#socanth

Here’s some first year Arch ones:

1. Critically asses the influence of Marxist philosophy on the work one of the following archaeologists: V. Gordon Childe, Antonio Gilman, Randall McGuire, Thomas C. Patterson, Mark Leone. EXPECTATIONS: You may pick any of the archaeologists listed above.  Your answer should delineate the core concepts or tenets of classical Marxism (see Chapter 12, in Renfrew & Bahn), and asses how these concepts were employed in one major example of the archaeologist’s work.  You should consider which aspects of Marxist theory the archaeologist chooses to emphasize, de-emphasize, or ignore, and you should present an argument about whether you were convinced by their application of Marxist theory to the particular archaeological problem or question they were attempting to address.

2. Critically evaluate the ‘biocultural’ or ‘co-evolutionary’ theory of human cognitive and technological evolution as put forward by proponents such as Stout, Toth, and Schick (see references below).  How do these scholars understand the relationship between human tool use and evolving cognitive, linguistic, and social capacities during the Lower Palaeolithic/Early Stone Age and Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age? What evidence do they use to support their arguments?  Is this theory convincing in light of competing possibilities?

3. Evaluate the contributions of ‘postcolonial theory’ to historical archaeology.  Have post-colonial theorists been successful in their aims?  Why or why not?

first year SocAnth:

1. “Discuss some of the ways in which kinship and marriage might both unite people into groups and networks and might also mark them off as individuals.”

2. Discuss some of the problems that anthropologists face when trying to make sense of the symbols of other cultures.

3. Compare and contrast the forms of exchange in “traditional” and “modern” societies. How different are things that look similar and how similar are things which look different? Can you make a wholesale contrast or is it more of something less of another?

4. It is a characteristic of humans to attach symbolic meanings and values to the material world. Discuss this with relation to houses and food.

first year BioAnth:

1. There are many similarities between human behaviour and that of our primate relatives.  Violence is an unpleasant but pervasive factor of both human and primate societies.  The root of this violence may either be a product of environmental stress, or deeply rooted in our biology and evolutionary heritage.  Discuss the various factors that structure social relationships among primates, and using interpersonal violence as a case study, critically evaluate some of the literature listed below to address the following question

2. Palaeoanthropological evidence indicates that early members of the genus Homo were the first to colonize areas outside of Africa.  Evidence for dispersals is as early as 1.8-1.7 million years ago in a number of places.  Yet, the overall evidence for this dispersal has been described as 'spatially and temporally discontinuous'.  Discuss the main evidence for the earliest dispersal of Homo outside of Africa, drawing on the key fossil and archaeological evidence.  Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the prevailing evidence for the early dispersals, and discuss what factors may be involved in limiting the geographic expansion of early hominins.  

3.  How is Homo sapiens adapted to environmental variation? Discuss in terms of climate and altitude, emphasizing human evolutionary trends.

and then 3rd year bioanth...

1. Has ancient DNA completely transformed our understanding of the genetic origins and affinities of Eurasian and Native American populations?