The goal of the Gatecliff projectile point typology was:
a. To distinguish between arrow and dart points (in other words, to determine functional
differences).
b. To determine differences in the frequencies of raw material types used in projectile
point manufacture through time.
c. To define temporal types that could then be used to estimate the age of surface
assemblages.
d. None of the above; the Gatecliff typology had no goal and illustrates the problems
inherent in typologies that are not associated with particular research questions.
The battle of the Little Bighorn took place in:
a. Wyoming.
b. Montana.
c. South Dakota.
d. Nebraska.
Although the Pentagon had promised to protect Iraqi cultural institutions, the Baghdad
Museum remained unguarded. An investigation by Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, USMC
concluded that
a. the Pentagon was not at fault.
b. 40 items were stolen from the main galleries, and more than 13,000 items from
storage rooms.
c. no attempts would be made to recover the artifacts.
d. the items probably never left Iraq.
After excavation, recovered artifacts must be conserved. Conservation can involve:
a. A simple cleaning of the artifacts.
b. Stabilization of artifacts to prevent decomposition.
c. Reconstruction of artifacts, such as broken pottery vessels.
d. All of the above.
Archaeological evidence has been used to reintroduce ancient technology in areas
where it might be useful, such as in Andean farming communities. Results of these
experiments indicate:
a. That ancient technology cannot be effectively employed because the social, political,
and economic systems of the past were completely different from those of today.
b. That ancient technology can be highly efficient and cost effective even in the modern
world.
c. That modern communities are skeptical of the benefits of ancient technology, and are
thus unwilling to invest resources in what they consider to be outdated techniques.
d. That archaeologists do not know enough ancient technologies to effectively
implement them in the modern world.
Analogies justified on the basis of close cultural continuity between the archaeological
and ethnographic cases or similarity in general cultural form are known as
a. Formal analogies.
b. Bridging arguments.
c. Incorrect science.
d. Relational analogies.
We can expect that continual advances in dating methods
a. will permit a greater understanding of the chronology of the past.
b. will confuse scholars and lead to disputes among the academic community.
c. will help create new paradigms and new ways of understanding the past.
d. will permit a greater understanding of the chronology of the past, and create new
paradigms and new ways of understanding the past.
Size classes categorize faunal remains to one of five categories based on body size.
Animals assigned to class five include:
a. Giraffes, hippos, and elephants.
b. Bison and elk.
c. Wolf and pronghorn antelope.
d. Rabbits and rodents.
Which of the following is true of mitochondrial DNA?
a. It is present in the nucleus of every cell.
b. It is only transferred from mother to offspring.
c. It mutates at a much slower rate than nuclear DNA.
d. All of the above.
The usefulness of aerial photography for archaeology:
a. Was not recognized until the 1960s, during the development of the “New
Archaeology”.
b. Is limited to times of cloud cover or haze.
c. Is limited to photographs taken at very high elevations, since this is where resolution
is greatest.
d. Lies in the fact that aerial photographs can show features that are too indistinct or too
large to discern from the ground.
Sediments deposited primarily through the action of gravity on geological material
lying on hillsides are called
a. eolian sediments.
b. marker beds.
c. colluvial sediments.
d. soil.
An advantage of the accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) method of radiocarbon
dating is:
a. Although not as precise as standard dating methods that count beta decays, AMS
dating is less subject to problems caused by atmospheric fluctuations in 14C.
b. AMS dating is much cheaper than standard dating methods that count beta decays.
c. AMS dating requires much smaller carbon samples than standard dating methods.
d. AMS dates are easier to calibrate than standard radiocarbon dates.
Culture is:
a. An integrated system of beliefs, traditions, and customs that govern or influence a
person’s behavior.
b. An outdated anthropological concept that has been rejected by the majority of
cultural anthropologists today.
c. Biologically controlled behavior, rather than learned behavior.
d. The study of humankind.
Once archaeological data began to accumulate, archaeologists shifted their attention
from _________________of plant and animal domestication to ____________.
a. Species/varieties
b. Dates/places
c. What and when/why
d. Biology/culture
Cyrus Thomas contributed to dispelling the Myth of the Moundbuilders by:
a. Supporting Squier’s and Davis’s conclusions.
b. Scientifically evaluating previous claims and concluding that the Native Americans
had indeed built the mounds.
c. Demonstrating once and for all through the testing of multiple hypotheses that the
Native Americans had not built the mounds.
d. Both A and B.
Berdaches were:
a. Recognized by their cultural group as a third gender.
b. Men who chose to live as women, performing women’s traditional roles.
c. Also known as “two-spirits” in some Plains Indian societies.
d. All of the above.
Compliance with Section 106 includes a systematic survey of the “area of potential
effect” (APE). This area includes
a. only the area directly affected.
b. the area directly affected and anticipated to be affected after the project’s completion.
c. the area that funding allows.
d. the area addressed in the research question.
The penalty for violating the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) is:
a. Up to $500 and/or up to 90 days in prison.
b. Up to $250,000 and/or up to 5 years in prison; the federal government can also
confiscate any equipment used to loot sites, including vehicles.
c. No monetary fine, but up to 5 years in prison.
d. Nonexistent; this is part of the problem with trying to enforce the act.
Radiocarbon dating cannot reliably date anything older than about:
a. 25,000 years.
b. 45,000 years.
c. 125,000 years.
d. 245,000 years.
A test excavation would be most appropriate in which of the following situations?
a. When determining whether or not field school students understand archaeological
field methods.
b. When trying to determine a site’s potential for answering a research question.
c. When a research question must be answered with a limited amount of time and
money.
d. When a researcher is already knows what to expect during excavations.
Once archaeologists decide on their survey sample universe, they must then decide on
the sample fraction. The sample fraction is:
a. The percentage of the sample universe that is surveyed.
b. Survey units of a standard size and shape, determined by the research questions and
practical considerations.
c. The region that contains the statistical population and that will be sampled.
d. A survey universe that has been divided into several sub-universes.
A social institution containing a set of beliefs about supernatural beings and forces and
one’s relation to them is termed
a. Ritual
b. Iconography
c. Religion
d. Kinship
The delineation of patterns in material culture through time and space and the patterns
of which are what the archaeologist will eventually try to explain or account for is
referred to as
a. types.
b. context.
c. matrix.
d. space-time systematic.
Anthropology ___________________the paradigm of unilineal cultural evolution.
a. Still embraces
b. Recently discarded
c. Does not recognize as important to the history of anthropological thought
d. Long ago discarded
The postprocessual paradigm that emphasizes the importance of archaeologists’
understanding of the specific contexts within which they work, and of the notion that
knowledge is situated within a cultural framework and can consequently serve special
interests, is:
a. Called critical theory.
b. Known by critics who question its relevance as a “medieval mind-set.”
c. Often useful in prehistoric archaeology, but is rarely considered useful for historical
archaeology.
d. All of the above.
According to the text, which of the following is not a way an individual seeks visions
on a vision quest
a. Starvation
b. Dehydration
c. Exposure
d. Totems
The period of the Ice Age known as the Pleistocene ended
a. about 25,000 years ago.
b. about 100,000 years ago.
c. about 10,000 years ago.
d. about 1.5 million years ago.
Faunal remains in archaeological sites are composed of
a. Plant remains.
b. Animal bones.
c. Pottery artifacts.
d. Soil samples.
The teamwork approach used by A.V. Kidder at Chichen Itza is termed:
a. Pan-Scientific.
b. Processual archaeology.
c. Culture history.
d. New archaeology.
The cultural tradition that is found primarily in the Ohio River Valley and its tributaries
dating between 200 BC and AD 400, that constructed geometric earthworks and effigy
mounds, and that is known for its elaborate mortuary rituals is:
a. Mississippian.
b. Moundville.
c. Hopewell.
d. Southeastern Ceremonial Complex.
The 1906 Antiquities Act:
a. Required a federal permit before excavating or collecting artifacts from federal land.
b. Required tribal consultation on all archaeological discoveries located on federal
lands.
c. Required the repatriation of all Native American skeletal material and associated
grave goods found on federal or tribal lands to culturally affiliated tribes.
d. All of the above.
Archaeological investigation of the battlefield at Little Bighorn was able to determine
combatant positions and movements. How was this accomplished?
a. Intensive excavations of graves marked by grave markers that determined the
position of American soldiers and Indian warriors where they fell in combat.
b. Extensive horizontal excavations that recovered numerous skeletal remains and
artifacts of the battle, such as shell casings.
c. Survey with metal detectors that located cartridges and bullets, the positions of which
were then carefully mapped.
d. All of the above.
What drives the continuation of the antiquities trade?
a. Wealthy collectors willing to pay high prices who create a market.
b. The native populations of poor countries who loot archaeological sites to feed their
families.
c. Museums that are willing to accept artifacts without proper documentation of how
they were acquired.
d. Unscrupulous archaeologists who secretly pocket any rare or otherwise valuable
items during an excavation.
Ice core samples indicate that the global temperature has decreased significantly in the
last 100 years.
The goal of taphonomic studies is to infer the function of prehistoric objects and
features based on the similarity of those objects and features to those used by related
cultures today.
You analyze the stable isotopes from an assemblage of human bones from Canada, and
find a high ratio of Nitrogen-15 to Nitrogen-14 and a low ratio of Carbon-13 relative to
Carbon-12. You should conclude that these people ate a lot of corn and very little meat.
Ethnographic data indicate that when pottery production moves from manufacture for
the residential group to manufacture for the nonresidential group, the task of pottery
production shifts from women to men.
To an archaeologist, “civilization” refers only to those cultures with writing systems,
public performance in the form of plays, and full-time musicians.
The postprocessual approach emphasizes symbolic meanings, power relationships,
individual actions, and gender.
While GIS has some practical archaeological applications, it is rarely used in
archaeology today because it is costly and requires specialized training.
The main goal of archaeological survey is to discover good places to excavate.
Experimental studies have shown that while survey sampling does accurately
characterize a region’s archaeology, survey sampling is not good at finding rare or
spectacular sites.
Despite the high profile, few archaeologists are involved in public education.
GIS (geographic information systems) allows archaeologists to quickly answer many
spatial questions whose answers would otherwise be too time-consuming to calculate.
Optimal foraging theory operates on the principle that humans will select foods that
offer high return rates, or the most calories for the amount of time invested in
procurement and processing.
At the highland site of Chavn de Huntar, Peru a decline in the abundance of deer bones
over time and a simultaneous increase in the percentage of llama leg bones tracks a
temporal change in diet and trade that shows occupants of the site shifted from doing
their own hunting to being supplied with dried meat. This interpretation is based on
faunal analysis but also ethnoarchaeological research with living peoples in the Andes
Mountains.
The fact that Kodiak Island native community leaders granted permission for
archaeological excavations, as well as provided funding and student interns for the
project, showed that Alutiiq people do not object to archaeology, but to an archaeology
that sees their participation as unnecessary.
Bioarchaeology is a specialty that straddles the fields of archaeology and human
biology.
Lewis R. Binford is a firm supporter of the concept that the goal of archaeology is to
“dig up the past” and discover as much of the past as possible.
The processual approach takes a scientific approach and focuses on material factors of
life.
Most archeologists are employed by federal agencies and private “cultural resource
management” firms.
Matrilineal societies are extremely common, making up roughly 75% of the world’s
societies today; archaeologists also believe they were very common in the past.
An artifact in systemic context is part of an ongoing, dynamic behavioral system.