Deck 7: Culture and Nature Interacting With the Environment

Question 1

From a ____ perspective, how people interact with their natural and social environment is a primary cause of cultural differences and similarities.

A) functionalist
B) interpretivist
C) materialist
D) historical particularism

Answer 1

materialist

Question 2

Unlike other species, humans adapt to our environment mainly by

A) biological/genetic means.
B) conflict.
C) cultural means.
D) trial and error learning.

Answer 2

cultural means.

Question 3

As humans adapt to their environment they also alter it, often dramatically. Therefore, the text uses the term ____ instead of adaptation.

A) interaction
B) cooperation
C) opposition
D) socialization

Answer 3

interaction

Question 4

Humans organize themselves in order to obtain resources and solve problems efficiently. The three components of this social organization are division of labor, patterns of cooperation, and

A) creating units of time.
B) allocation of resources.
C) assigning authority.
D) engaging in symbolic communication.

Question 5

Which of these activities is NOT considered a primary activity of foraging?

A) Gathering
B) Hunting
C) Fishing
D) Cultivation

Question 6

The way of life in which people tend, breed, and harvest the products of livestock is termed

A) foraging.
B) cultivation.
C) pastoralism.
D) industrialism.

Question 7

Homo sapiens were foragers until about ____ years ago.

A) 100,000
B) 50,000
C) 10,000
D) 2,000

Question 8

Which of these statements about foragers is FALSE?

A) Foragers do not alter their natural environments much.
B) Foraging groups live very much alike regardless of the environment they live in.
C) Foragers move often to follow game and seasonal plants.
D) Among foragers, the primary basis for division of labor is gender and age.

Question 9

Among foragers, ____ is men's work.

A) net fishing
B) gathering ground nuts
C) hunting
D) building shelter

Question 10

The Western Shoshone would congregate in the mountains in the fall in order to

A) stage communal buffalo hunts.
B) defend against attack by their eastern neighbors.
C) take advantage of the salmon runs.
D) harvest pine nuts.

Question 11

Foraging bands
I. are mobile groups of usually no more than 50 people.
II. generally consist of relatives by birth or marriage.
III. are flexible groups that break into smaller groups in times of scarcity.

A) I and II
B) II and III
C) I and III
D) I, II, and III

Question 12

Among the Ju/'hoansi, hunters share their kill with all members of the group. This is particularly important

A) to please one's in-laws.
B) because the band is small and it would be difficult to live with tensions.
C) as a means of insurance against the uncertainty of successful hunting.
D) in exchange for the plants and seeds that the women gather.

Question 13

Compared with other types of groups, foragers

A) consume many more calories on average.
B) have social and economic equality among members of the band.
C) are more sedentary, establishing permanent camps around water holes.
D) have larger populations.

Question 14

Unlike most foragers, the people of the Northwest Coast of North America

A) were more mobile.
B) had more defined property rights.
C) utilized horses.
D) congregated and dispersed many times during the year.

Question 15

Foraging as a way of life

A) is still widespread around the world.
B) was an inferior means of adaptation.
C) has almost disappeared.
D) was too difficult to be viable.

Question 16

The earliest plant domestication occurred in

A) the Middle East.
B) Mexico.
C) the Andes.
D) Asia.

Question 17

Prior to European contact, peoples of the Andes domesticated each of the following animals EXCEPT

A) llamas.
B) alpacas.
C) guinea pigs.
D) goats.

Question 18

For the most part, native peoples in the New World got most of their meat from

A) pigs.
B) cattle.
C) wild animals.
D) domesticated dogs.

Question 19

Which of these is an advantage of cultivation over foraging?

A) It can support a higher population density.
B) It takes less time and energy.
C) It alters the natural environment less.
D) It supports a higher quality of life.

Question 20

Which of the following do horticultural peoples use?

A) Draft animals and plows
B) Manure
C) Hand tools
D) Augmented water supplies

Question 21

What is the term for the form of cultivation involving clearing a plot of trees, planting crops for a year or two, and then abandoning the plot?

A) Dry land gardening
B) Shifting cultivation
C) Intensive cultivation
D) Plow agriculture

Question 22

Unlike foragers, horticulturists usually

A) are not sedentary.
B) have ownership rights held by kin groups over specific parcels of land.
C) have use rights over land rather than ownership.
D) have use rights over resources rather than land.

Question 23

Compared to foragers and horticulturalists, people who depend on intensive agriculture

A) produce less of a surplus of food.
B) are less economically self-sufficient.
C) live in small political systems without much bureaucracy.
D) have a higher average quality of life.

Question 24

Evidence indicates that ____ is a prerequisite for the development of civilization.

A) horticulture
B) intensive agriculture
C) industrialism
D) capitalism

Question 25

What is the anthropological meaning of the term peasants?

A) Rural people who live by a combination of subsistence agriculture and market sale
B) People who do not own the land where they work
C) Uneducated rural people who are wards of the state
D) Rural people who attempt to live self-sufficiently off of very small plots of land

Question 26

What was the impact of intensive agriculture on the peasants whose farming fed the populations of the emerging state societies?

A) New materials made tools that enabled them to earn more money for themselves.
B) Specialization led to more sophisticated engineering and better homes for them.
C) The invention of writing permitted more accurate accounts of their work and taxes paid.
D) Peasants were the group who received the greatest benefits from intensive agriculture.

Question 27

The way of making a living that shelters people from nature and keeps them from having to interact directly with the natural environment is

A) foraging.
B) horticulture.
C) agriculture.
D) industrialism.

Question 28

The pattern of nomadic herding in which pastoralists take their herds up- and down-slope depending on the productivity of the pasturelands is called

A) transmigration.
B) nomadism.
C) transhumance.
D) grazing.

Question 29

Where do pastoralists live today?

A) Herders are found in virtually every type of environment.
B) All modern herders live near the arctic circle.
C) Herders live in areas where cultivation is virtually impossible.
D) Nowhere - there are no modern herding groups.

Question 30

Herders are able to live in very difficult terrain because

A) they have developed more sophisticated cultivation practices than horticulturalists.
B) their herds can eat vegetation that humans cannot digest and turn it into milk and meat.
C) they are extremely isolationist and prefer living in areas with very small populations.
D) they evolved genetic adaptations that make them better able to withstand the cold.

Question 31

Humans adapt to the natural environment in much the same way that other animals do - by adjusting themselves to changing conditions.

Question 32

Human adaptation to the environment is primarily through cultural means.

Question 33

Humanistic anthropologists agree with materialists about the importance of human-environment interaction in shaping cultural differences and similarities.

Question 34

The four major patterns of human-environment interaction (e.g., foraging) are mutually exclusive from one another.

Question 35

Foragers do not alter their environments much compared to cultivators and herders.

Question 36

Foragers have varied and healthy diets and work fewer hours than people in other forms of production.

Question 37

The characteristic technology of horticulture is draft animals and plows.

Question 38

Leslie White theorized that energy capture is the most important factor in powering cultural change.

Question 39

Intensive agriculture has a greater potential than horticulture in the production of a food surplus.

Question 40

Farms and businesses tend to be unfriendly to the environment because the market economy punishes environmental responsibility.

Question 41

The industrial revolution has had a major impact on subsistence over the years, developing major factories and increasing production of goods.

Question 42

Industrialization is based on harnessing energy from fossil fuels.

Question 43

The ways people harness the resources and cope with the problems of living in a particular environment are important influences on many dimensions of a culture.

Question 44

The onset of agriculture and civilization only slightly improved human life for the majority of people.

Question 45

​Horticulture is a rudimentary form of agriculture.

Question 46

Explain why the text uses the term interaction instead of adaptation when discussing the human-environment relationship.

Question 47

Describe the basic shared cultural characteristics of foragers. Explain why the Native Americans of the Northwest Coast do not share these same characteristics.

Question 48

Explain the differences between horticulture and intensive agriculture.

Question 49

Describe the impact of industrialization on modern agricultural practices and the consumption of resources.