Investigations led by Mandy Mottram at the site of Tell Halula revealed the site was
originally composed of two tells; the techniques used included
a) extensive geochemical analysis
b) GIS and surface survey
c) LANDSAT and SPOT data
d) scraping away shallow topsoil deposits
e) large-scale, box-grid excavations conducted over several years
Although variable according to population, a number of skeletal attributes can be used
for differentiation of the sexes. The best indicator of sex is the
a) shape of the pelvis
b) shape of the mandible
c) shape of the cranial vault
d) shape of the femur and tibia
e) none of the above
The intentional use and control of fire by humans is known as
a) pyrotechnology
b) pyromania
c) metallurgy
d) smelting
e) pyroxia
The Valley of Oaxaca in the southern highlands of Mexico is best known for the hilltop
city of _________, the one-time capital of the Zapotecs and famous for its architecture
and carved stone slabs
a) Monte Albn
b) Guil Naquitz
c) Mexico City
d) Tierras Largas
e) Queyash Alto
Credited with meticulous excavations and description, Sir William Flinders Petrie was
also responsible for devising the technique of
a) seriation (sequence dating)
b) radiocarbon dating (C14)
c) grid-square excavation methods
d) regional survey
e) all of the above
______________ trained under Mortimer Wheeler, adopted his box-grid method, and is
best known for excavations at Jericho and Jerusalem
a) Kathleen Kenyon
b) Gertrude Caton-Thompson
c) Anna O. Shepard
d) Mary Leakey
e) none of the above
The long-term study of an earthwork constructed at Overton Down, England, as
experimental archaeology indicates that
a) preservation was better in the chalk bank, and preservation of leather and pottery was
unchanged after 4 years
b) preservation was superior in the turf core, and preservation of textiles and bones had
changed little after 4 years
c) preservation was quite poor regardless of whether artifacts were in chalk or turf,
primarily because of rodent and earthworm activity
d) archaeologists have been underestimating the effects of earthworm activity on
preservation and site formation processes
e) experimental archaeology simply cannot be used to help understand the past
Compared to “dry archaeology,” “wet archaeology” (that is archaeology performed on
waterlogged sites)
a) costs four times less
b) is relatively simple as wet remains do not deteriorate
c) costs about the same
d) does not require the use of a laboratory
e) costs four times as much
Tropical climates
a) tend to have vegetation that overwhelms archaeological sites
b) often experience torrential rains when destroys masonry work and wood
c) are often so inhospitable that they can hinder archaeological looters
d) all of the above
e) a and b only
Pollen grains are
a) the tiny male reproductive bodies of flowering plants
b) the minute particles of silica derived from the cells of plants
c) the outermost protective layer of the skin of leaves or blades of grass
d) fossilized unicellular algae
e) none of the above
Pseudoarchaeological theories typically share which of the following characteristics:
a) they celebrate a lost world whose people possessed skills that were more advanced
than those of the present
b) they assert that all prehistoric accomplishments were the work of the inhabitants of a
lost world
c) the lost world vanished in a major catastrophe
d) nothing of the original homeland of the lost world is left for scientific study
e) all of the above
In the systems approach, when a system is maintained in a constant state through the
operation of negative feedback, this is known as
a) synchronicity
b) holism
c) homeostasis
d) a monocausal explanation
e) none of the above
Excavations at the Boarding School site in northern Montana, carried out with help
from the local Blackfoot tribe, found evidence of a typical hunting practice used for
thousands of years in North America, with three layers of bones, each representing one
episode. This site was a
a) bison drive site
b) moose corral
c) antelope kill site
d) a bison domestication corral
e) quail snare
The introduction of pottery generally seems to coincide with the adoption of a more
sedentary way of life. Paleolithic people may not have created pottery because
a) they were not really very smart
b) mobile hunter-gatherers would not want to carry heavy fired clay containers around
c) clay sources were difficult to find during the Paleolithic because they were often
buried under glaciers and ice
d) mobile hunter-gatherers were generally too busy hunting to make pottery
e) both a and c
Studying the lead levels in skeletons of Colonial Americans living during the 17th to
19th centuries in Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia, Arthur Aufderheide discovered that
a) wealthy plantation owners had the highest lead levels
b) white tenant farmers tended to have higher lead levels than slaves or free blacks
c) slaves and free blacks generally had the highest lead levels
d) all of the above
e) answers a and b are correct
Mexico City is located on the site of ___________, the capital of the Aztecs
a) Teotihuacan
b) Tikal
c) Tula
d) Tenochititlan
e) Timbuktu
Study of the patterns of wear or damage on the edges of stone tools that can provide
useful information on a particular tool’s function is known as
a) refitting
b) microwear analysis
c) scanning electron analysis
d) plating
e) none of the above
Latex rubber molds were used at the site of Red Bay to record sensitive timbers in situ.
This innovative technique is just one of many unique excavation and recording methods
available to archaeologists working on
a) crop-marks
b) tell sites
c) aerial reconnaissance
d) shipwrecks
e) the origins of agriculture
In order to understand bone assemblages produced as a result of human activity as
opposed to those created by animals, studies have focused on the effects of predators
and scavengers on bones. A bone collection that consists of high numbers of bone shafts
and a low number of bones with articular ends was probably produced by
a) humans
b) animals
c) site formation processes
d) ritual cannibalism
e) bioturbation
Deposition of artifacts with the dead may indicate
a) belief in an afterlife
b) disposal of personal objects that would bring bad luck to others
c) symbolic reflections of that person’s status in society
d) all of the above
e) only answers a and c are correct
Centralized societies typically exhibit disparities between rich and poor, and thus they
offer the potential to study social ranking and social organization. Which of the
following offers strong evidence of social ranking?
a) Group residences, similar burials, short term occupation of sites
b) Dispersed hamlets, equitable residences and few specialists
c) Elite residences, rich burials, and craft specialists
d) Villages, some rich group burials, few specialists
e) Cave sites, evidence for butchering, and fine hunting equipment
The Rosetta Stone was found to be the key to
a) deciphering Aramaic
b) deciphering ancient Hebrew
c) deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs
d) deciphering Linear A
e) deciphering the location of the Holy Grail
In the end, the scientists lost the legal battle for Kenniwick Man and his remains were
returned to the Umatilla.
The idea that European Megaliths were used by elders and community leaders to
manipulate the members of society into the continued recognition of their social status
is an example of a
a) Postprocessual explanation
b) Functional-processual explanation
c) Neo-Marxist explanation
d) Migrationist or Diffusionist explanation
e) New Archaeology explanation
Based on mtDNA analysis, Rebecca Cann and her colleagues claim that the ancestor of
everyone on earth today, a woman nicknamed Eve, lived in Africa about _________
years ago
a) 2 million
b) 900,000
c) 200,000
d) 10,000
e) 2,000
As temperatures rise after an ice age and glaciers melt, the weight of ice is removed
from the land. The rise in the level of the land creates raised beaches in a process
known as
a) isometric uplift
b) isotopic uplift
c) isostatic uplift
d) geomorphic uplift
e) geostatic uplift
Whose work at Pecos Pueblo, New Mexico was largely responsible for putting the
archaeology of the Southwest on the map?
a) Max Uhle
b) Alfred Maudslay
c) Flinders Petrie
d) Leonard Woolley
e) Alfred Kidder
The study of artifacts and other material indicators of patterned actions that reflect
religious beliefs is known as
a) the archaeology of cult
b) paleoethnoarchaeology
c) archaeology of material remains
d) spiritual archaeology
e) cultural anthropology
Rice phytoliths at Khok Phanom Di suggested that the earliest episode of burning might
have been associated with agriculture, though _______________ could have been
responsible as well
a) fuel production
b) burn-offs by hunter-gatherers
c) normal conflagrations
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
Found in Lower Pleistocene contexts, crude stone pebbles once thought to be made by
humans but now considered to be natural are known as
a) eoliths
b) coprolites
c) faience
d) fauxaliths
e) slag
______________ is a theoretical approach developed by the “Frankfurt School” of
German social thinkers. This approach stresses that all knowledge is historical, biased
communication, and thus all claims to objective knowledge are illusory
a) Structuration Theory
b) Conjunctivist Theory
c) Catastrophe Theory
d) Critical Theory
e) Scientism
Emphasizing the scientific methodology of problem statement, hypothesis formulation,
and subsequent testing, ______________ is an approach that stresses the dynamic
relationship between the social and economic aspects of culture and the environment in
understanding culture change
a) Marxist archaeology
b) structuralist archaeology
c) culture-historical archaeology
d) postprocessual archaeology
e) processual archaeology
The remains of an Etruscan woman named Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa, who died 2200
years ago, were positively identified as belonging to the sarcophagus they were buried
in thanks to:
a) DNA testing
b) consultation of property records
c) facial reconstruction
d) the presence of contemporary written accounts
e) all of the above
In many museums, archaeological context is disregarded and ignored: artifacts are
displayed simply as
a) conversation pieces
b) works of art
c) merchandise
d) proof of pseudoarchaeological claims
e) stands for more modern pieces