UPHESC Assistant Professor Anthropology 2025 PYQs

Concept: Adolf Bastian (German ethnologist) propounded the 'psychic unity of mankind' (Elementargedanken – elementary ideas common to all humans).

1. Similar cultural traits arise independently because all human minds work alike.
2. The idea was later used by evolutionists like Tylor and Morgan, but its originator is Bastian.

Short trick: Bastian – Elementary ideas – Psychic unity.

Concept: Racial traits (skin colour, hair form, blood groups, head shape) are hereditary characters transmitted through genes.

1. (A) true – a race is defined by a combination of inherited physical traits.
2. (R) false – environment can modify some traits, but heredity, not environment, is the foremost determinant; non-heritable traits cannot be racial criteria.

Short trick: Race = genes first, environment second.

Concept: Taxonomic position of man: Class Mammalia → Order Primates → Family Hominidae → Genus Homo.

1. Class – Mammalia (IV).
2. Order – Primates (III).
3. Family – Hominidae (II).
4. Genus – Homo (I).

Short trick: M-P-H-H: Mammal, Primate, Hominid, Homo.

Concept: Classic works on Indian peoples and races.

1. H. H. Risley – The People of India (1908) → II.
2. A. C. Haddon – The Wanderings of Peoples (1911) → I.
3. J. H. Hutton – Census Commissioner, Census of India 1931 → III.
4. B. S. Guha – Racial Elements in the Population (1944) → IV.

Short trick: Risley People, Haddon Wanderings, Hutton Census, Guha Racial elements.

Concept: Stone tools in order of appearance.

1. Chopper – Oldowan/Sohanian, earliest Lower Palaeolithic pebble tool.
2. Hand axe – Acheulian, later Lower Palaeolithic.
3. Blade – Upper Palaeolithic.
4. Microlith – Mesolithic. Order: I, II, IV, III.

Short trick: Pebble → Biface → Blade → Tiny blade.

Concept: Sir Alexander Cunningham founded the Archaeological Survey of India (1861) and was its first Director-General — the 'Father of Indian Archaeology'.

1. John Marshall – DG during Harappa/Mohenjo-daro excavations (1920s).
2. Mortimer Wheeler – stratigraphic method, Arikamedu.
3. Daya Ram Sahni – excavated Harappa (1921).

Short trick: 1861 ASI → Cunningham → Father.

Concept: Active biometrics need the conscious action/cooperation of the person; passive biometrics can be captured without it.

1. Fingerprint – person must place the finger on a scanner → active.
2. Signature and keystroke pattern – person must write/type → active.
3. Facial recognition – can be captured from a distance by a camera without cooperation → passive.

Short trick: Touch, write, type = active; camera = passive.

Concept: Kinanthropometry (Ross, 1972; ISAK) is the quantitative study of human size, shape, proportion and composition in relation to movement, exercise and performance.

1. (A) true – it measures individuals in a variety of morphological perspectives applied to movement.
2. (R) false – measurements are taken on the body in a standard static position (standing/sitting, anatomical landmarks), not while it is moving; the results are then related to movement.

Short trick: Measure static, interpret for motion.

Concept: Penetrance = proportion of individuals carrying a genotype who actually show the phenotype. When some carriers of a dominant allele show no trait, it is incomplete (reduced) penetrance.

1. Polydactyly is a classic example of incomplete penetrance.
2. Expressivity = degree of expression among those who do show the trait (e.g., extra finger fully or partly formed).

Short trick: Penetrance: whether it shows; Expressivity: how much it shows.

Concept: Epistasis: a gene at one locus masks the expression of genes at another locus.

1. Homozygous albinism (aa – no melanin) masks all the skin-colour genes, however dark they would be.
2. ABO – multiple alleles and co-dominance.
3. Haemophilia – X-linked recessive; sickle cell – single-gene (incomplete dominance/pleiotropy).

Short trick: Albino hides every colour = epistasis.

Concept: Cephalic index = (maximum head breadth / maximum head length) × 100, used to classify head form.

1. Dolichocephalic < 75.9, Mesocephalic 76–80.9, Brachycephalic 81–85.4, Hyperbrachy ≥ 85.5.
2. Facial index – face form; Nasal index – nose form; Cormic index – trunk/stature ratio.

Short trick: Cephal = head.

Concept: Oraon clans are totemic: Kujur (a creeper/plant), Tirkey (a bird), Ekka (tortoise), Lakra (tiger), Minj (fish), Tigga (monkey), Kerketta (bird), etc.

1. The Kujur clan takes the Kunjar/Kujur plant as its totem and must not harm it.
2. S. C. Roy described these in The Oraons of Chota Nagpur.

Short trick: Kujur, Ekka, Tirkey, Lakra, Minj = Oraon surnames = totems.

Concept: Aegyptopithecus zeuxis (≈ 33–30 mya, Fayum, Egypt; described by Elwyn Simons) is regarded as the 'dawn ape', ancestral to the hominoid line (apes and man).

1. It is a catarrhine with 2.1.2.3 dentition and Y-5-like molar cusps foreshadowing Dryopithecus.
2. Lorises and lemurs are prosimians — not its line.

Short trick: Aegyptopithecus = dawn ape → Dryopithecus → apes.

Concept: Traditional political heads of Indian tribes.

1. Vasavo/Vasava – Bhil (Vasava is the Bhil headman/section) → IV.
2. Pedda – headman of a Maria Gond village → I.
3. Pedda Kapu – village headman of the Konda Reddis (Haimendorf) → II.
4. Gamang/Gamyung – Saora village chief → III.

Short trick: Saora Gomang, Reddi Pedda Kapu, Maria Pedda, Bhil Vasava.

Concept: Excavations by Édouard Piette at Mas d'Azil (1887) revealed the Azilian culture, filling the 'hiatus' between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic — after this the term Mesolithic came into regular use.

1. Azilian: painted pebbles, flat harpoons, microliths.
2. St. Acheul, Abbeville, Chelles – Lower Palaeolithic hand-axe sites.

Short trick: Mas d'Azil → Azilian → filled the gap → Mesolithic.

Concept: Sir William Jones (1786) showed the kinship of Sanskrit with Greek and Latin, praising Sanskrit as 'more perfect than the Greek'; this linguistic idea became the basis of the 'Aryan race' theory.

1. Later writers (Max Müller and others) turned the language family into a superior 'Aryan race'.
2. Tilak – The Arctic Home in the Vedas (Arctic origin), not superiority via Sanskrit.

Short trick: Jones 1786 – Sanskrit link – Aryan idea.

Concept: Raymond Firth (Primitive Polynesian Economy, 1939) held that economic principles of choice and maximisation apply to all societies — the Formalist position (with Herskovits, LeClair, Schneider).

1. Substantivists – Karl Polanyi, George Dalton, Marshall Sahlins.
2. Culture morphology – Leo Frobenius.

Short trick: Firth & Herskovits – Formalists; Polanyi & Dalton – Substantivists.

Concept: In the Mediterranean (Italian) stage sequence, the Versilian is the latest stage, at the end of the Würm glaciation and the transition to the post-glacial.

1. Order: Sicilian/Calabrian (early) → Milazzian → Tyrrhenian (Riss–Würm interglacial) → Monastirian → Versilian (late/post-Würm).
2. So among the four Alpine glaciations (Günz, Mindel, Riss, Würm), Versilian fauna relates to the Würm.

Short trick: Last stage (Versilian) ↔ last glaciation (Würm).

Concept: Arnold van Gennep coined 'rites of passage' (Les Rites de Passage, 1909).

1. Three phases: separation (pre-liminal), transition (liminal), incorporation (post-liminal).
2. Victor Turner later elaborated liminality and communitas; Mauss – The Gift.

Short trick: Van Gennep: Separation – Liminal – Incorporation.

Concept: 'Jhum' is the north-eastern name of slash-and-burn cultivation, practised by the Nagas and other NE tribes.

1. Baiga – Bewar; Bhuiya/Juang (Odisha) – Podu/Dahi; Maria/Gond – Penda; Kerala – Ponam.
2. So Jhum = Naga.

Short trick: Jhum – North-East; Bewar – Baiga; Podu – Odisha/Andhra.