Q&A Hero

Q: 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

Q: Ethnographic evidence indicates that cultural groups prefer designs that belong to specific symmetry classes, often as few as one or two classes.

Q: The reason that radiocarbon dating results must be calibrated is that, contrary to what Libby assumed a) the half-life of 14C samples from wet contexts is twice that of 14C samples from dry contexts b) the concentration of 14C in the atmosphere has actually remained the same over time c) the concentration of 14C in the atmosphere has actually varied over time d) the concentration of 14C in the atmosphere has nothing to do with radiocarbon dating e) the half-life of 14C has been seriously modified by pollution in the atmosphere

Q: Deposition of artifacts with the dead always indicates a belief in the afterlife.

Q: As cognitive science develops it is increasingly clear that the notion of _______ goes well beyond the notion of ________ a) mind; brain b) symbol; brain c) mind; symbol d) cognitive map; symbol e) mind; matter

Q: 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

Q: By more than 1.6 million years ago, Homo erectus emerged in a) Eastern Europe b) East Asia c) Eastern Australia d) East Africa e) all of the above

Q: 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

Q: Pollen is a useful tool for archaeologists because a) from it archaeologists can construct detailed sequences of past vegetation and climate b) pollen is not very durable and thus can reflect subtle changes in seasons and climate c) pollen is almost indestructible: it survives for thousands of years d) a and b only e) a and c only

Q: In the future it is to be expected that advances in ______________ will greatly illuminati both the speculative and the tectonic phases of human evolution a) stone tool analysis b) neuroscience c) linguistic decipherment d) the analysis of symbols e) GIS

Q: Many post-processual archaeologists like to use the analogy of the archaeological record as ____________. This can be seen in the interpretive task of understanding the murals at San Bartolo, Guatemala a) an encyclopedia filled with hard facts b) a play with a variety of actors c) a text composed of meaningful signs d) an oil spill that we are slowly cleaning up e) a traffic jam that slows everyone down

Q: A potsherd used by the ancient Greeks as a voting ticket, is called a(n): a) kula b) parthenon c) agora d) osteon e) ostrakon

Q: Which dating technique would yield a result that might read 2.25 million years before present, plus or minus 50,000 years? a) radiocarbon dating b) seriation c) assemblage typology d) potassium-argon dating e) uranium-series dating

Q: The term for dating techniques based on the decay of radioactive isotopes which have half-lives that are known and measurable is a) relative b) absolute c) enumerative d) radiometric e) nucleic

Q: ___________________ is another term for tree-ring dating which is based on the counting, measurement, and patterning of annual growth rings in known species of trees a) Radiocarbon b) Varve analysis c) Botanical dating d) Dendrochronology e) Amino acid racemization

Q: When the goal of an artist is representation of objects in the real world, artistic conventions are commonly used; this is known as a) delineation b) depiction c) portrayal d) illustration e) demonstration

Q: Radiocarbon dating methods can only be used on a) inorganic materials b) organic materials c) volcanic rocks d) well-fired pottery e) objects exposed to sunlight

Q: An approach to the analysis of decorative style that claims that patterns can be divided into distinct groups or classes, and that these arrangements within a culture are not random, is known as a) symmetry analysis b) systems thinking c) synchronic analysis d) cognitive analysis e) all of the above

Q: The time taken for half of the atoms of a radioactive isotope to decay is called its a) radiocarbon b) thermoluminescence c) half-life d) half-decay e) isotope deterioration rate

Q: Ancient Greek painters of ceramics were highly skilled and valued, creating a form of painted pottery known as the black-figure style that was common in Athens during the 6th century bc. Styles of this period and class are so distinctive that a) individual artistic are sometimes identified b) local substyles may be identified c) time periods may be identified d) all of the above e) none of the above

Q: Which of the following is considered an archaeological indicator of ritual: a) a focus of attention (such as on a specific building) b) detection of a boundary zone between this world and the next c) symbols that indicate the presence of a deity d) presence of offerings e) all of the above

Q: One of the major drawbacks of tree-ring dating is that the date recorded corresponds to the felling of the tree, thus a) tree-rings cannot be used to calibrate carbon dates b) it cannot be considered an independent method of absolute dating c) it is hard to conduct tree-ring dating outside of the tropics where there are a lot of trees d) timbers may be older or younger than the structures that they were used to build e) all of the above

Q: Deposition of artifacts with the dead may indicate a) belief in an afterlife b) disposal of personal objects that would bring bad luck to others c) symbolic reflections of that person's status in society d) all of the above e) only answers a and c are correct

Q: The presence of foreign pottery in a well-dated Egyptian context shows that this type of pottery cannot be more recent than those Egyptian objects. This type of cross-dating establishes a__________ for the manufacture of the foreign pottery a) a terminus ante quem b) an a maiore ad minus c) an a minore ad maius d) aterminum ad minore e) a terminus post quem

Q: If a coin with a date on it is found in a sealed archaeological deposit, we know that the deposit can be no older than the date on the coin. In that situation the date on the coin represents a) a terminus ante quem b) an a maiore ad minus c) an a minore ad maius d) aterminum ad minore e) a terminus post quem

Q: The Popol Vuh manuscript, found among the living Maya of the Guatemalan highlands during the 19th century, can be associated with a) a 2000-year-old epic concerning the Maya Underworld b) pictorial references on Classic Maya pottery c) he establishment of the site of Mayapan and the coming of the god Kulkulkan d) all of the above e) a and b only

Q: Archaeomagnetic (paleomagnetic) dating is contingent upon a number of factors. If a clay structure is heated beyond a certain temperature (650-700o C), is not reheated, and remains in situ, this dating technique may then be used to measure the __________________ of the iron particles, which may then be compared to a master sequence that has been built up for that region a) magnetic pulses b) magnetic intensity c) magnetic direction d) magnetic half-life e) all of the above

Q: 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

Q: According to Henri Frankfort and his colleagues, a(n) ________ may be described as a narrative of significant past events with such relevance for the present that it needs to be re-told and enhanced in dramatic or poetic form a) ethnology b) cognitive map c) religion d) parietal art e) myth

Q: Although generally less precise than radiocarbon, thermoluminescence (TL) dating has an advantages over radiocarbon dating: it can date a) pottery b) human teeth c) volcanic rock d) carbonized botanical remains e) all of the above.

Q: By 10,000 BC the only parts of the world that were not populated by Homo sapiens were Antarctica, the deserts, and a) South America b) Polynesia c) the Indian subcontinent d) Central Africa e) North America

Q: Maya glyphs are now known to a) identify persons, usually rulers b) commemorate events in the reign of rulers c) represent syllables, not concepts d) all of the above e) a and b are correct

Q: It was once thought that Maya glyphs did not identify individuals but only calendrical and astronomical events, until Tatiana Proskouriakoff published a paper in 1960 that a) identified only one ruler b) identified an individual, who remains unknown c) identified rulers of specific dynasties d) identified dynastic families, but not individuals e) proved this theory to be correct

Q: In a study of the Maya center at Caracol, Belize, Diane and Arlen Chase identify four different warfare-related events through their analysis of Maya a) hieroglyphs b) scrolls c) graves d) cuneiform tablets e) building techniques

Q: In the Christian calendar (which uses the terms BC and AD), there is no year a) 0 b) 1 BC c) AD 1 d) AD 666 e) none of these exist in the Christian calendar

Q: Some scholars prefer the term BCE to the term BC when talking about calendar dates because BC, which means Before Christ, is not necessarily meaningful in areas with other calendars or religions. What does BCE stand for? a) Before Columbus's Exploration b) Before the Common Era c) By Convention Exactly d) Before Calendar Evidence e) By Common Evidence

Q: Layers of sediments resulting from the melting of ice sheets and deposited in lakes on an annual basis are known as a) tree rings b) pollen c) ice cores d) varves e) contextual seriation

Q: The bone and ivory pipes from Upper Paleolithic sites in the Ach Valley, Germany, represent the early accepted evidence for a) glass blowing b) chimneys with flues c) music d) indoor plumbing e) irrigation

Q: Marks on Ice Age objects are sometimes incised in groups or lines. Alexander Marshack, who has studied these artifacts, suggests that these markings may represent notations of some type. He further links these notations to a) local family record keeping, possibly of births b) record keeping of animal herds c) recordings of injuries or deaths in battle d) phases of the moon and other astronomical events e) early phonetic writing

Q: This absolute dating method was developed by A.E. Douglass, an American astronomer, chiefly from work he conducted at the Pueblos of the American Southwest a) varve dating b) carbon dating c) tree-ring dating d) seriation e) potassium-argon dating

Q: Much of the portable art from the Ice Age is of animals, but the most famous pieces are the so-called _____________, such as the example from Willendorf, Austria a) Venus figurines b) animal figurines c) birthing figurines d) grotesque figurines e) action figurines

Q: In order to obtain absolute dates from volcanic material in very early contexts (over 1 million years ago), you would probably choose to use a) varves b) dendrochronology c) uranium-series dating d) potassium-argon dating e) radiocarbon dating

Q: The most coherent record of climate change on a global scale is obtained through a) deep sea cores b) calendric records c) faunal profiles d) lexicostatistics e) varves

Q: By studying the animal figures in Paleolithic cave art, Andr Leroi-Gourhan argued that the most common representations were of a) felines and cave bears b) horse and bison c) rhinoceroses and bears d) humans and horses e) none of the above

Q: A good example of a symbol is a) money b) a soldier's badge c) a scale weight d) a depiction of an animal painted on a cave wall e) all of the above

Q: __________ are complex sequences of cold periods that occurred during the Ice Age and are visible in ice cores a) Interstadials b) Interglacials c) Glacials d) Stadials e) none of the above

Q: At the site of Mohenjodaro in the Indus Valley, a series of carefully worked cubes of colored stone are recognized as a system of weights. This discovery allows us to infer that a) they had developed a concept equivalent to our own about weight b) there was a system of numeration involving hierarchical numerical categories c) the weight system was probably used for practical purposes d) all of the above e) a and c only

Q: Palynologists study ____________ which, when found preserved in lake or bog sediments, allows them to understand both ancient environments and to use them as a method of ________________ dating a) fossils, absolute b) pollen, relative c) pollen, absolute d) bog bodies, absolute e) fauna, relative

Q: For most of human history the only way that people could measure time was through a) the use of calendars b) observing the alternating darkness of day and night and the cycle of the seasons c) counting tree rings d) the use of stratigraphy e) calculating the path of the planet Venus in the sky

Q: A fundamental cognitive step was the a) development of symbols for measurement (such as units of time, length, or weight) b) deliberate burial of humans c) development of mobiliary art d) development of parietal art e) all of the above were important cognitive steps

Q: At the site of Atapuerca in Spain, over 3000 human bones from as many as 32 individuals were recovered. Juan-Luis Arsuaga, one of the directors, believes that the archaic Homo sapiens at this site were a) depositing their dead in some kind of mortuary ritual b) living in the cave year round c) not using the cave; the bones were deposited by carnivores d) not burying their dead, rather the bones were buried by later occupants of the cave to clear space e) not using the cave; the bones were washed in by later flooding

Q: The act of burial of human remains implies, at the very least, a) some kind of respect of feeling for the deceased b) a belief in a superior being c) a desire to preserve the body for as long as possible d) ancestor worship e) all of the above

Q: Although the creation of a typology may enable an archaeologist to understand gradual changes in design or decoration, to discover exactly when these changes occurred archaeologists must employ a) absolute dating methods b) relative dating methods c) parallels to other artifact typologies d) stratigraphy e) none of the above

Q: Absolute dating methods a) supply only a relative date for the object in question compared to other objects b) do not yet include the scientific methods of the later 20th century c) are not considered important to archaeology d) supply a calendar date for the object in question e) include such methods as seriation and pollen dating

Q: Through seriation, assemblages of artifacts are arranged in serial order, which is taken to indicate a) their relative worth b) what year they were excavated c) their relative ordering in time d) where they were discovered on the site grid e) where the object originally came from

Q: The term _________ art designates art found on the walls of caves and rockshelters, or on very large stone blocks a) referential b) parietal c) mobiliary d) iconic e) vertical

Q: The term __________art is used for portable engravings and carvings on small objects of stone, bone, antler, and ivory of the Ice Age a) parietal b) mural c) mobiliary d) iconic e) referential

Q: To an archaeologist, examples of relative dating methods include a) seriation b) studying the stratigraphy of a site c) pollen dating d) using layer data from deep-sea cores e) all of the above

Q: It was not until the 1990s that typology began to dominate archaeological thinking.

Q: Artistic representations, often with an overt religious or ceremonial significance, are known as a) art history b) semiotics c) iconography d) cognitive studies e) cognitive maps

Q: Multi-period, deep sites, such as village mounds in the Near East, show few if any traces of their deepest levels on the surface.

Q: Some archaeologists maintain that in the human mind there exists an interpretive framework of the world that affects actions and decisions as well as knowledge. This is known as a/the a) interpretive lens b) cognitive map c) cognitive filter d) deductive map e) inferential frame

Q: The study of artifacts and other material indicators of patterned actions that reflect religious beliefs is known as a) the archaeology of cult b) paleoethnoarchaeology c) archaeology of material remains d) spiritual archaeology e) cultural anthropology

Q: The most traditional subsurface detection technique is the use of rods or borers to probe the soil.

Q: Geophysical methods can be very effective for land-based site identification, but are rarely effective in underwater reconnaissance.

Q: Handheld GPS units are considered too inaccurate to be useful to archaeology and are not useful where regions are unmapped or where the maps are old or inaccurate.

Q: Hoards have been called the terrestrial equivalent of a shipwreck, however it is often not clear why a hoard was deposited.

Q: In every known human society, gold, which is intrinsically valuable, has been considered to be the most prestigious of materials.

Q: GIS systems are designed for the collection, storage, retrieval, analysis and display of spatial data.

Q: Google Earth was used to reveal 500 new caves in South Africa, including the one that yielded the bones of Australopithecus sediba.

Q: Although trade is significant to understanding relations between different polities, the flow of goods has little impact on economic integration or unification.

Q: The major drawback of the Giza Plateau Mapping Project is that none of the data collected over the 15 years has been incorporated into GIS.

Q: "Direct access" refers to the situation where a user goes directly to the material source without the intervention of any exchange mechanisms.

Q: Lead isotope analysis is an essential characterization technique for metals, although it is limited to artifacts made entirely of lead.

Q: Soil marks may reveal the presence of buried ditches, banks or foundations through the changes of subsoil color turned up by plowing.

Q: Crop marks were once thought to reflect ancient sub-surface remains, but are now recognized to be pranks perpetrated by the local populace.

Q: Although neutron activation analysis (NAA) is extremely useful for determining a material's source, the artifacts and samples that are analyzed remain radioactive for many years.

Q: In most modern surveys, areas selected for survey typically utilize either a grid system or a series of transects.

Q: Although scientific techniques for characterization are very helpful to archaeological studies of material sources, in most cases visual examination is sufficient.

Q: All known archaeological sites have been discovered by archaeologists during archaeological excavation.