Chapter 7

Question 1

Why do slash-and-burn cultivators farm a plot of land for a year or two and then abandon it for several years?

Answer 1

The wild vegetation needs time to reestablish itself before it is burned to clear the land and fertilize the soil.

Question 2

Which of the following statements about irrigation is FALSE?

Answer 2

Irrigation is a defining characteristic of foraging societies.

Question 2

Throughout the many years that Kottak has been doing research among the nonindustrial Betsileo of Madagascar, he has witnessed the impact of globalization on their livelihood. All of the following have threatened the traditional fabric of Betsileo life EXCEPT

Answer 2

the increased presence of anthropologists collaborating with local leaders to preserve their ancestral lands.

Question 2

Intensive agriculture

Answer 2

has significant environmental effects, such as deforestation, water pollution, and reduction of ecological diversity.

Question 3

What is a mode of production?

Answer 3

a set of social relations that organizes labor necessary for generating the society’s subsistence and energy needs

Question 3

How are nonindustrial economic systems embedded in society?

Answer 3

The economic system cannot easily be separated from other systems, such as kinship.

Question 4

Who are peasants?

Answer 4

small-scale farmers with rent fund obligations

Question 4

Despite differences arising from environmental variation, all foraging economies have shared one essential feature:

Answer 4

their reliance on available natural resources for their subsistence, rather than controlling the reproduction of plants and animals.

Question 5

Generalized reciprocity

Answer 5

is the characteristic form of exchange in egalitarian societies.

Question 6

This chapter’s “Focus on Globalization” section discusses economic globalization. Which of the following is an outcome of our twenty-first century global economy?

Answer 6

Modern-day transnational finance has shifted economic control of local life to outsiders.

Question 7

Until 12,000 years ago, people everywhere were

Answer 7

foragers.

Question 7

Another name for foragers is

Answer 7

hunter-gatherers.

Question 8

Which of the following was a characteristic shared by recent foraging communities?

Answer 8

They lived in marginal environments that were of little interest to food-producing societies.

Question 9

What is a typical feature of the foraging lifestyle?

Answer 9

mobility

Question 10

One of the few status distinctions maintained by foragers is based on

Answer 10

age.

Question 11

Many agriculturalists use ________ for transport, cultivation, and manure.

Answer 11

animals

Question 12

In the ________, horticultural systems stand at one end and agriculturalists at the other.

Answer 12

cultivation continuum

Question 12

Which term refers to a system in which only part of a pastoral population moves seasonally with herds?

Answer 12

transhumance

Question 12

Which of the following refers to a system of resource production, distribution, and consumption?

Answer 12

economy

Question 13

Which of the following refers to a society’s major productive resources, such as land, labor, technology, and capital?

Answer 13

means (or factors) of production

Question 14

Which of the following refers to the allocation of scarce means among alternative ends?

Answer 14

economizing

Question 14

Potentially hostile exchanges among strangers defines the term

Answer 14

negative reciprocity.

Question 14

Which term refers to the flow of goods from the local level into the center, and then back out?

Answer 14

redistribution

Question 14

Which term refers to a competitive feast that occurs on the North Pacific Coast of North America?

Answer 14

potlatch

Question 15

Which of the following is NOT characteristic of band-organized societies?

Answer 15

permanent villages

Question 16

Agriculturalists tend to live in permanent villages that are larger and closer to other settlements than the semipermanent settlements of horticulturalists.

Answer 16

true

Question 16

Which of the following is most characteristic of foragers?

Answer 16

high mobility and small groups with flexible affiliations

Question 17

With generalized reciprocity, the individuals participating in the exchange usually do not know the other person prior to the exchange

Answer 17

false

Question 17

Pastoralists may add some grain to their diet either through cultivation or trade.

Answer 17

true

Question 18

A horticultural system of cultivation is characterized by

Answer 18

periodic cycles of cultivation and fallowing.