The languages of South Asia fall roughly into two families, Indo-European languages
and __________ languages.
a) Semitic
b) Dravidian
c) Celtic
d) Polynesian
e) Asiatic
The Norse settlement of L”Anse aux Meadows was long-lasting and established a
permanent Norse presence in the region.
Scholars have yet to find any evidence of ritual or cult activity from the European
Bronze Age.
Heinrich Schliemann proved that there was no historic truth to Homer’s Illiad and that
historic texts could not be used to aid in the study of archaeological sites.
Llama herding spread north from South America through Central America and into the
whole of North America becoming a vital part of the subsistence economy of the whole
continent.
All available archaeological evidence indicates that the emergence of dynamic South
Asian kingdoms with far-reaching trading partners in the 1st millennium ad was due to
contact with the Romans; the people of that region did not engage in Ocean-based trade
before then.
The famous pyramids of Giza were built during a time period known as the Old
Kingdom.
New Zealand has a much more tropical climate than temperate Hawai”i which means
that the full range of Polynesian plants and animals flourished in New Zealand but not
in Hawaii.
The technological complex that seems to have spread across much of the Americas by
around 13,000 years ago is the Magdalenian technological complex.
Sites belonging to the Neolithic Daxi culture were commonly located in ________
terrain making them well suited for rice fields.
a) swampy
b) hilly
c) sub-arctic
d) desert
e) open grassland
The state of ___________ located near Lake Van in Anatolia has been called a “shadow
empire.” Most of what we know about this culture comes from texts written by the
Assyrians, their bitterest enemy, but we do know that their primary god was named
Haldi.
a) Urartu
b) Phoenicia
c) Persia
d) Canaan
e) Judah
Which of the following are NOT usually recorded in Classic Maya inscriptions:
a) the names of rulers
b) details of wars and political alliances
c) birth and death dates of lords
d) emblems of polities and dynasties
e) information about the lives of common people
In times of economic and social uncertainty, the tools employed by Australians in the
mid-Holocene were:
a) large and ceremonial: they were pieces that commanded respect
b) small so as to conserve resources and to allow for better portability
c) primarily made out of copper and eventually bronze
d) large in response to the increased size of the megafauna being hunted
e) small and largely useless as a result of population and technology loss
The wealthy site of Ugarit on the Mediterranean coast of what is now Syria was
economically connected to the Hittite Empire and was a major center of ________ in
the 14th century bc.
a) mining and low-level manufacture
b) trade and commerce
c) education and philosophy
d) monotheism
e) all of the above
Robert Braidwood’s theory that farming began in the uplands of the Fertile Crescent,
where a number of potential domesticates are found is called the:
a) Oasis Theory
b) Demographic Theory
c) Feasting Hypothesis
d) Hilly Flanks Hypothesis
e) Evolutionary Hypothesis
G. R. Sharma characterized the settlement patterns of the South Asian Mesolithic as
being evidence of transhumance: people moved around throughout the year to utilize
different regional resources. Another term for transhumance is:
a) seasonal mobility
b) broad-spectrum strategy
c) intensification
d) peer-polity interaction
e) exchange
Non Pa Wai, a Neolithic site located in the Khao Wong Prachan Valley in what is now
Thailand, is best known for evidence for the extraction and processing of:
a) human skulls
b) oil
c) coal
d) iron ore
e) copper ore
The __________ is another name for the Indus civilization, based on the first
archaeological site of that civilization to be discovered.
a) Aryan Empire
b) Mughal Empire
c) Harappan civilization
d) the Kot Dijian Phase
e) Vedic Period
The term “encephalization” means:
a) upright walking
b) scavenging meat from predator kills
c) an increase in brain size
d) the process of experimentally producing a stone tool
e) an increase in body mass
“Stone boiling” involves dropping hot stones into liquid:
a) to prepare them to be shaped into stone tools
b) for divination and other religious ceremonies
c) to boil the liquid and cook food
d) to disinfect them for medical purposes
e) to pour them on enemies
Around 6200 bc, evidence from the Greenland ice core shows that global climate went
into a sharp cold phase that lasted for around 200 years. The cause is thought to be:
a) the sudden emptying of Lake Agassiz, a vast freshwater lake on the US/Canadian
border, into the North Atlantic
b) the extinction of the megafauna
c) huge increases in forest burning by humans
d) a sudden and dramatic change in the orbit of the Earth round the sun
e) natural cycles in the climate of the Earth
An agricultural intensification technique that increases the area of land that can be
cultivated by the use of mostly animal traction and tools is called:
a) composting
b) plowing
c) terracing
d) irrigation
e) reclaiming
The bas-relief carvings on the megalithic mosaic wall at the Initial Period site of Cerro
Sechn depict:
a) a central staff god flanked by winged attendants
b) portraits of a succession of named kings of the ruling dynasty
c) warriors with trophy heads, hinting at conflict during that period
d) a rare portrayal of the Spanish Conquest in indigenous art.
e) the earliest hieroglyphic writing in the Andes
In the historic period of the Pacific Northwest, social status was marked by:
a) the size of houses and their position in the village
b) gold paraphernalia
c) the number of cattle owned
d) possession of large amounts of coinage
e) the furniture and furnishings of the house
During the last ice age:
a) deserts expanded
b) tropical rainforests shrunk
c) sea levels fell
d) a land bridge formed between Alaska and Asia
e) all of the above
The Zapotec city of __________ in Oaxaca may have housed over 17,000 people and is
famous for its “Danzante” warrior frieze.
a) Monte Albn
b) Tikal
c) San Lorenzo
d) Teotihuacn
e) Chichn Itz
Unlike in China, major states with kings, palaces, and cities never developed in
Southeast Asia.
The Younger Dryas was:
a) a worldwide reversal of a previous warming trend that lasted from around 10,800 bc
to 9600 bc
b) another name for the period of rapid warming following the end of the last Ice Age
c) another name for the “hilly flanks” theory of plant and animal domestication
d) a worldwide trend toward the adoption of technologies such as pottery
e) none of the above
Art from the Aurignacian period includes
a) animal carvings in mammoth ivory
b) painted cave walls
c) abundant ceramics and even some blown glass
d) all of the above
e) a and b only
Compelling insights into the social and political histories of the early states of East and
Southeast Asia have come from:
a) archaeological investigations
b) Chinese records
c) the writings of the Phoenicians
d) all of the above
e) a and b only
Most archaeologists believe that Teotihuacn was the center of a centrally administered
empire that stretched from the Basin of Mexico and across the Maya lowlands; in fact,
they controlled all of Mesoamerica.
In Greece and the southern Balkans, the use of clay (either mud-brick or daub) for
building, coupled with the stability and concentration of settlement, led to the formation
of mounds known as:
a) aurochs
b) tells
c) mobile and ephemeral camps
d) henges
e) oppida
Which of the following religions flourished under Great Silla as evidenced by the
sculpture and architecture of the period:
a) Buddhism
b) Islam
c) Christianity
d) Shintoism
e) Hinduism
The “Cemetery H” or Late Harappan phase is characterized by:
a) an intensification of the use of the Indus script
b) an end to the integrated urban traits associated with the Indus civilization
c) building works constructed on a grand and organized scale
d) the introduction of urban planning to Indus sites
e) elaborate tombs filled with large amounts of elite grave goods
The site of Poverty Point in Louisiana is notable for its massive Archaic period:
a) carved stone monoliths
b) gold mining operation
c) earthworks in the form of concentric semi-circles
d) road network
e) all of the above
Much of the detail of Minoan religion is unknown; however, evidence for cult and ritual
practice at Minoan sites includes:
a) peak sanctuaries
b) bull imagery including “bull leaping”
c) an emphasis on fertility and female forms
d) double axes and horns of consecration
e) all of the above
It is believed that it was the expansion of ________-speaking people that brought
farming to most of Africa south of the Equator.
a) Nok
b) San
c) Khoisan
d) Egyptian
e) Bantu
Why is MtDNA ideal for human evolutionary research?
a) it never changes at all but remains exactly the same throughout every generation
b) because it is a combination of both the mother’s and the father’s DNA it is influenced
by both random mutation and natural selection
c) it is influenced by neither random mutation nor natural selection
d) because it is inherited only from the mother, it does not recombine and so variations
occur only through random mutation, forming a relatively reliable molecular clock
e) MtDNA is not ideal for evolutionary research; scholars prefer nuclear DNA
Most early Homo species, when compared to australopithecines, are characterized by:
a) larger brains and smaller jaws and teeth
b) smaller brains and larger jaws and teeth
c) knuckle-walking and increased olfactory abilities
d) dwelling in trees and having limited daytime vision
e) a lack of tool-use and reduced bipedalism
By combining archaeological information with information gleaned from what was
once thought to be fictional texts, Heinrich Schliemann identified the Turkish site of
Hissarlik as the famous city of:
a) Atlantis
b) Athens
c) Mycenae
d) Babylon
e) Troy
The process by which domesticated animals and plants have been transported to new
areas and become widespread around the globe today is known as:
a) colonization
b) emulation
c) conquest
d) biological exchange
e) “Columbian exchange”
There is clear evidence that the Indus civilization was extremely socially stratified: at
large Indus sites archaeologists have found the rich tombs of individual kings as well as
certain elite residences or palaces which suggest class differentiation.
The introduction of smallpox to Australia by Europeans may have disproportionately hit
Aboriginal elders, causing a power vacuum.
Stone was the only material used by early hunter-gatherer groups to make tools, hence
the name “stone age”.
It is very likely that H. ergaster derived the majority of its food from the gathering of
plant resources rather than the hunting of animals.
Only one hominin species appears to have lived at any given time. This allows us to
accurately determine which species made the Oldowan tools.
DNA analysis has shown that the tooth found in the Denisova cave came from either an
early modern human or a Neanderthal. It could not have come from a Homo erectus.
There is no mention of the Cham culture of Vietnam in Chinese records and they appear
to have been a small hunter-gatherer group that had no contact with the outside world.
Over 4,000 Etruscan tombs have been destroyed by modern tomb robbers looking for
imported Greek pottery.
Another term for tree-ring dating is dendrochronology.
Communities in Southwest Asia only began to practice true cultivation at the end of the
Epipaleolithic and the start of the aceramic Neolithic.
Fortunately, the bubonic plague of the 14th century, which perhaps originated in China,
did not spread far and so population losses were minimal.
Recent discoveries indicate that the people of Teotihuacn employed a system of writing.
The Tlaxcalans and other native Mexican groups believed that the Spanish would
eliminate their Aztec enemies and allied themselves with the conquistadors during the
conquest of the Aztec.
Scientific analyses have shown that the Iceman died of natural causes.
There was one center of rice domestication: the valley of the Yangzi River.
Most archaeologists now believe that migration has caused almost all change in human
society and that it is the primary reason why societies change.