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Anthropology Quizzes, Trivia and Puzzles
Anthropology Quizzes, Trivia

Anthropology Trivia

Anthropology Trivia Quizzes

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The study of humans, anthropology covers a wide variety of areas, including both past and present peoples. Here you will find many topics, including physical and cultural anthropology, as well as archaeology.
9 Anthropology quizzes and 100 Anthropology trivia questions.
1.
  Cultural Anthropology Mix editor best quiz    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
A mixed bag of Anthropology questions.
Tough, 10 Qns, vikan, Oct 30 12
Tough
vikan
6888 plays
2.
  Do You Know Anthropology?    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
How much do you know about anthropology? It's the study of humankind, to put it simply. This quiz is for everyone, whether you study anthropology or have never even heard of this science before. Happy quizzing.
Average, 10 Qns, kashu_gakusei, Aug 10 21
Average
kashu_gakusei
Aug 10 21
2682 plays
3.
  Back In First Year Anthropology   popular trivia quiz  
Multiple Choice
 15 Qns
So, you took an anthropology elective back in first year university. How much do you remember?
Average, 15 Qns, cannedcorn, Aug 03 24
Average
cannedcorn
Aug 03 24
4023 plays
4.
  More Anthro! editor best quiz    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
More anthro stuff--probably useless if you're not an anthro major, but since it's my life I couldn't put it under useless trivia! Enjoy.
Difficult, 10 Qns, darwin1963, Sep 23 16
Difficult
darwin1963
4148 plays
5.
  All Anthro    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Time to put my new B.A. to use---remember that Anthropology has FOUR subfields: Archaeological, Biological, Linguistic and Cultural. Expect anything!
Average, 10 Qns, darwin1963, Jul 07 20
Average
darwin1963
Jul 07 20
2181 plays
6.
  Our New Human Cousin - the "Hobbit"    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
In October 2004, the discovery of a hitherto unknown species of human was announced. Test your knowledge of this exciting science story, and maybe learn something new!
Average, 10 Qns, inquizitive, May 30 15
Average
inquizitive
1123 plays
7.
  All Things Anthropology   great trivia quiz  
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Let's take a look at some of the most famous and influential anthropologists worldwide, their works and also their disputes.
Tough, 10 Qns, NielD, Mar 11 17
Tough
NielD
255 plays
8.
  Anthropological Theorists    
Multiple Choice
 10 Qns
Anthropology is based upon theory. Without a theoretical basis to rest one's research upon, findings are merely collections of exotic ethnographic accounts.
Tough, 10 Qns, Leki, Jun 23 17
Tough
Leki
1404 plays
9.
  Famous Anthropologists and Evolutionists    
Multiple Choice
 15 Qns
This quiz is about some famous anthropologists and evolutionists, and what they have contributed to the world of science.
Average, 15 Qns, celticpride, Dec 29 20
Average
celticpride
Dec 29 20
1046 plays
trivia question Quick Question
This person found another Homo Habilis skull along with a femur bone, the longest bone in the body, at East Lake Turkana in Kenya.

From Quiz "Famous Anthropologists and Evolutionists"





Anthropology Trivia Questions
1. Who came up with the four fields of anthropology?

From Quiz Famous Anthropologists and Evolutionists

Answer: Franz Boas

The four fields of anthropology are Cultural, Biological, Archaeology, and Linguistics.

2. In the media, the new human has been nicknamed "Hobbit." Why is this?

From Quiz Our New Human Cousin - the "Hobbit"

Answer: The adult stood at about 1 meter (3 feet 3 inches) tall

The "Hobbit" nickname refers to the small stature of the creature (and also the current popularity of the works of Tolkien.) Other than height, there is no known link to the creations of Tolkien in this discovery.

3. In most small-scale, non-industrial societies, social organization is based largely on _______________?

From Quiz Cultural Anthropology Mix

Answer: kinship affiliation

In most small non-industrial societies, kinship is the basis for group membership. In industrial societies, social relationships are based on other factors such as profession, neighborhood, common interests, and to a lesser degree kinship.

4. This person is one of the most respected anthropologists. He is the founder of "Structuralism". His most famous works are "The Raw and the Cooked" and especially "The Savage Mind". Who is he?

From Quiz All Things Anthropology

Answer: Claude Lévi-Strauss

This French cultural anthropologist is the founder of "Structuralism", which applies structural linguistics to the field of anthropology and therefore working interdisciplinarily. He was born in Brussels in 1908 and died in Paris in 2009.

5. He was a cultural anthropologist who practiced enculturation in 1914 on the Trobriand Islands.

From Quiz Famous Anthropologists and Evolutionists

Answer: Bronislaw Malinowski

Enculturation is when you pretend to be a member of a culture that you are studying. One danger of enculturation is in becoming what one pretends to be. Malinowski proved this by keeping two notebooks. One was about the Trobian Islanders and the other was about himself. After a while the two notebooks started to look alike.

6. In what geographic region was the discovery of the "Hobbit" made?

From Quiz Our New Human Cousin - the "Hobbit"

Answer: Indonesia

The discovery was made on the Indonesian island of Flores, which is in the heart of the Indonesian archipelago, and about 1500 kilometers from Jakarta.

7. John Locke was a proponent of this theory, especially popular in the 19th century, which states that all human beings start out in a primitive state, and are advancing towards a more advanced state.

From Quiz Anthropological Theorists

Answer: Progressivism

John Locke proposed that the human mind was a blank slate, with knowledge and reason being derived from experience. As a result, individuals growing up in different societies would have varied experiences. This would explain the differences between human societies.

8. People we are related to through blood are called ___________ relatives?

From Quiz Cultural Anthropology Mix

Answer: consanguineous

Affinal relatives are those we are related to through marriage.

9. Who came up with the method of classification of life that we still use today?

From Quiz Famous Anthropologists and Evolutionists

Answer: Carolus Linnaeus

He devised this method of classification in 1758, and he classified all living organisms together based on structure.

10. This word refers to a system of growing crops based on gardening in which no plow is used.

From Quiz Back In First Year Anthropology

Answer: horticulture

Horticulture refers to a system of gardening using hand tools, such as hoes, sticks and shovels. It allows for a higher population density than hunting and gathering, and also allows for a semi-sedentary population. Because horticultural societies must work to change their physical environment to a considerable degree, for example by felling trees, people in horticultural societies work very hard to obtain their means of subsistence.

11. This 19th century theorist coined the term "survival of the fittest"

From Quiz Anthropological Theorists

Answer: Spencer

Herbert Spencer was very interested in evolution, and applied Darwin's concepts to human societies. His organic analogy of human society linked biological and social evolution. Spencer considered Darwin's work as supporting his own, and it was Spencer, not Darwin as widely thought, that coined the famous term "survival of the fittest".

12. The earliest humans first appear in what epoch?

From Quiz More Anthro!

Answer: Pliocene

The Pliocene spanned 5-1.8 million years ago. The first hominids (upright primates, like us) appear in the record at about 4.5 million years ago. Oligocene: 34-22.5 mya; Miocene: 22.5-5 mya; Paleocene: 65-55 mya. The Paleocene is where we find the first primates, the Prosimians--the Miocene is where we get the Anthropoids, advanced monkeys and apes.

13. Kinship systems serve two important functions for the well-being of a society, vertical function and _________ function.

From Quiz Cultural Anthropology Mix

Answer: horizontal

Vertical function binds together a number of successive generations, that pass on education, tradition, property, and political office. Horizontal function ties together a single generation, through the process of marriage.

14. In the 1990s there was a heated academic dispute between anthropologists Gananath Obeyesekere and Marshall Sahlins. What was this dispute about?

From Quiz All Things Anthropology

Answer: The Death of Captain James Cook

The academic debate between Obeyesekere and Sahlins was about the death of James Cook, in 1779, and the reason why he was murdered by Hawaiian locals. Sahlins stated that the murder was part of a ritual ceremony in which Cook represented the Hawaiian god Lono, so when he came to the island the first time he was revered, but when he returned he was murdered, because the return of Lono meant a cosmological crisis which could only be resolved by a ritual murder. Obeyesekere, a more postmodern thinker, stated that Sahlin's theory was another European myth and that the locals killed Cook because he had kidnapped one of their chiefs and had exploited the locals during his previous stay, so they killed him as means of protection. It was a heated debate and they defended their theories with articles and books. Obeyeseker wrote "The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Myth-making in the Pacific" and Sahlins responded with his book "How Natives Think: About Captain Cook, For Example".

15. Who came up with the idea of stratigraphy, deeper layers being the older layers?

From Quiz Famous Anthropologists and Evolutionists

Answer: Charles Lyell

Charles Lyell also came up with The Principle of Uniformitarianism, which states that earth has been formed by a fixed set of natural forces operating throughout time, and that the forces changing the earth today were the same that changed it in the past.

16. What is the scientific name given to the new species, nicknamed "Hobbit"?

From Quiz Our New Human Cousin - the "Hobbit"

Answer: Homo floresiensis

It was named for the Island of Flores where the remains were discovered. Homo sapiens is our own species. Homo erectus is an earlier human species that lived 1.8 million - 200,000 years ago, and appears to be an ancestor of H. floresiensis. H. erectus is not believed to be a direct ancestor of H. sapiens. H. hobbitus is something I made up.

17. This word refers to the tendency for a person to see one's own culture as the standard by which other cultures should be judged. It can also refer to the tendency to view one's own culture as superior to all other cultures.

From Quiz Back In First Year Anthropology

Answer: ethnocentrism

Anthropologists attempt to view each culture on its own merit, in order to gain an understanding of a culture from the inside. Thus, anthropologists must work hard to overcome any ethnocentric tendencies within themselves.

18. This evolutionist added "savagery, barbarism, and civilization" to the repertoire of anthropological terms.

From Quiz Anthropological Theorists

Answer: Lewis Henry Morgan

Morgan believed there were universal evolutionary stages of cultural development marking the transition from primitive to complex. All societies, according to Morgan, progressed through savagry, barbarism, and civilization. Because of these beliefs, Morgan is considered to be a unilinear evolutionist.

19. As a primate, your major form of locomotion is True Brachiation, so how do you get around MOST of the time?

From Quiz All Anthro

Answer: Swing from your arms only through the trees

Only gibbons (one of the 'lesser' apes) practice this all the time, using their very long arms and flexible shoulder sockets to swing from the trees. Chimps and other apes do this, but only part of the time, so they are called 'semi-brachiators'. They also walk on all fours using their knuckles; chimps even walk upright sometimes. All fours in the trees is called arboreal quadupedality (like monkeys in S. America); leaping tree to tree is the preferred method for many lemurs and galagos, the most primitive primates. Walking upright is bipedality, the hallmark of Man.

20. A ____________ residence, is when two people marry and take up residence in a place of their own?

From Quiz Cultural Anthropology Mix

Answer: Neolocal

The married couple live: patrilocal- with or near the relatives of the husbands father, matrilocal - with or near the relatives of the wife, ambilocal - with either relatives of the wife or husband.

21. Who came up with the idea of "natural selection"?

From Quiz Famous Anthropologists and Evolutionists

Answer: Charles Darwin

Darwin is probably the best known evolutionist ever. He is very well known for his idea of natural selection, which states that the organism with the most characteristics that contribute to surviving, lives longer and leaves a greater number of offspring.

22. This word refers to the smallest unit of meaning in a language.

From Quiz Back In First Year Anthropology

Answer: morpheme

A morpheme can be a whole word, or a part of a word that carries meaning. For example, the "tri" in the word "tricycle" is a morpheme meaning "three." A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound selected for use in a language. Each individual sound in the word "tricycle" is considered to be a phoneme.

23. This nephew of famed sociologist Emile Durkheim postulated that gift-giving in society reflects the society's underlying social structure:

From Quiz Anthropological Theorists

Answer: Marcel Mauss

Gifts, according to Mauss, are material expressions of the social and behavioral rules that are inherent within a society. Gift exchanges forge and maintain social alliances, and increase social solidarity.

24. Which species of Homo came first?

From Quiz More Anthro!

Answer: Homo habilis

Habilis is first, followed by at 2.4 mya; erectus and ergaster close together at about 1.8 mya; and neandertalensis at about 500 kya.

25. Two species very distantly related that develop similar physical traits from adaptation to similar environmental selection pressures are an example of:

From Quiz All Anthro

Answer: Convergent evolution

Example: there are species in Australia that look identical to species elsewhere (like dogs, rabbits, wolves on other continents)--except that the Australian species are Marsupials, separated from Mammals by millions of years. Sympatric speciation is a species becoming two in the same environment but separated by behavioral or dietary adaptations that prevent them from breeding. Oogenesis is the making of female eggs, or ova; punctuated equilibrium is when a species stays the same for a long time then evolves rapidly due to selection pressures.

26. Explanations for the universal incest taboo include the natural aversion theory, the family disruption theory, the theory of expanding social alliances and _____________?

From Quiz Cultural Anthropology Mix

Answer: the inbreeding theory

It is generally agreed today, that inbreeding is genetically harmful to human populations. Whether or not prehistoric people understood this fact when establishing the incest taboo is unknown.

27. He wrote an essay on population stating that food supply increases at an arithmetic rate, and population increases at a geometric rate.

From Quiz Famous Anthropologists and Evolutionists

Answer: Thomas Malthus

Malthus said that population will always exceed the growth of food. He then stated that "perfectibility" of human society will always be out of reach.

28. Napoleon Chagnon wrote this book about a group of indigenous hunter gatherers living in South America. It was originally subtitled "The Fierce People."

From Quiz Back In First Year Anthropology

Answer: Yanomamo

First published in 1968, Chagnon has published numerous editions of this book updating us on new information he has found about the Yanomamo and changes that have occured due to the incursion of the dominant Brazilian culture. A major gold rush in the 1980s has had a profound impact upon the Yanomamo and indeed, the survival of their culture is threatened.

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Last Updated Nov 16 2024 5:48 AM
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