Deck 4: Themes of Anthropology: Culture

Question 1

The behavior of a dog learning commands shares all the following characteristics with a cultural behavior EXCEPT:

A) it is acquired extragenetically
B) it involves ideas
C) it can be shared with other members of the same species
D) it can generate generalizations

Answer 1

it can be shared with other members of the same species

Question 2

When we say that culture is shared "extragenetically" we mean it:

A) involves more than one gene (that is, "extra" genes)
B) it is transmitted by something other than genes
C) it has to rely on inheritance to be shared
D) there is something in addition to genes involved in its sharing

Answer 2

it is transmitted by something other than genes

Question 3

An artifact is:

A) any manufactured item
B) an work of art
C) only something made by a human
D) something that has been consciously manufactured

Answer 3

something that has been consciously manufactured

Question 4

What is the most accurate statement regarding cultural behavior?

A) it is possessed only by humans
B) it is possessed to some extent by all animals
C) it is the sole property of Homo sapiens
D) it characterizes some behaviors of some other primates

Question 5

The food washing of the Japanese macaques has all the characteristics of culture EXCEPT:

A) learned behavior
B) involves abstractions and generalizations
C) is shared extragenetically
D) involves artifacts

Question 6

The food washing of the Japanese macaques can be considered:

A) cultural
B) noncultural
C) protocultural
D) instinctive

Question 7

It could be said that culture has a biological basis. This is because:

A) it is a genetic trait
B) the potential for it is in the structure and function of our brains
C) cultural behaviors are basically instinctive
D) all cultural behaviors derive from some past biological behavior

Question 8

MacLean's triune brain model says that:

A) the brain comes in three independent parts
B) as the brain evolved new parts took over from old ones
C) brain evolution involves new parts interacting with old ones
D) old parts of our brains are present but are now inactive

Question 9

Which part of the triune brain is involved with basic self-preservation functions?

A) R-complex
B) medulla
C) limbic system
D) neocortex

Question 10

Which part of the triune brain is involved with strong emotions, sex, and smell?

A) R-complex
B) medulla
C) limbic system
D) neocortex

Question 11

Which part of the triune brain is involved with deliberation, spatial reasoning, vision and hearing, and the exchange of information between brain and body?

A) R-complex
B) medulla
C) limbic system
D) neocortex

Question 12

Which is true of the neocortex?

A) only humans have one
B) it has taken over all important brain functions in humans
C) humans have the largest neocortex
D) only primates have one

Question 13

A society's basic set of assumptions about its world is known as its:

A) religion
B) legal system
C) philosophy
D) world view

Question 14

The world view of a society is based on its people's collective response to and interpretation of:

A) their religion and ethical/philosophical system
B) the natural environment
C) the cultural environment
D) the interaction of the natural and cultural environments

Question 15

What is the relationship between world view and religion?

A) they are essentially the same
B) religion is the means used to formalize, talk about, and share world view
C) world view derives from a society's religious beliefs
D) world view is a primitive form of religion

Question 16

When we say that a cultural system is "integrated" we mean:

A) a culture operates as a system of interrelated parts
B) all races possess culture
C) culture is intimately connected to and derived from biology
D) once established a cultural system never changes

Question 17

Which best describes the world view of the Eskimo (at least prior to European contact)?

A) they felt in scientific control over their world
B) they felt completely at the mercy of the natural environment
C) they felt their world was under absolute control of a single, all-powerful god
D) they felt they were one with the environment, with limited, tenuous control

Question 18

The Eskimo are polytheistic which means:

A) the people have many different religious beliefs
B) different people worship different supernatural beings
C) the culture recognizes multiple supernatural beings
D) the people have migrated from many different cultural backgrounds

Question 19

The world view of farmers from Southwest Asia changed because:

A) their natural environment changed drastically
B) they stopped believing in multiple gods
C) there was a cultural change in their relationship with the environment
D) Christianity was founded

Question 20

Which best describes the world view of Southwest Asian societies after the invention of food producing techniques?

A) they felt at the mercy of the natural environment
B) they felt they were one with the environment, with limited, tenuous control
C) they felt a sense of control over the environment
D) they felt under the control of a pantheon of gods and other supernatural beings

Question 21

The religions that arose in food producing Southwest Asia can be described as monotheistic. This means that:

A) they recognized one supreme being over which humans had no control
B) they recognized one supreme being over which humans had limited influence
C) everyone in that region held the same religious beliefs
D) all cultures in that region descended from the same cultural source

Question 22

Which of the following is NOT an aspect of the worldview of modern America?

A) value placed on individualism
B) expectation and value of change
C) importance of size
D) stress on conformity to a single set of cultural norms

Question 23

The point of the necktie story is:

A) some cultural phenomena can't be explained
B) not all societies symbolize status differences
C) all cultural features are related to a society's world view
D) clothing styles are an important reflection of a society's history

Question 24

Which is NOT a reason that archaeology, of all the subfields of anthropology, is the most distinct?

A) it is the oldest formal specialty
B) it is essentially the popular activity of art collecting
C) it involves special problems of collection and analysis
D) it involves a specialized set of skills and techniques

Question 25

The designs of old New England gravestones are most directly a reflection of:

A) religious belief
B) political atmosphere
C) the state or colony in which they were made
D) the specific time period involved

Question 26

Historical archaeology refers to the study of:

A) the science of history
B) societies with out written records
C) societies with written records
D) very recent societies

Question 27

When we interpret some archaeological data by observing similar artifacts in use among living cultures, we call it:

A) the ethnographic present
B) cultural relativity
C) ethnocentrism
D) ethnographic analogy

Question 28

Sir Mortimer Wheeler was able to tell the order of events that took place at Maiden Castle largely through:

A) reading written accounts by the Romans
B) the use of stratigraphic relationships
C) reading written accounts by the people of Maiden Castle
D) collecting old folk tales in Britain

Question 29

Experimental archaeology refers to:

A) techniques that are new and still being tested
B) the phase of archaeology where hypotheses are examined
C) the reconstruction of ancient skills and technologies
D) the use of real scientific equipment in archaeology

Question 30

Which best describes the overall goal of archaeology?

A) to reconstruct ancient events like the battle at Maiden Castle
B) to collect and display ancient artifacts and art objects
C) to reconstruct past cultural systems
D) to study prehistoric rocks and fossils

Question 31

If an archaeological site is not already visible or recorded, how do archaeologists even know where to begin looking?

A) they use aerial photography
B) they dig lots of test pits until they find something
C) they go to old records like deeds
D) they decide, using logic, where people would have lived

Question 32

Test pits are used to:

A) locate a promising area to excavate further
B) determine if a potential site is a site and to decide exactly where to dig
C) recover the artifacts from a site
D) spread out the excavators so they do the least damage

Question 33

In terms of anthropological value, the single most important aspect of an archaeological dig is:

A) making sure to recover all the artifacts
B) complete and accurate record-keeping
C) establishing an accurate grid system
D) cleaning and preserving the artifacts

Question 34

Which of the following is used to establish horizontal control at a site?

A) grid system
B) natural stratigraphy of the soil
C) techniques of statistical sampling
D) digging down in layers of only a few centimeters at a time

Question 35

Which of the following is used to establish vertical control at a site?

A) grid system
B) natural stratigraphy of the soil or stratigraphy of the site itself
C) techniques of statistical sampling
D) test pits

Question 36

Relative dating refers to:

A) a specific date, in number of years ago
B) a date established based on a known date
C) an uncertain date
D) a date that can only be established using certain techniques

Question 37

A common method of relative dating is:

A) radiocarbon
B) potassium/argon
C) use of historical records
D) stratigraphic relationships

Question 38

The radiocarbon dating technique can be used to date:

A) only rocks
B) organic remains back to the beginnings of life
C) organic remains back to about 60,000 years ago
D) only bone material, but as far back as the dinosaur period

Question 39

If a specimen contains one-eighth the living amount of radiocarbon, it is probably around ______________ years old.

A) 5730
B) 11,460
C) 17,190
D) 22,920

Question 40

Potassium/argon dating can be used to directly date:

A) only organic remains
B) all mineral remains
C) rocks of volcanic origin
D) sea shells and similar fossils

Question 41

Lucy was dated using potassium/argon. But this is really an example of:

A) absolute dating using K/Ar
B) absolute dating using radiocarbon
C) relative dating using stratigraphic relationships
D) relative dating using historical records

Question 42

List the characteristics that distinguish a cultural behavior from a non-cultural one.

Question 43

This morning you got up and made and ate breakfast. Eating is a biological necessity, but eating breakfast was cultural. Support this evaluation by applying the characteristics of culture to the behavior of eating breakfast.

Question 44

What characteristics does the trained behavior of a dog share with cultural behaviors? What characteristics of culture does the dog's behavior lack?

Question 45

Why is the definition of culture as "learned behavior"
an insufficient one?

Question 46

Evaluate the "termite fishing sticks"
of the chimpanzees and the food washing of the Japanese macaques in terms of the characteristics of culture.

Question 47

How does the Japanese macaques' use of water to wash food different from the chimpanzees' use of their "termite fishing sticks"?

Question 48

If other species have behaviors that can be defined as cultural, how is human cultural behavior different?

Question 49

Describe Paul MacLean's triune brain model. What does this model tell us about the evolution of the brain?

Question 50

What does the author of text mean by the idea that "we can experience events in our nervous systems"? What does this have to do with our cultural abilities?

Question 51

In what way is culture not only our basic adaptive mechanism but our environment as well?

Question 52

In general terms, why is it that two societies living in the same kind of natural environment probably have very different cultural systems?

Question 53

Why does the author make "world view"
the central focus of his model for analyzing cultural systems?

Question 54

What do we mean by world view?

Question 55

How does world view differ from religion? How are the two related?

Question 56

Characterize the world view of the Eskimo and indicate how it is reflected in aspects of their cultural system.

Question 57

What major event in Southwest Asia radically changed the world views of some of the peoples of that region? How did this event alter those world views?

Question 58

Characterize the world views of farming and herding peoples of Southwest Asia and indicate how they were reflected in their cultural systems.

Question 59

Indicate some characteristics of an American world view. What is some evidence for your assessment?

Question 60

What is the point of the author's anthropological analysis of the necktie?

Question 61

What considerations must anthropologists make if they are going to study their own cultures?

Question 62

Archaeology used to be simply art collecting. Now, all real archaeology is part of anthropology. Explain how this is so.

Question 63

What is the theoretical premise of archaeology? That is, how can it reconstruct a cultural system from a sample of its material artifacts?

Question 64

In what ways other than those discussed in the text might gravestones reflect other aspects of the cultural system that uses them?

Question 65

Why do we need to apply archaeological techniques to societies that have left written records? Give an example.

Question 66

Tell how Sir Mortimer Wheeler was able to reconstruct the sequence of events in the Maiden Castle story.

Question 67

What is experimental archaeology? Give an example.

Question 68

How do archaeologists decide where to investigate for a site in cases where there is no obvious evidence of human activity?

Question 69

What are test pits and how are they used in archaeological investigation?

Question 70

During an archaeological excavation the most important single process is accurate and complete record keeping. Explain why.

Question 71

During an archaeological excavation both vertical and horizontal dimensions must be controlled and recorded. How are these accomplished?

Question 72

What are the two meanings of relative dating? Give an example of each.

Question 73

Choose either method of absolute dating described in the text and explain how it works.