DSST General Anthropology case studies
DSST General Anthropology · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The DSST General Anthropology exam is a credit-by-examination opportunity for people who have learned introductory anthropology outside a traditional classroom and want to demonstrate that knowledge for possible college credit. It is aimed at adult learners, military service members and veterans, homeschooled students, and currently enrolled students who want to accelerate progress toward a degree. The DSST General Anthropology case studies are 5 cases and about 2,953 words.
1Two Hominin Fossils from a Reworked Conglomerate
During the 2019 season at a rift-valley cave in East Africa, excavators recovered two hominin specimens from Unit 4, a fluvially reworked conglomerate: a left mandible fragment preserving M1–M3 and a distal humeral shaft. Associated fauna bracket the deposit between roughly 1.9 and 1.4 million years ago, but the unit also contains material eroded from older deposits updip.
602 words, about 3 min2Water Rights, Consent, and a Restricted Ethnography
A cultural anthropologist has just finished 14 months of fieldwork in a highland Andean community that irrigates terraces from a glacier-fed canal. A mining company has applied for downstream water rights, and a national NGO supporting the community's legal case has asked the anthropologist for the full interview corpus and the household water-use maps produced during the study.
578 words, about 3 min3Inverted Radiocarbon Dates and a Crystal-Filled Pit
At a limestone rockshelter in southwest Asia, a 2 by 3 m excavation exposed six stratigraphic layers. Nine AMS radiocarbon dates on charcoal cluster between 24,000 and 19,000 cal BP, but three dates invert the stratigraphic order by 400–700 years, and a later pit cuts Layers 3 and 4.
592 words, about 3 min4Two Villages, Forty Speakers, One Proposed Orthography
A linguist is documenting a language spoken by about 40 fluent speakers, all over 60, in two villages, A and B, in a river valley. Children in both villages speak the national language, and adults under 50 code-switch heavily.
604 words, about 3 min5A Border Grave, a Race Request, and a Repatriation Claim
A skeletonised individual is recovered from a shallow grave in a border region. Police ask the forensic anthropologist to estimate 'race' to narrow the missing-persons list, which is organised by self-reported ethnicity.
577 words, about 3 min