FINAL EXAM
NAME ____________________________________________________________
PART I: MULTIPLE CHOICE. Circle the number of ALL answers that are correct (1 point each).
A. The earliest hominids. . .
1. left unmistakable evidence that they were big-game hunters.
2. are associated with pebble (Oldowan) tools made by direct percussion.
3. whether australopithecines or Homo habilis, were known to have painted the walls of their caves.
4. may have made a living by scavenging and gathering.
5. may have developed the first artifacts out of soft materials such as wood and other plants.
6. clearly were organized in social units consisting of male-female pairs and their children.
7. left archaeological and paleoanthropological evidence of their presence as early as nearly a million years ago in Asia and Europe, as well as Africa.
8. appeared about 3.5-4 million years ago, but the earliest stone tools we have are only about 2.5 million years old.
9. left footprints in wet volcanic ash some 3 million years ago at Laetoli.
10. may have left true living floors, with discarded animal bone; or these sites may have been caches of food or middens of other animals.
B. During the Middle Paleolithic. . .
1. the earliest indications of plant domestication are evident at campsites.
2. there may have been two species of hominids, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, existing in Europe and the Middle East.
3. Mousterian tools are found with the remains of large game animals, clearly indicating hunting.
4. European Neanderthals' robust appearance may have been associated with adaptation to the cold, periglacial climate.
5. the first pyramids were built.
6. Neanderthals may have been deliberately buried with flowers at Shanidar Cave in Iraq.
C. During the Upper Paleolithic. . .
1. tool types become more standardized, and bone and antler points and harpoons are widespread.
2. many preserved examples of skin and wooden boats indicate widespread water travel.
3. Acheulean hand axes dominated the lithic assemblages.
4. "Venus " figurines may have been made for deliberate destruction, though we do not know if they were fertility objects or symbolic of something else entirely.
5. engravings and paintings deep in caves such as Lascaux and Chauvet depicted what may have been ceremonially important animals and symbols from as early as 30,000 years ago to as late as 17,000 years ago.
6. subjects of cave art included birds, penguins, jellyfish, rhinos, bison, and horses.
7. people made it to the New World.
8. Neanderthals either became extinct or merged with more biologically modern forms of humans.
9. flint blade tools become common.
10. people made it to Australia across the sea.
D. The first Americans. . .
1. apparently brought domestic dogs.
2. may have helped the extinction process of Ice Age megafauna through overkilling.
3. arrived in the New World by making their way across the Atlantic Ocean.
4. appeared in western North America at least one million years ago.
5. made fluted projectile points, among other tools, that were for spears.
6. left arrowheads all over North and South America.
7. left stone tools and cut animal bone in some Florida rivers and sinkholes.
E. The Mesolithic. . .
1. is the time, according to archaeologists, that humans first developed language.
2. saw the beginning of hunting modern fauna, as most big game became extinct.
3. is the equivalent of the Archaic in the New World.
4. saw increasing use of plant remains and coastal resources such as fish and shellfish.
5. and Archaic periods were the times of the first appearance of pottery, which is important for the archaeologist in seeing cultural variability.
6. and Archaic lifestyles of hunting and gathering and fishing continued in some parts of the Old and New Worlds until the modern era.
F. Domestication. . .
1. of animals was first done with horses and cattle.
2. and the earliest agriculture began in the Middle East and diffused to the rest of the world.
3. of plants can be indicated in the archaeological record by remains of larger seeds or different plant structures that facilitate harvesting by people.
4. of early grain crops such as wheat and barley took place in the Middle East at least as early as about 6,000-7,000 years ago.
5. of various species meant that people stopped hunting and gathering wild resources.
6. of animals can be seen in characteristics of the faunal assemblage such as age and sex of individuals.
7. of corn (maize) and tobacco is seen at early Middle Eastern sites such as Ain Ghazal.
8. of plants in the absence of charred seeds or other botanical fragments can be inferred from other evidence, such as sickle polish on stone blades, artistic depictions of harvesting, or human bone chemistry.
9. and subsequent food production allowed the accumulation of surpluses and the support of craft specialists, as well as more status differentiation in society.
10. of plants and animals may have begun as an attempt to move them to areas where they did not appear in the wild, or as an association around oases during dry periods.
11. of maize has been demonstrated to have taken place in central Mexico, where MacNeish found early traces in the dry caves of the Tehuacan valley.
12. of plants in South America included important non-food industrial crops such as cotton and coca.
G. Prehistoric North Americans. . .
1. were taught how to build mounds and other elaborate architecture by ancient astronauts who left few traces.
2. of the Woodland period built earthen burial mounds and other earthworks often in the shapes of animal effigies.
3. of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere must have had extensive long-distance trade networks to move Gulf Coast shell to Ohio and other exotic materials around the eastern/midwestern U.S. from around 200 B.C. to A.D. 400.
4. of the Woodland period often put high-status grave goods of cut mica, copper, and other unusual materials into their mounds.
5. of the Olmec horizon made beautiful jade statues and huge carved-stone heads, possibly indicative of true state society emerging some 1000 years B.C.
6. at Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico left stone pyramids and a huge city that was abandoned before the Aztecs arrived.
7. known as the Aztecs inhabited Mexico City and built Tenochtitlan; they became known historically when Cortez arrived in the early sixteenth century.
H. Mississippian societies in the late prehistoric southeastern U.S. . . .
1. were organized in true chiefdoms, but not quite at the state level.
2. were founded on major agricultural crops such as zucchini and pistachio.
3. had large agricultural villages along the floodplains of the Mississippi and other major rivers.
4. often indicated high-status individuals with elaborate burials and grave goods, and even sacrificed retainers.
5. practiced intensive maize agriculture, but also gathered wild nuts and fruits and hunted deer.
6. were the builders of earthen flat-topped pyramids called temple mounds.
7. were those encountered in the early sixteenth century by the conquistadors from the Old World.
I. Ancient pristine (earliest) states. . .
1. include the Inca of Peru.
2. of the Middle East, such as Uruk, emerged more than 3000 years B.C.
3. are defined as including urban settlements, monumental architecture, writing/recording systems, taxes and tribute, and centralized bureaucratic government and religious systems.
4. were usually based on egalitarian social organization.
5. included Archaic Greece, Macedonia, and Rome.
6. are usually thought to have included standing military forces and some role for coercive government.
7. of the Harappan civilization include Mohenjo-daro of the Indus Valley.
8. in Egypt were under the mostly stable, conservative control of dynasties of pharaohs who consolidated power and ruled for millennia.
9. were usually based on highly stratified economic systems which included a few supreme leaders at the top, supported by the commoners and slaves, who were often part of the burial offerings of dead rulers.
J. In ancient Europe. . .
1. we can see the foundations for all of Egyptian civilization in megalithic monuments.
2. a late Neolithic hunter frozen into an alpine glacier that thawed in the 1990s was accompanied by usually perishable materials such as a wooden backpack frame, quiver and arrows, and fungus in a pouch.
3. Minoan civilization developing on the island of Crete was typified at the site of Knossos, a grand palace.
4. the Bronze Age Mycenean civilization of 1600-1100 B.C., with its remains of palaces and gold, was the classic culture of the time of Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War.
PART II: SHORT ESSAYS. Identify six of the following, including what, where, when (generally how old), and why important—a good, single sentence or two will do! (2 points each.)
| Olduvai Gorge | Monte Verde | Chavin |
| Terra Amata | Jericho | Nazca Lines |
| Zhoukoudian | Cahokia | Xianyang |
| Pleistocene | Chaco Canyon | Great Zimbabwe |
| Dolni Vestonice | Maya | wattle and daub |
| Jomon | pithouse | earliest writing systems |
PART III: ESSAY. Answer the following in a well-organized paragraph or two, including examples from readings, lectures, movies, slides, etc. (10 points).
Why do archaeology? Why use public money to study people who are dead anyway? Are there any useful, practical lessons that can be learned from the study of the past through material remains? Does archaeology have any value for modern society, politics, or human problems?