Anthropology Telecourse Exam 2

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1. If one considers the totality of human history on this earth, the most widespread and frequent form of subsistence has been
Agriculture
Horticulture
Pastoralsim
Food-foraging
Urbanism


2. Which of the following is a frequent characteristic of food-foraging cultures?
Possession of large herds of animals
Moving around a lot within a known territory
High value placed on aggressiveness and fierceness in men
High value placed on ownership of family hunting territories and scarce resources such as water holes or honey trees
All of the above


3. How do food-producing cultures, especially intensive agriculturalists, generally differ from food foraging cultures?
Populations tend to be bigger- -both because the economy can support more people and because more people are needed to do the work.
There is increasingly diversified specialization of labor and development of many kinds of skilled crafts people.
Markets appear where people can trade their products for goods/services they don't themselves produce.
Land and other property is increasingly valued, invested in, and protected.
All of the above are logical and likely characteristics of agricultural societies.


4. A culture area is a geographical region in which
A single society lives
Several societies follow similar life patterns
Several societies are bound by a single culture
A single society borrows practices from several cultures


5. Your text discusses two Plain Indians tribes, the Comanche and the Cheyennes, who came to share common subsistence strategies (buffalo hunting) and a set of similar related cultural patterns. This example could be used to illustrate which of the following concepts?
Culture area
Culture core
Cultual ecology
Convergent cultural evolution
All of the above help explain this bit of Native American history


6. The Indians of the Great Plains, before the coming of the white settlers, did not use their environment for agriculture for which of the following reasons?
The concept of domesticating plants was completely unfamiliar to them.
The soil in earlier days was not fertile enough to support a farming way of life.
All areas near water sources were believed to be sacred, so their culture forbade their use for subsistence of any kind.
They were so involved in their warfare with neighboring tribes that they could never stay in one spot long enough to farm it.
Their technology did not include a sturdy enough metal -tipped plow that could break through the tough prairie grasses to make the farming potential of the region available to the Indians.


7. When a Ju/'hoansi (or !Kung) hunter shares his game with all the other families in thegroup, he does so primarily
to prove how altruistic and generous he is.
to create obligations that will be repaid to him and his family at some future time.
to please the spirit of the animal he has killed.
to avoid punishment by the headman or chief who is in charge of distribution of food.
to gain and hold a political following of people who will have to support him in his struggle for prestige and power within the group.


8. In most food-foraging societies, women
gather foods, which make up 60% or more of the group's diet.
are too tied down by constant pregnancy and nursing of young infants to be able to contribute more than occasional amounts of food to the diet of the group.
space their children as closely as possible, usually one every year, to counteract the inevitable infant mortality.
closely cooperate with the men in hunting, since meat is the basis of their diet and survival, and acquiring game requires every adult's help.
spend much less time in gathering than their men do in hunting.


9. 'Carrying capacity' refers to
the strength of the men in a culture.
the number of people who can be supported by the available resources in an area, with their level of subsistence technology.
the number of children a woman will be able to bear in her lifetime.
the number of animals in a pastoral society, which will be able to survive the annual migrations.
the limits of tolerance of a culture to changes and pressures put on it from outside cultures.


10. The discussion about the Ju/'hoansi (in your text) suggests that among this group of Bushman,
membership in each camp is constant, so that each group can be sure of having the right number and ratio of men and women to provide the group's food.
men and women are so tired from the strenuous work of hunting and gathering, they have little energy or interest in doing much visiting with other groups.
when a group gets too large (too high a 'social density'), an increase in short tempers may be a reason for some families to leave to go join another group.
because the food resources are so unevenly available, and often subject to luck, they have developed an elaborate system of smoking and storing surplus foods whenever they can.
each family within a group has its own parcel of land within the group's territory that they have exclusive rights to.


11. According to your text, which of the following observations are generally true about 'egalitarian' food foraging societies?
The men in these cultures regard themselves as equal, while the women are regarded as less important and subservient to the men.
'Egalitarian' means that there is no sexual division of labor in these cultures. Men and women all do the necessary tasks to help the group survive.
Men and women contribute equally to the food supply for the group and spend equal amounts of time in food foraging activity.
Although men and women generally do different tasks and may have separate ritual/social occasions, 'cross-over' often happens, and the activities of both sexes are equally valued; women are as equal as men.


12. Horticultural communities generally
work primarily to produce enough food for their own needs, perhaps with surplus for feasts, but not to produce surplus for sale.
have draft animals such as oxen or horses to help them plow their fields.
maximize their efficiency by concentrating on a few major crops, each of which is grown in its own cleared field, so that one crop does not have to compete with another for space.
permanently damage, even destroy, their environments for any further human use after a few years of farming.
all of the above are usual characteristics or consequences of a horticultural lifestyle.


13. According to the Original Study in Chapter 6, the Mekranoti Kayapo Indians of Brazil's Amazon forest
very carefully plant their gardens in neat rows, deriving social prestige and taking pride in the orderly appearance of their plots of land.
use fertilizers and a simple irrigation system to add to the productivity of the tropical soil.
are so efficient in their farming techniques that they are able to grow the same crops in the same plots of land for up to 15 or 20 years at a time before the soil is too overworked to produce.
plant a varied mixture of crops in the same garden, which are harvested at different times and provide different foods in several consecutive years.
all of the above.


14. In the same Original Study, the main point the author is making is to demonstrate
how destructive slash and burn horticultural practices are to the tropical rain forests of Brazil.
how quickly the farming lifestyle here has led to complex specialization of labor and a stratified (social classes) society.
that this kind of slash and burn gardening makes good ecological sense in the tropical rain forest.
that open field agriculture would be a much more productive and energy efficient use of this environment than the primitive slash and burn gardening of these people.
that slash and burn farming is a very labor-intensive (requires lots of hard work from lots of people) subsistence strategy that just barely provides an adequate living for these people.


15. Among the several horticultural societies of New Guinea and Melanesia described or discussed or your text and video,
men acquire prestige and power by being able to give away quantities of food, such as pigs or yams.
men acquire power and prestige by producing a surplus with which they can buy themselves fine houses and tools.
women are removed from any part in food-producing activities, to spend all their time maintaining their husbands' households and raising their children.
complex specialization of labor takes at least half of the adults, men and women, out of actual food-raising activities, making them dependent on those who still work the land.
elaborate irrigation systems are essential to sustain the crop yields upon which these people depend.


16. The Nuer (African pastoralists) differ from the Ju/'hoansi (African food-foragers) in which of the following ways?
Because the Nuer have their own herds of cattle, they can and do settle in large permanent villages, whereas the Bushman must be constantly on the move as resources become available.
The Nuer have a definite division of labor according to gender, whereas among the Ju/'hoansi there is little differentiation between men's work and women's work since all tasks are worked on equally by all adults.
The Nuer need to be able to protect their herds and their migration routes, and therefore value men as warriors, whereas food-foragers place little or no emphasis on fighting and do no have warrior roles for men.
The Nuer live in a rich rolling grassland environment, which provides good pasture for their herds, whereas the Bushman live in a difficult dry environment.
All of the above are noticeable differences between these two African subsistence systems.


17. The Nuer (shown in telelesson #7) show their dependence on and connection to their cattle in which of the following ways?
They sing songs to them and about them, and take their personal names from their animals.
They sacrifice cows or oxen to their gods when they need help or want to give thanks.
They drink the milk and blood, as well as eating the meat of the cattle.
They use ash from cattle dung to cover their bodies and brush their teeth.
All of the above scenes showed the centrality of cattle in the lives of the Nuer.


18. The Basseri (tape #7) and the Bakhtiari (text) illustrate which of the following characteristics of pastoralism?
The men hunt, while the women take care of the domesticated animals.
Because they have a reliable food source, they live in settled communities.
It is difficult to accumulate wealth because of the social obligation to periodically slaughter whole herds to give meat away at festivals.
Their lives are shaped largely by the need to make difficult and dangerous migrations each year to find appropriate summer and winter pastures for their flocks.


19. The project discussed in the Anthropology applied page in chapter six ('Agricultural Development and the Anthropologist') focused on
the introduction of newly developed drought-resistant crops to help farmers in Ethiopia.
the re-introduction of ancient terracing techniques in mountainous areas of Peru, to lessen soil erosion and increase productivity for local farmers.
studying patterns of co-operation in Indian villages to assure continued maintenance of newly introduced irrigation systems.
providing family farms in South America with surplus fertilizers from North America, to increase soil productivity and thus lessen the need to cut and burn new areas of tropical rain forest every few years.
introducing cash crops, suitable for export, to subsistence farmers in Brazil, to enable them to participate in the world economy and thus raise their standard of living.


20. A particularly noticeable feature of the wet-rice farming in Taiwan (telelesson #8) is
the amount of hard manual work this form of agriculture requires at every stage of the farming cycle.
the cheerful singing and chattering that accompanies all of the work scenes, suggesting that people regard work as a happy social event.
the sophistication of the farming equipment this very modern culture has developed in order to increase productivity.
the devastating effects of malaria and water-borne parasites on the health of the people who work the fields.
the strict division of labor according to gender--only men work the rice fields, women are secluded in their houses and do not participate in public life.


21. Among the Netsilik Eskimo (from tape #7), seal hunting is done
only in the summertime when men can use the kayaks.
by separate nuclear families; each family catches its own seals.
by cooperating groups of hunters, each of whom watches one breathing hole in the winter ice.
in communal kayak drives in which seals are driven through the open water into net traps.


22. According to one myth of the Netsilik Eskimo, seals were created
at the same time all other forms of marine and land life were created, brought into being by the works of a powerful god of creation.
from the bones of the 'founding father' or original ancestor of the Nestilik clans, who gave up his life in order to feed his people.
from chunks of ancient sea ice that didn't melt in the first summer.
from the chopped off fingers of an orphan girl, who was left to drown.
through the process of natural selection over millions of years, as creatures, once adapted for life on land, adapted to life in the sea.


23. Just after killing a seal, why do the Netsilik hunters immediately cut it open and eat the raw liver?
They know that the liver would be the first part to go bad, and don't want to let it go to waste.
The liver is eaten as a mark of respect to the sea goddess who allowed the seal to be taken.
The liver is regarded as having special power for males, and must be eaten right away for maximum benefit and strength.
The liver is regarded as the tastiest morsel of seal meat, and the hunters figure they have the right to eat it, since they're the ones who caught the seal.
They go for so long without food that they are ravenously hungry, and can't wait to cook the meat or bring it home; the liver is just one piece of meat that is easy to get at.


24. In telelesson #7, three different pastoral cultures are depicted: the Nuer of Sudan, Africa, the Sherpas of Nepal and the Basseri of Iran. From what you remember seeing, the scenes from lives of the Sherpas differ from scenes from the lives of the other two groups in which of the following ways?
The Sherpas have bred animals specifically adapted to the local natural environment, so that care taking and keeping their herds seems less of an all consuming struggle than it seems to be for Basseri or Nuer pastoralists.
The work that women do both with the animals and in the homes seemed to be given more attention in the Sherpa segment than was the case in either the Nuer or Basseri scenes.
The Sherpas seem to have a more varied economic base, which includes some farming and trading, as well as the herding.
There were more scenes suggesting that Sherpas live in more permanent settlements and accumulate more property than seemed to be the case for the Nuer or Basseri.
All of the above were visual clues marking differences about Sherpa lives.


25. Cultural ecology, as a sub discipline within Anthropology, has as its primary focus of study
the damage that human cultural patterns do to the natural environment.
the material remains of past cultures that ultimately failed because they overused, or were unable to adapt to, their natural environments.
the lifestyles of traditional foraging cultures, which are the only surviving remnants of how humans are naturally adapted to the world's natural environments.
the interaction of specific human cultures with the environments in which they exist.
strategies to protect and preserve the lifestyles of all traditional peoples in the face of the pressures modern civilization puts upon them.


26. On Pentecost Island in Melanesia, why do men periodically build a 90' tower and dive off it, with a rope tied to their ankles to break their fall?
This is done to demonstrate male courage and strength - a process of competitive risk taking.
This is done as part of the process of becoming a Big Man, to impress followers and gain political power.
This is a native variation of 'bungee-jumping,' which is done primarily for the fun of it, for the excitement of experiencing free fall.
This is done as a form of human sacrifice by lottery: whichever men break their necks and die are considered chosen by the gods to be their servants for the coming year.
This is done as part of a fertility ritual relating to the harvesting of yams.


27. The basic elements of all economic system are
production, distribution, and consumption
profit and loss
marketplaces
supply and demand
buying and selling


28. Which of the following economic patterns might you find among food-foragers like the Ju/'hoansi of South Africa?
A technology consisting of few, relatively simple tools, which are readily shared.
A division of labor in which there is considerable overlap and/or easy exchange between 'men's work' and 'women's work.'
A loosely defined sense of territory, marked by easily recognized 'core features' rather than permanent boundaries.
A system of exchange of goods and services based largely on generalized reciprocity.
All of the above are mentioned by your text as characteristic of food-foragers.


29. Which of the following would be the clearest example of reciprocity?
A Mendi Big Man handing out all the meat from the pigs that have just been killed.
Paying the cashier at Safeway and walking out with your groceries.
Babysitting for a friend who took care of your plants while you were away for Christmas vacation.
Holding a garage sale.
Earning a commission for each insurance policy you sell for your employer.


30. A Big Man feast is considered a leveling mechanism because
participants exchange goods that are regarded as equivalent in value, so that everyone ends up with the same wealth they started with.
the special necklaces and arm bands that are exchanged lose value every time they move from one owner to the next.
the wealth that has been accumulated by the Big Man gets distributed widely to the guests, so that no one ends up with significantly more than anyone else.
it is an occasion to renew friendships, exchange gossip, and resolve old quarrels.
it is one of the few community-wide celebrations in which the upper-class people mingle with lower-class people.


31. In order for redistribution to take place, there must be
a marketplace.
some surplus and some kind of central agency or administration.
some form of currency as money.
good social or personal relationships among the participants.
leaders with strong moral and ethical principles and a genuine concern for the well-being of their people.


32. Redistribution in the United States takes the form of
taxes.
Church or club potlucks.
find drives such as United Way.
all of the above are examples of redistribution.
none of the above are examples of redistribution; United States economy is based on the market principle and, therefore, does not involve any form of redistribution.


33. Non-industrial societies often differ from modern Western industrial societies in which of the followings ways?
There is often no sexual division of labor, as all members of these communities must be able to do all the tasks necessary for survival.
Profit is not necessarily the guiding motivation in economic exchange.
Children and old people are often more active and valued participants in the economic life of households and communities.
Land is owned, if at all, by whole kin groups or communities, not by individuals.
All except (a) above.


34. In societies in which redistribution is at the base of the exchange system, leaders gain status, power, and prestige by
giving their wealth away generously and publicly.
accumulating more wealth than others in their own communities.
displaying their wealth in the most elaborate and expensive way they can.
making a good profit in exchanges with neighboring communities.
hiding their wealth, pretending to be poor and struggling along with the rest of the communities.


35. Among the Enga of Papua, New Guinea, described in the original study in chapter seven, why do individual extended families, who value their independence, nonetheless contribute to the political ambitions of their clan 'Big Man' ?
The Big Man actually personally owns the land each family farms, so as his tenants they have to pay their 'rent' in the form of food they grow.
The Big Man's success in advertising the wealth and strength of the whole clan will enhance the security of each of the clan's individual families.
The Big Man has a well-trained personal 'army' who are always ready to take by force what he demands of each family, if it is not 'given voluntarily.'
The Big Man is considered chosen by the ancestors to lead the clan, and therefore each family contributes as much as it can out of a sense of religious duty.
All of the above are factors which operate in this complex system to encourage the full participation of individual family units in the political activities of their clan Big Man.


36. Generally, the foremost desire or goal of a Mayan peasant farmer, as described in your text, is to
make a good profit from his labor.
provide for the welfare of his family.
please the gods and goddesses of the fields.
acquire prestige as a 'Big Man.'
develop new and more efficient tools and farming techniques.


37. According to the market principle as understood in Western industrialized cultures, the value of goods is determined by
The social status of the seller.
The closeness of the relationship between buyer and seller.
The current availability and desirability of the goods - 'supply and demand.'
The social status and political power of the buyer.
The negotiation and bargaining skills of the buyer.


38. In America, which of the following would best illustrate the concept of conspicuous consumption?
Driving a very flashy expensive car.
Shopping at K-Mart.
Making your own clothes.
Going to LCC.
Applying for food stamps.


39. The material on economic Anthropology suggests that the introduction of a cash economy and wage labor has had which of the following effects on many traditional, non-Western societies?
Working for wages has given laborers a greater sense of their own value and an increased pride in their skills and accomplishments.
Participating in a cash economy has given traditional communities a new sense of purpose, direction, and cohesiveness.
Working for wages allows laborers more time to be with their families, and thus contributes to traditional family solidarity.
Wage labor separates workers from the finished products of their labor, and thus turns people into replaceable units of production.
The cash economy provides traditional workers with new opportunities for self improvement, and a new sense of control and meaning in their lives.


40. In the film on the highland Maya, the 'cargo system' refers to
the informal organization of Mayan truck farmers, who help each other with the harvest and sale of crops.
a hierarchy of civil and religious offices.
the religious cult, which believes that the gods will soon send truckloads of goods to the patient peasants.
the state-run network of local truckers who transport the crops produced in the rural areas to central distribution centers in the towns.
the network of mechanic shops who repair Maya and mestizo cars and trucks, and thus rightfully claim that they make car-go.


42. Mestizos in the highlands benefit from the Maya cargo system in which of the following ways?
The generosity of the gods, gained by the religious observances of the Maya, gives the mestizos good harvests as well.
Mestizos are always the top-ranking cargo holders and, therefore, can wield both political and economic power over the lower-ranking Maya.
Mestizos are assured steady delivery of surplus Mayan crops and crafts, which they in turn sell for huge profits in the largest cities.
Since mestizos usually are outsiders who work for the local Mayan landowners, they get bonuses and days off and other 'fringe benefits' from all these festival days.
The cargo system gives mestizo employers a steady supply of very cheap Mayan labor.


43. In this highland Maya region, 'vacant towns' are
villages that are abandoned due to loss of fertility in the land.
mock villages that have been constructed to be dwellings for ancient Maya gods.
towns that are mostly inhabited only on special ceremonial occasions.
towns that are avoided because of traditional taboos.
what we would call 'ghost towns:' mining boom-towns that have gone bust when the mineral deposits have all been removed.


44. To the Highland Maya, the chief contribution of the festivals is that
they provide a time when all the families join together as a community.
they provide a socially accepted means for contact with the mestizo subculture.
they are a time for rewarding the cargo holders for their service.
they provide a time when the oldest members of the community are honored.


45. A businesswomen who plans to open a branch office in Japan might decide to hire a cultural anthropologist as a consultant to help her in which of the following ways?
The anthropologist could explain to her how sex roles in Japan are defined and how this might affect Japanese people's perceptions of her.
The anthropologist could advise her on how to sit, dress, and talk when making arrangements with local people.
The anthropologist could advise her on ways to design her information brochures and advertisements.
The anthropologist could make a social impact assessment, analyzing the ways in which her business might affect the people in the Japanese community she has chosen as site of her new office.
All of the above are services which a cultural anthropologist could provide to enhance the effectiveness of her international enterprise.




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