Anthropology Interview Question and Answers
Why is necessity NOT the “mother of invention” in evolutionary terms?
Because variability has to be in existence before natural selection can act on it. Variability arises through mutation not the needs of a particular organism. For example, when I work in East Africa, my need for darker skin pigmentation and longer limbs to radiate heat has no influence whatsoever on the number of melanofors in my skin or the length of my limbs.
In what way are the inhabitants of El Alto, Bolivia different from other people?
The city of El Alto is one of the highest cities in the world, up to 4150 meters (13,615 feet) above sea level. The main factors of El Alto are:
1. Rich ethnic culture: As of the 2001 census, the population was 649,958 and 79% of them are Aymara. This ethnic group lived in the region for many centuries before becoming a subject people of the Inca, and later of the Spanish in the 16th century. Until now, they contained many of their ethnic markers.
2. Economy: The recent growth of commerce and industry has made local authorities to claim the title of "Bolivia's Economic Capital."
3. Rapid population growth: Explosive population growth (10% a year) has meant that.
Which came first? Monotheism or Polytheism
Max Müller, Emile Durkheim, some neo-Darwinist theories describe that after animism, it was polytheism which came in to practice and then evolved polytheism in most of the cases (which include most of the great traditions or major religious trends). For example, comparative religion often shows that Judaism underwent a process of evolution from animism to polytheism to henotheism (the transitional stages from polytheism to monotheism) to monotheism. However, it is not applicable to Buddhism, as it is neither considered as monotheism nor polytheism, rather a philosophy and a religion … at least to most of the followers of Buddhism. In addition, it becomes confusing when we move to Sumerian and Egyptian evidences of religious artifacts.
What assumptions have been made about "Sin" or "shame" by anthropologist?
First, neither Anthropologists nor the Anthropological studies are solely guided by assumptions ... this is more about looking for empirical evidences.
It is a commonplace of anthropology to distinguish between a ‘sin’ and ‘shame’. While considering ‘shame’, Anthropologists focus on social mores revolves around the related ideas of honor, duty, country, glory, loyalty, name, praise, and reputation. It may be concerned with group-identity as well as individual-identity to understand about the cognition and social constructs about ‘shame’. ‘Sin’, on the other hand refers to anything that does not ‘obey the rules’ of the social construct at super structural level.
Are humans bones all the same size, or some bigger than other?
The adult human body contains 206 bones, sizes of which vary significantly. Some are large, while some are almost microscopic. Ossicles (also called auditory ossicles) of the inner ear, are the smallest bones of the human body (length may exceed 450 mm). On the other hand, the femur (the thighbone) is the longest and most voluminous bone. The average human femur is 19 inches in length and 0.92 inches in diameter and can support up to 30 times the weight of an adult.
Did Neanderthals use fire? Some estimates have Neanderthals living in Asia 200,000 years ago. Has this been verified or debunked?
Yes, of course they used fire. They used it for heat and for cooking. They were the original Bar-B-Q experts. In addition, since they evolved, they used fire. Even Homo erectus used fire.
As for living in Asia, they did not go to Far East but they were in Europe until about 40 thousand years ago. They exited from Africa some 600 thousand years ago and they have been found as Far East in Asia as the Ural Mountains and into the mountains of India. The last ones may have died out some 75 thousand years ago.
Why are there no signs of civilization prior to about 6000 years ago if modern humans have been around for about 125,000 years?
There is a numerous evidence of settlements prior to 6,000 BP, especially in the Middle East where civilizations were first presumed to have originated with the advance of agriculture. Here are just a few examples:
- Neve David (Israel) - 13 kya
- Gobekli Tepe (Turkey) - 11 Kya
- Abu Hureyra (Levant) - 11 kya
- Ain Ghazal (Jordan) - 7.5 kya
- Catalhoyuk (Turkey) - 7.5 kya
All of these were examples of early states. They were characterized as having centralized political institutions in which ruling elites exercised control over the population that may have numbered to several thousand individuals.
What type of food Neanderthal people ate and how they cooked it?
From variation in the Nitrogen and Carbon isotope composition of their bones, we know the Neanderthals at a lot of meat and fat, mainly from large terrestrial mammals that were grazers (mammoth, wooly rhino, horse), but probably also mixed feeders like aurochs (wild cattle) bison, various deer (red, roe, fallow), ibex, wild boar. They may have hunted bear, too, but probably did so by raiding hibernation dens. Recent studies from sites near Gibraltar (Spain) suggest they occasionally ate fish and marine mammals (seal) too. The amount of meat in their diet probably varied through time and space (more meat in colder habitats, seasons; more plants in warmer habitats, seasons), as it does in the diets of most omnivores.
Cooking probably involved mostly roasting (holding meat over fire or placing it on heated rocks). There is no evidence for boiling (no pottery, no heated stones [used to heat water in leather containers]).
How can we understand human beings? How can we Study them?
The field of Anthropology is the study of Human Beings. It incorporates subjects like sociology, psychology, medicine, economics, and many other subfields. In addition, since we are studying ourselves, we have many people who may act as examples.
What year did the total number of people living in the world equal the total number of people who had already died?
To answer your question one would need accurate data spanning thousands of years. 99% of records come from a time after writing was invented. Even then, most of that information is from latter times.
The following is a helpful article by Carl Haub, which explains fluctuations in human population over various periods and provides you with an estimated figure:
Does one's cultural and social environment dictate the type of religion practiced?
As children, we learn our values and value system (religion) from our parents and adults around us. Since we are not aware of the larger society around us (or) the culture into which we were born until much later, the reverse tends to be true.
When did first Caucasoid man appear? Was the earliest Cro-Magnon Caucasoid? What Caucasoid characteristics did Cro-magnon have?
There is a lot of variability among female Upper Paleolithic European skulls. Some look "caucasoid" -big noses, chins. While others (e.g. Grimaldi) retain some African characters -alveolar prognathism, frontal bossing.
The simple answer is that the category "caucasoid" does not really help one sort Pleistocene-age skulls into meaningful categories. The characteristics on which the classification is based really only sort out geographically among Holocene-age skulls (i.e., those less than 12,000 years old).
Could you tell me which the biggest and/or most powerful human species was in the past?
Neanderthals were very strong, but there are some fossils of earlier hominins from Europe (Homo heidelbergensis, e.g. Atapuerca) and from Africa (Homo rhodesiensis, e.g., Bodo, Kabwe) that were also very big, strong people.
It is we very gracile postglacial humans, who were divergent from our Ice Age ancestors.
Can you give me your take on the initial migration into North and South America?
The early appearance of civilizations in South America does not contradict the Bering Strait colonization theory. None of these civilizations is even close to the youngest estimate for the first human dispersal into the New World across the Bering Strait.
There is some evidence from DNA variation among chickens, of all things, that suggests there may have been contacts between Polynesians and the western coast of South America within the last thousand years, but the oldest plausible dates for such contacts are much younger than the oldest complex societies in the Andes.
Are there different types of anthropology, if so explain?
Yes, there are several "types" of Anthropology:
1) General Anthropology - the study of man
2) Forensic/Physical Anthropology - the study of human remains and the potential surroundings and cause of death
3) Migration Anthropology - which looks at the genetics of human groups and their migration around the world
4) Ethnography - the study of existing human populations
5) Archaeology - the study of past cultures based on their habitation, burial, and environmental sites
6) Economics - The study of man’s economic systems
7) Proximics - the study of human distancing and human reactions to situational psychology
8) Psychology
9) Sociology
What is the cultural background of Pennsylvania?
Pennsylvania is a very diverse place with people from England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, the Low Countries, the mountains of Eastern Europe and else where. Many of the miners came from Eastern Europe, Wales, and Ireland and occupied the mining region of the state. The "Pennsylvania Dutch" (Germans) lives in the Piedmont of the state and hold tight to their cultural identity. The English and Scots lived in the valleys of both major rivers.
Why do some people have slanted eyes, while others have round ones? More importantly where can I find a reliable resource that will explain this and which I can reference in a report?
The shape of the outside area of the eye is what provides the apparent shape. All eyeballs are round and the eye socket is as well but the genetic make of peoples of the mongoloid type (mostly Asians) have a particular feature where the outer corners of the eye are slightly above the centerline, thus creating an almond shape.
In what year of life are more than 50% of people born in a particular year dead.
Many factors go into actuarial calculations. Among them are gender, socio-economic factors, nationality, race, and even "years of peace" in a given region. So if you looked at a place like Somalia, life expectancy is very low, 35 or 40. This means that there is very high infancy mortality and that most die by the time they are in their mid to late 20's. This is due in part to warfare, hunger, drought etc... On the other hand, the US has a much higher life expectancy rate and a relatively low infancy mortality rate.
What determines the race of a child in a white and black couple? Father Black and mother white
In such cases, the child is racially mixed. The child may have lighter skin then the black parent and may have recognizable features from the black parent as well just as we all share features and characteristics of our parents, regardless of racial mix. In the next generation, the child's children may exhibit lighter or darker skin.
What was the evolutionary reason for different shapes of eyes? Eastern Asian eyes in particular.
Eyes, like any other physical feature such as height, skin color, and shape of teeth for example, are influenced by the interaction of genes with the environment. We evolve features that best suit the environment and in the case of East Asians, the shape of their eyes has to do with limiting the amount of sand entering them. When the first North Asians entered that part of the world some 25, 000 years ago, they were exposed to extreme sand storms from the Gobi desert, thus evolving the more oval eye shape through time.
What is important to understand is that:
Genotype (genes) + Environment = Phenotype (physical features)
What criteria would archeological information have to meet to be considered evidence of complex thought?
One of the most important pieces of evidence in the archeological record that points to complex thought is stone tools. In fact, we even associate the classification of our early ancestors to that of tool making. For example, Homo habilis means “handy man” was chosen. Because this species is thought to is the originator of the many stone tools found at habilis sites. If these stones were indeed created by habilis, then the species had a marked advantage in terms of complex thinking. At about that time, there were at least four hominid species living in East Africa; competition would have certainly been fierce. The ability to make and use tools would have been a significant advantage in competing for food. Hominid skull fossils from this time show a marked encephalization (increase in brain size). Bigger brains require more metabolic energy and using tools to extract more calories from their environment would certainly have helped the first hominid species to discover Stone Age technology.
Could you explain to me what evidence is utilized to support the claim that humans have evolved over time from earlier forms?
There are several sorts of evidence that point to contemporary Homo sapiens evolving from archaic ones.
Well firstly, apart from a high diversity of the hominid fossil record, there is the obvious phenotypic resemblance that humans and apes share. Between humans and the apes, there needed to be some form more progressive than apes- a sort of missing link. Modern science recognizes that our ancestor was a life form that differed from contemporary gorillas and chimps. Humans are not descended from gorillas or chimps. Rather, humans and the African apes share a common ancestor- a creature that was like the apes in some ways, and like humans in others. Over time, all three species have evolved and must have diverged from one another. To add, DNA analysis of humans, chimps and gorillas have offered us a precise answer: Human ancestors almost certainly diverged from those of chimps and gorillas late in the Miocene epoch, between 7-5 million years ago.
What is the difference between an occipital bun and a nuchal torus?
These are two different types of structures of the Skull. The Occiptial Bun found on Homo Sapien Neanderthals is an actual extension of the occiptial bone, which contained additional brain structure. While the nuchal torus is a thickening of the bone generally ranging from the parietal bones around to the occiptial to which neck muscles are attached. It does not expand the carnial vault.
Unlike the occiptial bun, the nuchal torus is not consistently present.
Is there ever been a society that could have eaten meat?
No such societies are known to have ever existed in the historical or archaeological record. Some societies have vegetarian castes, and many have economic classes that are vegetarians of necessity, rather than by choice. Gorillas are vegetarian, so smnivory is probably something we share in common with the chimpanzee-human last common ancestor.
Discuss the distinctions of Indio and Mestizo in Mexican society, in terms of a) identity, b) ideology c) behavior, d) wealth/economic opportunities, and e) openness to change.
You have 4 primary groups in Mexico. Members of the indigenous population (Indios or Indians), Mestizo or people of mixed Indian and European blood, "Pure bloods" or Spaniard families who can trace themselves back to the conquistadores and 4, the relatively modern Europeans and others who have made Mexico home. Each of these groups has their own identity, ideology, behavior, and position in the socio-economic framework of Mexico.
In terms of Identity and ideology, these show up as very distinct separation between the classes where Indio and Mestizo are the lower and working classes. They are highly adaptable and are open to change except in religious belief and the conservative ideologies, which come from associated values. However, these people are highly entrapanureial and do what is needed to survive a harsh economic landscape. Most of the wealth is held by the upper classes, which include the modern Europeans and higher class old Spanish families. There is a clear distinction between these folks too however and the identity and ideology here is very rigid as is the behavior and opennes to change, they do not. There is a growing middle class. Most are from old Spanish decent but many are up and coming Indios and Mestizos too. These people have had the benefit of education and given opportunities to grow. Here the identity, ideology, and flexibility are the strongest as is the openness to change. The hundreds of small shops are an indication of their desire to expand t heir own horizons.
How can we justify scientifically that the Homo erectus, Homo heidelberensis, Neanderthal, and modern humans are separate species?
The main argument for treating these hominins as separate species is that each differs from the others in terms of skeletal morphology.
Some of these morphologies are thought to arise from genetically programmed differences in growth. Thus, morphological differences are treated as proxies for genetic differences.
Most of these fossil taxa also have non-overlapping distributions in time and space. This further suggests they were reproductively isolated from each other.
This combination of morphogenetic difference and inferred reproductive isolation are basic criteria for identifying a species.
Now, you are correct to be skeptical. We do not know the specific genetic underpinnings of many aspects of skeletal growth. Nor are we ever likely to know the precise geographic and chronological range of all hominin species.
Treating these hominin morphological taxa as biological species is in essence, accepting a hypothesis that cannot be proven conclusively wrong.
What experts should I ask about a question like this? Can a white male determine if he has any black blood in him through DNA testing?
Black and white blood is the same. Genetically there may be some markers such as some kinds of sickel cell anemia, which was endemic to some parts of Africa, but even some North Africans can have Sickel Cell. However, there are no markers, which are "purely" black, white, or Asian.
On the other hand, there may be some HLA factors or tissue typing which may indicate race but with the admixture of so many cultures in the last 300 years, even these may be difficult to track.
Is it possible to describe in general terms (archetype) the race that once populated Britain and already present when the Celts arrived
This is a difficult issue to sort out. One problem, of course, is that we have neither artistic evidence nor soft-tissue evidence for either pre-Celtic (Iron Age) or Celtic populations themselves. The second problem is that such characteristics as skin color, hair form, skull shape, stature, etc. can change rapidly among small populations. This was famously demonstrated in studies of immigrants to the USA in the early 20th Century. Therefore, it is difficult to tell if any changes we see in the archaeological record (mostly changes in skeletal morphology) are the result of indigenous evolution or if there is significant gene flow from immigrant populations.
A subsidiary issue is that Bronze Age cultures seem to have practiced a fair amount of cremation, so bone preservation is weak for that period.
Is it true that all humans have the same size bones?
There is tremendous variation in size and shape of human bones (some more so than others). For example, if you exercise a lot, many microscopic cracks will form in your bones and bone cells will grow into the cracks to repair them. As a result, someone who exercises a lot will have much thicker bone than someone who does not exercise. Diet, diseases, parasites, evolutionary responses to temperature, and many other factors also influence the dimensions of human bones.
It is true that the sizes of bones in a population will cluster around certain average values. This is because some aspects of bone growth are under strong genetic control. However, any such values are statistical approximations, not fixed limits of bone dimensions.
FWIW: What the doctor has meant to say is that one cannot blame obesity on a person being "big boned". Bones simply do not make up that much of one's weight to tip the scale, as it were, between normal weight and obesity.
When the Homo floresiensis remains were discovered on Flores in an un-fossilized state it was supposed DNA might be recoverable. Do you happen to know whether DNA was ever extracted from the remains - or if it is still intended to try to do so?
Wet tropical environments tend not to be very good ones for preserving DNA over long periods. There are also many political problems over access to and control over these fossils.
As the modern day, Greeks are the direct descendents of ancient Greek culture, such as Homer's time; likewise, are the modern Egyptians the direct genetic/blood descendents of ancients Pharaohs, 2000 BC?
Both hypotheses are supported by the genetic and skeletal evidence, -bearing in mind that both regions have undergone some variable degree of immigration and genetic lineage extinction over the last 2000 or so years. People have sometimes questioned the link between ancient peoples and modern populations living in the same region because of perceived differences between what they look like "in the flesh" and artistic self-representation in the archaeological record. In considering such evidence, one has to be aware that all such ancient portraits are subjective impressions. For example, both the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Egyptians had very formal, stylized ways of rendering the human body. (Classical Greek sculptures, for example, exaggerated the forehead in a way that is anatomically impossible.)
Over the entire world, in which countries were people of the Negro race found to be native or indigenous?
The answer depends on how you define "Negro Race" and "native/indigenous".
If you follow the traditional definition, -people with dark skin, tightly curled hair, etc. and the definition of "indigenous" meaning likely to have originated in a particular place tens of thousands of years ago, your answer would be "all of the countries in Africa south of the Sahara as well as Sudan, Eritrea." It would also include some South Asian island-dwelling populations, like the Andamanese, for which there is some genetic evidence suggesting an ancient origin in Africa, but an origin about tens of thousands of years.
If your threshold for "indigeneity" were much shorter, say hundreds of years, you would have to include countries in the Americas, Arabia, and South Asia, as well as Europe, to which sub-Saharan African populations were forcibly transported over the last thousand years or so.
What is race, how do anthropologists define it. How the different races did arose
Race is a way of classifying people, usually in terms of superficial physical characteristics, skin color, hair texture, cranial features, etc.
Anthropologists do not really use race as a way of classifying people anymore for a couple of reasons: first, genetic studies show that there is more variation within most "racial" groups than between them. Second, most racial groupings are at least partly social/cultural, rather than strictly biological. Thirdly, racial classifications oversimplify a complex, multivariate, pattern of human biological variability. Lastly, racial classifications provide no predictive basis for inferring human behavior.
The concept of "race" probably arose as a function of naval technology. When people had to travel overland, or anchor their ships after short journeys, differences between the people one encountered were predictably relatively minor. Once ships could stay out longer (weeks, months) then each landfall resulted in encounters with people who looked and acted remarkably different from the last people encountered. The first mentions one finds of "race" as a way of classifying people coincide closely with improvements in naval technology after 1400-1600 AD.
Did the Eskimos have fire before the Europeans arrived? Did they cook food? Use for heat?
They did indeed have fire long before Europeans arrived. Earliest traces of fire in the Arctic New World date to at least 10,000 years ago and much older in the parts of Siberia from which Eskimos (who prefer to be called Inuit, actually) migrated.
They did cook food, as indicated by numerous burned bones from Arctic archaeological sites. Presumably they also used it for heat, light, anti-predator defense, as well as to smoke meat and help dry/tan leather.
The arctic is very poor in vegetal resources, so the traditional Inuit diet was heavily meat-dependent. They did collect some plants, however, and often they would eat the partly digested stomach contents of herbivores that they killed.
The Inuit had many health problems when Europeans encountered them, the most virulent of which was probably tuberculosis. In general, though, their skeletons suggest people who were in excellent health, partly from a sound diet (few sugars, lots of fat from fish sources) and from regular exercise in the course of their daily foraging activities.
What is one brief reason anthropologists care so much about social complexity?
Social complexity is the "web" a society has developed to answer the needs of that society. Each society has its own web much as each spider species has a very distinct web of its own. No two are alike yet we satisfy our needs some more efficiently then others. Therefore, when we look at these social webs, we gain an insight into both the history and the development of the society.
What are Ice ages? When was the last Ice age?
Ice ages are periods when there are extensive glaciers stretching away from the North and South Pole towards the equator? Because there are more continents closer to the North Pole, the glaciers tend to be more extensive in the north. There are also glaciers that form on mountains in tropical latitudes.
For about the last 900,000 years, Ice Ages have occurred about every 110,000 years. They are separated by warm periods, called interglacial, which are of shorter duration. The last Ice age lasted between about 70,000-13,000 years ago.
Ice Ages probably moved people around (away from the pole, towards the equator, and to lower elevations) but our species actually underwent a dramatic expansion of our geographic range during the last Ice Age. At 70,000 BP humans lived only in Africa, the Near East and possibly some parts of Southern Asia. By 13,000 years ago, we were present all over Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas.
Do you think, in spite of no evidence, that it is conceivable that hominids had crossed into what is now North America...?
Cold seems to have been a limiting factor in this hominin's ability to colonize new habitats.
The northernmost frontier of Homo erectus is known geographic range in Asia is northern China (presumably during a relatively warm period). This is still pretty far from the southernmost extent of the Bering Sea land bridge (that would have been exposed in COLD periods).
There is neither fossil nor archaeological evidence for such a migration. If Homo erectus populations made it to the New World, they would, one assumes, have littered the place (and especially caves) with stone tools in much the same way they did all over Africa, Europe and Asia.
What is the most credible explanation of how dinosaur evidence (evolution) and biblical belief (creationism) can co-exist?
Biblical belief and science are fundamentally different ways of thinking about reality. Biblical belief's standard of proof for its explanations is faith. The more you believe in something, the more satisfying the explanation. Science is standard of proof is evidence, usually organized in terms of hypotheses that are possible to prove wrong. Gravity, for example, is not affected by how strongly you believe in it.
When religion and science stick to their appropriate subjects (supernatural phenomena and empirical reality), there is no conflict. The trouble starts when religious standards of proof are applied to explanations of natural phenomena and when science tries to answer questions about supernatural beliefs. Because the Biblical account of Genesis, like the mythologies of most of the world's cultures, contains an account of the origins of the world (a natural phenomenon) this tends to be a flashpoint for controversy with scientific investigations of the origin of the world and humanity.
Is there any evidence that Neanderthal man held any sort of religious beliefs?
The evidence on Neanderthal religion is equivocal. Much of what was once considered evidence for this is now believed to be natural phenomena misinterpreted or over-interpreted by archaeologists.
Head Cult: some isolated finds of Neanderthal skulls (e.g., Monte Circeo) were once thought to indicate a religious belief. Now we think these reflect the separation of skulls from the rest of the skeleton by geological processes or animal scavengers.
Cave Bear Cult: Now thought to reflect geological mixing of cave bear bones and human artifacts.
Burial: Many Neanderthal bodies appear to have been buried, but this could as much is for hygienic reasons as for religious ones. Claims of "grave goods" usually involved animal bones and artifacts very similar to those in the surrounding sediments, which makes is possible that they were accidentally juxtaposed with the Neanderthal skeletons during burial.
What is the significant of the phaistos disk? Has anyone translated it?
This is a little outside my main area of expertise, but here is what I know. The disk features writing that is unique. Some of the symbols replicate ones from other Minoan (Bronze Age Cretan) script, but many of them are unique to this artifact. There are many published claims of "translations" of the disk, but no consensus among experts. (You can use Google to locate many of these, but much of what I found is "fringe scholarship", i.e., non-peer review.)
No other examples of this kind of inscribed disk are known and the original archaeological provenance of the original disk is unclear. The disk was found in 1903. That we have found no other examples of this kind of writing or medium in the countless excavations carried out on Crete suggests to me that this disk is a forgery. Somebody probably made it based on the limited published information about the Minoan civilization in the early 1900s and passed it off as having been found in a Minoan site.
Do you know of any cultures today or in recorded history that did not have some type of deity that they worshiped?
Belief in supernatural entities of one sort or another is a human cultural universal today, and a feature of every historic society of which we have reasonable written records. Styles of "worship" vary, though, so detecting this kind of behavior in the archaeological record can be difficult. Many hunter-gatherer societies embed their religious activities in daily life (i.e., no shrines, temples), so formal religious practices can be difficult to identify unequivocally in the prehistoric record.
How much mass extinction has been completed?
Most paleontologists recognize five major ones, End-Ordovician, Late Devonian, Late Permian, Late Triassic, and Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT- the "dinosaur killer"). Extinction rates and habitat destruction appear to be increasing over the last 10,000 years leading some scholars to propose the present day as a "sixth extinction".
When did humans first use fire? Was the primary use of fire to cook food or something else?
There is possible evidence from about 1.4 Million years ago in Sterkfontein Cave in South Africa. Other than this, evidence for controlled use of fire that is distinct from naturally occurring phenomena (i.e., burnt tree stumps) does not become a regular part of the record until after around 300,000-200,000 year ago (Terra Amata and Pech de L'Azé Cave, both in France). You will see references to fire use in the 300,000-700,000 BP range from Zhokoudian Cave in China, but recent studies suggest this evidence is not really the result of fire.
Presumably, there was a long period during which human ancestors ate most of their food raw (much as do living chimpanzees and bonobos), however, evidence for regular controlled use of fire is pretty common by the time modern Homo sapiens fossils start showing up in the fossil record (ca. 150,000 BP).
How do societies without access to text decide what are good and bad sources of information?
I am assuming that you mean by " with out access to text" as preliterate societies. One such society would be the “Kung San! - Bushmen of the Kalihari”. In this society, there are storytellers who know the history of the people (or given group). These peoples also care for their elderly after their ability to hunt ends. There are often people with injuries, blindness and other disabilities received over a long life in the bush. These elderly people often have an important role for the children not yet old enough to hunt and they impart a lot of the tribal knowledge to these youngsters as they grow up.
What was the life expectancy of Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, and early Homo sapiens? Is 18 to 20 years about right, with the oldest age around 40?
Your figures are about right for maximum life expectancies. Individuals in their 40s are extremely rare. Some scholars place the age of the "old man" of La Chapelle aux Saints in its mid-30s. Be aware, though that once individuals are skeletally mature (ca. 18 years) estimates of age are based on wear and tear on the skeleton, and this can vary widely among individuals based on subsistence adaptation, parasite load and other factors.
How would you compare and contrast the specific distinctions between psychology, anthropology, and sociology? Any suggestions would be appreciate.
Psychology is the study of Man's behavior Sociology is the study of his societies and social interactions etc... Thus, both Sociology and Psychology are sub sets of the study of Man. The study of anthropology also covers economics, medicine, archaeology, human evolution etc... Any area of human endeavor could be listed under Anthropology.
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