All Anthro Trivia Quiz

Answer: Carbon dating

'Relative' means you don't get an exact date--you only know your find is older or younger than other objects. Carbon dating uses a carbon isotope found in all organic things (i.e., coal or wood, bone) and measures its half-life to determine an actual date.

After about 50 thousand years there is too little to measure, and this technique is no longer accurate. Biostratigraphy uses non-human animals with known dating to estimate the age of finds found in the same layers (You know Pigimus maximus lived at a certain time and then find humans in the same sequence, so you can guess a date for your find). Fluorine only works on organic objects like bone that were deposited in water and soaked up fluorine. Each body of water has its own fluorine level, so this only works on fossils found at the same time but is relative because it involves a comparison with the other fossils. Seriation is the study of ceramics as a stylistic sequence through successive layers of a dig.

Answer: Homo habilis

Remember that there are probably many fossils not yet discovered that could change this, but as of NOW--the first Homo is thought to be habilis at 2.4 mya (there is another highly debated species called Homo rudolphensis at close to the same time, but anthropologists actually pick fist fights with each other over its verity--email me for the story); next is Homo erectus at about 1.8 mya; heidelbergensis and neandertalensis are from Europe at least a million years later.

Answer: All of these

When the African and Eurasian continents ran into each other, it had several effects. First it allowed migration of hominoids (apes) into Europe and Asia, which is why we have Orangutans in Sumatra today. Second, it cut off ocean circulation in the Tethys Sea which flowed around North Africa to the Atlantic at the time (the Mediterranean is what's left), so the climate got colder.

This caused extinction due to the cold and the effect it had on available food sources.

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.

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.

Answer: Iraq

Iraq (Part of Mesopotamia) is the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers where the first evidence is found at about 10 kya. Cathay was the area of what is now China; the Gangetic States became India and Brittania is what the ancient Romans called England. Agriculture evolved independently in the New World.

Answer: Gregor Mendel

Mendel was a monk who used pea plants to come up the idea that traits were inherited through sexual recombination, not a 'blending' of traits that was the popular theory at the time (i.e.: your Mom is short and your Dad is tall, so you will be in the middle).

His ideas were ignored until long after Darwin published his theories on evolution, which were groundbreaking but missing the method of inheritance. Genetics and evolution were later combined into what is now termed the 'Modern Synthesis'. Lyell was a geologist whose Theory of Uniformitarianism demonstrated that the Earth was very old--thus bolstering Darwin's argument that evolution is a long process, which was contrary to religious dogma at the time. Leakey was an anthropologist who named many species of humans.

Answer: A woman married to multiple men

Polyandry is very rare, but still practiced in the South American highlands, where the system of inheritance makes it culturally valuable for one woman to marry several brothers so they do not have to divide the family acreage. Polygyny is much more common, the practice of one man and several wives.

Incest is being married to your sister (widely practiced by ancient royals to preserve bloodlines.)

Answer: A chin

Having a chin (i.e.: your jaw doesn't recede at the bottom) is a hallmark feature of modern humans, thought to change muscle attachments and possibly allow a full range of vocal capabilities. Extra sutures can happen in either species, producing extra bones called wormian bones (not harmful); an Inca bone is one type of wormian bone. Neither species had a sagittal crest (like apes) and they had the same amount of teeth (32).

Answer: All of these

A built environment is any place constructed by man according to certain cultural rules. Depending on the construction, only certain types of linguistic and cultural interaction can take place. For example, your options for communication will be different in a prison than in a library.