Deck 3: Nomads, Chariots, Territorial States, and Microsocieties, 2000-1200 Bce

Question 1

What drove herders and pastoralists to migrate to highland plateaus bordering the inner Eurasian steppes between 2000 and 1200 BCE?

A) Armies from the cities forced them out.
B) Diseases ravaged their camps.
C) Drought destroyed their traditional grazing land.
D) Chilling cold destroyed their crops.

Answer 1

Drought destroyed their traditional grazing land.

Question 2

Which of the following led to the collapse of the settled cities of the river basins in Afro-Eurasia around 2200 BCE?

A) A radical change in climate disrupted people's ability to grow food crops.
B) Warfare between the urban centers depopulated the river valleys.
C) The monsoons dropped unprecedented amounts of rain.
D) Rulers were weak and corrupt.

Answer 2

A radical change in climate disrupted people's ability to grow food crops.

Question 3

What was the chief political innovation of the epoch around 2000 BCE?

A) power reaching out from cities into distant hinterlands
B) the use of chariots in warfare
C) the merger of nomadic and settled peoples
D) the creation of written taxation lists

Answer 3

power reaching out from cities into distant hinterlands

Question 4

Which of the following kingdoms controlled much of the territory between Mesopotamia and the Nile in the second millennium BCE?

A) Hittites
B) Hyksos
C) Aryans
D) Vedic

Question 5

Which of the following new military technologies permitted nomadic pastoralists to invade settled urban areas?

A) steel swords
B) horse-drawn chariots
C) crossbows
D) siege engines

Question 6

In Sumerian Mesopotamia, what did transhumant herders traditionally do?

A) They attacked the Sumerian cities.
B) They paid taxes to and labored on public works projects for the Sumerian cities.
C) They sought to maintain economic independence from the cities.
D) They prevented order from being restored after the collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur.

Question 7

What happened under Babylonian rule in Mesopotamia?

A) New rulers designated private entrepreneurs to collect taxes, who kept a portion of tax revenues for their profits.
B) The state forced individuals to donate large amounts of labor to the support of the city's defensive walls.
C) Farmers purchased land from the state in order to obtain economic independence.
D) Economic innovations resulted in widespread prosperity, high wages, and social stability.

Question 8

Which of the following about the New Kingdom in Egypt is correct?

A) The kingdom contracted its territory in order to better exercise control over its lands.
B) Hatshepsut proclaimed herself pharaoh.
C) Trade diminished as warming temperatures destroyed agricultural surpluses.
D) The bureaucracy dominated the royal family and brought widespread corruption into state finances.

Question 9

What did the great territorial states of Southwest Asia and North Africa do between 1400 and 1200 BCE?

A) engaged in constant warfare for dominance in the region
B) created an international system based on a balance of power
C) eliminated the small kingdoms that sought to exist between the major states
D) adopted Hebrew as the diplomatic language of the era

Question 10

Which of the following about transhumant migrants is correct?

A) They traversed vast stretches of land in the steppe lands.
B) They moved from city to city in search of employment.
C) They moved with livestock from lowland to highland areas depending on the seasons of the year.
D) They traveled from one agricultural region to another, working to plant crops during the spring and harvest them in the fall.

Question 11

What did the Amorites, a pastoralist people from the western deserts of Southwest Asia, do?

A) They invaded the Nile River valley.
B) They joined forces with people from the Libyan desert.
C) They founded the Old Babylonian dynasty.
D) They formed trade alliances with the Shang.

Question 12

The Hittite empire was crucial to maintaining which of the following?

A) subordinating Semitic languages to Indo-European languages
B) a law code that became a model for later empires in the region
C) creating an elite cosmopolitan class of merchants
D) a balance of power between territorial states in the river valleys

Question 13

Invasion by nomadic tribes led to which of the following political developments in Egypt and Mesopotamia?

A) The lack of state religions in Egypt and Mesopotamia undermined the efforts of ruling elites to resist nomadic invaders.
B) The lack of horse-drawn chariots in Egypt and Mesopotamia diminished the ability of ruling classes to expand their territorial control.
C) Egypt and Mesopotamia developed centralized kingdoms ruled by a charismatic ruler.
D) Egypt and Mesopotamia had stable river-basin societies where populations became so large they could not be easily conquered.

Question 14

Which of the following about the Mesopotamian kingdoms of the pastoralists is correct?

A) Authority for the kings was based on their military prowess.
B) Leaders were elected by influential members of the community.
C) Tribal leaders distrusted merchants, whose trade routes had long traversed grazing lands.
D) New territorial policies were rooted in identification with clan and tribe.

Question 15

The Battle of Qadesh is significant for which reason?

A) The Egyptians and the Hittites, using thousands of chariots, fought for control of the Fertile Crescent.
B) The Hyksos used their war chariots to overthrow the Old Kingdom of Egypt.
C) It demonstrated the military superiority of crossbow technology.
D) An army wielding iron weapons and armor easily defeated an army relying on bronze technology.

Question 16

Which of the following best describes the Kassite attitude toward Mesopotamian learning?

A) The Kassites sought to replace the old Epic of Gilgamesh with a new epic extolling unique Kassite virtues.
B) The Kassites believed Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian writing had no value.
C) Kassite scribes preserved Mesopotamian tradition.
D) The Kassites wrote epic narratives devoted to the achievements of Kassite gods.

Question 17

Which of the following was an important message of Hammurapi's Code?

A) The king was the fearsome voice of the gods among the people.
B) Adultery was a crime for both men and women.
C) The responsibility to uphold a just order was the charge of the king.
D) Priests bore the responsibility for upholding the gods' justice.

Question 18

Which of the following about Amenemhet I's elevation of the minor god Amun to prominence is correct?

A) It was fiercely resisted by the priestly class, causing a civil war that destroyed the Twelfth Dynasty in Egypt.
B) It contributed, politically, to greater unification of the kingdom, while also adding spiritual meaning to Egyptian society.
C) It had the social consequence of raising the standing of the merchant class, who had adopted Amun as their spiritual patron.
D) It was criticized after several poor rainy seasons led to drought conditions.

Question 19

Which of the following indicates the new strength and prosperity of merchants and professionals in the Old Kingdom?

A) increased participation in governing under the pharaoh
B) building elaborate hunting lodges in the mountains
C) challenging the pharaoh's role as shepherd of the people
D) constructing tombs with representations of material goods the owners hoped to enjoy in the afterlife

Question 20

What did the nomadic peoples do when they entered the Indus River valley?

A) They destroyed Harappan culture.
B) They were unable to establish large territorial states.
C) They abandoned their traditional religious practices.
D) They adopted horse-drawn chariots from the Harappans.

Question 21

Which of the following about the Aegean world is correct?

A) Political centralization was quickly established due to the large common plain that dominated the landscape.
B) There was little trade, as all valued commodities were close at hand.
C) Polities struggled, like in Mesopotamia and Egypt, to recover from the droughts of the second millennium BCE.
D) A number of islands flourished within a seaborne trading network focused on the exchange of tin and copper.

Question 22

What do historians know about communities in the Central Andes?

A) Much of what we know about the political and economic transactions of early communities comes from offerings left in burial chambers.
B) Communities on the coast took shape around temples and the demands of religious rituals.
C) Communities in the Andes highlands took shape around royal palaces.
D) Statecraft occurred through diplomacy and trade, while warfare appears to have been rare.

Question 23

Which of the following best describes the Austronesians?

A) fearsome chariot warriors
B) creators of huge ceremonial bronze vessels
C) sailors of the South Pacific
D) writers of elaborate epic sagas

Question 24

What was the role of the horse chariot in East Asia?

A) It served as a mobile component of the infantry, which remained the basis of military power.
B) It served primarily to strengthen the power of river-basin societies, as they had the resources to develop large fleets of chariots.
C) It became a highly valued symbol of authority and power.
D) It was used primarily for long-distance trade.

Question 25

Shang rulers used the shoulder blades of cattle and turtle shells for what purpose?

A) to create ornamental jewelry designed to impress foreign diplomats
B) as ingredients in medicinal elixirs designed to extend human life
C) to discover signs from the ancestors regarding royal plans
D) as fertilizers for the fields of millet, wheat, and barley

Question 26

Why was the transition to settled agriculture slower in western Afro-Eurasia than in the rest of the landmass?

A) The techniques adopted by Southwest Asians never spread to northern Europe.
B) There were no river valleys in Europe to serve as the basis of agriculture.
C) Inventions such as the plow or metal working were not known in Europe.
D) The large population of hunter-gatherers resisted moving to settled agriculture.

Question 27

Austronesian settlements in the South Pacific were characterized by which of the following?

A) pottery, written scripts, and rice cultivation
B) ritual human sacrifice, rice cultivation, and stone tools
C) written scripts, ritual human sacrifice, and domesticated pigs
D) pottery, stone tools, and domesticated pigs

Question 28

Why did the Shang dynasty have unprecedented dominance over its neighbors?

A) its superior irrigation techniques, which gave it a secure food supply
B) its invention of a writing system that made its bureaucracy far more effective
C) its access to copper and tin and the technology to produce bronze from them
D) its adoption of the chariot, which gave it strong military advantages

Question 29

Which of the following were developed by the Shang?

A) They developed trade as the foundation to the ruling family's power.
B) They developed new technologies in agriculture, such as draining low-lying fields and clearing forested lands.
C) They developed a new, matrilineal succession.
D) They created chariot legions to defend the northern borders against the pastoralist nomads.

Question 30

What characterized societies that developed in the South Pacific, the frontier of Europe, and the Americas?

A) They controlled large chariot forces.
B) They were forced to migrate because of the invasion of pastoralist nomads.
C) They developed powerful states.
D) They had limited interaction with other societies.

Question 31

Which of the following characterized the Shang state?

A) It did not face threats from rival territorial states along its borders.
B) It established a strongly defended permanent capital in Anyang.
C) It gradually became more decentralized in order to meet threats along its borders to the north.
D) It was the first organized state in the region.

Question 32

Which of the following was a cultural aspect that the Shang shared with the Mesopotamians?

A) Both relied on divination to guide political decisions.
B) Both buried their rulers in simple graves, showing that all men are equal in death.
C) Both quickly passed from bronze to iron tools and weapons.
D) Both viewed the priest as the pivot between the spiritual world and the material world.

Question 33

Which of the following best explains why the early states in the Americas produced limited agricultural surpluses?

A) The Americas completely lacked irrigation technology.
B) The inhabitants of the Americas refused to expand state systems beyond the local community.
C) The Peruvian ecology, capable only of producing fish, lacked the diversity necessary to support surpluses.
D) The Americas lacked draft animals or large beasts of burden.

Question 34

What two significant innovations decisively affected the development of Europe?

A) the domestication of horses and barley
B) the emergence of wheeled chariots and bronze metals
C) the domestication of barley and the emergence of bronze metals
D) the domestication of horses and the emergence of wheeled chariots and wagons

Question 35

Which of the following is an accurate description of the Vedic people?

A) The Vedic people brought large flocks of camels with them into the Indus River basin.
B) The Vedic people were superb horse charioteers and masters of copper and bronze metallurgy.
C) The Vedic people practiced a religion that was much simpler than the religion of the agricultural people they encountered around the Indus Valley.
D) The Vedic people quickly abandoned their language and adopted the language of the Harappans.

Question 36

What was the basis for Shang rulers' wealth and power?

A) monopolies on the income from the extraction of minerals
B) tribute from both elites and allies
C) spoils of war from conquering vast new territories in Southeast Asia
D) tariffs on all goods imported from surrounding lands

Question 37

Which of the following about the early states in the Central Andes is correct?

A) Large territorial states emerged that linked the Andean highlands with the coastal villages.
B) Coastal fishermen exploited currents that allowed for large hauls of fish, which could be dried and transported.
C) Pasturelands were created at the base of the Andes, in which llamas and alpacas were raised as sources of protein.
D) The ecological diversity of the highlands and lowlands discouraged the development of extensive trade.

Question 38

Which of the following about Mycenaean society is correct?

A) The main palace centers were the hulking fortresses of warlords.
B) The rulers ruled directly over their people with the aid of a few chief advisers.
C) Record keeping was unnecessary because of the close and direct contact between the rulers and the people.
D) Colonies were not founded because rulers did not want to delegate authority to other officials.

Question 39

Which of the following was an unintended consequence of the lack of centralization in the Aegean world in the second millennium BCE?

A) Sicily became a focal point of trade between Egypt, Crete, and the cities of the Euphrates River.
B) Agriculture was the main livelihood in Crete and Thera.
C) There was no single regime to collapse when the droughts hit in the second millennium BCE.
D) Polities developed along several river systems.

Question 40

The Shang dynasty improved chariot transportation by doing what?

A) adding bronze fittings and harnesses
B) developing a double yolk so that two horses could pull a single chariot
C) developing horseshoes so that horses suffered fewer leg and foot injuries
D) adding spokes to wheels to give them greater durability

Question 41

How did the territorial state differ from the previous forms of states? Where and when did territorial states form, and what factors encouraged the formation of territorial states?

Question 42

In the Shang dynasty in China, the ruler derived his authority through guidance from ancestors and gods.

Question 43

The rulers of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt created a cult of the pharaoh as the good shepherd and offered homage to gods at the palace to ensure regular floodwaters.

Question 44

Much of what we know of the Kassites and Hittites comes from correspondence found in Egypt.

Question 45

How did the domestication of the horse in Afro-Eurasia affect the development of nomadic and settled societies during the second millennium BCE? How was the horse integrated into military technologies?

Question 46

The nearly simultaneous collapse of Egypt and Mesopotamia around 2200 BCE was likely caused by bad rulers and the decline of long-distance trade.

Question 47

In the Central Andes, ecological diversity promoted trade between regions.

Question 48

Compare the maritime development of the Aegean with that of the South Pacific in the second millennium BCE. What accounts for the similarities and differences in the societies that they developed?

Question 49

Analyze the ways in which territorial states in the Nile River valley and the Tigris-Euphrates River valley created new forms of centralized governance at the beginning of the second millennium BCE, following the collapse of river valley civilizations. Which states created the most centralized control, and why?

Question 50

How did geographical factors affect the development of early territorial states in Shang China and the Indus Valley?