Deck 1: The Nature of Anthropology

Question 1

What is the term for someone who engages activities such as studying the frequency of blood types in human populations,or watching the behaviour of monkeys and apes,or digging for early hominid bones in East Africa?

A) ethnologist
B) ethnographer
C) biological anthropologist
D) sociocultural anthropologist

Answer 1

biological anthropologist

Question 2

Which of the following is NOT one of the five major fields of anthropology?

A) archaeology
B) linguistic anthropology
C) ethnohistory
D) applied anthropology

Answer 2

ethnohistory

Question 3

The police need help in identifying a large number of disaster victims.Which type of anthropologist would be best for this task?

A) paleoanthropologist
B) forensic anthropologist
C) police anthropologist
D) osteoanthropologist

Answer 3

forensic anthropologist

Question 4

Which of the following opinions was NOT one that Franz Boas held?

A) He embraced racist notions of cultural progress.
B) He argued that each culture has a unique history.
C) He promoted the belief that all cultures are equally valid.
D) He maintained that cultures cannot be ranked as superior or inferior to one another.

Question 5

During which period of their history did Europeans first consider that understanding other peoples would help them understand themselves?

A) the industrial age
B) the Age of Enlightenment
C) the postindustrial age
D) the modern age

Question 6

Which factor contributed most to the development of anthropology as a distinct field for studying human diversity?

A) the discovery of diverse peoples during biblical days
B) the rise of cultural imperialism,which promoted intellectual development in Europe
C) attempts during the 18th century to explain human behaviour scientifically in terms of natural laws
D) the application of biblical mythology to explain human diversity

Question 7

Which of the following research topics might be the main focus of a biological anthropologist?

A) the point in human evolution at which the anatomical capacity for language emerged
B) the historical construction of language families to see when different languages diverged from a common stock
C) investigating the social behaviour of Rastafarians
D) locating the remains of ancient Babylon

Question 8

What are the two major research interests of biological anthropology?

A) the relationship between humans and mammals,and the differences between them
B) variation in human populations,and evolution of human characteristics
C) primate population variation,and the reconstruction of the material remains of culture
D) the origins of language,and causes of language change

Question 9

Which of the following tasks has always been a defining feature of Canadian anthropology?

A) studies of ethnic conflict in Canada
B) advocacy of Aboriginal people's religious and cultural rights
C) understanding Canadian cultural sovereignty
D) writing reports for federal and provincial governments

Question 10

Which of the following is NOT an appropriate task for a forensic anthropologist?

A) identifying causes of environmental disasters
B) identifying the remains of victims of genocide
C) identifying missing persons from skeletal remains
D) identifying details of nutritional history from skeletal remains of murder victims

Question 11

Early anthropological theorists proposed that all cultures passed through a series of evolutionary stages,culminating in the technologically advanced level of Western societies.Which term did critics of this idea use to brand its adherents with?

A) armchair anthropologists
B) diffusionists
C) progressives
D) relativists

Question 12

What is Jane Goodall best known for doing?

A) She found the famous "Lucy" Australopithecus fossil.
B) She served as a consultant to the federal government of Canada on preventing terrorist attacks.
C) She studied chimpanzees in their natural habitat.
D) She advised the Canadian government about how to provide daycare to immigrant families.

Question 13

Which of the following best defines archaeology?

A) a branch of biological anthropology
B) a subfield of cultural anthropology
C) a branch of linguistic anthropology
D) a subfield of anthropology

Question 14

Which of the following best defines anthropology?

A) the study of Western culture,primarily through the analysis of its folklore
B) the study of humankind everywhere in all times
C) the study of nonhuman primates through an analysis of their myths and folklore
D) the study of the species Homo sapiens by analyzing its biological dimension

Question 15

What does an archaeologist endeavour to understand by studying material remains?

A) past cultural behaviour
B) the evolution of fossils
C) how ancient humans improved and advanced
D) how human society might evolve in the future

Question 16

What is the key distinction between anthropology and humanities subjects?

A) The humanities are concerned with art and history,while anthropology does not.
B) The humanities are more scientific than anthropology.
C) The humanities examine the great achievements of human cultures,while anthropology focuses on all aspects of humans.
D) The humanities concentrate on Western civilization,while anthropology concentrates on Eastern civilization and excludes study of the West.

Question 17

How is anthropology different from other disciplines that study humans?

A) It was the first science to analyze human diversity.
B) It pays greater attention to details.
C) It requires a longer period of training.
D) It synthesizes data from many fields in an effort to describe human behaviour as a whole.

Question 18

Why has anthropology only recently appeared as a distinct field of inquiry?

A) Only in the past two centuries have people been interested in their own origins and in people different from themselves.
B) Previously,most people did not have access to adequate means of travel and communication necessary for studying distant cultures.
C) The Bible strictly prohibited the study of diverse groups of people.
D) European explorers only wished to dominate the peoples they encountered.

Question 19

Which of the following has most influenced Canadian anthropology?

A) the media in Canada
B) medical schools at Canadian universities
C) the Canadian government
D) Canadian museums

Question 20

Which term do Aboriginal groups in Canada prefer to use to identify themselves?

A) the name of their distinctive cultural group
B) the term "North American Indian," which ignores national boundaries
C) the term "Indian"
D) the term "native people"

Question 21

What is a "culture-bound" theory?

A) a prediction that is bound to be fulfilled in a particular culture
B) a theory based on assumptions common to a particular culture
C) a theory developed by a sociologist
D) a theory based on comparison of cultures

Question 22

Some anthropologists excavate and study sites where the material remains of pre-contact peoples are found.What is the term for this type of anthropologist?

A) cultural materialist
B) early historic archaeologist
C) prehistoric archaeologist
D) preliterate anthropologist

Question 23

Which of the following tasks is an archaeologist most likely to engage in?

A) study material remains to reconstruct past cultures
B) study present-day languages to reconstruct when they diverged from a parent stock
C) study ancient inscriptions to explain contemporary behaviour
D) study tool use among gorillas

Question 24

Which branch of anthropology studies all aspects of human languages?

A) anthropological linguistics
B) historical linguistics
C) linguistic ethnography
D) ethnolinguistics

Question 25

Which of the following would be of particular interest to a sociolinguist?

A) the way sentences are formed
B) the sounds and gestures made by nonhuman animals
C) the evolution of grammar
D) how slang words are used in everyday English

Question 26

Which of the following best defines ethnology?

A) the collection of descriptive material on a specific culture
B) the comparative study of human and animal behaviour
C) the comparative study of patterns of human behaviour across contemporary cultures
D) the study of languages through which culture is transmitted,shaped,and experienced

Question 27

Linguistic anthropologists can answer important questions about the past by looking at language.Which of the following options represents a question that could be answered through historical linguistic analysis?

A) calculating how long the speakers of a given language have lived in a certain region
B) determining why languages began in one place and not in another
C) describing how modern speakers of a language are genetically related to one another
D) calculating exactly how many languages existed in the past

Question 28

Some applied archaeologists assess and excavate archaeological sites threatened by human activity.What is the term for this sort of work?

A) historic archaeology
B) practical archaeology
C) cultural resource management
D) external relations management

Question 29

What do descriptive linguists try to describe?

A) the patterns and structure of grammar and sentence formation in languages
B) how speakers use their language to relate to one another
C) how language changes the way people understand their surroundings
D) how rules of grammar evolved

Question 30

Which of the following would NOT be an area of research interest to linguistic anthropologists?

A) studying the way that language is a resource for developing culture
B) ranking languages according to their effectiveness in transmitting culture
C) tracing genealogical relationships among languages
D) examining how people use language to maintain social distinctiveness

Question 31

In today's global community,what is the greatest value of anthropology?

A) It promotes ideals and values that everyone can accept and live by.
B) It promotes awareness and appreciation of cultural diversity.
C) It studies people who have not been corrupted or tainted by civilization and technology.
D) It brings about change in the world.

Question 32

Which of the following topics would be of most interest to an ethnographer?

A) the study of non-Western societies
B) human behaviour in any specific culture
C) developing generalizations and rules about all human behaviour
D) explaining how two or more cultures deviate from the norm

Question 33

Which of the following statements describes an important difference between sociology and sociocultural anthropology?

A) Sociology develops theories to explain social behaviour;sociocultural anthropology does not.
B) Sociology tends to study Western urban-industrial societies;sociocultural anthropology studies societies of all types throughout the world.
C) Sociology is less susceptible than sociocultural anthropology to culture-bound theories because it is rooted in scientifically based Western culture.
D) Sociology is both descriptive and comparative;sociocultural anthropology is only comparative.

Question 34

What did the University of Arizona Garbage Project discover during the course of a year in which beef prices skyrocketed throughout the United States?

A) Most residents ate almost no beef.
B) Households actually wasted larger amounts of beef.
C) Men were more likely to increase their consumption of beef.
D) Beer consumption also increased significantly.

Question 35

What is archaeologist Robert McGhee's position on the value of artifacts?

A) They can have great commercial value in the art market.
B) They are only of value to the descendants of the people who used them.
C) They should never be put in museums.
D) They are most valuable in that they provide knowledge about the people who used and discarded them.

Question 36

Some anthropologists study the material remains of people and historical documents about them.What is the term for this type of anthropologist?

A) historic anthropologist
B) ethnographic historian
C) documentary anthropologist
D) historic archaeologist

Question 37

The University of Arizona Garbage Project demonstrated that what people say and what they do can differ dramatically.What is one of the specific examples of this phenomenon that these investigators discovered?

A) Many empty packages of hair dye were found in the trash,even though no one claimed to use hair colouring.
B) People claimed to take vitamins daily,but the number of empty vitamin bottles did not support this claim.
C) No one said they drank Scotch,yet several empty Johnny Walker bottles were found in the trash.
D) The amount of beer consumed,according to empty cans in the trash,was far higher than people claimed.

Question 38

Sociocultural anthropologists seek to understand the interrelatedness of sociocultural systems.Which of the following is NOT an example of such a system?

A) emotional organization
B) economic organization
C) religious organization
D) political organization

Question 39

Historians usually study the past through written sources.Which period does this limit them to?

A) the past 1,000 years
B) the past 5,000 years
C) the past 10,000 years
D) the past 50,000 years

Question 40

Which of the following activities would an applied anthropologist most likely NOT be involved in?

A) persuading indigenous healers to discard their traditional methods of treating illness in favour of modern medicine
B) providing mediation between members of an Aboriginal group and residents of a nearby housing development who are in conflict over water rights
C) providing background information to First Nations and government agencies during land claims negotiations
D) working with Aboriginal peoples to develop cultural awareness programs about their heritage and history

Question 41

Anthropologists doing fieldwork investigate how all aspects of a culture relate to one another.Which term best describes this approach?

A) holistic
B) ethnological
C) sociocultural
D) multidisciplinary

Question 42

Which of the following is the best description of an ethnologist?

A) someone who studies female behaviour as it is distinguished from male behaviour
B) someone who studies cultures of the past to indicate cultural progression over time
C) someone who develops a science of culture by comparing many specific cultures
D) someone who studies primitive cultures

Question 43

From an ethical standpoint,which of the following groups is an anthropologist's first responsibility?

A) the government of the people being studied
B) his or her informants and their people
C) those who funded the research
D) the profession of anthropology and other anthropologists

Question 44

Why is participant observation considered especially important to ethnographic research?

A) The anthropologist will have personal experience with the habits and customs of the people being studied.
B) It protects the anthropologist from appearing foolish while gathering information about a culture.
C) It provides the anthropologist with valuable insights into the culture without having to know its language.
D) The people being studied will be unable to keep information a secret from the ethnographer who is living with them and is therefore a part of their culture.

Question 45

Many ethnographic accounts of food foragers asserted that postmarital residence was always patrilocal,with wives going to live near,or with,the husband's parents.More recent studies indicate that patrilocal residence was a response to European colonialism and that traditional postmarital residence arrangements were actually flexible.What type of anthropologist likely made the studies that led to this finding?

A) an archaeologist
B) an ethnoarchaeologist
C) an ethnologist
D) an ethnohistorian

Question 46

What is the primary concern of all anthropologists,regardless of specialization?

A) to explain how the world works
B) to help people advance
C) to study humankind carefully and systematically
D) to prove Darwinian evolution

Question 47

What role do key informants play when an anthropologist does fieldwork in an unfamiliar culture?

A) They provide an outsider's perspective for the anthropologist.
B) They help other members of the culture understand Western customs.
C) They help the ethnographer remain objective.
D) They help interpret whatever activities are occurring.

Question 48

Which type of study is ethnographic fieldwork most often associated with?

A) the study of wealthy elites
B) the study of North American society
C) the study of non-Western peoples
D) the study of the economically disadvantaged

Question 49

Why do sociocultural anthropologists strongly encourage non-North American ethnographers to do fieldwork in Canada?

A) They are often better-educated than Canadian ethnographers.
B) As outsiders,they may have insights that insiders might overlook.
C) They need the work.
D) Canadian ethnographers only focus on overseas work.

Question 50

Ethnography involves the collection of data about cultures.What does ethnology do with this type of data?

A) organizes it
B) uses it for comparative study
C) bases experiments on it
D) confirms its accuracy

Question 51

The routine practice in the United States and Canada of making infants sleep apart from their mothers has important consequences.What is the most important of these consequences?

A) prolonged suppression of ovulation in the mother
B) increased length of the young infant's crying bouts to over three hours a day
C) more peaceful,less wakeful sleeps for both mother and infant
D) development of stronger bonds between father and infant

Question 52

According to the text,why did ethnographer Hazel Weidman have considerable difficulty doing fieldwork in Myanmar (Burma)?

A) She did not speak the language.
B) She was a woman.
C) Myanmar was not a democratically governed country.
D) She was a Westerner.

Question 53

Why did Canadian anthropologists NOT study the cultural significance of hockey in Canada until recently?

A) Academics don't take hockey seriously.
B) Hockey was seen as too local and familiar to be a topic for ethnographic research.
C) Hockey has become an international game.
D) Hockey was seen as merely a game.

Question 54

Which question did Leslie Main Johnson ask when she examined indigenous knowledge with the Gitksan of northern British Columbia?

A) How much of Gitksan knowledge of their environment has been lost?
B) How have the Gitksan people learned about their environment?
C) When Gitksan people look at their environment,what do they see?
D) When the Gitksan people exploit the resources in the environment,what do they do?

Question 55

How would contemporary anthropologists answer the question,"Whose voice should be heard in ethnographic descriptions?"

A) the voices of both the ethnographer and the leaders of the society being studied
B) the ethnographer's voice alone,because that person has specialized training
C) multiple voices,including those of the ethnographer and members of the society who have been informants
D) only the voices of informants,with no involvement by the ethnographer

Question 56

Which of the following would be a useful source for doing ethnohistory?

A) the field notes of an ethnolinguist
B) data from contemporary subcultures
C) hieroglyphics documenting the unification of Lower and Upper Egypt
D) diaries of missionaries and traders

Question 57

What is the term for in-depth descriptive studies of specific cultures?

A) ethnologies
B) ethnic anthologies
C) anthropologies
D) ethnographies

Question 58

Which of the following is one of the most fundamental principles of traditional anthropological research?

A) Ethnographic research is always scientifically objective and unbiased.
B) Ethnographers must live closely among the people in the cultures they are studying.
C) While doing fieldwork,ethnographers are not influenced by their own emotions.
D) Anthropologists must shed their personal biases and prejudices when they engage in fieldwork.

Question 59

Robin Ridington's new ethnographic research records oral histories of the Dane-zaa.Which of the following is true about this research?

A) It takes a collaborative approach.
B) It uses a scientifically objective and nonbiased perspective.
C) It applies a structure to their narratives.
D) It is edited and corrected by the anthropologist.

Question 60

Which of the following is NOT an example of popular culture?

A) television drama series
B) fashion,including hairstyles and clothing
C) First Nations land claims
D) rap music

Question 61

Blair Rutherford directs the Institute for African Studies at Carleton University.What is the mission of this institute?

A) to reduce cultural tension and warfare in eastern Africa
B) to involve students with other Africa-focused agencies and organizations and encourage study exchange between Africa and Canada
C) to involve students with other Africa-focused agencies and organizations in order to provide famine relief in Africa
D) to educate African students in practical skills so they can do their own development work

Question 62

Marius Barbeau was an early Canadian anthropologist who was interested in recording the songs and stories of Canada's First Nations people.Which term best applies to what he did?

A) Canadian ethno-mythology studies
B) comparative ethnology
C) linguistic ethnomusicology
D) Canadian folklore studies

Question 63

Cross-cultural comparison involves comparing one aspect of a culture with the same aspect in another culture.What is the purpose of making such comparisons?

A) Comparison of culture traits helps us to understand how humans use culture to adapt to different circumstances.
B) Comparison of culture traits helps us to isolate the most advanced forms of culture.
C) Comparison of culture traits helps us to determine which cultures are most compatible with each other.
D) Comparison of culture traits allows us to determine the level of progress and sophistication of each culture.

Question 64

Anthropology began as an effort by Europeans to study the cultural diversity of the world's peoples in a systematic way so as to better understand it.Which three factors most likely motivated this interest?

A) exploration,colonialism,and Christian missionism
B) reason,idealism,and capitalism
C) peace,humanitarianism,and friendship
D) warfare,slavery,and trade

Question 65

According to some anthropologists,which of the following factors may be responsible for the gender stratification that results in female inequality in most cultures?

A) universal male dominance
B) concepts of a male father/god figure in most religions
C) childbirth and lactation
D) physical and emotional weakness of women

Question 66

Ethnographers study a culture's language,philosophy,and arts and literature.In doing so,they involve themselves deeply in the lives of those they study,trying to experience culture from their informants' points of view.Which of the following terms best characterizes this type of anthropology?

A) scientific
B) humanistic
C) radical
D) systematic

Question 67

Why have some Western feminist anthropologists been criticized for their views on women's rights in other cultures?

A) because women living in other cultures are simply incapable of understanding Western feminism
B) because women n living in other cultures are unaware that they are dominated by males
C) because women living in other cultures may not agree with the Western interpretation of gender discrimination that is said to apply to their culture
D) because women living in other cultures derive their rights from custom and belief,not the law

Question 68

Richard Lee noted that the foragers of the Botswana had a 75 to 90 percent lower rate of AIDS than the national average.Which set of factors likely account for this?

A) antiretroviral drugs,more clinics in the area,and a low sex drive among men
B) the absence of homosexuality,intravenous drug use,and prostitution
C) physical isolation,women's empowerment,and common sense about sex and risk
D) good dietary practice and herbal medication to ward off infection

Question 69

Why was feminist anthropology important to the development of the discipline?

A) in order to advocate for the equality of male-female gender relations in all cultures
B) because male anthropologists failed to understand the politics of female-dominated societies
C) because females naturally and intuitively understand the behaviour of other females
D) in order to address the gender imbalance found in most early ethnographic research

Question 70

An early Canadian anthropologist called Davidson Black found himself working in China on early human fossil remains.What important fossil preservation technique did he pioneer?

A) preparing accurate plaster replicas of human fossil remains so others could study them
B) dissolving the rock matrix surrounding human fossil remains to remove it
C) encasing fossil remains in clear plastic so they could be preserved and observed easily
D) drilling human fossil remains and adding steel support structures to them

Question 71

Which term best characterizes research that involves detailed ethnographic description based on participant observation and interviews?

A) sociocentric
B) quantitative
C) impersonal
D) qualitative

Question 72

Which of the following topic sets is most characteristic of uniquely "Canadian" anthropology?

A) primatology,forensic anthropology,and ethnology
B) multiculturalism,the fur trade,and First Nations languages
C) maple syrup production,tropical hardwood harvesting,and medical anthropology
D) Pan-American politics,missionism,and Iroquois subsistence patterns

Question 73

There are differences in levels of status and relations of power between men and women across cultures.According to anthropologists,what underlies these differences?

A) gendered empowerment
B) sexual division of labour
C) sex differentiation
D) gender stratification

Question 74

Which of the following Canadian anthropologists is fluent in several First Nations languages and is also an expert on the history of anthropology?

A) Richard Lee
B) Bruce Trigger
C) Edward Sapir
D) Regna Darnell

Question 75

What does the term "gender" refer to,from an anthropological perspective?

A) the opposite sex
B) culturally defined social identity,status,and behaviour
C) all differences between males and females
D) biological differences between males and females

Question 76

Which conclusion have archaeologists working on Classic Mayan sites reached since about 1960?

A) Large Mayan sites were permanent settlements with large populations supported by highly productive intensive agriculture.
B) Large Mayan sites were occupied only temporarily for ceremonial purposes.
C) The few temporary residents of large Mayan sites were supported during their stay by scattered peasants practising swidden farming.
D) It is impossible to know how the Classic Maya supported themselves technologically.

Question 77

Richard Lee is a well-known Canadian anthropologist who has studied foragers or hunter-gatherers extensively.What is the subject of his recent research,which is discussed in the textbook?

A) determining which animal species are most often hunted successfully
B) observing how the health,diet,and diseases of foragers have changed over time
C) learning how outsiders have adapted to the AIDS epidemic and their culture in recent years
D) discovering how foragers have altered their migration patterns in recent years

Question 78

A sociological study and an anthropological study differ with regard to how often people in a Peruvian village share work on one another's plots of land.What would most likely account for this difference?

A) The sociologist had no training in cross-cultural analysis.
B) The people in the village lied to the sociologist.
C) The anthropologist lived in the village for a year,whereas the sociologist relied on a single questionnaire survey.
D) Sociologists and anthropologists collect different kinds of information.

Question 79

Diamond Jenness was an early Canadian anthropologist who narrowly escaped death while doing research.In which part of Canada did this happen?

A) the outer banks of Newfoundland
B) the western shore of Lake Superior
C) the Arctic
D) the central plains of Alberta

Question 80

What are general-level theories in cultural anthropology ideally based on?

A) intensive fieldwork done in a single society
B) the theories about culture formulated by the people who have been studied
C) worldwide interview surveys
D) ethnographic data from a sample of cultures across the world