What are the two major groups of Strepsirhini?
a. lemurs and tarsiers
b. marmosets and howler monkeys
c. lemurs and lorises
d. baboons and macaques
e. tarsiers and lorises
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 which theory?
a. uniformitarianism
b. natural selection
c. the inheritance of acquired characteristics
d. catastrophism
e. the fixity of species
In nonhuman primates, the hormonally initiated period of sexual receptivity is
a. called sexual dimorphism
b. called sexual reciprocity
c. typical of males
d. called estrus
e. is not significant
A newly published controversial date for the Lake Mungo remains indicates they may
be as old as ________ years.
a. 30,000
b. 400,000
c. 10,000
d. 600,000
e. 150,000, or the earliest specimens from Africa
Early rock art from Africa may be as old as ________ years.
a. 10,000
b. 68,000
c. 100,000
d. 28,000
e. 40,000
Carolus Linnaeus
a. established a binomial system of classification for plants and animals
b. was a proponent of evolutionary change
c. opposed all notions of fixity of species
d. was a supporter of Charles Darwin
e. developed theories of natural selection
A pattern of seasonal settlement movements from one resource zone to another is
known as:
a. sedentism
b. transhumance
c. foraging
d. subsistence
e. migration
The transition between premodern and anatomically modern forms of humans may have
occurred as early as 500,000 years ago in Africa.
What is chest slapping by gorillas an example of?
a. reassurance gesture
b. submission
c. display
d. involuntary behavior
e. affiliative behavior
The population density at the end of the Ice Age was sufficient for some groups to drive
local populations of food animals to extinction.
a. True
b. False
Which statement below best defines the packing model proposed by Binford?
a. Settlement of marginal areas due expanding human populations led to domestication
as people planted seed crops outside of their native range.
b. The packing of populations around permanent water sources as a result of increased
aridity in the Near East at the end of the Ice Age led to the development of
domestication.
c. Dependence on native seed crops in areas of their greatest natural abundance
ultimately led to domestication.
d. Increased population density required people to abandon big-game hunting in favor
of plant domestication.
e. The development of sedentary villages led to domestication as a means of providing a
stable food source.
The World Heath Organization lists ______ as the world’s leading killer of adults.
a. car crashes
b. reality show stunts
c. tuberculosis
d. cholera
e. AIDS
Adaptive niche refers to
a. an adaptive advantages in a purely terrestrial environment.
b. mammalian characteristics which evolved from an arboreal environment.
c. an organism’s entire way of life.
d. a numerical device that indicates the number of each type of tooth.
e. adaptive benefit of surrounding forests and rivers.
What is the basic primate social unit?
a. the mother and infants
b. the father and infants
c. the male and female
d. sibling relationships
e. the mother and the mother’s mother and sister
Our digestive systems are well adapted to being
a. hunter gatherers
b. pizza eaters
c. couch potatoes
d. farmers
e. scientists
What can be said about the dispersal of Middle Pleistocene hominins?
a. Discoveries of their presence come from North America
b. For the first time Europe became more permanently and densely occupied
c. Presence in Asia is noticeably lacking
d. Unlike their H. erectus predecessors they were widely distributed in the Old World
e. Africa was no longer a central area of hominin occupation
What is significant about areas in the DNA that contain repeated segments?
a. They are termed SNPs
b. They are the basis for DNA fingerprinting
c. They are the same from person to person
d. They cannot be mapped
e. They disprove the belief that there are variations of the human genome
What factor would not have likely influenced or predisposed wild grass seeds to
unconscious modification by gatherers?
a. seeds tend to exhibit a great deal of genetic variability
b. seeds occur in dense stands
c. seeds exhibit quick reproductive rates
d. rachis normally becomes dry and brittle, enabling the seed to break away easily
e. seeds from genetic variants end up in the gathering basket less often
Researchers agree that the earliest farming cultures in Europe likely resulted from
a. the independent development of domestication
b. the migration of farmers from the Americas
c. the diffusion of crops and the idea of agriculture
d. millet cultivation in northern China
e. overexploitation of animals by hunters
The following are characteristics of tarsiers except
a. Restricted to the islands of Southeast Asia
b. Mainly diurnal
c. Insectivore leaping from branch to branch to catch prey
d. Form stable bonds
e. Inhabit wide range of habitats
Which of the following statements concerning the relationship between climate change
and the emergence of civilizations is accurate?
a. Climate change is insufficient alone to explain the rise of all civilizations.
b. Climate change always played an important role.
c. There is little correlation between climate change and the emergence of civilizations.
d. Climate change can never account for the emergence of civilizations.
e. The presence of severe drought conditions can be linked to the emergence of
civilizations.
What is not true of the period from the Industrial Revolution to the present?
a. No single factor explains the dangerously accelerating growth rate of world
population.
b. The growth rate of world population is equally distributed among nations.
c. Resources are not distributed equally among all nations.
d. It has reached the point where 48 percent of the world population exists on less that
$2/day.
e. The growth rate is unsustainable.
Acclimatization refers to which of the following?
a. long-term adaptations of species to certain environmental conditions
b. an individual’s short-term physiological responses to the environment
c. the appearance of a new species
d. slow genetic changes in populations
e. changes in climate
The study of human biology within the framework of human evolution can be said to be
the domain of which of the following?
a. cultural anthropology
b. physical/biological anthropology
c. primatology
d. osteology
e. archaeology
The evidence of writing during the Shang dynasty in China was typically associated
with
a. recording economic transactions
b. the process of divination or prophecy
c. religious texts
d. records of the succession of royal families
e. property records
__________________ proposed that population size increases at a faster rate than food
supplies.
a. Erasmus Darwin
b. Alfred Russel Wallace
c. Thomas Malthus
d. Charles Lyell
e. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Pollen is an example of what type of archaeobotanical remains?
a. macrofossil
b. feature
c. microfossil
d. cultigen
e. carbonization
_________ may have been contemporaneous with australopiths but had a significantly
larger brain.
a. A. afarensis
b. Aegyptopithecus
c. Homohabilis
d. A. africanus
e. Ardipithecus
Among the apes, the ________ have the smallest average body sizes.
a. gibbons and siamangs
b. bonobos
c. chimpanzees
d. macaques
e. orangutans
What factor below does not account for the relative unimportance of farming in much
of the New World prior to the arrival of Europeans?
a. An agricultural diet was not nutritionally superior.
b. Maize was difficult to harvest and process by hand.
c. Many groups continued to utilize hunting and gathering to supply sufficient protein.
d. The most productive domesticates were difficult to introduce to temperate areas.
e. New World cereal grasses required less space per plant, thus making a large extent of
farming an unnecessary waste of time.