Deck 10: Ancient Climate and Environment

Question 1

About 1.8 million years ago, global cooling marked the beginning of this epoch, more popularly called the Great Ice Age or the

A) Pliocene.
B) Miocene.
C) Holocene.
D) Pleistocene.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Although no humans lived very close to the great ice sheets that covered so much of the Northern Hemisphere during the Great Ice Age, they did live in areas that were affected by geological phenomena associated with the ice sheets. These areas might be any of the following EXCEPT

A) coastal areas.
B) glaciers.
C) river flood-plains.
D) lakes.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

The catastrophic drought that came with the Younger Dryas period may have been a major factor in the start of animal domestication and

A) wild harvests.
B) foraging.
C) agriculture.
D) a population crash.

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Ice core samples preserve records of annual snowfall in a format much like

A) climatic portraits.
B) tree-ring samples.
C) episodes of warmer or colder conditions.
D) interglacial cycles.

Question 5

The Matuyama-Brunhes magnetic reversal (when the world's magnetic field suddenly reversed) is a key stratigraphic marker. It can be identified both in sea cores and in volcanic strata ashore, where it can be dated precisely with potassium-argon samples. The Matuyama-Brunhes event occurred about

A) 25,000 years ago.
B) 15,000 years ago.
C) 780,000 years ago.
D) 425,000 years ago.

Question 6

Lower Pleistocene times lasted from the beginning of the Ice Age until about

A) 25,000 years ago.
B) 15,000 years ago.
C) 780,000 years ago.
D) 425,000 years ago.

Question 7

Since the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, there have been a number of cold (glacial) and warm (interglacial) cycles, with the last cycle ending about 12,000 years ago. How many cycles are known to have occurred during this time?

A) five
B) four
C) seven
D) eight

Question 8

Which was named after a river in the Alps, this glaciation lasted until about 15,000 years ago, when there was a rapid return to more temperate conditions?

A) Würm
B) Mindel
C) Günz
D) Riss

Question 9

Britain was joined to the European continent in the area of the English Channel and the southern North Sea

A) 10,000 years ago.
B) 18,000 years ago.
C) 4,000 years ago.
D) 2,500 years ago.

Question 10

Nearly a century ago, Swedish botanist Lennart von Post examined vegetation change in familiar trees like birches, oaks, and pines across northern Europe after the Ice Age. For his research, von Post used fossil

A) pollen grains.
B) tree rings.
C) wood samples.
D) bark samples.

Question 11

Through palynology, botanists can use pollen data to work out a series of vegetational time zones. They can determine a relative date for a site by comparing

A) the geological horizon.
B) preservative properties.
C) pollen sequences.
D) climatic information.

Question 12

The last prolonged Ice Age glaciation ended when North American and European ice sheets retreated and the world entered a period of pronounced global warming. This occurred about

A) 15,000 years ago.
B) 25,000 years ago.
C) 12,000 years ago.
D) 11,400 years ago.

Question 13

At least three major cold snaps have cooled global temperatures over the past 11,000 years. The last of these was the so-called Little Ice Age, which lasted from about A.D.

A) 1200 to 1500.
B) 900 to 1250.
C) 1300 to 1850.
D) 1450 to 1700.

Question 14

When the Bosphorus levee was breached around 5500 B.C., what lake eventually became the Black Sea due to salt water flooding?

A) Tahoe
B) Caspian
C) Baikal
D) Euxine

Question 15

Which of these weather conditions are now known to be global events that ripple across the entire tropics as a result of a breakdown in the atmospheric and ocean circulation in the western Pacific?

A) Pacific decadal oscillations
B) El Niños
C) La Niñas
D) tsunamis

Question 16

The warmer waters of El Niño brought weather that decimated a staple of both the Peruvian coastal diet and highland trade during the reign of the Moche. What food source was drastically reduced?

A) quinoa
B) corn
C) potato
D) anchovy

Question 17

Dendrochronologies for the Ancestral Pueblo give us the most precise time scale for any early human society anywhere, because they are now accurate to within

A) one year.
B) two years.
C) three years.
D) four years.

Question 18

Our knowledge of ancient climatic shifts is being revolutionized in particular by information obtained through

A) climatic evidence.
B) ice cores.
C) measurement of runoff amounts.
D) technological ingenuity.

Question 19

Some scientists calculate that in about 23,000 years' time, Earth will see the return of

A) glacial conditions.
B) climatic fluctuations.
C) magnetic polarity.
D) relatively warm conditions.

Question 20

Which is the study of archaeology using the methods and concepts of the earth sciences, which plays a major role in reconstructing ancient environments and landscapes?

A) paleontology
B) climatology
C) geology
D) geoarchaeology

Question 21

Write an essay on some of the changes in climate that occurred during the Holocene, and relate these changes to agriculture. You may focus on any period you like (e.g., the Little Ice Age).

Question 22

What do ice cores tell us about climate change for the past 10,000 years or so?

Question 23

What is the relationship between more-recent (last 15,000 years) fluctuations in ice sheet coverage and sea levels? How did this affect human settlement patterns?

Question 24

What happened climatologically and botanically to Europe and southwest Asia during the Younger Dryas? What were the apparent results for human societies in these areas?

Question 25

Why are El Niño events of such interest to archaeologists, especially since they represent only short-term climate change?