Archaeology Test Questions And Answers

Front 1

Why is this class in the anthropology department?

Back 1

Cultural differences of people in the past

Front 2

2) Why did I start the class with the Werowocomoco research?

Back 2

As an example of contemporary archaeological practice

Front 3

3) What’s one of the research questions motivating the Werowocomoco research?

Back 3

“Cultural landscape”? Subsistence? Exchange?

Front 4

4) How did we control time at Werowocomoco (one method)?

Back 4

Diagnostic artifacts, Radiocarbon dates, Stratified deposits

Front 5

5) What was the fundamental implication of 19th c. intellectual developments (e.g., uniformitarianism, evolution, historical materialism) for archaeology:

Back 5

Challenge to theological conception of ancient past

Front 6

6) Name a key element of processual archaeology as described in class or in chapter 1 of your textbook (a short phrase will suffice):

Back 6

Rejection of universal laws, scientific methods, objectivity, culture as adaptive

Front 7

8) Name one of the things mentioned in class to think about in starting archaeology fieldwork:

Back 7

Conservation ethic, other ethical / legal concerns, research design, questions

Front 8

9) Why conduct an archaeological survey (give one reason)?

Back 8

Find sites, understand regional scene

Front 9

10) In chapter 3 your textbook covers remote sensing techniques, some of which we touched on in class. Name one of these techniques.

Back 9

Aerial Recon., satellite photography, ground penetrating radar, electrical resistivity, magnetometry

Front 10

11) What’s one of archaeology’s greatest strengths (as discussed in class)?

Back 10

Access to large swaths of time / space, ability to recover history outside of documented settings

Front 11

12) The Jamestown Island tree ring study drew on dendrochronology not to date the site, but to study what? ( a short phrase will suffice)

Back 11

Climate history

Front 12

13) What does radiocarbon dating actually date?

Back 12

Death of the living organism

Front 13

14) What’s the approximate date for the Clovis horizon?

Back 13

11,000 bp or 9000 BC

Front 14

15) What’s one of the criteria for acceptable early sites mentioned in class?

Back 14

Undeniable artifacts, Indisputable context and association, Valid dates

Front 15

16) According to Adovasio, how does Meadowcroft meet this particular criterion? (A short phrase will suffice)

Back 15

Basketry, Precise excavation / documentation, Clear sequence of C14 dates

Front 16

17) What’s one reason why others are skeptical about Adovasio’s claims? (A short phrase will suffice)

Back 16

Flora / fauna wrong, Coal contamination, Replication needed

Front 17

18) How did Adovasio respond to this specific critique? (A short phrase will suffice)

Back 17

Climate mosaic, No contamination (other dates acceptable), Monte Verde and others

Front 18

20) What’s the best candidate for replacing the Clovis-first theory?

Back 18

Coastal migration

Front 19

5) What is the approximate date for the earliest levels at Meadowcroft

Back 19

15,000 bp

Front 20

6) What is archaeology’s “Speculative phase” (Renfrew and Bahn’s term):

Back 20

Renaissance

Front 21

9) Post-processual archaeology has emphasized

Back 21

Gender and power

Front 22

13) Why do we have to calibrate a radiocarbon date?

Back 22

Variation in atmospheric C14

Front 23

3) As discussed in class and in your reading, the social analysis of Moundville focused on:

Back 23

Burial analysis

Front 24

7) The central theme of the Polynesian environmental archaeology example was:

Back 24

Understanding human / environment relationships

Front 25

11) Culture historians generally explain cultural change in terms of

Back 25

Migration / diffusion

Front 26

12) Structuralists generally see cultural change as coming from:

Back 26

Changes in symbols

Front 27

13) Shift from pithouse to pueblo in the American Southwest

Back 27

AD 750

Front 28

“Social glue”:

Back 28

Kivas

Front 29

Chaco’s pinnacle

Back 29

AD 1100

Front 30

18) Chaco’s roads:

Back 30

Religious links, Economic linkages, Symbolizing directionality, Public works projects

Front 31

3) The Chesapeake research on maize that we discussed in class started with a question. What was it (roughly – don’t need to get it exact)?

Back 31

What was the process behind the transition to maize-based horticulture?

Front 32

4) Jared Diamond’s book Guns Germs and Steel started with a question. What was it (roughly – don’t need to get it exact)?

Back 32

Why did the West come to dominate much of the rest of the world?

Front 33

5) We talked about several other areas of research (“-ologies”) under the general heading of environmental archaeology. Name one.

Back 33

Geomorphology, paleoethnobotany, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, palynology, taphonomy

Front 34

6) Are symbols linked to objects and social realities in an arbitrary or a non-arbitrary ways?

Back 34

They could be linked in either way depending upon the symbol

Front 35

7) Recent interpretations of Lascaux suggest that the cave may in fact have been a place of:

Back 35

Shamans, sacred space, or ritual

Front 36

What might a processualist’s explanation emphasize?

Back 36

Adaptation, environmental change, law-like developments, systemic responses, problem solving, functionalism

Front 37

9) Summarize Stuart’s “efficiency” model in a short phrase.

Back 37

Low pop growth, steady productivity, consumption limited to available resources

Front 38

10) Summarize Stuart’s “power” model in a short phrase.

Back 38

Rapid growth in production, population

Front 39

11) Name one of the new elements that appeared in the archaeological record at the height of the Chaco phenomenon.

Back 39

Great houses, great kivas, outliers, long-distance trade, road, Pueblo Bonito

Front 40

12) Is Stuart’s model general or specific (and why is it so)?

Back 40

: General – can be applied elsewhere

Front 41

In a short phrase, why does Stuart think Chaco collapsed?

Back 41

Power dynamic led to overuse of resources, unsustainable inequality such that drought triggered collapse

Front 42

14) Why was space more important than time for hunter-gatherers in the American Southwest as they adapted to environmental conditions?

Back 42

Mobility allows hunter-gatherers to move to more productive areas

Front 43

What’s one of the things in the archaeology indicating that the Anasazi became a “closed” society after Chaco’s collapse?

Back 43

Walled settlements, cliff dwellings, burned sites, skeletal trauma, isolated settlements, self sufficient settlements

Front 44

16) Stuart suggests that Anasazi history during its “golden age” offers a useful model for solving problems of modern America. Name one of the elements of this model

Back 44

Unified/egal. community; Complex / diverse econ; Infrastructure produces necessities; Durable community

Front 45

1) The discovery of Ardipithecus Ramidus is particularly significant since:

Back 45

Provides a window into early hominid evolution

Front 46

2) Why did humans begin to domesticate and produce food?

Back 46

Improve desirable qualities of plants, Make harvesting easier, Improve yields, Generate a storable surplus

Front 47

7) What’s NOT associated with the Upper Paleolithic?

Back 47

Agriculture

Front 48

13) Earliest city:

Back 48

Uruk

Front 49

How does “hegemony” play a role in the emergence of state societies?

Back 49

Acceptance of pervasive authority

Front 50

15) Norman’s research focused on what archaeological site?

Back 50

Savi

Front 51

1) I suggested that humanity’s beginnings were marked by what sorts of upper Paleolithic activities at Lascaux?

Back 51

Ritual, ceremony, narrative performance, social gathering

Front 52

2) What’s one of the fundamental questions regarding the origins of food production?

Back 52

Why adopted when it was? How was it adopted? Conscious / intentional process? Benefits and drawbacks?

Front 53

3) Since domestication began independently in several different places at roughly the same time, explanations generally include several factors with global implications. Name one of them.

Back 53

Envt’l changes? Pop. growth? Improving technologies?

Front 54

4) We compared Ain Mallaha and Abu Hureya to make the case that the transition to agriculture involved changes in economic relations. Name a difference in these two sites that points toward altered economic relations.

Back 54

Transition to farming village; Burials beneath house floors; Rectangular houses; Rooms for internal storage;
From sm. compounds of circular houses where entire community is an economic unit with shared storage to lg. villages with rectangular houses where each household is an economic unit (storage within houses)

Front 55

5) I suggested that the archaeology of the Archaic should include narratives of people actively asserting ideas and identities. What sort of remarkable archaeological site from this period pushes us toward such interpretations?

Back 55

Mounds; circular village plazas

Front 56

6) What’s one reason why the archaeological record after domestication and sedentism is so different?

Back 56

More material; larger settlements; bigger features; social differentiation; permanent leadership

Front 57

7) We discussed the emergence and collapse of Adena, Hopewell, and Mississippian traditions. Name one similarity across these traditions:

Back 57

Mound centers, long-distance exchange, elaborate burial ceremony

Front 58

8) We discussed a sequence preceding urban city-states that included several important developments. Name one of these.

Back 58

Group labor (Jericho); Densely pop trading communities (Catal Huyuk); Irrigation / ceremonial centers (Eridu); City-states (Uruk); military empire (Akkadian); civil society (Hammurabi)

Front 59

9) Norman argues that the ditches he studied represented a symbolic invocation of:

Back 59

Dongbe; serpent

Front 60

10) The “larger conversations” which surround Norman’s article involve 1) historical archaeology and 2) the archaeology of what:

Back 60

Landscape; built environment

Front 61

11) Smith argues that alcohol use among enslaved Africans played a traditional role tied back to uses in Africa. What was its primary role?

Back 61

Fostering communication with the spirit world

Front 62

12) Smith joined a “larger conversation” involving cultural “survivals” by suggesting that alcohol use was an example of what historical process within African American communities?

Back 62

Creolization; braiding or blending of traditions; adaptability of Afro-Atlantic community