For archaeologists trying to understand social ranking, the individual burial of a child
with rich burial goods and a well-built funerary monument would suggest that
a) there may have been an egalitarian system
b) there may have been a sacrificial cult of children
c) there may have been a system of hereditary ranking
d) there was a high rate of infant mortality
e) children were not valued in that society
Ian Hodder and Michael Shanks, leading voices in postprocessual perspectives, suggest
that a better term for these approaches might be
a) postmodern archaeologies
b) interpretive archaeologies
c) communist and Marxist archaeologies
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
By exposing a sample of fired clay to radiation (energy) in the laboratory, so-called
electron traps are opened and the energy that is emitted in the form of light can be
accurately measured. This radiation dose can be combined with an estimate for the
annual dose the sample received prior to testing and the susceptibility of the sample to
radiation in order to determine the precise age of the fired clay. This dating technique is
called
a) geomancy
b) optically stimulated luminescence
c) fission track dating
d) thermoluminescence
e) electron spin resonance
When the goal of an artist is representation of objects in the real world, artistic
conventions are commonly used; this is known as
a) delineation
b) depiction
c) portrayal
d) illustration
e) demonstration
Contradicting the prevailing wisdom of the time, excavations led by ____________ at
Great Zimbabwe (1929) confirmed that the site was of indigenous African origin.
a) Louis Leakey
b) Gertrude Caton-Thompson
c) Flinders Petrie
d) Kathleen Kenyon
e) none of the above
Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary advocate, proposed that cultural evolution is
produced by the replication of _____, the analogue of the genes that are the instruments
of biological evolution
a) memes
b) RNA
c) DNA
d) symbols
e) mites
Animal sex may be identified based on remains of
a) antlers
b) large canines
c) the penis bone
d) the female pelvic structure
e) all of the above
Because plants lie __________ the food chain they provide clues to animal and human
life and reflect soil conditions and climate
a) at the top of
b) at the base of
c) at multiple points within
d) completely off
e) none of the above
The so-called Elgin Marbles, which are housed at the British Museum in London, came
from:
a) the Parthenon at Athens
b) the Colossus at Rhodes
c) the Temple of Ramses II at Aswan
d) Stonehenge in Wessex
e) The Giza Necropolis near Cairo
Prestige valuables and ordinary commodities may be exchanged within the same
society but in separate systems; this is known as
a) redistribution
b) the sphere of exchange
c) market systems
d) central place redistribution
e) none of the above
The only incontrovertible evidence that a type of food was actually consumed by
humans in the past is its presence in
a) human stomachs
b) human feces
c) well sealed storage containers
d) all of the above
e) a and b only
Formation processes affect the way in which finds came to be buried and what
happened to them after their burial. A good example of a natural transformation process
would be
a) gradual burial of a feature by wind-borne soil
b) the sudden fall of ash over Pompeii
c) slow accumulation of river sediment over a feature
d) gradual burial of an artifact by sand
e) all of the above
Both the Chumash of the Northwest Pacific Coast of the US and the Maorī of New
Zealand prefer that _________ be destroyed “according to natures law”, and do not like
archaeologists interfering with that process
a) whale carcasses
b) meeting house sites
c) battlefield sites
d) human remains
e) all of the above
Sediments formed of a yellowish dust of silt-sized particles blown by the wind and
redeposited on newly deglaciated land or on sheltered areas are known as
a) loess
b) terra rosa
c) chinampa
d) phytolythis
e) varves
In order to assess the size and age of the animals at the Boarding School site, a typical
technique was used, namely
a) their numbers were assessed using the minimum number of individuals technique
b) ages of the animals were based on the eruption sequence and degree of wear on the
teeth, and from bone fusion
c) sex was established on the basis of size and pelvic shape
d) all of the above were used
e) none of the above were used
Rock varnishes consist of natural accretions of manganese and iron oxides with organic
matter from microscopic plant debris which accumulate on rock surfaces, and are
metabolized and cemented into a varnish through bacterial action. This rock varnish
may be analyzed using
a) the ratio of stable carbon isotopes 12 and 13
b) the ratio of nitrogen isotopes 15 and 14
c) the ratio of plant DNA relative to modern conditions of plant debris
d) the ratio of oxygen isotopes
e) ultraviolet spectroscopy
Documents and archaeology reveal that the Calusa ate mollusks and crustaceans but
that the majority of the meat derived from
a) deer
b) possum
c) turtle eggs
d) fish
e) aquatic birds
Microfauna (small animals) tend to be better indicators of climate and environmental
change because
a) they are sensitive to oscillations in climate and adapt relatively quickly
b) they accumulate naturally, so they reflect the immediate environment
c) they are accumulated at a site through human or animal predation
d) a and b are correct
e) none of the above
The concept of __________ has been introduced to permit discussion of the role of the
individual in promoting change
a) symbol
b) cognition
c) agency
d) critical theory
e) structuralism
In 1906 Theodore Roosevelt passed ___________, the first major piece of legislation
for the protection of archaeological sites in the US
a) NAGPRA
b) The American Antiquities Act
c) The Ancient Monuments Act
d) The Treasure Trove Law
e) The National Environmental Policy Act
The acceptance that the public and therefore both national and regional government
have a responsibility to avoid unnecessary destruction of heritage had resulted in the
development of
a) ethnoarchaeology
b) pseudoarchaeology
c) nationalist archaeology
d) indigenous archaeology
e) public archaeology
The term __________art is used for portable engravings and carvings on small objects
of stone, bone, antler, and ivory of the Ice Age
a) parietal
b) mural
c) mobiliary
d) iconic
e) referential
______ percent of Classic Mimbres sites in the American southwest have been looted or
destroyed before archaeologists were able to excavate
a) 90
b) 70
c) 50
d) 25
e) 10
NAGPRA stands for
a) Native Archaeological Goods Protection and Restoration Act
b) North American Graves Protection and Restoration Act
c) Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
d) Native American Graves Promotion and Restitution Authority
d) North American Graves Protection and Restitution Authority
The scientific technique of placing a metal object in a chemical solution and passing a
weak current through it to clean it is called
a) homeostasis
b) thermoluminescence
c) electrolysis
d) deionization
e) conduction
Tim White used a scanning electron microscope to analyze the skull of “Bodo,” a large
male Homo erectus or archaic Homo sapiens, about 300,000 years old. Based on
cutmarks found on the skull, similar to those found on pre-Columbian Native American
skulls, White concluded that Bodo had
a) been cannibalized
b) been scalped
c) intentional cranial deformities created through head binding
d) been eaten by carnivores and scavengers after death
e) experienced crude brain surgery
A major contributor to the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs was
a) Tatiana Proskouriakoff
b) Kathleen Kenyon
c) Mary Leakey
d) Harriet Boyd Hawes
e) Gertrude Caton-Thompson
Estimates of the age at which animals were killed are usually based upon the
a) thickness of long bones, such as femurs
b) size estimates of bones
c) robusticity of cranium
d) eruption and wear patterns of the teeth
e) antler rings in cross-section
Platinum was unknown in Europe until the 16th century, but was being worked in
______ as early as the 2nd century BC
a) China
b) Egypt
c) Ecuador
d) India
e) the Ohio Valley
At midden sites where shells vastly outnumber bones, this is usually interpreted as
evidence that
a) the population who produced the midden were dependent upon the mollusks as a
staple resource
b) the population who produced the midden were exploiting mollusks in times of crisis
or as supplementary food
c) shells survive much more successfully than bone
d) Both answers b and c are correct
e) None of the above
In order to obtain absolute dates from very early contexts (over 1 million years ago),
you would probably choose to use either _________ or possibly _________ ,
depending upon the rock material
a) tree rings, varves
b) fission track, dendrochronology
c) potassium-argon, tree rings
d) potassium-argon, fission track
e) radiocarbon, cation ratio
________________ cannot be used to date individual samples, rather it is applied to
“population events” which cause the emergence of either new mitochondrial DNA or
Y-chromosome haplotypes
a) Pollen dating
b) Genetic dating
c) Amino acid racemization
d) Chromosome drift analysis
e) Seriation
The new sub discipline of _______ has helped in the recovery of murder victims as well
as identified victims of mass burials and genocide
a) ethnoarchaeology
b) forensic archaeology
c) geoarchaeology
d) criminoarchaeology
e) ethnocriminology