Exam questions
Anthropology refers to the study of human society, human nature, and human past. Therefore, it is essentially a scholarly discipline, which aims to give a description of what it means to be a human. This discipline is holistic meaning that its primary goal is to study the human kind as a whole, comparative meaning that comparative methods are employed in the study of the human behavior structure and development, field based, as well as evolutionary.
Anthropology is traditionally divided into 4 fields that include cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and biological anthropology. It is worth noting that all these fields are united by the concept of culture.
Cultural anthropology also referred as ethnology, social anthropology, or sociocultural anthropology draws together principle axes of social anthropology and cultural anthropology. Social anthropology entails the study of relationships among groups and persons, whereas cultural anthropology is comparative study of manifold ways where individuals make sense of world around them. The central concern of this field of anthropology is the study of social organization and kinship as family and marriage are our initial institutions. The other fundamental areas that are covered under this field include political and social organization, technology, and cultural exchange, among others.
Physical or Biological anthropology is the second field of anthropology that is essentially concerned with the present and past physical nature of the humanity. This means that under this field, anthropologists focus on the study of non-human primates and humans in their evolutionary, biological, and demographic dimensions.
Archaeological anthropology is a field that focuses on the study of human past by its material remains. Fauna remains, human altered landscapes, and artifacts, are evidence of material lives and culture of the past societies. Thus, archaeologists inspect the mentioned material remains so as to deduce the patterns of past cultural practices and human behavior.
Finally, Linguistic anthropology seeks to know human communications processes, non-verbal and verbal, language variation across space and time, social uses of the language, and relationship between culture and language.
Explain different systems of explanation such as mythology and scientific theories. Which do anthropologists study?
There are various systems of explanation. These include both scientific and non-scientific explanations. Some anthropologists make a claim that their efforts to explain human society, the human past, and human nature are scientific. In terms of explanation by using the scientific theories, anthropology as a social science is mainly concerned with the application of scientific principles to social behavior study in the similar way that these principles of science are applied to the other human behavior areas.
Most aspects of the human behavior are examined by using scientific theories. Mating behavior, family structure, religious movements, warfare, cannibalism, infanticide, and other human behaviors forms are examined by the anthropologists by application of the scientific research methods. Science is empirical meaning that it is based on the concrete observation and experience.
Scientific theories are built on and tested against the direct physical contact with the real objects in the world. Scientists are normally engaged in the progressively refined material objects experimental manipulation and processes in the globe. This activity thus results to production of stories that are more sophiscated about how the world works. Anthropologists study the scientific theories because they are based on concrete observations and evidence.
On the other hand, mythology as a system of explanation involves stories, which recount the way several aspects of world came to be how they are. Therefore, myths power results from their ability to make the meaningful for the individuals who accept them. Their truth seems self-evident as they in an effective manner integrate the personal experiences with a broader set of assumptions concerning how the society or the planet in general operates. Anthropological understanding of the concept of myth doesn’t assume that they are necessarily false. Thus, stories, which survive to turn into myths normally, connect in significant ways with day to day human experiences in a given society.
What are the main evolutionary processes that act on individuals? Asked another way, how do individuals contribute to evolution of their species?
Evolution refers to the change in biological populations’ inherited characteristics over successive generations. The evolutionary processes result to diversity at each biological organisations level including individual organisms, species, and molecules like proteins and DNA. There are a number of evolutionary processes, which act on the individuals and include migration, genetic drift, mutation, and natural selection.
Migration evolutionary process is also called gene flow. This is actually genes movement between the subpopulations of a given species. A species in nature is normally divided into numerous local subpopulations. Individuals within every subpopulation normally mate at random. However, they may mate less frequently with the individuals from the other subpopulation due to the geographical distance or the other ecological barriers. When the individuals from diverse subpopulations travel easily from a particular subpopulation to another, the genes flow freely amongst subpopulations and remain genetically same. Nonetheless, when the individuals from diverse subpopulations face difficulty in moving between the subpopulations, gene flow is normally restricted.
Genetic Drift is basically gene frequencies random fluctuation in a population. This evolutionary process concerns changes, which are driven only by the random chance occurrences and not by other mechanisms such as mutation, migration, or natural selection. This process of evolution is most crucial in the small populations, where genetic diversity loss is normally more likely as a result of them having smaller number of individuals by which to maintain the genetic diversity.
Natural selection refers to differential reproduction of the genetically varied individuals within a given population, which results in the individuals who fitness is essentially greater hence leaving more offspring in next generation than the individuals of lesser fitness. This evolutionary process involves 5 basic assumptions which include variation, struggle for existence, differential reproduction and survival, time, and inheritance. Natural selection results to a change in the gene frequencies within a given population over time.
Last but not least, mutation is an evolutionary process in individuals where the DNA sequence of genome in a cell changes. It is worth to not that mutations can result is a number of implications for an organism. For one, mutations can have no any effect, a detrimental effect, or a beneficial effect.
What traits do primates share? How are the main groups of modern primates differentiated?
Primates arose from the ancestors that lived in trees of the tropical forests. It is important to note that many characteristics of primate represent their adaptations to life in the challenging three dimensional environments. The traits that primates share fall under different categories. First there are locomotor characters that include grasping hands and feet with opposable toes and thumbs. In addition, the center of gravity of primates is shifted towards their hind limbs. Moreover, primates have nails that are present on all their digits.
The traits under the reproductive features include their long lifespans, sexual maturity that is relatively late in their lives, the urogenital sinus is absent in females, and have descent of testes in early life. Under the stereoscopic vision category, about half of their retinal axons normally project to ipsilateral side of brain. Their ethmoid bones on inner orbit walls are exposed. Under the brain characteristics, they have enlarged brains with the decreased areas for smelling and increased areas for seeing. The other characters include their tendency towards vertical posture and shortened snout, which contains at least 3 types of teeth among others.
The main groups of present-day primates are differentiated in an ascending series leading to the humans. The commonly used names for primates groups such as “monkeys,” “prosimians,” “great apes,” and “lesser apes” reflect this arrangement. The modern primates’ differentiation typically utilizes groups, which are monophyletic as they include all descendants of a shared ancestor. In addition, they are differentiated between family and order.
How do new species arise? How do natural global events in geology and climate influence speciation?
Speciation refers to the process through which a single species splits into 2 species. Fossil record informs us that the new species have actually evolved from the pre-existing ones. The speciation process has been difficult to observe since there has been a controversy on mechanisms of speciation. Not all the evolutionary changes result into new species. Critical process in formation of new species involves segregation of gene pool of ancestral species into 2 gene pools that are separate. It is important to note that speciation is normally facilitated by the interruption of the gene flow amongst the populations. This gene flow might be interrupted in various ways.
The natural global events in geology lead to what is referred to as geographic isolation. This is a situation where a population is usually divided by the natural barrier such as oceans, lakes, mountains, among others, causing the gene pools to be isolated hence the organisms adapt to their specific environment. These natural global events sin geology subject the two populations to diverse selection pressures since the two areas have different conditions. For that reason, different alleles are selected and genetic differences gradually accumulate between populations. In time, sufficient genetic differences occur hence the two populations no longer interbreed. By definition, the 2 populations become different species.
The variation in the climatic conditions over the space and time is a vital speciation driver. The ecological similarity over the time is normally an imperative speciation part. On the other hand, the long term directional change in climate promotes speciation through niche conservatism for the species that has low climatic niche liability, while climatic oscillations normally promote speciation through niche divergence for the species having higher climatic niche liability.
Compare and contrast the tools made and used by H. habilis, H. erectus, and H. sapiens in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic.
Paleolithic period or Old Stone Age is prehistoric period of the human history that is distinguished by development of most primitive stone tools that were discovered. Mesolithic period or middle Stone Age is actually the ancient cultural stage, which occurred between Paleolithic period and Neolithic period. During these two periods, the tools that were used by Homo habilis, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens were different.
During the Paleolithic period, Homo habilis used simple stone, bone, and wood tools. Homo habilis are known to have developed the earliest Paleolithic period tool industry called Olduwan. They made tools like choppers, awls, and burins. Homo habilis remains are frequently accompanied by the primitive stone tools. In this period,
Homo erectus used sophiscated tools. Unlike the earliest hominids, which developed flakes and crude choppers, Homo erectus made stones axes that were sophiscated. They also used finger size scrappers and sharp stone cleavers to slice off sizes of meat. In addition, they made the initial wooden spears and bowls during this period. Various tools that Homo erectus made during this period were relatively primitive just like those of Homo habilis.
The tools made by Homo sapiens were at first similar to those made by Homo erectus and Homo habilis. They also made stone tools like scrapers, flakes, and certain points. However, they made different tools later as the technology improved. This included tools like stone blade knife, arrow heads, among others.
During the Mesolithic period, small stone tools emerged. These tools are associated with Homo sapiens. The tools were called microliths and they were V shaped. Bow and arrows were also used during this period. In addition to stone tools, bone tools were also used during this period. These tools were different from those that were used by Homo erectus and Homo habilis during the Paleolithic period.
Evaluate how archaeologists can identify culturally modern humans.
The archaeology in anthropology entails the study of human cultures by recovery, documentation, as well as analysis of the material remains and the environmental data including artifacts, architecture, human remains, landscapes, and bio facts. Thus, the goals of archaeologists involves to document as well as explain human cultures origins and development, study ecology and human behavior for both historic and prehistoric societies, chronicle cultural evolution, and understand culture history.
In the identification of culturally modern humans, archaeologists will begin their project with a survey. They will either use site survey or regional survey. Under site survey, they will try in a systematic manner to locate their features of such as middens and houses within a site. On the other hand, under regional survey, they will try to systematically locate the previously unknown sites in a given region.
After conducting the survey, these archaeologists needs conduct archaeological excavation where they utilize modern excavation techniques. They are required to know the correct locations of features and objects and record their provenience and provenance. In most cases this will involve determining their vertical position and at times their horizontal position as well. Similarly, they need to record the relationship or association of these objects and features with the nearby ones for future uses. This will allow them to deduce which features and artifacts were probably used together and the ones from dissimilar phases of activity.
In the next step, these archaeologists need to form site plan that will help them decide the excavation method to use. The features that they are going to dig into natural subsoil are most likely excavated in some portions so as to produce visible archaeological section important for recording. Finally, these archaeologists will process the collected data.
