A descent group consists only of a married couple and their children.
Among the classic works of processual approaches to culture is Edmund Leach’s
Political Systems of Highland Burma. This study made a tremendously important point
by taking a regional rather than a local perspective.
Like Catholicism, Pentecostalism is egalitarian, and adherents need no special
education to preach or run a church.
Animal call systems exhibit linguistic productivity.
Anthropological analysis of potlatching contradicts the classic economics assumption
that individuals are, by nature, profit maximizers.
Independent invention occurs when two or more cultures independently come up with
similar solutions to a common problem.
The characteristic field techniques of the ethnographer are participant observation, the
genealogical method, and in-depth interviewing.
Historically, scientists have approached the study of human biological diversity in two
main ways: racial classification, which is now largely abandoned; and the current
explanatory approach, which focuses on understanding specific differences.
Fundamentalists are not among those who feel alienated from the perceived secularism
of modern culture.
Although culture is one of the principal means humans use to adapt to their
environment, some cultural traits can be harmful to a group’s survival.
In cultural terms, a race is an ethnic group that has a biological basis.
After reaching an all-time low for the 20th century in the 1970s, the nuclear family is
now making a rebound, accounting for a greater number of U.S. households each year.
With balanced reciprocity, the giver expects something in return equal to what was
given.
A mode of production is a way of organizing production, whereas the means of
production include the factors of production such as land, labor, and technology.
In many countries, use of the English language reflects a colonial history and is thus a
consequence of forced diffusion.
The term hypodescent refers to individuals who are racially pure.
Nonstate societies generally lack permanent, specialized venues for art and religion.
Modern technology plays an important role in both facilitating cultural imperialism and
resisting it.
Marx argued that socioeconomic stratification was based on the sharp and simple
division between the successful Protestant industrialists and the poor Catholic
peasantry.
Agriculturalists tend to live in permanent villages that are larger and closer to other
settlements than the semipermanent settlements of horticulturalists.
The higher proportion of expanded family households among poorer Americans has
been explained as an adaptation to poverty.
Rites of passage involve three phases: separation, liminality, and totemism.
Despite the increasing popularity of team research among anthropologists, the best
ethnographies are always the product of individual work.
Domestic violence against women is prevalent in patrilineal-patrilocal systems in which
women are cut off from their supportive kin ties.
The oldest known musical instrument, the “Divje babe flute,” dates back to more than
43,000 years ago.
Although its roots extend further back in time, the real boom for applied anthropology
in the United States began in the 1970s.
In transhumant societies, the entire group moves with their animals throughout the year.
The specific roles assigned to each gender vary from culture to culture.
Cultures have different definitions and expectations of relationships that are
biologically or genetically equivalent. In other words, kinship is socially constructed.
Max Weber argued that the spread of capitalism was closely linked to the ethics and
values of Catholicism.
Franz Boas’s famous biological studies of European immigrants to the United States
revealed and measured phenotypical plasticity, showing that the environment and
cultural forces could change human biology.
The world’s linguistic diversity has been cut in half, as measured by the number of
distinct languages extant, in the past 500 years; and half the remaining languages are
predicted to disappear during this century.
In Western societies, the standards for artistic completeness and mastery are maintained
in large part by critics, specialists, and experts.
The reason students of non-Western art have generally ignored individual artists in the
societies they have studied is that there aren’t any. In non-Western communities, there is
no concept of individual artists.
In a society with two exogamous lineages or moieties, who is the preferred cross-cousin
bride for a male ego?
A.MBD (mother’s brother’s daughter)
B.MZD (mother’s sister’s daughter)
C.FBD (father’s brother’s daughter)
D.FZS (father’s sister’s son)
E.FZB (father’s sister’s brother)
Which of the following statements about religion is NOT true?
A.The functions of religious beliefs and practices vary with the society.
B.Religion is often an instrument of societal change, even revolution.
C.Religion serves only to maintain social solidarity; it does not create or maintain
societal divisions.
D.Political leaders never mix religion with politics.
E.Religious beliefs can help regulate the economy.
Which of the following research methods is a distinctive strategy within anthropology?
A.its practice of cross-cultural comparison
B.the biological perspective
C.ethnography
D.the evolutionary perspective
E.working with skilled respondents
Which of the following is NOT an example of participant observation?
A.administering interviews according to an interview schedule over the phone
B.helping out at harvest time
C.dancing at a ceremony
D.buying a shroud for a village ancestor
E.engaging in informal chit-chat
Archaeologists studying sunken ships off the coast of Florida or analyzing the content
of modern garbage are examples of how
A.archaeologists study the culture of historical and even living peoples.
B.Hollywood has popularized archaeology in recent movies, making it a popular
college major.
C.archaeology is going through an identity crisis, with its practitioners questioning the
discipline’s focus on studying prehistory.
D.archaeology is free from having to worry about the impact of its work on people.
E.training in the use of research skills for extreme environmentssuch as landfills and the
deep seaare worth the time, resources, and risk for the sake of the anthropological
knowledge gained.
Which of the following is NOT true of postmodernism?
A.The term originally referred to a style and movement in architecture.
B.It rejects rules, geometric order, and austerity.
C.It has a clear and functional design or structure.
D.It draws on a diversity of styles from different times and places.
E.It extends value well beyond classic, elite, Western cultural forms.
Because our planet’s climate is always changing, the key question becomes, how much
of global warming is caused by human activities versus natural climate variability? On
this issue, most scientists agree that the causes are mainly
A.evolutionary.
B.ecological.
C.anthropogenic.
D.moral.
E.indigenized.
The Yanomami of Venezuela and Brazil have descent groups, which span more than one
village and are
A.matrilineal and primarily dependent on foraging.
B.typically led by a female leader.
C.lacking gender stratification.
D.purely horticulturalists.
E.patrilineal and exogamous in nature.
Which of the following statements about groups with the patrilineal-patrilocal complex
is NOT true?
A.They are sometimes characterized by a view that females are dangerous and
polluting.
B.Their land and prestige are passed through the females.
C.They have strongly developed private-public dichotomies.
D.They have their prestige goods under male control.
E.They often practice polygyny and have patterns of intervillage raiding.
Cultural meaning is
A.imposed by a text.
B.locally created.
C.inherent in a text.
D.produced by a text, not from it.
E.determined only by the author.
mile Durkheim’s focus on social facts illustrates what assumption shared by many
anthropologists?
A.Social fact, just like any other fact, can be studied objectively.
B.Culture is more of an idea in people’s heads than a social reality.
C.Culture is primarily a psychological and individual phenomenon.
D.Social phenomena studied by anthropologists require study methods that are different
from those used by other social scientists.
E.Psychologists study individuals, but anthropologists study individuals as
representative of something more: a collective phenomenon that is more than the sum
of its parts.
A holistic and comparative perspective
A.makes general anthropology superior to sociocultural anthropology.
B.refers only to the cultural aspects of human diversity that anthropologists study.
C.makes anthropology an interesting field of study, but too broad of one to apply to real
problems people face today.
D.most characterizes anthropology, when compared to other disciplines that study
humans.
E.is the hallmark of all social sciences, not just anthropology.
Which of the following is NOT among contemporary rites of passage?
A.initiation
B.fasting
C.baptism
D.marriage
E.bat mitzvah
Which of the following statements about subcultures is NOT true?
A.Subcultures exemplify “levels of culture.”
B.Subcultures have different learning experiences.
C.Subcultures have shared learning experiences.
D.Subcultures may originate in ethnicity, class, region, or religion.
E.Subcultures are mutually exclusive; individuals may not participate in more than one
subculture.
A sociolinguist studies
A.the interaction of history and sociology.
B.cross-cultural comparisons of phonemic distinctions.
C.the universal grammar of language.
D.linguistic competence.
E.speech in its social context.
Appreciation for the arts must be learned, this being part of the process of
A.aesthetic tuning.
B.biological adaptation.
C.imitation.
D.cultural evolution.
E.enculturation.
________ refers to the blurring and breakdown of established canonsrules, standards,
categories, distinctions, and boundaries.
A.Chaos
B.Entropy
C.Postmodern
D.Agoraphobia
E.Diaspora
This chapter mentions the work of Wolf and Mintz, both students of Julian Steward, as
illustrations of approaches that
A.put human agency at the center of cultural analysis.
B.focus on the study of cultures as closed systems, untouched by regional and even
global dynamics.
C.ignore the role of history in shaping culture as we know it.
D.consider the relevance of world-system theory and political economy to
anthropology.
E.are just as deterministic as the old evolutionary models, but for different reasons.
Why is it important to remember that the chiefdom and the state, like many categories
used by social scientists, are ideal types?
A.They distinguish political and sociopolitical analyses among social scientists.
B.They are useless in sociopolitical analysis.
C.They represent social goals that politicians should strive to achieve.
D.They are labels that make social contrasts seem sharper than they really are.
E.They ensure that the field of anthropology remains more scientific.
This chapter’s description of the San Bushmen’s relation to the government of Botswana
provides a telling example of how
A.foragers are willingly choosing to change their lifestyles and become a part of the
global village.
B.foraging communities’ identities are being reshaped by their relation with NGOs.
C.the foraging lifestyle has finally become a thing of the past.
D.more and more foragers have come under the control of nation-states and are now
influenced by the forces of globalization.
E.human rights are limited.
Yehudi Cohen’s adaptive strategies
A.suggest hypothetical correlationsthat is, a causal relation between two or more
variables, such as economic and cultural variables.
B.suggest multidirectional relationships between a society’s mean and its mode of
production.
C.suggest that economic systems are a better way of categorizing societies than relying
on cultural patterns.
D.suggest an association between the economies of societies and their social features.
E.have strong predictive powers when analyzed in computer models.
What is the term for the marital exchange in which the bride’s family or kin group
provides substantial gifts when their daughter marries?
A.polygamy
B.bridewealth
C.dowry
D.progeny price
E.brideservice
What is the term for variations in speech due to different contexts or situations?
A.linguistic confusion
B.situational syntax
C.contextual phonetics
D.Chomskian verbosity
E.style shifting
What archaeological evidence suggests that humans were hunting by at least 2.6 million
years ago?
A.cave paintings
B.the fossil record
C.stone meat-cutting tools
D.generational enculturation
E.contents of trash pits
Susan Montague and Robert Morais (1981) argue that Americans appreciate football
because it presents a miniaturized and simplified version of modern organizations.
These researchers
A.suggest that football, with its territorial incursion and violence, is popular because
Americans are violent people.
B.link football’s values, particularly teamwork, to those associated with business.
C.argue that football allows spectators to vicariously realize their own hostile and
aggressive tendencies.
D.suggest that football is a peculiarly American pastime because of our wartime history.
E.argue that football should be regulated the same way we regulate corporations.
What term refers to the type of pastoral economy in which the entire population moves
with their animals throughout the year?
A.balanced subsistence
B.discretionary pastoralism
C.pastoral nomadism
D.foraging
E.transhumance
In the context of tribal societies, what is a “big man?”
A.someone who holds a permanent political office
B.a hereditary ruler
C.a person who creates his reputation through entrepreneurship and generosity to others
D.a leader who avoids excessive displays of generosity
E.a leader who has tremendous power because he is regarded as divine
Which of the following groups is more accepting of mass media in Brazil?
A.elites
B.intellectuals
C.women
D.clergy
E.older men
With unilineal descent, sex with cross cousins is proper, but sex with parallel cousins is
considered incestuous. Why?
A.Cross cousins are actually parallel cousins.
B.Societies with unilineal descent share a gene that impedes them from developing
sexual urges for parallel cousins.
C.This behavior is a human universal explained by Freud’s theory of attempt and
contempt.
D.Cross cousins are considered closer relatives than all other kin.
E.Parallel cousins are considered closer relatives than cross cousins.
The tendency to view one’s own culture as superior and to use one’s own standards and
values in judging others is called
A.patriotism.
B.ethnocentrism.
C.moral relativism.
D.cultural relativism.
E.illiteracy.
Franz Boas is the undisputed father of four-field U.S. anthropology. One of his most
important and enduring contributions to anthropology was
A.the field’s earliest example of multitimed and multisited ethnography.
B.providing evidence that both biology and culture are susceptible to evolutionary
forces, thus providing a framework for the comparative method.
C.stressing the relevance of independent invention in human cultural history.
D.showing that human biology is plastic, and that biology (including race) does not
determine culture.
E.expanding the local ethnographic focus to include a regional perspective.
Antimodernism describes the rejection of the modern in favor of what is perceived to be
an earlier, purer, better way of life. Fundamentalism describes antimodernist
movements in various religions. Ironically,
A.fundamentalist movements have both benefited from and promoted the use of
technology for international networking.
B.fundamentalists never lead a better way of life, precisely because they reject the
benefits of modern life.
C.religious fundamentalism is itself a modern phenomenon, based on a strong feeling
among its adherents of alienation from the perceived secularism of the surrounding
modern culture.
D.fundamentalist sentiments depend on recognition of the modern culture.
E.religious fundamentalism is an extremely old phenomenon that actually spurred the
rise of modernism.
Do people in all societies maximize material benefits? If not, what other things could be
maximized to help explain their motives in everyday life? Do anthropologists believe
that the profit maximization motive is a universal? What do you think? Explain your
answer.
Answer:Answers will vary
Discuss the relevance of the ethnographic method for modern society, contemporary
problems, and applied anthropology.
Answer:Answers will vary
Racial classification is a political issue. Compare the Canadian census in its treatment
of racial categories to the U.S. census. What do you think would be the political
consequences of using one census over another?
Answer:Answers will vary
How does Morton Fried define political organization? Why does Kottak prefer to use
the term sociopolitical organization in discussing the regulation or management of
interrelations among groups and their representatives?
Answer:Answers will vary
Discuss ethical dilemmas and possible solutions with respect to the kinds of applied
anthropology discussed in this chapter.
Answer:Answers will vary
Discuss ways in which kinship and descent help human populations adapt to their
environments.
Answer:Answers will vary
Contrast the Inuit and Yanomami with respect to their reasons for disputes, the
effectiveness of their means of resolving disputes, and how they enforce decisions
about resolving disputes.
Answer:Answers will vary
What is the world capitalist economy? When did it originate, and what are its features?
What are core, semiperiphery, and periphery? What is their relationship to world
capitalism?
Answer:Answers will vary
“A person can have multiple spouses without ever getting divorced.” Using the concepts
you have learned in this chapter, explain this seemingly contradictory statement.
Answer:Answers will vary
Dr. Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro’s career illustrates the usefulness of anthropology in
addressing contemporary world problems. Her role as a mother to Barack Obama, the
44th president of the United States, and his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, also pays
tribute to anthropology’s relevance in the world today. How so? More generally, how do
you think anthropology might be of value not just to political leaders but to all of us as
active members in our society, when understanding and solving shared pressing
challenges such as environmental degradation, poverty, and violence?
Answer:Answers will vary
What is the world system perspective, and why is it important in anthropology?
Answer:Answers will vary
HIV/AIDS is a global pandemic. How does culture play a role in HIV transmission?
How might applied anthropology help in finding a solution to this problem?
Answer:Answers will vary
Contrast ritual behavior with ordinary behavior. Give examples of religious and secular
rituals. What are the main differences between such kinds of rituals?
Answer:Answers will vary
What is culture? How do anthropologists define and study culture?
Answer:Answers will vary
What are some ways in which linguistics can aid archaeologists, biological
anthropologists, and sociocultural anthropologists who are interested in history?
Answer:Answers will vary
Does the practice of paying a dowry necessarily imply gender inequality?
Answer:Answers will vary
What advantages might a project that combines both quantitative and qualitative
techniques have over one that utilizes only one or the other? What research situation
might be best suited to such a combined strategy?
Answer:Answers will vary
Is the contrast between horticulture and agriculture one of degree, or are they entirely
separate practices? What is the difference between these two types of cultivation? Cite
ethnographic evidence in your answer.
Answer:Answers will vary