DSST General Anthropology — Questions and Answers

Question 1: The sickle-cell allele persists in some populations because heterozygotes gain what advantage?

Faster running speed
Better night vision
Improved cold tolerance
Resistance to malaria (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Resistance to malaria

Sickle-cell heterozygotes have partial malaria resistance, a case of balancing selection.

Question 2: What is ethnography?

A form of poetry
A type of currency
A musical instrument
A study of cultural practices (Correct answer)

Correct answer: A study of cultural practices

Ethnography is a primary research method in cultural anthropology, involving intensive fieldwork where researchers immerse themselves in a particular culture or community. Through participant observation and interviews, ethnographers aim to provide a detailed, descriptive account and analysis of a group's way of life, beliefs, and cultural practices.

Question 3: What term refers to the anthropological concept of a descent group whose members believe they share a common ancestor but cannot actually trace the exact genealogical links?

Clan (Correct answer)
Phratry
Lineage
Moiety

Correct answer: Clan

A clan is a unilineal descent group in which members claim descent from a common ancestor (often mythological) but cannot always trace exact genealogical connections.

Question 4: What is the study of past human diets through the analysis of stable isotopes in bones and teeth called?

Osteology
Isotopic analysis (Correct answer)
Zooarchaeology
Palynology

Correct answer: Isotopic analysis

Isotopic analysis examines ratios of stable isotopes (such as carbon and nitrogen) in skeletal remains to reconstruct ancient diets.

Question 5: Elman Service's typology of political organization lists four levels in order of increasing complexity. Which is the correct sequence?

Band → Chiefdom → Tribe → State
Band → Tribe → Chiefdom → State (Correct answer)
Tribe → Band → Chiefdom → State
Clan → Band → Tribe → State

Correct answer: Band → Tribe → Chiefdom → State

Service's evolutionary sequence moves from band (foragers) to tribe (horticulturalists/pastoralists) to chiefdom (ranked societies) to state (stratified, bureaucratic societies).

Question 6: What is 'syndemic theory,' developed by Merrill Singer?

The simultaneous spread of multiple diseases across global populations
The cultural synchronization of illness and healing rituals
The genetic clustering of diseases within ethnic populations
The interaction of two or more diseases that worsen each other within a social context (Correct answer)

Correct answer: The interaction of two or more diseases that worsen each other within a social context

Syndemic theory examines how co-occurring diseases interact biologically and are worsened by social conditions such as poverty and discrimination.

Question 7: A subsistence strategy based on the herding of domesticated animals is called:

Pastoralism (Correct answer)
Horticulture
Foraging
Intensive agriculture

Correct answer: Pastoralism

Pastoralism relies on raising and moving livestock for food and other products.

Question 8: What term describes the use of traditional plant-based remedies and the anthropological study of indigenous pharmaceutical knowledge?

Ethnopharmacology (Correct answer)
Bioprospecting
Herbal anthropology
Phytotherapy

Correct answer: Ethnopharmacology

Ethnopharmacology studies the traditional use of plants and other substances for medicinal purposes across different cultures.

Question 9: What term describes the theoretical approach that examines how culture is reproduced and transformed through everyday practice and habit, associated with Pierre Bourdieu?

Praxis anthropology
Practice theory (Correct answer)
Performativity theory
Agency theory

Correct answer: Practice theory

Practice theory, developed by Pierre Bourdieu (and also Anthony Giddens), focuses on how human agency and social structure mutually constitute each other through everyday practices.

Question 10: In anthropology, 'religious syncretism' refers to:

The forced replacement of indigenous beliefs by a dominant religion
The blending of elements from different religious traditions into a new, hybrid system (Correct answer)
The complete separation of sacred and secular domains in a society
The revival of pre-colonial religious practices after decolonization

Correct answer: The blending of elements from different religious traditions into a new, hybrid system

Syncretism occurs when two or more religious traditions merge — such as Vodou (blending West African religion with Catholicism) or many forms of Latin American folk Catholicism.

Question 11: Marcel Mauss's concept of the 'total social fact,' developed in his essay 'The Gift,' argues that:

All gifts create obligations of reciprocity that can never be fully repaid
The exchange of goods is the foundation of all human social institutions
Gift exchange simultaneously involves economic, social, religious, and political dimensions (Correct answer)
Traditional societies have no concept of economics separate from social life

Correct answer: Gift exchange simultaneously involves economic, social, religious, and political dimensions

Mauss used 'total social fact' to describe how gift exchange in traditional societies encompasses all dimensions of social life simultaneously — economic, legal, moral, religious, and political.

Question 12: Which famous American archaeological site, located in New Mexico, is known for its ancient Ancestral Puebloan great house structures?

Cahokia
Chaco Canyon (Correct answer)
Poverty Point
Mesa Verde

Correct answer: Chaco Canyon

Chaco Canyon in New Mexico features massive great houses built by Ancestral Puebloans between about 850 and 1150 CE.

Question 13: The concept of a society's 'cultural niche construction' refers to:

The cultural practices that define a group's identity and social position
The ecological zone occupied by a particular cultural group
The process of adapting cultural practices to new environments
How organisms, including humans, modify their environments to create ecological niches (Correct answer)

Correct answer: How organisms, including humans, modify their environments to create ecological niches

Niche construction theory recognizes that organisms, especially humans, actively modify their environments in ways that then feed back to shape their own evolution and culture.

Question 14: What 19th-century anthropological theory held that all cultures evolve through the same universal stages from savagery to civilization?

Unilineal evolutionism (Correct answer)
Diffusionism
Multilinear evolutionism
Social Darwinism

Correct answer: Unilineal evolutionism

Unilineal evolutionism, associated with Lewis Henry Morgan and Edward Tylor, proposed that all societies pass through fixed stages: savagery, barbarism, and civilization.

Question 15: 'Enculturation' refers to the process by which a person:

Loses their native traditions
Studies another culture professionally
Learns the culture of their own society while growing up (Correct answer)
Adopts a second culture as an adult migrant

Correct answer: Learns the culture of their own society while growing up

Enculturation is the lifelong learning of one's own culture, especially during childhood.

Question 16: What is 'global health anthropology' primarily concerned with?

How international health programs interact with local cultures and health systems (Correct answer)
Developing new biomedical technologies for developing nations
Comparing disease rates between countries using statistical methods
Administering vaccines and medications in low-income countries

Correct answer: How international health programs interact with local cultures and health systems

Global health anthropology examines how international health interventions interact with local cultural practices, power structures, and health systems.

Question 17: Which ethical principle requires anthropologists to obtain voluntary agreement from research participants before involving them in research?

Anonymity
Informed consent (Correct answer)
Do no harm
Reciprocity

Correct answer: Informed consent

Informed consent requires that research participants are fully informed about the nature of the research and voluntarily agree to participate without coercion.

Question 18: The smallest unit of language that carries meaning is a:

Allophone
Morpheme (Correct answer)
Phoneme
Grapheme

Correct answer: Morpheme

A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit, such as the '-s' that marks plural in 'cats.'

Question 19: What term describes the detailed, richly contextualized description of a culture or cultural phenomenon, introduced by Clifford Geertz?

Dense cultural analysis
Thick description (Correct answer)
Interpretive mapping
Deep ethnography

Correct answer: Thick description

Clifford Geertz coined 'thick description' to mean interpretive ethnographic accounts that place behaviors within their cultural context and web of meaning.

Question 20: What is the name for an archaeological site where ancient humans butchered animals and discarded bones and tools?

Cache
Kill site (Correct answer)
Midden
Assemblage

Correct answer: Kill site

A kill site is an archaeological location where animals were hunted, butchered, and processed for food and raw materials.

Question 21: Which molecular tool allows anthropologists to estimate when two species diverged from a common ancestor?

The molecular clock (Correct answer)
Relative stratigraphy
Radiometric potassium decay
The comparative method

Correct answer: The molecular clock

The molecular clock uses mutation rates to estimate species divergence times.

Question 22: Which subfield studies past human societies primarily through their material remains?

Ethnomusicology
Archaeology (Correct answer)
Cultural anthropology
Linguistic anthropology

Correct answer: Archaeology

Archaeology reconstructs past cultures by analyzing artifacts, features, and other material remains.

Question 23: Which hominin species is credited with the earliest widespread use of controlled fire?

Australopithecus afarensis
Homo erectus (Correct answer)
Paranthropus boisei
Homo floresiensis

Correct answer: Homo erectus

Homo erectus is associated with early evidence of controlled fire use.

Question 24: What is an example of a cultural universal?

Monotheism
Capitalism
Democracy
Language (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Language

A cultural universal is an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all human cultures worldwide. Language is a prime example, as every known human society has developed complex systems of verbal and non-verbal communication. While the specific languages vary, the fundamental capacity and necessity for language are universal aspects of human culture.

Question 25: A cultural rule requiring marriage within one's own group is termed:

Levirate
Endogamy (Correct answer)
Exogamy
Polyandry

Correct answer: Endogamy

Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a defined social, religious, or kin group.

Question 26: Which theoretical school, associated with Claude Lévi-Strauss, argues that underlying mental structures organize cultural phenomena like myths and kinship systems?

Symbolic anthropology
Cultural materialism
Functionalism
Structuralism (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Structuralism

Structuralism, as developed by Lévi-Strauss, identifies universal mental structures (binary oppositions) that organize myths, rituals, and social systems.

Question 27: James George Frazer's 'The Golden Bough' (1890) is best known for arguing that:

Ritual sacrifice is the universal foundation of all religious systems
All world religions derive from a single ancient solar myth
Magic and religion are functionally identical responses to human uncertainty
Magic, religion, and science represent successive evolutionary stages of thought (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Magic, religion, and science represent successive evolutionary stages of thought

Frazer proposed an evolutionary sequence in which humans first rely on magic, then religion when magic fails, and finally science — a framework later criticized as ethnocentric.

Question 28: Which stone tool tradition is associated with Homo habilis?

Oldowan (Correct answer)
Acheulean
Aurignacian
Mousterian

Correct answer: Oldowan

The Oldowan is the earliest stone tool industry, linked to Homo habilis.

Question 29: A kinship system that traces descent through the mother's line is called:

Patrilineal
Bilateral
Matrilineal (Correct answer)
Neolocal

Correct answer: Matrilineal

In a matrilineal system, group membership and inheritance pass through the female line.

Question 30: What branch of anthropology examines how culture, social conditions, and biology interact to shape health, illness, and medical practices?

Cognitive anthropology
Applied anthropology
Medical anthropology (Correct answer)
Biological anthropology

Correct answer: Medical anthropology

Medical anthropology is a subfield that studies how biological, cultural, social, and environmental factors influence health and healing across cultures.

Question 31: What is the primary method of data collection in cultural anthropology, involving long-term immersive fieldwork within a community?

Structured interviews
Archival research
Questionnaire surveys
Participant observation (Correct answer)

Correct answer: Participant observation

Participant observation involves an anthropologist living within a community over an extended period, participating in daily life while systematically observing behavior.

DSST General Anthropology

The DSST General Anthropology exam tests knowledge across anthropology's major subfields including theory and methods, physical/biological anthropology, archaeology, cultural and social systems, and applied anthropology, equivalent to a semester college course.

Questions

35 min

Time Limit

60%

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