ANTH 2302 Final Exam

When does the first evidence of human occupation in western Beringia appear?

32,000 years ago

Pastoralist

A farmer who also grazes animals

Atlatl

A form of spear thrower

Tribe

A group of a few hundred to a few thousand individuals, commonly farmers or herders, who claim descent from a common ancestor, and who are loosely organized without central control or authority

Ziggurat

A high platform surmounted by a small temple; characteristic of Bronze Age temple complexes in Mesopotamia

Lost-wax method

A method of casting metals, typically for bronze, particularly common in West African Kingdoms to make elaborate vessels and life-like heads

Levallois

A method of flaking stone that involves first shaping the rock so that subsequent flakes are consistent in shape and size

Ocher

A naturally occurring iron oxide used as pigments for body art and cave painting

Interglacial

A period of warmer, wetter climate between two Ice Ages

Sedentism

A residence pattern of permanent, year-round settlement

State

A society of high population and complexity, in which centralized and institutionalized control overrides kinship ties, and in which wealth and rank hierarchies are protected and fostered

Chiefdom

A society of several thousand individuals organized on institutionalized lines of hierarchical lineages, at the top of which is a single leader

Hieroglyph

A stylized picture representing a word or sound; the earliest of these represent the beginnings of written Egyptian language Hieroglyph

Aceramic

A time or place in which pottery was not created, traded, or used

Dolmen

A type of tomb consisting of upright stone slabs, on top of which sits a large capstone

City-State

An autonomous political unit comprising a city and its supporting hinterlands

Monolith

An object made from a single block of stone

The site of ______ was the capital of the Shang Dynasty, and incorporated a palace area and a royal necropolis containing pits with lifelike chariots, horses, and charioteers.

Anyang

Tell

Artificial mound characteristic of Southwest Asian settlements in the Bronze and Iron Ages, created by the accumulation of centuries of disintegrating mud-brick walls and domestic debris

Iconography

Artistic representations that usually have overt religious or ceremonial significance

(42/50) What characteristics define a city? Where did the first cities arise, and why does the formation of the first city mark a significant point in human cultural (social and political) development?

Characteristics that define a city are its scale and centralization. The development of agriculture is also very important because larger populations are a result of agriculture. Cities are also defined as concentrated settelements. The first cities arose in Mesopotamia. Uruk, is considered to be the first city which was established during the Late Chalcolithic Mesopotamia. It was a large agglomeraion of people in a very well-defined place. There were very specific structures that were used for a wide range of social activities. Large agglomerations of people appear earlier than this like Catalhoyuk during the Neolithic period, but it's only until Uruk where we begin to see mulitple functions within one settlement. This is a main distinction that categorizes Uruk as a city. There were very large temples, adminsitation, housing areas and more. The elites controlled the daily lives of the Uruk people. The elites control was based off of religion , which was showcased through huge religious buildings such as the Eanna precincnt, which is where godess Ianna was worshipped. Uruk also had some of the first writing in the form of clay tablets. Uruk also interacted with its neighbors a lot. The formation of the first city marks a signifcant point in human cultural development because this is the first time where we begin to see a settlement with multiple different functions. We see a new level of social complexity where elites are in charge, there is a form of admistration, and lots of social interation is taking place inside the city as well as outside the city.

Australopithecine

Early hominin characterized by bipedalism, with shorter limbs and smaller brains than modern humans. Australopithecine

Punctuated equilibrium

Evolutionary model involving rapid change over a short period of time, separated by long periods of stasis

Resources were evenly spread over the whole Southwest Asia and thus not much interaction or exchange took place between different groups there.

F

The Oldowan tool industry developed directly from the earlier Acheulean industry.

F

Loess

Fine, wind-blown silt

Cuneiform

Form of script used in Southwest Asia during the Bronze and Iron Age

Assemblage

Group of artifacts that occur together in time and space Assemblage

The Turkana Boy skeleton belongs to which species?

Homo ergaster

The Sumerian city states of the Early Dynastic period were dotted over the alluvial landscape of Mesopotamia. This area, called Sumer, is located in modern ______.

Iraq

The earliest identifiable state in Africa outside of Egypt appears to be the Nubian Kingdom of ______ in modern-day Sudan.

Kerma

By around 6000 BCE there is abundant evidence for the transition to agriculture in village sites in the Yellow River Valley. Which of the following is a common characteristic of these early agricultural sites?

Large storage pits for agricultural surplus

Necropolis

Literally a "city of the dead;" a large cemetery complex

The late Neolithic _______ Culture developed out of the earlier Yangshao and Dawenkou Cultures, and was distributed from the central plains to Shandong Province.

Longshan

The three Neanderthal mtDNA sequences that have been analyzed indicate that:

Neanderthals are genetically separate from modern humans, but may or may not have been able to produce fertile offspring

Lithic

Of, or relating to, stone tools and stone-tool making Lithic

Scapulimancy

Practice of writing questions on bone, applying heat to the underside of the bone, and interpreting the resulting crack to divine an answer to the question; script on these bones is the earliest evidence for Chinese writing

Anthropogenic

Resulting from human activities

Band

Small group of 25-60 individuals related through marriage or family ties; typically mobile hunter-gatherers

Bananas and plantains were introduced to Africa via trade with areas around the Indian Ocean.

T

Megalithic

Term used to describe structures built with very large stones

(13/20) The Amarna Letters are a treasure trove of information about Southwest Asia during the fourteenth century BCE. What are these, where were they found? What kinds of information do they contain, and what is at least one factor that led to them being preserved/saved for nearly 3500 years?

The Armana Letters were found in Akhenaten's capital city Amarna during the new kingdom. They were written in cuneiform and provide information about Akhenaten's ancestors and their administrations from neighboring states. It exposes the relationship between Egypt and Canaan. There were problems with labor supply in Canaan because there were immense labor demands from the Egyptians because they needed labor to construct massive public buildings as well as people for the amry. The Amarna letters were preserved because the burials during this time period were very elaborate, and many things have been preserved from these burials.

Short Answer (18/20) How did Natufian lifeways differ from the lifeways of the early Epipaleolithic inhabitants of the Levant? What archaeological evidence exists for these changes?

The Naturfians were the first people to have permananet settelements before agriculture. There are Cave sites such as El Wad in Israel that show how they occupied the same areas since the Upper Paleolithic. The site also shows that they used the space even outside of the cave for houses. They had open-air houses at the Eynan site in Israel. Their burial sites were also different such as one burial of a female Shaman at Hilaxon Tachtit. This burial is very elaborate with elaborate decorations and Denatalium shells. Natufian sites show a commintemnt to sedentiesm over a very long period of time. They built and rebuilt in the same areas for over 3000 years.

Broad Spectrum Economy

The ability to use multiple food sources

Sahul Land

The continuous landmass formed by Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea

Domestication

The human-caused propagation of selected species Domestication

Diffusion

The spread of materials, ideas, and innovations from one society to another

Although it draws on a range of other disciplines (such as chemistry, botany, and geology), archaeology is still considered to be:

a humanity or social science

What prey continued to play a dominant role in hunting strategies in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains throughout the Paleoindian period?

bison

Many factors may have operated to explain why postglacial communities adopted agriculture, but two that seem to have been at play in many areas across the world are:

demographic increase and environmental change

Ancient Egyptian writing

developed independently in the region before the unification of Egypt

Because states are made up of large populations that must be fed, they typically developed in:

fertile basins or river valleys

Based on evidence at Oldowan sites including the presence of bones from the most nutritious parts of the body, and cut-marks patterns, some researchers have postulated that the makers of the Oldowan toolkit were:

foragers

It is thought that early Homo species evolved from one of the ________ australopithecines, perhaps A. garhi.

gracile

The development of ______ in Southwest Asia around 6000 BCE enabled more land to be brought under cultivation

irrigation

The Homo floresiensis skeleton found on the island of Flores in Indonesia is of particular interest to scholars because:

it may represent the dwarfing of a Homo species in response to the pressures of an island environment

The people of the aceramic Neolithic period in Southwest Asia employed a combination of various degrees of plant cultivation, animal herding, and utilization of wild resources to meet their needs. These subsistence strategies are referred to as:

mixed farming economies

By 3200 BCE the people of Lower Mesopotamia were living in communities that, based on their size and complexity, are now considered to be:

urban

The earliest evidence for ______ in China comes from turtle carapaces at the Neolithic site of Jiahu, dating to 6500 BCE.

writing

Sedentary farming communities were established across Southwest Asia by:

6000 BCE

Midden

A concentration of cultural debris

Hand axe

A flat cobble flaked on both surfaces to produce a sharp edge, associated with the Acheulean technocomplex

Core

A piece of rock from which flakes are detached

Hominin

A term for species that are more closely related to modern humans than to chimpanzees

The study of molecular genetics points to the fact that modern humans originated in:

Africa

Artifact

Any portable object made or modified by humans

Short Answer (12/20) There are many ways in which we can study the human past. Two of these are the disciplines of history and of archaeology. In your own words, define archaeology as it is practiced today in North America. List three significant differences between archaeology and history, and discuss at least one way in which archaeology draws on data from other disciplines to help study the human past

Archaeology is the study of human past through material remains. History is the study of of the past with written records. We haven't always had written records, so archaeology studies what happened before there were written records. Archaeology coincides with history because archaeological finds are facts. They are materials we cannot dispute. Historical facts are written and essentially can be proven by archaeoligcal finds.

Sagittal crest

Bony ridge running along the top midline of the cranium; characteristic of robust australopithecines

Genome

Complete genetic component of a cell

________ are striations found on animal bones that indicate early hominins were processing meat and marrow with tools.

Cut marks

Short Answer (17/20) Archaeologists argue that the early species in the genus Homo derive from the genus Australopithecus based on certain biological and behavioral differences. Name and describe at least four of these differences that archaeologists use to differentiate between these two hominins.

Early Homo (Homo ergaster) was able to build fires whereas Australopithecines did not. Early Homo had shorter arms to suggest they abandonded trees whereas Asutralopithecines continued to use trees. Early Homo also had a reduced sexual dimorphism so the differene in size betwwen males and females of early Homo was not as great compared to Australopithecines. Early Homo had an increase brain capacity compared to Australopithecines.

Aurochs

Extinct wild bovine that was hunted in Paleolithic Europe

Although the sites are clearly complex, no grave goods or village cemeteries have been found associated with the Neolithic settlements of the Yellow River Valley.

F

Archaeologists think that state societies are more advanced or "better" than hunter-gatherer societies.

F

Archaeology is concerned only with the material remains of the past; questions about the social and symbolic aspects of ancient cultures are the subjects of other disciplines.

F

Beginning of Test 2 The results of DNA analyses indicate that incoming farmers replaced hunter-gatherers in many parts of the world, absorbing the latter along the way.

F

Bison remains at the Paleoindian site of Olsen-Chubbock suggest that every bison killed was butchered.

F

Both rice and millet are native to Korea, and were independently domesticated there.

F

Evidence from Neolithic sites indicates that there was only one single location within the "hilly flanks" zone where plant and animal domestication took place, and farming practices spread from that location to the rest of Southwest Asia.

F

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is inherited by the father and passed only to his sons, while the non-recombining portion of the Y-chromosome (NRY) is inherited by the mother and passed only to daughters.

F

Neanderthals retained very few of the cranial and post cranial characteristics of Homo heidelbergensis.

F

Only one hominin species appears to have lived at any given time; thus allowing us to determine accurately which species made the Oldowan tools.

F

Stone was the only material used by early hunter-gatherer groups to make tools, hence the name "Stone Age."

F

The Bodo cranium suggests that a gradual shrinking of brain size was occurring in early human populations around 600,000 years ago.

F

The multi-regional evolution hypothesis and the "out of Africa" hypothesis of human evolution are mutually exclusive: there are no models that incorporate elements of both.

F

The process of evolution almost never results in many closely related branches of species.

F

The study of archaeology has an "upper limit." It is concerned only with the portion of human history that occurred before the invention of writing.

F

We can say definitively that Homo species did not use materials (e.g. bone and wood) other than stone for making tools during the Paleolithic period.

F

Unlike in China, major states with kings, palaces, and cities never developed in Southeast Asia.

False

Prognathic

Having a projecting lower portion of the face

Megafauna

Large-bodied mammals, most of which went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene

Domesticated plants have been subjected to different selection pressures than their wild relatives.

T

Egypt dominated the Canaanite states of the Levant during the Late Bronze Age, and previously independent states became vassals of Egypt.

T

Egypt eventually became a colony of the Roman Empire.

T

Homo ergaster was probably the first human species to leave Africa.

T

It is very likely that H. ergaster derived the majority of its food from the gathering of plant resources rather than the hunting of animals. Correct Answer

T

Large (with populations in the thousands) Neolithic sites in southwest Asia were abandoned by 6500 BCE or soon thereafter. Correct!

T

MtDNA coalescence data suggests a single-center origin for Homo sapiens.

T

On the basis of mtDNA evidence, the Beringian Standstill Hypothesis proposes that the ancestors of Native Americans found themselves isolated by harsh LGM climates and remained in Beringia for as long as c. 10,000-15,000 years.

T

Oracle bones were used to make divinations by interpreting cracks generated through the application of heat to animal bones.

T

Plant foods formed the bulk of the early hominin diet, with meat and animal products an important but much smaller portion of their total food intake.

T

Rice and millet were two primary domesticates in East Asia during the Neolithic period.

T

Some modern apes are able to make stone tools, but studies have shown that these tools are not as sophisticated as those of the Oldowan industry.

T

The Yana site suggests demonstrates that people were in Siberia as early as 32,000 years ago.

T

The first emperor of China was Qin Shi Huangdi, and the name "China" is derived from the word "Qin."

T

The majority of societies that practice farming are sedentary.

T

The pyramids of Giza were built during a time period known as the Old Kingdom.

T

The wild ancestors of the plants and animals that were first domesticated in Southwest Asia thrived in the "hilly flanks" zone along the modern frontier between Iraq and Iran.

T

Uruk (in what is now Iraq) can be seen as the world's first genuine city.

T

Sundaland

The continuous landmass formed by Indonesia and Borneo

Prehistory

The period of the human past prior to the invention of writing

Paleontology

The study of fossils, particularly of plants and animals

Anthropology

The study of humanity, commonly subdivided into cultural, biological, linguistic, and archaeological Anthropology Correct

Paleoanthropology

The study of the earliest humans from fossil remains

Archaeology is often considered to be a sub-discipline of anthropology.

True

Recent studies of preserved ancient DNA have suggested that humans interbred with Neanderthals.

True

Which of the following animals was NOT domesticated in Southwest Asia?

alpaca

What do archaeologists mean when they say "ice-free corridor" in relation to the colonization of the Americas?

an actual corridor that was largely free of ice, between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets a 1,500 km corridor that would have allowed humans to move out of eastern Beringia c and d

Art from the Aurignacian period includes:

animal carvings in mammoth ivory and cave paintings

Venus figurines:

are present in the European Upper Paleolithic are thought by some to be related to fertility and childbirth form a contrast with Upper Paleolithic burials, which have been found to be mostly of males are made out of a number of materials, including mammoth ivory and stone

Farming in East Asia...

arose independently in two areas: the central plain of the Yellow River and the central Yangzi River Valley

A very influential scheme for classifying human societies was developed by Elman Service in the 1960s. According to Service, societies could be divided into the following categories:

bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states

A biological process that involves changes in the physical characteristics of plants and animals as they become dependent on humans is called: Correct!

domestication

During the fifteenth century, ________helped to foster an interest in naturalist studies, of which archaeological thought was a part.

exploration and economic expansion

Northern latitudes during the early dispersal of modern humans (c. 250,000-12,000 years ago) were characterized by ________.

glacial and interglacial cycles

Homo ergaster was able to colonize the hot, arid, and seasonal environments of Africa because, anatomically,

it was probably nearly hairless it had a slim body it had long limbs it had a forward-projecting, external nose all of the above

Communities with members that live in permanent farmsteads or villages that are occupied year-round are said to be:

sedentary

Wild ______ is native to Africa, yet the domesticated variety of this plant is found in early deposits at sites in India and Pakistan, rather than sites in Africa.

sorghum

Charles Darwin's concept of "the survival of the fittest" or "natural selection" is based on the idea that organisms with inherited traits that enable them to survive:

tend to reproduce at a greater rate than other members of their species and pass on favorable traits to their offspring

During the mid-to-late twentieth century, archaeological finds in the Americas dated to before around 13,400 years ago were looked upon skeptically, and were subjected to the following criteria:

the finds had to be undeniably human or human-made the finds had to be located in undisturbed geological contexts the finds had to be accompanied by indisputable radiometric dates before 13,400 years ago all of the above

The Acheulean technological tradition is characterized by which tool form?

the hand axe

Pottery has often emerged around the time that cultures have become sedentary. This relationship could be a result of: Correct!

the increased need for storage as agriculturalists acquired more material goods

Hunter-gatherer sites in the Yellow River Valley dating between 9000 BCE and 7500 BCE...

yield large quantities of stone tools and provide evidence that people harvested wild foxtail millet.