Deck 12: The Archaeology Of The Mind

Question 1

Which of the following is true of the interpretation of Upper Paleolithic cave art?

A) Most archaeologists agree that cave art represents sympathetic magic, or rituals in which doing something to an image produces the desired effect in the real object (e.g., drawing pregnant bison ensures fertility, or killing a stylized animal on the cave wall guarantees hunting success).
B) Most archaeologists agree that cave art should be interpreted within the structuralist paradigm, where all symbols define binary oppositions such as male and female.
C) Because we lack any associated ethnographic data for the Upper Paleolithic, it is very difficult to securely interpret the meaning of symbols used in this art.
D) Upper Paleolithic cave art represents the earliest beginnings of the human ability to appreciate art for its own aesthetic properties; it is thus "art-for-art's-sake," and animals drawn had no particular symbolic meaning.

Answer 1

Because we lack any associated ethnographic data for the Upper Paleolithic, it is very difficult to securely interpret the meaning of symbols used in this art.

Question 2

An object or act that by cultural convention stands for something else with which it has no necessary connection is a(n):

A) symbol.
B) sign.
C) icon.
D) artifact.

Answer 2

symbol.

Question 3

In Upper Paleolithic cave art, humans are:

A) rarely represented, and when they are represented are poorly executed compared to the marvelously depicted animal figures.
B) frequently represented, and represented in a realistic manner, similar to animal depictions.
C) represented as deities, controlling the plant and animal world.
D) never represented.

Answer 3

rarely represented, and when they are represented are poorly executed compared to the marvelously depicted animal figures.

Question 4

Processual archaeology is appealing to some archaeologists because it:

A) is concerned with discovering and interpreting symbolic relationships between material culture and the human mind.
B) emphasizes the values, ideas, and beliefs that make people human, and is less concerned with the material conditions of existence.
C) places priority on the very things that archaeologists are most confident in recovering from archaeological sites, such as environment, technology, and economy.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 5

An individual who has the power to contact the spirit world through trance, possession, or visions, and who uses this power to influence the world of the living is:

A) a totem.
B) a shaman.
C) an oracle.
D) Any or all of the answers are correct.

Question 6

Mary Douglas, a symbolic anthropologist, has argued that which of the following explains Near Eastern food taboos such as the prohibition against eating pork?

A) Prohibited animals are those that violate cultural ideas about the order of creation.
B) Any food will be tabooed when the cost of producing it outweighs its value (in calories or nutrients).
C) Animals included in food taboos are always those that do not occur naturally in the geographic region of the taboo; either the animal never lived in the region, or they lived there once and are no extinct.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 7

Leroi-Gourhan's interpretation that the symbols used in Upper Paleolithic cave art, including abstract shapes and animal figures, were ultimately male and female symbols:

A) was widely accepted by the archaeological community at the time, and is still considered the most likely interpretation of cave art today.
B) was based on ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological analogy, made stronger by the historical ties shared by modern Europeans and the prehistoric populations who created the cave art.
C) provides a good example of how archaeologists can escape the paradigm within which they are working to generate an objective and unbiased interpretation of archaeological data.
D) was most likely influenced by Freudian psychology, which was popular at the time.

Question 8

The Upper Paleolithic, the last major division of the Old World Paleolithic, dates to:

A) 10,000 BC to present.
B) 40,000-10,000 BC.
C) 90,000-10,000 BC.
D) None of the answers are correct; the temporal divisions of the Old World Upper Paleolithic vary dramatically in different regions of the Old World.

Question 9

Which of the following is true of cognitive archaeology?

A) It is appealing to cultural materialists who are less concerned with interpreting symbolic relationships than with reconstructing the material conditions of life.
B) It is the study of all those aspects of ancient culture that are a product of the human mind.
C) It is based more in the processual than in the postprocessual paradigm.
D) Hypotheses generated within cognitive archaeology cannot be tested, and are therefore unscientific.

Question 10

A society's mechanism for relating supernatural phenomena to the everyday world, and enlisting supernatural powers to achieve or prevent transformations of state in humans and nature, is:

A) religion.
B) ritual.
C) cosmology.
D) sympathetic magic.

Question 11

Lewis-Williams has argued that much of the world's rock art is the result of shamanism. What is the basis for his argument?

A) He is operating within the paradigm of structuralism, which frequently explains human behavior as a response to culturally dictated supernatural needs.
B) He interprets the symbols depicted in rock art as representing shamans contacting the spirit world; thus the explanation for rock art lies within the rock art itself.
C) Cross-cultural psychological and neurological research showing that individuals in a trance go through three universal stages of hallucination; rock art records these stages.
D) There is no real basis for his argument; he arrived at his conclusions without the necessary data to support them and therefore demonstrates the dangers inherent in cognitive archaeological approaches.

Question 12

The analysis of past ritual behavior is archaeology's major contribution to the study of religion because:

A) while all prehistoric cultures participated in ritual activities, many prehistoric cultures did not have religion.
B) rituals are behavioral acts that often entail material culture and that therefore can be represented in the archaeological record.
C) most archaeologists agree that prehistoric religion cannot be studied because it is archaeologically invisible; it is therefore a waste of time, energy, and money to attempt such a study.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 13

Why do many archaeologists feel that oral traditions are not as reliable a source of information as archaeological data?

A) Oral traditions can change over time; the older the events described, the more likely that elements were dropped or added.
B) Oral traditions can be selective in what they remember, altering the nature or sequence of events over time to suit particular political needs.
C) Oral traditions often encode cultural and religious knowledge that is not rooted in the material world, and that therefore cannot be scientifically evaluated.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 14

The occurrence of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe is marked by the appearance of:

A) a complex technology of stone, bone, and antler as well as art.
B) animal domestication.
C) agriculture.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 15

What is Lascaux II?

A) The only part of Lascaux cave that is currently open to the public.
B) A recently discovered passage leading away from the main chambers at Lascaux, and into an additional chamber complex also containing Upper Paleolithic cave art.
C) Another cave containing Upper Paleolithic cave art, located only 200 meters from Lascaux, found decades after the initial discovery of Lascaux.
D) A very precise replica of the Hall of Bulls from the real Lascaux, constructed by the French government to limit visitation and reduce damage to the real Lascaux.

Question 16

The difference between a symbol and a sign is:

A) a symbol has connection to what it signifies, while a sign does not.
B) a sign has a connection to what it signifies, while a symbol does not.
C) symbol is an archaeological term that refers to prehistoric behavior, while sign is an ethnographic term that refers to the behavior of living people.
D) there is no difference between them; symbol and sign are terms that are use interchangeably.

Question 17

The earliest evidence of artistic expression occurs years ago, but becomes widespread only years ago.

A) 40,000/10,000
B) 90,000/40,000
C) 200,000/90,000
D) 500,000/200,000

Question 18

A ritual in which an individual seeks visions through starvation, dehydration, and exposure, used in some cultures to communicate with the supernatural world, is:

A) a vision quest.
B) shamanism.
C) totemism.
D) sympathetic magic.

Question 19

Which of the following is true of symbols and symbolic behavior?

A) The ability to use symbols lies at the heart of what it means to be human; uniquely human attributes, such as language, are made possible by the ability to use symbols.
B) Symbols have no necessary connection to their culturally assigned meanings; this means that the same symbols can differ in meaning cross-culturally, and that symbolic behavior is difficult to study archaeologically.
C) The same symbol can carry different meanings in different contexts within the same culture.
D) All of the answers are correct.

Question 20

The paradigm that holds that human culture is the expression of unconscious modes of thought and reasoning, notably binary opposition, is:

A) processualism.
B) postprocessualism.
C) structuralism.
D) materialism.

Question 21

Lascaux cave in southern France is perhaps the most famous of all European caves, containing many chambers and passageways with magnificent cave paintings and dating to 17,000 years ago; in order to preserve the cave and the artwork within it, it is now closed to regular public visitation.

Question 22

A social institution containing a set of beliefs about supernatural beings and forces and one's relation to them is termed

A) ritual.
B) iconography.
C) religion.
D) kinship.

Question 23

How has Lewis-Williams explained the cave paintings at Lascaux?

A) The paintings represented totems, from which lineages or clans believed themselves to be descended.
B) The paintings were left by hunters seeking to mark the territory as their own, and provided a sign to other hunters that they were not welcome.
C) The paintings had no real symbolic meaning, and were essentially "art-for-art's sake," appreciated for its aesthetic value but containing little cultural meaning.
D) The paintings are related to altered states of consciousness, and ultimately represent Upper Paleolithic people pondering the meaning of life.

Question 24

Ramililisonina first believed that the stones at Stonehedge were used to

A) honor the gods.
B) commemorate the dead.
C) establish territorial boundaries.
D) protect the vulnerable.

Question 25

Any archaeology of the mind will have more than flavor because such an approach will necessarily address recovering meanings (rather than law-like statements or generalizations about human behavior.

A) postprocessual/processual
B) processual/postprocessual
C) objective reasoning/subjective reasoning
D) subjective reasoning/objective reasoning

Question 26

How was Lascaux cave discovered?

A) Accidentally, by schoolboys and a lost dog.
B) Through systematic survey of the Dordogne region of southern France, in search of caves with the potential for Upper Paleolithic art.
C) By the landowner, who fell into a shallow pit and discovered cold air rising from a hole in the pit's bottom.
D) By an avocational archaeologist who happened to be hiking in the region, and discovered artifacts near the cave's opening.

Question 27

Using some historical or ethnographic information, as burger and Miller did with Chavin art, is the most secure way to go from to .

A) meanings/symbols
B) symbols/meanings
C) totem/religion
D) religion/totem

Question 28

Upper Paleolithic cave art in France and Spain reached its height during the Magdalenian, the last major culture of the European Upper Paleolithic period, dating to between 16,000 and 10,000 BC.

Question 29

Rituals in which doing something to an images of an object produces the desired effect in the real object are called

A) structuralism.
B) totems.
C) sympathetic magic.
D) religion.

Question 30

The study of the origin, large-scale structure, and future of the universe is termed

A) ritual.
B) religion.
C) iconography.
D) cosmology.

Question 31

Modern cognitive archaeology aims to do all of the following except:

A) study the perception, description and classification of the universe.
B) make interpretations about past cultures when there is no ethnographic data available.
C) understand past religions.
D) study a culture's expression of abstract ideas in art and writing systems.

Question 32

Many researchers argue that cognitive archaeology will be most successful when historical and ethnographic documentation is unavailable, because with the use of such data, the archaeologists' creativity and imagination are limited.

Question 33

Upper Paleolithic cave art is often found in very obscure and difficult to access places such as the deepest recesses of caves, strongly suggesting a connection between the art and religious ritual.

Question 34

Which of the following was NOT part of Dorset Culture?

A) Hunting seals
B) A hunter-gatherer lifestyle
C) Subsistence farming
D) Ivory carvings

Question 35

Why may Dorset Culture have vanished?

A) Disappearance of seals
B) Cooling temperatures
C) Loss of boating skills
D) Warming temperatures

Question 36

According to the text, which of the following is not a way an individual seeks visions on a vision quest?

A) Starvation
B) Dehydration
C) Exposure
D) Totems

Question 37

All living cultures have some form of religion, and we assume that prehistoric cultures did as well.

Question 38

One possible purpose of a Neolithic Henge was used to

A) protect from invaders.
B) keep something inside.
C) store food supplies.
D) participate in enclosed games.

Question 39

Most archaeologists would agree that recent advances in archaeological methods and analytic techniques have made the study of prehistoric symbolic behavior as straightforward as the study of prehistoric subsistence strategies and technology.

Question 40

Leroi-Gourhan's maps of 66 French caves suggests that cave elements clustered into four major sets of images that do not include

A) small herbivores.
B) rare species.
C) dangerous animals.
D) domesticated animals.

Question 41

Beneath many of the cave paintings at Lascaux there is abundant room for groups of people to have gathered and participated in rituals; the common occurrence of dense artifact scatters and hearth features in this location strongly suggests that they did so.

Question 42

Dorset peoples may have learned some hunting techniques from polar bears.

Question 43

Studying ancient modes of thought requires the interpretation of symbols, objects, or acts that by cultural convention stand for something else with which they have no necessary connection.

Question 44

Stonehenge was a place of sanctuary from invaders.

Question 45

Lewis-Williams suggests that vision quests may have been held in the deepest cave spaces.