The greater part of the money devoted to archaeological research in the countries of
Greece, Egypt, Mexico and Peru comes from
a) private donors
b) UNESCO
c) American or European universities
d) the archaeologists themselves
e) tourism
This country clashed with Greece over the use of a name and national symbol that were
associated with Alexander the Great, a historical figure that is claimed by the Greece
a) Armenia
b) Macedonia
c) Turkey
d) Lebanon
e) Cyprus
The site of atalhyk, first excavated by James Mellaart in the 1960s, is a world-renowned
Neolithic site because of discoveries of
a) plaster decorations incorporating bull skulls
b) wall paintings
c) female terracotta figurines
d) well-preserved remains of textiles
e) all of the above
One solution to the problem of the cost of publishing archaeological results is
a) to selectively publish results and ignore the results of unimportant excavations
b) online publishing
c) to publish only academic archaeological work and not publish CRM work
d) to publish only CRM archaeological work and not publish academic work
e) to wait until publishing costs drop to publish archaeological research, even if that
means waiting years or even decades
Influenced by Darwin’s ideas about evolution, Edward Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan
argued that human societies evolved through stages, from
a) savagery to barbarism to civilization
b) barbarism to peasantry to civilization
c) australopithecines to Homo erectus to Homo sapiens
d) hunter to gatherer to agriculturalist
e) savagery to peasantry to capitalist
When Europeans first encountered the Calusa in Florida, they were surprised to find
such an advanced and powerful society, based almost entirely on
a) swidden agriculture
b) long-distance trade
c) sustained raiding of other villages
d) fishing, hunting, and gathering
e) hunting
Trace element analytical results are typically expressed in
a) parts per trillion
b) parts per billion
c) parts per million
d) parts per thousand
e) parts per hundred
Most archaeological surveys and data recovery projects in the USA are carried out by
a) university archaeology departments
b) private firms
c) non-profits like museums
d) undergraduate students
e) amateurs and “armchair” archaeologists
The examination of a slice of an object with a petrological microscope in order to
determine the source of the material, is known as
a) thin-section analysis
b) X-ray fluorescence analysis
c) optical emission spectrometry
d) X-ray diffraction
e) cathodoluminescence
During the first two centuries ad in the eastern US there was an interaction sphere that
included exchange of valuables such as obsidian, shark teeth, copper, flint and other
materials. This interaction sphere has come to be known as the
a) Anasazi
b) Archaic
c) Hopewell
d) Cherokee
e) Eastern Woodland
The site of Chavn de Huantar in the Peruvian Andes flourished 850 to 200 bc. This site
is thought to represent a ceremonial center because of evidence found there including
a) extensive tablets written in a local alphabet that recorded rituals at the site
b) Spanish accounts of the observation of human sacrifice at the main temple
c) architecture that seems to promote both public display and hidden mysteries,
including underground passageways and hidden sculptures
d) The written word of the Maya who conquered the site
e) all of the above
Analytical methods for characterization are varied. For pottery, a reliable technique for
determining the source is
a) heavy mineral analysis
b) studies of grain size
c) thin section analysis
d) all of the above
e) answers a and b only
Recently, some seeds of ______ (Cucurbita pepo) from Guil Naquitz that are
morphologically domesticated were dated using the AMS technique to between 10,000
and 8000 years ago. This predates other domesticates in Mesoamerica by several
millennia
a) maize
b) beans
c) squash
d) chili peppers
e) tomatos
The aim of the Department of Pre-Hispanic Monuments of the Basin of Mexico Project
was to halt the destruction of archaeological remains during the continued growth of
Mexico City. This is a good example of the practice of
a) reconstruction
b) survey
c) conservation
d) protectionism
e) restitution
The account of the Trojan war in the Iliad inspired the search for Troy by
a) Thomas Jefferson
b) Augustus Lane-Fox Pitt Rivers
c) Sir Mortimer Wheeler
d) Heinrich Schliemann
e) Ephraim Squier
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) wet cave
d) sandy desert
e) swamp
____________ is the idea that technology, language, and culture spread out from a
single or very few points of origin
a) Structrualism
b) Positivism
c) Diffusionism
d) Marxist Archaeology
e) Homeostasis
A study of faunal and plant remains conducted at the site of Tell Abu Hureyra, Syria,
concluded that for at least 1000 years after the first cultivation of domesticated plants
a) hunting remained virtually the sole source of nutrition
b) hunting continued, but primarily as sport
c) hunting still played a crucial part in the site’s economy
d) hunting remained unimportant, until desperation forced the inhabitants to hunt
e) the nutrition of the population steadily improved
Language replacement can occur in a region when:
a) a trading language (or lingua franca) gradually becomes dominant in a whole region
b) incoming elites secure power and force their language onto a population
c) through sustained contact: adjacent communities speaking different languages start to
speak the same language
d) all of the above
e) a and c only
By plotting the quantities of material on the Y-axis, and the distance from a source on
the X-axis, the decline of quantities of traded items in the archaeological record with
increased distance from source is known as
a) trend surface analysis
b) site catchment analysis
c) fall-off analysis
d) formation processes
e) off-site data
At a time (late 19th century to early 20th century) when few women could be on
excavations, __________ not only surveyed Crete on a donkey and led excavations that
unearthed the first Minoan town, but she also published her results in outstanding detail.
a) Louis Leakey
b) Gertrude Caton-Thompson
c) Harriet Boyd Hawes
d) Kathleen Kenyon
e) none of the above
In Classical Greece literacy was
a) limited to only the rich members of society
b) considered sacred and thus only priests could read and write
c) widespread: much of the Greek public could read and it was a part of daily life
d) limited and writing was only used for record keeping and matters of business
e) only allowed in men of high status; it was against the law for women to read or write
The alloying of copper with tin produces
a) gold
b) bronze
c) silver
d) aluminum
e) iron
Taphonomy is
a) the study of processes which have affected organic materials, such as bone, between
its deposition and its discovery by the archaeologist
b) the study of geological processes that led to the creation of current land forms
c) the study of which species should be grouped together based on shared attributes
d) the systematic organization of artifacts into types on the basis of shared attributes
e) the study of processes which contribute to population structure and their spatial
dynamics
The Classic Maya kings portrayed themselves as great guarantors of prosperity and
stability, but during the critical 8th and 9th centuries leading up to the Maya collapse
they were unable to deliver on these promises because of
a) the superior technology of the conquering Spanish
b) the degradation of an ecosystem already pushed beyond its limits by overpopulation
c) the superior technology of the conquering Aztec
d) their need to continue to provide human sacrifice victims
e) the arrival of Quetzalcoatl from central Mexico who brought a new religious cult to
the area
This technique for compositional artifact analysis depends on the excitation of atom
nuclei through bombardment with slow neutrons and is known as
a) electron probe microanalysis
b) optical emission spectrometry
c) neutron activation analysis
d) infrared absorption spectroscopy
e) neutron scattering
CRM stands for
a) Cultural Resource Management
b) Cultural Recording Methods
c) Cultural Research Methods
d) Cultural Research Management
e) Cultural Recording Management
During the Paleolithic period (before 12,000 years ago), most archaeological sites seem
to reflect organization of societies at the level of mobile hunter-gatherer groups,
generally numbering
a) fewer than 10 people
b) fewer than 100 people
c) 100 to 500 people
d) over 500 but fewer than 1000 people
e) well over 1000 people
Brain endocasts are used to estimate cranial capacity, but some scholars believe that
they also may be used to understand the development of
a) homicide
b) height
c) culture
d) speech
e) religion
These simple geometrical shapes divide an area into a number of separate territories,
each focused on a single site; these are often used as a tool in Central Place
Theory-style analyses of site hierarchy
a) Thiessen Polygons
b) Tessellated Polygons
c) Graduated Pentagons
d) Centralized Shapes
e) Honeycomb Polygons