Anthropology 101 Test Questions with Complete Solutions

acclimatization - a change in the way the body functions in response to physical stress Acheulean tradition - a Lower Paleolithic stone-tool tradition associated with Homo erectus and characterized by stone bifaces, or 'hand axes.' achieved statuses - social positions people may attain later in life, often as the result of their own (or other people's) effort. adaptation - (1) the mutual shaping of organisms and their environments; (2) the shaping of useful features of an organism by natural selection for the function they now perform. adaptations - adjustments by an organism (or group of organisms) that help them cope with environmental challenges of various kinds. adoption - kinship relationships based on nurturance, often in the absence of other connections based on mating or birth. affinal relationships - kinship connections through marriage, or affinity. affinity - connection through marriage affluence - the condition of having more than enough of whatever is required to satisfy consumption needs agriculture - the systematic modification of the environments of plants and animals to increase their productivity and usefulness. agroecology - the systematically modified environment (or constructed niche) that becomes the only environment within which domesticated plants can flourish alleles - all the different forms that a particular gene might take anagenesis - the slow, gradual transformation of a single species over time. analogy - convergent, or parallel, evolution, as when two species with very differetn evolutionary histories develop similar physical features as a result of adapting to a similar environment. anatomically modern human beings - hominin fossils assigned to the species H. sapiens with anatomical features similar to those of living human populations: short and round skulls, small brow ridges and faces, prominent chins, and light skeletal build. anthropology - the study of human nature, human society, and the human past anthropomorphism - the attribution of human characteristics to to nonhuman animals. applied anthropologists - specialists who use information gathered from the other anthropological specialties to solve practical cross-cultural problems. aptation - the shaping of any useful feature of an organism, regardless of its origin. archaeological record - all material objects constructed by humans or near-humans revealed by archaeology. archaeology - a cultural anthropology of the human past involving the analysis of material remains left behind by earlier societies. archaic Homo sapiens - hominins dating from 500,000 to 200,000 years ago that possessed morphological features found in both Homo erectus and Homo sapiens.