anthropology quizzes for test 1

An ethical approach to anthropological research would emphasize

- a commitment to doing no harm - the rejection of clandestine research - responsibilities toward the host country and the people you are studying

Cultural determinism is unproductive for cultural analysis because

- it denies the influence of factors like physical environment and biology on humans - it can justify atrocities - it explains all human action as the product of culture alone

Examples of social institutions are

- kinship - marriage - subsistence patterns (such as farming)

A century ago, studies of objects were largely studies of material culture and the technology available to people living in small-scale societies with simple technologies. The modern anthropological approach to objects has done which of the following?

-caused anthropologists to challenge whether these museum collections were representative of the technologies of the time or if they were biased -led anthropologists to recognize that objects change meaning over time -pushed anthropologists to take a critical approach to the motives of the collectors of these early museum collections

Which of the following is a feature of language?

-it is used to communicate -it is systematic -it consists of sounds organized into words according to some grammar

Among cultural anthropologists, fieldwork involves

-learning the local language -becoming involved in people's lives -spending a significant amount of time in the field

Anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and Jane Richardson made a detailed study of skirt length over the 300 years prior to World War II. Which of the following characterizes their conclusions?

-many aspects of women's dress styles changed during every period -although skirt length is generally shorter indecent decades than a century or more ago, skirt length is always changing -skirt length changed in regular cycles, getting shorter and then longer before becoming shorter again

"Evolution as Fact and Theory" uses all of the following are arguments to support evolution as fact EXCEPT:

Genetic evidence proving modern humans descended from chimpanzees

What was the fate of Kennewick Man?

He has been buried by members of the Columbia Basin Tribes

How would you describe Edward Tylor's evolutionary theories?

He studied the history of human society from simple to complex technology and social institutions (from so-called savagery to civilization).

The idea of biological evolution was first proposed by

Lamarck in the late 1700s

Koko and Washo were two primates who had learned

American Sign Language

Who are the Nacerima?

Americans

Which of the following would be considered a functionalist?

Bronislaw Malinowski

The thinker who developed evolutionary theory in the nineteenth century was

Charles Darwin

The communication systems of nonhuman species consist of a finite (limited) number of signals for finite specific meanings. Such systems are said to be:

Closed

Which of the following is a concept key to the human culture as discussed in the lecture?

Culture is shared / Culture is transformative

Who was responsible for the theory of social evolution?

E.B. Tylor

According to "Evolution as Fact and Theory", being an evolutionary scientist means you do not believe in a higher power.

False

Cultural anthropology is one of the most quantitative of the social sciences.

False

Non-random mating among the Hutterite sect in Canada is a good example of how genetic drift works.

False

Some of the early resistance to NAGPRA came from anthropologists and archaeologists because they felt that

Native American prehistory was part of human heritage

In archaeology, this is a division of prehistory based on gross changes in subsistence patterns, climatic changes, housing and burial styles, etc.

Period

According to "Our Babies Ourselves", which of the following is one of the "3 R's" of child rearing in Dutch society?

Rest, Regularity, Cleanliness

Who, along with Niles Eldredge, developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium?

Stephen Jay Gould

The primary result of natural selection is:

To maintain a species' adaptation to its niche

A critical reason for taking field notes is that there may be a long lag time between fieldwork and writing and publishing about it.

True

According to "Our Babies Ourselves", in the United States, individualism is valued highly, so generally parents do not hold their babies as much as other cultures.

True

According to the textbook, culture is uniquely human

True

Clyde Kluckhohn argued that both biological and cultural aspects of humanity must be seen as a continuum of small changes.

True

In science, a theory is a well-supported, well-tested statement about how something works.

True

Most people are unaware of the structure of a language until someone speaking it makes a mistake.

True

Mutation is the only source of new genetic material.

True

The World Heritage Site program can only delist sites if the host country fails to protect it.

True

The stereotype that Tahitian women were sexually promiscuous emerged almost overnight after the arrival of Captain Samuel Wallis in 1767, when Tahitians recognized that the British had steel that the crew would exchange for sexual favors.

True

A word that best describes participant observation is

Unstructured

In "Radio Lab: Why Isn't the Sky Blue", how did Guy Deutsher's daughter Alma initially describe the sky?

White

Research committed to making social change and improving the lives of marginalized people is called

action research

An evolutionary perspective on variations in physical traits reflects

adaptive changes

Who taught Washoe (an ape) American Sign Language?

allen and beatriz gardener

who are the narcerima?

americans

In which of the following locations would you likely find an anthropologist doing fieldwork? - a factory - a mental institution - a new york city neighborhood - the amazon rain forest - any of the above

any of the above

The subfield of anthropology that studies the material remains of past cultures is called

archaeology

According to "Our Babies Ourselves", which of the following is NOT typical of child-rearing practices in the United States.

bed-sharing with child

A quantitative approach to studying the archaeological past would be most interested in

building and testing hypotheses by collecting, classifying, and teasing the remains of past cultures

Cultural anthropologists do research by

building trusting relationships with people over a long period of time

The Origin of the Species was written by:

charles darwin

The process of managing and preserving prehistoric and historic heritage, usually through the collection of material objects, is referred to as

cultural resource management

Which of the following is NOT a concept key to the human culture as discussed in the lecture?

culture is isolated

According to the "Survival of the Fittest" video , what trait of the Rock Pocket Mouse was best adapted to survival on the lava flow?

dark fur

Which of the following is NOT studied by anthropologists? - dinosaur bones - primates - human culture - forensics

dinosaur bones

Being able to communicate about things not currently present in space and time is known as:

displacement

assuming your culture's way of doing things is the best is described as

ethnocentrism

The study of how people classify things in the world is called

ethnoscience

The refinement of Darwin's theory has shown that

evolution can only be measured or seen across generations within a population

Cultural anthropologists use just three methods true or false

false

In order to truly practice cultural relativism, one could never make a judgement on what is right and wrong. true or false

false

NAGPRA as a solution to grave goods and cultural object ownership applies in all countries that are UNESCO members. true or false

false

The aesthetic dimension of an object is universally shared. true or false

false

A form of non-portable material culture that a human has made and modified is called a/an____________.

feature

The theory of culture that proposes that cultural practices, beliefs, and institutions fulfill the psychological and physical needs of society is called

functionalism

If you wanted to study patterns of kin relations in a community, which method would you use?

genealogical method

Which method would be best when doing a study on the genetic propensity for cancer in a given population?

genealogical method

Uniformitarianism is the idea that change occurs:

gradually and through the result of processes that are still observable today.

On the north coast of Papua New Guinea, a religious cult leader name Barjani was remembered through which object?

his hat

Alfred Russell Wallace is known for:

hitting upon the idea of natural selection at about the same time as Darwin

For anthropologists the most important aspect of any object is

how it exists within a set of human social relationships

If Jakob Grimm, who developed what has come to be known as Grimm's law, were analyzing the historical relationships among the so-called dialects of Chinese (such as Cantonese and Mandarin), what data would he be looking for in his linguistic fieldwork?

how the speakers of each dialect pronounce different words with similar meanings in the several dialects

Anthropologists study

humans culture, primates, forensics

The defining feature of historical particularism is

individual societies develop particular cultural traits and undergo a unique process of change

The comparative method

is a general approach, holds that no society or behavior should be seen in isolation

How would a critical relativist explain Native American criticisms of cultural appropriation?

it is important to understand Native American claims from their point of view though it doesn't necessarily mean we should accept them as the only way to view the issue

During fieldwork, anthropologists

learn the local language, record people's economic transactions, study how environmental changes affect agriculture

The subfield of anthropology that studies language use is called?

linguistic anthropology

"Owning" culture

means controlling symbols that give meaning

Anthropologist Sherry Ortner distinguished three kinds of culturally powerful symbols that include all of the following except

narrative symbols

If you wanted to understand very early, non-living human beings, you would likely engage in

paleoanthropology

When anthropologists study the way people use language in real settings rather than as a set of grammatical rules, they are focusing on Correct!

parole

When language speakers use slang or metaphor, they are engaging in which concept suggested by French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure?

parole

Historic markers along American highways

present a simplified view of history, and usually one that is favorable to the current residents

Techniques that classify features of a phenomenon and count, measure, and construct statistical models are collecting and analyzing

quantitative data

Cultural anthropologists face an ethical responsibility in their work and so must disclose to informants

reasons for doing the research

"Why Isn't the Sky Blue": According to the studies of Lazarus Geiger, what color term (after black and white) appears first and most often in ancient literature?

red

The establishment of the African Burial Ground National Monument in 2007 was the final step in the resolution of a dispute over African American skeletal remains and happened after the community leaders called for

repatriation of the remains to their community

According to "Our Babies Ourselves", which of the following is NOT one of the "3 R's" of child rearing in Dutch society?

respect

The Law of Superposition says that:

sedimentary layers are deposited in a time sequence with the oldest on the bottom and the youngest on the top.

In anthropolgy, holism refers to:

seeking to understand how all aspects of our species are related

In anthropology, holism refers to:

seeking to understand how all aspects of our species are related

The ability to document changes in pottery styles in non-living societies happens through

seriation

Reading your textbook is an example of:

symbolic learning

In order to be certain that a particular area holds promise for paleoanthropological research, what is first used to evaluate the site?

test pits

Which of the following is one of the ways that objects change over time?

the form, shape, color, material, and use may change from generation to generation; an object changes significance and meaning as its social and physical contexts change; as an object changes hands, its significance and meaning change

Just before World War II anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and Jane Richardson published one of the earliest analyses of a modern commodity, focusing in particular on women's skirts. If you were going to build on their study by examining basketball shorts and jerseys, which of the following would you collect data about?

the length of basketball shorts from one period to another

An evolutionary perspective would be most likely to explain colonialism as

the natural abilities of more civilized people to control less civilized people

In Mendelian genetics, a dominant allele is:

the one that is expressed phenotypically over other alleles

The primary ethical responsibility of anthropologists is to

the people or species they study

The power dimension of an object reveals the underlying nature of

the relationship between the source of the object and its holder

Jonathan Marks notes that while we do have a 98% similarity in DNA to chimpanzees, this is not what it seems because between different human populations

there is considerable variation in both frequency and presence of alleles

How, in general, does Marvin Harris (a materialist) explain the biblical dietary laws?

they resulted from some practical, usually economic considerations

"Why Isn't the Sky Blue": What conclusion did Prime Minister William Gladstone make about how the Greeks saw color?

they were colorblind

The ability to discover ancient remains and draw inferences about our earliest human ancestors is sometimes helped by

trace fossils

The most enduring and ritualized aspects of culture are referred to as

traditions

Gene flow is the movement of genetic material across different populations. true or false

true

Genetic drift can occur because of an intentional change in health policies in a particular country. true or false

true

Most people are unaware of the structure of a language until someone speaking it makes a mistake. true or false

true

The physical characteristics of any organism that can be seen are known as the phenotype. true or false

true

There is rarely any guessing involved in the development of theories because they are tested repeatedly. true or false

true

The comparative method

uses data from many different societies