Anthropology Midterm Ch. 1,2,3,4,8
An extended period of close involvement by anthropologists with the people whose life is of interest to them is called fieldwork.
True
Relative dating that relies on patterns of fossil distribution in different rock layers is called biostratigraphic dating.
True
The shaping of useful features of an organism by natural selection for the function they now perform is:
adaptation
The first hominoids appeared in
africa
The exercise of at least some control over their lives by human beings is called:
agency
In modern terms, Mendel's principle of segregation holds that:
an individual receives one chromosome of each pair of chromosomes from each parent
Some observers attribute human-like feelings and attitudes to nonhuman primates because these primates closely resemble human beings in outward physical appearance. This practice is called:
anthropomorphism
In the 1940's many people of the Zulu tribe in were sick or dying from kwashiorkor, a dietary related disease. It seemed to specifically affect married women. Anthropologists worked with doctors to find that in Zulu culture people were only allowed to drink milk from cows that were owned by those in their father's lineage. Since the Zulu were patrilocal and women moved in with their husband's families this exacerbated the issue. So anthropologists proposed introducing powdered milk to help treat the disease. The solution worked. What is this an example of in anthropological terms?
applied anthropology
Adult male gorillas:
are much larger than females, treat immature gorillas with tolerance, eat primarily vegetarian
A study that examines how economics, politics, religion, and kinship shape one another in a specific society would be comparative.
false
Before Darwin, there were no comprehensive theories of human evolution.
false
Estrus is the period during a primates life before it reaches puberty.
false
Ethnographers in the field generally don't encounter ethical issues, particularly when studying their own culture.
false
Most primates use smell to distinguish between members of the same community.
false
Mutations that neither help nor harm an organism are called regulatory mutations.
false
The Great Chain of Being theory was purely scientific.
false
The branch of anthropology that is concerned with discovering what makes human beings different from other living organisms and what human beings share with other members of the animal kingdom is called archaeology.
false
The discovery of the small homo floresiensis has dramatically changed our understanding of human evolutionary patterns.
false
The five key parts of culture are that it is: learned, shared, patterned, symbolic and emergent.
false
The hallmark of the Acheulean tool tradition was the scraper.
false
The system of arbitrary symbols we use to encode out experience of the world and of one another is called religion.
false
A person who is homozygous for the X chromosome is:
female
According to the textbook, which of the following attributes is the hallmark of primate adaptations?
flexibility
The level of the Linnaean taxonomy in which different species are grouped together on the basis of their similarities to one another is called a:
genus
Coltan mining is infamous for the exploitative and inhumane practices used to extract the mineral. The mineral itself is largely driven by demand in more affluent countries around the world as it is often used in the production of electronic devices such as cell phones and computers. What is arguably the primary driver of the coltan mining crisis?
globalization
Australopiths with small and lightly built faces are known as:
gracile australopithecines
Those parts of culture that are absorbed in the course of daily practical learning are called:
habitus
The foramen magnum is the:
hole at the base of the skull through which the spinal cord passes on its way to the brain
Generally, males have more testosterone in their bodies than females, however research indicates that testosterone levels rise when individuals of either sex engage in competitive behaviors. Anthropologists recognize that there are many factors to consider when studying sex and gender distinctions in different cultures. This recognition represents the ______________________ perspective in Anthropology.
holistic
The species of large-brained, robust hominins that lived between 1.8 and 0.4 mya is:
homo erectus
When anthropologists say that human beings are biocultural organisms, they mean that:
human biology and culture both contribute to human behavior
The average Neandertal cranial capacity:
is larger than that of modern human populations
The argument that each individual member of a species transforms itself to meet the challenges of a changed environment through the laws of use and disuse and inheritance of acquired characters was made primarily by:
lamarck
Culture is:
learned, shared, symbolic
Strepsirrhini include
lemurs and lorises
The subfield of evolutionary studies that focuses on long-term evolutionary changes is:
macroevolution
For anthropologists, stories whose truth seems self-evident because the stories integrate personal experiences with wider assumptions about the world are called:
myths
Darwin's theory that the "fitter" survive and reproduce more offspring, who then inherit the traits that made their parents "fitter" is called:
natural selection
When an organism actively perturbs the environment in ways that modify the selection pressures experienced by subsequent generations of organisms, it is said to be engaged in:
niche construction
the Tarsier only operates at night, meaning it is:
nocturnal
Cultural anthropological fieldwork is:
not always done in anon-western society, responsible for the majority of anthropoogical knowledge, a collaborative effort on the part of both anthropologist and informant
According to the text, endurance running may have been advantageous for hominins because it made:
persistence hunting of medium-to large-sized mammals more successful
A Spider Monkey uses its __________ tail to grip tree branches.
prehensile
Dr. Penny Patterson is most well known for her work with Koko the Gorilla. Koko was able to use sign language to communicate and knew thousands of "words". Dr. Patterson would most likely be referred to in anthropological terms as a(n):
primatologist
Natural selection acts on:
randomly produced variation
Which of the following is NOT an evolutionary trend in the primate order?
reduction in the number of digits on hands and feet
Thinking critically about the way one thinks, on one's own experience is called:
reflexitvity
The hypothesis that evolution from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens occurred gradually throughout the traditional range of H. erectus is the:
regional continuity model
Dating methods that identify a particular object as being older or younger in relation to some other object, and that arrange material evidence in a linear sequence, so that we know what came before what, are called:
relative dating methods
The hypothesis that only one subpopulation of Homo erectus underwent a rapid spurt of evolution to produce Homo sapiens 200,000-100,000 years ago is called the:
replacement model.
Cultural relativism
requires us to take many things into account before we form opinions about other cultural practices
According to the text, culture consists of:
sets of learned behaviors and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society, together with the material artifacts and structures that human beings create and use
Arrested development means that during puberty, some orangutan males do not fully develop secondary sexual characteristics for sometimes as much as 10 years. This delay serves to make the males less threatening to other males (and so less involved in fighting and other stressful situations). In the end, these males show a large percentage of contribution to the gene pool. This arrested development illustrates that differences between primates by sex (also known as _____________________) is not as clear cut as some would believe.
sexual dimorphism
To cultural anthropologists, informants are people who:
share information about their culture and language with anthropologists
The process by which human beings, as material organisms, living together with other similar organisms, cope with the behavioral rules established by their respective societies is called:
socialization
This form of vision was believed to have evolved in early arboreal primates so that they were better able to judge the depth of branches to use for locomotion:
stereoscopic
Something that stands for something else is a:
symbol
The panda's elongated wrist bone or "thumb" would be explained by Darwin's theory in which of the following ways?
take the l
The study of the various processes that bones and stones undergo in the course of becoming part of the fossil and archaeological records is called:
taphonomy
What was the ethically questionable group of anthropologists who were used to better understand and know the culture of people in Afghanistan by the U.S. military?
the human terrain system
What is anthropology?
the study of human nature, society, and past
As discussed in the text, Rick Potts has argued that the most efficient way for early hominins to get stones for stone tools together with the animal carcasses to be processed with those tools would be for early hominins:
to store stones at various spots and bring the carcasses to the nearest supply of stones
What is sexual dimorphism?
when males and females of the same species show observable phenotypic differences in things like size
Contemporary ethnographers try to be explicit about:
who they are, how they to do their research, the audiences for their work
The stone-tool tradition associated with Homo erectus characterized by stone bifaces is the:
Acheulean Tradition
The "father of modern biological classification" is the title often given to:
Carolus Linnaeus
The oldest undisputed stone tools are:
2.6 million
Fieldwork
An extended period of close involvement by anthropologists with the people whose life is of interest to them is called:
Johann Blumenbach was an early anthropologist who contributed to the field of phrenology (study of skulls). His work delineated five genetically based races of human (Caucasian, Malaysian, Ethiopian, American, and Mongolian). He was one of the first scientists to assert that humanity was a single species. Which of the four fields of anthropology would his work most likely fall under?
Biological Anthropology
Which of the following statements about New World monkeys is correct?
New World monkeys are the only clade of anthropoids found in Central and South America.
Applied Anthropology
The subfield of anthropology that is concerned with proposing solutions to practical problems is called:
By the early twentieth century, some anthropologists and biologists concluded that the concept of "race" was:
a cultural label invented by human beings to sort people into groups
When anthropologists distinguished between Culture and cultures, they were distinguishing between _______ and __________.
a defining attribute of human beings / ways of life of specific groups of people.
Evolutionary theory is based on a set of:
beliefs of the natural world
The distinction between sex and gender illustrates the contribution of anthropology that _________________ is distinct from ____________________.
biological evolution: cultural evolution
The subfield of evolutionary studies that focuses on long-term evolutionary changes is:
bipedalism
What species of primate is more matriarchal in structure, with the females having been observed cooperating together to push out unruly males?
bonobos
If a hypothesis cannot be tested, it:
cannot be considered scientific
According to taphonomists such as Richard Klein, the best evidence for Neandertal "humanity" is the fact that they:
cared for the old and sick
The notion that natural disasters, such as floods, are responsible for the extinction of species, which are then replaced by new species is known as:
catastrophism
Which of the following is an example of ritual cutting associated with initiating girls and boys into adulthood?
clitoridectomy, infubulatiion, circumcision
For some people, blue jeans, McDonald's hamburgers, hip hop, and Coca-Cola are seen destroying local practices. They call this process:
cultural imperalism
What are the four subfields of anthropology?
cultural, linguistic anthropology, biological, and archaeology
Sets of leaned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society, together with the material artifacts and structures humans create and use, is an anthropological definition of:
culture
A primatologist interested in the relationship between a primates diet and tooth structure would want to know the size, shape and number of teeth that a primate has in order to draw conclusions about it's diet. What is the focus on primate teeth structure referred to as?
dentition
The opinion that one's own way of life is natural or correct and the only true way of being fully human is called:
ethnocentrism
Clifford Geertz wrote about his experiences in Bali and the rituals and views on cockfighting. He published his work for others to read about the Balinese culture. His work would be considered a:
ethnography
This theory explains that primates evolved grasping hands, opposable thumbs, and depth perception as a response to living in trees.
evolutionary biology hypothesis
A fertilized egg that receives the same allele from each parent for a particular trait is referred to as being homozygous.
true
According to the textbook, ethnocentrism will likely always be around in human societies because it serves the purpose of creating and reinforcing group identity and boundaries.
true
Anatomically modern human beings are about 200,000 years old.
true
Chimpanzees travel on the ground and by brachiating through trees.
true
Ethnographic research that is not contained by social, ethnic, religious, or national boundaries is called multisited fieldwork
true
Neandertals interbred with modern homo sapiens.
true
Orangutans have high levels of differences between the males and females.
true
Paleoanthropologists study fossilized bones and teeth.
true
The observable, measurable outward characteristics of an organism are called the phenotype.
true
Tooth combs are found in modern lemurs but NOT their fossil ancestors.
true
The anthropological definition of cultural relativism requires that we make an effort to _________ the practices of other cultures
understand
The notion that an understanding of current processes can be used to reconstruct the past history of the earth is known as:
uniformitirianism