UPSC Anthropology 2026 — Paper I

(a) A compact 150-word note establishing that health, illness and the body are culturally defined categories rather than purely biological givens. The directive is implicit ('write a note'), so the answer must define, illustrate with named cross-cultural material, and close with applied relevance. (b) A 150-word note on two linked concepts in human growth and development: canalization (the buffering of a developmental trajectory) and catch-up growth (return to that trajectory after an insult). The answer must show the logical link between them, not treat them as two unrelated definitions. (c) A 150-word note situating myth within the study of oral literature / verbal art: what distinguishes myth from other oral genres, how it is transmitted orally, and what the major theoretical approaches to it are. (d) A 150-word note defining genetic polymorphism precisely and showing how natural selection creates and maintains it. The two terms must be connected causally; a definition-only answer misses the demand. (e) A 150-word note on two branches of archaeology paired for contrast: ethnoarchaeology and classical archaeology. The answer must define each precisely and bring out the contrast in aim, data and theoretical orientation - not write two disconnected paragraphs.

• Defines health as a culturally constructed category, noting the WHO 1948 definition and its critique
• Disease vs illness (Kleinman and Eisenberg) and sickness as a social role (Twaddle / Young / Frankenberg)
• Culturally varying aetiologies: Foster and Anderson's personalistic vs naturalistic systems (humoral hot-cold, Ayurvedic tridosha)
• At least one culture-bound syndrome with its society (susto, koro, latah, dhat)
• An Indian example (Shitala mata, tribal ethnomedicine) and medical pluralism
• Canalization defined and credited to C. H. Waddington (epigenetic landscape, creode)
• Catch-up growth defined as accelerated velocity returning the child to the original centile after an insult (Prader, Tanner and von Harnack, 1963)
• Explicit link: catch-up growth is evidence of canalization / target-seeking growth (Tanner)
• Limits: completeness depends on severity, duration and timing; the first 1000 days as a critical window
• At least one example (coeliac disease, hypothyroidism, adoptee studies)
• Myth as a genre of oral literature / verbal art, distinguished from legend and folktale (Bascom): sacred, believed true, set in a remote past
• Orality: variation between versions, performance, oral-formulaic transmission (Parry and Lord) or Vansina
• Malinowski's functionalist view: myth as social charter ('Myth in Primitive Psychology', 1926; Trobriand)
• Lévi-Strauss's structural analysis (1955): mythemes, binary oppositions, mediation of contradiction
• A named Indian or tribal myth example
• Ford's definition of genetic polymorphism (rarest form above about 1%, not maintained by recurrent mutation alone)
• Transient vs balanced polymorphism
• Heterozygote advantage illustrated by HbS and P. falciparum malaria (Allison, 1954)
• Indian tribal HbS data (e.g., Gond, Bhil, Baiga, Irula)
• Other selective mechanisms (frequency-dependent selection) and Hardy-Weinberg as the null model
• Ethnoarchaeology defined: study of living communities to build analogies for interpreting the archaeological record and site formation
• Binford's 'Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology' (1978) and middle-range theory
• At least one other practitioner (Gould among Western Desert Aborigines; Hodder's 'Symbols in Action', 1982)
• Classical archaeology defined: Greek and Roman civilizations, text-aided and art-historical, using inscriptions, coins, monuments and stylistic typology
• Explicit contrast of aims, data and orientation, with an Indian ethnoarchaeological example

(a) A three-part question: define somatotype, 'discuss' the Heath-Carter anthropometric method and state its 'advantages over' Sheldon's photoscopic method, then show 'how' somatotyping is applied in sports science. All three parts must be attempted; the comparative element and the application are separately marked. (b) The directive is 'discuss in detail with appropriate examples' - the answer must explain the mechanism by which religious belief operates as an ecological regulator, and must be built around named ethnographic cases rather than generalities. The Hindi wording confirms the focus is on cultural mechanisms of environmental adaptation. (c) The question asks 'how is the theory of structuralism helpful' - so the answer must first state structuralist premises and then apply them specifically to caste and to gender, two distinct sub-parts of equal weight. A balanced answer also gauges the limits of that helpfulness.

• endomorphy, mesomorphy, ectomorphy
• W. H. Sheldon, 'The Varieties of Human Physique' (1940), photoscopic method, Ponderal Index
• Barbara Heath and Lindsay Carter (1967)
• the four skinfolds: triceps, subscapular, supraspinale, medial calf
• biepicondylar humerus and femur breadths; flexed arm and calf girths
• open-ended rating scale
• somatochart, X and Y coordinates, somatoplot
• sport-specific somatotype profiles and talent identification
• Roy Rappaport, 'Pigs for the Ancestors' (1968), Tsembaga Maring, kaiko
• Julian Steward, cultural ecology, cultural core
• Marvin Harris, cultural materialism, sacred cow, pig taboo
• sacred groves - Sarna, Devrai, Kavu, Law Kyntang, Oran
• Bishnoi, khejri tree and blackbuck
• totemism as species protection
• Malinowski on Trobriand deep-sea fishing magic
• critique of functionalist circularity
• Claude Levi-Strauss, binary opposition, deep structure vs surface structure
• Louis Dumont, 'Homo Hierarchicus' (1966), purity and impurity, hierarchy, encompassing of the contrary
• status-power disjunction
• Sherry Ortner (1974), nature : culture :: female : male
• 'The Elementary Structures of Kinship' (1949), exchange of women, incest taboo
• Leela Dube, seed and earth, control of female sexuality and caste endogamy
• critiques: Berreman, Dipankar Gupta, Gloria Raheja, Gayle Rubin

(a) The question asks how four specific concepts - power, authority, legitimacy and social control - transform as political organization changes. The answer must define the four, then track them across the band-tribe-chiefdom-state sequence with named ethnographic examples, showing change rather than merely describing each type. (b) The directive 'elaborate' on a given statement requires the candidate to substantiate the bio-cultural proposition: show that biological change enabled culture, that culture in turn became a selective force on biology, and support each link with dated fossil, archaeological or genetic evidence. (c) Two linked demands: give the spatial distribution of Palaeolithic sites in the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan (Siwalik) belt, and, as the Hindi wording stresses, highlight the typological and technological character of the tools. Distribution without typo-technology, or typology without named localities, is a half answer.

• Max Weber: power, authority, legitimacy; traditional, charismatic and rational-legal authority
• band, tribe, chiefdom, state typology (Service)
• Evans-Pritchard, 'The Nuer' (1940), segmentary lineage, leopard-skin chief
• Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, 'African Political Systems' (1940), Group A and Group B
• Marshall Sahlins (1963) on the Big Man
• Ju/'hoansi San or Andamanese headman; Inuit song duel
• Malinowski, 'Crime and Custom in Savage Society' (1926); Llewellyn and Hoebel, 'The Cheyenne Way' (1941)
• PESA 1996 / Sixth Schedule / khap panchayat as contemporary Indian illustration
• bio-cultural / feedback model; Sherwood Washburn
• Laetoli footprints (c. 3.6 mya) and Australopithecus afarensis
• cranial capacity trend from australopithecines to Homo sapiens
• Oldowan tools c. 2.6 mya, Gona
• control of fire and Richard Wrangham's cooking hypothesis
• Aiello and Wheeler, expensive tissue hypothesis (1995)
• lactase persistence and dairying; sickle cell, yam cultivation and malaria (Livingstone 1958)
• secondary altriciality and prolonged childhood
• Siwalik / sub-Himalayan zone; Soan or Sohan valley, Potwar plateau
• de Terra and Paterson (1939), Yale-Cambridge expedition, terrace sequence
• Pre-Soan, Early Soan, Late Soan phases
• choppers and chopping tools, discoids, flake scrapers, Levallois technique
• quartzite pebbles from Siwalik conglomerate
• Atbarapur / Hoshiarpur Acheulian handaxes and cleavers; Guler and Dehra Gopipur
• Movius Line
• Kashmir Karewa localities (Pahalgam, Sombur); Nepal Siwaliks; Rongram valley, Garo Hills

(a) Four explicitly named heads must all be covered for Paranthropus: phylogenetic status, characteristic features, geographical distribution and lifeways. Marks are effectively distributed across the four, so omitting any one - most often lifeways - is costly. (b) The directive 'discuss' is tied to a specific proposition - that the incest taboo is the basis on which kinship systems develop. So theories of the taboo must be marshalled to explain how kinship structures arise from it, not merely listed as competing explanations of its origin. (c) The question restricts the scope to numerical aberrations only, and explicitly requires both autosomal and sex-chromosomal cases, elaborated in terms of their effects on the human body, with examples. Structural aberrations such as deletions and translocations are outside the asked scope.

• Robert Broom (1938); robust australopithecines
• P. robustus, P. boisei, P. aethiopicus
• OH 5 'Zinjanthropus', Mary Leakey, Olduvai Bed I, 1959, c. 1.75 mya
• KNM-WT 17000 'Black Skull', West Turkana, c. 2.5 mya
• TM 1517 Kromdraai; Swartkrans; Drimolen
• sagittal crest, flaring zygomatic arches, post-canine megadontia, thick enamel, dished face
• cranial capacity roughly 410-550 cc
• stable carbon isotope evidence for C4 diet; bone tools for termite foraging; extinction c. 1 mya
• Edward Westermarck (1891) and the Westermarck effect; kibbutz and Taiwanese sim-pua evidence
• Freud, 'Totem and Taboo' (1913)
• E. B. Tylor (1889), 'marry out or be killed out'
• Leslie White (1948) on incest and cooperation
• Levi-Strauss, 'The Elementary Structures of Kinship' (1949), exchange of women, restricted and generalised exchange, nature to culture
• consanguine vs affine; clan and gotra exogamy; sapinda rules, Hindu Marriage Act 1955
• north-south Indian contrast in cross-cousin marriage (Karve, Dumont, Trautmann)
• royal sibling marriage in Egypt, Inca, Hawaii
• nondisjunction; aneuploidy vs euploidy; monosomy, trisomy, polyploidy, mosaicism
• trisomy 21 Down syndrome, 47,+21, Lejeune 1959
• trisomy 18 Edwards syndrome; trisomy 13 Patau syndrome
• Turner syndrome 45,X; streak ovaries, short stature, webbed neck, no Barr body
• Klinefelter syndrome 47,XXY; gynaecomastia, azoospermia, Barr body present
• 47,XYY and 47,XXX
• maternal age effect
• karyotyping, amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling, FISH

(a) A 150-word note on the ethical obligations governing anthropological fieldwork: the core principles, the codes that state them, the controversies that produced those codes, and the dilemmas specific to participant observation. (b) A 150-word comparative note setting out the features that distinguish nuclear from mitochondrial DNA. The demand is explicitly contrastive, so a point-by-point comparison, ideally with the anthropological uses that follow from the differences, is what earns marks. (c) A 150-word note on the relationship between the feminist movement and the family: how feminism has analysed and criticised the family as an institution, and how family forms have changed in consequence. The Hindi wording confirms the pairing of movement and institution. (d) A 150-word note on the use of anthropometric data in ergonomics: what ergonomics is, which body dimensions matter, the design rules that convert measurement into product, and Indian applications. (e) A 150-word note on thermoluminescence as an absolute dating method: the physical principle, the age equation, the materials and time range it suits, and its limitations. The note must show why a heating event is what is dated.

• do no harm and primary obligation to the people studied
• informed consent, confidentiality, right to withdraw
• AAA Code of Ethics / Principles of Professional Responsibility
• ICMR National Ethical Guidelines (2017) and institutional ethics committee
• Project Camelot (1964-65)
• 'Darkness in El Dorado' / Yanomami controversy
• Havasupai DNA case
• covert observation and the deception problem
• circular vs linear; about 16,569 bp; 3.2 billion bp nuclear genome
• 37 mitochondrial genes: 13 proteins, 22 tRNA, 2 rRNA
• D-loop / control region, HVR-I and HVR-II
• maternal, non-recombining inheritance vs biparental Mendelian inheritance
• heteroplasmy and threshold effect
• higher mutation rate and molecular clock use
• Cann, Stoneking and Wilson (1987), Mitochondrial Eve
• mitochondrial disorders such as LHON or MELAS
• Simone de Beauvoir, 'The Second Sex' (1949); Betty Friedan, 'The Feminine Mystique' (1963)
• Engels, 'The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State' (1884)
• Kate Millett or Shulamith Firestone (1970)
• domestic labour / unpaid care debate; Ann Oakley
• Rosaldo and Lamphere (1974), domestic-public dichotomy; Sherry Ortner
• Kimberle Crenshaw and intersectionality
• Towards Equality report 1974; Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005; Domestic Violence Act 2005
• Leela Dube
• definition of ergonomics: fitting the job to the worker
• static / structural vs dynamic / functional anthropometry
• popliteal height, buttock-popliteal length, elbow height, functional reach, grip span
• percentiles: 5th and 95th
• design for extremes, design for adjustability, fallacy of the average man
• school furniture mismatch or agricultural tool design
• musculoskeletal disorders from mismatch
• need for population-specific Indian anthropometric data
• trapped electrons in lattice defects of quartz and feldspar
• ionising radiation from uranium, thorium, potassium and cosmic rays
• zeroing by heating above about 500 degrees Celsius
• age = equivalent dose (palaeodose) / annual dose rate
• pottery, burnt flint, hearths, baked clay
• approximate range and about 5-10 per cent error
• anomalous fading and moisture content as error sources
• optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) as the sediment-dating counterpart

(a) Two linked demands: the methods by which one establishes that a disorder is genetically determined, and then the identification of its mode of inheritance, each illustrated with named disorders. The Hindi wording confirms the two-step structure - first whether it is inherited, then in what manner. (b) The directive is 'critically discuss', anchored to Leslie White's theory. The answer must expound White's account of culture as a determinant of human behaviour and then evaluate it - a purely expository answer forfeits the critical marks. (c) Three explicit demands: define Strepsirhini, describe their geographical distribution, and state the characters distinguishing them from Haplorhini. All three must appear; the contrast with Haplorhini is separately marked and is the commonest omission.

• pedigree analysis, proband, segregation analysis
• twin concordance (MZ vs DZ) and heritability; adoption studies
• consanguinity as evidence of autosomal recessive inheritance
• linkage analysis and LOD score; GWAS
• Huntington disease, achondroplasia, Marfan syndrome (autosomal dominant)
• sickle-cell anaemia, beta-thalassaemia, phenylketonuria, cystic fibrosis (autosomal recessive)
• haemophilia (A and B), Duchenne muscular dystrophy, colour blindness, G6PD deficiency (X-linked recessive)
• mitochondrial inheritance - LHON or MELAS; multifactorial threshold traits; imprinting (Prader-Willi and Angelman)
• Leslie A. White; 'The Science of Culture' (1949); 'The Evolution of Culture' (1959)
• culturology; culture as superorganic and sui generis
• symboling; 'The Symbol' (1940)
• White's Law: energy harnessed per capita per year x efficiency of technology
• technological, sociological and ideological subsystems; technological determinism
• general evolution vs Steward's multilinear evolution
• critique: absence of agency, crudeness of energy measure, neglect of meaning and history
• counter-positions: Geertz, Bourdieu, Sahlins
• Strepsirhini vs Haplorhini; replacement of the Prosimii-Anthropoidea grade division
• Lemuriformes and Lorisiformes
• Madagascar endemism of lemurs; sub-Saharan Africa for galagos and pottos
• Loris lydekkerianus in peninsular India; Nycticebus bengalensis in north-east India
• rhinarium, toothcomb, grooming claw, tapetum lucidum, postorbital bar without closure
• unfused mandibular symphysis and frontal suture
• haplorhine features: dry nose, postorbital closure, fovea, haemochorial placenta
• tarsiers are haplorhines despite the prosimian grade

(a) The directive 'discuss' on mixed method approach in anthropological research requires definition, design typology, the anthropological lineage of the approach, the concrete techniques used, and a balanced assessment of strengths and difficulties. (b) Two parts: define fertility and mortality with their standard measures, and then explain how both are influenced by biological and by socio-ecological factors. The Hindi rendering of fertility as prajanan shakti invites the fertility-fecundity distinction. (c) Five heads are explicitly named for the Magdalenian: characteristic features, chronology, geographical distribution, tool types and lifeways. Each must be visible in the answer; omission of any one is directly penalised.

• definition: planned integration of qualitative and quantitative strands; pragmatism
• Creswell and Plano Clark design typology - convergent, explanatory sequential, exploratory sequential, embedded
• Denzin (1970) and triangulation
• Malinowski, 'Argonauts of the Western Pacific' (1922), statistical documentation by concrete evidence
• HRAF, Ethnographic Atlas, Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (Murdock)
• free listing, pile sorting, cultural consensus analysis (Romney, Weller and Batchelder 1986)
• PRA/RRA techniques (Robert Chambers)
• emic and etic; risk of non-integration
• fertility vs fecundity; mortality and morbidity
• CBR, GFR, ASFR, TFR, GRR, NRR
• CDR, IMR, neonatal and under-five mortality, MMR, life expectancy at birth
• replacement level fertility of about 2.1
• Davis and Blake (1956) intermediate variables; Bongaarts (1978) proximate determinants
• lactational amenorrhoea and birth spacing
• age at marriage, female education and autonomy, son preference
• demographic transition and Omran's epidemiological transition; Indian tribal demographic data
• La Madeleine rockshelter, Dordogne; Lartet and Christy; de Mortillet
• follows Solutrean, precedes Azilian; roughly 17,000-12,000 BP; Breuil's six stages
• Franco-Cantabrian distribution; Altamira; Creswell Crags; Gonnersdorf; Kesslerloch
• blades and bladelets, backed bladelets, burins including the parrot-beak burin, end scrapers, shouldered points
• barbed antler harpoons, uniserial and biserial; sagaies; baton perce; eyed needles; spear-thrower
• reindeer-dominated hunting, the 'Age of the Reindeer'
• Pincevent and Etiolles; Leroi-Gourhan
• cave art at Altamira, Niaux, Font-de-Gaume, Les Trois Freres

(a) An explicitly comparative question: Leach's structuralism must be set against Geertz's interpretive anthropology. Both positions must be expounded with their key works and then compared along stated axes; a two-part answer with no actual comparison loses heavily. (b) Two distinct questions: the usefulness of serogenetics and cytogenetics in reproductive biology, and the major ethical issues in reproductive technology. Roughly two thirds of the answer belongs to the first and one third to the second; neither may be dropped. (c) The question asks how basic personality types may lead to the building up of national character, with appropriate examples. It requires the Culture and Personality apparatus - basic personality structure and modal personality - to be connected explicitly to the national character studies, and a critical assessment of that move.

• Edmund Leach, 'Political Systems of Highland Burma' (1954), Kachin gumsa and gumlao oscillation
• 'Rethinking Anthropology' (1961); 'Pul Eliya' (1961); 'Culture and Communication' (1976)
• Clifford Geertz, 'The Interpretation of Cultures' (1973), thick description, Gilbert Ryle
• culture as webs of significance; 'Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight' (1972)
• 'Religion as a Cultural System' (1966), ethos and worldview
• binary oppositions and structural models versus hermeneutic interpretation
• nomothetic versus idiographic; explanation versus understanding
• critiques: Crapanzano, 'Writing Culture' (Clifford and Marcus 1986), Talal Asad
• ABO, Rh, MN, Duffy, Kell, HLA as serogenetic markers
• Rh incompatibility, haemolytic disease of the newborn, anti-D immunoglobulin prophylaxis
• karyotyping, banding, FISH; balanced and Robertsonian translocations in recurrent pregnancy loss
• Turner 45,X and Klinefelter 47,XXY as chromosomal causes of infertility; Y chromosome AZF microdeletions
• amniocentesis, chorionic villus sampling, NIPT, preimplantation genetic testing
• PCPNDT Act 1994 (amended 2003)
• ART (Regulation) Act 2021 and Surrogacy (Regulation) Act 2021
• commodification and exploitation of surrogates; embryo status; germline editing and He Jiankui (2018)
• Abram Kardiner; primary and secondary institutions; basic personality structure
• Ralph Linton; Cora Du Bois, 'The People of Alor' (1944); modal personality; Rorschach and TAT
• Ruth Benedict, 'Patterns of Culture' (1934); Apollonian Zuni and Dionysian Kwakiutl
• Ruth Benedict, 'The Chrysanthemum and the Sword' (1946); shame versus guilt culture; on and giri
• culture at a distance; Mead and Metraux (1953); Gorer's swaddling hypothesis
• Inkeles and Levinson (1954), national character as modal personality
• Carstairs, 'The Twice-Born' (1957); Sudhir Kakar, 'The Inner World' (1978)
• critiques: circularity, projective test validity, stereotyping; Wallace's organization of diversity; Freeman on Mead