Principles of Anthropology Practice Questions
Course Introduction
Principles of Anthropology provides an introduction to the foundational concepts, theories, and methods used in the study of humanity. The course explores human biological and cultural evolution, the diversity of societies, languages, and customs, as well as the ways in which anthropologists conduct research and analyze data. Through an examination of case studies and cross-cultural comparisons, students gain insight into both the shared traits and unique adaptations of human groups, fostering a deeper understanding of cultural relativism, social structures, and the role of anthropology in addressing contemporary global issues.
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Our Origins Discovering Physical Anthropology 4th Edition by Clark Spencer Larsen
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673 Verified Questions
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Page 2
Chapter 1: What Is Physical Anthropology?
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Sample Questions
Q1) What increased early humans' chances of hunting success?
A)Hunting was led by females.
B)Hunting was conducted with lithic tools and cooperative strategies.
C)Hunting was always well planned with a diagram.
D)Hunting strategies were developed to include children as bait.
Answer: B
Q2) Physical anthropologists study what type of science?
A)astrological
B)biological
C)social
D)biological and social
Answer: D
Q3) What makes it possible for humans to accumulate an amazing amount of information over long periods of time?
A)social learning
B)education
C)social media
D)mimicry
Answer: A
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Evolution: Constructing a Fundamental Scientific Theory
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Q1) What happens when adaptive radiation occurs?
A)One species gives rise to multiple closely related species.
B)Several species adapt to one environment.
C)Species adapt to environments with high radiation levels.
D)An individual adapts to varying environments.
Answer: A
Q2) How did James Hutton give context to Darwin's later work?
A)by extensively studying fossils
B)by revealing that fossils would provide the history of past life
C)by creating the first scientific classification of plants and animals
D)by providing geologic evidence necessary for calculating the time span of evolution
Answer: D
Q3) Which of the following do fossils represent and what do they tell us?
A)extant species that tell the story of human origins
B)extinct organisms that provide a record of the history of life on the planet
C)plants that provide proof of catastrophism
D)organisms that demonstrate the age of the Earth through the process of uniformitarianism
Answer: B
Page 4
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Chapter 3: Genetics: Reproducing Life and Producing
Variation
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Sample Questions
Q1) In what way is the presence of a recessive allele related to the phenotype?
A)It can always be determined from the phenotype.
B)It can be masked in the phenotype.
C)It is expressed in the phenotype alongside a dominant allele.
D)It can never be expressed in the phenotype.
Answer: B
Q2) In his experiments with garden peas,Mendel found that one physical unit is inherited from the father and one from the mother.What did this provide evidence for?
A)Mendel's law of independent assortment
B)Thomas Hunt Morgan's ideas of mutation
C)Mendel's law of segregation
D)Mendel's concept of nondisjunction
Answer: C
Q3) How does RNA differ from DNA?
A)RNA uses uracil instead of adenine.
B)RNA uses uracil instead of guanine.
C)RNA uses guanine instead of uracil.
D)RNA uses uracil instead of thymine.
Answer: D
Page 5
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Chapter 4: Genes and Their Evolution: Population Genetics
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Q1) The southern migration of which African people may have led to a significant increase in the incidence of malaria?
A)Masai
B)Turkana
C)Efe
D)Bantu
Q2) An individual who displays the disease sickle-cell anemia must have inherited the deleterious allele from both phenotypically normal parents.What,therefore,is this individual?
A)homozygous with two dominant alleles
B)homozygous with two recessive alleles
C)heterozygous,with one dominant and one recessive allele
D)haplozygous
Q3) Fitness trade-off refers to selection favoring which genotype?
A)homozygous dominant
B)homozygous recessive
C)heterozygous
D)no genotype is favored
Q4) Why is a frameshift mutation far more likely to lead to a defective protein than a point mutation?
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Chapter 5: Biology in the Present: Living People
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Q1) What did the American economist David Seckler incorrectly hypothesize?
A)Growth accelerates and decelerates according to various life stages.
B)Reduced food supplies cause shortness in height and poor general functioning.
C)There is a relationship between genes and the environment.
D)Shortness in height is a harmless adaptation to reduced food supplies.
Q2) How can variation in human skin color be used as an example of both functional and genetic adaptations?
A)Mutations in skin cells caused by exposure to the sun produce increased genetic variation passed on to offspring.
B)Vasodilation and vasoconstriction of the blood vessels under the skin adapt to the amount of sunlight.
C)Human skin may be dark because of tanning or because of the genetically controlled production of more melanin.
D)Individuals exposed to plentiful sunlight may at first tan but eventually develop genes that code for more melanin.
Q3) In humans,race is NOT a valid,biologically meaningful concept.Why?
Q4) Discuss Allen's and Bergmann's rules and how they affect human variation.Include the forces of evolution discussed in previous chapters to support your essay.
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Chapter 6: Biology in the Present: The Other Living Primates
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Sample Questions
Q1) You are reading a scientific paper regarding the relationships of the anatomical and behavioral characteristics of chimpanzees and their implications for early hominid evolution.You note that the authors refer to human,but not gorilla,ancestors as hominids.What other grouping of different primates would you expect the same researchers to use,if they are consistent in their approach?
A)They would use the term gorilline to refer to gorillas.
B)They would use the term hominine to include chimps and humans,but not gorillas.
C)They would also include chimps under hominid.
D)They would group tarsiers with the prosimians.
Q2) What do high,pointed crowns indicate a diet of?
A)fruit
B)leaves
C)meat
D)insects
Q3) How do haplorhines differ from strepsirhines?
A)Haplorhines have a tail.
B)Haplorhines have better color vision.
C)Haplorhines are less dimorphic sexually.
D)Haplorhines have a smaller brain relative to body size.
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Page 8
Chapter 7: Primate Sociality, social Behavior, and Culture
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Q1) What does diversity in primate societies mean?
A)Primates express themselves socially through a wide range of behaviors.
B)Primates encompass a variety of species with similar behaviors.
C)Primates can be classified into particular species exhibiting one type of behavior.
D)Primates are just as diverse in their behavior as humans.
Q2) How do primates acquire food?
A)through cooperation among kin groups,mostly by hunting
B)through a wide variety of food-foraging strategies
C)through a limited set of highly specialized foraging strategies
D)through the use of highly developed material culture
Q3) Many primate societies are complex and involve their members forming alliances.How can these alliances be formed?
A)by rank,age,and kinship
B)by relative age,which is affected by "baby booms"
C)only by rank
D)primarily by species and subspecies
Q4) What have scientists learned about the function of primate vocalizations and how they relate to the evolution of human language?
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Page 9
Chapter 8: Fossils and Their Place in Time and Nature
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Q1) What are eras?
A)divisions in geologic time divided into periods and epochs
B)any time period in the past
C)divisions of time based on cultural standards,as in "Stone Age"
D)the time frames during which a certain fossil species existed
Q2) Thermoluminescence dating can be used to determine the age of which types of materials?
A)sediment,stone,and ceramics
B)bone,wood,and stone
C)bone,shell,and fabric
D)shell,ceramics,and wood
Q3) For directly dating hominin fossils from several thousand to about a million years old,what dating method might be used?
A)electron spin resonance
B)fission track dating
C)radiopotassium dating
D)dendrochronology
Q4) Why is punctuated equilibrium an important addition to evolutionary theory?
Q5) Differentiate between absolute and relative dating techniques,giving one example of each.
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Chapter 9: Primate Origins and Evolution: The First 50
Million Years
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Q1) There are both early African and early Asian candidates representing the origin of Anthropoids.Why haven't anthropologists conclusively determined which of these continents is where anthropoids originated?
A)Although the African fossil primate Biretia is older than the Asian fossil primate Eosimas,Biretia's features are less clearly anthropoid in nature.
B)The dating of both the African fossil primate Biretia and the Asian fossil primate Eosimas is so uncertain that they could easily reverse in age with more research.
C)The fossil primate record of Asia and Africa during the Eocene is so murky that discovery of new fossils that will rewrite early anthropoid history is very likely.
D)Because of the rapidity of evolutionary change,it will be impossible to sort out the evolution of anatomical differences among early fossil primates.
Q2) What is a difference between Miocene apes and modern apes?
A)tail length
B)ribcage breadth
C)hand size
D)foot morphology
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Chapter 10: Early Hominin Origins and Evolution: The Roots of Humanity
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Sample Questions
Q1) What tools does the Oldowan Complex include?
A)hand axes,flakes,and cores
B)cobbles,flakes,and side scrapers
C)choppers,cobbles,flakes,and bone tools
D)choppers,hand axes,and side scrapers
Q2) Which of the following is a derived trait of Sahelanthropus tchandensis?
A)big toe opposability
B)larger body size
C)length of the calcaneus
D)nonhoning chewing complex
Q3) What does ecological evidence from the site where Ardi was found show?
A)Early hominins lived in a lush jungle.
B)Early hominins lived in a savannah.
C)Early hominins lived in a forest.
D)Early hominins migrated out of the area due to drought.
Q4) Hominins have canines that are:
A)small,blunt,and nonprojecting,with no diastema.
B)large and pointed,with a diastema.
C)projecting,with a diastema.
D)part of a honing complex.
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Chapter 11: The Origins and Evolution of Early Homo
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Q1) The Homo erectus fossil from Sangiran,Java,dates to as old as:
A)800,000 yBP.
B)1.2-1.0 mya.
C)1.8-1.6 mya.
D)2.2-2.0 mya.
Q2) What do the many stone tools,fragmentary animal bones,and teeth found at Gran Dolina,Spain,indicate about hominids there?
A)They processed and consumed animals including other hominids.
B)They did not differ appreciably from earlier Asian Homo erectus.
C)They were similar to later Homo sapiens.
D)They were australopithecines.
Q3) Some Homo erectus specimens were large and had robust bones while others were:
A)small with robust bones.
B)tall with robust bones.
C)gracile.
D)small with thin bones.
Q4) Discuss the fossil evidence of Homo habilis and describe the anatomical and behavioral traits of Homo habilis that introduce the evolution of Homo sapiens.
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Page 13
Chapter 12: The Origins,evolution,and Dispersal of Modern People
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Q1) Discuss the origin of the Neandertals in terms of biological adaptation and other forces of evolution.
Q2) Sub-Saharan Africans show the largest genetic diversity of any human population.What is a likely cause of this?
A)the accumulation of genetic mutations over the last ten years
B)the group's small breeding population,maintaining genetic diversity
C)the accumulations of genetic mutations over time
D)the introduction of genetic diversity from Europe and Asia
Q3) The earliest archaeological evidence of humans in Australia is from ________,dating to ________.
A)Kow Swamp;13,000 yBP
B)Lake Mungo;42,000 yBP
C)Melbourne;25,000 yBP
D)Tasmania;35,000 yBP
Q4) What are the most distinctive features of cold adaptation in Neandertals?
A)the suprainiac fossa and globular shape of the skull
B)thick bones and extra muscles
C)the body and the length of the arms and legs
D)the retromolar space and heavy wearing on the teeth
Page 14
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Chapter
13: The Past 10, 000 Years: Agriculture, population, biology
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Sample Questions
Q1) What did New World domesticated products include?
A)wheat
B)rice
C)cotton
D)pigs
Q2) Which of the following describes the "Fertile Crescent"?
A)a form of wheat domesticated in North Africa
B)a region of grassland and woodlands in West Asia
C)a rainforest region in South America linked to early agriculture
D)a stone tool designed to harvest grains
Q3) What is a symptom of anemia in which spongy bone invades the eye sockets?
A)hyperosteitis
B)trabeculitis
C)orbital arthritis
D)cribra orbitalia
Q4) Why did infectious disease become more common with the agricultural revolution?
A)An increase in mobility led to overcrowding.
B)Sharing of agricultural food led to more foodborne disease.
C)More people meant fewer health workers were available to reduce disease.
D)An increase in sedentism led to overcrowding.
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Chapter 14: Evolution: Today and Tomorrow
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is true about the occurrence of hip fractures in older adults?
A)They are more common in modern societies than in previous ones.
B)They are related to decreased longevity.
C)They are related to vision degeneration over time.
D)They are the result of a more active lifestyle.
Q2) Physical anthropologist John Hawks and colleagues suggest that evolution is speeding up as population size continues to ________ and ________ are introduced.
A)rise;parasites
B)mushroom;new mutations
C)decrease;ancestral traits
D)maintain its current stasis;no new genes
Q3) What is one of the most significant items of scientific evidence for global climate change?
A)the 85% reduction in the size of ice fields atop Mount Kilimanjaro,in Tanzania
B)a 2°F decrease in global temperatures during the last 200 years
C)the decrease of sea levels by 12 cm during the last 100 years
D)increased precipitation in the Gobi Desert
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