The status systems of chiefdoms and states are similar, in that both are based on
differential access to resources. Nevertheless, a key distinction is that
A.status is much more important to leaders in chiefdoms than in states.
B.differential access in chiefdoms is still very much tied to kinship.
C.stratum endogamy exists in chiefdoms but not in state status systems.
D.in chiefdoms, women are always excluded from the competition for status, whereas
in states, this gender difference does not exist.
E.the status system of chiefdoms can sometimes function in a completely egalitarian
manner when the populations are small enough.
What does the term Columbian exchange refer to?
A.the exchange of culture that occurred among Native Americans and Europeans that
eventually led to the first great civilizations in the Americas and, in Europe, the first
classless societies
B.the general reciprocity that characterized the relationship between Europeans and
Native Americans during the first 15 years after initial contact
C.the spread of people, resources, products, ideas, and diseases between the eastern and
western hemispheres after contact
D.the spread of European notions and technologies of warfare to Native Americans,
who never engaged in massive violent campaigns prior to the 1500s
E.the peaceful exchange among Europeans and Native Americans of native edible plant
species
Protestant values such as asceticism and entrepreneurship as a result of the belief that
success on Earth could lead to salvation, and a fervent individualism due to the belief
that only individuals could be saved, both lead in the right conditions to the rise of
capitalism. Who made this argument?
A.Claude Lvi-Strauss in his famous book The Savage Mind (1962, 1966)
B.Robert Bellah
C.Anthony F. C. Wallace in his attempt to show religion’s relevance in understanding
historical change
D.Sir Edward Burnett Tylor
E.Max Weber in his influential book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
(1904, 1958)
How are cultural rights different from human rights?
A.Human rights are real, whereas cultural rights are just perceived.
B.The United Nations protects human rights but not cultural rights.
C.Cultural rights are vested in groups, not in individuals.
D.Cultural rights are more clear-cut than human rights.
E.The term cultural rights is a politically correct synonym for human rights.
Migration and rapid population growth are fueling multiculturalism in countries like the
United States and Canada.
Which of the following is NOT among the four sexual orientations found throughout
the world?
A.transsexuality.
B.homosexuality.
C.bisexuality.
D.heterosexuality.
E.asexuality.
Deforestation is a global concern. Forest loss can lead to increased greenhouse gas
production, which contributes to global warming. The destruction of tropical forests
also is a major factor in the loss of global biodiversity. The global scenarios of
deforestation include all of the following EXCEPT
A.demographic pressure, from births or immigration, on subsistence economies.
B.commercial logging and road building.
C.cash cropping.
D.the intensification of foraging lifestyles among communities that have retreated from
the chaos of modern life.
E.fuel needs associated with urban expansion.
Ethnicity means identification with
A.the cultural values of the dominant culture.
B.and feeling part of a biologically racial group.
C.your neighbors in a multicultural society.
D.and feeling part of a cultural tradition and exclusion from other cultural traditions.
E.and feeling part of two or more groups in a plural society.
Recent research on the origins of language suggests that a key mutation might have
something to do with it. Comparing chimp and human genomes, it appears that
A.chimps lack the tongue-rolling gene that all humans have, which might explain why
they struggle to achieve clear speech.
B.chimps share with humans all the genetic propensities for language but lack the
language-activation mutation.
C.a speech-friendly mutation occurred among Neandertals in Europe and spread to
other human populations through gene flow.
D.the speech-friendly form of FOXP2 took hold in humans some 150,000 years ago,
thus conferring selective advantages (linguistic and cultural abilities) that allowed those
who had it to spread it, at the expense of those who did not.
E.the speech mutation occurred even before the hominin line split from the rest of the
hominids.
Kottak prefers the term sociopolitical organization to Morton Fried’s term political
organization in discussing the regulation or management of interrelations among groups
and their representatives, because
A.the term sociopolitical is more politically correct.
B.anthropologists and political scientists have an interest in political systems and
organization, but they cannot agree on the same terminology.
C.sociopolitical is the term the founders of anthropology used to refer to the regulation
or management of interrelations among groups and their representatives.
D.the term political refers only to contemporary Western states.
E.Fried’s definition is much less applicable to nonstates, in which it is often difficult to
detect any public policy.
Among societies exhibiting the patrilineal-patrilocal complex in highland Papua New
Guinea,
A.women remain the primary producers of subsistence crops.
B.women govern the extra-domestic distribution of prestige items.
C.women fear contacts, including sexual intercourse, with men.
D.polygyny decreases household productivity, because a man must provide for more
than one wife.
E.the population pressure on strategic resources is relaxed.
The Human Terrain System has sought to embed anthropologists and other social
scientists within military teams in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which of the following is NOT
a reason anthropologists and the AAA Executive Board object to the use of
anthropologists in the military?
A.Anthropologists in war zones have an ethical dilemma where their responsibilities to
their military units may conflict with their obligations to the local people they study.
B.It is difficult to give informed consent in an active war zone without feeling coerced,
thereby compromising “voluntary informed consent” in the AAA Code of Ethics.
C.Anthropologists may not be able to identify themselves as anthropologists, distinct
from military personnel.
D.Anthropologists, by the nature of their discipline, are not permitted to interact with
any military personnel.
E.The Human Terrain System conflicts with the ethical responsibility of anthropologists
to disclose who they are.
Any media-borne image or message can be analyzed in terms of its nature, including its
symbolism and its effects. It can also be analyzed as a text, which refers to
A.literary works and other print media.
B.anything produced by mass media having commercial value.
C.anything that can be read or processed, interpreted, and assigned meaning by anyone
exposed to it.
D.anything that can be read but whose interpretation is determined by the producer of
the text.
E.our capacity to codify information.
Which of the following statements is NOT true?
A.The feminization of poverty is unique to the United States.
B.Households headed by women tend to be poorer than those headed by men.
C.Married couples are much more secure economically than single mothers.
D.Women now head more than half the households in the United States.
E.The feminization of poverty has serious consequences with regard to living standards
and health.
Although rap music originated in the United States, it is now popular all over the world.
Which of the following mechanisms of cultural change is responsible for this?
A.acculturation
B.enculturation
C.independent invention
D.colonization
E.diffusion
A horticultural system of cultivation is characterized by
A.intensive use of land and human labor.
B.the use of irrigation and terracing.
C.developing almost exclusively in arid areas.
D.lack of proper knowledge about plant domestication.
E.periodic cycles of cultivation and fallowing.
What are cultural particularities?
A.traits isolated from other traits in the same culture
B.traits unique to a given culture, not shared with others
C.different levels of culture
D.the most general aspect of culture patterns
E.cultural traits of individuals rather than groups
Organizations in the United States such as the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Council of La Raza, a
Hispanic advocacy group, have opposed adding a “multiracial” census category. This
suggests that
A.both organizations need to hire anthropologists.
B.classification is a political issuethese groups fear that their political clout will decline
if their numbers go down.
C.racial classification is all about cultural pride.
D.racial classification can become more scientifically accurate, people’s ignorance to
the contrary.
E.racial classification matters only to Hispanic minorities in the United States.
Which of the following kinds of religion involves full-time religious specialists?
A.communal religion
B.shamanistic religion
C.Olympian religion
D.individualistic cults
E.idiosyncratic belief systems
How does acculturation differ from diffusion, or cultural borrowing?
A.It can occur without firsthand contact.
B.It only affects one of the two groups.
C.It can occur when two nonindustrial societies come into contact.
D.It requires firsthand contact.
E.It affects both groups equally.
What does ego represent in a depiction of a kinship system?
A.the sense of distinct individuality that is present in any society
B.the emotional attachment felt by the people who use the system
C.the point of reference used to determine which kin terms go where
D.the boundary between one’s kin group and outsiders
E.a gender-free way of reckoning kinship
Folk art, music, and lore refer to the
A.unrefined manifestations of human creativity produced by illiterate societies.
B.expressive cultures of ordinary people.
C.forms of artistic expression found in the New World prior to the arrival of Columbus.
D.forms of artistic expression that exist independently of any given cultural system.
E.manifestations of human creativity that siblings exchange with their progenitors.
What best characterizes the intervention philosophy of the British empire?
A.manifest destiny
B.white man’s burden
C.this land is our land
D.fifty-four forty or fight
E.in his majesty’s domain
Which of the following statements about human skin color is NOT true?
A.Skin color varies because of differences in ultraviolet radiation between different
regions of the world.
B.The amount of melanin in the skin affects the body’s production of vitamin D.
C.The amount of melanin in the skin affects the body’s ability to process lactose.
D.Light skin is a selective advantage outside the tropics, because it admits ultraviolet
radiation, which causes the body to manufacture vitamin D and thus prevents rickets
and osteoporosis.
E.Light skin is a selective disadvantage in the tropics, because it is more susceptible to
the destruction of the folate that is needed to produce folic acid to protect against neural
tube defects in human embryos.
In science, what is the relationship among explanations, associations, and theories?
A.An explanation must show how and why the thing to be understood is associated with
or related to something else. Theories require covariation: when one thing (a variable)
changes, the other one varies as well. Associations provide explanations for both
explanations and theories.
B.They mean the same thing.
C.An explanation must show how and why the thing to be understood is associated with
or related to something else. Associations require covariation: when one thing (a
variable) changes, the other one varies as well. Theories provide explanations for
associations.
D.Explanations and associations are explained by theories, which are observed
relationships between two or more variables.
E.An explanation must show how and why the thing to be understood is associated with
or related to something else. Thus, explanations and associations are the same thing. A
theory is a suggested but as yet unverified explanation.
Findings of finely shaped bones dating from more than 100,000 years ago in South
Africa’s Blombos Cave suggest that
A.anatomically modern humans were good toolmakers but terrible artists.
B.australopithecines had the ability of symbolic thought.
C.scientists need to be careful with tampered evidence about the emergence of culture.
D.anatomically modern humans had the ability, as early as 100,000 years ago, of
symbolic thought.
E.bones were used for their functional, not aesthetic, value.
Which of the following kin types is NOT ego’s lineal relative?
A.M
B.B
C.MM
D.F
E.FF
Lewis Henry Morgan is well known for his work The League of the Iroquois,
considered anthropology’s earliest ethnography. This and others of his works illustrate
his view of unilinear evolutionism, which is that
A.cultural diversity was actually a sign of the slowing down of cultural evolution.
B.only the better and more civilized societies could survive.
C.all societies are on some path toward civilization, but the exact paths vary.
D.natural selection acts simultaneously on the biological and cultural aspects of human
life.
E.there is one line or path through which all societies have to evolve, and this path
involves specific stages that cannot be skipped, ending at the final stage of civilization.
Westernization is a form of what kind of cultural change?
A.exodus
B.imperialism
C.acculturation
D.enculturation
E.migration
According to Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault,
A.it is easier and more effective to dominate people in their minds than to try to control
their bodies.
B.if state institutions such as prisons and schools are able to control people’s bodies,
their minds will follow.
C.anthropologists have no business studying the process of how the dominant ideology
becomes internalized, since this is the job of psychologists and political scientists.
D.overt violence is critical in order for a state to succeed in dominating its population.
E.anatomically modern humans have a long way to go in the process of evolution, since
they are so easily tricked into believing that forms of state control are both natural and
good.