World Prehistory Exam Review
Course Introduction
World Prehistory explores the development of human societies from the origins of humanity to the emergence of complex civilizations across the globe. The course examines archaeological evidence, such as artifacts, architecture, and cultural landscapes, to reconstruct the lives of early humans, their migrations, subsistence strategies, technological advancements, and social organization. Emphasis is placed on comparative study between various regions, including Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe, highlighting the diversity of prehistoric experiences and the processes that led to the rise of agriculture, urbanism, and state-level societies. Through critical engagement with major discoveries and current debates, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of humanitys shared past and the foundations of modern civilization.
Recommended Textbook
The Essence of Anthropology 3rd Edition by William A. Haviland
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16 Chapters
1823 Verified Questions
1823 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/study-set/1030
Page 2
Chapter 1: The Essence of Anthropology
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117 Verified Questions
117 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20429
Sample Questions
Q1) A midden is a _______________.
Answer: prehistoric refuse mound
Q2) The term "prehistory" refers to a period in which:
A) people had no means of recording their thoughts
B) there was no written record
C) people had no history
D) humans had not yet diverged from the primate line
Answer: B
Q3) Which of the following is not a common practice within applied anthropology?
A) collaboration between anthropologists and community members
B) conducting research together as a team with community members
C) solving specific problems
D) involvement in issues of no practical value
Answer: D
Q4) Why do ethnographers frequently utilize key consultants?
A) these individuals know everything about the culture being studied
B) key consultants are the anthropologists' best friends at all times
C) key consultants spend time with ethnographers and provide explanations
D) the key consultants are cultural informants who are willing to tell secrets
Answer: C
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Chapter 2: Biology and Evolution
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138 Verified Questions
138 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Alleles are:
A) the cell nucleus
B) structures that carry specific proteins
C) alternate forms of a single gene
D) pieces of DNA
Answer: C
Q2) Mendel discovered that offspring inherit a blending of traits from mother and father.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) A bat's wing is homologous to a butterfly's wing.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q4) Distinguish between genotype and phenotype.
Answer: Genotype is the genetic composition for a trait, while the phenotype is the expressed physical characteristic.
Q5) Heterozygotes for sickle-cell anemia are protected against _______________.
Answer: malaria
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Chapter 3: Living Primates
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119 Verified Questions
119 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) How can we best characterize the physical differences between humans and apes?
A) differences of degree
B) differences of kind
C) differences of size
D) differences of definition
Answer: A
Q2) Which statement best describes the foraging behavior of chimpanzees?
A) constantly shifting, they break into sub-groups and smaller units
B) fixed and changing infrequently, they forage together as a group
C) chimpanzees forage together in family units headed by the mother
D) chimpanzees always forage alone
Answer: A
Q3) Nearly _______________ percent of all primate species face extinction within the next decade.
Answer: 50
Q4) Name three factors that work to restrict the size of ape populations in the wild.
Answer: Long birth intervals, habitat destruction, and hunting all work to restrict population sizes.
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Human Evolution
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106 Verified Questions
106 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which australopithecine subsisted more on meat than the other?
A) gracile australopithecines
B) robust australopithecines
C) savannah australopithecines
D) Australopithecus ethiopeansis
Q2) How can paleontologists tell whether two sets of bones represent the same or different species?
Q3) Bipedalism is considered to be most adaptive in geographical areas known as _______________.
Q4) Genetic studies have confirmed that the African apes are our closest living relatives.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The Oldowan tool tradition is primarily associated with what group of early human ancestors?
A) Homo habilis
B) australopithecines
C) Homo erectus
D) Homo sapiens
Q6) How is bipedalism "written upon the human body"?
Page 6
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Chapter 5: The Neolithic Revolution: The Domestication of Plants
and Animals
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137 Verified Questions
137 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) How did the use of sickles contribute to plant domestication?
Q2) When did Neolithic agricultural villages become common in the Americas?
A) ca. 7,000 years ago
B) ca. 4,500 years ago
C) ca. 2,000 years ago
D) ca. 8,500 years ago
Q3) Which of the following is not an animal that was first domesticated in the area of modern-day Mexico?
A) duck
B) turkey
C) dog
D) bee
Q4) Human populations have been steadily increasing since domestication began.
A)True
B)False
Q5) All of the following are associated with plant domestication except:
A) loss of delayed seed germination
B) reduction in distasteful chemical compounds
C) reduction and loss of protective husks
D) a more fragile stem and seeds that shatter easily from the stalk
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Chapter 6: The Emergence of Cities and States
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112 Verified Questions
112 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The world's first urban areas occurred in the New World.
A)True
B)False
Q2) During the time of the development of early state societies, northern Europeans developed a tendency for sickle-cell anemia.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The earliest cities in the Americas appeared in:
A) Mexico
B) Honduras
C) Guatemala
D) Peru
Q4) The emergence of social classes is called _________________________.
Q5) Why did Teotihuacan include residents with foreign affiliation?
A) to use as slaves
B) to rely on for military protection
C) to consult in spiritual matters
D) to expand the trade network
Q6) Evidence of warfare in early civilizations is (common/uncommon)
Q7) Maya written records are called _______________.
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Chapter 7: Modern Human Diversity: Race and Racism
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124 Verified Questions
124 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Failure to retain lactase production into adulthood may cause diabetes.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The fingerprint pattern of "loops" is associated primarily with:
A) sub-Saharan Africans
B) central Europeans
C) people of Mongolia
D) Australian aborigines
Q3) What scientist did measurements on skulls to attempt to demonstrate biological superiority of specific groups?
A) Johann Blumenbach
B) Ashley Montagu
C) Carolus Linnaeus
D) Samuel Morton
Q4) In northern latitudes people have less melanin to promote the manufacture of vitamin:
A) E
B) D
C) A
D) C
Page 9
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Chapter 8: The Characteristics of Culture
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118 Verified Questions
118 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following definitions best represents a "symbol"?
A) two connected signs
B) an arbitrary, but meaningful, representation
C) a representation that is part of the original
D) something that stands for something else naturally
Q2) In what ways can food itself be considered a cultural practice?
Q3) Most infants born in the US with indeterminate sexuality are given genitalia of
Q4) Which of the following is not part of the 1871 definition of culture?
A) morals and law
B) belief and art
C) habits and customs
D) symbols and symbol-making
Q5) How did Sir Edward Tylor first define the concept of "culture"?
Q6) The Kapauku practice marriage of one man to multiple wives. This is called:
A) polygyny
B) polyandry
C) polygany
D) polysorality
Q7) The most important symbolic aspect of any culture is _______________.
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Chapter 9: Language and Communication
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111 Verified Questions
111 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The ability to comprehend two languages but express oneself in only one is known as
Q2) In North America, how many of the original indigenous languages are extinct?
A) 150
B) 700
C) 300
D) 75
Q3) Which of the following pairs of languages does not distinguish between masculine and feminine nouns?
A) English and Spanish
B) English and French
C) English and German
D) English and Quechua
Q4) What is the greatest strength of modern descriptive linguistics?
A) objectivity of its methods
B) advances of its theories
C) growth and popularity of the sub-discipline
D) importance of descriptive linguistics in the global economy
Q5) _______________ are varying forms of a language that are mutually intelligible.
Q6) Spoken languages are at least as old as _________________________.
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Chapter 10: Social Identity, Personality, and Gender
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102 Verified Questions
102 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the primary value of core value studies?
A) it allows for the fact that within a single group not all personalities conform to cultural ideals
B) as an alternative to national character studies, it allows us to fully understand other countries
C) it helps us understand the fundamental values that create psychologically healthy human beings
D) it provides a basis for teaching groups that are culturally maladaptive
Q2) Culture is:
A) socially constructed and known by instinct
B) both biologically and socially constructed at birth
C) socially constructed and learned
D) biologically inherited before it is learned
Q3) About 60% of hermaphrodites:
A) have male sex chromosomes
B) have female sex chromosomes
C) have a mosaic of sex chromosomes
D) do not have sex chromosomes
Q4) Time and space are organized in _______________ terms.
Q5) What is "windigo behavior"?
12
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Chapter 11: Subsistence and Exchange
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104 Verified Questions
104 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The traditional market is:
A) regional
B) national
C) local
D) transnational
Q2) What is the flexible/integrated pattern of division of labor?
Q3) Taxes are a form of:
A) generalized reciprocity
B) balanced reciprocity
C) negative reciprocity
D) redistribution
Q4) Which of the following best describes the concept of cultural evolution?
A) cultures may change over the course of time
B) cultures advance over the course of time
C) cultures break into new cultures over the course of time
D) all cultures emerge from a primitive non-animated state
Q5) In human cultures, there is most often a division of labor by _______________ and _______________.
Q6) Work that involves all members of a community is referred to as
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Chapter 12: Sex, Marriage, and Family
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108 Verified Questions
108 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following societies is traditionally polyandrous?
A) English
B) Samoan
C) Trobriand Islanders
D) Nyimba of Nepal
Q2) What are the biological consequences of incest and the incest taboo?
Q3) The marriage of one woman to two or more men simultaneously is called _______________.
Q4) In matrilocal residence the groom's family does not usually receive marriage compensation.
A)True
B)False
Q5) In arranged marriages in India, the groom and bride tend to be from the same
Q6) Anthropologists have identified five kinds of post-marital residence.
A)True
B)False
Q7) In Peru, the Inca was required to marry his _______________.
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Q8) The absolute forbiddance of sexual contact between certain close relatives is an
Chapter 13: Kinship and Other Methods of Grouping
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110 Verified Questions
110 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the most common restrictive characteristic for membership in a descent group?
A) occupation
B) place of origin
C) religion
D) gender
Q2) Which of the following is considered a cross cousin to Ego?
A) Ego's mother's brother's child
B) Ego's mother's sister's child
C) Ego's father's brother's child
D) Ego's aunt's child
Q3) People form groups based on gender, age, and social rank.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Kinship undoubtedly provides numerous support networks and fulfills a variety of roles in society. However, as seen in your text, people will often group themselves in ways that extend beyond kinship. One that is important, even if we might not always recognize it, is common-interest associations. Reflect on certain types of common-interest associations you have been engaged with in your life. Why did you join these and what role did they fulfill?
Page 15
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Chapter 14: Politics, Power, and Violence
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112 Verified Questions
112 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20442
Sample Questions
Q1) When did political organization first begin to diversify?
A) 2,500 years ago
B) 7,500 years ago
C) 5,000 years ago
D) 10,000 years ago
Q2) According to Ury, what is the "third side?"
A) the ability to resolve disputes without the use of legal sanctions and coercion
B) the role that the surrounding community plays in resolving disputes between parties
C) the actual conflict resolution itself
D) the goal of promoting world peace and the elimination of all disputes
Q3) The first female president on the continent of Africa was in the country of:
A) Liberia
B) Kenya
C) South Africa
D) Ethiopia
Q4) When settlement of a dispute is handled through an unbiased third party, it is known as _______________.
Q5) What is civil disobedience? Give an example of it.
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Chapter 15: Spirituality, Religion, and the Supernatural
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104 Verified Questions
104 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/20443
Sample Questions
Q1) It is a common belief among social scientists that religion will be replaced by science.
A)True
B)False
Q2) How does the belief in witchcraft serve as a form of social control?
Q3) In anthropology, marriage rituals are almost always classified as:
A) rites of union
B) rites of transition
C) rites of intensification
D) rites of passage
Q4) In anthropology, religion and spirituality are classified as part of a culture's:
A) structure
B) infrastructure
C) substructure
D) superstructure
Q5) Industrial societies are typically animistic.
A)True
B)False
Q6) A collection of gods and goddesses is known as a _______________.
Page 17
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Chapter 16: Global Changes and the Role of Anthropology
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101 Verified Questions
101 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Israel, Britain, and India are all considered to be nuclear states.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which country spends the most overall on military hardware?
A) Saudi Arabia
B) Europe
C) Iran
D) United States
Q3) The process of economic change, whereby developing countries acquire some of the social and political characteristics of Western industrial nations is called
Q4) How does the United States promote its business interests worldwide?
Q5) Name four kinds of external migration.
Q6) Among what indigenous population have scientists found the highest levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls)?
A) Maya
B) Yanomamo
C) Inuit
D) Pashto
Q7) What is adaptive about ethnocentrism?
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