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Archaeology
Q:
When archeologists refer to the place where an artifact, ecofact, or feature was found during survey or excavation, they use the term
a. provenience.
b. in situ.
c. strata.
d. position.
Q:
The period of the Ice Age known as the Pleistocene ended
a. about 25,000 years ago.
b. about 100,000 years ago.
c. about 10,000 years ago.
d. about 1.5 million years ago.
Q:
Provenience refers to
a. the relationship of an artifact, ecofact, or feature to other artifacts, ecofacts, features, and geologic strata in a site.
b. the artifact's location relative to a system of spatial data collection.
c. the position of the archaeologist when documenting a site.
d. an outdated way to map a site.
Q:
A total station, or EDM, is a device that:
a. allows the boundaries of archaeological sites to be objectively determined.
b. efficiently and accurately analyzes artifacts found during survey.
c. uses a beam of infrared light bounced off a prism to determine an artifact's provenience.
d. uses triangulation from radio waves received from satellites to determine your position, either in terms of latitude and longitude or the UTM grid.
Q:
The importance of plants in prehistoric diets was largely unknown until which of the following techniques was used?
a. Total station mapping of in situ artifacts.
b. The stratigraphic method.
c. Excavation by natural rather than arbitrary levels
d. Flotation.
Q:
The process of flotation is based on the principle that:
a. the most appropriate screen size for recovering carbonized plant remains and bone fragments is 1/4" mesh.
b. carbonized plant remains and very small bone fragments will float when submerged in water, while heavier items (including dirt) will not.
c. artifact provenience is the most important information an archaeologist can record during an excavation.
d. All of the above.
Q:
Matrix sorting is a technique:
a. that involves hand-sorting of processed bulk soil samples for minute artifacts and ecofacts.
b. in which large, obvious artifacts are removed prior to screening to prevent the artifacts from being damaged by the screening process.
c. that uses fluid suspension to recover tiny burned plant remains and bone fragments.
d. in which sediment is placed in a screen and the matrix is washed away with hoses.
Q:
Which of the following were the textbook authors, Thomas and Kelly, interested in mapping at Gatecliff?
a. The location of any artifacts found in situ.
b. The location of any features, such as hearths
c. The location of any large ecofacts.
d. All of the above.
Q:
Let's say you are excavating a site. You are being pretty careful, and are using 1/4" mesh screens to sieve the dirt after it is removed by a trowel and dustpan from the site. You find a few very small but well-preserved fish bones. The next day:
a. you decide to stop using trowels and start using dental tools for the excavation; you are probably not recovering many fish bones because they are being inadvertently destroyed by troweling.
b. you conclude that people in the past were not using minnows and you cease excavation.
c. you fear that the 1/4" mesh of the screen may allow most of the very small fish bones to pass through; you decide to switch to 1/8" mesh, and maybe even screen a sample of dirt through 1/16" mesh to see if you are finding few bones because they are not present, or because the screening method is systematically losing them
d. you realize that fish were not being used prehistorically and decide that a single backhoe trench through the site will probably give you a sufficient amount of remains of other animals to permit you to test your hypothesis.
Q:
Water-screening is an especially useful technique when:
a. the deposits are coarse-grained and have low clay content.
b. artifacts are expected to be large and not easily broken, as water screening can be very destructive.
c. artifacts are expected to be small and/or difficult to find without washing.
d. tiny fragments of carbonized plant remains must be recovered.
Q:
Why are archaeologists concerned about the future of artifact curation?
a. Some curation facilities cannot afford to meet federal guidelines, and so archaeological collections are being kept in substandard conditions.
b. Some curation facilities have shut their doors because they no longer have room for any more archaeological collections
c. Some curation facilities are so strained to catch up on inventories that they cannot afford the time to loan materials to researchers, contradicting the very purpose of the repository.
d. All of the above
Q:
A total station:
a. is accurate to +/- 3 millimeters.
b. is easily affordable by students and professionals alike.
c. is roughly the same in terms of accuracy as a line level and a measuring tape.
d. all of the above.
Q:
In addition to an artifact's provenience, archaeologists might also be interested in:
a. which side of an artifact was "up" when it was uncovered.
b. the compass orientation of an artifact's long axis.
c. whether or not the artifact is burned.
d. all of the above.
Q:
By recording the provenience of all artifacts encountered in situ during Gatecliff's excavations, the archaeologists were trying to:
a. document differences in artifact sequences through time.
b. obtain information that would allow them to reconstruct the activities that took place on discrete living floors.
c. determine the depth of time represented by the deposits in the rockshelter.
d. speed up the excavation process without losing important information.
Q:
Natural levels are preferable to arbitrary levels because:
a. arbitrary levels can potentially jumble together artifacts that come from different natural strata and thus different periods of time.
b. the depth of natural levels is determined by statistical sampling strategies, while arbitrary levels are chosen subjectively.
c. arbitrary levels follow the natural stratigraphy, which may not be able to distinguish between occupational surfaces.
d. natural levels are much simpler and faster to excavate than arbitrary levels.
Q:
If an archaeologist is excavating in arbitrary levels:
a. he or she is following the natural breaks in the sediments (following the stratigraphy).
b. natural strata are probably lacking or difficult to recognize.
c. the natural strata may be more than 10 centimeters thick.
d. the natural strata are probably lacking or difficult to recognize, and may be more than 10 centimeters thick.
Q:
While the vertical excavation strategy at Gatecliff was designed to clarify chronology, the horizontal excavation strategy was designed to:
a. expose living floors.
b. reinforce the artifact typologies in use at the time.
c. clarify the site's stratigraphy.
d. also clarify chronology, but on a larger scale.
Q:
Why do archaeologists use a datum point rather than simply measuring from the ground surface?
a. The datum point provides a universal reference point that can be used across any archaeological site, allowing archaeologists to easily compare data between excavations.
b. While vertical provenience could easily be measured from the ground surface, obtaining accurate horizontal provenience would be much more difficult without a datum point.
c. The ground surface does not have the same elevation consistently across a site while a datum point provides a fixed reference.
d. Use of a datum point is an archaeological tradition established in the early 20th century; while it serves no useful purpose, it is an example of how outdated excavation methodology is still embedded in archaeology today.
Q:
When archaeologists dig excavation units, they are concerned with:
a. horizontal provenience.
b. vertical provenience.
c. keeping the walls of the unit straight and perpendicular.
d. All of the above.
Q:
A test excavation would be most appropriate in which of the following situations?
a. When determining whether or not field school students understand archaeological field methods.
b. When trying to determine a site's potential for answering a research question.
c. When a research question must be answered with a limited amount of time and money.
d. When a researcher is already knows what to expect during excavations.
Q:
Otzi, the Ice Man of the Alps, provides an example of:
a. how cold conditions can inhibit decomposition of organic material by preventing the production of microorganisms that cause decay.
b. the peaceful life and death of a Neolithic farmer.
c. the importance of archaeological survey in high altitude mountain settings.
d. All of the above.
Q:
Waterlogged sites such as Ozette on Washington's Olympic Peninsula demonstrate:
a. how water can destroy structures and organic remains that would normally be preserved in dry conditions.
b. how organic remains can be remarkably preserved if saturated by water and sealed in an anaerobic environment.
c. that archaeologists cannot excavate these kinds of sites.
d. the relative ease of underwater excavation compared to excavations on dry land.
Q:
Organic remains are best preserved in:
a. a cave, where conditions remain permanently cool and dry.
b. a bog, where conditions remain permanently wet and depleted of oxygen.
c. a field, exposed to hot, dry conditions with periodic rainfall.
d. Both a permanently dry, cool cave and a permanently wet bog.
Q:
The duck decoys of Lovelock Cave, Nevada illustrate:
a. that caves were important habitation sites throughout Great Basin prehistory.
b. the importance of context in archaeological excavations.
c. the amazing degree of preservation possible in dry caves.
d. all of the above.
Q:
The antiquity of humans in the New World was established by the Folsom site. Why?
a. The dry desert environment of northeastern New Mexico allowed for the best preservation.
b. Careful provenience that recorded context: the association of a spear point with the skeleton of an extinct form of bison.
c. The age of the site, established by radiocarbon dating charred corn recovered during excavation.
d. All of the above.
Q:
If an artifact is said to be in situ, it is:
a. missing.
b. in place.
c. in the process of being analyzed.
d. embedded in an animal bone.
Q:
Which of the following is true about the Pleistocene?
a. It was a geologic period lasting from 2 million to 10 thousand years ago.
b. It was characterized by periods of extensive glaciation.
c. Many species of now extinct fauna existed during the Pleistocene.
d. All of the above.
Q:
The Folsom site is important in the history of American archaeology because:
a. it was the first site that was excavated using the stratigraphic method, a breakthrough in archaeological technique that allowed for chronological control.
b. it finally disproved the Myth of the Moundbuilders, establishing that Native Americans had indeed built the earthworks of the eastern United States.
c. it proved the extent of human antiquity in the Americas.
d. at a time when most American archaeologists were concentrating on American prehistory, it demonstrated the importance of historic archaeology.
Q:
The Folsom site in New Mexico was discovered by:
a. George McJunkin, an ex-slave and rancher.
b. Jesse Figgins, director of the Colorado Museum of Nature and Science.
c. Boucher de Perthes, a French customs official and naturalist.
d. A. V. Kidder, Founder of Anthropological Archaeology.
Q:
It is essential that archaeologists take abundant, accurate, and detailed field notes during excavations because:
a. archaeology destroys data as it is gathered; once a site is excavated it cannot be re-excavated.
b. federal legislation mandates abundant, accurate, and detailed field notes.
c. archaeology students generally learn field techniques from these notes.
d. none of the above; it is not essential because archaeologists can always go back and reconstruct the excavation later.
Q:
An artifact's provenience is:
a. the geologic source of the raw material from which the artifact was manufactured.
b. the artifact's location relative to a system of spatial data collection.
c. the facility where the artifact is currently stored.
d. how the artifact was used in the prehistoric past.
Q:
While GIS has some practical archaeological applications, it is rarely used in archaeology today because it is costly and requires specialized training.
Q:
Remote sensing techniques will probably completely replace archaeological excavation in the near future.
Q:
GIS (geographic information systems) allows archaeologists to quickly answer many spatial questions whose answers would otherwise be too time-consuming to calculate.
Q:
Today's archaeology student should have at least some knowledge of GIS (geographic information systems).
Q:
Soil resistivity works by measuring the amount of resistance radar waves encounter as they move below the ground.
Q:
TIMS (Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanning) is only useful when conducted at extremely high altitudes on cloudless days.
Q:
Experimental studies have shown that while survey sampling does accurately characterize a region's archaeology, survey sampling is not good at finding rare or spectacular sites.
Q:
Non-site archaeology focuses on patterns of artifacts from within a single site, rather than on regional patterns.
Q:
Even if an effective sampling strategy has been implemented, the quality of an archaeological survey can still be affected by factors like uncomfortable working conditions or terrain.
Q:
Areas with lots of variability in archaeological remains require smaller sample fractions than do areas of low variability.
Q:
An archaeologist's research question is a major factor in determining the size and shape of a survey area.
Q:
"UTM" stands for "Universal Transverse Mercator", a grid system where north and east coordinates provide a location anywhere in the world.
Q:
Surface sites encountered on archaeological survey are generally not recorded because they lack the contextual relationships necessary to establish solid chronologies.
Q:
The main goal of archaeological survey is to discover good places to excavate.
Q:
Archaeological sites are generally named after the archaeologists who discovered them.
Q:
Many important archaeological sites have been found by ranchers, cowboys, farmers, sheepherders, and amateur archaeologists.
Q:
As a result of Kantner's work at Chaco Canyon, it was determined that
a. Small stone shrines do not occur.
b. People did not use predicted footpaths on a regular basis.
c. Large circular stone shires were almost always found with the roads, not the predicted pathways.
d. Roads did not serve simply as part of the Chacoan economy.
Q:
In landscape archeology, the term "landscape" means
a. Topographic features.
b. Material manifestations of the relation between humans and their environments.
c. Plant remains.
d. Geological formations.
Q:
Georeferenced means
a. Data is input to a GIS database using a common mapping reference.
b. Data is mapped by hand using topographic maps.
c. Data is mapped in relationship to geological features.
d. Data is scanned using ground penetrating radar (GPR).
Q:
Global Positioning Systems operate
a. By picking up continuously broadcast signals from at least four satellites.
b. Inadequately and therefore are not accurate for archaeological work.
c. Too expensively to aid most attempts at archeological inquiry.
d. By relying upon electric monitoring stations.
Q:
A stratified random sample is
a. A survey universe divided into several sub-universes.
b. A survey universe that is not divided into sub-universes.
c. A survey universe that cannot be given a Smithsonian number.
d. An ineffective way to gather and record information about sites.
Q:
When we say statistical population we mean
a. A range of archaeological material across a landscape.
b. A set of counts, measurements, or characteristics about which relevant inquiries are to be made.
c. The region that will be sampled.
d. The demographic count of a site.
Q:
Mano is a term that refers to
a. A fist-sized round, flat, handheld stone used for grinding foods.
b. A large, flat stone used as a stationary surface upon which seeds, tuber, and nuts are ground.
c. A settlement where there is evidence of hunting.
d. A settlement where there is evidence of gathering.
Q:
The distribution of sites across a region is called
a. Settlement system
b. Settle1ment pattern
c. Settlement movement
d. Seasonal round
Q:
In order to understand the past, we need to examine the range of places where ancient peoples lived. Hunter-gathers' pattern of movement on the landscape is referred to as
a. Ecological adaptation
b. Seasonal round
c. Map triangles
d. Archeological round
Q:
What limits surface surveys?
a. Survey cannot reveal rare sites.
b. Survey cannot replace excavation.
c. Survey can only find what lies on the ground.
d. Survey cannot be used in association with GIS.
Q:
Archaeologists conduct surveys because
a. One site can reveal everything about an ancient society.
b. Archeologists do not trust other archaeologists.
c. No single site reveals everything about an ancient society.
d. Funding permits conducting surveys.
Q:
The result of only looking in "logical" places in a survey is that
a. We will not bias the sample.
b. We will not bias the reconstruction of the past.
c. We will bias the sample.
d. We will not be conducting archaeology.
Q:
The story of the search for the Mission Santa Catalina illustrates:
a. The utility of proton precession magnetometry for finding buried structures.
b. That soil resistivity survey, while sometimes useful, is extremely problematic as it is affected by soil wetness.
c. That ground-penetrating radar was not useful due to the shallowly-buried bedrock on St. Catherines Island.
d. How a not-for-profit group does not sponsor a comprehensive program of research and conservation.
Q:
A proton precession magnetometer is useful for identifying subsurface magnetic anomalies. Such magnetic anomalies can indicate all of the following except:
a. The presence of subsurface artifacts.
b. Archaeologically irrelevant magnetic "noise".
c. Burned structures.
d. Ancient hunter seasonal rounds
Q:
TIMS (Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner) can locate subsurface structures by:
a. Using radar beams; hard buried surfaces reflect more energy than softer surfaces.
b. Tracking how subsurface structures affect surface thermal radiation.
c. Measuring magnetic anomalies caused by burned subsurface structures.
d. Monitoring the electrical resistance of soils near buried structures.
Q:
You are surveying in the Near East for archaeological sites, and come upon several artifacts on the ground surface. Historical documents suggest there was once a temple in this area. You think you have found the site. Because of the sacred nature of the site, you decide to excavate the least amount possible and thus want to know where the temple lies before getting out the shovels. How might you map the site without excavating it?
a. Use ground penetrating radar to detect the walls.
b. Use aerial photography to detect the outline.
c. Use random sampling to excavate a series of test pits across the site.
d. Use A or B depending on their potential utility in this specific case.
Q:
Which of the following is not used as non-invasive, below ground archaeological survey techniques?
a. Aerial photography.
b. Proton magnetometer.
c. Ground penetrating radar.
d. Excavation.
Q:
Which of the following is true about the ancient Chacoan road system?
a. Although once thought to be an extensive network of roads, aerial photography has shown the roads to be much less extensive than initially believed.
b. Although once thought to be an extensive network of roads, aerial photography has shown that they were not roads, but were in fact part of a vast canal system.
c. It was an elaborate and extensive network of roads, covering more than 250,000 square kilometers within New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah.
d. We now know that they were built strictly for economic purposes, to move goods to markets in Chaco Canyon.
Q:
Which of the following techniques was used by NASA in the 1980s to help identify the vast network of Chacoan roads in the southwestern United States?
a. Ground penetrating radar.
b. Soil resistivity.
c. Thermal infrared multispectral scanning (TIMS).
d. Aerial photography
Q:
The usefulness of aerial photography for archaeology:
a. Was not recognized until the 1960s, during the development of the "New Archaeology".
b. Is limited to times of cloud cover or haze.
c. Is limited to photographs taken at very high elevations, since this is where resolution is greatest.
d. Lies in the fact that aerial photographs can show features that are too indistinct or too large to discern from the ground.
Q:
Remote sensing is:
a. The use of methods that employ some form of electromagnetic energy to detect and measure characteristics of an archaeological site.
b. Any technique that is capable of subsurface exploration with little to no disturbance.
c. A technique that involves aerial photography and/or the use of color infrared film.
d. Any technique that measures geophysical features on the scale of hundreds to thousands of meters.
Q:
Archaeological shovel-testing is:
a. A destructive survey technique that archaeologists no longer use.
b. An important method of identifying sites in areas characterized by soil buildup.
c. An important method of identifying sites in areas characterized by deflation.
d. Only necessary in agricultural regions where archaeologists must survey plow-zones.
Q:
Non-site archaeology is:
a. Analysis of archaeological patterns on a regional scale, rather than of patterns within a single site
b. Analysis of small-scale patterns of artifact distribution, such as those from a single site.
c. The most common type of archaeology practiced today; archaeologists have largely abandoned the concept of a "site".
d. Useful when dealing with fairly small areas, but becomes impractical on the scale of kilometers.
Q:
Archaeological sites are defined on the ground by:
a. A set of objective procedures used by all archaeologists to ensure standardization across the discipline.
b. Often subjective interpretations of artifact density.
c. Determining the boundaries of the discrete behavioral entities represented by the site.
d. The entire survey unit.
Q:
Deflation is:
a. A cultural process whereby one population's technology becomes adopted by another population in a different geographic region.
b. A geologic process whereby fine sediment is blown away by the wind and larger items are lowered onto a common surface.
c. An archaeological phenomenon in which excavations produce fewer and fewer artifacts with increasing depth.
d. A geologic process that results in rapid and complete burial of material remains.
Q:
The quality of information collected through survey cannot be directly affected by the:
a. Sampling strategy.
b. Working conditions.
c. Transect interval.
d. Age of archaeologist
Q:
The Chaco experiment, conducted by Judge, Hitchcock, and Ebert, showed that survey samples:
a. Are very good at recording the general character of a region.
b. Are not very good at finding the unique or rare sites of a region.
c. Both A and B.
d. Are very good at finding both the sites that represent the general character of a region, as well as the unique or rare sites.
Q:
A UTM grid is not:
a. A grid that divides the world into 1x1 meter squares.
b. The same things as a Universal Tranverse Mercator grid.
c. Very useful for archaeological survey.
d. Without a means to designate north and east coordinates.
Q:
Once archaeologists decide on their survey sample universe, they must then decide on the sample fraction. The sample fraction is:
a. The percentage of the sample universe that is surveyed.
b. Survey units of a standard size and shape, determined by the research questions and practical considerations.
c. The region that contains the statistical population and that will be sampled.
d. A survey universe that has been divided into several sub-universes.
Q:
In the Smithsonian site number 26CH798, the number "26" stands for:
a. The number of the county (arranged alphabetically) in which the site is located.
b. The number of the state (arranged alphabetically) in which the site is located.
c. The site's sequential number within the county in which it is located (in other words, it was the 26th site recorded in the county).
d. The type of site it is (e.g., a lithic scatter, ceramic scatter, pueblo, etc.)
Q:
What did Thomas and Kelly learn from the Carson-Stillwater survey?
a. The hypothesis that wetlands had been the focus of a sedentary settlement system could not be rejected.
b. The hypothesis that the wetland was only one stop on a seasonal round that included the pinon forests could not be rejected.
c. Neither hypothesis was able to provide an adequate reconstruction of prehistoric Carson Desert and Stillwater Mountain settlement systems; both were therefore rejected.
d. Neither hypothesis could be rejected, thus showing that their sampling design was inherently flawed.
Q:
If the hypothesis that the wetlands of the Carson desert had been the focus of a sedentary settlement system was correct, then Thomas and Kelly should have found:
a. Small, sparse settlements in the wetlands, and more intensive resource utilization of surrounding areas.
b. Dense scatters of waste flakes and broken tools, or other remains of villages occupied for years at a time, in the wetlands.
c. Mostly projectile points in the wetlands, with little or no accompanying waste flakes.
d. Abundant manos and metates in the pinon-juniper forests.
Q:
Which of the following is not basic to the reasons why archaeologists conduct random sampling?
a. Without random sampling the samples would be biased, with certain parts of the sample over- or under-represented, and therefore the final results would be biased.
b. Random sampling provides the only way for archaeologists to collect meaningful negative evidence.
c. Random sampling allows statistical analysis.
d. Each site does not have an equal chance of being included in the sample.