these are true of lineages.

Which of these statements about negative reciprocity is true?

All of these are true of negative reciprocity.

Patrilineal descent

All of these are true of patrilineal descent.

Why is it difficult to formulate a cross-culturally valid definition of marriage?

All of these explain the difficulty defining marriage cross-culturally.

How did the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest reduce the risk of cultivation?

All of these were used to reduce risk.

What does the term market economy refer to?

An economy organized around market principles

What is reciprocity?

An exchange of goods or services without the use of money

Which of these statements about the incest taboo is FALSE?

Biomedical knowledge is the primary explanation for the incest taboo.

What is the term for the transfer of wealth from a prospective husband and his kin group to the kin group of his bride?

Bridewealth

Which of these statements about clans is FALSE?

Clans are generally absent of totemic beliefs.

Generalized reciprocity is most likely to occur between which of these groups of people?

Close relatives

How do cognate systems differ from unilineal systems?

Cognate systems have overlapping membership in lineages.

Which of these systems allows the greatest range of individual choice about what kinship group one belongs to?

Cognatic

Among the Yanomamo, "sisters" or female relatives are exchanged between groups. This example illustrates which function of marriage?

Creating new social relationships for allies and trade

Which of these activities is NOT considered a primary activity of foraging?

Cultivation

Unlike other species, humans adapt to our environment mainly by

Cultural Means

All culturally legitimate marriages are between at least one man and one woman.

False

All descent systems are ancestor-focused.

False

All of the members of a given person's kindred recognize that they are related to each other through that person.

False

All societies practice significant redistribution.

False

Balanced reciprocity is based on the process of bargaining to determine equivalent values.

False

Being matrilineal means that women in a group will control the property and politics of the group.

False

Decisions about how to redistribute goods and funds are always made for the benefit of the public good.

False

Everyone benefits when we make more and more ethanol from corn.

False

Group marriage was much more common fifty years ago than it is today.

False

Humanistic anthropologists agree with materialists about the importance of human-environment interaction in shaping cultural differences and similarities.

False

Humans adapt to the natural environment in much the same way that other animals do — by adjusting themselves to changing conditions.

False

In a clan, all the members are able to describe how they are related to one another.

False

In some smaller scale societies, people are able to keep track of all of their biological kin.

False

Most cultures have prohibition against marrying multiple spouses.

False

Negative reciprocity is another term for market exchange.

False

Patrilineal descent and matrilineal descent are equally as common.

False

Reciprocity and redistribution are not forms of exchange in modern industrial economies.

False

The "basic unit" of kinship is universally believed to be a woman and her child.

False

The characteristic technology of horticulture is draft animals and plows.

False

The four major patterns of human-environment interaction (e.g. foraging) are mutually exclusive one from the other.

False

The inbreeding-avoidance theory explains the existence of an incest taboo in all cultures.

False

The neolocal postmarital residence pattern of Americans is the most common postmarital residence pattern globally.

False

The organizing principle for most Western societies is kinship.

False

The practice of female infanticide and a shortage of females is the best explanation for polyandrous marriage.

False

The terms "cousin" or "aunt" are natural and universal categories of kinship.

False

There is no system of exchange in societies in which the same people are both the producers and the consumers.

False

Variations in descent and kinship systems are easy to explain.

False

When different family units live in separate houses, even if they are located on the same land, they are not considered of the same household.

False

While manufacturing has become globalized, the marketing of consumer products is more restricted; it is difficult to sell products from one country to another.

False

Within unilineal systems, the membership of lineages and clans is always clearly defined.

False

Which of the following is NOT an example of redistribution?

Fluctuations in share prices in the stock market

Why are anthropologists interested in kinship?

For some non-Western societies and indigenous groups kinship is central to all aspects of life.

Which of these statements about foragers is FALSE?

Foraging groups live very much alike regardless of the environment they live in.

Which of the following is NOT a requirement of market exchange?

Governmental regulation of prices

Which of the following do horticultural peoples use?

Hand tools

Which kinship terminology system has the fewest terms?

Hawaiian

Where do pastoralists live today?

Herders live in areas where cultivation is virtually impossible.

Which of the following statements about polygyny is FALSE?

In groups in which polygyny is a cultural norm, jealousy is not a problem.

From a ____ perspective, how people interact with their natural and social environment is a primary cause of cultural differences and similarities

Materialist

Homo sapiens were foragers until about ____ years ago.

10,000

What is a Yanomamo soninlaw who hunts with his wife's parents doing?

Doing brideservice

Why isn't dowry considered the opposite of bridewealth?

Dowry does not give the bride and her family marital rights over her husband.

What is the term for the production of food and other products that people need and want?

Economics

What do castes in India provide an example of?

Endogamous groups

____ means that a person is required to marry within his or her own social group.

Endogamy

Which kinship terminology system is used by Americans?

Eskimo

Who developed the classification system for kinship terminology?

Lewis Henry Morgan

Which of these statements about marriage is FALSE?

Marriage is always expected to last a lifetime.

What is balanced reciprocity characterized by?

The absence of bargaining between the parties

Which of these is NOT characteristic of balanced reciprocity?

The donor keeps giving even if the recipient is unable to reciprocate for a long time.

What was the impact of intensive agriculture on the peasants whose farming fed the populations of the emerging state societies?

The invention of writing permitted more accurate accounts of their work and taxes paid.

What is the term for a marriage between a woman and her dead husband's brother or another relative?

The levirate

What is tribute?

The practice of subjects contributing goods to the chief who decides how to distribute them

What has been the consequence of growing corn for use in the production of ethanol to alleviate dependence on oil?

The price of corn nearly tripled.

What distinguishes a gift from other types of exchange of objects?

The social value of gifts is more important than the value of the objects exchanged.