Course Introduction
Biological Anthropology
Question Bank
Biological Anthropology is the study of the biological and evolutionary aspects of the human species, focusing on the interplay between biology and culture. This course examines human evolution, genetic inheritance, primate biology and behavior, human adaptation and variation, and the fossil record. Through an interdisciplinary approach, students gain an understanding of how humans have evolved over time, the mechanisms driving variation within our species, and the role of biology in shaping contemporary human diversity. The course also explores current research methods used in biological anthropology, such as comparative anatomy, paleoanthropology, and molecular genetics.
Recommended Textbook
How Humans Evolved 7th Edition by Robert Boyd
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Adaptation by Natural Selection
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Sample Questions
Q1) Convergent evolution provides evidence that complex adaptations are not a matter of mere coincidence because
A) evolution always occurs in very different ways.
B) the same process of evolution can occur independently in unrelated species.
C) the process of evolution is biologically determined and not flexible.
D) no two species ever end up with similar traits.
Answer: B
Q2) Even though natural selection was named after the artificial selection that plant and animal breeders use, it really refers to
A) the survival of the physically fit.
B) the reproduction of traits from generation to generation.
C) the selective retention of variation in a population.
D) the variable ability of species to survive and reproduce.
Answer: C
Q3) Why was natural selection difficult for Darwin to fully explain?
A) Natural selection reduces variation.
B) Natural selection acts by removing only variants of highest fitness.
C) Natural selection acts by removing only variants of the lowest fitness.
D) Natural selection does not actually remove any variants in real life.
Answer: A
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Chapter 2: Genetics
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Q1) The genotype of an individual refers to A) the alleles it carries.
B) its visible characteristics.
C) the number of chromosomes in its sex cells.
D) the number of chromosomes in its body cells.
Answer: A
Q2) Mendel's second principle (of independent assortment) states that
A) eggs and sperm are formed independently of one another.
B) transmission includes both blending and particulate inheritance.
C) particles inherited from the mother and the father are equally likely to be transmitted to offspring.
D) particles inherited from the mother are more likely to be transmitted to female offspring and particles inherited from the father are more likely to be transmitted to male offspring.
Answer: C
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4
Chapter 3: The Modern Synthesis
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Q1) Explain how natural selection can shape flexible behavioral responses. Answer: The key concept students need to understand to answer this question correctly is that the environment determines what is adaptive, and environments change. It is also important to understand that "environment" can mean what most people think: temperature, humidity, food available; but it can also relate to other factors, like sex ratio in the example of soapberry bugs presented in this chapter. In very changeable, unpredictable environments, the same behavior may not always result in maximized reproductive success. Therefore, the advantageous, or adaptive, behavior is one that allows an individual to assess the environment and behave in a way that maximizes reproductive success under those particular circumstances, which may not be the circumstances next week, next month, or next year.
The soapberry bug example demonstrates that males that live in a more variable environment (Oklahoma) demonstrated behavioral plasticity, whereas those in a more stable environment (Florida) tend to have more equal sex ratios that do not favor plasticity since there is a cost associated with behavioral plasticity. Furthermore, data demonstrate that mating behavior in male soapberry bugs was heritable. Thus, the behavior was variable and was heritable, and this variation can alter reproductive success. Therefore, natural selection can act on these behavioral phenotypes.
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Speciation and Phylogeny
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Sample Questions
Q1) Genetic distance data reveals that ________ are more genetically distant from humans than any of the other great apes.
A) gorillas
B) orangutans
C) chimpanzees
D) bonobos
Q2) Derived characters are traits that
A) characterize the last common ancestor that a particular collection of species share.
B) evolved after the last common ancestor that a particular collection of species share.
C) are less well suited to the environment than ancestral characters.
D) are more complicated than ancestral characters.
Q3) What is the biological species concept? Under what circumstances is this concept difficult to apply?
Q4) Sympatric speciation involves
A) natural selection.
B) lack of gene flow.
C) a mother population divided into two physically separated populations.
D) genetic drift.
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Chapter 5: Primate Diversity and Ecology
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Q1) Mammals share certain traits, such as viviparity and lactation. Studying generalities about many living mammals can give insight into particular mammalian species, such as ourselves. This is an example of
A) reasoning by analogy.
B) reasoning by homology.
C) reasoning by convergence.
D) reasoning by divergence.
Q2) Compared with the strepsirrhines, the haplorrhines are
A) More often active during the night.
B) more dependent on smell than on vision.
C) smaller brained.
D) found in larger and more complex social groups.
Q3) Which of the following statements is true?
A) Estimated predation rates vary from less than 1% to 15% of the population per year in primate populations.
B) Estimated predation rates per month are from 1% to 15% in primate populations.
C) Adults are 10% more susceptible to predation than are subadults.
D) Arboreal species are more susceptible to predation than are terrestrial species.
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Chapter 6: Primate Mating Systems
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Q1) To better understand primate societies, we need to investigate the way primates find mates and care for their offspring. This is known as their
A) social organization.
B) social system.
C) mating system.
D) reproductive strategy.
Q2) Which of the following statements about female primate reproductive success is NOT supported by the evidence?
A) The longer a female lives, the more offspring she will likely have.
B) Past a certain age, female primates stop reproducing, so it does not matter how long they live.
C) Younger females have less success with raising offspring because the female is not fully grown and continues to demand energy for her own survival that might otherwise be invested in offspring.
D) Among primates, humans are unusual in that females stop reproducing abruptly when they get older and have a potentially long postreproductive period.
Q3) What is the evidence demonstrating the importance of socializing for female primates?
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Chapter 7: The Evolution of Cooperation
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Sample Questions
Q1) When monkeys recognize paternal kin, they may rely on
A) gender.
B) genotype.
C) age similarity.
D) phenotype.
Q2) Construct a hypothetical example to illustrate how a gene causing altruism in an individual could increase in frequency through kin selection.
Q3) By definition, altruistic behaviors
A) incur a cost to the recipient.
B) incur a cost to the actor.
C) result in a benefit to the actor.
D) are beneficial to the recipient and the actor.
Q4) The key to the evolution of altruism is that
A) recipients have to be more likely to carry the altruistic allele than nonrecipients.
B) actors have to be more likely to carry the altruistic allele than nonactors.
C) recipients have to be unrelated to the actors.
D) nonrecipients have to be more likely to carry the altruistic allele than recipients.
Q5) What is altruism? Why was it a puzzle for evolutionary biology before Hamilton?
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Page 9
Chapter 8: Primate Life Histories and the Evolution of Intelligence
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Q1) There is evidence that monkeys and apes are able to
A) deceive one another.
B) create fictive kin categories.
C) make the connection between what others are looking at and what they are attending to.
D) recognize themselves in a mirror.
Q2) Chimpanzees and orangutans perform as well as 2-year-old humans in which domain?
A) Memory
B) Imprinting
C) Social cognition
D) Physical cognition
Q3) List the four main lobes of the cerebrum and briefly describe what the cerebral cortex is and why anthropologists are interested in it.
Q4) Examples of redirected aggression in vervet monkeys demonstrate that they understand
A) dominance rank.
B) theory of mind.
C) social intelligence.
D) third-party relationships.
Q5) Explain why coalitional behavior may require sophisticated cognitive abilities. Page 10
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Chapter 9: From Tree Shrew to Ape
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Q1) ________ provides the first evidence for suspensory locomotion among the fossil hominoids.
A) Morotopithecus
B) Dryopithecus
C) Chororapithecus
D) Proconsul
Q2) Which of the following derived characteristics did the earliest oligopithecid primates share with modern haplorrhines?
A) Their eye sockets were fully enclosed by bone.
B) They had a 2.1.3.3 dental formula.
C) They were nocturnal.
D) They had prehensile tails.
Q3) Why is it important to consider continental drift when studying primate evolution?
Q4) During the last 65 million years, the climate
A) first warmed, then cooled, and most recently became variable.
B) underwent a constant cooling trend, with decreasing variability.
C) underwent a constant warming trend, with some recent variability.
D) did not change.
Q5) What is the difference between relative and absolute dating?
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Chapter 10: From Hominoid to Hominin
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Q1) Australopithecus africanus is most similar to which of the following species?
A) Australopithecus afarensis
B) Australopithecus boisei
C) Ardipithecus ramidus
D) Sahelanthropus tchadensis
Q2) Surprising findings regarding Ardipithecus ramidus include
A) limb proportions like those of modern great apes.
B) specialization for below-branch feeding.
C) limb proportions like those of monkeys.
D) hands that are similar to those of African apes.
Q3) Australopithecines were
A) prehominin apes from the Miocene from which hominins evolved.
B) toothless wonders from the late Cretaceous.
C) bipedal primates.
D) primates with brains larger than hominoids.
Q4) Raymond Dart argued that the Taung child was bipedal because it possessed
A) a femur angled toward the midline of the body.
B) an S-shaped spinal column.
C) footprints at Laetoli.
D) a foramen magnum at the bottom of the cranium.
Page 13
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Chapter 11: Oldowan Toolmakers and the Origin of Human
Life History
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Q1) Which the following statements is NOT true concerning human foraging groups?
A) Children are able to obtain enough food to feed themselves by the age of 10 years.
B) Women do not forage enough food to feed themselves until they are in their late 40s.
C) Men provide the majority of calories over time in all foraging groups.
D) Men frequently share the food they obtain with other group members.
Q2) Oldowan flakes
A) may have been made to make other tools that were then used to extract resources.
B) were primarily the waste product from making the "cores."
C) were used to dig up tubers.
D) were used to crack open bones to extract marrow.
Q3) Taphonomic analysis of stone-tool and bone accumulations shows that
A) moving water caused over half of the associations.
B) mass deaths of animals caused some of the associations.
C) hominins accounted for some of the associations.
D) these associations were preserved by volcanic eruptions.
Q4) Did early hominins live in home bases? Explain your answer.
Q5) Were early hominins hunters or scavengers? Explain your answer.
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Chapter 12: From Hominin to Homo
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Q1) Evidence suggests that the lifeways of the Neanderthals included
A) organized warfare.
B) limited agriculture.
C) burial of the their dead.
D) permanent settlements.
Q2) Derived features of Homo heidelbergensis include A) a larger brain.
B) a prominent occipital bun.
C) a flat back of the skull.
D) a chin.
Q3) Homo heidelbergensis appeared between A) 2 and 1 million years ago.
B) 1 million and 10,000 years ago.
C) 800,000 and 500,000 years ago.
D) 400,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Q4) Homo ergaster appeared in the fossil record about A) 180 million years ago.
B) 18 million years ago.
C) 1.8 million years ago.
D) 18,000 years ago.
Page 15
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Chapter 13: Homo sapiens and the Evolution of Modern
Human Behavior
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Q1) Upper Paleolithic technology included
A) the introduction of hand axes and chopper tools.
B) the introduction of Levallois flake technology.
C) the introduction of blade technology and new raw materials such as bone.
D) the first use of fire to cook food.
Q2) Upper Paleolithic peoples were the first to manufacture
A) blade tools.
B) hand axes.
C) choppers.
D) flakes.
Q3) How does the fossil evidence support the hypothesis that modern humans arose in Africa?
Q4) During the human Cultural Revolution, innovations included
A) the beginnings of agriculture.
B) decoration and art.
C) democracy.
D) the first use of fire to cook food.
Q5) Who is mitochondrial Eve? Did all humans evolve from mitochondrial Eve? Why or why not?
Q6) Why do some researchers feel that there was not a human revolution at all? Page 16
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Page 17
Chapter 14: Human Genetic Variation
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Q1) Classification of people in Brazil
A) includes the use of "smor."
B) reflects the ancestry of people.
C) reflects the same prejudices seen in North America.
D) reflects genetic variation.
Q2) What percentage of protein-coding genes of humans and chimpanzees differ in a way that produces different proteins?
A) 10%
B) 30%
C) 50%
D) 70%
Q3) A balanced polymorphism is
A) a balance between mutation and selection.
B) a balance between selection and drift.
C) a state in which two alleles remain in a population because of heterozygote advantage.
D) either a or b
Q4) How are modern humans genetically different from the chimpanzee?
Q5) Explain the rationale for, and assumptions of, using twins to estimate heritability.
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Chapter 15: Evolution and Human Behavior
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Q1) Opposition to the use of evolutionary theory is most intense when it is applied to A) nonhuman primates.
B) early hominins.
C) the physiology of modern humans.
D) the behavior of modern humans.
Q2) Evolutionary theory predicts that human females should choose males who A) can provide the most resources.
B) are younger than they are.
C) have had many sexual partners.
D) are not symmetrical.
Q3) It is generally agreed that complex adaptations A) evolve slowly.
B) can evolve in short amounts of time.
C) do not evolve by natural selection.
D) arise in ways we cannot understand.
Q4) Discuss the evidence supporting incest avoidance in nonhuman primates. Please give examples.
Q5) Why is evolutionary theory relevant to behavior even though behavior is sensitive to environmental conditions?
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Chapter 16: Culture Cooperation and Human Uniqueness
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Q1) The Central Inuit, who inhabited the Canadian Arctic, made a living by A) hunting and fishing.
B) foraging for nuts and fruit.
C) farming.
D) raising cattle.
Q2) Cultural group selection differs from natural selection in that A) differences in cultural adaptations can be established between groups.
B) there is a struggle for existence.
C) there is variation in traits.
D) traits are heritable.
Q3) The Yurok
A) built pyramids.
B) built snow houses that kept them warm during frigid winters.
C) made a living by raising and herding cattle.
D) constructed weirs to harvest salmon requiring the labor of hundreds of men from different villages.
Q4) Imagine you are a European explorer living in nineteenth-century Europe and you decide to embark on an expedition to explore the Arctic. Based on historical evidence, how likely are you to survive this journey and why?
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