Biological Anthropology EXAM 1 Part 1
Questions and Answers
What are the different levels at which we see similarities? - Answer-genetic, anatomical,
physiological, behavioral, psychological
what is cumulative culture? - Answer-behavioral aspects of human adaptation, including
technology, traditions, languages, religion, marriage patterns, and social roles
what is culture? - Answer-a set of learned behaviors transmitted from one generation to
the next by nonbiological means
what is biological anthropology? - Answer-the study of human biological evolution and
biocultural variation
(how are we different from people in different regions of the world? does the way that
we live cause these differences?)
why is it a poor idea for certain groups to interbreed? (such as past European
monarchies) - Answer-can cause deleterious effects because humans need the mixture
of genes which comes from breeding with different groups... there needs to be genetic
diversity for the population to continue
what are some examples of non-human primates? - Answer-apes, monkeys, tarsiers,
lemurs, and lorises
what is the one place on earth that humans have not been able to inhabit? - Answer-the
ocean
human biology and biological variation can be studied at two levels... what are these
two levels? - Answer-1) every person is a product of the hominin evolutionary history
2) every person is a product of individual life history
-ex: you may inherit your parent's height, but you may not reach your potential height
due to environmental factors such as famine
what is paleo genomics? - Answer-the study of genomes on the paleontological level
scientific method - Answer-science is a method of gaining information to explain natural
phenomenon
what is a hypothesis? - Answer-statements that potentially explain scientific phenomena
observed in the natural world
, Pre-Darwinian explanation of adaptations: - Answer--there was no scientific explanation
for the fact that organisms were well adapted to their circumstances
Pre-Darwinian Medieval worldview of adaptation: - Answer--the teachings of Christianity
were taken literally
-living things revealed the perfect creation of a supreme designer, God
the idea of Fixity of Species: - Answer--animals do not change
-because all aspects of nature, and their relationships to one another were God's
deliberate creation exactly as they were, life-forms couldn't, shouldn't, and didn't change
Circumnavigation of the globe caused: - Answer-more awareness of biological
diversity... new plants, animals, and peoples were discovered
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) - Answer-heliocentric worldview=Copernican world
system
-said that the Earth is not the center of the universe
Galileo Galilei (1564-1624) - Answer--restated and published Copernican world system
-was put under house arrest by the church for discovering this
-discovered true function of the heart and circulatory system
-development of scientific instruments: telescope, barometer, and microscope
James Hutton - Answer--studied the forces of wind and rain on Scottish landscape
-these forces changed Earth's surface in the past as they do in the present
(uniformitarianism)
Charles Lyell (1797-1875) - Answer--rediscovered and publicizes Hutton
-they revised the timescale for the study of past life
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) - Answer--pioneered paleontology and comparative
anatomy
-applied anatomical knowledge to fossils and reconstructed the physical characteristics
of past animals
-observed that each stratum seemed to contain a unique set of fossils
-concluded that organisms must have gone extinct due to some powerful catastrophe,
such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions
what is catastrophism? - Answer-the belief that cataclysmic events rather than
evolutionary processes are responsible for geologic changes throughout Earth's history
Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event: - Answer-meteorite hit earth and killed the
Dinos... hit near the Yucatan peninsula.
-it was ~100 miles in diameter
-dinos died out and mammals took over
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