Cultural Anthropology Exam 1

The roots of linguistics, the modern scientific study of language, go back a long way to the works of ancient grammarians in _____, more than 2,000 years ago.

South Asia

The position that because cultures are unique, each one can be evaluated only according to its own standards and values is called

cultural relativism.

The protection of cultural resources as part of archaeology is called

cultural resource management.

Humans' major mode of adaptation, which enables them to live effectively in diverse environments, is

culture

In early human development, fire making was associated with each of the following except:

developing larger and more complex teeth.

The term that refers to worldwide interconnectedness, signified by global movements of natural resources, trade goods, human labor, finance capital, information, and infectious diseases is known as

globalization

Though pastoral nomadic peoples are often blamed for causing environmental degradation, the fault is often not theirs. Rather, in areas such as sub-Saharan Africa it is caused by

governments that restrict their movements causing overgrazing.

An archaeologist studies material remains and environmental data to understand

human culture.

All of the following statements about pluralistic societies are correct except:

together these societies comprise a nation.

An argument about the genetic relationship between Neanderthal and anatomically modern humans

"Neanderthal controversy"?

To seek interconnections and relatedness between various parts of human culture and biology

"holistic perspective"

Molecular evidence indicates that the division between humans and African apes took place

5-8 million years ago.

Approximately how many languages are spoken today?

6000

Humankind's repertoire of body language is enormous. We are capable of making more than _____ facial expressions.

7000

a process of unequal culture contact when a smaller culture is forced to adopt some of the ways of the dominant society.

Acculturation

Johan Blumenbach developed a human racial scheme in the late 1700s based the comparison of human skulls. Which of the following is not one of his "categories of human"?

African

Which of the following primates is the only one known to use mediators in conflict resolution?

Chimps

What is the first step in doing ethnographic fieldwork?

Choosing a research question

Edward Hall designated four categories of proxemically relevant spaces. Which of the following is incorrect?

Conventional (7-10 feet)

Which of the following statements about society and culture is incorrect?

Culture can exist without a society.

All languages recognize a stable set of colors.

False

Ethnographic fieldwork is never done in Western societies.

False

Which of the following species was the first to migrate out of Africa?

Homo erectus

The vast collection of cross-indexed ethnographic and archaeological data catalogued by cultural characteristics and geographic locations is called the

Human Relations Area Files.

What What is the primary purpose of practicing applied anthropology?

It allows the use of anthropological knowledge to solve practical problems.

During what period did anatomically modern humans begin appearing in Africa and Southwest Asia?

Middle Paleolithic

Ardipithecus ramidus is associated with which of the following characteristics?

Moved about as bipeds and quadrupeds

All of the following are examples of early studies of contemporary state societies except:

Napoleon Chagnon, study of warfare among the Yanomamo.

Most of the alphabets in use today descended from the

Phoenicians.

Which of the following services is not one that forensic anthropologists routinely are called upon by the police and other authorities to identify?

Potential archaeological sites

Which theory of modern human origins relies mostly on the interpretation of genetic evidence, fossils, and cultural remains?

Recent African origins hypothesis

a form of population genetics that argues that evolution is gradual, based on environmental adaptation and small genetic changes over generations.

The "modern evolutionary synthesis"

Why are informal interviews central to ethnographic fieldwork?

They are casual exchanges in which the anthropologists can gain insight into the things that matter most to the cultural group

A larger culture is more likely to tolerate a subculture if their values and physical appearance are similar.

True

According to anthropological ethics, the first responsibility of the anthropologist is to the people studied.

True

Anthropological fieldwork is characteristic of all of the anthropological subdisciplines.

True

Behavior that has been adaptive at one time may become maladaptive later.

True

Ethnolinguistics is the study of the relationship between language and the cultural setting in which it is used.

True

Humans are programmed for language.

True

Neanderthal fossils have characteristics that are similar to both H. erectus and H. sapiens.

True

One way that culture is preserved and shared is by language.

True

The belief that one's own culture is superior to another is called ethnocentrism.

True

The cornerstone of natural selection is adaptation.

True

The evolutionary trend for primate dentition has been toward a reduction in the number and size of teeth.

True

Which consequence is not characteristic of bipedalism?

Was able to run faster and more efficiently than quadrupeds

All of the following are reasons why race as a biological construct does not translate to humans except:

actual human variation does not exist.

The gradual process of making beneficial adjustments to the environment is called

adaptation

The use of anthropological knowledge and methods to solve practical problems in communities confronting new challenges

applied anthropology

For human development, which came first?

bipedalism

A Scottish butler in an English mansion says to the lady of the house, "You may wish to stay inside today, Madam; it's quite cold outside." But when he goes back to his own cottage he is likely to say to his wife in broad Scots, "Get inside and shut the door, Maggie, you'll freeze your buns off." In linguistics, this is an example of

code switching.

Chantek was able to do all of the following except:

communicate through verbal words.

The ability to build homes and make clothing to insulate us against cold environments is a(n)

cultural adaptation

All of the following are common causes of cultural change except:

cultural relativism.

The term _____ is usually used to refer to varying forms of a language that reflect particular regions or social classes and that are similar enough to be mutually intelligible.

dialect

A study of Facebook communities and the ways people interact using social media as a "cyber" fieldsite is an example of

digital ethnography.

When researchers use things such as photographs in order to prompt people to speak with them about a particular topic, these are called

eliciting devices

The process by which culture is transmitted from one generation to the next is called

enculturation

Robert Hitchcock works in advocacy anthropology with the San peoples in southern Africa in order to

ensure their land rights

In-depth descriptive studies of specific cultures are called

ethnographies

Cross-cultural research that allows anthropologists to explain why differences or similarities occur between groups is known as

ethnology

all learned behavior is cultural

false

When anthropologists go to the places that they study in order to experience the culture firsthand, it is called

fieldwork

All of the following are powerful forces that drive globalization except:

financial autonomy between countries

Svante Pääbo's work in evolutionary genetics has led to a better understanding of

genetic continuity between archaic and anatomically modern humans.

Culture is an integrated and interrelated whole, which means that

if you alter one aspect of a culture, you can drastically affect and possibly even endanger the functioning of the whole.

Anthropology has sought directly to do each of the following except:

impose a Western and modern approach to life.

Among the Kapauku Papuans of New Guinea, the fact that an attempt to eliminate warfare (which would create a balanced sex ratio) would affect the practice of polygyny, which would affect the economy (since women raise pigs, and the more wives a man has, the more pigs he can keep), shows that culture is

integrated

Anthropologists advise that

it is best to do your first fieldwork in a culture other than your own.

The members of a society who work most closely with the anthropologist to provide an understanding of cultural phenomena are called

key consultants

A system of communication using sounds, gestures, or marks that are put together in meaningful ways according to a set of share rules is called a(n)

language

The most important symbolic aspect of culture is

language

The branch of anthropology that studies human languages is called

linguistic anthropology.

The development of different languages from a single ancestral language is called

linguistic divergence

In France, a committee exists that has the job of eliminating subversive foreign influences in the form of words borrowed from other languages. English is a major offender (as in le bluejeans or le hamburger). This is an example of

linguistic nationalism

The American anthropologist Edward Sapir and his student, Benjamin Whorf, drawing on his experience with the language of the Hopi Indians, developed a full-fledged theory now known as the theory of

linguistic relativity

All of the following are reasons it is important to map the field site with information from local people except:

local informants have official maps available to make this accurate and quantitative.

From skeletal remains, the forensic anthropologist can establish all of following EXCEPT:

marital status

Andrea Louie studied the ethnic Han group of China by collecting data in San Francisco, Hong Kong, and southern China. This approach is an example of

multi-sited ethnography.

Displacement refers to the concept of being able to refer to things that are

not there

"Culture at a distance" is an approach in anthropology that allowed the study of other cultures through all of the following except:

on-location ethnographic fieldwork.

Those who study the course of early human evolutionary history are called

paleoanthropologists.

The hallmark of ethnographic fieldwork is

participant observation

The systematic identification and description of distinctive speech sounds in a language is called

phonetics.

Margaret Mead argued that ethnographers should make much more effective use of

photography

As part of your job, you may study the frequency of blood types in human populations, or watch the behavior of monkeys and apes, or dig for early hominid bones in East Africa. You are a/an:

physical anthropologist

All of the following are signs that a culture is not adequately satisfying the needs and expectations of those who live by its rules except

recovering environments.

Ethical responsibilities for anthropologists include all of the following except:

represent the interests of the anthropologist and protect the researcher.

Which of the following statements about the relationship between sex and gender is incorrect?

sex is the same as gender

The influence of a person's class status on what pronunciation he/she uses, a speaker's choice of more complicated vocabulary and grammar when he/she is speaking to a professional audience, and the influence of language on culture are all concerns of

sociolinguistics

In primates, the ability to perceive a three-dimensional world is directly due to

stereoscopic vision.

A society is held together by a shared sense of identity and worldview. This collective body of ideas allows a society to make sense of the world, its challenges, and opportunities. It is known as

superstructure.

A sound, emblem, or other sign that is arbitrarily linked to something else and represents it in a meaningful way is called a(n)

symbol

A language family is a group of languages

that are descended from a single ancestral language.

When doing research, the anthropologist has to consider obligations to three sets of people:

the profession of anthropology, the people who funded the study, and the people studied.

Anthropology is

the study of humankind everywhere, throughout time.

Validation in ethnographic research is difficult because of all of the following except

there is a very stable cultural and environmental status.

Cave art from the Upper Paleolithic suggests that

there was a rich tradition of using altered states of consciousness.

The Amish may be used as an example of subcultural variation because

they maintain a distinctive way of life that emphasizes agrarian living and loyalty to fellow Amish rather than to the state.

Paralanguage includes not only the way that people say things but also a variety of extralinguistic noises called

vocalizations

In order to minimize the impact of subjectivity, the anthropologist should consider all of the following except:

what the anthropologist observes in his/her own culture.