Anthro Midterm 1

What is a phenotypic adaptation, and what makes it possible?

It happens when adaptive changes occur during an individual's lifetime. It is made possible by human biological plasticity, our ability to change in response to the environments we encounter as we grow.

Which of the following statements about the HbS allele is not true?

It spread through the tropics as communities adopted slash-and-burn agriculture.

Why do archaeologists use flotation?

to recover very small remains like fish bones and seeds

Molecular anthropology

uses genetic analysis of a DNA sequence to assess evolutionary links.

Which of the following statements about individuals with the HbS allele in the homozygous form is true? They

usually develop fatal cases of sickle-cell anemia.

Which of the following is the best example of how diseases have been powerful selective agents for humans, particularly before the arrival of modern medicine?

Smallpox, which appeared after people and animals started living together, has worked as a selective agent for people with blood types B and O who have an ability to produce antibodies against smallpox.

What are both carbon-14 and potassium-argon dating techniques based on?

Radioactive decay

What kind of dating technique is fluorine absorption analysis?

Relative

The legal and scientific debates that arose after the discovery in 1996 of a skeleton dubbed Kennewick Man illustrates all of the following except

the ineffectiveness of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which has no real legal or political recognition.

The principle of superposition states that in an undisturbed sequence of strata,

the oldest layer is on the bottom.

What does Mendelian genetics study?

the ways in which chromosomes transmit genes across generations

What does the relationship between genetic traits and the prevalence of diseases such as malaria and smallpox illustrate?

the ways in which human biological diversity reflects adaptation to such environmental stresses as disease, diet, and climate

In understanding the problems with attempts at human racial classification, why is it important to understand the difference between genotype and phenotype?

Attempts at human racial classification have typically used phenotypic traits like skin color as markers of common ancestry, but many such traits do not reflect shared genetic material. Instead, they are often the result of different populations biologically adapting to similar environmental stressors in similar ways.

What is the term for a gradual shift in gene frequencies between neighboring populations?

Cline

Which of the following is a method of absolute dating based on the study and comparison of the patterns of tree-ring growth?

Dendrochronology

Which of the following is not one of the kinds of archaeology discussed in this chapter?

Linguistic archaeology

What is the process by which sex cells are produced?

Meiosis

Which of the following is not one of the fields of study mentioned in the textbook as part of the multidisciplinary approaches used in physical anthropology and archaeology?

Metaphysics

Darwin and Wallace simultaneously proposed which of the following theoretical models?

Natural selection

Under what conditions are fossils most likely to form?

Newly forming sediments

What do gene flow and interbreeding act against?

Speciation

What is the term for the belief that explanations for past events should be sought in ordinary forces that are at work today?

Uniformitarianism

The term gene pool refers to all the

alleles, genes, chromosomes, and genotypes within a breeding population.

Dendrochronology not only permits absolute dating for samples up to 11,000 years but is also useful

because it provides information about climatic patterns in specific regions.

Mutations are the most important source of variety on which natural selection depends and operates. There are two forms of mutations,

called base substitution mutation and chromosomal rearrangement.

Natural selection is the process by which the forms most fit to survive and reproduce in a given environment do so in greater numbers than others in the same population. But more than survival of the fittest, natural selection is the natural process that leads to

differential reproductive success.

What is paleopathology? The study of

disease and injury in skeletons from archaeological sites

The explanations given in this chapter for the differences and distribution of skin color in populations around the world are examples of

explanatory approaches to human biological diversity.

What does Allen's rule state? The relative size of protruding body parts

increases with temperature.

Which of the following statements about the concept of race as applied to humans is true? It

is a discredited concept in biology.

Human biology

is not set at birth but has considerable plasticity.

The DNA molecule

is the basic hereditary material.

Anthropologists that study the evolution of disease, such as venereal syphilis, focus not just on its biology but also on

its context of social and political history, such as the role of globalization in the spread and transformation of disease.

Gregor Mendel's work with hereditary traits of pea plants

led to the formulation of the law of independent assortment.

Advances in technology enable archaeologists to gather evidence that is not visible to the naked eye. One example of such microscopic evidence is the study of

microstratigraphic layers.

East Asians who have migrated recently from India and Pakistan to northern areas of the United Kingdom have a higher incidence of rickets and osteoporosis than the general British population. This illustrates that

natural selection continues today.

The American Anthropological Association's Code of Ethics

s designed to ensure that all anthropologists are aware of their obligations to the field of anthropology, the host communities that allow them to conduct their research, and society in general.

In the debate of how speciation occurs, advocates of punctuated equilibrium

suggest that long periods of stasis (stability), during which species change little, are interrupted by evolutionary leaps.

The so-called modern synthesis, the currently accepted view of evolution,

suggests that speciation occurs after the genetic isolation of two populations, which allows their gene pools to diverge.

In an example of how microscopic evidence in studying the past can yield surprising results that may overturn long-held assumptions, Williamson's analysis of microscopic residues stuck to the edges of cutting tools found at a cave site in South Africa revealed that

50 percent of the residues were from plants, contradicting the prevailing assumption that such tools were used mainly to hunt and butcher animals.

Which of the following statements about techniques used in dating fossil remains is not true?

Carbon-14 dating is most accurate on specimens more than 70,000 years old.

Which of the following does not seek to explain the origin of species by referring to an outside agent?

Evolution

So-called Piltdown Man was once considered an unusual and perplexing human ancestor, but it turned out to be the jaw of a young orangutan attached to a Homo sapiens skull. What dating technique exposed the Piltdown fraud?

Fluorine absorption analysis

Recall the mechanisms of genetic evolution discussed in the previous chapter. What is the relationship between gene flow and the existence of clines between human populations?

Gene flow, the exchange of genetic material across populations, results in clines, which are gradual, rather than abrupt, shifts in gene frequencies between neighboring groups.

What term refers to an organism's evident traits, its "manifest biology?"

Phenotype

What kind of absolute dating technique is used to date volcanic rock?

Potassium-argon

Which of the following researchers would most likely not be part of a paleoanthropological research team?

Psychotherapist

Which of the following is the best plan of action for a light-skinned woman of childbearing age living in the tropics and concerned about giving birth to a child with neural tube defects (NTDs)?

Taking folic acid/folate supplements and protecting herself against the sun with sunscreen, clothing, and shelter

What term refers to the study of the processes that affect the remains of dead animals?

Taphonomy

Which of the following statements about human skin color is not true?

The amount of melanin in the skin affects the body's ability to process lactose.

Paleoanthropologist Stringer once noted that "absence of evidence does not necessarily prove evidence of absence." Why is this important to keep in mind when assessing the use of fossils to study the past?

The failure to find a fossil species in a particular place does not necessarily mean that it did not live there.

Upon what assumption is molecular dating based?

The rate of genetic mutation in humans is constant.

Data collected using systematic surveys typically address all of the following questions except

What is the relative chronology of the layers exposed during excavation?

What role do recombination and independent assortment play in evolution? They

act to create genetic variability in a breeding population.

Traditional racial classification assumed that biological characteristics such as skin color were determined by heredity and remained stable over many generations. We now know that

a biological similarity such as skin color is also the result of natural selection working among different populations that face similar environmental challenges.

Early on in this chapter, we learned that evolution refers to descent with modification over generations. Geneticists, however, have an even more specific definition of evolution:

a change in gene frequency; that is, in the frequency of alleles in a breeding population from generation to generation.

Using a novel method of scanning neural activity in people playing games, scientists have discovered that cooperation triggers pleasure centers in the brain. This research suggests that

a neural tendency to cooperate and share would have conferred a survival advantage on our ancestors.

The example of the sickle-cell allele demonstrates a key aspect of evolution through natural selection in that

adaptation and fitness are in relation to specific environments; traits are not adaptive or maladaptive all the time.

Systematic survey and excavation

are the two major components of fieldwork in archaeology and paleoanthropology

The Intelligent Design (ID) movement asserts that life forms are too complex to have been formed by natural processes and must therefore have been created by a higher intelligence. Attempts have been made to teach ID as an alternative theory to Darwinian evolution in biology classes in several states in the United States. However,

as a Pennsylvania district judge ruled in a 2005 case, ID violates the ground rules of science by invoking supernatural causation and making assertions that cannot be tested or falsified, and thus does not belong in a school's science curriculum.

This chapter's "Appreciating Diversity" segment describes some of the identity issues that African Americans face in Ghana, where often—no matter how dark their skin color may be—they are equated with white foreign tourists. This situation shows how

based on global racial categories that vary little from one society to another.

Sir Charles Lyell, the father of geology, influenced Darwin with his principle of catastrophism, the view that extinct species were destroyed by fires, floods, and other catastrophes. His geological research was also critical in Darwin's own formulations because it

cast serious doubt on the belief that the world was only 6,000 years old, allowing for a much broader time span for the gradual biological changes to take place that fossil finds were confirming.

An examination of racial taxonomies from around the world would indicate that

classifying racial types can best be done by considering only genotype.

During the 18th century, many scholars became interested in biological diversity, human origins, and our position within the classification of plants and animals. At that time, the most commonly accepted explanation of the origin of species was

creationism, the belief that biological similarities and differences originated at Creation and that these characteristics, once set, could not change.

All of the following are true about the work of paleoanthropologists except that they

do not have to worry about ethical and legal concerns, because they are dealing with the remains of dead humans.

Indigenous highlanders living in the Andean altiplano in South America, in the Tibetan plateau in Asia, and at the highest elevations of the Ethiopian highlands in East Africa have all adapted to living in an environment of oxygen-thin air. Researchers have found that

each population has evolved its own distinctly different biological adaptation to this environment.

Radiometric dating techniques available to anthropologists

establish a probable date for fossils by calculating radioactive decay in the specimen found or the rocks surrounding it.

Why are genetics and evolution so important to anthropology? They

help anthropologists document and explain human biological diversity.

In theory, a biological race is a geographically isolated subdivision of a species. Humanity (Homo sapiens) lacks such races because

human populations have not been isolated enough from one another to develop such discrete groups.

This chapter describes the case of giraffes' long necks to illustrate how natural selection works on variety within a population. This explanation contrasts to the incorrect alternative of the inheritance of acquired characteristics which suggests that

in each generation, individual giraffes strain their necks to reach food just a bit higher, and that this straining somehow modifies their genetic material.

What does Bergmann's rule state? Average body size tends to

increase in cold climates and decrease in hot ones.

The study of sickle-cell anemia and its relation to malarial environments demonstrates that

natural selection improves a gene pool by wiping out deleterious alleles.

Any factor that contributes to the change in allele frequency in a breeding population from generation to generation is considered a mechanism of genetic evolution. Those mechanisms are

natural selection, mutation, random genetic drift, and gene flow.

Although Darwin became the best-known evolutionist, the idea of evolution had been around well before him. Darwin's key contribution was to propose a mechanism that drives evolution, which is known as

natural selection.

Genes and phenotypic adaptation work together to produce a biochemical difference between human groups in an ability to digest large amounts of milk. When is this an adaptive advantage? When

other foods are scarce and milk is available, as it is in herding societies

The specialist among a team of scientists at an excavation site who focuses on the study of ancient plants through pollen samples taken from the site is most likely a

palynologist.

We have learned that reliance on culture has increased in the course of human history. Yet the fact and mechanisms of evolution remain a key part of our human present and future because

people haven't stopped adapting biologically.

Informed consent refers to

people's agreement to take part in research after they have been fully informed about its purpose, nature, funding, procedures, and potential impact on them.

In the early 20th century, anthropologist Franz Boas described changes in skull form among the children of Europeans who had migrated to North America. He found that the reason for these changes could not be explained by genetics. His findings underscore the fact that

phenotypic similarities and differences don't necessarily have a genetic basis.

How have modern-day creationists sometimes misunderstood the contrast between microevolution and macroevolution to comment on evolution? By

suggesting that macroevolution, in contrast to microevolution, cannot be demonstrated based on the fossil record

The utility of stratigraphy for dating purposes is based on the fact that

the depth and order of undisturbed soil strata reflect the age of their deposition.

What does the term gene flow refer to?

the exchange of genetic material between populations of the same species

For natural selection to work on a particular population

there must be variety within that population.

Natural selection

was first scientifically described by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.