Anthropology 101 Exam with Complete Solutions (1)

Anthropology 101 Exam with Complete Solutions (1) Cultural Relativism - Answer-The position that the values and standards of cultures differ and deserve respect. Anthropology is characterized by methodological rather than moral relativism: In order to understand another culture fully, anthropologists try to understand its member's beliefs and motivations. Methodological relativism does not preclude making moral judgments or taking action Ethnocentrism - Answer-The tendency to view one's own culture as best and to judge the behavior and beliefs of culturally different people by one's own standards Creationism - Answer-Explanation for the origin of species given in Genesis: God created the species during the original six days of Creation Independent Invention - Answer-Development of the same culture trait or pattern in separate cultures as a result of comparable needs and circumstances Diffusion - Answer-Borrowing between cultures either directly or through intermediaries Uniformitarianism - Answer-Belief that explanations for past events should be sought in ordinary forces that continue to work today Acculturation - Answer-The exchange of cultural features that results when groups come into continuous firsthand contact; the original cultural patters of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct. Enculturation - Answer-The social process by which culture is learned and transmitted across the generations Hominid - Answer-A member of the taxonomic family that includes humans and the African apes and their immediate ancestors Hominin - Answer-A member of the human lineage after its split from ancestral chimps; used to describe all the human species that ever have existed, including the extinct ones, but excluding chimps and gorillas Adaptive - Answer-Favored by natural selection in a particular environment Mendelian genetics - Answer-Studies ways in which chromosomes transmit genes across the generations Population genetics - Answer-Field that studies causes of genetic variation, maintenance, and change in breeding populations Recessive - Answer-Genetic trait masked by a dominant trait Dominant - Answer-Allele that masks another allele in a heterozygote Heterozygous - Answer-Having dissimilar alleles of a given gene Homozygous - Answer-Possessing identical alleles of a particular gene Natural selection - Answer-Originally formulated by Charles Darwin; the process by which nature selects the forms most fit to survive and reproduce in a given environment, such as the tropics. Gene Flow - Answer-Exchange of genetic material between populations of the same species through direct or indirect interbreeding Mutation - Answer-Change in the DNA molecules of which genes and chromosomes are built Random genetic drift - Answer-Change in gene frequency that results not from natural selection but from chance; most common in small populations Phenotype - Answer-An organism's evident traits; its "manifest biology" - anatomy and physiology Genotype - Answer-An organism's hereditary makeup Phenotypical adaptation - Answer-Adaptive biological changes that occur during the individual's lifetime, made possible by biological plasticity Mendel's Law of Independent Assortment - Answer-Chromosomes are inherited independently of one another Homologies - Answer-Traits that organisms have jointly inherited from their common ancestor Analogies - Answer-Similarities arising as a result of similar selective forces; traits produced by convergent evolution Convergent evolution - Answer-Independent operation of similar selective forces; process by which analogies are produced Bipedalism - Answer-Upright two-legged locomotion, the key feature differentiating early hominins from the apes Robust - Answer-Large, strong, sturdy; said of skull, skeleton, muscle, and teeth Gracile - Answer-Small, slight Australopithecines - Answer-Varied group of Pliocene-Pleistocene hominins. The term is derived from their former classification as members of a distinct subfamily, the Australopithecinae; now they are distinguished from Homo only at the genus level Homo habilis - Answer-Ancestor or contemporary of H. erectus; lived from about 1.9 to 1.44 mya Homo erectus - Answer-Hominin type that lived from approximately 1.9 to 300,000 mya; widely distributed throughout the Old World; immediate predecessor of Homo sapiens Archaic Homo sapiens - Answer-Consists of the Neadertals of Europe and the Middle East, the Neandertal-like hominins of Africa and Asia, and the immediate ancestors of all these hominins; lived from about 300,000 to 30,000 b.p. Homo sapiens neandertalensis - Answer-Representing an archaic H. sapeins subspecies, lived in Europe and the Middle East between 130,000 and 30,000 B.P. AMH (Anatomically Modern Human) - Answer-Including the Cro-Magnons of Europe and the older fossils from Skhul and Qafzeh; continue through the present Natufians - Answer-Widespread Middle Eastern culture, dated to between 12,500 and 10,500 B.P.; subsisted on intensive wild cereal collecting and gazelle hunting and had year-round villages Behavioral Modernity - Answer-The advent of modern human behavioral capabilities based on symbolic thought and language, in addition to modern anatomy