Understanding and reconstructing the cultures of past societies
Mutations are
The ultimate source of diversity in living populations
Progress occurs in paleoanthropology through
finding more fossil evident, extracting more information from exiting fossil evidence, and improving analytical methods
John Ray developed the species concept. Who developed the system of classification for living things that we use (with some modification) today?
Carolus Linnaeus
A relic or trace of a once living organism is called
a fossil
Many hominin fossils are found
in layers of sedimentary rock
Bishop James Ussher claimed that the earth was created at exactly
9am on October 23rd, 4004 BCE
_______ make the best samples for the K/Ar and 40Ar/39AR dating methods
Volcanic rocks
Hominin fossils that are millions of years old
are seldom found in good condition
Agriculture (intensive cultivation) is characterized by a
Relatively effective techniques of water and soil control
Cultural relativity requires that
All cultures be understood from their own point of view
Which form of subsistence technology requires the greatest degree of specialization of labor?
Industrialization
The earliest human food-getting strategy was
Foraging
Culture is made up of learned behaviors which are learned
Continuously; throughout life
Ethnocentrism is the tendency for
Every society to view itself as superior to others
What is part of all human cultures?
Subsistence technology, Economic Organization, Social Organization, and Political Organization
In Africa, early premodern humans (as defined in class, not in the text) appeared around ____ years ago; and is often placed in the species _______
600,000; Homo heidelbergensis
The fieldwork technique at the heart of anthropological data collection is called
Participant observation
The dominant system of exchange in band/foraging societies is
reciprocity
The written account of a culture based on fieldwork is called
An ethnography
One of your textbook authors did fieldwork
in a Mixtec village in Mexico
When a group collects goods and then gives them out to their own members or members of other groups, they are participating in
redistribution
A central function of kinship in almost every society is that it provides for
The transfer of property between generations
According to the Compete Replacement Model, the transition from pre-modern to modern Homo sapiens
only occurred once; in Africa
Anthropologists spend so much time studying kinship because
Kinship plays the most important role in determining rights and obligations in nonindustrial societies
Current evidence indicates that ____ was the first hominin to migrate out of Africa
H. erectus
The ultimate ancestral home of all humans is
Africa
In Africa, Neandertal fossils have been found at...
nowhere
According to some of the most recent evidence, the first modern Homo sapiens evolved in Africa around _______years ago
200,000
Which of the following best describes the concept of “prehistory?
A time period before written records
The world’s first cities developed in
Mesopotamia
What do proponents of the hydraulic hypothesis for the origin of the state argue?
States were the by-products of the organizational requirements of large irrigation systems
What is NOT a characteristic of states?
They lack hereditary inequality
An archaeological “site” is
any spot on the landscape with detectable traces of human activity
Food producers work harder than...
foragers
“Neolithic” means
New Stone (Age)
A small blade of flint or similar stone, that could be hafted along with others in a wooden handle is called a
microlith
Natufian culture was
a Mesolithic culture living in the lands that are now Israel, Lebanon, and western Syria, between about 12,500 and 10,200 years ago
One of the major advances in understanding how tools were used is in the analysis of
the microwear of the tool, using powerful microscopes to observe the striations and wear patterns on the tool
Who, in accepting the concept of evolution, was the first to actually attempt to describe a mechanism by which species change?
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
The term evolution refers to
changes in the genetic make-up of a population from one generation to the next; process of speciation; ongoing biological processes, including genetic changes within populations and the appearance of new species
A group of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring is called
a species
Well into the 19th century in Europe, there were widely held beliefs inhibiting the acceptance of biological evolution. What did these concepts include?
the notion that species did not change, and a recent origin of life on earth
In formulating his theory of natural selection, Darwin ____
-recognized the importance of biological variation within a population
-applied his knowledge of domesticated species to undomesticated ones
-appreciated the fact that population size is limited by availability of food
The term hominin refers to a distinction made at what taxonomic level?
Tribe
"Fitness," in an evolutionary sense, refers to an individual's ____
reproductive success
Primatology is the study of
nonhuman primates
In the United States, anthropology is comprised of _____ major subfields
4
The subdiscipline of anthropology concerned with various aspects of human language is called
linguistic anthropology
The study of human biology within the framework of human evolution is the domain of
physical/biological anthropology
Forensic anthropologists
apply anthropological techniques to the law
The initial step in the scientific method is
the formation of a hypothesis
A scientific theory is
a hypothesis that has yet to be falsified
Several events had combined to alter Western Europeans’ ideas about the earth by the 18th century. These included...
-circumnavigation of globe
-discovery of New World
-discovery of heliocentric universe
Who first recognized that species were groups of organisms that were distinguished from other such groups by their ability to reproduce?
John Ray
Who developed the binomial system of classifying biological organisms?
Carolus Linnaeus
The theory that the frequent use of an organ caused it to be enhanced was developed by
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Who proposed that population size increases at a faster rate than food supplies?
Thomas Malthus
Who wrote Principles of Geology and emphasized the principle of uniformitarianism?
Charles Lyell
Mary Anning is credited with
finding numerous important fossils during the 19th century
Charles Darwin
began to doubt the fixity of species during a voyage around the world in the 1830s
The fact that individuals who possess favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce than those who possess less favorable traits is the basis for the theory of...
natural selection
Darwin did NOT based his evolutionary ideas on
-religious views of time of a very young earth
-reality of concept of fixity of species
-an understanding of modern genetic principles
Selective pressures
can change if environmental conditions change
What are the characteristics of primates’ prehensile hands?
-Retention of 5 digits
-Opposable thumb
-Nails instead of claws
-Tactile pads
Primate
teeth are generalized because primates are omnivorous
The primate emphasis on the visual sense is reflected in
the reduction in the size of structures related to the sense of smell, the presence of color vision in most species, and a more forward facing position of the eyes relative to most other mammals
What are vertebrates?
mammals
-NOT birds, reptiles, amphibians
Reptiles were the dominant form of land vertebrate during the
Mesozoic
Monotremes are
egg-laying fish
In _________ the young are born in an extremely immature state and complete development in their mother’s external pouch
marsupials
The diversification of reptiles facilitated by the evolution of the reptilian egg is a good example of
adaptive radiation
Pastoralism can be either transhumant or nomadic (T/F)
true
Industrialism has led to increased equality among people worldwide (T/F)
false
The gathering and interpretation of information based on intensive, firsthand study is called
ethnography (T/F)
true
All modern humans are descended from a group of pre-modern humans living in South East Asia around 125,000 years ago
false
The oldest possible hominin found to date has been given the genus name Sahelanthropus
true
The fossil skeleton known as “Lucy” belongs to which species?
A. afarensis
Homo erectus/ergaster appeared in East Africa about _____ million years ago
1.8
Before hominins made stone tools, they probably ____
used sticks or other perishable materials
The earliest hominin traces ____
are primarily teeth and jaws
What does the Regional Continuity Model of modern Homo sapiens origins propose?
-Modern humans didn't appear solely in Africa
-Premodern populations in Europe, Asia, and Africa all evolved into modern Homo sapiens
-There was gene flow between premodern populations from different regions of the Old World
According to the most recent evidence, the first modern Homo sapiens evolved in Africa around ____ years ago
200,000
Anatomical changes in hominins indicative of habitual bipedal locomotion include ____
shortening and broadening of the pelvis
Homo erectus differs most distinctly from modern humans in ____
cranial shape
Homo erectus fossil remains have NOT been found in...
Mexico, North America, South America
Thus far, there is agreement that all hominins found outside Africa are members of which genus?
Homo
A common form of horticulture practiced today is
“Slash and Burn”, “Shifting cultivation”, and "Swidden farming”
(all the same term)
Agriculture (intensive cultivation)
can result in the development of a peasantry
Anthropologists have an ethical responsibility
to the people they study, to the field of anthropology, to the society that supports their research, to do no harm in their research
Collaborative Anthropology
is when anthropologists give priority to the their consultants/informants in their research
The Kula Ring of the Trobriand Islands is an example of
reciprocity
With a more reliable food source, the early food producers were considerably healthier than hunter-gatherers (T/F)
false
Teosinte is...
a wild grass similar to the ancestor of modern corn
A “primary state” is
a state that developed without any outside influence or contact with another state level society
Early states had productive
farming economies
A “leveling mechanism” is a practice, value, or form of social organization that moves ever greater amounts of wealth into the hands of the elite (T/F)
false
Experimental archaeology involves
the study of how artifacts were made and used
In early states, cities generally served as
political, religious, and administrative centers
Early states lacked
social classes
The earliest civilizations that developed independently were found in
The Middle East, Asia, Mesoamerica, and South America
Archaeological evidence for social stratification includes
marked differences in grave goods
A period at the end of the glaciations in some areas resulted in
marked changes in the environment, a shift to hunting smaller game and utilizing more aquatic foods, and more sedentary groups
A rule that allows women to have more than one husband is called a rule of
polyandry
The development of cities did NOT result in...
more orderly societies, increase human life span, widespread literacy
Domestication involves
interfering with the reproduction of other species, seed selection of plants; selective breeding of animals; and an evolutionary process in which humans modify the genetic make up of plants and animals
In a modern city, nearly every institution do NOT depend on
religious organizations, public utilities, the cultivation of barley, kinship networks
What is not associated with the development of civilization
improvements in hygiene
In many states in the United States, whites and blacks were once not permitted to marry. This is an example of the rule of
Endogamy
The earliest plant domestication
took place in the “Fertile Crescent”
Objects that have been deliberately and intelligently shaped or altered by human activity are called
artifacts
In general, domestication led to
sedentary life become more widespread
What is the name given to the cultural period in which the first signs of domestication are present?
Neolithic
Archaeologists limit their study to
all constructed by humans in that past that can be recovered by archaeologists may be studied
Incest taboos
help to avoid inbreeding, help prevent disruption in the nuclear family, direct
sexual desire outside the family, and have been known to have exceptions
Which of the following is a benefit of farming over foraging?
Increase in overall food supply
In the Near East, domestication of plants and animals begin to replace foraging as the basis of subsistence around
10,000 years ago
A __________ is a form of social and political organization that has a formal, central government and a division of society into classes
state
Before a site is excavated
it is mapped
The concept of employers paying employees less than the value of their labor is
the source of profit, and called the “surplus value of labor
