The vast majority of archaeological sites that are found during survey in advance of
construction in the United States
a) do not meet the criteria to be considered significant and are recorded and destroyed
b) are major archaeological sites that require full excavation
c) are automatically destroyed and not recorded
d) cause construction plans to be abandoned
e) none of the above.
Once data is stored within a GIS, it is relatively straightforward to produce ________
on demand
a) surface surveys
b) surface benefits analyses
c) maps
d) typologies
e) Wheeler box-grids
An artifact’s context includes its
a) matrix
b) provenience
c) association with other finds
d) all of the above
e) both b and c
Open-area excavations typically involve
a) complex series of intact baulks of earth between grid squares
b) a series of crossing baulks of earth for walking and wheelbarrows
c) The use of a cofferdam to hold back earth or water
d) opening large areas, with few baulks of earth
e) all of the above
The only incontrovertible proof that a particular plant or animal species was actually
consumed by people in the past comes from
a) traces in human stomach contents of fecal matter
b) phytoliths from ancient pottery
c) cut marks on animal bones or plant matter
d) changes in the DNA of plants and animals due to domestication
e) all of the above
The type of information carved on stone or bronze by the people of Classical Greece
includes
a) tax lists
b) contracts and payments
c) public decrees
d) curses
e) all of the above
A major portion of the remains of the Great Temple of Tenochtitln was found by
electrical workers. Tenochtitln was the capital of
a) the Inca
b) the Mongols
c) the Maya
d) the Ancient Egyptians
e) the Aztec
The intentional use and control of fire by humans is known as
a) pyrotechnology
b) pyromania
c) metallurgy
d) smelting
e) pyroxia
A good example of how social ranking can be seen in the archaeological record, careful
analysis of over 3000 burials at the site of Moundville in Alabama showed that the
higher a person’s rank was
a) the farther he or she would be buried from the mound
b) the lower the quality of his or her associated grave goods
c) the more likely it would be that he or she would have been mummified
d) the closer he or she would be buried to the mounds
e) the more likely he or she would display cranial modification
In the not too distant past ancient and even modern Australian Aborigines were seen by
scientists and researchers as
a) laboratory specimens
b) full partners in the quest for preserving the past
c) the legal owners of sites that are important to their religion
d) a highly advanced civilization that rivaled the Greeks and Romans
e) b and c only
The quest for food is also known as
a) domestication
b) macrofauna
c) subsistence
d) pallonology
e) taphonomy
Underwater archaeology is considered highly demanding because
a) it is expensive
b) it requires specialized training such as diving experience
c) artifacts from a waterlogged environment deteriorate rapidly
d) special equipment must be developed to cope with the particulars of a shipwreck
e) all of the above
Lord Elgin is best known for
a) discovering the site of Troy from descriptions in the Iliad
b) removing the Parthenon marbles from Athens to the U.K.
c) discovering the spectacular city of Pompeii buried in volcanic ash
d) proving that the moundbuilders were actually the ancestors of Native Americans
e) deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics
Full-time pottery makers, metal workers, or other such artisans who form an important
part of complex societies are referred to by archaeologists as
a) chiefs
b) craft specialists
c) merchants
d) segmentary societies
e) bands
Diatoms are
a) the tiny male reproductive bodies of flowering plants
b) the minute particles of silica derived from the cells of plants
c) the outermost protective layer of the skin of leaves or blades of grass
d) single-cell algae that have a cell wall of silica
e) none of the above
Effects on outer surfaces of bone can be divided into those caused by
a) accident or violence
b) disease or congenital deformity
c) violence or congenital deformity
d) a and b
The efforts of marginalized groups in the territory of former European colonies to have
more of an influence on the management of their heritage has resulted in the
development of
a) the New archaeology
b) speculative archaeology
c) archaeobotany
d) Indigenous archaeologies
e) the cultural-historical approach
Through the best efforts of experts, the chances of identifying the right sex of a child
based only on skeletal remains are
a) one in a hundred
b) 100%
c) 50:50
d) one in a thousand
e) 75%
By studying the animal figures in Paleolithic cave art, Andr Leroi-Gourhan argued that
the most common representations were of
a) humans and cave bears
b) horses and bison
c) mammoths and bears
d) humans and horses
e) none of the above
Features, essentially non-portable artifacts, include such things as
a) hammers, chisels, and arrowheads
b) animal bones, plant remains, and other ecofacts
c) small villages, houses, and palaces
d) advertisements and the main presentation
e) postholes, hearths, and storage ditches
Based on recent DNA evidence, it is clear that Homo sapiens did not evolve in Africa.
A reliable chronology for the site of Moundville in Alabama was achieved through
careful analysis of
a) tooth enamel
b) obsidian blades
c) fossil pollen
d) waterlogged plant remains
e) pottery
Ian Hodder is considered to be a ________________ archaeologist
a) post-processual
b) processual
c) migrationist
d) diffusionist
e) Marxist
One of the most striking facts of world prehistory is that the transition to food
cultivation from hunting and gathering
a) spread to the entire world from the fertile crescent of the Middle East
b) occurred well before the end of the Ice Age
c) did not cause any sort of restructuring of the organization of human society
d) was recorded by the chroniclers of the Middle Ages
e) occurred independently in several different areas of the world
Archaeologists working on bones from Lower Paleolithic sites found that, when looked
at through a scanning electron microscope, marks on bones made by carnivores were
more __________ than marks made by stone tools
a) v-shaped
b) rounded
c) likely to have parallel lines at the bottom
d) violent
e) slicing
In the 1960s, the “loss of innocence” that came with the realization that there was no
well-established body of theory to underpin current archaeological methods sparked the
development of
a) Cognitive Archaeology
b) Post-Processual Archaeology
c) the culture-historical approach
d) the Diffusionist approach
e) the New Archaeology
The mummies of the Andes are a good example of exceptional preservation of organic
material resulting from its location in a
a) cold climate
b) bog
c) dry cave
d) sandy desert
e) swamp
Analytical methods for characterization are varied. For pottery, a reliable technique for
determining the source is
a) heavy mineral analysis
b) studies of temper or exclusions
c) thin section analysis
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
The concept of __________ has been introduced to permit discussion of the role of the
individual in promoting change
a) agency
b) cognition
c) symbol
d) critical theory
e) structuralism
To an archaeologist, the term provenience refers to the
a) vertical and horizontal position of an artifact
b) origin of an artistic technique or motif
c) history of an artifact’s owners
d) origin of an idea or innovation
e) none of the above
If, in your explanation for a cultural change (for example, the origin of the state), you
stress the importance and interaction of several different factors operating at the same
time, this would be considered a(n)
a) monocausal explanation
b) multiplier effect explanation
c) idealist explanation
d) multivariate explanation
e) none of the above
Experts investigating the looting of the Baghdad museum suspect that the looters
a) were random people off the street engaged in opportunistic smashing and looting
b) were well-informed individuals who knew the museum and knew what they were
looking for
c) were careful and respectful in the museum: they only took things but did not break
anything
d) all of the above
e) a and b only
One explanation for the emergence of state societies in the Maya lowlands is based on
the lack of basic raw materials in the area, forcing the Maya to develop an intricate
system of
a) trade
b) industrialization
c) irrigation canals
d) oxcart roads
e) intense mining
Electron Spin Resonance Dating (ESR) is most successful when used to provide dates
for
a) tooth enamel
b) obsidian
c) pollen
d) ceramics
e) volcanic rocks