ATY-212 Midterm Exam
By about __________ b.c., archaeologists had found most of the major characteristics of civilizations.
3500
Homo erectus had a brain capacity of about __________ percent of modern humans.
70
The first clear indication of a changeover to food production took place in the Near East about __________ b.c.
8000
Studies have shown that many foraging and small-scale horticultural societies work just a few hours a day on subsistence and have much more leisure time than workers in complex societies. Which of the following statements explains this model?
Any surplus food these societies collect or produce cannot be stored for long and will rot.
How do cities relate to a society's agricultural production?
Cities can arise in areas not suited to agriculture but suited to trade.
The earliest members of our genus, appearing around 2.3 million years ago, are generally classified into what two species?
H. habilis and H. rudolfensis
What is the primary purpose of an ethnologist's fieldwork?
It provides the data needed to describe the typical behavior and thought of a group of people.
How did Roberts's research provide support for Bergmann's rule?
It showed that the lowest body weights were found in areas with the highest mean annual temperatures.
What might explain the fact that agriculture spread more quickly in the Old World than in the New World?
It spread along a north-south axis in the New World, which required more time to adjust to various growing seasons.
Where might you find a Neolithic Natufian settlement?
Jordan
Why do most disciplines become more specialized as they grow?
Knowledge accumulates and methods become more advanced.
The common usage reflects a desirable quality that can be acquired.
Many of the foods we eat, such as pasta and chicken, were introduced to us through contact with different cultures around the world.
How does a population develop inherited resistances to diseases?
Past exposure to a disease favors genetic traits that provide protection.
What is the Binford-Flannery model for the development of food production?
People used domestication to replicate their previous diets in suboptimal regions.
__________ has proposed a theory of state origin stressing population growth, circumscription, and war.
Robert Carneiro
If a couple from North America moved to the highlands of Peru and then had a baby, how would that baby compare to native highlanders?
The baby would develop the same lung capacity as people born in the highlands.
How does the everyday usage of the term "culture" differ from its academic definition?
The common usage reflects a desirable quality that can be acquired.
Why might a superior innovation not be adopted?
The costs of adopting the new innovation might exceed the benefits.
What is the evidence that parapithecids were diurnal?
The fossil record shows they had small eye sockets.
Why do state authorities have a particularly unfavorable view of mobile pastoralists?
Their mobility makes them difficult to control.
How do primates differ from other mammals?
There is a set of physical traits that, as a group, are unique to the primates.
What clue in the fossil record suggests that Homo erectus may have had some ritual or religious beliefs?
There is evidence of red ochre, which is commonly used in religious ritual.
How do anthropologists deal with the range of individual behaviors they meet when trying to describe a culture?
They use the variations to define acceptable limits of behavior
How did early evolutionists tend to think of Western cultures?
They viewed Western cultures as being at the most progressive stage of evolution.
Which of the following illustrates one way anthropology helps to alleviate cultural misunderstandings?
Understanding differences in body language across cultures helps with communication.
Because of its location in a neutral, nonproductive region, the city of Monte Albán is most like the modern capital city of __________.
Washington, D.C.
The preagricultural developments in Southeast Asia are poorly known at this point, but are most likely in response to environmental changes. What changes were occurring in the climate at this time?
a warming trend and higher sea levels
What nutrients might hunter-gathers be lacking in dry seasons or in periods where they must rely on lean meats for survival?
carbohydrates and fats
If you are in Africa and you see a large monkey with downward-facing nostrils, you are likely looking at a __________.
catarrhine
What do anthropologists mean when they refer to peasant economies?
communities that are somewhat more commercialized than traditional subsistence economies
Gloger's Rule
dark pigments are more common in organisms living in warm, humid environments than in cool, dry ones
Which of these is a consequence of the rise of food production?
declining health
For most horticulturalists, people __________.
do not own the land, but own the foods obtained from it
An adaptive custom is one that __________.
enhances survival and reproduction
Some specialties cross anthropological subfields. What subfields contribute to medical anthropology?
ethnology and biological anthropology
Taxation is an indirect form of __________.
forced labor
What religious features would you expect to see in a state society?
full-time religious specialists
The study of how languages change through time and how they may be related is called __________.
historical linguistics
holistic approach
how aspects of human experience such as local history, physical environment, family life, language, settlement patterns, and religion are interrelated.
How might you determine whether hominins were hunters or scavengers?
investigate which marks were made first on animal bones—predator tooth marks, or stone tool cuts
Acclimatization
involves physiological adjustments in individuals to environmental conditions.
Which of the following is part of the state's infrastructure?
irrigation systems
Allen's Rule
mammals living in the cold have shorter faces and limbs than mammals living in warmer areas
Which of these is an anatomical difference between Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis?
more modern limb proportions in H. rudolfensis
The term "transnationals" refers to migrants who __________.
move back and forth between their homelands and their adopted countries
Where would you expect to find an Acheulian camp site?
near a water source
As with humans, other primates need play time to help develop normally. This is because play __________.
provides a way to learn social skills
When the federal government collects a portion of our wages as taxes and then returns that money in the form of national security, roads, education, and other goods and services to its citizens, it is demonstrating which type of economic exchange?
redistribution
Natural selection
results in more favorable genes becoming more frequent in a population over time.
Sicklemia
sickled blood cells, often found in most places wher melaria is more common
The __________ is interested in what people speak about and how they interact conversationally.
sociolinguist
What factor, in addition to nutrition and disease, may be related to adult height?
stress in infancy
What group of primates would be classified as prosimians in one classificatory system, and haplorhines in another?
tarsiers
Which civilization is believed to have collapsed due to environmental degradation?
the Mayans
What is the conceptual opposite of ethnocentrism?
the glorification of other cultures
How does the rafting hypothesis propose that anthropoid primates migrated to the New World?
they were carried across the ocean on drifting mats of vegetation
What is unique about the bodies of Homo floresiensis?
they were tiny
Which of the following traits do most primates share?
two bones in the lower portion of the forelimbs