Deck 10: Neolithic Revolutions: Modifying the Environment to Satisfy Human Demands

Question 1

Domestication is the process of

A) growing and raising non-indigenous plants for domestic consumption
B) finding areas that are suitable for either agricultural or pastoral use by humans
C) changing a wild plant or animal into something that can be controlled and used by humans
D) settling in or migrating into environments that can be fully controlled through human activity

Answer 1

C

Question 2

What method establishes the date or period of an organic artifact or feature from the relative proportions of radioactive carbon to non­radioactive isotopes?

A) Carbon-1 dating
B) Isotopic dating
C) Proteo-dating
D) Carbon-14 dating

Answer 2

D

Question 3

One of the defining hypotheses about hunter-gatherer societies that changed after the "Man the Hunter" conference is that

A) women did most of the hunting in hunter-gatherer societies
B) sexual dimorphism meant that men had to do all the hunting
C) hunting was not the defining feature of hunter-gatherer societies
D) hunting provided more than 60% of the total caloric intake in hunter-gatherer societies

Answer 3

C

Question 4

The generalized foraging model holds that all the following are true except

A) the creation of food storage sites in a territory
B) an unwillingness to defend territory
C) an intentional effort to keep birth rates below carrying capacity
D) the maintenance of material equality

Question 5

The importance of Marshall Sahlins' analysis of hunter-gatherer societies was to note the existence of

A) a shorter work week that could benefit industrial societies
B) an ability to grow food without advanced agricultural methods
C) an entirely different cultural logic about their lives and the environment
D) population control methods that were easy to implement in developing areas

Question 6

In analyzing the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural society, Esther Boserup examined the relationship between

A) population growth and food types consumed
B) population growth and war practices
C) the types of food cultivated and war practices
D) population growth and food production

Question 7

One theory about the relationship between global warming and the shift from foraging to food production holds that

A) the warming that followed the last ice age left wide swaths of highly fertile land
B) the warming that took place after the last ice age made the environment more habitable
C) the time after the last ice age allowed new types of plants to flourish and become cultigens
D) the gradual warming after the last ice age allowed humans to domesticate animals easily

Question 8

What is the significance of tubers as a very early cultigen in the New Guinea Highlands?

A) it proves that early humans were successfully living in New Guinea
B) it demonstrates that trade networks existed long before the appearance of agricultural techniques
C) it shows us that early cultigens can be something other than grains
D) it provides evidence of the health of the New Guinea Highlands population today

Question 9

Which of the following is NOT a feature of the generalized foraging model?

A) egalitarianism
B) low population density
C) constant flux in band composition
D) unquestioned obedience to the leadership of the band's headman by members of the band

Question 10

The practice of pastoralism involves

A) an increase in sedentary lifestyles due to the domestication of animals
B) movement of domesticated herding animals to a different pasture area
C) the breeding, care, and use of domesticated herding animals
D) the careful development of pasture areas suitable for winterization of domestic herds

Question 11

What material would be most suitable for Carbon-14 dating?

A) bone fragments
B) porcelain
C) gold
D) all of the above

Question 12

The effects of sedentism and population growth on populations can also be seen in the presence of

A) epidemic diseases
B) microbial population changes
C) invasive species
D) animal pathogens

Question 13

The "shift" in the primary mode of subsistence that resulted in agricultural production was called the __________.

Question 14

Egalitarianism is a significant part of the __________ model.

Question 15

For Robert Malthus, societies with small populations were limited by __________.

Question 16

The need to keep pace with your neighbors and maintain alliances as a reason for the rapid spread of cultivation in New Guinea was dubbed the __________.

Question 17

The moving of animal herds to different places in accordance with seasonal changes is called __________.

Question 18

The amount of __________ in a piece of organic material always declines over time, and always at the same rate.

Question 19

The Neolithic Revolution happened only in the region we call the Middle East.

Question 20

Patrilocal bands are small groups where men control the hunting and territorial resources.

Question 21

One surprising discovery about hunter-gatherer lives was that they worked only a few hours a week.

Question 22

Cultigens became an integral part of human life almost simultaneously in different parts of the world.

Question 23

The shift to horticulture or simple farming typically increased the number of cultigens consumed by members of a community.

Question 24

One of the ways that peoples of Highland New Guinea stored their crops was by

A) careful management of storage techniques
B) developing extensive trade networks
C) feeding them to their herds of pigs
D) pioneering a unique method of underwater storage

Question 25

Early anthropologists considered the environments of hunter-gatherer societies to be harsh, and their methods of subsistence and technology to be simple, crude, and primitive, reinforcing

A) innate superiority of European lifeways
B) long-held cultural stereotypes
C) the importance of introducing better methods and technologies
D) the notion of civilization evolving over time

Question 26

In what ways were principles of natural selection involved in the increasing size of food grains like corn, wheat, and barley?

A) the fertilizer naturally favored the largest seeds
B) the key to improving grain size was weeding and increased sunlight
C) improvements to water supply from ditching, trenching, and irrigation enhanced the natural tendency of the largest grains to grow faster
D) natural selection was not involved because the processes involved humans selecting the best seeds

Question 27

One of the plausible reasons for the lack of surpluses in hunter-gatherer groups is that surpluses could deplete local resources. This argument is called

A) an optimal foraging strategy
B) a primary foraging strategy
C) an environmental foraging strategy
D) a generalized foraging strategy

Question 28

An important distinction between hunter-gatherers today and those of the past is

A) those of the past did not have access to advanced hunting technologies
B) the establishment and maintenance of their territories by nation-states
C) linkage to sedentary agricultural societies through trade and other social ties
D) current groups have come to depend on support from agricultural societies

Question 29

V. Gordon Childe understood the revolution brought by the rise of early agriculture involved all the following except

A) agriculture allowed people to control their food supply in ways that hunter-gatherers could not
B) agriculture allowed larger populations and population growth
C) increasing brain size among the population that was at the heart of the revolution
D) agriculture led to expanded social networks involving trade or exchange with neighboring communities.

Question 30

David Rindos argues that the shift to agriculture happened because both humans and plants began to

A) communicate
B) coevolve
C) increase their populations
D) overpopulate the region

Question 31

The importance of maize in archeology is that it

A) provides essential evidence about why the diets of early agricultural societies were so poor
B) offers a valuable window into the actual evolutionary process of the plants themselves
C) provides our best evidence about how humans and plants learned to coevolve
D) provides strong evidence that humans understood and cultivated plants

Question 32

The tending of the sago palm to increase the amount of starch in the tree is an example of

A) intentional agriculture
B) arboriculture
C) cultigen
D) domestication

Question 33

The application of pastoral practices leads to both an increase in population and

A) an increase in trade
B) an increase in migratory movements
C) an increase in social complexity
D) a simplification of social interactions

Question 34

The development of what might be called true agriculture-the use of fertilizers or elaborations of technology-was most likely due to

A) rapid expansion of trade networks
B) the development of money
C) the discovery of the wheel
D) an increased probability of shortages

Question 35

One of the reasons that today's agricultural dietary practices seemingly restrict the variety of food choices stems from the existence of

A) complex patterns of food taboos
B) food production techniques that promote a single type of edible food
C) control over the types of crops that can be planted by large corporations
D) capitalist practices that discourage or prohibit food varieties

Question 36

Esther Boserup argued that increases in __________ led people to work harder.

Question 37

__________ populations have extraordinary knowledge of their natural environment, even though they may not generally seek to domesticate plants and animals.

Question 38

One consequence of sedentism is that populations tend to grow, and people lose control over their lives as a consequence of __________.

Question 39

Sedentism and increased population growth leads to __________.

Question 40

It is possible to know the nutritional problems found in early humans using fossil evidence.

Question 41

Women in Arctic hunter-gatherer groups do not work as hard as men because there is no option to forage.

Question 42

It now seems very likely that the earliest human efforts to manipulate plants happened through the tending of useful trees.

Question 43

As the intensity of agricultural practices increases, the range of cultigens decreases.

Question 44

During the "Man the Hunter" conference, archaeologists and cultural anthropologists presented all sorts of evidence they had gathered about hunter-gatherers. Which of the following was not one of the conclusions of their collective assessments:

A) most hunter-gatherers relied much more heavily on game that was hunted by men than had been understood previously
B) most hunter-gatherer groups relied much more heavily on vegetable foods than had previously been thought
C) most hunter-gatherer groups relied much more heavily on the work of women than had been assumed
D) hunter-gatherer food-gathering activities was much more variable than had previously been assumed

Question 45

Not all sites and materials are suitable for Carbon-14 dating. At which of the following sites would Carbon-14 dating be most appropriate?

A) a site in Eastern Africa with Australopithecine remains, dated around 3 million years old
B) a site in the Mississippi Delta, dated around 10,000 years old, with the presence of many contemporary trees
C) a cave site in southern France, with many preserved cave paintings, dated around 36,000 years old
D) all of the above.

Question 46

Which of the following is NOT a reasonable account used to explain why humans started raising their own food by domesticating plants and animals?

A) by the end of the ice age, human brains were finally large enough and humans smart enough to learn that if they planted seeds they would grow
B) population pressure that came from gradually rising populations forced people to supplement hunting-and-gathering activities with simple food production
C) along the hilly flanks of the Mesopotamian River basin there were suitable plant species for cultivation, ideal climate conditions, and enough people to allow domestication of plants and animals to be a viable solution to food concerns
D) global warming that came with the end of the ice age made conditions in many regions warm and wet enough to allow plant cultivation

Question 47

Anthropologist Michael Heckenberger found evidence that human settlements had much larger populations in parts of the Amazon rainforest earlier than was previously believed. His research suggests which of the following:

A) unlike more customary understandings of Amazon-dwelling people, they have been cultivating the rainforest for much longer than previously assumed
B) unlike similar early farmers and even hunter-gatherers Amazonian people were engaged in wide-ranging trade networks
C) unlike what we previously assumed, these Amazonian people subsisted on far fewer calories than people do today
D) all of the above.

Question 48

Were you to visit the New Guinea Highlands, you might be offered a meal consisting of cooked pork and sweet potatoes, which demonstrates

A) an ignorance of advanced agricultural techniques
B) the limitations of small societies living in a precarious ecosystem
C) use of low-intensity agricultural practices that nevertheless can provide significant food resources
D) all of the above

Question 49

You are an archaeologist with a site in the African Rift Valley and you think that you have discovered evidence that dates from 150,000 years ago. What dating method would you use to further your investigations?

A) Carbon-14 dating of wood remains
B) analysis of the ethnographic record
C) close examination of plant and animal DNA
D) K-Ar dating of volcanic rock

Question 50

Why did environments like rainforests and deserts not support agriculture or pastoralism?

Question 51

Do today's hunter-gatherer societies provide a useful model for understanding our own past? How, or why not?

Question 52

How does the evidence that the Neolithic Revolution happened in a series of small revolutions over time suggest ways in which this change affected human lifeways?

Question 53

Archaeologist V. Gordon Childe's argued that early agriculture provided humans with "control over their own food supply." Why would this be a reason to shift from a comparatively "light" work week as foragers to a much longer one as farmers? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Question 54

The domestication of plants is not something that happened and came to a halt in distant prehistoric times; it continues today. Discuss this point in the context of modern corn, in particular the distribution, control, and genetic management of large-scale agricultural varieties. Does the refinement of a species through restriction (of how it can be replanted) or genetic modification (to boost productivity) constitute a form of "domestication?" Why or why not?

Question 55

How does the local food movement today tend to counter the changes brought about by the Neolithic Revolution?

Question 56

The shift from early hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies seems to have happened simultaneously in many different places on earth. Recognizing that different locations can have very different ecologies and thus very different types of plants, how might it have come about that this change could happen more or less simultaneously across the human species?

Question 57

One of the major points of the chapter is that humans and their domestication practices can result in a kind of coevolution. Consider the growth of the fast food industry as a food source. Does this industry offer a similar process of coevolution?

Question 58

The appearance of agriculture brought with it an increase in social complexity. Given what you now understand as culture, how did the growth of an agricultural lifeway change culture? Can you think of some examples that demonstrate the growth of culture as part of the expansion of agriculture?

Question 59

Why does the emergence of agriculture and the understanding of how it unfolded over time matter to us today? It's too late to go back-most of us would not even begin to understand how to shift into a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, even if it meant we'd be able to work fewer hours! How then does research into early plant domestication and pastoralism matter in how we live our lives today?