Exam 1 Archaeology

Which of the following dates is the youngest?

AD 1066

When archaeologists dig excavation units, they are concerned with:

All of the answers are correct

Which of the following is true about the Pleistocene?

All of the answers are correct

Which of the following were the textbook authors, Thomas and Kelly, interested in napping at Gatecliff

All of the answers are correct

In addition to an artifacts provenience, archaeologists might also be interested in:

All of the answers are correct.

why was it so difficult for Europeans during the early 19th century to accept the fact that Native Americans had built the mounds?

Believing that a superior race had built the mounds fit nicely into the social and political context of the times, helping to justify colonialism

The antiquity of humans in the New World was established by the Folsom site. Why?

Careful provenience that recorded context: the association of a spear point with the skeleton of an extinct form of bison

The year 1859 is important to archaeology because

Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species

The following contributed to the support and discovery of deep time

Charles Darwin publishes his influential book On the Origin Of Species and Jacques Bocher de Crevecoueur de Perthes found ancient axe heads in the gravel of the Somme River

Which of the following is not used as non-invasive, below ground archaeological survey techniques?

Excavation

The Folsom site in New Mexico was discovered by:

George McJunkin, an ex-slave and rancher

Which of the following items would not be useful to an archaeologist on survey?

Graph paper

Which of the following is not true of a person's culture?

It is biologically controlled

Which of the following is true about the ancient Chacoan road system?

It was an elaborate and extensive network of roads, covering more than 250,000 square kilometers within New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah

The following statement is true about Postprocessual archaeology

Less enthusiastic about scientific methods and denies possibility of objectivity

In landscape archaeology, the term "landscape" means

Material manifestations of the relation between humans and their environments

What did Thomas and Kelly learn from the Carson-Stillwater survey?

Neither hypothesis was able to provide an adequate reconstruction of prehistoric Carson Desert and Stillwater Mountain settlement systems; both were therefore rejected

Which of the following is not a step in the scientific method?

Prove the hypothesis or hypotheses true

Which of the following is not basic to the reasons why archaeologists conduct random sampling?

Random sampling provides the only way for archaeologists to collect meaningful negative evidence

What limits surface surveys?

Survey can only find what lies on the ground

Why do archaeologists use a datum point rather than simply measuring form the ground surface?

The datum point provides a universal reference point that can be used across any archaeological site, allowing archaeologists to easily compare data between excavations

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?

Thermal infrared multispectral scanning (TIMS)

The first scientific archaeologist in America who attempted to determine the identity of the Mound builders by actually excavating a mound was

Thomas Jefferson

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 this site. Because of the scared 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?

Use ground penetrating radar or aerial photography depending on their potential utility in this specific case

what makes an anthropologist an anthropologist?

Using a global, comparative and holistic approach

An archaeological site is any place where:

a concentration of material evidence exists about the human past

In archeology, a living floor refers to:

a distinct buried surface on which people lived

Deflation is:

a geologic process whereby fine sediment is blown away by the wind and larger items are lowered onto a common surface

A "midden" is

a refuse deposit resulting from human activities

When we say statistical population we mean:

a set of counts, measurements, or characteristics about which relevant inquiries are to be made

"stratigraphy" is:

a site's physical structure produced by the deposition of geological and/or cultural sediments into layers

Stratigraphy is a term that applies to

a sites physical structure produced by deposition and sediments

A stratified random sample is:

a survey universe divided into several sub-universes

The contribution of women to the development of archaeology is best summed up by which statement?

a.) women contributed nothing; it wasn't until the 1960s during the fight for civil rights that any women were accepted into archaeological community and allowed to conduct archaeological research b.) women contributed very little; archaeological research was completely dominated by men throughout the development of archeology, and is still heavily dominated by men today c.) although women did contribute to the development of archaeology, their contributions are less well known than those of men because they were excluded from traditional communication networks d.) throughout the development of archaeology, the contributions of men and women have been roughly equal, and these contributions are equally as well known today; this is a testament to the early development of women's rights in America

The quality of information collected through survey cannot be directly affected by the:

age of archaeologist

Anthropology is the study of:

all aspects of humankind

The duck decoys of Lovelock Cave, Nevada illustrate:

all of the above

Archaeological shovel-testing is:

an important method of identifying sites in areas characterized by soil buildup

Non-site archaeology is:

analysis of archaeological patterns on a regional scale, rather than of patterns within a single site

A proton precession magnetometer is useful for identifying subsurface magnetic anomalies. Such magnetic anomalies can indicate all of the following except:

ancient hunter seasonal rounds

An "antiquarian" is someone who is interested in:

ancient objects strictly for their artistic value, rather than for the information they provide about the people or culture that produced them

Natural levels are preferable to arbitrary levels because:

arbitrary levels follow the natural stratigraphy, which may not be able to distinguish between occupational surfaces

Archaeologists employ systematic regional surveys mainly to:

arrive at accurate descriptions of the range of archaeological material across a landscape

Archaeology is about ancient objects, referred to as

artifacts

The result of only looking in "logical" places in a survey is that we will:

bias the sample

If an archaeologist excavates one archaeological site, and makes generalizations about prehistoric society as a whole from what her or she finds at that one site, then the generalizations will most likely be:

biased, representing only part of the range of activities the society was involved in

Global Positioning Systems operate:

by picking up continuously broadcast signals from at least four satellites

Archbishop James Usher (1581-1656) was responsible for which of the following?

calculating the age of the earth based on biblical genealogy and concluding that Creation occurred on October 22, 4004 BC

In science, an idea is testable if the implications of the hypothesis

can be measured in some fashion with the same results obtained by different observers

The symbolic nature of culture:

can create considerable misunderstanding between people from different cultures

V.Kiddeer (1886-1963) demonstrated that potsherds are archaeologically important because they can provide evidence of:

cultural relationships among various prehistoric groups

Documenting how material culture changed over time and space is referred to as

culture history

Georeferenced means:

data is input to a GIS database using a common mapping reference

The difference between inductive and deductive reasoning is:

deductive reasoning involves reasoning from theory to predict specific observational or experimental results, while inductive reasoning involves working from specific observations to more general hypotheses

If the hypothesis that wetlands of the Carson desert had been the focus of settlement system was correct then Thomas and Kelly should have found:

dense scatters of waste flakes and broken tools, or other remains of villages occupied for years at a time, in the wetlands

Archaeological sites are defined on the ground by:

determining the boundaries of the discrete behavioral entities represented by the site

A settlement pattern is the:

distribution of archaeological sites across a region

"Gumshoe survey" is a good way to:

find rare or spectacular sites

Mano is a term that refers to a:

fist-sized round, flat, handheld stone used for grinding foods

One of the ways in which anthropologists study culture is through an ideational perspective. An ideational perspective:

focuses on ideas, symbols, and mental structures as driving forces in shaping human behavior

Low-level theory begins with archaeological objects and

generates relevant facts or data bout those objects that will be important to later analyses

Giovanni Battista Belzoni stood apart from other antiquarians of his time due to the fact that:

he took notes and made illustrations and observations of the places he visited

The last king of the Neo- Babylonian Empire, Nabonidus, is frequently known as the "first archaeologist" because:

he tried to answer questions about the past by looking at the physical remains of the past

Otzi, the Ice Man of the Alps, provides an example of:

how cold conditions can inhibit decomposition of organic material by preventing the production of microorganisms that cause decay

The Mound builder Myth provides an example of:

how the social, cultural, and political context of archaeology can influence its theories

When archeologists refer to the place where artifact, ecofact,or feature was found during survey or excavation, they use the term

in situ

The abbreviation of "AD" referring to age in an archaeological or historic context means:

in the year of the lord

Middle-Level theory in archaeology:

is a logical statement linking observations on the static archaeological record to the dynamic behavior or natural processes that produced it

A total station:

is accurate to +/- 3 millimeters

The "New Archaeology" of the 1960s:

is sometimes called processual archaeology today

The Folsom site is important in the history of American archaeology because:

it proved the extent of human antiquity in the Americas

As a result of Kantner's work at Chaco Canyon, it was determined that:

large circular stone shires were almost always found with the roads, not the predicted pathways

the usefulness of aerial photography for archaeology:

lies in the fact that aerial photographs can show features that are too indistinct or too large to discern from the ground

The level theory that includes the observations and interpretations that emerge from hands on archaeological field and lab work is called:

low-level theory

Based on the level of public support,

more archaeology will be needed in the future

Lewis Binford is responsible for establishing concern for methods in reconstructing the past. This became known as:

new archaeology

Archaeologists conduct surveys because:

no single site reveals everything about an ancient society

In the Smithsonian site number 26CH798, the number "26" stands for the:

number of the state (arranged alphabetically) in which the site is located

The primary distinction between humanistic and scientific approaches within archaeology revolves around the issue of:

objectivity

The discovery of Gatecliff Shelter in Nevada was in part a result of:

old-fashioned "gumshoe survey

The key to maintaining information about artifacts context is to record:

provenience

As investigators came to recognize considerable continuities between the unknown prehistoric past and the Native American population of the historic period,

scholars saw that living Native Americans were relevant to the interpretation of archaeological remains

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:

seasonal round

Multiple working hypotheses result when:

several hypotheses potentially explain the same data

Marie Wormington is an important character in the development of Americanist archaeology during the first half of the 20th century because:

she is an example of a female pioneer in americanist archaeology, and her contributions are still considered important today

Provenience refers to:

the artifact's location relative to a system of spatial data collection

Jens Jacob Asmussen Worssae was considered to be:

the first professional archaeologist

Culture history is:

the kind of archaeology practiced during the early to mid-20th century, in which changes in artifact frequencies though time were explained by diffusion of ideas of migration of people

Archaeology can best be defined as the study of:

the past through the systematic recovery and analysis of material remains

Once archaeologists decide on their survey sample universe, they must then decide on the sample fraction. The sample fraction is:

the percentage of the sample universe that is surveyed

Participant observation is:

the primary strategy of cultural anthropologists in which data are gathered by questioning and observing people while the observer lives in their society

The concept of "deep time" refers to the following:

the recognition that life is ancient and evolved over time and that life on earth cannot be measured in thousands of years

Remote sensing is:

the use of methods that employ some form of electromagnetic energy to detect and measure characteristics of an archaeological site

The story of the search for the Mission Santa Cataline illustrates:

the utility of proton precession magnetometry for finding buried structures

TIMS(Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner) can locate subsurface structures by:

tracking how subsurface structures affect surface thermal radiation

A total station, or EDM, is a device that:

uses a beam of infrared light bounced off a prism to determine an artifact's provenience

The Chaco experiment, conducted by Judge, Hitchcock, and Elbert, showed that survey samples are:

very good at recording the general character of a region and not very good at finding the unique or rare sites of a region

Decomposition is carried out by microorganisms that require:

warmth, oxygen, and water to survive

A UTM grid is not:

without a means to designate north and east coordinates