UPHESC Assistant Professor Anthropology 2025 PYQs

Concept: Annihilation of Caste (1936) is Dr B. R. Ambedkar's undelivered speech for the Jat-Pat Todak Mandal, Lahore.

1. N. K. Bose – The Structure of Hindu Society; A. R. Desai – Social Background of Indian Nationalism; Murdock – Social Structure.

Short trick: 1936 – Ambedkar – 'Annihilation'.

Concept: In the standard textbook treatment of Himalayan Buddhist tribes, 'Jangtopa' is listed among the rites performed for the dead, i.e. a funeral/death rite.

1. Such rites are conducted by lamas after a death, for the welfare and good rebirth of the departed (compare the Tibetan byang-chog rite for the dead).
2. Nothing links the term to a worship system, a game or warfare, so options B, C and D do not fit.

Short trick: 'Jang' rites = for the dead.

Concept: The giraffe painting at Adamgarh rock shelters, Hoshangabad (M.P.), is assigned to the Mesolithic period.

1. Mesolithic rock art of central India (Adamgarh, Bhimbetka) shows animals and hunting scenes.
2. Adamgarh also yielded microliths and evidence of early animal domestication.

Short trick: Hoshangabad giraffe = Adamgarh = Mesolithic.

Concept: Ol Chiki script was created by Pandit Raghunath Murmu (1925) for the Santali language.

1. Santali is in the Eighth Schedule (92nd Amendment, 2003).
2. Oraon (Kurukh) uses Tolong Siki; Gond – Gunjala Gondi script.

Short trick: Ol Chiki – Murmu – Santhal.

Concept: Match each tribe with its traditional economy.

1. Foraging – Sentinelese (North Sentinel Island) → IV.
2. Pastoralism – Gaddi shepherds of Himachal → III.
3. Settled agriculture – Gond → II.
4. Shifting cultivation (bewar) – Baiga → I.

Short trick: Baiga = bewar; Gaddi = sheep; Sentinelese = hunt & gather.

Concept: E. E. Evans-Pritchard (Social Anthropology, 1951): social anthropology is a branch of sociological studies which chiefly devotes itself to primitive societies.

1. Radcliffe-Brown called it 'comparative sociology' — close, but not this wording.
2. Lévi-Strauss saw anthropology as a semiotic science; MacIver was a sociologist.

Short trick: 'Branch of sociology for primitive societies' = Evans-Pritchard.

Concept: Georges Cuvier (French palaeontologist) proposed catastrophism: life on earth was repeatedly destroyed by sudden catastrophes and replaced by new forms.

1. It explained extinct fossils without evolution.
2. Opposite view – uniformitarianism (James Hutton, Charles Lyell). Note J. H. Hutton (option A) is the Indian census anthropologist, not the geologist.

Short trick: Cuvier = Catastrophe; Hutton/Lyell = Uniform.

Concept: Microliths (tiny blades, lunates, triangles hafted as composite tools) are the hallmark of the Mesolithic, made by anatomically modern man, Homo sapiens sapiens.

1. Homo erectus – Acheulian hand axes.
2. Neanderthals – Mousterian flakes.
3. Microliths appear after the Upper Palaeolithic, made only by fully modern humans.

Short trick: Smallest tools by the latest man.

Concept: H. P. Fairchild (Dictionary of Sociology): sociology is the study of man and his human environment in their relations to each other.

1. MacIver & Page: sociology is about social relationships, the 'web of social relationships'.
2. Darwin and Mendel were biologists.

Short trick: Fairchild – man + human environment; MacIver – web of relationships.

Concept: Man is a social animal (Aristotle): sociality is a basic feature of human life.

1. (A) is true.
2. (R) is true: humans are born into and depend on groups, living in constant interaction with fellow members.
3. This constant group living is exactly what makes sociality a feature of human life, so (R) explains (A).

Short trick: Living together → sociality.

Concept: Sarat Chandra Roy (1871–1942) is called the father/founder of Indian anthropology (and of Indian ethnography).

1. He wrote The Mundas and Their Country (1912), The Oraons of Chota Nagpur.
2. He founded the journal Man in India (1921).
3. B. S. Guha – first director of the Anthropological Survey of India (physical anthropology).

Short trick: S. C. Roy – Ranchi – 'Man in India' – Father.

Concept: The first Homo erectus fossil (Java man, Pithecanthropus erectus) was found by Eugene Dubois at Trinil, Java, in 1891.

1. Peking man (Zhoukoudian, China) came later (1920s).
2. Olduvai (Tanzania) and Ternifine (Algeria)/Morocco finds are later too.

Short trick: Dubois 1891 – Trinil – Java.

Concept: Arrange by geological age.

1. Dryopithecus – Miocene ape (≈ 15–10 mya).
2. Australopithecus – Pliocene–early Pleistocene (≈ 4–2 mya).
3. Homo erectus – ≈ 1.9 mya–0.1 mya.
4. Neanderthal – ≈ 400–40 kya. Order: I, II, IV, III.

Short trick: Ape → Southern ape → Erect man → Neanderthal.

Concept: Jean-Baptiste Lamarck coined the term 'invertebrates' (animaux sans vertèbres) and classified them.

1. He also coined 'biology' (with Treviranus) and proposed inheritance of acquired characters.
2. Darwin – natural selection; Malthus – population; Weismann – germ-plasm theory.

Short trick: Lamarck – spineless animals named.

Concept: Miocene ape fossils (Dryopithecus/Sivapithecus/Ramapithecus) in India come from the Siwalik (Shivalik) hills.

1. Siwalik deposits are Mio-Pliocene fluvial sediments rich in mammal fossils.
2. Vindhya and Kaimur are ancient Precambrian ranges — no ape fossils.

Short trick: Ape fossils of India = Siwaliks (Siva-pithecus!).

Concept: Cro-Magnon man (Upper Palaeolithic Homo sapiens, France) had a large cranial capacity of about 1590–1600 cc.

1. Higher than the modern average (≈ 1350–1400 cc).
2. 1150 cc fits late Homo erectus; 1360 cc ≈ modern average.

Short trick: Cro-Magnon ≈ 1600 cc — bigger than us.

Concept: Arrange the tribal-policy bodies chronologically.

1. Lokur Committee (1965) – criteria for ST identification – earliest.
2. Haldipur and B. K. Roy Burman committees followed in the later decades of the 20th century.
3. National Commission for Scheduled Tribes – created by the 89th Amendment (2003), set up in 2004 – latest.
4. Only code D begins with I and ends with IV: I, III, II, IV.

Short trick: Lokur first, NCST (2004) last.

Concept: Deletion (deficiency) = loss of a chromosome segment.

1. Duplication – a segment repeated.
2. Translocation – segment moved to a non-homologous chromosome.
3. Inversion – segment reversed by 180°.
4. Example: Cri-du-chat syndrome = deletion of 5p.

Short trick: Delete = lose.

Concept: Bhimbetka rock shelters are in Raisen district, Madhya Pradesh (discovered by V. S. Wakankar, 1957).

1. Occupation from Lower Palaeolithic onwards; famous rock paintings.
2. UNESCO World Heritage Site (2003).

Short trick: Bhimbetka – Bhopal ke paas – M.P.

Concept: The Pleistocene (≈ 2.6 mya – 11,700 yrs ago), the Ice Age, saw the evolution of genus Homo and the emergence of modern Homo sapiens (≈ 300 kya).

1. Miocene – age of apes (Dryopithecus).
2. Pliocene – Australopithecines.
3. Holocene – post-glacial; agriculture, civilisation.

Short trick: Pleistocene = Ice Age = Age of Man.