Exam 4: Explaining the Past

What sort of archaeology covers the whole spectrum of human behavior, especially religion and belief, and also the development and expression of human consciousness?

To be effective, cognitive archaeology depends on rigorous research methods; for that reason, it can be used only when the body of supporting data is rich. Flannery and Marcus state that the approach becomes "little more than speculation, a kind of bungee jump into the Land of

Many archaeologists support an ecological/evolutionary approach to explaining the past. This approach, sometimes called _____________, is based on deductive research methodology that employs research design, formulation of explicit research hypotheses, and testing of these against basic data.

What is needed in large quantities to identify invention, diffusion, or migration in the archaeological record?

The major contributions that the historical materialist (postprocessual) approaches have made to archaeological science include all of the following EXCEPT

Which is a branching, cumulative process that results from cultural adaptations over long periods?

Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of ancient human skeletons from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the Pacific has also shown that the ultimate origins of the Easter Islanders are in Polynesia, for this remote landmass had been colonized from which islands by A.D. 1200?

Cognitive archaeology covers all of the human past, but it can be divided into two broad areas of concern: (1) the study of the cognitive facilities of early hominins and archaic humans, the relationships between toolmaking and cognitive abilities, the origins of language, and the social contexts of early human behavior; and (2) the major developments of the past 40,000 years-the cognitive aspects of the origins of food production and civilization. Explain why it is important to look at the past in this way and not just from a cultural ecological approach.

Explain in what way mtDNA acts as a "clock." How is this concept used in anthropology and archaeology?

In interacting with their culture, the major difference in approach between archaeologists using an ecological/evolutionary approach to the past and archaeologists who are concerned with symbolic meaning, structure, and the rules that once governed society argues that people act like

Which constraints include knowledge, beliefs, values, and other culturally conditioned habits; all of these are different in each culture.?

As archaeology becomes more multidisciplinary; it will likely leave behind tools and approaches such as

In archaeology, which of the following is the notion that the past was inhabited by people rather than by anonymous "cultures"?

The archaeology of today is built on

In the 1960s and 1970s, archaeologists were talking about which sort of archaeology that promised to overcome the many limitations of the archaeological record?

The spread of ideas, over short or long distances, is termed

Culture historians use four descriptive models to characterize culture change: inevitable variation, invention, diffusion, and migration. Define each model, and describe how it meshes with the other three.

MtDNA is passed from mothers to offspring and is inherited through which line?

Which is the creation or evolution of a new idea.?

Reciprocity implies a relationship in which