Questions for the Master's Exam in Biological Anthropology

Human Evolutionary History

1. Outline the major dating techniques used in geochronology.

2. Discuss the origin of modern humans (issues and evidence).

3. Discuss the peopling of Australia (issues and evidence). Relate
this story to the Upper Paleolithic of Europe and north Asia.

4. Discuss the peopling of the Americas (issues and evidence).

5. The geographic distribution of genetic variation seems to differ
between North and South America. Discuss.

6. Summarize the genetic evidence on the history of the human
population of some region of the world (a country or a continent).

7. Describe the world-wide pattern of variation in the human genetic
locus of your choice. What does this pattern imply about human history
or evolution?

8. Describe the world-wide distribution of variation in the
Y-chromosome and mtDNA. Do they tell the same story? Do women and men
have parallel histories? How come?

9. Several studies of aDNA variation have now been undertaken in a
number of archaeological samples throughout the world. Select one of
these, and review the findings. How has this study contributed to our
understanding of prehistory or evolution beyond what was known from
the archaeological record or genetic studies of contemporary
populations? What are the weaknesses or limitations of ancient DNA
approaches?

10. Review the evidence for multiple, independent hominid lineages in
the Pliocene.

11. Why do humans have large brains? Discuss the history of hominin
brain size, hypotheses about why humans evolved large brains, and any
relevant evidence.

12. Humans, even more than other primates, have slow life
histories -- long childhoods and life spans. Discuss (a) the
circumstances under which this pattern might be expected to
evolve, and (b) the fossil evidence about when it did evolve.

13. Discuss the history in the human evolutionary lineage of hidden
estrous, menstruation, and menopause. How are these related, if at all?

Evolutionary Genetics

14. Discuss the following types of genetic polymorphism, assuming that all are neutral: DNA sequence variation, microsatellites, single nucleotide polyporphisms, and transposable elements. How do the properties of these polymorphisms affect their utility in reconstructing human evolutionary or demographic history?

15. Consider the phylogenetic tree in the diagram below. It has two leaves, on one of which we observe nucleotide "A," and on the other of which we observe "T." The last common ancestor lived 1000 generations ago.

Calculate the likelihood of this tree, given this data set, and assuming that (a) nucleotide substitutions obey the Jukes-Cantor model with mutation rate 0.0003 , and (b) at the root, the prior
probabilities of the four nucleotides are equal. (On the test, the number of generations will be different, but everything else will be the same. (Consult Felsenstein, Inferring Phylogenies, 2003).

16. In a randomly-mating population with diploid population size N and mutation rate u, the expected heterozygosity (or gene diversity) is 4Nu/(1 + 4Nu). Be able to derive this result using (a) the classical method of recurrence equations, and (b) a coalescent argument. (To study for this, see Rogers's online notes on genetic drift and on coalescent theory for Anthro 5221.)

17. Discuss the molecular clock hypothesis. What evidence
supports it? What evidence opposes it? Under what
circumstances is it approximately correct? How is the clock
calibrated? What inferences rely on it?

18. How large are genetic differences between human races?
Discuss the significance of this answer in terms of (a) adaptive
evolution, (b) forensic (i.e. legal) genetics, (c) medicine, and
(d) our notions of decency and social justice.

Human adaptability/Human variation

Demography/Epidemiology