UCLA ANTHRO 1 FINAL STUDY EXAM 2025/2026
QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔Neanderthal - ✔✔200,000 to 30,000 ya
Europe and Near East
Cranial capacity around 1500 cc
This specimen: La Chapelle-aux-Saints (France) 50,000 ya
✔✔Homo sapiens - ✔✔200,000 years to present
Worldwide
Cranial capacity: 1350 cc
This specimen: Adult female
✔✔Stiner Article - ✔✔emphasized the role of portable ornaments as a form of
materialized communication, what she calls a bandwidth
✔✔Anthropocene - ✔✔the concept that humans have as much (or more) impact than
natural processes
✔✔Braje et al. - ✔✔discuss islands as places where human-environmental actions are
profound and interconnected with plants, animals
✔✔Migration to N. America? - ✔✔18,000 years ago
✔✔Migration to CA? - ✔✔13,000 years ago
✔✔Migration to AU? - ✔✔50,000 years ago
✔✔climate change to pleistocene to holocene - ✔✔12,000 years ago
✔✔four main laws that protect cultural heritage in the US - ✔✔1906 Antiquities Act
1935 Historic Sites Act
1966 Historic Preservation Act
1990 NAGPRA
✔✔1906 Antiquities Act - ✔✔Required a federal permit before excavating or collecting
artifacts from federal land
✔✔1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) -
✔✔Provides a process for museums and federal agencies to return certain Native
American cultural items - human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects
of cultural patrimony - to lineal descendants, culturally affiliated Indian tribes, and Native
Hawaiian organizations
,✔✔Domestication of Plants and Animals - ✔✔The domestication of plants and animals
is associated with the Holocene, a period of warmer and more stable climate starting
12,000 years ago
✔✔What kinds of things get domesticated? - ✔✔Starches (corn, wheat, barkley, rice).
Docile meat packages
✔✔Why domesticate? - ✔✔Overall Hurt?Population growth
Climate opportunity
Parties
✔✔Why grains? - ✔✔Humans are genetically adapted for starch consumption, which
made the adoption of grain crops possible as they are high in starch
✔✔Advantages to food production - ✔✔Control over food supply
Potential for surplus
✔✔Disadvantages of food production - ✔✔Worse diet due to overdependence on carbs
Increase rates of cavities
Repetitive-motion injuries from farming
✔✔Complexities of Food Production - ✔✔Sedentism
Specialization
Access
Sex-based differences
✔✔Sedentism - ✔✔staying in one place means guarding your crops but also living with
trash and disease vectors
✔✔Specialization - ✔✔some people grow crops, some people herd animals, some
people make pots, etc
✔✔Storage - ✔✔food only gets harvested once or twice a year instead of gathered or
hunted daily
✔✔Access - ✔✔Who gets the best land? Who gets retrieve stored foods?
✔✔After the adoption of agriculture, how does male-female demographics change? -
✔✔Fertility starts earlier
More children per female
Higher rate of reproduction means more maternal risk
, ✔✔Millet - ✔✔Starting 6000 BC, they were growing and eating wheat and barley, which
were originally domesticated in the Near East (Mesopotamia). We call this the Neolithic
period
Starting around 2200 BC they were getting more crops from new places, at the same
time that they were starting to use more sophisticated technology like bronze. We call
this the Bronze age
✔✔Concept of simple society - ✔✔Groups such as villages where you know everyone
face to face
You know where your next meal is coming from
Leaders can occasionally organize people to do something spectacular
✔✔Horse - ✔✔Domesticated around 2500 BC in Central Asia, first used for chariots
around 2000 BC
✔✔Why did people grow millet? - ✔✔Can be grown in different climates
Low water and nutrient needs
Short growing cycle
✔✔How do you make it? - ✔✔Boil ot
Grind it for flour mix with other grains
Ferment it
Use for feeding animals
✔✔Two advantages of AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) - ✔✔Refined radiocarbon
dating that allows a smaller sample size, down to a single seed
Smaller range of probability for more precise dating
✔✔How is animal domestication different from plant domestication? - ✔✔Humans didn't
control animals just for food supply but for social status as well. Whos got a big cattle
her? Whos cattle is healthier? Whos cattle is best taken care of? cattle cult and
migration were two ways of creating social stability; this later shifted to emphasis on
humans in burals
✔✔What is the effect of climate change, especially catastrophic climate change? -
✔✔Starting around 16,000BC - 6,500 BC the Sahara started to get watery and lush
Still lush in 4,500 BC but then 2,500 BC the lushness dries up
✔✔climate change in the Holocene in Africa - ✔✔Starting around 16,000BC - 6,500 BC
the Sahara started to get watery and lush
Still lush in 4,500 BC but then 2,500 BC the lushiness dries up
QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔Neanderthal - ✔✔200,000 to 30,000 ya
Europe and Near East
Cranial capacity around 1500 cc
This specimen: La Chapelle-aux-Saints (France) 50,000 ya
✔✔Homo sapiens - ✔✔200,000 years to present
Worldwide
Cranial capacity: 1350 cc
This specimen: Adult female
✔✔Stiner Article - ✔✔emphasized the role of portable ornaments as a form of
materialized communication, what she calls a bandwidth
✔✔Anthropocene - ✔✔the concept that humans have as much (or more) impact than
natural processes
✔✔Braje et al. - ✔✔discuss islands as places where human-environmental actions are
profound and interconnected with plants, animals
✔✔Migration to N. America? - ✔✔18,000 years ago
✔✔Migration to CA? - ✔✔13,000 years ago
✔✔Migration to AU? - ✔✔50,000 years ago
✔✔climate change to pleistocene to holocene - ✔✔12,000 years ago
✔✔four main laws that protect cultural heritage in the US - ✔✔1906 Antiquities Act
1935 Historic Sites Act
1966 Historic Preservation Act
1990 NAGPRA
✔✔1906 Antiquities Act - ✔✔Required a federal permit before excavating or collecting
artifacts from federal land
✔✔1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) -
✔✔Provides a process for museums and federal agencies to return certain Native
American cultural items - human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects
of cultural patrimony - to lineal descendants, culturally affiliated Indian tribes, and Native
Hawaiian organizations
,✔✔Domestication of Plants and Animals - ✔✔The domestication of plants and animals
is associated with the Holocene, a period of warmer and more stable climate starting
12,000 years ago
✔✔What kinds of things get domesticated? - ✔✔Starches (corn, wheat, barkley, rice).
Docile meat packages
✔✔Why domesticate? - ✔✔Overall Hurt?Population growth
Climate opportunity
Parties
✔✔Why grains? - ✔✔Humans are genetically adapted for starch consumption, which
made the adoption of grain crops possible as they are high in starch
✔✔Advantages to food production - ✔✔Control over food supply
Potential for surplus
✔✔Disadvantages of food production - ✔✔Worse diet due to overdependence on carbs
Increase rates of cavities
Repetitive-motion injuries from farming
✔✔Complexities of Food Production - ✔✔Sedentism
Specialization
Access
Sex-based differences
✔✔Sedentism - ✔✔staying in one place means guarding your crops but also living with
trash and disease vectors
✔✔Specialization - ✔✔some people grow crops, some people herd animals, some
people make pots, etc
✔✔Storage - ✔✔food only gets harvested once or twice a year instead of gathered or
hunted daily
✔✔Access - ✔✔Who gets the best land? Who gets retrieve stored foods?
✔✔After the adoption of agriculture, how does male-female demographics change? -
✔✔Fertility starts earlier
More children per female
Higher rate of reproduction means more maternal risk
, ✔✔Millet - ✔✔Starting 6000 BC, they were growing and eating wheat and barley, which
were originally domesticated in the Near East (Mesopotamia). We call this the Neolithic
period
Starting around 2200 BC they were getting more crops from new places, at the same
time that they were starting to use more sophisticated technology like bronze. We call
this the Bronze age
✔✔Concept of simple society - ✔✔Groups such as villages where you know everyone
face to face
You know where your next meal is coming from
Leaders can occasionally organize people to do something spectacular
✔✔Horse - ✔✔Domesticated around 2500 BC in Central Asia, first used for chariots
around 2000 BC
✔✔Why did people grow millet? - ✔✔Can be grown in different climates
Low water and nutrient needs
Short growing cycle
✔✔How do you make it? - ✔✔Boil ot
Grind it for flour mix with other grains
Ferment it
Use for feeding animals
✔✔Two advantages of AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) - ✔✔Refined radiocarbon
dating that allows a smaller sample size, down to a single seed
Smaller range of probability for more precise dating
✔✔How is animal domestication different from plant domestication? - ✔✔Humans didn't
control animals just for food supply but for social status as well. Whos got a big cattle
her? Whos cattle is healthier? Whos cattle is best taken care of? cattle cult and
migration were two ways of creating social stability; this later shifted to emphasis on
humans in burals
✔✔What is the effect of climate change, especially catastrophic climate change? -
✔✔Starting around 16,000BC - 6,500 BC the Sahara started to get watery and lush
Still lush in 4,500 BC but then 2,500 BC the lushness dries up
✔✔climate change in the Holocene in Africa - ✔✔Starting around 16,000BC - 6,500 BC
the Sahara started to get watery and lush
Still lush in 4,500 BC but then 2,500 BC the lushiness dries up
