Course Introduction
Anthropological Theory Exam Preparation Guide
Anthropological Theory explores the major theoretical perspectives and debates that have shaped the discipline of anthropology from its origins to the present day. The course examines classical and contemporary frameworks, including functionalism, structuralism, cultural materialism, interpretive anthropology, postmodernism, and feminist theories, among others. Students critically engage with foundational texts and key thinkers, analyzing how anthropologists develop, apply, and challenge theoretical concepts to understand social structures, cultural meanings, power relations, and human diversity globally. Emphasis is placed on the relevance of theory to fieldwork, ethnography, and the broader implications for understanding contemporary issues in a global context.
Recommended Textbook
Cultural Anthropology 9th Edition by Raymond Scupin
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18 Chapters
1080 Verified Questions
1080 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Introduction to Anthropology
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Sample Questions
Q1) Cultural anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies contemporary societies throughout the world in an attempt to understand human diversity and discover similarities.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) Research on artifacts found in the remains of slave quarters at an eighteenth-century tobacco plantation in Virginia is an example of __________.
A) historical archaeology
B) forensic anthropology
C) applied anthropology
D) classical archaeology
Answer: A
Q3) Anthropology courses are more relevant to students interested in obtaining degrees in business than those pursuing careers in education.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Chapter 2: Human Evolution
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Sample Questions
Q1) In order to confirm that Neandertals had built a bear shrine in Drachenlock Cave, archaeologists would need to find __________.
A) cave paintings of bears
B) small chambers in the far recesses of caves that contained "religious objects," primarily clay figures of bears
C) a purposeful arrangement of bear skulls in the cave
D) clear associations between Neandertal tools and the bear bones
Answer: D
Q2) Which of the following is an adaptive advantage of darker skin pigmentation?
A) preserving a healthy amount of vitamin B complex needed for reproduction
B) increased production of vitamin D
C) better regulation of body heat
D) eliminating the need for tanning and reducing the risk of freckling
Answer: A
Q3) There is evidence that Homo erectus was the first hominin species to intentionally bury their dead.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 4
Chapter 3: Culture
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Sample Questions
Q1) Anthropologist Marvin Harris has suggested that the Jewish and Islamic prohibitions of eating pork developed because pigs __________.
A) were known carriers of disease
B) had meat that was especially high in fat and calories
C) competed with humans for scarce ecological resources
D) lived in filthy places and ate garbage
Answer: C
Q2) A society and a culture are synonymous.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) Anthropologists have determined that specific food preferences are biologically based and not culturally influenced.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Psychological and Cognitive Anthropology
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Sample Questions
Q1) An example of one way in which humans can make decisions to ignore or override basic needs would be __________.
A) telling a lie
B) abstaining from sex
C) running a marathon
D) sleeping late
Q2) The use of government legislation to prohibit or limit homosexual behavior is a practice that __________.
A) has been employed unwaveringly throughout European history
B) reflects cross-cultural values shared by human societies worldwide
C) is a remnant of Puritanism in the United States
D) is justified on the basis of scientific evidence
Q3) Instincts can be learned.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What is the interactionist perspective? Do you think biology or culture has a greater influence on human behavior? Discuss the difference between drives and instincts in your answer. Be specific.
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Chapter 5: Language
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Sample Questions
Q1) Chimpanzees and gorillas have been taught to speak up to 100 English sentences so they can communicate their daily needs as well as humans.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Both animals and humans are able to communicate about things or events that are not immediately present.
A)True
B)False
Q3) More than 70,000 languages are known to have existed.
A)True
B)False
Q4) When trying to understand the ethnosemantics of kinship terminology systems, anthropologists look at which of the following?
A) contrasts between male and female terms as well as generational distinctions
B) the ability of infants to produce basic sounds like "ma-ma"
C) the degree to which people understand biological inheritance
D) the emotional connotations of certain sounds and how they are combined to form words
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Chapter 6: Anthropological Explanations
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Q1) Lewis Henry Morgan was a lawyer and banker of the late nineteenth century whose principal scholarship in anthropology was concerned with __________.
A) human physical variation
B) systems of human kinship
C) language acquisition
D) archaeology of the American Indians
Q2) According to Bronislaw Malinowski, magic __________.
A) has a basis in the existence of supernatural powers in all cultures
B) functions to relieve the anxieties of individuals
C) only works when it has the full participation of a given society
D) has no useful purpose for thinking people
Q3) Postmodernist anthropologists emphasize which of the following?
A) Anthropologists are the only people who can speak about culture with any expertise.
B) Native informants should be treated as objective research participants.
C) Anthropological research is always unbiased.
D) Ethnographers need to recognize how they are influenced by their own societies.
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Chapter 7: Analyzing Sociocultural Systems
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Sample Questions
Q1) Foragers have practiced the same ways of life since Paleolithic times.
A)True
B)False
Q2) What are the advantages and disadvantages of using sociocultural evolutionary models and categories? How do contemporary sociocultural evolutionary models differ from those of the nineteenth century? Why do anthropologists continue to use categories such as bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states?
Q3) When administering a questionnaire in a large society, an ethnographer generally __________.
A) selects a sample of individuals that is representative of the larger population
B) chooses a few close informants to survey
C) hires graduate students to help reach every household
D) seeks help from local government census takers
Q4) Work in industrial societies is often conducted __________.
A) in agricultural areas
B) at home
C) in factories and offices
D) by children
Q5) What are the benefits and limitations of conducting cross-cultural research?
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Chapter 8: Environment, Subsistence, and Demography
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Sample Questions
Q1) During times of famine, the Inuit occasionally abandoned the elderly and infirm, leaving them to die.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Ju/'hoansi San women were often able to gather enough food from wild sources in one or two days to feed their children for an entire week.
A)True
B)False
Q3) When did agricultural civilizations begin to develop?
A) 1,000 to 2,000 years ago
B) 10,000 years ago
C) 30,000 years ago
D) 200,000 years ago
Q4) Why do anthropologists study demography? Illustrate with an example that shows how demographic analysis intersects with other areas of anthropological interest. Include a description of the quantitative demographic measures that would be relevant to the example you have chosen.
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Chapter 9: Technology and Economies
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Sample Questions
Q1) Negative reciprocity is most likely to occur between __________.
A) people of the opposite sex
B) people who differ in age and status
C) close kin
D) strangers and enemies
Q2) How do the formalist and substantivist approaches understand economic systems? Analyze two cross-cultural economic examples in terms of these approaches.
Q3) The mobility of the pastoralist lifestyle required them to develop elaborate technologies for transporting and taking care of domesticated animals.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Describe the exchange practices of foraging societies. What factors affected the way exchanges took place? How would you expect these practices to change in response to cultural change?
Q5) The attempt to get something for nothing is called negative reciprocity. A)True
B)False
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Chapter 10: Social Structure, The Family, Gender, and Age
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Q1) Marriage within the same social group or category is called __________, and the marriage between people from different social categories or groups is called
A) incest; outcest
B) endogamy; exogamy
C) monogamy; polygamy
D) polygyny; polyandry
Q2) Chiefdoms and agricultural states are classified as __________ because they provide little opportunity for social mobility. Industrial states, on the other hand, are considered __________ because social status can be achieved through individual effort.
A) oppressive; free
B) hierarchical; egalitarian
C) closed societies; open societies
D) caste cultures; kindred cultures
Q3) Cross-cultural research has shown that societies engaged in external warfare (warfare at long distances from home) develop matrilocal residence rules.
A)True
B)False
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Page 12
Chapter 11: Politics, Warfare, and Law
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Q1) The Azande use which of the following to help determine guilt and innocence in criminal cases?
A) oracles
B) ordeals
C) oaths
D) legal officials
Q2) Paramount chiefs in Hawaiian society were responsible for ruling at the __________ level.
A) descent group
B) island
C) district
D) national
Q3) Let us assume that the United States has just invaded Haiti and has installed a new government on the island. Will everyone in Haiti consider the new government to be a legitimate one or an illegitimate one? Why?
Q4) Nationalism is a strong sense of loyalty to a nation-state based on shared language, values, and culture.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 12: Religion and Aesthetics
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Q1) Totem poles indicated high social status and connections with ancestral deities. They were typically erected in front of the houses of Northwest Coast chiefs.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Since individualistic religious practices and beliefs were deemed as threatening to the state, one of the major functions of priests was to standardize religious beliefs and practices for the society.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Chiefs often maintained political legitimacy through rituals and religious beliefs.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What did Aztec sacrifice and Hopi Katchina cult activities have in common?
A) They were both aimed at promoting better weather conditions.
B) They were led by shamans.
C) They engendered support for each society's divine rulers.
D) They were prohibited to women.
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Chapter 13: Globalization, Culture, and Indigenous Societies
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Q1) The Mbuti pygmies are an example of an aboriginal people devastated by civil wars and corporate exploitation of the rainforest in which they live.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Using one example of each, compare and contrast a First World, a Second World, and a Third World country with one another. What would need to happen in order for your Third World example to become a member of the First World?
Q3) One of the preconditions for modernization is the acceptance of the belief that progress is both necessary and beneficial to society and the individual.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Compare and contrast two revitalization movements discussed in your text. In what ways were they similar and different? How did the particular historical, social, economic, political, and religious circumstances factor into each? Were the outcomes similar or different? Explain why you think this was the case.
Q5) Describe the five stages by which a traditional society undergoes modernization to reach a level of high economic growth.
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Page 15
Chapter 14: Globalization in Latin America,Africa, and the Caribbean
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Q1) Although both Mexico and Venezuela are oil-producing nations, the standard of living in each of these countries is still well below that of the United States or most European countries for the majority of the population. What are the most important factors responsible for these differences?
Q2) Catholicism was predisposed to accommodate elements of the pagan traditions of the Americas.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The most significant factor in Latin American demographic change after the arrival of Europeans was a dramatic increase in __________.
A) fertility
B) mortality
C) employment
D) life expectancy
Q4) The African National Congress was formed to support policies of apartheid in South Africa.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 15: Globalization in the Middle East and Asia
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Q1) What changes did ethnologist Hani Fakhouri observe in the village of Kafr El-Elow as a result of increased industrialization? What effects did industrialization have on the lives of the fellaheen of this community?
Q2) What is meant by the term hamula? How important is the hamula for modern Arabs? What role does the hamula play in familial and economic relationships?
Q3) Mao Zedong and his peasant armies gained control of China in 1949, renaming it the People's Republic of China.
A)True
B)False
Q4) How has anthropological thinking about the cultural area of the Middle East changed over the course of time? How does ethnography of the Middle East and Muslim Asia influence broader understandings of contemporary global conflicts?
Q5) In the 1970s, Norman Chance was the first American ethnologist to be allowed to conduct fieldwork in China after a long period during which such work was prohibited. Discuss his observations of Half Moon Village and comment on what his research revealed about state-run programs.
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Chapter 16: Ethnicity
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Q1) Japanese immigrants who came to the United States in the 1880s frequently took jobs as __________.
A) railroad builders
B) miners
C) agricultural laborers
D) cattle herders
Q2) Why do many Asian Americans resent being labeled the "model minority"? Do you think this stereotype is unfair? Why or why not?
Q3) Cases of ethnic cleansing and genocide have been eliminated since World War II.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which of the following was used to support the idea that early Italian and Polish immigrants to the United States were racially inferior?
A) the inability of "Know-Nothing" political candidates to get elected
B) IQ and literacy test scores
C) measurements of cranial capacities
D) the fact that immigrants often found themselves in low-wage occupations
Q5) What are ethnonationalist movements? How do they develop? Support your answer with at least two examples.
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Chapter 17: Contemporary Global Trends
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Q1) Anthropologists can probably aid in humankind's understanding of its existence in the global village by making a concerted effort to comprehend the historical and sociocultural incentives and roots that contribute to ethnic conflicts.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The populations of Germany and Japan are both __________.
A) doubling every 23 years
B) increasing at a rate of 2 percent a year
C) stable and unchanging
D) decreasing
Q3) The success of the Green Revolution at Shahidpur in northern India cannot serve as a model for the implementation of this process in other areas of the world because this village was too isolated, small, and atypical of most rural areas in the Third World.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What is the demographic-transition theory? Do you think that this model applies to all cultures in the world? Why or why not?
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19
Chapter 18: Applied Anthropology
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Q1) What is cultural resource management? Why is it important? Support your answer with specific examples.
Q2) Which of the following is a symptom of pibloktoq?
A) running out into the snow
B) falling into a coma
C) cabin fever
D) fear of snakes
Q3) Chinese acupuncture is based on the concept __________.
A) of umami, a particular quality associated with saline levels in the lymphatic system
B) that blood sugar levels vary with health and illness
C) of qi, an energy force that inhabits all living things
D) of medical pluralism
Q4) An applied anthropologist who, rather than just providing data about a culture to an organization or government, engages in the actual development of policy is performing which of the following roles?
A) facilitator
B) analyst
C) informant
D) mediator
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