Deck 1: The First Civilizations of North America

Question 1

Most modern archeologists would agree that the earliest inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere came from which of the following areas of the world?

A) Europe
B) South America
C) Asia
D) the Arctic

Answer 1

Asia

Question 2

About 15,000 years ago BP, which land bridge was used by migrants to cross between Siberia and Alaska?

A) Bering Strait
B) Alaskan Strait
C) Siberian Strait
D) Straits of Asia

Answer 2

Bering Strait

Question 3

Which group was the first to build cities in the New World?

A) Aztecs
B) Olmecs
C) Toltecs
D) Mayas

Answer 3

Olmecs

Question 4

Both the Mogollon and the Hohokam peoples of the American Southwest tended to build their dwellings near which of the following?

A) other villages
B) mountains
C) streams
D) sacred sites

Question 5

Which of the following groups lived in what is now known as the Four Corners region of the United States?

A) Woodlands
B) Hohokam
C) Ancestral Pueblo
D) Aztecs

Question 6

The Mogollon, the Hohokam, and the Ancestral Pueblo were North American cultures from which region of the United States?

A) Eastern Woodlands
B) Southwest
C) Great Plains
D) Great Basin

Question 7

The Mississippian people were a culture from the

A) Eastern Woodlands.
B) Pacific Northwest.
C) Great Plains.
D) Great Basin.

Question 8

The Numic-speaking peoples were from which geographic region?

A) Eastern Woodlands
B) Pacific Northwest
C) Great Plains
D) Great Basin

Question 9

Which of the following peoples lived in a society with deep divisions among nobles, commoners, and slaves?

A) Subarctic
B) Pacific Northwest
C) Great Basin
D) Eastern Woodlands

Question 10

The inhabitants of which region moved from their summer fishing camps to berry patches in the fall, and to moose- and caribou-hunting groups in the winter?

A) Eastern Woodlands
B) Subarctic
C) Great Plains
D) Pacific Northwest

Question 11

Recently, scholars have begun to find evidence of incredible manipulations of landscapes and environments in the least likely of places,

A) the canyons of the Southwest.
B) the area now known as Mexico City.
C) the Amazon rainforest.
D) the Subarctic.

Question 12

Which of the following, built around 1300, contained more than 2,000 rooms and had a water and sewage-removal system?

A) Navajos
B) Ancestral Pueblo
C) Paquime
D) Pueblos

Question 13

The Muskogean speakers rejected hierarchical societies in favor of egalitarian ones as they matured into three great southeastern confederacies, the

A) Iroquois, Algonquian, and Mohawk.
B) Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw.
C) Chickasaw, Mohicans, and Iroquois.
D) Choctaw, Creek, and Apache.

Question 14

The distinctive feature of Iroquois and Huron architecture was not the temple mound, but the

A) pueblo.
B) tipi.
C) longhouse.
D) wigwam.

Question 15

The Algonquians were part of which cultural group?

A) Eastern Woodlands
B) Subarctic
C) Great Plains
D) Southwestern

Question 16

One of the major logistical obstacles that hindered New World agriculture and advancement in comparison to the Old World was

A) religion.
B) culture.
C) communication and technology.
D) illness.

Question 17

In the 1830s and 1840s, Americans sought to drive Indians ________ of the Mississippi.

Question 18

Between 10,000 and 2,500 years ago, many regional ________ developed among the peoples of the Americas.

Question 19

People in Mesoamerica began domesticating ________ about 10,000 years ago.

Question 20

Between the third and ninth centuries, the ________ empire founded some 50 urban centers scattered throughout the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras

Question 21

The master potters of the American Southwest were the ________ people.

Question 22

The ________ was a distinctive feature of Iroquois and Huron architecture.

Question 23

The adoption of ________ gave people in the Southwest and the Eastern Woodlands the security necessary to develop complex societies.

Question 24

The ________ lived along the Atlantic seaboard and the Great Lakes, in communities smaller than those of either the Muskogeans or the Iroquois.

Question 25

The ________ were the first Native American peoples to play ball games, around 1500 BCE.

Question 26

The Natchez practiced a form of kinship in which ________ owned land, tools, and even children.

Question 27

Explain how early peoples evolved into stable and secure cultures.

Question 28

Explain how the emergence of ecosystems made for ever greater biological diversity.

Question 29

Describe the early cultures of the American Southwest.

Question 30

Analyze the differences between the cultures of the Pacific Northwest and the other Native American cultures in North America.

Question 31

Analyze and explain the rise of agriculture and the worldwide spread of American crops.

Question 32

Explain why Native Americans were largely spared the effects of most of the world's communicable diseases until 1492.

Question 33

Describe the Americas on the eve of contact with European civilizations.

Question 34

In an evolutionary context, why were Native Americans at a disadvantage compared to Europeans?

Question 35

Discuss the historical detective work involved in tracking the movements of the earliest Americans.