Deck 11: The Earliest Farmers

Question 1

Food production is a phenomenon of

A)the last 100,000 years.
B)the last 12,000 years.
C)99 percent of human existence.
D)the last millennia.

Answer 1

the last 12,000 years.

Question 2

Which of the following dating to 10,500 B.C. is said to have had its walls collapsed by the blast of trumpets?

A)Jarmo
B)Jericho
C)Netiv Hagdud
D)Abu Hureyra

Answer 2

Jericho

Question 3

In 10,000 B.C. nearly everyone in the world lived by hunting and gathering. By when did most people become farmers or herders?

A)A.D. 1
B)1000 B.C.
C)A.D. 1000
D)none of these is correct

Answer 3

A.D. 1

Question 4

The earliest known farmers in the world lived in

A)southwestern Asia.
B)northeastern Asia.
C)the Nile Valley.
D)Iran.

Question 5

Where did farming begin in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey)?

A)we don't know
B)Urfa
C)the Euphrates valley
D)the Jordan valley

Question 6

One of the earliest plants to be domesticated in the northern parts of Southeast Asia and southern China was

A)wheat.
B)rice.
C)corn.
D)barley.

Question 7

The best-known early European farming culture, which is named after its distinctive line-decorated pottery, is the

A)Bandkeramik complex.
B)Cayönü.
C)Göbekli Tepe
D)Göbekli Tepe.

Question 8

Briefly explain how agriculture spread around the world. Describe the major consequences of this development immediately after.

Question 9

Explain why Melanesia and Polynesia in the Pacific were relatively late to be settled. What technological advances were necessary before these areas could be settled? How did this late arrival likely affect eventual agriculture?

Question 10

Discuss how agriculture was "invented." Was this a major insight or just the application of knowledge long known? Explain your response.

Question 11

Discuss evidence to suggest that Vere Gordon Childe's idea of an agricultural revolution is too simplistic.

Question 12

Which technology of the last 50 years revolutionized the chronology and study of early food production?

A)accelerator mass spectrometry
B)flotation
C)dendrochronology
D)palynology

Question 13

In which region do we see the most pronounced changes in forager societies in the Stone Age?

A)the Americas
B)southeastern Asia
C)Europe
D)Polynesia

Question 14

Canoes voyaged from island to island bringing plants and domesticated animals of their homelands with them, reaching Hawaii around

A)A.D. 1280
B)2000 B.C.
C)A.D. 1035
D)A.D. 1219

Question 15

Some 15,000 years ago, the great ice sheets began to retreat, ushering in postglacial times that are often called the

A)Holocene.
B)late-Pleistocene.
C)Miocene.
D)Oligocene.

Question 16

How many years did it take after the retreat of the Scandinavian ice sheet before forests covered much of Europe?

A)1000
B)3000
C)5000
D)7000

Question 17

All of the following were general conditions necessary for a complex forager society to develop EXCEPT

A)population movements limited by either geography or the presence of other people.
B)abundant resources that were predictable in their seasonal appearance.
C)population growth that resulted in an imbalance between people and their food supplies.
D)the reduction of local animal species because of climatic changes or overhunting.

Question 18

Agriculture was not "invented" by a single society; its importance lies in the fact that agriculture was

A)the catalyst for cultural developments in later millennia.
B)the reason why populations shifted from place to place over time.
C)the cause of a sudden and sustained spike in population in the Holocene.
D)none of these is correct

Question 19

The rise of agriculture led to which of the following?

A)a more settled way of life
B)long-occupied villages
C)more substantial housing
D)all of these are correct

Question 20

Agriculture in which farmers clear land by burning off native vegetation, plant crops, and then move on to new plots when the land loses its fertility after several years is called

A)crop rotation.
B)swidden agriculture.
C)organic farming.
D)subsistence farming.

Question 21

The Diaotonghuan and Xianrendong caves in the lower Yangtse valley in China document rice cultivation by about

A)1000 B.C.
B)2000 B.C.
C)4000 B.C.
D)6000 B.C.

Question 22

Wild cereal grasses were important in the human diet from at least

A)15,000 years ago.
B)8,000 years ago.
C)3,000 years ago.
D)2,000 years ago.

Question 23

Which of these was a widespread farming culture in the Huang Ho valley of northern China after 5000 B.C.?

A)Yangshao
B)Bashidang
C)Pengtoushan
D)Diaotonghuan

Question 24

According to one authority, what percentage of African soil is moderately fertile enough to support gardens?

A)0.05
B)0.1
C)0.4
D)0.9

Question 25

Discuss how the technological developments that resulted from increased agriculture likely led to warfare. Name three other important cultural developments that resulted from agriculture that were less destructive.