DSST General Anthropology study plan

Define the four subfields of anthropology and explain how physical anthropology differs from the other three in method and evidence.

List the mechanisms of evolution (natural selection, mutation, gene flow, genetic drift) and give one concrete example of each.

Distinguish genotype from phenotype and explain how Mendelian and polygenic inheritance both operate in human traits.

Build a one-page glossary of 25 physical anthropology terms with your own definitions, not copied text.

Order the major hominin species by time period and identify two distinguishing skeletal or behavioral features for each.

Explain bipedalism's anatomical markers (foramen magnum position, pelvis shape, valgus knee) and why it precedes large brain size in the fossil record.

Compare the multiregional and out-of-Africa models of modern human origins and state the evidence each relies on.

Summarize how dating methods (radiocarbon, potassium-argon, stratigraphy) constrain hominin timelines.

Describe the biological concept of race and explain why human genetic variation is mostly within rather than between populations.

Identify the ABO, Rh, and sickle-cell systems and explain how natural selection maintains trait variation (e.g., malaria and hemoglobin variants).

Explain how primatology informs models of early hominin social behavior, citing at least two primate study findings.

Connect physical anthropology to applied contexts such as forensic identification and bioarchaeology.

Define culture in anthropological terms and distinguish it from everyday usage, including the concepts of learned behavior, shared symbols, and holism.

Compare ethnocentrism and cultural relativism and apply both to a single described scenario.

Explain the difference between ethnography and ethnology and identify the method each relies on.

Describe the components of fieldwork, including participant observation, rapport, and the problem of the observer's effect.

Classify subsistence strategies (foraging, horticulture, pastoralism, agriculture, industrialism) and link each to settlement pattern and property rules.

Compare kinship systems: descent (unilineal, bilateral), residence rules, and terminology types such as Eskimo, Iroquois, and Hawaiian.

Explain reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange, and give an example of each from a specific society.

Analyze how religion, ritual, and magic function in small-scale societies, distinguishing myth, doctrine, and practice.

Explain stratigraphy, superposition, and the principle of association, and identify how each supports relative dating.

Distinguish absolute from relative dating and match radiocarbon, dendrochronology, and thermoluminescence to appropriate materials and time ranges.

Describe survey methods (pedestrian, remote sensing, sampling) and explain how site formation processes and taphonomy affect the record.

Summarize the major transitions: Oldowan to Acheulean tools, domestication of plants and animals, and the rise of states.

Outline the sequence of hominin tool traditions and explain what each implies about cognition and subsistence.

Explain the archaeological markers of early states (monumental architecture, writing, craft specialization, stratification) and one critique of that checklist.

Define the design features of language (arbitrariness, displacement, productivity, duality of patterning) and give an example of each.

Distinguish phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, and identify the unit of analysis for each.

Trace historical linguistics concepts: language families, cognates, sound shifts, and glottochronology, and explain their limits.

Compare the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in its strong and weak forms and evaluate the evidence for linguistic relativity.

Explain sociolinguistics topics including dialect, code-switching, pidgins, and creoles, and how language relates to identity.

Distinguish human language from nonhuman communication systems using specific primate and cetacean findings.