Anthropology-chapter 12 and 13
A hydraulic despot is someone who
Denotes empires built around the control of water resources by a despotic, or all-powerful, leader.
The importance of teosinte, or maize, in archeology is that it
Provides strong evidence that humans understood and cultivated plants
Trade models of state formation focus on the people doing the trading work - traders - as well as the people
Providing military protection
The tending of the sago palm to increase the amount of starch in the tree is an example of
arboriculture
1. Domestication is the process of
converting wild animals or wild plants into forms that humans can care for and cultivate
The "trade model" of state formation holds that trade and exchange create _________ between neighboring societies.
interaction
In what ways were principles of natural selection involved in the increasing size of food grains like corn, wheat, and barley?
natural selection was not involved because the processes involved humans selecting the best seeds
Jared Diamond argues that cities and states don't last because
the fundamental cause of collapse is environmental
One of the reasons that the understanding of many early city-states is challenging is due to
the lack of written documents
We can apply the ideas of Robert Carneiro's argument about the role of war in a complex society to the Tarascan data by looking at
the shift in mortuary objects as a reflection of the consolidation of power
One theory about the relationship between global warming and the shift from foraging to food production holds that
the warming that took place after the last ice age made the environment more habitable.
Early European archaeologists were interested in studying the ancient societies in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the rest of the Fertile Crescent because
they saw European legal codes and philosophies as originating in these ancient middle eastern states
Which of the following is NOT a feature of the generalized foraging model?
unquestioned obedience to the leadership of the band's headman by members of the band
Archaeologists can evaluate the complexity of a system through the analysis of material things because the material goods are part of an _______________.
urbanization
The growth of ancient towns into residential centers is called ______________
urbanization
V. Gordon Childe's view of ________ was that social interactions lead to social stratification
urbanization
Were you to visit the New Guinea Highlands, you might be offered a meal consisting of cooked pork and sweet potatoes, which demonstrates
use of low-intensity agricultural practices that nevertheless can provide significant food resources
According to Robert Carneiro, increases in a society's population's size and social complexity lead to an increase in _____________.
warfare
The recent reinterpretation of ancient empires has led archaeologists to conclude that many such empires were actually little more than
well-organized estates that served the needs of a temple
Assemblage:
A group or collection of objects found together at an excavation or site
Generalized foraging model:
A model asserted that hunter-gatherer societies have five basic characteristics
Social Complexity
A society that has many different parts organized into a single social system.
City-state
An autonomous political entity that consisted of a city and its surrounding countryside.
One of the plausible reasons for the lack of surpluses in hunter-gatherer groups is that surpluses could deplete local resources. This argument is called
An optimal foraging strategy
Hydraulic Despotism
Denotes empires built around the control of water resources by a despotic, or all-powerful, leader.
The Neolithic Revolution happened only in the region we call the Middle East
False
The shift to horticulture or simple farming typically increased the number of cultigens consumed by members of a community
False
Women in Arctic hunter-gatherer groups do not work as hard as men because there is no option to forage.
False
One of the ways that peoples of Highland New Guinea stored their crops was by
Feeding them to their herds of pigs
Microgravimetry Survey
Measuring the gravitational pull of different parts of a stone structure or pyramid to uncover formerly hollow sections that were filled with less dense stone.
Foraging
Obtaining food by searching for it, as opposed to growing or raising the plants and animals people eat.
Potlatches
Opulent ceremonial feasts intended to display wealth and social status by giving away or destroying valuable possessions like carved copper plates, button blankets, and baskets of food. These were characteristic of the communities on the Northwest coast of North America.
Urbanization
Process by which towns grew as residential centers as opposed to being trading centers
Ruralization
Process in which the countryside was configured as a contested no-man's land lying between competing city-states
Domestication
Refers to converting wild plants and animals to human uses by taming animals or turning them into herds that can be raised for meat or milk or making plants able to be grown for food or other uses.
Cities
Relatively large and permanent settlements, usually with populations of at least several thousand inhabitants
Patrilocal bands
Small groups where men controlled resources and hunting territories.
Complex Societies
Societies in which socioeconomic differentiation, large populations, and centralized political control are pervasive and defining features of the society.
States:
Societies with forms of political and economic control over a particular territory and the inhabitants of that territory.
Neolithic
The "new" stone age when humans had begun growing crops and raising animals for food, using a stone-tool technology
Resilience:
The ability of a social system to absorb changes and still retain certain basic cultural processes and structures, albeit in altered form.
The practice of pastoralism involves
The breeding, care, and, use of domesticated herding animals.
Maize
The indigenous species of corn that was first domesticated in Mexico—the term is often used for any variety of corn, since all current varieties are thought to have been derived from this early version of so-called Indian corn.
Mesolithic
The period from the end of the last ice age until the beginning of agriculture, a number of hunter-gatherer-forager groups had established lakeside or seaside settlements that seem to have been year-round sites during this period.
Pastoralism
The practice of animal husbandry, which is the breeding, care, and use of domesticated herding animals such as cattle, camels, goats, horses, llamas, reindeer, and yaks
Transhumance
The practice of moving herds to different fields or pastures with the changing seasons.
Collapse
The rapid loss of a social, political, and economic order or complexity.
Anthropologist Michael Heckenberger found evidence that human settlements had much larger populations in parts of the Amazon rainforest earlier than was previously believed. His research suggests which of the following:
These people believed to live with nature not separate from it.
2. Patrilocal bands are small groups where men control the hunting and territorial resources.
True
As the intensity of agricultural practices increases, the range of cultigens decreases.
True
Cultigens became an integral part of human life almost simultaneously in different parts of the world.
True
It is possible to know the nutritional problems found in early humans using fossil evidence
True
It now seems very likely that the earliest human efforts to manipulate plants happened through the tending of useful trees.
True
One surprising discovery about hunter-gatherer lives was that they worked only a few hours a week.
True
Sedentism
Year-round settlement in a particular place.
2. When anthropology first appeared as a science, most human populations lived by means of
agriculture
The major shift that came when people left behind a hunter-gatherer economy to become food producers who were practicing simple farming was not so much a change in technology, but brought many changes in lifestyles that came with ____________
agriculture
The importance of Marshall Sahlins' analysis of hunter-gatherer societies was to note the existence of
an entirely different cultural logic about their lives and the environment.
A key requirement for the formation of a complex society is
an increased intensity of food production
The development of what might be called true agriculture—the use of fertilizers or elaborations of technology—was most likely due to
an increased probability of shortages
6. One of the limitations of the archaeological analysis of complexity is that
an object itself cannot determine dynamics of wealth, power, and status
Which of the following is NOT a reasonable account used to explain why humans started raising their own food by domesticating plants and animals?
by the end of the ice age, human brains were finally large enough and humans smart enough to learn that if they planted seeds they would grow
One of the ways that archeologists can evaluate the extent of damage done by epidemic diseases in ancient human settlements is through
careful evaluation of skeletons found in burial sites
Stelae
carved limestone slabs
. The formation of the state may happen in accordance with any of the models listed here except
circumscription theory
Often, the specific characteristics of ______________ become blurred because the definitions used fail to fully capture cultural dynamics.
cities and states
David Rindos argues that the shift to agriculture happened because both humans and plants began to
coevolve
One of the reasons that today's agricultural dietary practices seemingly restrict the variety of food choices stems from the existence of
complex patterns of food taboos
What we know about ancient despots is affected by the fact that
despots exerted control over what was written
A complex society is in part defined by a high degree of socioeconomic _____________.
differentiation
Of the many reasons suggested for the abandonment of the Mayan city of Copán, one reason we can safely say was not part of the process was
drought
The effects of sedentism and population growth on populations can also be seen in the presence of
epidemic diseases
The 200 communities in the north coast of Papua New Guinea have an egalitarian social complexity based on
exchange relationships between pairs of friends
Rich documentation describing the minute details of daily life exist for all of the city-states in the Middle East region, including Mesopotamia and Egypt.
false
Social complexity in ancient city-states did not always emerge on the basis of social inequality
false
Social complexity is always associated with social inequality and hierarchy.
false
Socially complex societies can range in population size from hundreds to hundreds of thousands.
false
The ancient Pueblo peoples disappeared due to environmental collapse.
false
Total collapse of city-states is a commonplace event
false
The application of pastoral practices leads to both an increase in population and
food production
For Robert Malthus, societies with small populations were limited by __________.
food supply
One consequence of sedentism is that populations tend to grow, and people lose control over their lives as a consequence of _____________________.
food supply
. One of the most popular theories about the relationship between early states and warfare was promoted by Robert Carneiro. Which of the following was part of his model to explain the rise of early states?
growing populations put pressure on the land that was needed to support the community, which led to conflict
Applying Robert Carniero's argument to relationship between about the development of warfare to other situations suggests that
growing populations put pressure on the lands where people are building settlements which leads to conflict and control over the land
The importance of Çatal Höyük stems from the absence of evidence about __________ inequality.
hereditery
Scott Van Keuren's work in social complexity leads us to better understand
how exclusively in knowledge can signal changes in social complexity
One of the defining hypotheses about hunter-gatherer societies that changed after the "Man the Hunter" conference is that
hunting was not the defining feature of hunter-gather societies.
Studies of the inherited exchange relationships along the north coast of Papua New Guinea revealed that, despite a high degree of specialization within each community, all communities have essentially the same material culture and a very similar diet. This pattern is very different from the ancient state societies in the Middle East for which of the following reason?
ideology of equality
V. Gordon Childe understood the revolution brought by the rise of early agriculture involved all the following except
increasing brain size among the population that was at the heart of the revolution
. ________________ populations have extraordinary knowledge of their natural environment, even though they may not generally seek to domesticate plants and animals.
indigenous
True control of food production appeared with the development of
irrigation canals and systems that developed in early states
What is the significance of tubers as a very early cultigen in the New Guinea Highlands?
it shows us that early cultigens can be something other than grains.
The dynamics of a complex society ensure that
lifestyles of the elites benefit from the labor of non-elites
An important distinction between hunter-gatherers today and those of the past is
linkage to sedentary agricultural societies through trade and other social ties
Early anthropologists considered the environments of hunter-gatherer societies to be harsh, and their methods of subsistence and technology to be simple, crude, and primitive, reinforcing
long-held cultural stereotypes
The primary contrast that shaped thinking about complex societies was between the
material and organizational aspects of a society
Despite the evidence of escalating warfare, excessive population growth, drought, and the failings of the ruling elite, the overwhelming evidence about the Mayan empire suggests that
maya did not disappear but changed their social system
The moving of animal herds to different places in accordance with seasonal changes is called _______________.
migration/ pastoralism
1. During the "Man the Hunter" conference, archaeologists and cultural anthropologists presented all sorts of evidence they had gathered about hunter-gatherers. Which of the following was not one of the conclusions of their collective assessments:
most hunter-gatherers relied much more heavily on game that was hunted by men than had been understood previously
One of the side effects of increased food production is the generation of a surplus, something that helped give rise to
new social roles for food producers, typically specialist roles
Archaeologists know that in the Tarascan empire there was a consolidation of state power because
objects found with the dead were being produced in areas controlled by the empire
Scott Van Keuren analyzed brushwork sequences in decorative styles of the pottery of the Southwestern United States. His research found that changes in style could be explained as evidence that
other pueblos may not have been allowed to paint the icons and did not have access to esoteric knowledge and specialized training
Esther Boserup argued that increases in _________________ led people to work harder
population
In analyzing the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural society, Esther Boserup examined the relationship between
population growth and food production
The discovery that layers of sediment deposited in a lake were due to erosion from higher altitudes, indicated to archaeologists that in the Tarascan empire
population growth led to severe degradation of the soil
Collapse of a social system is very rare and is instead a matter of their ___________ and transformation in the face of change.
resilence
Archaeologists today generally agree that most social systems
routinely collapse and are then revived after some period of time
Much of our knowledge of the ancient Mayan empire comes from the careful study of
ruins, skeltons, and artifacts/ steale
Sedentism and increased population growth leads to _________________.
shortages of necessities Ex: food,water, supplies
One of the surprising things about planting seeds is that they start getting larger following cultivation. Which of the following is an explanation that anthropologists and archaeologists use to explain this shift in productivity?
simple farmers selected the largest seeds for planting, improvingthe cultigen in the process
A society having many different parts organized into a single social system is said to have
social complexity
Similar to individual material objects, the determination of ____________ happens when individual elements of analysis are no longer taken in isolation.
social complexity
One of the ways that archaeologists know there was social complexity in the Tarascan empire is through
spatial segregation of elite and commoner neighborhoods
Nearly all known hunter-gatherers avoided producing surpluses. The major exception is found in the Northwest Coast where people harvested salmon during their return to spawn. The economic activities of these Indian communities are almost like farming the salmon forced them into a sedentary lifestyle to control the salmon streams. This difference from traditional hunter gatherer or foraging communities illustrates the transformation in social activities that comes with food production. Which of the following are characteristics of these activities that arise with sedentism?
staying in one place year round, growing food instead of foraging for it, etc.
Several hundred years after the Maya abandoned their ancient cities, Spanish observers reported a social hierarchy and inherited nobility that seemed related to what existed in the large, ancient, urban centers. This fact suggests that
the concept of population density is highly relative
Some archaeologists have interpreted the collapse of the Mayan empire as having been the result of overpopulation when they had reached a level of more than 150 persons per square kilometer. One possible problem with this explanation is that there are many other societies with much larger population densities, such as Los Angeles, which currently has about 2,700 persons per square mile, which shows that
the concept of population density is highly relative
The generalized foraging model holds that all the following are true except
the creation of food sites in a territory.
Cahokia's vast complex of mounds and ceremonial sites initially suggested that it was the center of a vast empire. What is surprising is that this socially complex state did not last very long before it was abandoned
true
Ruralization is the process that leads to a contested space in the country located between different city-states.
true
The complex social system on the north coast of Papua New Guinea precludes monopolistic behaviors because the network is so diffuse.
true
