Human Evolution and Culture
Exam Questions
Course Introduction
This course explores the origins and development of Homo sapiens through an interdisciplinary lens, combining insights from anthropology, archaeology, genetics, and primatology. Students will examine the fossil record, trace major milestones in physical and cognitive evolution, and investigate how environmental pressures shaped our species. The course also delves into the evolution of culture, language, art, and technology, considering how human societies have developed diverse systems of belief, social organization, and adaptation. By analyzing both biological and cultural evidence, students gain a comprehensive understanding of what it means to be human and how our cultural and evolutionary past continues to influence contemporary life.
Recommended Textbook
Window on Humanity A Concise Introduction to General Anthropology 6th Edition by Conrad Kottak
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Chapter 1: What Is Anthropology
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Q1) Primatology is included in biological anthropology.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) The four main subdisciplines of anthropology consist of
A)medical anthropology, ethnography, ethnology, and cultural anthropology.
B)archaeology, biological anthropology, applied linguistics, and applied anthropology.
C)biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, cultural anthropology, and archaeology.
D)genetic anthropology, physical anthropology, psychological anthropology, linguistic anthropology.
E)primatology, ethnology, cultural anthropology, and paleopathology.
Answer: C
Q3) Ethnomusicology is one of the main four subfields of anthropology.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Chapter 2: Culture
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Q1) _________ is a cultural universal.
A)Hypodescent
B)Hyperdescent
C)Bifurcate merging kinship terminologies
D)Transhumance
E)Some kind of family
Answer: E
Q2) Shared culture means that culture is
A)an attribute of particular individuals.
B)an attribute of individuals as members of their groups.
C)what ensures that all people raised in the same society have the same opinions.
D)universally regarded as more important than the concept of the individual.
E)imposed by more than one person.
Answer: B
Q3) Only people living in the industrialized, capitalist countries of Western Europe and the United States are ethnocentric.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 4
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Chapter 3: Doing Anthropology
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Sample Questions
Q1) An interview schedule's advantage over a questionnaire-based survey is that
A)interview schedules allow informants to talk about whatever they feel is important.
B)interview schedules rely on very short responses and therefore are more useful when there is less time to conduct research.
C)questionnaires are completely unstructured, so informants might deviate from the subject of interest.
D)interview schedules are better suited to complex, urban societies.
E)questionnaires are emic, while interview schedules are etic.
Answer: A
Q2) Palynology is the study of ancient animals through fossil remains.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) Traditionally, sociologists worked in large, industrial Western nations, while anthropologists focused on smaller, nonindustrial societies.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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5
Chapter 4: Evolution, Genetics, and Human Variation
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Q1) Rather than attempting to classify humans into racial categories, biologists and anthropologists are
A)denying the existence of any biological variation among humankind.
B)attempting to create new categories based only on blood type.
C)confident that earlier racial classifications are still valid.
D)trying to verify anthropometric data from the turn of the century.
E)seeking to explain why specific biological variations occur.
Q2) __________ plays a role in determining skin color.
A)The Hb<sup>S</sup> allele
B)Ultraviolet radiation
C)Sickle-cell anemia
D)Lactose intolerance
E)Lactose tolerance
Q3) __________ are gradual genetic shifts are found among human population.
A)Mutations
B)Alleles
C)Clines
D)Genotypes
E)Balanced polymorphisms
Q4) Discuss some of the problems underlying phenotype-based racial classifications.
Page 6
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Chapter 5: The Primates
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Q1) Of the following nonhuman primates, __________ are most comparable to humans.
A)lemurs
B)prosimians
C)New World monkeys
D)terrestrial primates
E)arboreal primates
Q2) The primate group ___________ thrived in the Eocene.
A)apes
B)Old World monkeys
C)New World monkeys
D)humans
E)prosimians
Q3) Analogies are similarities that are shared by organisms belonging to the same genus.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Overlapping fields of vision improve depth perception.
A)True
B)False
Page 7
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Chapter 6: Early Hominins
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Q1) The statement.__________, best summarizes the relationship between the birth canal and brain size during the course of hominin evolution.
A)"natural selection has favored a tendency toward decreased brain size and a reduction in the size of the pelvic opening throughout hominin evolution"
B)"brain size has become more important than bipedalism over the course of hominin evolution, and the pelvic opening has continually expanded to compensate for larger brains"
C)"natural selection has struck a balance between the structural demands of upright posture in bipedalism, which limits the expansion of the pelvic opening, and the tendency toward increased brain size"
D)"the birth canal has become narrower throughout hominin evolution, even as brain size has continued to increase"
E)"the human pelvic opening has continually expanded to allow for increased brain size, and the upright posture of bipedalism has been unaffected by these structural changes"
Q2) The narrowing of the birth canal is a trend in hominin evolution.
A)True
B)False
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Page 8
Chapter 7: The Genus Homo
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Q1) __________ is a trend in hominin evolution since the genus Homo began.
A)A lack of sexual dimorphism
B)decreased molar size
C)Stable population numbers
D)Bipedalism
E)A decreasing geographic range
Q2) Analysis of large samples of human mitochondrial DNA has led some researchers to hypothesize that all
A)modern humans are descended from Neandertals in Western Europe.
B)current human mitochondrial DNA comes from one woman who lived in Africa some 200,000 years ago.
C)modern humans are descended directly from chimpanzees and gorillas, but not orangutans.
D)modern humans are not descended from robust australopithecines.
E)H.erectus populations around the world eventually evolved into populations of H.sapiens.
Q3) Provide evidence for an increased dependence on culture during hominin evolution.
Q4) Discuss the major anatomical differences between the australopithecines and H.erectus.
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Chapter 8: The First Farmers
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Q1) Sedentism is
A)living in permanent settlements.
B)living off domesticated species.
C)transhumance.
D)capitalist-based exchange.
E)living off wild species.
Q2) Food production spread from the Middle East to all of the following regions except A)Greece.
B)northern Africa.
C)France.
D)Egypt.
E)northern China.
Q3) People who __________ are the most likely to adopt a new subsistence strategy, like food production.
A)have followed large game into a new continent
B)want to increase their population more rapidly
C)are having the most problems following their traditional subsistence strategy
D)have already organized into a state-level society
E)worship animals
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Page 10
Chapter 9: The First Cities and States
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Q1) The statement, __________, is not true.
A)"Çatal Hüyük was first planned and built by the Jomon"
B)"the dwellings at Çatal Hüyük were entered through the roof"
C)"Çatal Hüyük was probably the largest Neolithic settlement in the Middle East"
D)"the dead were buried beneath house floors"
E)"Çatal Hüyük may have had as many as 10,000 inhabitants"
Q2) ___________ is not a variable in Carneiro's theory of state formation.
A)Warfare
B)Population growth
C)Environmental circumscription
D)Resource concentration
E)Long-distance trade
Q3) Teotihuacan and Çatal Hüyük were two of the earliest towns in the Middle East.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The first metal humans used was iron.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Identify ways that environmental degradation can contribute to the collapse of states.
Page 11
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Chapter 10: Language and Communication
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Q1) A mutation in the ___________ has been found between humans and chimpanzees that is likely responsible for the human capability for speech.
A)FOXP2 gene
B)microcephalin gene
C)hyoid
D)lungs
E)tongue
Q2) Linguists believe that
A)only 120 languages are now spoken in the world.
B)the number of languages spoken in the world is increasing rapidly.
C)nothing can be done to preserve linguistic diversity.
D)all people should study English in order to facilitate cross-cultural communication.
E)the world's linguistic diversity has been cut in half over the past 500 years.
Q3) Nonhuman primate call systems demonstrate linguistic productivity, combining calls to produce new expressions.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Describe how people communicate without speaking.
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Page 12
Chapter 11: Making a Living
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Q1) Economies are embedded in society because
A)nonindustrial producers do not partake in the results of their labor.
B)nonindustrial economies have little to do with the everyday lives of people.
C)relations of production, distribution, and consumption are social relations with economic aspects.
D)governments strictly regulate most nonindustrial economies.
E)most economic activity takes place far from home.
Q2) A common social unit among foragers is the A)tribe
B)chiefdom
C)segmentary lineage
D)state
E)band
Q3) Describe how economic specialization in industrial nations differs from specialization in nonindustrial societies.
Q4) Describe how a rent fund is different from a subsistence fund.Cite examples to illustrate your argument.
Q5) The market principle dominates in the economies of foraging societies.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 12: Political Systems
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Q1) Of the specialized subsystems characteristic of states, the religious subsystem is the most important.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Technology is transforming Thailand, and one result is that people now
A)have less political power.
B)avoid the Internet.
C)do much less farming.
D)produce less food.
E)travel frequently between provinces.
Q3) Identify the factors responsible for the variable development of political regulation and authority structures among pastoralists.
Q4) __________ was not traditionally used by the Inuit to handle disputes.
A)Blood feuds
B)Song contests
C)Killing an offender
D)Courts of law
E)Kin ties
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Chapter 13: Families, Kinship, and Marriage
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Q1) Your nuclear family includes you, your parents, and your grandparents.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Taboos against incest prevent it from ever occurring in human societies.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Tarawad is the Nayar word for nuclear family.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Compare endogamy and exogamy and determine how absolute the distinction is between the two.Use examples to illustrate your argument.
Q5) Rules of endogamy
A)prove that the incest taboo is not a cultural universal.
B)encourage people to disregard social distinctions in choosing mates.
C)tend to maintain social distinctions between groups.
D)expand a population's gene pool.
E)result in ever-widening kinship networks.
Q6) Detail how divorce can vary cross-culturally.List factors that affect the ease (or difficulty) and frequency of divorce.
Page 15
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Chapter 14: Gender
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Q1) In a(n) __________ society, women's status should be highest.
A)pastoral
B)agricultural
C)horticultural society experiencing considerable population pressure
D)tropical foraging
E)industrial state with high unemployment
Q2) Gender stratification refers to an unequal distribution of socially valued resources, power, prestige, and personal freedom between men and women.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Public dichotomy
A)tends to be more pronounced among agriculturalists than among foragers.
B)tends to be more pronounced among foragers than among pastoralists.
C)is not significant in urban industrial societies.
D)is reinforced in American society by women working both inside and outside the home.
E)is not present in the industrial states of the Western world.
Q4) All anthropologists agree that a true matriarchy has never existed.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 15: Religion
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Q1) __________ is the term for the marginal or in-between phase of a rite of passage.
A)Voodoo
B)Mana
C)Taboo
D)Liminality
E)Animism
Q2) By participating in a ritual, performers signal that they accept a common social and moral order.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Cargo cults are
A)an example of religion as a form of social control.
B)a type of revitalization movement in response to new contact with industrial societies.
C)based on the popular style of pants with many pockets.
D)religious organizations within the United States that meet in large warehouses.
E)rites of passage found among the Betsileo of Madagascar.
Q4) Discuss two cases in which religion played an important role in social change.
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Chapter 16: Ethnicity and Race
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Q1) The modern concept of "race" was modeled after an ancient theorem of the Great Chain of Being.
A)True
B)False
Q2) A policy of ethnic expulsion or ethnic persecution may create
A)social races.
B)ethnic harmony.
C)refugee populations.
D)a plural society.
E)multiculturalism.
Q3) Interracial, biracial, and multiracial identities are becoming increasingly common in the United States.
A)True
B)False
Q4) List the effects colonialism and colonial nation-building had on "imagined communities" (e.g., ethnic groups, nationalities).Illustrate the answer with specific examples.
Q5) Define the term social race, and explain how this concept differs from "race" as perceived by the average American.
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Chapter 17: Applying Anthropology
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Q1) __________ is not a proper role for an applied anthropologist.
A)Working with local people in addition to "experts" and officials
B)Identifying locally perceived needs for change
C)Helping to design and implement culturally appropriate development programs
D)Helping to impose development programs designed solely by international authorities
E)Protecting local people from projects and policies not in their best interest
Q2) Development anthropology refers to the branch of anthropology that uses data collected in local settings to formulate theories about the development of culture through time.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The example of postcolonial development in Madagascar demonstrates that descent group organization can be a major obstacle to economic development.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The spread of malaria is linked to population growth and deforestation.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 18: The World System and Colonialism
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Q1) Industrialization and mass production have given rise to a culture of consumption.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Core nations generally do not
A)represent the dominant structural position in the world system.
B)consist of the strongest and most powerful states.
C)have advanced systems of production.
D)have complex economies.
E)have less control over world finance than do semiperiphery nations.
Q3) Central to most intervention philosophies is the idea that modernization, Westernization, and industrialization will bring long-term benefits to local groups.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Today, many American companies are "outsourcing" jobs in order to take advantage of cheap labor in noncore nations.
A)True
B)False
Q5) List how Marx and Weber's views on stratification differ.
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Chapter 19: Anthropologys Role in a Globalizing World
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Q1) Most migrants live independently, severing all ties to their home communities and identities.
A)True
B)False
Q2) __________ is a priority issue to the Malagasy, the people of Madagascar.
A)Human poverty
B)Lemur extinction
C)Deforestation
D)Getting local television programming that reflects their culture
E)Lemur interference at airports
Q3) Given the mobility of people today, anthropologists increasingly are shifting their attention from local communities to A)texts.
B)hegemonies.
C)postsocialist societies.
D)public transcripts.
E)diasporas.
Q4) Acculturation can occur with or without firsthand contact between groups. A)True
B)False
Page 21
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