Class 12 AHSEC 2022 Anthropology Question Paper Solved English Medium

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Class 12 AHSEC 2022 Anthropology Question Paper Solved English Medium

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ANTHROPOLOGY

2022

ANTHROPOLOGY OLD QUESTION PAPER SOLVED

1. Answer in short:

(a) Which race the Eskimos belong to?

Answer: The Eskimois  belong to Mongoloid race.

(b) Name a Bronze Age civilization.

Answer: Indus valley civilization is a Bronze Age civilization.

(c) Mention a name of terrace cultivation community of North-East India.

Answer: A name of terrace cultivation community of North-East India is Daojali Hading.

(d) Who coined the term ‘gene’?

Answer: Johannsen coined the term ‘gene’.

(e) Name one major cultivated product of the Apatanis.

Answer: One major cultivated product of the Apatanis is wet rice.

2. Choose the correct answer:

(a) The Scandinavians are typical representative of Nordic/Ainu.

Answer: The Scandinavians are typical representative of Nordic.

(b) Mousterian point is a core/ flake tool.

Answer: Mousterian point is a flake tool.

(c) The Nuer people of Africa are hunters/ pastoralists.

Answer: The Neur people of Africa are hunters.

3. Write what do you know about unifacial and bifacial side- scraper.

Answer: Unifacial side-scraper: Falke in such a way as to produce a cutting edge that is sharp on one side only. Used of a stone tool. Unifacial tools such as choppers as well as later flake tools such as scrapers and adzes.

Bifacial side-scraper: Rather than a tool made for a specific task, bifaces were a kind of multi- tool that could be used in a variety of ways such as chopping, cutting, and scraping. Additionally the large tools could serve as a portable source for flakes if smaller tools or sharper edges were needed.

4. What do you understand by phenotype? Give example.

Answer: The term phenotype is used to designate the appearance of an individual. In Mendel’s monohybrid experiment 3:1 ratio is based on the phenotypes of the plants. They exhibit similarities to one another in respect of their external appearance or in other words they are phenotypically alike.

The examples of phenotype are: height.

5. Mention two reasons why blood group system is considered to be the most reliable racial criterion.

Answer: Two reasons why blood group system is considered to be the most reliable racial criterion are:-

(a) According to Boyd there are some advantages in using the blood group as a racial criterion. They are inherited in a known way according to Mendelian principles.

(b) They are not altered by differences in climate, food, illness to medial treatment. Their frequency in a population is a very stable characteristic.

6. What is meant by a tool? Distinguish between core tool and flake tool.

Answer: A tool is any instrument or simple piece of equipment that we hold in our hands and use to do a particular kind of work, for e.g. spades, hammers, and knives are all tools.

The differences between core tool and flake tool are: Core tools are the tools made by breaking and shaping large stones whereas flake tools are tools made from smaller pieces of rocks and were used as choppers and knives to chop meat and skins animals.

7. Provide the definition of family as provided by G.P. Murdock.

Answer: The definition of family as provided by G.P. Murdock- “the family is a social group characterized by common residence, economic co-operation, and reproduction. It includes both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or more children, own or adopted.”

8. What do you understand by compound family?

Answer:  A unit of consisting of three or more spouses and their children; it may be produced in monogamous societies by a second marriage giving rise to step- relationships are called compound family.

The compound family is formed through the combination of nuclear families or parts of them, such as a Polygynous household consisting of one man, his three wives, and their respective children.

9. Write the definition of ecology and ecosystem.

Answer: The definition of ecology are: The term ‘ecology was first coined by a German scientist Ernst Hackel in 1869. It is derived from two Greek words ‘Oikos’ and ‘logos’. ‘Oikos’ means ‘home’ and ‘logos’ means ‘study’. Therefore ecology deals with the study of the organisms in their natural habitat. Ecology may be defined as the study of the reciprocal environments. Ecology is a branch of biology which is concerned with the study of organisms and their behaviour in relation to their environment. Hence, ecology may be called’ Environmental Biology’.

The definition of ecosystem are: Ecosystem is the interrelations between a biotic community and its abiotic environment. It is an integrated unit in which living and non- living factors of the environment interact. The term ecosystem was coined by A.G. Tansley in 1935. According to him, “an ecosystem is a group of biotic communities of species interacting with one another and with their non- living environment exchanging energy and matter.”

10. Write the names of two tools used in the Solutrean culture. What technique was used to make these tools.

Answer: Do yourself…..

11. Show the differences between a naturally broken piece of stone and a tool.

Answer: The differences between a naturally broken pieces of Stone and a tool are:- Do yourself….

12. Ecology can also be referred to as Environment Biology. Why?

Answer: Ecology can also be referred to as Environment Biology because ecology deals with the study of the organisms in their natural habitat. Ecology may be defined as the study of the reciprocal environments. Ecology is a branch of biology which is concerned with the study of organisms and their behaviour in relation to their environment. Hence, ecology may be called Environmental Biology’.

13. What is an Antibody? When does agglutination occur in blood?

Answer: When certain substances, mainly proteins are introduced into the body, the tissues will react by producing a special reacting substance which is known as the antibody.

Agglutination occur in blood,  if the serum of a person of A blood group is injected into the body of a person belonging to B blood group, the latter’s blood cells with clump together. This phenomenon is termed as agglutination. An agglutination is a special antigen present on the surface of the red blood corpuscles. The agglutinins are antibodies found in the serum. If the agglutinin is united with the corresponding agglutinogen, the blood cells coagulate.

14. What are microliths? In which prehistoric period were these used?

Answer: A microliths is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3, 000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. The microliths were used in spear points and arrowhead.

The Microliths were used in the Mesolithic or middle stone age.

15. What do you understand by Patrilocal and Matrilocal joint family? Mention two communities from North- East India where Matrilocal joint family is evident.

Answer: Patrilocal joint family: In Patrilocal joint family, the males do not leave their families of origin after marriage. The women after marriage comes to live with their husbands. Many tribals in Central India and traditional Hindu joint families follow this system.

Matrilocal joint family: In Matrilocal joint family, the females do not leave their families of origin after marriage. The men after marriage leaves their natal home and comes to live with their wives. For example, the Nayars of South India follow this type of Matrilocal joint family system.

Two communities from North-East India where Matrilocal joint family is evident are:

(a) Meghalaya.

(b) Kerala.

16. Why the rules of descent are significant in a society?

Answer: The rules of descent are significant in a society because the practical importance of descent comes from its use as a means for one person to assert rights, duties, privileges, or status in relation to another person, who may be related to the first either because one is ancestor to the other or because the two acknowledge a common ancestor. Descent has special influence when rights to succession, inheritance, or residence follow kinship lives. 

One method of limiting the recognition of kinship is to emphasize the relationships through one parent only. Such unilineal kinship systems, as they are called are of two main types- patrilineal systems, in which the relationships reckoned through the father are emphasized, and matrilineal systems, in which the relationships reckoned through the mother are emphasized.

17. Write briefly on any two hunting techniques adopted by the hunting communities.

Answer: Any two hunting techniques adopted by the hunting communities are:

(a) Hunting by using weapons: The Hunters use different types of tools and weapons for hunting animals. These tools can again be divided into three broad groups on the basis of their application. In the first group falls the bruising and crushing weapons, like the club, mace, boomerang, missile, sling and bolt. These weapons are used to smash down the body of the game without breaking its skin. The Oraons of Chotanagpur use the missile called as lebda to capture small animals. The boomerang is used by the Australian aborigines. The slings are used by the Oraons, Santhals and for this they use different raw materials like bark fibres and also grasses. In South America the bolt which is a blunt octagonal arrow operated by a bow is used to hunt animals.

(b) Hunting by using traps: Traps have been used by hunters to snare animals. Traps can again be grouped broadly into two groups. They are manipulative traps and automatic traps. During use of manipulative traps the hunters need to be present during the hunting operation and for the manipulation of the trap. For use of the automatic trap, the hunter leaves the place after the trap is set.

18. Write about unilateral and bilateral descent.

Answer: Unilateral descent: An unilateral descent is a system of descent or inheritance in which descent is traced through the male line only or through the female line only. 

It’s type are:

(a) Patrilineal, which follows the father’s line only.

(b) Matrilineal, which follows the mother’s side only.

(c) Ambilineal, which follows either the father’s only or side only, depending on the situation.

Bilateral descent: In this type of descent an individual traces his or her descent through lineal relatives of both parents with equal importance to both sides. In a bilateral system, an individual acknowledges a relationship to all the descendents of his or her grandparents, great grandparents, uncles, aunts, great uncles and great aunts.

19. What is Ali-Ali-Ligang? Provide a brief note on hunting and fishing practices of the Mishing tribe in Assam.

Answer: Ali-Ali-Ligang is the festival of Mishing. The Mishings perform some religious rites associated with agriculture. At the advent of the monsoon and before the sowing of seeds, they perform Ali-Aye-Ligang. Ceremonial sowing of paddy starts on this day.

Hunting: There are many communities which survive on hunting animals from the animal kingdom. The hunters has to devise means for killing or trapping game animals. Some of the weapons used by hunting communities are the spears, harpoons, bow and arrow. In certain hunting operation some other implements like the bola, boomerang, spear thrower, etc are also used. The missile thrower is an implement which is used in cases where the animals are present within the effective throwing range. In certain cases, hunters organize planned and communal hunting. In this kind of group hunting different methods are employed. For trapping the animals the devices used are by driving the animals into the corrals, by making pit falls, by making circles, by spear falling method, by floating harpoons, and by mimicry.

Fishing: Fishing is another important means of subsistence. Fishing communities use different methods of catching fishes from ponds, lakes, rivers and seas. Some of the methods of fishing are catching by bare hands angling or hooking, netting, trapping, piercing and stupefying.

Fishing may also be undertaken either individually or communally. Even the food producing communities are engaged in fishing activities to supplement their diet. In Assam, West Bengal and South India, there are fishing communities whose subsistence is based on fishing.

20. Write short notes on: (any two)

(a) Greenhouse effect.

Answer: The Greenhouse effect is the way in which heat is trapped close to earth’s surface by Greenhouse gases. These heat- trapping gases can be thought of as a blanket wrapped around earth, keeping the planet toastier than it would be without them. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, and water vapour. Scientists have determined that carbon dioxide’s warning effect helps stabilize earth’s atmosphere. Remove carbon-dioxide and the terrestrial greenhouse effect would collapse. Without carbon dioxide, earth’s surface would be some 33°C cooler.

Greenhouse gases occur naturally and are part of our atmosphere’s makeup.

(b) Causes of soil erosion.

Answer: The causes of soil erosion are:

(i) Rainfall and flooding: Higher intensity of rainstorms is the main cause of soil erosion.

(ii) Agriculture: The farming practices are the major cause of soil erosion.

(iii) Grazing: The grazing animals feed on the grasses and remove the vegetation from the land.

(iv) Logging and Mining: A large number of trees are cut down to carry out the logging process.

(v) Construction: The construction of roads and buildings exposes the soil to erosion.

(vi) Rivers and Streams: The flowing rivers and streams carry away the soil particles leading to a V- shaped erosion activity.

(c) Human and Ecosystem.

Answer: Human ecosystems are human dominted ecosystems of the anthropocene era that are viewed as complex cybernetic systems by conceptual models that are increasingly used by ecological anthropologists and other scholars to examine the ecological aspects of human communities in a way that integrates multiple factors as economics, sociopolitical organization, psychological factors, and physical factors related to the environment.

A human ecosystem has three central organizing concepts: human environed unit, environment, interactions and transaction between and within the components. The total environment includes three conceptually distinct, but interrelated environments the natural, human constructed, and human behavioral. These environments furnish the resources and conditions necessary for life and constitute a life- support system.

(d) Role of decomposers in the ecosystem.

Answer: The role of decomposers in the ecosystem are:

(i) They clean the environment.

(ii) They decompose biodegradable substances into useful substances.

(iii) They release nutrients into soil by decomposing dead and decaying matter, thus making the soil fertile.

(iv) They maintain the nutrients pool by returning back the nutrients into the pool.

21. Who rediscovered Mendel’s laws of inheritance? Discuss the Law of Dominance and the law of Segregation. 

Answer: Carl Correns rediscovered Mendel’s laws of inheritance.

Law of Dominance: In Mendel’s pea plant breeding experiment, it was found that the hybrid plants showed only one of the contrasting characters. All the plants were tall in the F1 generation. Hence Mendel called tallness, the dominant and dwarfness the recessive character. According to Mendel, a character that represents in the hybrid is called dominant and the one that fails to express is called recessive. In the F1 generation, the recessive character are present but remained hidden. The character that expresses itself in the F1 generation is termed dominant. On the other hand the character that remains hidden or suppressed in the F1 generation is called recessive. Thus tallness is dominant and dwarfness is recessive.

Law of Segregation: In Mendel’s pea plant experiment, it was observed that when the cross-bred pea plants of F1 generation are allowed to cross, they exhibited both tall and dwarf plants in the ratio of 3:1. However, it was found that the dwarf characters had been out of sight for some time but it was not lost or altered permanently. In the F2 generation, dwarf plants appeared again. This clearly indicates that this character of dwarfness had been transmitted through the tall plant of F1 generation. When the dwarf plants were allowed to self-fertilise they produce only dwarf varieties. Thus it is clear that through the dwarfness had been suppressed by the tallness in the F1 generation, yet its characters remained unaltered. In other words, both tallness and dwarfness remained together without contaminating or diluting each other. This indicates that characters are independent of one another.

Or

Which ethnic group is known as khoikhoi? Give an account of skin colour as a racial criterion.

Answer: The traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of South Western Africa is known as khoikhoi.

In the population of the world, three shades of skin colour are seen. The skin colour has been considered as one of the distinguishing characteristics in the study of the human race.

Broadly speaking, the people of the world can be classified into three groups on the basis of skin colour.

(a) Leucoderma or white-skinned people: The Europeans are the classic example of this group. This category also includes the Western Asiatics, North Africans, Polynesians etc. who possess skin colour which varies from pinkish-white to light brown.

(b) Xanthoderms or yellow-skinned people: The Asiatic Mongoloids are the best representatives of this group. Besides them some Amerinds, Bushmen and Hottentots also exhibit a yellowish tinge in their skin colour.

(c) Melanoderma or Black-skinned people: The Negroids are the best example of this group. Papuans, Melanesians, Pre-Dravidians etc. fall in this division.

The human skin comprises two main layers- the epidermis or the upper layer, the dermis or the lower la. There is no blood supply in the epidermis. The skin pigments or melanians are found in this layer. The colour of the pigments varies from yellow to black. But it is to be noted that the colour of the skin depends on the amount of the granules present in the deeper layer of the epidermis.

22. Discuss the characteristics of a joint family. Also mentions its merits.

Answer: The characteristics of a joint family are:

(a) Large size.

(b) Common kitchen.

(c) Joint property.

(d) Common worship.

(e) Common organization.

(f) Blood relationship.

Its merits are: 

(a) Division of Labour: Joint family secured the advantages of division of labour.

(b) Economy in Expenditure: A joint family avoids the unnecessary expenditure of separate house- hold establishment.

(c) Protection from division of land: Another important function of the joint family system has been the protection from division of family property on land holdings.

(d) Social Security: The joint family provides social security to the weak, aged, sick, infirm, the disabled and such other needy persons.

(e) Social Control: The joint family by exercising control over the behaviour of its members acts as an agent of social control.

(f) Socialism: The socialistic pattern has been the Age- old heritage of Hindu joint family.

Or

Discuss the habitation, family and livelihood of the Apatani tribe.

Answer: Habitation: The Apatani inhabit Ziro and Hapoli situated in the lower Subansiri district of Arunachal Pradesh. According to Haimendorf, the Apatani call themselves as Tani. They believe that their community has descended from the mythical father Abo Tani. According to Haimendorf, the Apatani society has two major endogamous divisions called as Mite and Mura which he later substituted as Guth and Guchi. The divisions are further divided into several exogamous clans. Although the Mite enjoy a higher social status then the Mura, both the groups are interdependent on each other socio-economically. The Apatani society is divided vertically into villages called as lemba, ward centred on nago which is the ritual centre for two or more clan, clans called as halu, sub clans known as tulu and kin clusters called as uru.

Family: The normal of nuclear family is seen among the Apatani. The sons inherit the paternal property. The daughters only inherits the movable property like clothes and ornaments. They inherit a share of the tasang-tavine from their mother. After death of the Father, it is the son who is the controlling power in the family. But in matters related to property he has to consult his widow mother.

Livelihood: The Apatani traditionally Village Council known as Buliang, consists of clan representatives. There is the head-man, who is assisted by several persons. The akha buliang acts as the consultant, the yapa buliang tries to resolve disputes arising in the village, another group of members called as miha or ajang buliang assist the older buliangs in their work by acting as messengers.

‘Traditional Apatani religion involves worshipping a number of sprits who are thought to be responsible for the various turns in human life. There is the presence of the Nago in the village. Another centre is called as the yugyang, which is used during the Mloko festival. The Nyibu acts as the religious priests. The major festivals of the tribe are the Mloko, Moram and Dree. Mloko and Dree are community festivals having agro-religious significance and Moram festival is celebrated in families and is considered as a fertility rite. At present, the Apatani worships Donyi-Polo.

23. “Shifting cultivation should be replaced by permanent cultivation.” 

Answer: “Shifting cultivation should be replaced by permanent cultivation”- because it is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned while post- disturbance follow vegetation is allowed to freely grow while the cultivator moves on to another plot. The period of cultivation is usually terminated when the soil shows signs of exhaustion or, more commonly, when the field is overrun by weeds. The period of time during which the field is cultivated is usually shorter than the period over which the land is allowed to regenerate by lying fallow.

Shifting cultivation, a resource- based subsistence farming, is no longer relevant because of the large population and its growing demands. The system is destabilized by long cultivation and short fallow periods. There is a need to transform shifting cultivation to sustainable intensification.

Or

What is Jhum cultivation? Discuss its merits and demerits.

Answer:Jhum cultivation has been defined as”any agricultural system in which fields are cleared by firing and are cropped discontinuously. This method of cultivation is also known as ‘Slash and Burn’. Jhum cultivation is regarded as the most primitive method of cultivation, whose origin evolved during the Neolithic period more then 10,000 years ago.

Its merits are: 

(a) In this type of cultivation, groups of people work together, as such, individual labour is minimized.

(b) Multiple cropping ensures production of a variety of cereals and vegetables.

(c) Shifting cultivators need not depend on nature and also need not move frequently like the food gatherers.

(d) The implements used for cultivation are simple.

(e) Shifting cultivation do not require tilling of soil, irrigation facilities, fertiizer, etc.

Its demerits are:

(a) Shifting cultivation destroys the forest resources due to cutting of trees and plants. This also results in short supply of building materials.

(b) As they have to shift from one place to another, they cannot have a permanent habitation.

(c) Frequency cutting of trees effects the climate of a region. It leads to low rainfall and drying up of springs in the hills and forests.

(d) It leads to loss of fertility of soil and causes soil erosion.

(e) The shifting cultivators lack knowledge regarding use of improved variety of seeds, fertilizers, etc, hence they have less production and the produce of inferior quality.