Quiz 11 The First Farmers

Which of the following is true?

Food production led to an increase in social inequality and a decline in public health.

Which of the following is a key difference between the food-producing traditions of Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica that helps us understand the subsequent histories in the two regions?

Large domesticated animals played an important role in Mesopotamia but were absent from Mesoamerica.

What is the name given to the cultural period in which the first signs of domestication were present?

Neolithic

The path from foraging to food production was one that people followed independently in at least seven world areas. New archaeological research techniques continue to overturn previously held assumptions about where and how this occurred. Microscopic evidence from early cultivated plants suggests that

New World farming began in the lowlands of South America and then spread to Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean islands.

Which of the following was a consequence of domestication?

Sedentary life became more widespread.

Which of the following statements about domesticated sheep is true?

Wool on sheep apparently happened sometime after domestication, domestic sheep's wool offers it protection against extreme heat.

What is a vertical economy?

a system that exploits environmental zones that contrast with one another in altitude, rainfall, overall climate, and vegetation

Food production was a critical step toward the broad-spectrum revolution. T/F

false

Which of the following is a benefit of farming?

greater predictability of staple species

The Natufians' ability to exploit their rich local environment with broad-spectrum foraging made it possible for them to

live in year-round villages prior to the emergence of domestication.

The broad-spectrum revolution in Europe included the late Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic, which followed it. What tool type characterized the Mesolithic in Europe?

microliths

With domestication, the husk that encloses the edible portion of wild cereals became

more brittle, so the grain didn't need to be roasted in order to remove the tough husk

Unlike the pattern in the Old World, plant domestication in the New World

occurred before the rise of the first sedentary communities.

What is the name of the wild ancestor of maize?

teosinte

To what did Kent Flannery (1969) refer with the term broad-spectrum revolution?

the period beginning around 15,000 B.P. in the Middle East and 12,000 B.P. in Europe, during which a wider range of plant and animal life was hunted, gathered, collected, caught, and fished

Compared to those of wild plants, the seeds of domesticated plants are larger and less likely to shatter and disperse.

true

Early cultivation began as an attempt to copy, in a less favorable environment, the dense stands of wheat and barley that grew wild in the hilly flanks. T/F

true

In the Middle East, sedentism developed before plants and animals were domesticated. T/F

true

Rice was domesticated in southern China.T/F

true

The path from foraging to food production was one that people followed independently in at least seven world areas. T/F

true