Q 01/05

Which US president's mother, Ann Dunham, was an anthropologist who studied village blacksmiths in Indonesia?

A) Jimmy Carter

B) Barack Obama

C) Bill Clinton

D) George W. Bush

Answer · why

B) Barack Obama

Barack Obama's mother wrote her dissertation on peasant blacksmithing, which a fellow anthropologist called a classic study of a 1,200-year-old indust...

Q 02/05

Which author of the Earthsea novels was the daughter of California anthropologist Alfred Kroeber?

A) Anne McCaffrey

B) Octavia E. Butler

C) Ursula K. Le Guin

D) Madeleine L'Engle

Answer · why

C) Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin kept the family name as her middle initial: the K stands for Kroeber. Her mother Theodora wrote Ishi in Two Worlds, about the last o...

Q 03/05

Which object falls from a plane into a San community of the Kalahari in the comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy?

A) A Coca-Cola bottle

B) A transistor radio

C) A cigarette lighter

D) A pocket watch

Answer · why

A) A Coca-Cola bottle

A Coca-Cola bottle is taken for a gift from the gods, but it causes so many quarrels that Xi walks to the edge of the world to throw it away.

Q 04/05

Which classical star trained at Juilliard but took a Harvard degree in anthropology rather than music?

A) Itzhak Perlman

B) Lang Lang

C) Joshua Bell

D) Yo-Yo Ma

Answer · why

D) Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma graduated in 1976 and later formed the Silk Road Ensemble, bringing together musicians from countries once linked by the old trade route.

Q 05/05

Which British sport, brought by a missionary in 1903, did Trobriand Islanders remake with chanting and huge teams?

A) Cricket

B) Rugby

C) Football

D) Hockey

Answer · why

A) Cricket

Cricket in the Trobriand Islands can have 40 or 50 players a side, and by custom the home team always wins.