Deck 7: Explaining the Past

Question 1

The primary objects of interest to a culture historian are

A)artifacts and structures.
B)artifacts and art.
C)burial sites and art.
D)burial sites and architecture.

Answer 1

artifacts and structures.

Question 2

Various, often short-lived schools of archaeological thought focusing on the roles of people and their involvement in cultural change and other nonenvironmental aspects of culture change is known as

A)postprocessual archaeology.
B)cultural natural selection.
C)multilinear cultural evolution.
D)cognitive archaeology.

Answer 2

postprocessual archaeology.

Question 3

Flannery and Marcus applied which approach to discover an ideological shift that rationalized social inequality throughout Zapotec domains?

A)palynology
B)cultural ecology
C)cognitive-processual archaeology
D)postprocessual archaeology

Answer 3

cognitive-processual archaeology

Question 4

Guilá Naquitz Cave in Mexico's Valley of Oaxaca, which was sporadically occupied by hunter-gathers over the span of a few thousand years, is important because of a study on

A)pottery.
B)bean and squash cultivation.
C)bone divination.
D)early goat herding.

Question 5

The Shoshone people of the Great Basin in the western United States are famous for their

A)mobility.
B)pottery.
C)bean and squash cultivation.
D)bone divination.

Question 6

Researchers have re-created an Iron Age settlement in Butser, England, as a way to experiment with prehistoric

A)farming methods.
B)tool technology.
C)ranching methods.
D)weapons technology.

Question 7

Lewis Binford's study of caribou hunting among the Nunamiut people of Alaska is an example of

A)ethnoarchaeology.
B)ethnographic analogy.
C)functionalism.
D)palynology.

Question 8

Explain how Swedish botanist Lennart von Post used fossilized pollen to change the way archaeology is done.

Question 9

Name and describe the four broad steps for constructing culture history. Discuss how these steps build on one another to produce a synthesis of the past.

Question 10

Discuss the discoveries at Waka, Guatemala. What is known about the two remains found? How does this information expand our understanding of Maya culture? What else do researchers hope to discover at the site?

Question 11

Define the following terms: component, phase, region, culture area, horizon, and tradition. How are they related?

Question 12

Archaeologists describe cultural evolution along diverse tracks â€' which is often conceptualized as a bush â€' as

A)cultural natural selection.
B)postprocessual archaeology.
C)multilinear cultural evolution.
D)cognitive archaeology.

Question 13

Processual archaeology involves all of the following elements EXCEPT

A)general systems theory.
B)cultural ecology.
C)multilinear cultural evolution.
D)cognitive archaeology.

Question 14

Developing and testing hypotheses, performing cumulative research, and engaging in replicable experimentation is termed

A)the scientific method.
B)inductive reasoning.
C)deductive reasoning.
D)experimental archaeology.

Question 15

Culture history is based on the fundamental principles of

A)horizons and inevitable variation.
B)descriptive research methods and a normative view of culture.
C)identification of a research area and site survey.
D)artifact analysis and synthesis.

Question 16

Archaeological geographic areas of research in which general cultural homogeneity is evidenced are called

A)culture areas.
B)regions.
C)components.
D)horizons.

Question 17

Which of the following can be explained in similar terms as natural selection in biological evolution?

A)cultural selection
B)survival of the fittest
C)diffusion
D)social adaptation

Question 18

The process by which new ideas or cultural traits spread from person to person, group to group, or over long distances, is called

A)cultural selection.
B)invention.
C)diffusion.
D)social adaption.

Question 19

Thor Heyerdahl's research that included sailing a balsa raft from Peru to Polynesia offers evidence to indicate

A)that Peruvians colonized Polynesia in prehistoric times.
B)nothing; few people accept Heyerdahl's conclusions.
C)a causal link between migration and the phases of the archaeological record that indicate a change in culture.
D)an ocean journey across the eastern Pacific was not possible using an ancient Andean raft.

Question 20

Carefully excavated sites to document the process of colonization indicate that the voyagers who colonized Tahiti and Hawaii did so as

A)deliberate exploration.
B)a prelude to aggression.
C)a way to integrate themselves into a new culture.
D)to escape from religious persecution.

Question 21

A process of reasoning in which some shared similarities are used to assume other shared similarities is termed

A)tradition.
B)analogy.
C)cultural selection.
D)ethnoarchaeology.

Question 22

The school of thought in archaeology that argues that cultures are integrated in various ways that influence each other in reasonably predictable ways is called

A)functionalism.
B)analogy.
C)inductive reasoning.
D)deductive reasoning.

Question 23

A researcher living in Tanzania in order to study the people who still live by hunting and gathering there is performing

A)experimental archaeology.
B)a descriptive method.
C)ethnoarchaeology.
D)processual archaeology.

Question 24

Instead of thinking of change in the past as a simple, linear process, modern archaeologists view change in terms of

A)increasing complexity.
B)cultural selection.
C)general systems theory.
D)cultural ecology.

Question 25

Define general systems theory. Why is this construct appealing to archaeologists? Discuss an example of how the systems perspective provides a conceptual framework for looking at ancient sites and settlements.