Q&A Hero

Q: Because of the ethical and legal issues that come up during archaeological investigation of Indigenous traditional cultures, especially with regard to human remains, much archaeological work now depends on a) ignoring local concerns and continuing to excavate b) suing Native American groups for complete access to archaeological sites c) disregarding federal legislation that interferes with archaeological goals d) secrecy e) compromise

Q: Archaiokapiloi, huaqueros, and tombaroli are all regional terms for a) the looters of archaeological sites b) archaeologists c) archaeological site museums d) museum curators e) believers in Indigenous religions

Q: Who owns the past? a) archaeologists b) museums c) Indigenous people d) collectors e) there is no clear answer to that question

Q: When antiquities are purchased or accepted by a museum there is a strong need for careful investigation of where exactly the object came from. Such an investigation is part of buyer a) investigative reporting b) characterization c) context d) importation e) due diligence

Q: The Italian government tried Marian True, the former Curator of Antiquities of the J.P. Getty Museum in Los Angeles, on charges of a) theft from a museum in Rome b) falsely impersonating a trained archaeologist c) knowingly purchasing antiquities that were illegally excavated in Italian territory d) displaying fake antiquities as real e) all of the above

Q: The Sevso Treasure, an assemblage of late Roman silver, was acquired by the Marquess of Northampton, but is considered too obviously looted to be sold. The Sevso Treasure has been claimed by a) Russia b) Hungary c) The U.K. d) France e) Italy

Q: When antiquities collectors buy looted archaeological objects they a) are innocently perusing a hobby that doesn"t hurt anyone b) are doing their part to help preserve the past c) are indirectly funding the looting of archaeological sites d) are indirectly preventing the looting of archaeological sites e) none of the above

Q: The main way that the Mimbres Foundation has sought to protect Mimbres sites from looting is a) by actually purchasing surviving Mimbres archaeological sites b) to perform 100% excavation on every single Mimbres site that is known c) by vigilantism: several people have been shot on sight d) plant fake Mimbres artifacts for looters to find e) all of the above

Q: Artifacts produced by the Mimbres culture in the American Southwest are sought by collectors and the sites of that culture have been heavily looted to meet the demand. The type of Mimbres artifact that is most valued by collectors is a) stone idol carvings b) painted bowls c) intricate textiles d) gold jewelry e) human mummies

Q: When a museum label fails to indicate where exactly an artifact on display came from, that is a good sign that a) the museum is protecting the site from looters by not letting the public have much information b) the museum is very disorganized c) tests are being done on the object to determine its origin d) the object came from a looted site through illicit or illegal channels e) the museum is an older-style institution

Q: The reason the illegal excavation of antiquities is so devastating for archaeological research is a) illegally excavated antiquities lack contextual information b) archaeological sites are destroyed to extract these antiquities c) no published record of the excavations exist d) objects held in private collections are often not accessible for scientific research e) all of the above

Q: 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

Q: In 1996 a human body radiocarbon dated to 9300 BP was found in Washington State: this find sparked a decade long battle between archaeologist and Native American groups, mostly because it was so very old. This body is known as a) Peking Man b) Kennewick Man c) The Taung Child d) Lucy e) Piltdown Man

Q: According to NAGPRA, museums must return specific skeletons, sacred objects, and funerary goods to Native American groups if a) they ask for them b) they can no longer afford to store the objects c) if the Native American group promises to preserve and conserve the remains d) if cultural affiliation linking the goods to the modern group can be shown e) if the objects were found to have been removed from native land before 1900 without a permit

Q: NAGPRA, a significant piece of legislation passed in the United States in 1990, stands for a) National Archaeological Grant Program Record Agency b) Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act c) National Archaeological Graves Purchasing and Restoration Act d) Native American General Program for Recovery Agency e) Native American Group Program for Recording Archaeology

Q: Many Maori groups in New Zealand as well as some Native American groups prefer that human remains be________ instead of excavated by archaeologists a) put on museum display b) sold to collectors c) removed from their territory d) destroyed by construction workers and developers e) allowed to decay naturally

Q: Excavation of human burials is a complex ethical issue in archaeology because a) human remains contain diseases that can make archaeologists sick b) many modern and ancient cultures frown on the disturbance of the dead c) burials are usually quite hard to locate and archaeologists have to do a lot of digging to find them d) legally, ancient remains, like modern ones, must be thoroughly investigated for foul play by the local police force e) the body might be protected by an ancient curse that could endanger archaeologists

Q: On numerous occasions the Greek Government has formally requested that this museum return the Parthenon Marbles to Athens a) The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York b) The Pergamon Museum in Berlin c) The British Museum in London d) The Skopje Museum in Macedonia e) The National Museum of Turkey in Ankara

Q: 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

Q: It is important that archaeological information be disseminated to the wider public. Which of the following have been used by archaeologists to popularize the human past a) museum exhibits b) the internet c) television d) all of the above e) a and c only

Q: Archaeological fraud perpetrated by __________, who was found to have planted artifacts at all of the 168 sites he excavated, may have had a serious impact on how we understand the Early Paleolithic in _________ a) Ignatius Donnelly; Greece b) Heinrich Schliemann; Turkey c) Thomas Jefferson; The United States d) Shinichi Fujimura; Japan e) Piltdown Man; China

Q: The idea of a lost continent of Atlantis originally came from a story written by a) Plato b) Homer c) Chaucer d) Shakespeare e) Ignatius Donnelly

Q: There are certain areas where archaeological reality and evidence clashes with harmless popular belief, and archaeologists must question whether they should respect these beliefs or focus on refuting. An example of just such an ethically challenging situation is a) when an author is trying to sell a book that makes false claims about the past and accuses archaeologists of keeping secret information about the public b) when false ideas about the ancient past are being used to fuel racism and hate c) when a major archaeological site is destroyed because those in charge of the country belong to an extremist religion d) when aboriginal and Indigenous religions or oral history are at odds with archaeological interpretation e) none of the above

Q: 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

Q: Pseudoarchaeology is defined as a) the practice of methodologically correct archaeology by amateurs b) the use of archaeology to further the political goals of a state c) a cross between archaeology and anthropology d) the creation of extravagant and untrue stories about the past e) the components of the process of archaeology that do not involve digging

Q: The science of morals is called a) law b) theory c) conscience d) theology e) ethics

Q: An example of religious extremism leading to archaeological destruction, the giant Buddhas carved into the cliffs of Bamiyan were destroyed by a) the Taliban b) the Nazis c) the Crusaders d) the Romans e) the Mongols

Q: The use of a star symbol that was once the emblem of Alexander the Great led to conflict between which two countries? a) Turkey and Greece b) Greece and Macedonia c) Macedonia and Serbia d) Serbia and Greece e) Macedonia and Turkey

Q: The name of this country comes from the name of an archaeological site a) Greece b) Iran c) Zimbabwe d) Morocco e) Vietnam

Q: A common criticism of the early New Archaeology (functional-processual archaeology) was that the importance of ideological and symbolic aspects of societies was ignored or undervalued.

Q: Despite its name, evolutionary archaeology has very little to do with the ideas of biological evolution.

Q: Lewis Binford is considered a processual archaeologist.

Q: There is no difference between Marxist and neo-Marxist thought in archaeology.

Q: Most scholars believe that the Maya collapse was monocausal.

Q: The short-term intentions of individuals can be referred to as agency.

Q: Clear ethnic groups do not always stand out clearly in archaeological remains.

Q: Post-processual archaeology has completely replaced the New Archaeology.

Q: Marxist archaeology seeks to understand processes of change in human history through the study of contradictions between the forces of production and social organization.

Q: The New Archaeology is considered to be a challenge to Processual Archaeology

Q: Using a traditional Migrationist approach, it is argued that each archaeological culture is the manifestation, in material terms, of a specific a) people or ethnic group b) environmental event c) religious tradition d) distribution of resource e) social inequality

Q: 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

Q: Around the 12th century BC, the Phoenicians developed a simplified phonetic script to write their Semitic language. By the early 1st millennium BC, the script was adapted by the Greeks to write their language, and the Greek alphabet was later modified in Italy to write Etruscan and Latin. It was through Latin that our own alphabet (known as the Roman alphabet) came to much of Europe, and later the rest of the world. This is a positive example of ____________ a) Marxism b) diffusion c) praxis d) postmodernism e) environmentalism

Q: Later archaeological critiques of diffusionist explanations have shown that migrations a) did not occur in the past and cannot be used to explain cultural change b) are far more obvious in the archaeological record than once thought c) did occur but are not as easy to detect in the archaeological record as once believed d) are the only explanation for most cultural change e) could account for most of the archaeological record

Q: The idea that European Megaliths were used by elders and community leaders to manipulate the members of society into the continued recognition of their social status is an example of a a) Postprocessual explanation b) Functional-processual explanation c) Marxist explanation d) Migrationist or Diffusionist explanation e) New Archaeology explanation

Q: Emphasizing the scientific methodology of problem statement, hypothesis formulation, and subsequent testing, ______________ is an approach that stresses the dynamic relationship between the social and economic aspects of culture and the environment in understanding culture change a) Marxist archaeology b) structuralist archaeology c) culture-historical archaeology d) postprocessual archaeology e) processual archaeology

Q: In contrast to the functional-processual approach that seeks to create generalizing explanation, a _________________ explanation, influenced by structuralism, critical theory, and neo-Marxist thought, favors an individualizing approach a) postprocessual b) culture-historical c) refutationist d) hypothetico-deductive e) none of the above

Q: Ian Hodder is considered to be a ________________ archaeologist a) post-processual b) processual c) migrationist d) diffusionist e) Marxist

Q: While New Archaeology was fast to investigate social structures it was slow to explore a) how science could be used in archaeology b) the symbolic aspects of culture c) the impact of the environment on people in the past d) the origins of agriculture e) all of the above

Q: One thing that cognitive-processual archaeologists and functional-processual archaeologists agree upon is that a) there is no objective truth b) ideology is an active force within society c) individual societies construct their own social reality d) theories must be tested against facts e) cognitive and symbolic aspects of society are very important

Q: Some Processualists have accused Critical Theorists of believing that one person's idea is as good as any other person's idea: basically that fringe and alternative beliefs are as good as those produced by experts and trained professionals. Such a belief is also called a) relativism b) positive feedback c) the multiplier effect d) superiorism e) Marxism

Q: 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

Q: 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

Q: Relying on a single dominant explanatory factor to account for a cultural change is known as a(n) a) idealist explanation b) multivariate explanation c) hypothetico-deductive explanation d) monocausal explanation e) postprocessual explanation

Q: Change in the archaeological record is sometimes attributed to struggles between social classes, a result of contradictions that arise between the forces of production and the relations of production (mainly the social organization). Such an approach to understanding the past would be considered a) Critical theory b) culture-historical archaeology c) postprocessual archaeology d) Marxist archaeology e) processual archaeology

Q: ______________ archaeologists stress that human actions are guided by beliefs and symbolic concepts, and that the proper object of study is the structures of thoughtthe ideasof the human actors who made the artifacts and created the archaeological record a) Marxist b) Structuralist c) Processual d) Historiographic e) Conservative

Q: 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

Q: 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

Q: Which of the following has been put forth as a monocausal explanation for the origins of a state a) the hydraulic hypothesis b) population growth c) warfare d) all of the above e) none of the above

Q: 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

Q: The controversial framework developed by Carl Hempel and adopted by some New Archaeologists and heavily criticized by other New Archaeologists is based on the development of universal statements and a) cognitive maps b) diffusion diagrams c) religious interpretations d) personal observations e) natural laws

Q: Robert Carneiro, a major proponent of ______________, emphasized the importance of environmental constraints and territorial limitations to explain the origins of the state a) ecological determinism b) environmental circumscription c) punctuated equilibria d) structuralist approaches e) systems thinking

Q: The idea that the human mind evolved under the selective pressures faced by the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of Ice-age humans is an important aspect of a) the hydraulic hypothesis b) cataclysm studies c) Marxist archaeology d) evolutionary archaeology e) the empathetic method

Q: A notable feature of Lewis Binford's work on the origins of farming was its generality: he was seeking to explain the origins of agriculture worldwide. His is an example of a _________ approach to archaeology a) post-modern b) Marxist c) diffusionist d) processual e) all of the above

Q: 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

Q: The theoretical position in archaeology that nearly all archaeologists believe in and commands widespread respect is a) diffusionism b) The New Archaeology c) post-Processualism d) neo-Marxism e) no theoretical position commands widespread respect

Q: The argument that large-scale irrigation alone leads to urbanization is known as the a) evolutionary hypothesis b) hydraulic hypothesis c) New Archaeology d) systems theory e) culture-historical approach

Q: 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) the introduction of new diseases causing massive depopulation of the region e) the arrival of Quetzalcoatl from central Mexico who brought a new religious cult to the area

Q: Before the New Archaeology, changes observed in the archaeological record were often explained by the idea of a) migration b) the environment c) class struggle d) cognition and identity e) all of the above

Q: ______________ is a theoretical approach developed by the "Frankfurt School" of German social thinkers. This approach stresses that all knowledge is historical, biased communication, and thus all claims to objective knowledge are illusory a) Critical Theory b) Conjunctivist Theory c) Catastrophe Theory d) Structuration Theory e) Scientism

Q: The development of units of measurement was not a fundamental cognitive step. Even our earliest hominin ancestors measured things: we do it naturally.

Q: Cult or religion is clearly separated from everyday life and is very clear in the archaeological record.

Q: Humans are often represented in the Paleolithic cave art of Europe.

Q: Paleolithic cave art is made in a variety of ways, including simple finger tracings, hand stencils and painting in several colors.

Q: Evidence of "deities" has been found at the sanctuary of Gbekli Tepe and thus it is unlikely that the site was a shrine for ancestor veneration.

Q: The pace of archaeological discovery is slowing down. There isn't very much more left to learn.

Q: Chavn de Huantar, which flourished in the years 850 to 200 BC, is located in Peru.

Q: Although many scholars resent it, French has become the so-calledlingua franca, or standard working language of archaeological discourse.

Q: Unlike other forms of archaeology, landscape archaeology does not have a cognitive dimension.

Q: Power relationships in the past are often depicted pictorially.

Q: We cannot assume that our distant ancestors had cognitive abilities like our own.