Basic Knowledge 4 Test Bank

Below are all the possible questions for the Basic Knowledge Check. You will take the test on Moodle, which will randomly select the questions. NOTE: There is a difference between this Basic Knowledge Check and previous Checks. You will get one of the two matching questions. The matching questions are worth 5 points, so there will only be 16 questions total on the Check.

Matching Questions (5 points each, you will get one of these):

1. Choose the group of hominins to which each species belongs:

2. Choose the group of hominins to which each species belongs:

Regular Multiple Choice Questions (1 point each, you will get 15 of these): As always, more than one answer could be correct. Select all correct answers.

• 1. A sagittal crest:

     1. is the place where large chewing muscles attach, suggesting a diet of hard foods in species that have one

     2. is only found in members of the genus Homo

     3. is found in all species that made stone tools

     4. is found only in gracile Australopiths

  2. The social organization of Australopiths was probably:

• • 1. similar to modern human hunters and gatherers

    2. based on osteodontokeratic culture

    3. similar to modern chimpanzees or gorillas

    4. based on monogamous pair bonds, like in gibbons

• 3. The first recognized Australopith fossil, found at the site of Taung, belonged to a/an:

  4. Australopithecus africanus

  5. Australopithecus afarensis

  6. Ardipithecus ramidus

  7. Paranthropus boisei

  8. If I had a hominid skull with large back teeth, a sagittal crest, and a huge jaw, which of the following hominins did it probably belong to?

• • 1. a hominin contemporary with Australopithecus afarensis

    2. a hominin who lived from 3-1 mya

    3. a robust australopithecine

    4. a gracile australopithecine

• 9. One of the major differences between the gracile late Australopiths and the robust late Australopiths is:

• • 1. gracile late Australopiths had a more omnivorous diet than robutsts

    2. gracile late Australopiths had more rugged bones than the robusts

    3. gracile late Australopiths had larger chewing muscles than the robusts

    4. gracile late Australopiths ate mostly plants and robust hominids did not

• 10. Which of these is evidence used to argue that early Australopiths were partially arboreal?

• • 1. they had tools used for cracking nuts that are only found high in trees

    2. opposable big toes allowed their feet to grasp tree branches

    3. long, curving arms and fingers

    4. their fossils are found with fossils of arboreal animals

• 11. Which of these is true about the finds of basal hominins in the last 15 years?

• • 1. They suggest our last common ancestor with chimpanzees was more ape-like in their traits than paleoanthropologists expected

    2. They suggest our last common ancestor with chimpanzees was less ape-like in their traits than paleoanthropologists expected

    3. They have significantly larger brains compared to their body size than chimpanzees

    4. They lived in open, desert environments

• 12. Which of these is an epoch of the Tertiary period?

• • 1. Pliocene

    2. Pleistocene

    3. Holocene

    4. Miocene

• 13. Which of these is true about ancient hominin phylogenies:

• • 1. it is extremely difficult to give individual fossils clear species designations, and there is a good deal of contention over how these fossils should be categorized.

    2. experts disagree as to the specific relationships between different species, for example, whether Australopithecus afarensis is ancestral to A. africanus, or not.

    3. despite difficulties in determining the evolutionary relationships between early hominin species, certain trends are very clear, and paleoanthropologists are convinced that modern humans are the descendents of at least one species of Australopith.

    4. our understanding of human evolution is much clearer today than it was 100 years ago, because of the large number of fossil hominins we have discovered in the last century.

• 14. Which of these is an epoch of the Quaternary period?

• • 1. Holocene

    2. Pleistocene

    3. Pliocene

    4. Miocene

• 15. Brains that are significantly larger than those of a chimpanzee:

• • 1. are not part of the human adaptation

    2. are a characteristic of the genus Homo

    3. are apparent from the earliest stages of human evolution

    4. are a characteristic of all Australopiths

• 16. If I found an early hominin skull just below a layer of volcanic rock, the best absolute dating technique I could use would be:

• • 1. C14

    2. K/Ar

    3. Biostratigraphy

    4. Uranium series

• 17. The term “half-life” refers to:

• • 1. Voldemort's existence prior to the last night of the Tri-Wizard Tournament

    2. the amount of time it takes for half of a sample of a radioactive element to decay to a stable isotope

    3. the half-ape/half-human social organization of early Australopiths

    4. the evolution of long mid-life adolescence periods in the later hominins

• 18. Which of these dating techniques can potentially be used to date items more than one million years old, given the right conditions or material?

• • 1. Stratigraphy

    2. K/Ar

    3. Uranium series

    4. Biostratigraphy

• 19. Biostratigraphy, the association of artifacts or fossil hominins with extinct species, is an example of:

• • 1. absolute dating

    2. relative dating

    3. on-line dating

    4. a paleospecies

• 20. The C14 dating technique can be used to date items which are:

• • 1. volcanic rocks

    2. organic

    3. less than 40,000 years old

    4. more than 1.5 million years old

• 21. The gracile species of early hominins are members of the genus:

  22. Paranthropus

  23. Zinjanthropus

  24. Australopithecus

  25. Gracilius

  26. The study of human evolution began with the very first finds of fossil hominins in Germany. These were fossils of:

  27. Australopithecus africanus

  28. Homo habilis

• • 1. Neandertals

• 29. Homo erectus

  30. The most controversial aspect of Darwin's work was not his theory of natural selection, but rather his suggestion that:

• • 1. humans are closely related to apes

    2. humans originally evolved in Asia

    3. bipedalism evolved because of hunting

    4. beak size on Galapagos Island finches show competitive exclusion

• 31. The “killer ape” theory is associated with which of the following researchers?

• • 1. Charles Darwin

    2. Milford Wolpoff

    3. Raymond Dart

    4. Donald Johanson

• 32. Members of the genus Homo:

• • 1. are more closely related to chimpanzees than to Australopiths

    2. are bipedal, while Australopiths are not

    3. were all capable of living outside of tropical environments

    4. have larger cranial capacities, on average, than Australopiths

• 33. As with the Australopiths, researchers believe that ___________ was/were an important part of Habiline diet.

• • 1. leaves

    2. hunted big game, like antelope

    3. scavenging

    4. fish

• 34. Which of these traits develops the earliest during hominin evolution?

• • 1. big brains

    2. tool-use

    3. bipedalism

    4. language

• 35. Which of these is a disadvantage to being bipedal?

• • 1. increased difficulty for females in childbirth

    2. bipeds do not walk as efficiently as quadrupeds

    3. bipeds do not see as far as quadrupeds

    4. bipeds run slower and are more prone to falling than quadrupeds

• 36. Which of these are part of the skeletal changes in humans associated with bipedalism?

• • 1. the foramen magnum is farther forward

    2. the leg bones are closer together at the knees than at the hips

    3. the big toe is in line with the other toes and not opposable

    4. the spine forms a complex "S" curve

• 37. Which of these are characteristics of our last common ancestors with chimpanzees?

• • 1. large body size, small gut, thick enamel on molars, and slower development relative to apes

    2. only able to live in tropical environments of Africa

    3. sagittal crests, extreme prognathism, and bipedalism

    4. large brain, slouched posture (not fully bipedal), social structure based on the nuclear family

• 38. Fossils are more likely to form:

• • 1. when an animal is quickly buried after death, rather than exposed for a long time on the ground surface

    2. in rainforests, rather than dry climates

    3. from soft parts, like the brain, rather than hard parts, like bone

    4. in lakes, caves, mud, or tar

• 39. Why are fossils of hominins only found in East Africa, South Africa, and Chad?

• • 1. hominins were not able to survive in the dryer climates of central Africa

    2. central and western Africa were too cold for hominin species 7-2 mya

    3. hominins probably lived in central and western Africa, but their fossils were not preserved or recovered in those rainforest environments

    4. hominins were unable to cross the African Rift Valley

• 40. A molecular clock is:

• • 1. the use of mutations in DNA that can be used to estimate the age of the last common ancestor for two living species

    2. arguing that one site is contemporary with another because they both include similar-looking extinct mammals

    3. chemical changes in fossils that are used to date the time of death (such as Carbon-14 dating)

    4. stable isotope analysis of bone used to determine the relative ages at which two fossil animals died

• 41. The stone tools found at Koobi Fora show that:

• • 1. the tool makers had a tendency to be right-handed

    2. Paranthropus was clearly a stone tool-maker

    3. tools were central to early hominin lifeways, just as they are to modern

    4. tool styles changed rapidly over time