Cultural Anthropology
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Course Introduction
Cultural Anthropology explores the diverse ways in which humans create, understand, and adapt to their social worlds. This course examines key concepts such as culture, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism, kinship, language, religion, economic systems, politics, and globalization. Through the study of case studies and ethnographic research, students gain insights into the complexity of social practices and beliefs across the globe, developing critical perspectives on issues such as identity, power, tradition, and change in contemporary societies.
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Cultural Anthropology 9th Edition by Raymond Scupin
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Chapter 1: Introduction to Anthropology
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Q1) The study of past cultures and lifestyles is the goal of __________.
A) ethnologists
B) archaeologists
C) forensic anthropologists
D) primatologists
Answer: B
Q2) Archaeologists spend more time digging up garbage than digging up treasure.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) An ethnography is a written description of a society, while ethnology is a process of determining cross-cultural generalizations.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q4) Cultural anthropologists, unlike sociologists, do not use statistics to analyze social behavior.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Page 3
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Chapter 2: Human Evolution
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Sample Questions
Q1) The theory of evolution by natural selection was proposed by __________.
A) Copernicus and Galileo
B) Thales of Miletus
C) Darwin and Wallace
D) Darwin and Mendel
Answer: C
Q2) At the 15,000-year-old site at Mezhirich in the Ukraine, archaeologists have excavated the remains of five shelters made from which of the following?
A) rough stone slabs
B) blocks of marble
C) tree trunks
D) mammoth bones
Answer: D
Q3) The term "composite tool" refers to an artifact made by __________.
A) firing clay into a hard material
B) using bone or antler to remove thin flakes
C) putting two or more materials together
D) several different people
Answer: C
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Page 4
Chapter 3: Culture
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Q1) To combat the problem of ethnocentrism, twentieth-century anthropologists developed the concept of __________.
A) cultural relativism
B) cultural primacy
C) cultural symbolism
D) cultural hegemony
Answer: A
Q2) Ethnicity is based on perceived differences in ancestral origins or descent and shared history and cultural heritage.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) Minority groups are often forced to accept the ideologies of the economically and politically dominant groups through the process of cultural hegemony.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 4: Psychological and Cognitive Anthropology
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Q1) According to psychologist Jean Piaget, learning occurs through the processes of
A) assimilation and accommodation
B) enculturation and intimidation
C) absorption and cognation
D) affiliation and enculturation
Q2) The human capacity for culture is __________.
A) learned after birth
B) genetically programmed
C) weaker than for instinctual behavior
D) severely limited
Q3) Derek Freeman argued that Margaret Mead's research concerning adolescents in Samoa was flawed and led her to make erroneous conclusions.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Value judgments concerning homosexuality are based on __________.
A) genetics
B) behavior
C) anatomy
D) culture
Page 6
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Chapter 5: Language
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Q1) How do anthropologists understand linguistic change? What factors create change in a language? How is this measured? What can historical linguistics tell us about how languages evolve? Discuss glottochronology and the concept of protolanguages in your answer.
Q2) The words "boy" and "girl" are __________.
A) bound phonemes
B) bound morphemes
C) free morphemes
D) bound phones
Q3) One goal of anthropological linguistics is to determine the number of phonemes that exist in different languages. This goal is accomplished by examining the use of
A) minimal pairs
B) phone taps
C) maximal differences
D) syntax units
Q4) Nonverbal communication consisting of body motions and gestures is called kinesics.
A)True
B)False
Page 7
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Chapter 6: Anthropological Explanations
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Q1) Discuss the principal differences between nineteenth-century models for unilineal evolution and twentieth-century neoevolutionary theories. Who were the principal proponents of each?
Q2) Compare and contrast the perspectives of the symbolic anthropologists with the Marxists and the cultural materialists.
Q3) The research strategy that focuses on technology, environment, and economic factors as key determinants in sociocultural evolution while dividing the sociocultural system into "infrastructure," "structure," and "superstructure" is called __________.
A) economic determinism
B) cultural materialism
C) techno-evolution
D) cultural ecology
Q4) Define psychological and structural functionalism. Do you think that these approaches are compatible with cultural ecology and cultural materialism? Why or why not?
Q5) Compare and contrast the perspectives of the cultural materialists and Marxists. Are these theoretical views similar in any manner, or are they mutually exclusive and contradictory in nature? Explain.
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Chapter 7: Analyzing Sociocultural Systems
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Q1) __________ remains a contested aspect of ethnographic research.
A) Providing information to military organizations
B) Protecting the anonymity of informants
C) Conducting clandestine research
D) Keeping research objectives a secret from the subject population
Q2) Which of the following is linked with the holistic perspective in anthropology?
A) informant interviews
B) culture shock
C) multivariate hypotheses
D) independent variables
Q3) According to Jared Diamond, what circumstances contributed to the development of complex societies on the Eurasian continent?
A) having only a few species of plants and animals to draw upon for domestication
B) geographic isolation from other regions, which led to independent technological innovations
C) the spread of ideas and domesticated plants and animals from the Near East
D) access to variable microclimates
Q4) 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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Q1) Hunter-gatherer societies have never been in contact with or influenced by other cultures.
A)True
B)False
Q2) How has the Industrial Revolution affected energy use? Discuss the emergence of industrial and postindustrial societies, their characteristics, and how they meet their subsistence needs.
Q3) 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.
Q4) During the latter phase of the demographic transition, birth rates and mortality rates increase dramatically.
A)True
B)False
Q5) During the early part of the Industrial Revolution, the population increased dramatically.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 9: Technology and Economies
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Q1) The sharing of food and labor in a reciprocal manner to provide social and economic security is known as __________.
A) negative reciprocity
B) a moral economy
C) the reciprocal-surplus mode
D) the serf self-sufficiency system
Q2) Which of the following is most likely to be interpreted by an archaeologist as evidence for the existence of a chiefdom society?
A) remains from intensive shellfish collecting, fishing, and the hunting of sea mammals
B) agricultural implements such as grinding stones and digging sticks
C) fragments of pottery decorated with intricate designs
D) foundations of a house that is larger than the rest in a given community
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
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Chapter 10: Social Structure, The Family, Gender, and Age
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Q1) Most cultures with matrilineal social organizations are found in matriarchal states where females have political and economic power.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Deborah Gewertz, who has reexamined Margaret Mead's interpretations of the Tchambuli (Chambri), arrived at the conclusion that __________.
A) Chambri women are among the most aggressive in all human societies
B) Mead's interpretations failed to take specific historical circumstances into account
C) Chambri men were submissive due to frequent defeats in warfare
D) cultural values do not influence gender roles
Q3) When a married couple goes to live near the brother of the husband's mother, the postmarital residence pattern is referred to as __________.
A) avunculocal
B) matrilocal
C) patrilocal
D) fratrilocal
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Chapter 11: Politics, Warfare, and Law
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Q1) Which of the following best conveys the meaning of "popular sovereignty"?
A) Kings and queens should retain ultimate political power.
B) People, rather than rulers, are the ultimate source of political authority.
C) Monarchy positions should be elected rather than inherited.
D) Political power should be vested in the elite and upper classes, rather than the lower classes.
Q2) Which of the following is a characteristic of the Chinese legal system?
A) a system of magistrates with limited jurisdiction
B) absence of a legal code until recent times
C) a strong police force
D) the informal administration of sanctions by community leaders
Q3) What are codified laws? How do they differ from other social controls? How and why do anthropologists think they evolved?
Q4) Which of the following are used by Eskimo to resolve disputes?
A) song duels and wrestling matches
B) poetry contests and foot races
C) sled races and ice-fishing contests
D) cold weather ordeals and kayak races
Q5) What is the difference between legitimate and illegitimate political power? Give an example of each.
Page 13
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Chapter 12: Religion and Aesthetics
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Q1) Katchina dolls are specially crafted playthings that teach Zuni children about their future contribution to subsistence.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The Yanomamö induce hallucinations in order to have direct contact with the spirit world through which of the following means?
A) refraining from food and drink for at least three days
B) drinking a tea brewed from sacred leaves
C) snuff derived from certain plants
D) rhythmic drumming and dancing
Q3) Cognitive anthropologists have found that there is a specialized area of the brain involved in the evolution of religion.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What is the role of art, architecture, and music in chiefdom societies? Support your answer with specific examples.
Q5) Compare and contrast your religious beliefs and those of foragers outlined in the text. Are there any similarities, or are the beliefs too disparate?
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Chapter 13: Globalization, Culture, and Indigenous Societies
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Q1) Dependency theory identifies multinational corporations based in the industrialized capitalist societies as __________.
A) advocates of increased economic and military aid
B) designers of global education programs stressing free market entrepreneurship
C) purveyors of a new imperialism, neoimperialism
D) promoters of centralization of economic and political decision making
Q2) Although the Iroquois traded beaver skins and other furs to the French, they refused to accept guns, ammunition, and liquor as payment.
A)True
B)False
Q3) A country will be classified as underdeveloped because of poor health care and high infant mortality even if the total value of goods and services produced by that country is as high as that of a developed country.
A)True
B)False
Q4) "Ethnocide" refers to the physical extermination of a particular group of people.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 14: Globalization in Latin America,Africa, and the Caribbean
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Q1) Boer settlers had their most intense conflicts with indigenous Zulu.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Choosing three of the European countries that were directly involved in the colonization of the African continent, compare and contrast the colonial "styles" of each. For each, give an example of one modern country that is a former colony.
Q3) What is the status of women in African societies? What are some of the differences in women's roles within urban and rural settings?
Q4) A "closed peasant community" is one in which peasants produce agricultural goods primarily for __________.
A) local subsistence
B) foreign export
C) national markets
D) local industries
Q5) In open peasant communities, crops are raised primarily for __________.
A) local subsistence
B) outside markets
C) barter with other peasant communities
D) feeding livestock
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Chapter 15: Globalization in the Middle East and Asia
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Q1) Which of the following best defines the caste system in India?
A) a hierarchical organization of social groups based on birth group
B) a system of rural economic transactions based on reciprocity
C) a political organization run by educated peasants
D) a method of processing wheat in rural India
Q2) Norman Chance, the first anthropologist to do fieldwork in China in the 1970s after a long period during which ethnography was prohibited, concentrated on the economic life of __________.
A) a bicycle factory in Shanghai
B) a mining cooperative in southern China
C) nomadic herdsmen near the border with Nepal
D) an agricultural commune near Beijing
Q3) To what does the term jati refer?
A) a social rank based on marital, economic, and ritual relations
B) the traditional village or homeland of an Indian peasant
C) a category within a system of "scheduled tribes"
D) the practice of burning a wife at the funeral of a prominent man
Q4) 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?
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Chapter 16: Ethnicity
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Q1) 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
Q2) The delineation of an ethnic group may include which of the following?
A) measurements of intelligence
B) genetic similarities
C) biological adaptation
D) a shared historical past
Q3) Today, the ethnic landscape in the United States is changing in part due to
A) growing economic opportunities outside of the United States
B) immigration quotas
C) growing family size among white people of European descent
D) higher birth rates among ethnic minorities
Q4) 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) Western Samoans have received huge social and monetary benefits from multinational corporations wanting to exploit forests.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Julian Simon has challenged the doomsday model because he believes that the problems of pollution and environmental stress will ultimately be solved because
A) nature always achieves homeostasis
B) the world population will decrease due to epidemic diseases such as AIDS
C) human creativity and science will provide the key to solving the problems
D) human populations cannot exceed the Earth's carrying capacity
Q3) According to ethnographic research conducted by Murray Leaf, where has the Green Revolution been successfully implemented?
A) Mexico City, Mexico
B) Shahidpur, India
C) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
D) Western Samoa
Q4) What is the global economy? What types of changes have occurred in the world recently that are related to the globalization of the world economy?
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Chapter 18: Applied Anthropology
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Q1) What is applied anthropology? Erve Chambers suggests that there are five roles that applied anthropologists play. Discuss each of these roles as they apply to present-day applied anthropological studies.
Q2) Native Americans have no legal rights to the remains and artifacts of their ancestors that have been uncovered at archaeological sites. A)True
B)False
Q3) Explain the concept of universal human rights. Do you think it is possible to adopt a humanitarian standard that would be accepted by everyone in the world? What might this view entail?
Q4) What do anthropologists have to consider when intervening in the cultural practices of a society? Is this sort of intervention ever appropriate? If so, when? What is the best way to conduct such interventions? Support your answer with specific examples.
Q5) What is medical anthropology? Describe two projects in medical anthropology that were mentioned in your text. Discuss how these projects combined elements from different anthropological subfields.
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