When we say statistical population we mean
a. A range of archaeological material across a landscape.
b. A set of counts, measurements, or characteristics about which relevant inquiries are
to be made.
c. The region that will be sampled.
d. The demographic count of a site.
How could an archaeologist tell if flowing water rather than human behavior was
responsible for the deposition of artifacts at an archaeological site?
a. Artifacts and unmodified rocks might be imbricated.
b. Artifacts and unmodified rocks might be oriented to the direction of flow.
c. Both A and B.
d. There is no way to tell, and therefore the artifact assemblage is likely to be
misinterpreted.
The age of the Laetoli footprints was determined by:
a. Directly dating the footprints themselves.
b. Potassium-argon dating.
c. The law of superposition.
d. Both B and C.
While prehistory was largely ignored in Germany prior to Hitler’s rise to power,
archaeological research flourished under Hitler’s control. Nazi archaeology:
a. Provided Europe with some of the best archaeological research that had ever been
done, using cutting edge methods and sound scientific principles.
b. Found evidence that Germanic people had emanated from a northern European core
area, carrying with them all the major cultural achievements that then spread to the less
civilized peoples of Europe.
c. Was used to support claims for Aryan superiority, in spite of the fact that no such
evidence existed.
d. Found evidence of Aryan kings in locations as far away as Tibet and Iceland, thus
proving the cultural and biological superiority of Germanic peoples.
Which of the following is true of symbols and symbolic behavior?
a. The ability to use symbols lies at the heart of what it means to be human; uniquely
human attributes, such as language, are made possible by the ability to use symbols.
b. Symbols have no necessary connection to their culturally assigned meanings; this
means that the same symbols can differ in meaning cross-culturally, and that symbolic
behavior is difficult to study archaeologically.
c. The same symbol can carry different meanings in different contexts within the same
culture.
d. All of the above.
As demonstrated by the Garbage Project’s research into landfills, the bulk of American
landfills are comprised of:
a. Plastic.
b. Paper.
c. Construction materials.
d. Aluminum.
The Bighorn Medicine Wheel today:
a. Is off limits to the general public.
b. Remains a sacred site to many contemporary Indian people, where ceremonies are
performed to this day.
c. Has been abandoned by contemporary Indian people because it is overrun by large
crowds of tourists.
d. Has been completely looted and destroyed; sadly, nothing of the original site
remains.
Most of the strata in Gatecliff rockshelter consist of:
a. Sediments brought into the shelter by humans.
b. Naturally deposited alluvial and eolian sediments.
c. Thick layers of rock from collapse of the shelter roof over time.
d. Thick layers of volcanic ash.
Chavn iconography commonly depicts:
a. Chavn deities and elites being worshipped by the common people, often containing
scenes of human sacrifice.
b. Animals local to the Chavn region and those that the Chavn people depended upon
for food, including wild deer, vicuna, llama, and guinea pigs.
c. Stylized creatures native to forests of the eastern slope some several hundred miles
away, and not occurring in the local highland environment.
d. Agricultural scenes of crops the Chavn people relied upon, as well as their extensive
irrigation systems.
While private CRM firms carry out most of the compliance projects, who pays for the
projects?
a. The public through federal tax dollars.
b. Concerned citizens who are interested in the welfare of properties.
c. University research funding.
d. Whoever is doing the construction.
If an archaeologist is studying ancient patterns of disease and disorders, he or she is
studying:
a. Bioarchaeology.
b. Paleopathology.
c. Mortality profiles.
d. Paleodemography.
Petrographic analysis involves:
a. Shooting an x-ray beam onto lithic raw material causing the electrons to become
excited and emit fluorescent energy.
b. Trace element analysis of lithic raw material to obtain a “fingerprint” and identify
source.
c. Identifying the mineral composition of a pot’s temper and clay through microscopic
analysis of thin sections of the pottery.
d. All of the above; petrographic analysis refers to all techniques that attempt to source
ceramic or lithic raw material.
Most people think landfills are comprised of______________, when in fact the volume
is going down.
a. Plastics
b. Appliances
c. Paper
d. Computers
What could a bioarchaeologist look at to determine the age at death of a mature human
skeleton (>30 years old)?
a. Tooth eruption patterns.
b. Patterns of bone fusion.
c. Paleopathologies such as osteoarthritis and enamel hypoplasias.
d. Patterns of wear on the pubic symphysis.
Mary Leakey’s discovery of fossil footprints in volcanic ash at Laetoli was important
because:
a. It warned locals of the presence of a nearby active volcano.
b. Fossil animal footprints had never before been discovered.
c. The volcanic ash had preserved the footprints of at least two bipedal hominids.
d. It proved that hominids manufactured and used stone tools prior to the origin of
bipedalism.
Reverse stratigraphy would result from which of the following situations?
a. If a pithouse is constructed in 1000 BP, and in 500 BP another pithouse is constructed
on top of the earlier pithouse, and in 300 BP a pueblo is constructed on top of both
pithouses.
b. If the construction of a pueblo in 500 BP unearths remains of a pithouse constructed
in 1000 BP, and the older pithouse remains are brought to the surface.
c. If rodent disturbance results in the fill of an earlier feature lying beneath the fill of a
later feature.
d. Any time natural or cultural disturbance processes act upon an archaeological site.
Phases are a term archaeologists use to refer to
a. culturally homogeneous units within a single site.
b. archeological cultures.
c. basic archaeological building blocks for regional synthesis.
d. temporal types.
If you are conducting archaeological excavation in an area where houses were made in
a way similar to that inhabited by Madagascar’s Mikea, and you find a house structure
that has very consistent post diameters (as determined by the post holes left behind,
now filled with decayed wood), what could you infer about the house based on
ethnoarchaeological research?
a. Wood resources were sparse.
b. It was used as a temporary foraging structure.
c. It was likely a permanent house.
d. It was a seasonal habitation.
Wyoming’s Bighorn Medicine Wheel site consists of:
a. A rock art panel depicting what is thought to represent a medicine wheel along with
abstract representations of bighorn sheep.
b. A stone circle, or “wheel”, nearly 90 feet in diameter, perched atop a 9640 foot high
peak.
c. A large, continuously occupied pithouse village along the banks of the Bighorn River.
d. A portion of the natural landscape in the Bighorn Mountains that is sacred to Native
American tribes in the region; the site itself contains nothing cultural in origin (in other
words, no material remains).
The example of pithouse construction
a. upholds the law of superposition.
b. indicates that the law of superposition does not apply.
c. indicates archaeological sites can be frozen in time.
d. is not valuable to a discussion of geomorphology.
An archaeologist’s research question is a major factor in determining the size and shape
of a survey area.
Research at Mulberry Row helps us understand
a. Nineteenth century slave auctions.
b. Proportions of enslaved people to Europeans.
c. Slave life at Monticello.
d. The traditional melting pot theme in American history.
The following statement regarding the Scientific Method is false:
a. Science is a reiterative method that begins and ends with facts that lead to a new
cycle of investigation.
b. Science is infallible and will always deliver the right answer on the first try.
c. Science is self-correcting and allows for backtracking and rethinking things that
others thought were over and done with.
d. Science does not prove a hypothesis, only suggests plausibility.
A stratified random sample is
a. A survey universe divided into several sub-universes.
b. A survey universe that is not divided into sub-universes.
c. A survey universe that cannot be given a Smithsonian number.
d. An ineffective way to gather and record information about sites.
Harris lines and dental hypoplasias can be used by bioarchaeologists to make inferences
about
a. Disease and malnourishment in old age.
b. Activity levels and diet of men and women.
c. Disease and malnourishment during infant-to-adolescent growth periods.
d. The amount of meat in the diet of prehistoric populations.
The story of the search for the Mission Santa Catalina illustrates:
a. The utility of proton precession magnetometry for finding buried structures.
b. That soil resistivity survey, while sometimes useful, is extremely problematic as it is
affected by soil wetness.
c. That ground-penetrating radar was not useful due to the shallowly-buried bedrock on
St. Catherines Island.
d. How a not-for-profit group does not sponsor a comprehensive program of research
and conservation.
The argument that females depicted in Classic Maya stelae occupied similar and
complimentary roles to those of males, and that these Maya stelae depict a prehistoric
cargo system, is based on:
a. Translation of Maya hieroglyphics that describe the operation of cargo systems.
b. Historically linked ethnographic analogy.
c. Oral tradition; although Maya today do not participate in cargo systems, a record of
their past participation has been preserved through storytelling.
d. All of the above.
Any archaeology of the mind will have more ___________than __________ flavor
because such an approach will necessarily address recovering meanings (rather than
law-like statements or generalizations about human behavior.
a. Postprocessual/processual
b. Processual/postprocessual
c. Objective reasoning/subjective reasoning
d. Subjective reasoning/objective reasoning
The Antiquities Act is the foundation of all future archaeological legislation. It is not
limited to archaeological sites, but includes
a. dams to generate electricity, irrigate lands, and control floods that damage
archaeological sites.
b. all river basins prior to inundation.
c. objects of historic or scientific interest.
d. museums, universities, and other scientific institutions that deal with antiquities.
A B horizon is:
a. The upper part of a soil where active organic and mechanical decomposition of
geological and organic material occurs.
b. A layer below the A horizon where clays accumulate that are transported downward
by water.
c. A layer above the A horizon marked by the leaching clays and the accumulation of
organic matter.
d. Unaltered or slightly altered parent material.
A concern with historic preservation in the United States can be traced to:
a. The late 18th century, when societies were formed to ensure the protection of
historically significant properties.
b. The early 20th century, when industrial development began to threaten significant
sites.
c. The 1960s and 1970s, coincident with more broadly based environmental
preservation movements.
d. None of the above; the overwhelming attitude in the United States is, and has always
been, a lack of concern for historic preservation while development is allowed to run
rampant no matter what the cost.
Cryoturbation results in:
a. Larger artifacts being pushed to the surface of a site.
b. Vertically size-sorted artifacts.
c. The long axis of buried artifacts being oriented vertically.
d. All of the above.
At an extremely old site (greater than 500,000 years), such as the older levels at
Olduvai Gorge, the best type of dating technique to use would be Potassium-Argon or
Argon”Argon.
While useful in geology, the index fossil concept has little archaeological utility.
The sanctity of private land in the U.S. means that the commercial mining of terrestrial
and underwater sites for artifacts is often completely legal or subject to only a minor
penalty.
Even with the protection of ARPA, policing federal land does not stop the looting that
continues to destroy the nation’s cultural heritage.
Wood rats urinate all over their nests, forming a lacquer-like covering on the nest that
promotes the preservation of organic materials.
A basic knowledge of plant reproduction is necessary for an agriculturalist, but such
knowledge is not sufficient to inspire all foragers to transform themselves into
agriculturalists.
Radiocarbon dating is useful worldwide because the amount of atmospheric 14C has
remained constant through time.
Archeologists think in terms of only residential groups, excluding non residential
groups.
Kinship systems describe relationships based solely on biological descent.
Archaeologists have tried to replicate, through trial and error with flintknapping, the
way in which Folsom points were fluted. This research is an example of experimental
archaeology.
All living cultures have some form of religion, and we assume that prehistoric cultures
did as well.
Geoarchaeology is the geological study of landforms and landscapes, for instance, soils,
rivers, hills, sand dunes, deltas, glacial deposits, and marshes.
John Lubbock’s influential archaeology textbook Prehistoric Times (1865) led to the
belief that contemporary “primitives” were living relics of prehistory; therefore
questions about the past could be answered simply by observing a living culture that
approximated the archaeological culture in question.
If you were developing a stone tool typology based on attributes such as the object’s use
(i.e. scraper vs. projectile point), you would be using functional types.
Lewis-Williams suggests that vision quests may have been held in the deepest cave
spaces.
Three important characteristics of culture are that it is learned, shared, and based on the
ability to use symbols.
“UTM” stands for “Universal Transverse Mercator”, a grid system where north and east
coordinates provide a location anywhere in the world.
Forensic archaeology involves using established archaeological techniques and
knowledge to assist law enforcement agencies for legal purposes.
New World archaeology is rarely if ever involved in ethical dilemmas, in large part
because it deals with the material remains of past cultures that have no living
descendants.
In order to infer ancient social and political organization, it is important to remember
that material culture reflects symbolic meaning as well as functional behaviors.