Thor Heyerdahl proposed that Egyptians could have navigated to the New World and influenced the emergence of civilization in the Americas. Erich von Dniken suggested that major human achievements had been borrowed from beings from outer space. What do these two views, both lacking credible scientific evidence, have in common?
A. Both suggest that evolutionary mechanisms explain both biological and cultural diversity across time and space.
B. Both argue that historical events such as plant and animal domestication, the state, and city life were not brilliant discoveries, inventions, or secrets that humans needed to borrow but were, rather, long-term, gradual processes, developments with down-to-earth causes and effects.
C. Both take the position that major changes in ancient human lifestyles were the result of outside instruction or interference rather than the achievements of the natives of the places where the changes took place.
D. Both suggest that anthropology benefits from a broad range of views on human history, even if these views challenge the mainstream and even lack credible scientific evidence.
E. Both reflect the popular media's negative effect on the quality of high school and college education.
Question 2
In this chapter we learn that the most complete explanation of primary state formation is
A. a prime-mover explanation based on irrigation.
B. a multivariate approach such as Carneiro's theory of state formation.
C. a set of nine ecological and social factors determining the evolution of social stratification.
D. the development of a four-level hierarchy composed of peasant villages, sub-chiefdoms, chiefdoms, and capital cities.
E. a biocultural approach such as Kent Flannery's broad-spectrum theory of state formation.
Coral reefs are influenced by sea surface temperatures.
Phylogenies showing the relationships of some Old World primates
Old World Swallowtail of the endemic Great Britain subspecies britannicus
World's Religions
A Thirsty World
Growth of World Trade, 1870–2010