Download Chapter 1: What is Anthropology?

Chapter 1: What is Anthropology?
1. Define anthropology.
2. Define adaptation. Why is human adaptability an important focus of anthropologists?
3. Explain 4 the following types of human adaptation & give an example:
a. Genetic
b. Long-term physiological
c. Short-term physiological
d. Cultural
4. Historically, scientists have approached the study of human biological diversity in two main ways, one of which
is racial classification. What is racial classification?
5. Now, rather than trying attempting to classify humans into racial categories, what are biologists and
anthropologists trying to do?
6. Define phenotype. What problems are there with phenotype-based racial classifications.
7. Define natural selection. Give an example.
8. List and explain the four sub disciplines of anthropology.
9. What do the following anthropologists study?
a. anthropological archaeologists
b. biological anthropologists
c. cultural anthropologists/ethnography
d. linguistic anthropologists study
10. Explain applied anthropology.
Chapter 2: Ethics and Methods
1. According to the AAA code of ethics, what responsibility do anthropologists have when doing research in
particular community?
2. Explain the following specialized research interests within physical anthropology and archaeology:
a. Paleontology
b. Primatology
c. Paleoanthropology
3. Explain the following research methods within physical anthropology and archaeology
a. Remote sensing
b. Survey
c. Excavation
4. Explain the 4 different kinds of archaeology
a. Historical archaeology
b. Underwater archaeology
c. Classical archaeology
d. Experimental archaeology
5. Dating techniques
a. Why do archaeologists use relative dating?
b. What is the principal of superposition?
c. Why is stratigraphy useful for purposes of dating?
6. What is ethnography?
7. What is the difference between emic and etic perspectives? Why might an anthropologist want to use both
strategies when conducting ethnographic fieldwork?
8. Be familiar with the following field techniques of the ethnographer.
a. Observation and participant observation
b. Conversation, Interviewing and Interview Schedules
c. Genealogical Method
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Key Cultural Consultants
Life Histories
Local Beliefs and Perceptions and the Ethnographer’s
Problem Oriented Ethnography
Longitudinal Research
Team Research
Survey Research/sampling
Chapter 3: Evolution, Genetics and Human Variation
1. Discuss Charles Darwin’s major contributions to the study of life forms. What was new about Darwin’s views,
and what had previously been proposed by others?
a. What is creationism?
b. How did Carolus Linnaeus taxonomy of plants and animals group life forms contribute to the theory of
evolution?
c. What is catastrophism? How did this explain different kinds of life that had once existed?
d. What is another name for transformism?
e. What is uniformitarianism and how was it a necessary building block for evolutionary change?
2. What is necessary for natural selection to occur? What can it NOT work without?
a. What provides much of the variety on which natural selection operates?
3. Explain the following terms in relation to evolution:
a. Independent assortment and recombination
b. Fitness
c. Evolution (most simply defined)
d. Gene flow
e. Speciation
f. Gene pool
g. Sexual selection
Chapter 4: The Primates
1. Define Hominid:
2. What primate traits are believed to have developed as adaptations to life in trees?
3. The primate order has two suborders.
a. Prosimians: lemurs, tarsiers, lorises
b. Anthropoid: Stereoscopic vision (depth perception). What are other adaptive trends in anthropoids?
4. The Anthropoid suborder has two infraorders.
a. New World Monkeys (prehensile tails)
b. Old World Monkeys (great apes, gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees)
5. Explain the similarities between humans and other primates:’
 Learning:
 Tools:
 Predation and Hunting:
6. Explain the differences between humans and other primates:
 Sharing and Cooperation
 Mating and Kinship
7. What challenges are there to understanding primate evolution?
8. When did the first hominoids appear (what period)?
9. Who was Toumai?
Chapter 5: Early Hominins
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What is the relationship between the birth canal and brain size during the course of human evolution?
What are adaptive advantages of bipedalism?
What do researchers know about artipithecus?
What clearly identifies A. afarensis as a hominim?
What do australopithecines endocranial casts indicate?
What evidence exists that ancestors of the Homo split off from australopithecines? When did this occur? What
does the extinction of australopithecines suggest?
7. Who manufactured the earliest stone tools? When?
8. How were Oldowan tools manufactured and what were they used for?
Chapter 6: The Genus Homo
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What are distinctive early Homo trends?
What is punctuated equilibrium and how does it relate to the evolution of humans?
What adaptive strategies of H. erectus facilitated their spread into subtropical and temperate climates?
What were Acheulian tools?
What were adaptive strategies of H. erectus?
What are Neandertal anatomical traits? What do they reflect adaptation to?
There is debate over the relationship between Neaderthals and Modern Humans. Explain the following two
views:
a. H. erectus split into two groups
b. Neanderthals were ancestral to modern humans
What is the “Out of Africa” hypothesis?
What technological advances are associated with AMHs?
Which hominin species is associated with the broad spectrum revolution? What was the broad spectrum
revolution? Why was it important?
Which humans colonized America? Where did they settle? When? What were Clovis Points used for?
Archaeology
1. Assume you are going to conduct an archaeological dig. Explain the process by which you would go about doing
that. Where would you dig? How/why/what would your methods be?
Cultural Anthropology
1. What are the defining attributes of culture? What does it mean that culture is learned, shared, symbolic, allencompassing, and integrated?
2. What is globalization? What forces are driving it? How is globalization affecting local peoples, and how are they
responding?
Cultural Anthropology Vocabulary
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Egalitarian: type of society, most typically found among foragers, that lacks status distinctions except for those based on
age, gender, and individual qualities, talents, and achievements
Hereditary monarchies and chiefdoms: Form of sociopolitical organization intermediate between the tribe and the state;
kin-based with differential access to resources and a permanent political structure. A rank society in which relations among
villages as well as among individuals are unequal, with smaller villages under the authority of leaders in larger villages; has a
two-level settlement hierarchy. 172, 255
Representative democracy: a type of democracy (gov. by the people) in which the citizens delegate authority to elected
representatives
Totalitarian dictatorship: Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises
absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political
and cultural expression is suppressed:
Monotheism: Worship of an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent supreme being. 338
Polytheism: Belief in several deities who control aspects of nature. 338
Market economy: Profit-oriented principle of exchange that dominates in states, particularly industrial states. Goods and
services are bought and sold, and values are determined by supply and demand. 244
Command economy: An economy that is planned and controlled by a central administration, as in the former Soviet Union.
Subsistence economy: A subsistence economy is an economy in which enough food is grown, hunted or gathered to
provide for the people. A surplus is grown only if a community desires or needs to trade with neighboring communities.
Nuclear family: a social unit composed of father, mother, and children
Extended family: kinship group consisting of a family nucleus and various relatives, as grandparents, usually living in one
household and functioning as a larger unit.Compare nuclear family.
Socialization: a continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values,
behavior, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position.
Matriarchal: the female head of a family or tribal line.
Matrilocal: Customary residence with the wife's relatives after marriage, so that children grow up in their mother's
community. 288
Matrilineal: Unilineal descent rule in which people join the mother's group automatically at birth and stay members
throughout life. 286l
Patriarchal: the male head of a family or tribal line. Political system ruled by men in which women have inferior social and
political status, including basic human rights. 315
Patrilocal: Customary residence with the husband's relatives after marriage, so that children grow up in their father's
community. 288
Patrilineal: Unilineal descent rule in which people join the father's group automatically at birth and stay members
throughout life. 286
An interrelated constellation of patrilineality, patrilocality, warfare, and male supremacy. 312
Rites of passage: Culturally defined activities associated with the transition from one place or stage of life to another. 331
Etic: The research strategy that emphasizes the observer's rather than the natives' explanations, categories, and criteria of
significance. 38
Emic: The research strategy that focuses on native explanations and criteria of significance. 38
Culture: Traditions and customs that govern behavior and beliefs; distinctly human; transmitted through learning. 2
Subculture: Different cultural symbol based traditions associated with subgroups in the same complex society. 195
Ethnography: Field work in a particular culture. 12
Diffusion of culture: Borrowing between cultures either directly or through intermediaries. 200
Assimilation: The process of change that a minority group may experience when it moves to a country where another
culture dominates; the minority is incorporated into the dominant culture to the point that it no longer exists as a separate
cultural unit. 381
Acculturation: The exchange of cultural features that results when groups come into continuous firsthand contact; the
original cultural patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct. 201
Race: An ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis. 373 Race is socially constructed
Ethnicity: Group distinguished by cultural similarities (shared among members of that group) and differences (between
that group and others); ethnic group members share beliefs, values, habits, customs, and norms, and a common language,
religion, history, geography, kinship, and/or race. 370
Short Answers: Be prepared to answer the following in a paragraph.
1. What kinds of work would applied anthropologists pursue? Provide one example for each subfield. What aspects
of anthropology make it uniquely valuable in application to social problems?
2. What is the difference between emic and etic perspectives? Why might an anthropologist want to use both
strategies when conducting ethnographic fieldwork?
3.
What are the ethical obligations of anthropologists working in foreign countries?
4. Discuss Charles Darwin's major contributions to the study of life forms. What was new about Darwin's views,
and what had previously been proposed by others?
5. To what extent is tool use unique to humans? Illustrate your answer with examples from studies of nonhuman
animals, including other primates.
6. What are the major difficulties in trying to interpret the hominin fossil record? How do these difficulties lead to
conflicting interpretations of human evolution?
7. What evidence is there for increasing dependence on culture during hominin evolution?
8. What are the defining attributes of culture? What does it mean that culture is learned, shared, symbolic, allencompassing, and integrated?
9. What is globalization? What forces are driving it? How is globalization affecting local peoples, and how are they
responding?
10. Assume you are going to conduct an archaeological dig. Explain the process by which you would go about doing
that. Where would you dig? How/why/what would your methods be?