Deck 5: Making a Living

Question 1

From the perspective of subsistence,how do the Aka of South Africa compare to the Blackfoot of western Canada?

A) Both follow a subsistence strategy based on foraging.
B) The Aka are foragers,the Blackfoot are horticulturalists.
C) Aka and Blackfoot foraging strategies are strikingly similar.
D) Both lived in stockade villages.

Answer 1

Both follow a subsistence strategy based on foraging.

Question 2

An ecosystem is composed of the physical environment and the organisms living in it.Which of the following is the most important aspect of adaptation for humans?

A) tools
B) culture
C) technology
D) subsistence economy

Answer 2

culture

Question 3

Which of the following statements best describes food-foraging societies?

A) They tend to be very aggressive to others.
B) They are small horticultural bands.
C) They are examples of early male-dominated bands.
D) They live in some of the most marginal environmental areas of the world today.

Answer 3

They live in some of the most marginal environmental areas of the world today.

Question 4

What is the main adaptation of the pygmies?

A) simple agriculture
B) mixed economy
C) foraging
D) swidden farming

Question 5

What does the term "adaptation" refer to?

A) the process by which organisms modify and adjust to their environment
B) the ability of one population to destroy another
C) the borrowing of cultural material from another society
D) the process by which living systems change from birth to death

Question 6

What did all food foragers have in common 10,000 years ago?

A) They lived in some of the best environments in the world.
B) They were found only in the world's most marginal areas.
C) They were backward,living lives of great hardship and constant work.
D) They had poorly balanced diets and little leisure time.

Question 7

What adaptation did the Cree and Ojibwa make when they moved onto the western plains?

A) They replaced bows and arrows with more powerful spears.
B) They replaced pottery vessels with wood and bark containers.
C) They took up the bison-hunting nomadic lifestyle.
D) They gave up their horses and herded sheep.

Question 8

How did Thomas Hobbes mistakenly describe the lives of foragers?

A) ideal,happy,and in balance with nature
B) solitary,poor,nasty,brutish,and short
C) poor in material goods but rich in spirit
D) only about one half the length of that of a European

Question 9

Which of the following is true of individuals who inherited the sickle-cell trait from one parent and a normal gene from the other parent?

A) They were favoured by natural selection.
B) They succumbed to malaria but did not die.
C) They had no natural defence to malaria.
D) They usually died of anthropogenesis.

Question 10

What were the Ojibwa one of the first groups to do after the arrival of Europeans?

A) engage in the fur trade
B) reject the horse
C) become sedentary bison hunters
D) reject their traditional woodlands heritage

Question 11

From a work perspective,how do people in contemporary Western industrial societies compare to the modern Ju/'hoansi of the Kalahari Desert?

A) People in Western industrial societies work only half as hard and half as many hours as the Kalahari people.
B) People in Western industrial societies have time for a richer social and spiritual life than the Kalahari people.
C) People in Western industrial societies work the same number of hours as the Kalahari people.
D) People in Western industrial societies work slightly longer hours than the Kalahari people.

Question 12

What percentage of all the people who have ever lived used food foraging as their subsistence strategy.

A) 90 percent
B) 75 percent
C) 50 percent
D) 30 percent

Question 13

The importance of human ecological relationships is shown by the pig festivals among the Tsembaga of New Guinea.What purposes do those festivals serve?

A) They provide access to high-quality protein on marriage and funeral days.
B) They start wars between hostile groups and end them when one warrior has fallen.
C) They mark the end of hostilities and reduce the strain on food supplies.
D) They elect the most prestigious pig to be king and its owner to be queen.

Question 14

Why did the Assiniboine people live in small nomadic bands?

A) They were pastoralists who herded domesticated animals.
B) They had to follow herds of wild bison.
C) Plant food resources were widely scattered in the Prairies.
D) They depended upon trade with settled people for their subsistence.

Question 15

A particular trait may be neither bad nor good in itself;whether it is adaptive or not depends on the relationship between the organisms that have this trait and their particular environment.Which of the following diseases illustrates this point?

A) Down's syndrome
B) Tay-Sachs disease
C) measles
D) sickle-cell anemia

Question 16

What did the Ojibwa do after moving onto the Plains?

A) They adopted Plains rituals into their own culture.
B) They abandoned their woodlands heritage entirely.
C) They retained their original conjuring powers.
D) They adopted woodlands floral designs.

Question 17

Approximately how long have pygmies lived in the forests of Africa?

A) since they were driven from their plantations
B) for hundreds of years
C) since the British colonial period
D) for many thousands of years

Question 18

Which of the following best defines the term "subsistence pattern"?

A) the geographic area in which a people live
B) the strategies a group uses to exploit food resources
C) the type of contact people have with other cultures
D) the sharing of the same values

Question 19

Which of the following do all food foragers have in common?

A) They do not farm or keep herd animals.
B) They rarely need to move to find food sources.
C) They can move anywhere their needs take them.
D) They form very large communities.

Question 20

Which term refers to environmental change through human influence?

A) adaptation
B) core change
C) anthropogenesis
D) eco-systemic change

Question 21

Among the Ju/'hoansi,which of the following mechanisms is often used to regulate social density?

A) inter-camp divorce
B) inter-camp marriage
C) inter-camp visiting
D) breastfeeding of infants

Question 22

Among the Netsilik Inuit,which group has the most important role in decision making?

A) Decision making is under the absolute control of men.
B) Decision making is under the absolute control of women.
C) Men claim that they make decisions but actually women make them.
D) Everyone defers to elderly grandmothers.

Question 23

Which statement about food-foraging societies is true today?

A) They are found only in remote,marginal areas.
B) They make up the majority of the world's population.
C) They have not existed for 10,000 years.
D) They have their pick of the best environments.

Question 24

There is a long history of human involvement in hunting and gathering as a mode of cultural adaptation.What did this probably help to shape?

A) a strong sense of competition
B) a deep-rooted sense of aggressiveness,which served as a form of preadaptation to today's "urban jungle"
C) the sexual division of labour
D) the submissive temperament of females

Question 25

What seems to be the most important factor in naturally regulating population size among foragers?

A) abortion
B) prolonged nursing of infants
C) infanticide
D) knowledge of plants that inhibit fertility

Question 26

Food-foraging societies are egalitarian.Which statement best characterizes their egalitarianism?

A) There are no status differences.
B) All decisions require majority agreement from the entire community.
C) The only status differences relate to age and gender.
D) Decision making is always an individual and personal matter.

Question 27

What is a common feature of labour organization in foraging societies?

A) division of labour based on gender
B) division of labour based on status
C) division of labour based on region
D) division of labour based on education

Question 28

What did some Australian Aborigines do when recession hit the sheep stations they worked on?

A) They received welfare.
B) They began to kill and eat the sheep.
C) They returned to foraging.
D) They became gardeners.

Question 29

Which type of food did the Blackfoot of the Canadian Northern Plains find particularly distasteful?

A) fish
B) antelope meat
C) nuts
D) turnips

Question 30

The Mbuti pygmies of the Ituri forest have a trade relationship with Bantu neighbours.
What sort of exchange takes place?

A) They trade vegetables for meats.
B) They trade forest products for farm products and manufactured goods.
C) They trade their forest hunting weapons for dairy products.
D) They trade garden produce for dairy products.

Question 31

Which of the following best characterizes women's participation in the division of labour among today's foragers?

A) The work of women is not as arduous as the work of men.
B) Women are unable to work hard during the last half of pregnancy.
C) Women's tasks are more suited to interruption and thus tend to be more compatible with childcare.
D) Women's temperament is more suited to the gathering plant food,which tends to make them more sociable.

Question 32

Which term refers to the number of people who can be supported by the available resources at a given level of technology?

A) ecosystem balance
B) carrying capacity
C) pre-adaptive mode
D) culture core

Question 33

How was labour divided between men and women among Aboriginal food foragers on the Canadian northern plains?

A) Men and women worked in separate teams.
B) Both men and women hunted bison and antelope and gathered plant foods.
C) Both men and women stripped hides and collected sinews from the animals they killed.
D) Men and women tended to work as a team.

Question 34

Some anthropologists refer to food foragers as "the original affluent society." Why?

A) They manage to accumulate a lot of wealth.
B) They occupy the most attractive environments with abundant food supply.
C) They work an average of only 20 hours a week to maintain a nutritious diet.
D) They earn a good wage for the hours of work they put in each week.

Question 35

How many kilometres a day will Ju/'hoansi women walk in search of food to gather?

A) 50 kilometres
B) 10 kilometres
C) 5 kilometres
D) less than 5 kilometres

Question 36

What is the average number of people in a food-foraging group?

A) around 20
B) fewer than 50
C) fewer than 100
D) more than 500

Question 37

Which responsibilities of Blackfoot women gave them the greatest status within their community?

A) gathering plant foods and medicine
B) butchering and processing bison meat
C) tanning hides for clothing,moccasins,and tipi covers
D) catching and cooking fish

Question 38

Which term refers to the number and intensity of interactions among the members of a residential unit?

A) density of social relations
B) social interaction level
C) ecological pattern
D) convergence level

Question 39

Which statement best describes hunting among the Natives of the western plains prior to the horse-culture period?

A) They did not hunt much prior to the horse culture.
B) They were carried to the hunt on branch woven travois.
C) They were pedestrian hunters.
D) They were transported to the hunt by mules.

Question 40

Which of the following is a common seasonal pattern among the world's foragers?

A) They have no common seasonal pattern.
B) They are densely congregated in a defined territory.
C) Their population is dispersed at all times.
D) They congregate in one season and disperse in another.

Question 41

Which term refers to food producers who specialize in animal herding and who consider their way of life to be ideal and central to their identity?

A) food foragers
B) horticulturalists
C) intensive agriculturalists
D) pastoralists

Question 42

Who is most responsible for the extermination of the American bison herds in the 1880s?

A) mounted Plains hunters,whose mobility gave them lethal efficiency
B) white setters,who saw the independence of mounted Indians as a threat
C) starving Plains hunters,who had no choice but to kill off the few remaining animals
D) invading Canadian Aboriginal groups

Question 43

Who are the Bakhtiari?

A) a horticultural society that has exploited its environment by a slash-and-burn technology
B) a pastoral society revolving around two seasonal migrations in search of better grazing
C) a hunting and gathering society in Pakistan
D) a pig-raising society in Highland New Guinea

Question 44

Which of the following is true of the Neolithic Revolution?

A) It eliminated competition for resources.
B) It occurred in several parts of the world during the same time period.
C) It led to lighter workloads for humans.
D) It led to decreased incidence of disease and malnutrition.

Question 45

How does mechanized industrial agriculture in Canada compare with swidden farming?

A) It is far more energy-efficient than swidden farming.
B) It was introduced without the need to remove forest cover.
C) It is far less energy-efficient than swidden farming.
D) It is just as energy-efficient as swidden farming.

Question 46

In the Americas,which crop complex was adapted to drier upland areas?

A) wheat,barley,flax
B) rice,yam,taro
C) maize,beans,squash
D) manioc,cacao,plantains

Question 47

In a food-foraging society,how do people store food for the future?

A) They keep a surplus of gathered foods in caves or stone cairns.
B) They rely on the generosity of others to share food.
C) They dry meat and hide it in each individual family residence.
D) They keep dried food in a communal storage house.

Question 48

Which of the following requires irrigation,natural fertilizers,and the plow to produce food on large plots of land?

A) horticulture
B) agriculture
C) pastoralism
D) agrarianism

Question 49

What was the most important subsistence change during the Neolithic period?

A) Foraging was at its historic peak.
B) Hunting technology and hunting increased steadily.
C) Plants and animals were first domesticated.
D) Fishing became as common as hunting as boats were invented.

Question 50

In all but the coldest climates,which of the following is true of food-foraging societies?

A) They are content to live on the verge of starvation.
B) They use their environment as their storehouse.
C) They achieve status according to the amount of territory they control.
D) They distribute food resources according to status.

Question 51

Which statement best describes the authority pattern among the Inuit?

A) Men hunt and make the decisions for all.
B) Young males defer to older males,young women defer to older females.
C) Young males challenge older males,young women challenge older females.
D) Women make home decisions,men make camp decisions.

Question 52

Which of the following statements about swidden farming is true?

A) It involves complex irrigation technology.
B) It is an inefficient means of agricultural production.
C) It is inherently destructive to the natural environment.
D) It requires abandoning garden plots every few years.

Question 53

What spiritual role did women have among the Montagnais-Naskapi?

A) Some rituals were exclusively for men,others exclusively for women.
B) The diet relied heavily on women's "I have I have" collection of plant foods by women.
C) Women could be shamans only if they were mothers.
D) Women and men attended all rituals.

Question 54

In most foraging societies,what percentage of total dietary needs is contributed by women's food-gathering activities?

A) 10 to 15 percent
B) 20 to 30 percent
C) 30 to 40 percent
D) 60 to 70 percent

Question 55

What impact did the adoption of the horse have on the Blackfoot?

A) It caused the extermination of the bison.
B) It led to the concept of collective property.
C) It led to exchanges of horses for marriages and alliances.
D) It brought the class system to an end.

Question 56

How do anthropologists interpret the meaning of gender-based status differences in egalitarian societies?

A) Men and women are different,but one is not ranked higher than the other.
B) Women are superior because of their gift of fertility.
C) Men are superior because of their physical dominance.
D) Men are responsible for taking care of women,because women bring forth children.

Question 57

What did early missionaries find it difficult to convince many North American First Nations groups of?

A) They found it difficult to convince men of the biological basis of fatherhood.
B) They found it difficult to convince women to accept Christianity.
C) They found it difficult to convince men to impose their authority over women.
D) They found it difficult to convince parents to allow their children to be baptized.

Question 58

Which statement about swidden agriculture is true?

A) It produces ash that is removed from the gardening area and used for medicinal purposes.
B) It is ecologically sustainable with low population densities.
C) It can be used as a sustainable way to clear tropical forests for cattle raising.
D) It depletes soil more quickly than animal husbandry.

Question 59

In Southeast Asia,which crop complex was adapted to tropical wetlands?

A) wheat,barley,flax
B) rice,yam,taro
C) maize,beans,squash
D) manioc,cacao,plantains

Question 60

What would an Ojibwa man have to prove to the family and mother of his prospective bride?

A) that he could survive the harsh winters
B) that he could build a good family wigwam
C) that he was a good hunter and provider
D) that he could be a good father

Question 61

Which of the following obstacles has most negatively affected Canadian mechanized agriculture?

A) interference from European big business
B) poor yields and locusts
C) low commodity prices,rising expenses,and debt
D) competition among inheriting siblings

Question 62

The Aymara live in the Andes.Which type of subsistence strategy do they practise?

A) intensive agriculture
B) horticulture
C) foraging
D) pastoralism

Question 63

What can we conclude about the notion of "progress" when we consider our use of fossil fuels and their link to global warming?

A) Progress is an evolutionist force that will always help us win out over nature.
B) Global warming will present new agricultural opportunities that outweigh the negative consequences.
C) All human adaptations are part of larger systems that present advantages and disadvantages and have consequences that no one is exempt from.
D) Science and progress will allow us to discover our negative impacts and correct them for the benefit of our future.

Question 64

What part of the world are most camel pastoralists found in?

A) sub-Saharan Africa and Egypt
B) North Africa and the Middle East
C) Western and Central Asia
D) the Near East and East Africa

Question 65

Which statement is most consistent with the idea that humans have spent most of our history as foragers?

A) Early humans had failed at early attempts at agriculture.
B) Early humans could find no suitable animal species to domesticate.
C) Early humans evolved in a rich diverse ecosystem and were few in number.
D) Early humans evolved as carnivorous hunters that easily dominated all other species.

Question 66

Which statement best characterizes the relationship between an environment and the organisms in it?

A) Both will inevitably cause changes in the other.
B) Organisms will change their environments.
C) Environments will change organisms.
D) Organisms will consume their environments.

Question 67

Which animals did New World cultures domesticate for eating?

A) sheep and chickens
B) dogs and turkeys
C) dogs and wild cats
D) goats and horses

Question 68

What does the Aztec word chinampas refer to?

A) temple priests who performed religious rituals for the population
B) gold flakes used as currency in the Tlatelolco market
C) artificial garden plots on the lake surrounding the capital
D) Aztec noble families

Question 69

Which statement about Aztec society in the 16th century is true?

A) It was an egalitarian society based on agriculture.
B) It used standardized money for market purchases.
C) It included a diversity of occupational categories.
D) It was governed by elected leaders.

Question 70

How far back in time do we find the first evidence for the domestication of sheep?

A) 1,000 years
B) 3,000 years
C) 10,000 years
D) 15,000 years

Question 71

What are the main threats to the existence of pastoralism?

A) malaria,dengue fever,and other diseases
B) droughts,overpopulation,and competition from agriculturalists
C) cold and the dying off of all natural grasslands
D) laws that prohibit the informal slaughter of meat-bearing animals

Question 72

While one form of adaptation is usually dominant,what is also true about the adaptations of most human cultures?

A) They will eventually be altered to create greater choice of new foods.
B) Any one group may reject all subsistence strategies.
C) Any one group may practise no more than two subsistence strategies.
D) Any one group may practise more than one subsistence strategy.

Question 73

Which of the following is another way of saying "food acquisition strategies"?

A) patterns of subsistence or subsistence rounds
B) patterns of procurement or subsistence rounds
C) patterns of subsistence or cyclical subsistence
D) methods of subsistence or subsistence cycles

Question 74

Which of the following is an example of psychological adaptation?

A) how we form resistance strategies to chronic mental illness
B) how we use language and symbolic action to create and maintain meaning in our lives
C) how we provide for group subsistence and satisfaction
D) how we use social belonging to reassure the most vulnerable members of society

Question 75

On the Bolivian Altiplano in ancient times,highly productive agriculture was possible.Why?

A) The climate was much warmer.
B) The soil was more fertile.
C) Only frost-resistant crops such as potatoes and turnips were grown.
D) Water-filled canals between the fields acted as a trap for sunlight.

Question 76

Which of the following was true of the Aztec capital city in the 16th century?

A) It had a population greater than that of London.
B) Its economy was largely pastoral.
C) Its inhabitants belonged to a single clan.
D) Its economy was based on foraging.

Question 77

Which statement best describes the positive aspect of sickle-cell anemia in Africa?

A) It allowed people to work at high altitudes for many hours.
B) It gave people a natural resistance to the malaria parasite.
C) It killed off genetically weak humans who could not possible live to adulthood.
D) It kept human populations in control in a region of sparse food resources.

Question 78

What are the advantages for modern Bolivian farmers of using ancient farming technology?

A) reduced political interference by the central government
B) improved prices for crops at urban markets
C) free organic fertilizer from sediment
D) relief from the impact of climate change

Question 79

Which statement best defines the notion of adaptation as it applies to our ability to feed ourselves?

A) Adaptation means human cultures can successfully adapt to any environmental change and survive.
B) Adaptation means humans must frequently seek new environments or face starvation.
C) Adaptation means humans will always modify their environments to comply with their needs.
D) Adaptation means humans will always adjust to their environments to fulfill their needs.

Question 80

Which environment is nomadic pastoralism best suited to?

A) land too dry,steep,or cold for farming
B) land too wet for farming
C) land too fertile for farming
D) land too overgrown for farming