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Q:
Coprolites provide evidence for the earliest human presence in North America.
Q:
Biological anthropologists today agree that Neanderthals did not interbreed with modern humans and were instead an evolutionary dead end.
Q:
Frequencies of dental caries (cavities) are expected to be higher in hunter-gatherer populations than in agricultural populations.
Q:
You analyze the stable isotopes from an assemblage of human bones from Canada, and find a high ratio of Nitrogen-15 to Nitrogen-14 and a low ratio of Carbon-13 relative to Carbon-12. You should conclude that these people ate a lot of corn and very little meat.
Q:
Quality of life or overall health in a burial population can be assessed by an individual's stature because height is closely related to diet.
Q:
Human bone is formed by complex interrelationships among the environment, behavior, physiology, and cultural behavior.
Q:
Osteoarthritis can result from continuous mechanical stress on a joint throughout a lifetime.
Q:
Bone breakage patterns would be good indicators of interpersonal violence and perhaps even warfare. Unfortunately, healed bone breaks are virtually indistinguishable from unbroken bone in prehistoric populations.
Q:
Bioarchaeologists can distinguish male from female skeletons, but only for adults, not young children.
Q:
Bioarchaeology is a specialty that straddles the fields of archaeology and human biology.
Q:
The links between patterns in the faunal assemblage and interpretations depends on experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology.
Q:
Although the analysis of plant remains from archaeological sites can provide important information about the economies of prehistoric populations, a drawback of plant remains is that they cannot be used to infer ritual significance or ideology.
Q:
In general, bias in preservation makes reconstructing the plant component of ancient diets more difficult than reconstructing the meat component.
Q:
By looking at levels of sex hormones such as testosterone and progesterone in coprolites, we can determine whether they were produced by a man or a woman.
Q:
Wood rats urinate all over their nests, forming a lacquer-like covering on the nest that promotes the preservation of organic materials.
Q:
Since wood rats collect plant material for their nests from as much as two kilometers away, they are good indicators of the regional environment.
Q:
Phytoliths are small stone tools, normally inset into pieces of bone or wood to form a long working edge.
Q:
Phytolith analysis is most useful for reconstructing arboreal (tree) vegetation.
Q:
Pollen analysis is used primarily for reconstructing past regional environments.
Q:
At the highland site of Chavn de Huntar, Peru a decline in the abundance of deer bones over time and a simultaneous increase in the percentage of llama leg bones tracks a temporal change in diet and trade that shows occupants of the site shifted from doing their own hunting to being supplied with dried meat. This interpretation is based on faunal analysis but also ethnoarchaeological research with living peoples in the Andes Mountains.
Q:
The raw number of identified bones per species in an archaeofauna is known as the MNI.
Q:
A faunal assemblage consists of the plant remains recovered from an archaeological site.
Q:
Zooarchaeology brings an historical perspective to decisions as to which species to save. One way is to
a. Demonstrate how past human predation and landscape alteration affected animal populations.
b. Demonstrate how present human populations are destroying ancient species.
c. Demonstrate how ancient species fed ancient populations.
d. Foster conservation efforts to protect endangered species.
Q:
In more humid conditions, plant remains generally are preserved
a. Only when they have been buried.
b. Only when they have been burned.
c. Only when they have been soaked in water.
d. Not at all.
Q:
The ritual importance of Chavin de Huntar___________ through time; the local community __________in size.
a. Decreased, increased
b. Increased, decreased
c. Decreased, decreased
d. Increased, increased
Q:
Based on ethnoarchaeological evidence, Hill suggested that hunters at Agate Basin killed most of the animals individually,
a. Far from camp.
b. Near water.
c. In high elevations.
d. Close to camp.
Q:
The appendicular skeleton refers to
a. Head, mandibles
b. Vertebrae, ribs
c. Sacrum
d. Everything else other than head, mandibles, vertebrae, ribs, and sacrum.
Q:
At Agate Basin, the NISP count suggests that ____________were more important than ____________.
a. elk, rabbit
b. Dog, skunk
c. Bison, pronghorn
d. Camel, dog
Q:
Rodent- and rabbit-size animals are classified in which one of five standard animal size classes?
a. Class 1
b. Class 2
c. Class 3
d. Class 4
Q:
William Spence discovered the Agate Basin site
a. Similar to the way George McJunkin found the Folsom site in New Mexico.
b. Using aerial reconnaissance.
c. Using random sampling.
d. Through happenchance excavation.
Q:
Pollen helps reconstruct past environments because
a. Plants grow all over the world.
b. Different plant species produce differently shaped pollens.
c. Humans have always survived on plants.
d. Pollen is spread by wind, birds and animals.
Q:
The sources of plants that help reconstruct ancient diets include
a. Macrobotanical remains.
b. Phytoliths.
c. Plant nurseries.
d. Macrobotanical remains and phytoliths.
Q:
Which of the following would a zooarchaeological study not involve
a. Establishment that bones are left behind by people by looking for cut marks, fragments, and burning.
b. Identify bones to element, taxon, sex and age using a comparative collection.
c. Count the bones using NISP and MNI.
d. Disregard symbolic importance in interpreting the past.
Q:
According to Hastorf and Johannessen's findings, what accounted for change in Wanka II times?
a. Inka took over and restructured the location of the production system.
b. Cultivation was chosen to alleviate the fuel shortage.
c. Tree taxa begin to show up that were absent before.
d. Ideology associated with planting of certain trees was a factor.
Q:
Hastorf and Johannessen argue that changes in the types of fuel used through time in the Upper Mantaro area of Peru are best explained by:
a. Changes in the abundance of high quality versus low quality fuel caused by environmental change.
b. Increasing population density that denuded the landscape of trees, forcing people to rely more and more on low quality fuel through time.
c. Forced fuel management programs mandated by an elite social class.
d. A combination of materialistic and ideological explanations.
Q:
Lipids can provide information about the types of foods people consumed prehistorically. In order to identify food residues, lipids can be extracted from:
a. Cooking vessels.
b. Faunal remains.
c. Stone tools.
d. Phytoliths.
Q:
Organic substances such as fats, oils, and waxes that resist mixing with water and are found in both plant and animal tissues are called:
a. Lipids.
b. Coprolites.
c. Phytoliths.
d. Bioderms.
Q:
In order to understand exactly what a person ate within a 24 hour period, the most useful source of data would be:
a. Phytolith analysis.
b. Macrobotanical analysis.
c. Pollen analysis.
d. Coprolite analysis.
Q:
The nests of wood rats are useful for paleoenvironmental reconstruction because they can preserve a record of environmental change for:
a. Decades.
b. Hundreds of years.
c. Thousands of years.
d. Hundreds of thousands of years.
Q:
Wood rats nests are useful for reconstructing the environment around their nests because:
a. They travel great distances (kilometers) from their nests to collect materials.
b. They travel no more than 100 meters from their nests to collect materials.
c. They build their nests in water saturated areas, thus ensuring the preservation of organic materials.
d. They only utilize a very limited range of plant species when building their nests.
Q:
Phytoliths are most useful for identifying:
a. Regional, rather than local patterns of vegetation.
b. Plants that were domesticated prehistorically since their phytoliths differ significantly from those of wild plants.
c. The abundance of different kinds of grasses; not all plants produce phytoliths.
d. The abundance of all plants present at a site; all plants produce phytoliths.
Q:
If an archaeologist is analyzing tiny silica particles that were originally contained in plants, he or she is analyzing:
a. Macrobotanical remains.
b. Phytoliths.
c. Coprolites.
d. Lipids.
Q:
Neanderthal burials from Shanidar Cave, Iraq, associated with pollen indicate:
a. That humans are the only way that flowers could enter a cave.
b. That burial rituals began with the Neanderthals.
c. That the pollen in the cave was the result of normal background pollen "rain".
d. That archaeologists need to take formation processes into account when interpreting the meaning of data from ecofacts.
Q:
Using palynological data, Haynes and Mehringer concluded that the climate at the Lehner Clovis site in southeastern Arizona 11,000 years ago was:
a. Only slightly wetter and cooler than today, followed by a rapid shift toward drier conditions.
b. Only slightly drier and warmer than today, followed by a rapid shift toward wetter conditions.
c. Much drier and warmer than today; only a large shift in temperature and precipitation would have caused such a different environment at the site.
d. Much wetter and cooler than today; only a large shift in temperature and precipitation would have caused such a different environment at the site.
Q:
What do fluctuations in pollen percentages in a pollen diagram indicate?
a. Changes in frequencies of animal remains present at a site.
b. Changes in the types of domesticated plants that prehistoric populations relied upon.
c. Changes in local and regional plant densities.
d. Climatic change in the form of decreasing temperatures and increasing moisture content.
Q:
In reconstructing ancient environments, pollen is useful because:
a. It preserves well over a long period of time.
b. Large amounts of pollen are trapped in sediment over time.
c. Pollen is distinctive of the species of plant that produced it.
d. All of the above.
Q:
Macrobotanical remains are likely to be preserved if they were:
a. Deposited in arid climates or dry caves.
b. Deposited in waterlogged contexts, such as wells or shipwrecks.
c. Burned and carbonized.
d. All of the above.
Q:
An archaeologist involved in analyzing and interpreting plant remains from archaeological sites in order to understand past interactions between human populations and plants would bea:
a. Palynologist.
b. Paleoethnobotanist.
c. Zooarchaeologist.
d. Bioarchaeologist.
Q:
The faunal assemblage from the site of Chavn de Huntar, Peru, contains an abundance of leg bones with few cranial and foot bones. This pattern has been explained by:
a. Large animal disturbance; cranial and foot bone were preferentially carried away from the site by carnivores, while leg bones were left behind.
b. Taphonomic processes; bone preservation at high altitude sites is notoriously poor.
c. Ch"arki trade; dried llama and alpaca meat on leg bones was traded into the site from high-altitude herding communities.
d. Decreasing reliance on camelid meat by residents of the site through time.
Q:
Analysis of the archaeofauna from the site of Chavn de Huntar, Peru, indicates:
a. A change in diet through time, with increasing reliance on domesticated llamas.
b. A change in diet through time, with increasing reliance on deer and large cats.
c. A decrease in leg bones and an increase in cranial and foot bones through time.
d. Extreme carnivore damage to the faunal assemblage, making it impossible to infer any human behavior from the archaeofauna.
Q:
How do we know that Folsom hunters camped at the Agate Basin site in the spring?
a. Coprolites from the site contain plant and small animal remains that are only present in the area in the springtime.
b. Bison tooth eruption patterns indicate the presence of juvenile bison that died in late March or early April.
c. Palynological data from the site indicate the presence of plant species that only pollinate in the spring.
d. Macrobotanical remains from the site indicate the presence of plant species that only grow in the spring.
Q:
Broken bison and antelope metapodials and phalanges within the Folsom component at the Agate Basin site have been interpreted as evidence of:
a. Folsom hunters taking advantage of the abundant meat associated with these skeletal elements.
b. Folsom hunters taking advantage of the abundant marrow associated with these skeletal elements.
c. Game abundance in the late winter/early spring season, as Folsom hunters had access to two different animal species.
d. Folsom hunters facing hard times with sparse food supplies in a harsh late winter/early spring season.
Q:
What did Hill suggest accounted for the comparative abundance of bison limb bones relative to other bison bones at the Agate Basin site?
a. Bison long bones contain little in the way of meat and marrow, making them undesirable for transport back to camp.
b. Bison are large animals that would be extremely difficult to carry whole; long bones would be preferentially transported because of their high-utility (meat and marrow).
c. Carnivore activity resulted in the natural accumulation of limb bones at the site; limbs are the easiest part of the skeleton for carnivores to remove.
d. The limb bones were the only bones to remain after carnivores scavenged the rest of the axial and appendicular skeletons.
Q:
If you have a site dominated by bones from the axial skeleton, you have:
a. A kill site.
b. A camp site.
c. Mostly upper and lower leg bones, scapulae, clavicles, pelves, metapodials, and phalanges.
d. Mostly cranial bones, mandibles, vertebrae, ribs, sacrum, and tail bones.
Q:
What would the MNI be for the following hypothetical assemblage of adult bison bones: 4 left humeri, 2 left femura, 4 right femura, 5 skulls, and 6 left scapulae?
a. 21.
b. 4.
c. 6.
d. 5.
Q:
The raw number of identified bones per taxon in an archaeofauna is known as the:
a. OSL.
b. MNI.
c. NISP.
d. AMS.
Q:
Size classes categorize faunal remains to one of five categories based on body size. Animals assigned to class five include:
a. Giraffes, hippos, and elephants.
b. Bison and elk.
c. Wolf and pronghorn antelope.
d. Rabbits and rodents.
Q:
When analyzing a faunal assemblage, zooarchaeologists attempt to identify a specimen to:
a. Element.
b. Taxon.
c. Side.
d. All of the above.
Q:
If you are using a skeletal collection of modern fauna, of both sexes and different ages, to identify specimens in an archaeofauna, you are using a:
a. Macrobotanical assemblage.
b. Palynological collection.
c. Comparative collection:
d. Phytolith assemblage.
Q:
The main purpose of a zooarchaeological comparative collection is:
a. To help zooarchaeologists identify archaeofaunas.
b. To determine whether cutmarks on animal bones were made historically or prehistorically.
c. To distinguish between natural carnivore tooth marks and cutmarks made by humans.
d. To identify the types of fauna living at and around a site at the time it was occupied prehistorically.
Q:
Archaeologists who analyze faunal assemblages are commonly known as:
a. Palynologists.
b. Zooarchaeologists.
c. Paleoecologists.
d. Paleoethnobotanists.
Q:
A faunal assemblage consists of:
a. Animal bones from kill or butchering sites.
b. Bones from hunted animals that were brought back to camps or villages.
c. Animal bones that accumulated at a site due to natural processes (e.g., brought into the site by carnivores or raptors).
d. Any or all of the above.
Q:
Ethnoarchaeological research suggests that the longer a site was occupied in the past, the farther the distance between habitation structures and trash dumps.
Q:
Low power (40X to 60X) microscopic analysis is much more useful in determining stone tool microwear than high power microscopy (up to 400X).
Q:
Obsidian blades are much sharper than steel scalpels, leaving smaller cuts with clearer edges that heal more quickly and are less likely to scar than steel blades; because of this, obsidian blades have been used in many surgical procedures.
Q:
Experimental archaeology is necessary when archaeologists want to know the material effects of behaviors that no longer exist.
Q:
The goal of taphonomic studies is to infer the function of prehistoric objects and features based on the similarity of those objects and features to those used by related cultures today.
Q:
Analogies must be used cautiously because there is no guarantee that the analogy will accurately describe the prehistoric culture.
Q:
The purpose of middle range theory is to create arguments that link human behavior to material remains so that archaeologists can make reliable behavioral inferences from archaeological material.
Q:
Archaeologists have tried to replicate, through trial and error with flintknapping, the way in which Folsom points were fluted. This research is an example of experimental archaeology.
Q:
Ethnographic analysis makes it clear that it is safe to assume that women in the past always made the pottery, and men always made the stone tools.
Q:
In archaeology, plant remains from archaeological sites are known as faunal remains.
Q:
One way to make relevant bridging arguments is to observe the workings of a culture in its systemic context.
Q:
Flutes, or wide, shallow, longitudinal grooves on each face of a point, are made by
a. Chipping away the unwanted materials
b. Removing channel flakes on both sides of the point's base
c. Burning the original core
d. Carving the grooves with a sharp instrument
Q:
If stone is chert or quartzite, you might improve the raw materials for stone tool making by
a. Burying the flakes or cores.
b. Burning a fire on top of the stones.
c. Soaking the stones in water.
d. Burying the flakes or cores and burning a fire on top of the stones.
Q:
Which of the following is the final stage that Hill and Behrensmeyer found to be the process of how large animal skeletons fall apart?
a. A decomposing animal carcass will collapse into a flat pile of bones.
b. The scapula detaches from the vertebral column, allowing the entire front limb to drop away.
c. The vertebrae disarticulate.
d. The sun causes the exposed skull to flake away.
Q:
The word taphonomy refers to
a. The fossil record.
b. Faunal remains in the archaeological record.
c. How organisms become part of the fossil record.
d. Fossil organisms.
Q:
Analogies justified on the basis of close cultural continuity between the archaeological and ethnographic cases or similarity in general cultural form are known as
a. Formal analogies.
b. Bridging arguments.
c. Incorrect science.
d. Relational analogies.
Q:
To create relevant bridging arguments, archaeologists must
a. Contact several other archaeologists for their interpretations.
b. Observe the workings of a culture in its systemic context.
c. Research the literature.
d. Consult with a geologist.
Q:
The "schlep effect" caused Perkins and Daly to explain that throwing away the bones was why upper limb bones were not found at the Neolithic village, Suberde. R.E. Chaplin interpreted the shortage of upper limb bones on a late-ninth century Saxon farm as the result of butchering and dressing the carcasses for market. Upper limb bones missing at American Plains Indian sites were argued by T. White to have been pulverized and boiled to render the grease to make pemmican. These examples exemplify the following:
a. The difficulty of archaeologists to agree on interpretations.
b. The lack of validity in archaeological interpretations made from animal bone.
c. Several competing hypotheses account for the same body of facts.
d. You cannot hypothesize from an absence of data.