Anthropology 101 Exam Questions and Answers (1)

Anthropology 101 Exam Questions and Answers (1) What is Anthropology - Answer-Study of humans past, and present. The study of human origins, migrations, globalization, beliefs and rituals. Four Major Fields of Anthro. - Answer-Cultural, Biological, archaeology, and Linguistic. Cultural Anthropology - Answer-Examination of social patterns and practices, with specific interest in how people live in particular places and how they organize, govern, and create meaning. Biological Anthropology - Answer-Concerned w/ biological and behavioral aspects of humans, their non-human primates and their extinct hominin. Archaelogy - Answer-Study of past peoples and cultures through analysis of material remains. Linguistic - Answer-Comparative of study of ways in which language reflects and influences social life. Evolution - Answer-A change in allele frequency in the population over time. Allele - Answer-Alternate forms of the same gene. Gene - Answer-Sequence of necleotides in DNA located on chromosomes and basic unit of inheritance. Trait - Answer-A quality or characteristic that is genetically determined. Population - Answer-Group of organisms that share the same gene pool. Gene Pool - Answer-All alleles present in a population of interbreeding individuals. Mechanisms of Evolution - Answer-How the allele frequency of a trait changes in a population over one or more generations. Macroevolution - Answer-Changes in allele frequency that creates a new species (gene pool separates). Takes many generation and it depends on environment and forces of evolution. Species - Answer-Groups of individuals capable of fertile interbreeding but reproductive isolated from other such groups. Comte de Buffon (1770) - Answer-First to notice among plants in different enviorments and concluded that species adapted to new environments. Erasmus Darwin - Answer-Believed that evolution has occurred in living things (including humans) and that the earth and life on it must have been evolving for millions of years before the appearance of humans. Lamarcks Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics - Answer-Physical forms changes based on physical needs. Considered to be "improvements" that accumulated over a lifetime that acquired characteristics are passed on to next generation. (Giraffes long neck explanation). George Cuvier - Answer-Discredited Lamarck's theory on basis that if it were true, children of cowboys who have developed bowed legs from riding horses would be born with bowed legs as well. Catastrophism - Answer-Theory that Earth has been affected in past by sudden violent events that caused changes in organisms. Theory of Uniformitarianism - Answer-Natural forces now changing shape of earth's surface have been operating in much the same way in past (i.e. the present is key to understanding the past). Linnaeus Classification System - Answer-System describes plants and animals based on physical appearance and method of reproduction and classifies them relative to each other according to degree of similarities. Uses binomial nomenclature in naming them (genus and species) Intelligent Design Theory - Answer-Certain features of universe and living things are best explained by intelligent cause, not indirect process such as natural selection. 4 Mechanisms of Evolution - Answer-Mutation, Gene flow, Genetic drift, Natural selection. Mutation - Answer-Changes in DNA base sequence that makes up a gene. Source of new variation that can have positive, negative, or no effect at all. Gene Flow - Answer-Introduction of new alleles into population through inter-population breeding. Migration is one example. Can occur over a period of time or can result form one time occurrence. Genetic Drift - Answer-Random change in allele frequencies. Due to random chance. Effects are much stronger and faster in a small populations because random changes will more likely persist when there are fewer alleles to work with. Bottleneck Genetic Drift - Answer-A large population rapidly decreases in size. Leads to complete loss or significant decrease of some random alleles. When the population increase in size again the new generations will have less genetic variation due to loss of allele. Founder Effect - Answer-Occurs when a small sample of population migrates to a new area. Differs from bottleneck because it results only from migration, not another cause of population reduction like death.