The return of human remains or other artifacts to their country of culture of origin is
called
a) colonialism
b) repatriation
c) preservation
d) restoration
e) reconstruction
Volcanic glass which is used to make chipped stone tools is a particularly good material
to perform trace-element analysis on. Another word for Volcanic glass is
a) temper
b) petroglyph
c) obsidian
d) mineral glass
e) none of the above
By more than 1.6 million years ago, Homo erectus emerged in
a) Eastern Europe
b) East Asia
c) Eastern Australia
d) East Africa
e) all of the above
When the Spanish reached Mexico in the early 16th century they found
a) dense populations of Maya-speaking people
b) sparse Maya-speaking small settlements
c) no people and the ruined remains of the Maya collapse
d) an empty landscape
e) the Classic Maya civilization at its height
Proper analysis of most infectious ancient diseases can only be carried out on
a) affected bones
b) surviving soft tissue
c) surviving hair
d) all of the above
Original human behavior activities, which are a type of cultural formation process,
include all of the following except
a) the destruction of a settlement during a mudslide
b) acquisition of raw material
c) use and distribution of goods
d) manufacturing of tools
e) disposal of a broken tool
In migrationist and diffusionist explanations of the past, a “people” is defined as
a) a human grouping that is smaller than a band
b) a sense of personal identity that cannot be seen in the archaeological record
c) a well-defined ethnic group
d) individuals who are genetically related to one another
e) none of the above
Which of the following is an example of pseudoarchaeology?
a) The claim that a geologically formed hill in Bosnia is actually a man-made pyramid
b) The idea that the Nazca lines of Per are actually landing strips for UFOs
c) An announcement that the lost continent of Atlantis has been found off the coast of
Cuba
d) The idea that the ancient Egyptians built the Maya pyramids
e) All of the above are examples of pseudoarchaeology
Visible differences in vegetation growth resulting from a sub-surface wall or ditch
affecting the available moisture, nutrients, or soil depth, appear in aerial photographs as
a) crop marks
b) soil marks
c) damp marks
d) crop circles
e) residual marks
The major archaeological problem with waterlogged finds, particularly those made out
of wood, is
a) that they are always too big to fit in museum laboratories
b) that currently we have no scientific methods to preserve them
c) that wood preserves in all conditions, making waterlogged wood redundant
d) that they deteriorate rapidly when they are removed from the water
e) all of the above
Animal sex may be identified based on bone remains of
a) antlers
b) large canines
c) penis bone
d) female pelvic structure
e) All of the above
Paleolithic cave art, concentrated in the caves of western Europe (particularly in
southwest France and northern Spain), is thought to date approximately to
a) 100,00070,000 bc
b) 80,00060,000 bc
c) 30,00010,000 bc
d) 8,0005,000 bc
e) none of the above
Written records may supply an incomplete picture of the society that produced them
because
a) records written on perishable materials may not have survived over time
b) only certain types of activity, such as business transactions, may have been recorded
in writing
c) not everyone in a society may have been able to read or write
d) all of the above
e) b and c only
The Warka Vase was one of many notable ancient objects that were stolen in 2003
during
a) the robbery of the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum
b) the L.A. riots
c) the Iran/Iraq war
d) the looting of the Baghdad Museum
e) the Cuban missile crisis
Thomas Malthus has argued that human population tends to grow to the limit permitted
by
a) the leaders of society
b) religion
c) the food supply
d) our genetics
e) sanitation
The remains of large animals, such as sheep or cows, found on archaeological sites help
us build a picture of past human diet. These remains are known as
a) Microfauna
b) Macrobotanical
c) Macrofauna
d) Geomorphs
e) Phytoliths
The Teotihuacn mapping project used a variety of methods to map vast areas of the site.
These techniques included
a) aerial and surface survey
b) surface survey only
c) aerial survey only
d) large-scale excavations
e) large-scale excavations plus some aerial survey
During the 18th century, __________ was one of the first archaeological sites to be
excavated
a) atalhyk
b) Pompeii
c) Cramborne Chase
d) Tutankhamen’s Tomb
e) Pecos Ruin
The central concern of the “classificatory-historical period” of archaeological thought,
which lasted until 1960, was
a) the use of scientific dating methods
b) the incorporation of alternative interpretations of the past
c) processualism
d) chronology
e) all of the above
Plaster casts made of the hollows left by now-decayed bodies at this site provide such
fine details as facial expression at death
a) Rome
b) Pompeii
c) Athens
d) Monte Albn
e) Lascaux Cave
Who formed the first cabinets of curiosities?
a) Sigmund Freud
b) Renaissance princes
c) Sir John Soane
d) the Aztecs
e) none of the above
A society that has a ruler with authority to establish and enforce laws, stratified classes,
administrative officials for collecting revenue, and the practice of redistribution would
probably be considered a
a) mobile hunter-gatherer group
b) segmentary society
c) chiefdom
d) early state
e) none of the above
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
Microscopic abrasion on human teeth provides clues to general types of food intake.
Abrasive particles in food leave striations on the tooth enamel that
a) form the core of phytolith analysis
b) eventually cause the enamel to decay
c) show if a person prepared their own food
d) are directly related to the meat and vegetation in a person’s diet
e) tell the exact location of a food source
__________ are complex sequences of cold periods that occurred during the Ice Age
and are visible in ice cores
a) Interstadials
b) Interglacials
c) Glacials
d) Stadials
e) none of the above
This method used in archaeological investigations separates organic material from soil
based on the general principle that the lighter organic material floats in water
a) flotation
b) submersion
c) inundation
d) irrigation
e) pallonization
Contradicting the prevailing wisdom of the time, excavations led by ____________ at
Great Zimbabwe (1929) confirmed that the site represented a major culture of African
origin
a) Louis Leakey
b) Gertrude Caton-Thompson
c) Harriet Boyd Hawes
d) Kathleen Kenyon
e) none of the above
In order to interpret the evidence from Middle Paleolithic sites in France, Lewis
Binford studied the use and discard of bones and tools at a seasonal hunting camp used
by the
a) Maya of Guatemala
b) Nunamiut of Alaska
c) Pokot of Kenya
d) Maori of New Zealand
e) all of the above
_____________ were a significant development in pyrotechnology during the Neolithic
in the Near East around 8000 bc
a) Furnaces for iron smelting
b) Furnaces for bronze smelting
c) Ovens for bread baking
d) Ovens for making faience
e) none of the above
The law of superposition means that
a) when one layer overlies another, the one on the bottom is more recent.
b) layers below are less likely to yield reliable dates
c) when one layer overlies another, the one on top is usually more recent
d) layers on top are unlikely to have reliable, datable artifacts
e) layers on top are more important than those below
Isotopic analysis of human tooth enamel or bone collagen relies on
a) the presence of phytolithis
b) whether the person ate sugar or not
c) reading the chemical signature left in the body by different foods
d) the amount of calcium a person consumed in later life
e) how well an individual cared for their teeth
For most of human history the only way that people could measure time was through
a) the use of calendars
b) observing the alternating darkness of day and night and the cycle of the seasons
c) counting tree rings
d) the use of stratigraphy
e) calculating the path of the planet Venus in the sky