Deck 1: Prehistoric Art

Question 1

Prehistoric people often coated their floors with powdered

A) ash.
B) bones.
C) clay.
D) ocher.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Bronze is an alloy of copper and

A) tin.
B) gold.
C) terra cotta.
D) silver.

Answer 2

A

Question 3

What technique was used to create Gold-Adorned Face Mask (Fig. 1-29)?

A) corbeling
B) sculpture in the round
C) relief sculpture
D) composite pose

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Most Neolithic architecture in Germany and central Europe consisted of wood posts supporting a central beam or

A) ridgepole.
B) thatch.
C) megalith.
D) capstone.

Question 5

Which of the following was created in the most realistic style?

A) Bison, Le Tuc d'Audoubert (Fig. 1-14)
B) Woman from Willendorf, Austria (Fig. 1-7)
C) Lion-Human, Hohlenstein-Stadel, Germany (Fig. 1-6)
D) Figures of a Woman and a Man, Cernavoda, Romania (Fig. 1-27)

Question 6

How long ago did figurines of people and animals appear?

A) 50,000 years
B) 30,000 years
C) 25,000 years
D) 10,000 years

Question 7

How were the beams of Stonehenge secured?

A) mortise-and-tenon joints
B) corbeled vault and capstone
C) post-and-lintel construction
D) mammoth tusks and hides

Question 8

What method of dating cave paintings and excavated objects uses organic material?

A) radiometric dating
B) electron spin resonance
C) potassium-argon dating
D) uranium-thorium dating

Question 9

Continually rebuilt and replastered, early houses at Çatalhöyük may have functioned as

A) grain storerooms.
B) temples.
C) observatories.
D) historical markers.

Question 10

Archaeologists link the emergence of image making to the arrival of

A) Homo sapiens.
B) Neanderthals.
C) Homo sapiens sapiens.
D) Homo erectus.

Question 11

Handprints at the cave at Pech-Merle were probably created using what technique?

A) incising lines with a sharp stick
B) spraying paint onto the cave wall
C) painting the image with a brush
D) drawing with an ocher crayon

Question 12

Rows of trapezoidal buildings made of wooden posts, branches, mud, and clay characterize the architectural remains at

A) Skara Brae.
B) Çatalhöyük.
C) Lepenski Vir.
D) Newgrange.

Question 13

What was encountered at Newgrange that may have induced hallucinations?

A) celestial maps
B) entoptic motifs
C) deer hunts
D) female figures

Question 14

The potter's wheel developed in approximately 4000 BCE in

A) China.
B) Egypt.
C) Japan.
D) Near East.

Question 15

Rather than being a product of invaders, the destruction of houses at some sites in the Neolithic period was part of

A) the selection of a new leader.
B) a rival family's attempt to gain property.
C) a ritual killing of the house.
D) ritual celebrating a birth.

Question 16

The Woman from Brassempouy (Fig. 1-9) captures the essence of a head, also called the

A) memory image.
B) abstracted mind.
C) soul image.
D) mind image.

Question 17

What were small-scale female sculptures from the Upper Paleolithic period once called?

A) Mother Goddess
B) Venus
C) Eve
D) shamans

Question 18

Prehistory includes all of human existence before the development of

A) written records.
B) architecture.
C) metal tools.
D) carved images.

Question 19

What conclusion can archeologists make about the ancient site of Çatalhöyük?

A) It was temporarily used as a burial ground.
B) It had religious and domestic functions.
C) The people focused on military defenses.
D) The settlement was built over an older Paleolithic site.

Question 20

Scholars see the transport of bluestones to Stonehenge from more than 150 miles away as a sign of

A) associations with Celtic druids.
B) evidence of engineering technology.
C) connections to ancestral homelands.
D) ritual significance of materials.

Question 21

What conclusion can be made about both the Lion-Human (Fig. 1-6) and Woman from Willendorf (Fig. 1-7)?

A) Artists expressed imaginative themes.
B) Celestial observations influence art.
C) Killing a lion would incur a curse.
D) Humans and animals were part of separate groups.

Question 22

The painting of Men Taunting a Deer(?) (Fig. 1-17) at Çatalhöyük may represent

A) a belief in sympathetic magic.
B) an earlier cave painting.
C) the hope for more animals.
D) a dangerous ritual or game of baiting.

Question 23

An anthropologist who studied the Altamira Cave does not believe that the animals that are depicted are dead but rather are

A) gods.
B) dust-wallowing.
C) surrogates for man.
D) disabled.

Question 24

Many early vessels of clay or metal were covered with decorative motifs. Why would early people have made the effort to decorate their functional objects? What drives people to go beyond the purely functional? Support your viewpoint with specific examples of early art.

Question 25

How are the structures of megalithic architecture similar in form and function? Give examples and compare and contrast those examples.

Question 26

How would you compare the artistic representations of the Paleolithic period to the Neolithic period?

Question 27

What are the particular challenges and rewards of studying prehistoric art?

Question 28

What is the significance of the form and the manner in which Woman from Dolní Vĕstonice (Fig. 1-8) was created?

Question 29

Why does the date for the transition from the Paleolithic period to the Neolithic period vary?

Question 30

Why is the Lascaux scene Bird-Headed Man with Bison (Fig. 1-12) unique, and what might it represent?

Question 31

Why was the cave of Lascaux closed to the public?

Question 32

What new technologies emerged in the Neolithic period, and what was the purpose and function of each?

Question 33

Why is the Lion-Human sculpture remarkable for the Paleolithic period?

Question 34

What formal artistic devices did the artists of the Chauvet Cave in southeastern France use to convey images of horses, mammoths, aurochs, and other animals?

Question 35

Briefly discuss the artistic decorations found in the structures of Çatalhöyük.

Question 36

What events or occurrences determined the onset of a Neolithic culture?

Question 37

Scholars dismissed the sympathetic magic interpretation of cave paintings because

A) animal and human representations are abstract.
B) animals were frequently shown alongside human figures.
C) animals used for food were not portrayed.
D) animals are painted on cave ceilings.

Question 38

How did the artists of Lascaux fuel the lamps that they used to see within the deep recesses of the cave?

Question 39

The Human Figures (Fig. 1-28) from 'Ain Ghazal give the impression of living individuals who

A) can communicate with the gods.
B) are unable to express themselves.
C) can communicate with the dead.
D) are leaders of their site.