Deck 15: Contemporary Humans

Question 1

The term "modern humans" refers to hominids who could/can do what contemporary humans do.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Your text authors suggest 50 kyr ago is an appropriate date to identify truly modern humans.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Linguistic, archaeological, and biological data all point to a Polynesian origin for Easter Islanders.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The newest evidence concerning how Europeans became farmers is that Middle Eastern farmers moved west, interbred with the natives, bringing farming with them.

Question 5

The oldest Native American as of now is Kennewick Man, recently redated to 7,800 years ago.

Question 6

One trend in AMH is that we have larger brains and cranial capacities than any preceding hominid.

Question 7

There is more variability within the tallest group (the Dutch) and the shortest group (Mbuti pygmies) than between the averages of those two groups.

Question 8

Cultural effects such as avoiding close inbreeding, must be added to the general causes of evolution in humans.

Question 9

Skin color in humans correlates with the environmental feature of ultra-violet radiation.

Question 10

Thompson's Rule finds correlations between skin color and humidity throughout the Old World.

Question 11

There are no correlations between particular blood types (A,O,B) and disease.

Question 12

The sickle cell gene continues in many populations because malaria is also present.

Question 13

Lip thickness in humans is correlated with both humidity and heat.

Question 14

Baboons form subspecies/biological races, but humans do not.

Question 15

For any species to form subspecies/biological races, they must show either distinctive geographic or biological groupings.

Question 16

In modern humans, one of the few sets of traits that is concordant is that of stature and shoe size.

Question 17

In modern humans, most traits are not biologically exclusionary and do not covary.

Question 18

People in the world today enumerate "races" differently, with Americans claiming there are three.

Question 19

The only proper way to define "intelligence" is as problem solving by a particular species.

Question 20

Although experts have found there are no groups that are more intelligent than any other, they have found three groups that are less intelligent than the rest.

Question 21

Human adaptation can be genetic and evolutionary, physiological and temporary, or cultural and short term.

Question 22

Human groups vary physiologically in the ability to cope with extremes of both temperature and

Question 23

Reconstructing faces with clay has been much more successful than using DNA to identify individuals who cannot otherwise be identified.

Question 24

In sexing skeletons, the best results come from sexing pelvises, not skulls.

Question 25

Of the items listed, which was the last to appear in the lineage to modern humans?

A) art
B) ability to speak
C) blade technology
D) bone tools

Question 26

As of now, the answer to the question "how did Europe get farming some 8,000 years ago" is

A) they invented it independent of any other source
B) the idea diffused from the Middle East as groups borrowed the idea from neighbors
C) Middle Eastern farmers migrated westward, interbred with local hunter-gatherers, and brought farming with them
D) boats traversed the then much narrower Straits of Gibraltar bringing farming from North Africa

Question 27

Of the following questions about earliest Native Americans, which is the most controversial among anthropologists?

A) the continent they came from
B) when they arrived
C) how they got here
D) why they came

Question 28

As of now, the oldest North American bones (dated provisionally to 13 kyr ago) were recently found

A) in a museum storeroom in Mexico City
B) in a river bank in the state of Washington
C) on a mountain top, mummified in Peru
D) in Alaska along with the bones of caribou

Question 29

The main reason scientists want to study Kennewick Man before he is (or not) repatriated and reburied is because

A) he is the only Native American who dates before 15 kyr ago
B) all 206 bones have been recovered, a rare situation
C) his bones suggest earliest Native Americans had different traits from modern Asians
D) he has the largest cranial capacity known to any prehistoric Native American

Question 30

Of the following, which group has the largest cranial capacity?

A) European AMH
B) Asian AMH
C) Neandertals
D) African AMH

Question 31

Bioanthropologists can explain the variability of all of the following human traits EXCEPT

A) skin color
B) nose shape
C) lip thickness
D) body build

Question 32

Thompson's Rule on nose shape and environment finds correlations between

A) long narrow noses in hot areas
B) large noses in low humidity areas
C) small noses in cold area
D) short and wide noses in humid areas

Question 33

Sickle cell anemia is a killer but it still persists for all of the following reasons EXCEPT

A) no one demonstrates symptoms until old age
B) it is passed to offspring as a hidden recessive
C) people don't drain their mosquito ridden pools of water
D) medicine is allowing some homozygous children to live to the age of reproduction

Question 34

Baboons are instructive in discussing subspecies or biological races in humans because baboons

A) are as genetically similar to each other as humans are to each other
B) but not humans, form distinctive geographic and biological groups
C) are a morphologically homozygous population but humans are not
D) show the same kind of trait variability in size, hair/fur color, eye color, etc.

Question 35

Of the following, which is the only set of human traits to covary?

A) skin color and stature
B) height and weight
C) hair form and hair color
D) shoe size and eye color

Question 36

All of the following argue that "race" today is more cultural than biological EXCEPT

A) birth certificates may cite one "race" at birth and another at death
B) the Japanese consider themselves to differ in "race" from Koreans, but they are genetically almost identical
C) there is considerable covariation among hair color, skin color, and eye color
D) African populations differ more than any other large group, yet have had the fewest "racial"subdivision designations

Question 37

Population genetics is based on the Hardy-Weinberg law that states that

A) microevolution has very different causes than macroevolution
B) races but not species will change in short periods of time
C) humans evolve for the same reasons as all other animals
D) populations will not change if the "forces" of evolution are kept in check

Question 38

People who live about 10,000 feet of altitude

A) can adjust physiologically in a moderate amount of time coming from lowland areas
B) have smaller lung capacities in order to breathe more times per minute
C) take in less oxygen per breath but more of the diffusion oxygen type
D) suffer from fatigue and malaise their entire lives

Question 39

By definition, applied biological anthropology would include all of the following EXCEPT

A) using DNA fingerprinting to identify a murderer
B) find strong evidence to support the interbreeding of Neandertal and AMH
C) reconstruct faces of dead people for identification
D) discover that humans are or are not naturally violent

Question 40

In the past, some researchers claimed humans were naturally violent based on evidence on chimpanzees and our supposed LCA. This is now regarded as false due to all of the following reasons EXCEPT

A) Goodall reports most of the aggressive acts came only after provisioning
B) where chimpanzees were never provisioned, they were never aggressive
C) bonobos are as closely related to us as chimpanzees and they are not aggressive
D) chimpanzees have been found to have a gene for aggression, that is missing in humans

Question 41

After the "Dirty War" between 1975 and 1983 in Argentina, DNA was used to

A) identify dead soldiers
B) match missing kids to their grandparents
C) identify dead civilians
D) convict the current president of war crimes

Question 42

Bioanthropologists got the donated DNA to match with the Russian imperial family from

A) Anastasia, found in Denmark in 1962
B) Queen Victoria
C) Prince Philip of England
D) Queen Alexandria's commoner second cousin

Question 43

Relative to forensic anthropology, of the following which question is the most important to answer in the eyes of anthropologists?

A) how did the individual die
B) are the remains human
C) was there a crime involved
D) what was the sex, age, height, and physique

Question 44

If you had a male skull, you'd be likely to find all of the following traits except

A) one bump on the lower part of the forehead
B) zygomatic bones extending beyond the ear
C) strong ridges of bone on the brow area
D) large mastoid process

Question 45

Discuss the two hypotheses for how Europe got farming 8,000 years ago and provide evidence to support one or the other.

Question 46

Why is Kennewick Man controversial, what is the status of him now, and why do scientists want to study him?

Question 47

Discuss Thompson's Rule, nose shape, and modern human variability.

Question 48

Why should the sickle cell condition not exist? Why does it?

Question 49

Discuss this statement: "baboons form distinctive geographic and biological groups, but humans do not."

Question 50

What has the fact that Indians live in Asia, have darkly pigmented skin, but straight hair and faces, have to do with "race"?

Question 51

How would you go about reconstructing the face of an individual if all you had was a skull? How accurate is it likely to be?

Question 52

What 5 questions do forensic anthropologists ask of any skeletal material they are to analyze? Which is the most important question?

Question 53

Discuss two of the following traits relative to the environmental cause of its variability: skin color, body build, nose shape.

Question 54

Discuss the nonexistence of "biological races" as explained by contemporary biological anthropologists.

Question 55

Discuss the new role of bioanthropologists in forensic cases. What can they do better than any other specialists?

Question 56

Your job as a forensic anthropologist is to identify the sex of a fossil you have been given. Do it in order of success of identifying, pointing out which traits are male and which are female. How certain are you?