Deck 8: The First Farmers 

Question 1

Which of the following was NOT domesticated in China?

A) dogs
B) millet
C) cattle
D) cassava
E) rice

Answer 1

cassava

Question 2

Three key caloric staples and major sources of carbohydrates were domesticated by Native American farmers. These were

A) corn, squash, and potatoes.
B) wheat, maize, and cassava.
C) maize, teosinte, and peanuts.
D) maize, white potatoes, and manioc.
E) corn, beans, and potatoes.

Answer 2

maize, white potatoes, and manioc.

Question 3

Where did the earliest domestication of animals and plants in the Middle East occur?

A) in desert oases
B) in the area where wild forms of wheat and barley grew
C) in the marginal zones next to the hilly flanks
D) in the Fertile Crescent, where the world's first civilization emerged
E) along the banks of the Nile

Answer 3

in the marginal zones next to the hilly flanks

Question 4

The broad-spectrum revolution in Europe included the late Upper Paleolithic and the Mesolithic, which followed it. What tool type characterized the Mesolithic?

A) blade
B) spear
C) axe
D) microlith
E) core

Question 5

Which of the following is NOT one of the areas where food production was independently invented?

A) northern and southern China
B) sub-Saharan Africa
C) the Middle East
D) the eastern United States
E) the Indus Valley

Question 6

What is the name given to the cultural period in which the first signs of domestication were present?

A) Upper Paleolithic
B) Microlithic
C) Neolithic
D) Chalcolithic
E) Mesolithic

Question 7

What is a vertical economy?

A) one of the types of segmentary lineage organization found in regions of East Africa
B) a system of top-down exchange across regions
C) a means of integrating a society based on hereditary inequality and coercion
D) a system that exploits environmental zones that contrast with one another in altitude, rainfall, overall climate, and vegetation
E) a form of indirect-biased transmission

Question 8

In the Middle East, early cultivation began as an attempt to copy, in a less favorable environment, the dense stands of wheat and barley that grew wild in the hilly flanks. All of the following either motivated or facilitated this attempt EXCEPT

A) living in marginal areas most affected by climatic changes.
B) human inventiveness and experimentation that occurred in the optimal zones, such as the hilly flanks.
C) the existence of a vertical economy.
D) population growth.
E) climatic changes that reduced the available amount of wild wheat and barley.

Question 9

The domestication of the dog

A) ensured, worldwide, that all early states had strong enough animals to help plow fields.
B) likely occurred in two phases, the first beginning in China.
C) occurred only in the Eastern Hemisphere.
D) occurred only after a key mutation that turned dogs into more docile creatures.
E) illustrates the strong human-animal bond that was an important adaptation during the time of early hominin evolution.

Question 10

Middle Eastern food production arose in the context of four environmental zones. From highest altitude to lowest, they are

A) Zagros, piedmont steppe, hilly flanks, and alluvial plains.
B) high zone, middle-high zone, middle-low zone, and low zone.
C) high plateau, Natufian fields, Mesopotamia, and alluvial desert (the area watered by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers).
D) Ali Kosh, high plateau, Mesopotamia, and piedmont steppe.
E) high plateau, hilly flanks, piedmont steppe, and alluvial desert (the area watered by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers).

Question 11

The path from foraging to food production was one that people followed independently in at least seven world areas. New archaeological research techniques continue to overturn previously held assumptions about where and how this occurred. Microscopic evidence from early cultivated plants suggests that

A) farming in the South American tropical lowlands preceded domestication in the Middle East by some 5,000 years.
B) New World farming began in the lowlands of South America and then spread to Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean islands.
C) maize was first domesticated in the Pacific islands and brought to the Americas by colonizers who navigated to the western coasts of South America.
D) all early domesticates originated among the Clovis people, whose knowledge then diffused southward.
E) the old assumption that New World farming originated in the upland areas is correct.

Question 12

Which of the following statements about sheep is true?

A) Wild sheep have a larger range of habitat than domesticated sheep.
B) Wild sheep produce more wool than domesticated sheep.
C) Woolly sheep are the product of natural selection.
D) The domestic sheep's wool offers it protection against extreme heat.
E) Wool from wild sheep is better for making clothing.

Question 13

Which of the following conditions did NOT contribute to the development of food production in the Middle East?

A) the shift to a broad-spectrum subsistence pattern at the end of the Upper Paleolithic
B) population increase, leading people to try planting grasses in new ecological niches
C) the diffusion of domesticated animal species from southern Europe
D) favorable changes in cultivated grains through artificial selection
E) the availability of annual grasses with edible grains

Question 14

With domestication, the husk that encloses the edible portion of wild cereals became

A) tougher.
B) thicker.
C) darker.
D) more brittle.
E) None of these answers is correct. Wild cereals do not have husks.

Question 15

The foundations of the state-a social and political unit featuring a central government, extreme contrasts of wealth, and social classes-emerged

A) in the alluvial desert plain of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, where a new economy based on irrigation and trade fueled the growth of this entirely new form of society.
B) against the will of the people, who correctly foresaw the many ills this new form of society would bring upon them.
C) below the intersection of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, where the abundance of water helped keep a complex irrigation system working.
D) in the hilly flanks, because that was the area that could best sustain a growing population.
E) out of an attempt to copy, on a larger scale, the lifestyle that early sedentism offered its members prior to the sudden population growth caused by food production.

Question 16

Where do scholars believe food production first began in the Middle East?

A) hilly flanks
B) alluvial desert
C) desert oases
D) high plateau
E) marginal zones

Question 17

What is sedentism?

A) transhumance
B) living off domestic species
C) living off wild species
D) a capitalist-based exchange
E) life in permanent villages

Question 18

When did sedentary life develop in the Middle East?

A) at the same time that farming and herding developed
B) after herding, but before farming
C) after farming and herding
D) after farming, but before herding
E) before farming and herding

Question 19

The Natufians' ability to exploit their rich local environment with broad-spectrum foraging made it possible for them to

A) establish the foundations of a complex state even prior to boosting food production.
B) incorporate roaming herding groups into their sedentary communities.
C) live in year-round villages prior to the emergence of domestication.
D) experiment with agricultural techniques that would eventually lead to increased food production and a truly sedentary lifestyle.
E) have a nutritious diet with staples ranging from millet to manioc.

Question 20

Which of the following was NOT domesticated in the eastern United States?

A) corn
B) marsh elder
C) squash
D) sunflower
E) goosefoot

Question 21

Which of the following was a consequence of domestication?

A) Humans had to work less than before to acquire food.
B) There was an increase in dietary diversity.
C) There was a decline in disease.
D) Sedentary life became more widespread.
E) There was a gradual decrease in population size.

Question 22

Which of the following is true?

A) Food production led to an increase in social inequality.
B) Food production allowed most people to work less.
C) Food production yielded more nutritious diets.
D) Food-producing societies are more egalitarian than foraging societies.
E) Food production reduced warfare.

Question 23

With domestication, plants developed thicker husks.

Question 24

Unlike the pattern in the Old World, plant domestication in the New World

A) involved no food plants, but instead was used to increase the production of utilitarian plants such as bottle gourds and hemp.
B) was apparently not necessary for the development of states such as Teotihuacán.
C) occurred before the rise of the first sedentary communities.
D) occurred after the rise of the first sedentary communities.
E) was begun but then abandoned before there was a chance for societies to develop into states.

Question 25

In the Middle East, as subsistence economies became more specialized and more dependent on domesticated species, population centers began to emerge that had temples, writing, and canals for irrigating fields.

Question 26

Nabta Playa was an important center for prehistoric herders in southern Egypt.

Question 27

A vertical economy exploits environmental zones that are close together in space but are separated by altitude, rainfall, overall climate, and vegetation.

Question 28

Contrary to the old assumption that New World farming originated in the upland areas, recent research suggests that

A) the upland communities borrowed farming techniques from their lowland neighbors.
B) all food staples except maize were domesticated in the tropical lowlands.
C) farming originated in the coastal lowlands of Argentina and then diffused upward.
D) all food staples except teosinte were domesticated in the South American jungle.
E) farming first originated in the tropical lowlands at about the same time food production arose in the Middle East-around 10,000 years ago-and that these new techniques developed in the tropics and then diffused into drier regions at higher elevations.

Question 29

Which of the following is a benefit of farming?

A) better health
B) greater predictability of staple species
C) fewer diseases
D) less work
E) a broader diet

Question 30

Most researchers today argue that the domestication of plants in the Middle East took place in the hilly flanks regions where wild plant ancestors naturally grew.

Question 31

Anthropologists once thought that domestication would happen almost automatically once people gained sufficient knowledge of plants and animals and their reproductive habits to figure out how to make domestication work. They now know that

A) they were correct, thanks to recently uncovered evidence in Chile.
B) aside from this knowledge, domestication requires the invention of the wheel.
C) aside from this knowledge, an emerging state is necessary for domestication to occur.
D) some other trigger is needed to start and sustain the process of domestication.
E) the will to overcome a lazy lifestyle is even more important than such knowledge.

Question 32

Food production was a critical step toward the broad-spectrum revolution.

Question 33

Around 8000 B.P., communities on Europe's Mediterranean shores started to export species to the Middle East.

Question 34

Which of the following is a key difference between the food-producing traditions of Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica that helps us understand the subsequent histories in the two regions?

A) Food production occurred as a gradual process in Mesoamerica but was revolutionary in Mesopotamia.
B) Food production emerged in Mesoamerica thousands of years prior to when it did in Mesopotamia.
C) Large domesticated animals played an important role in Mesopotamia but were absent from Mesoamerica.
D) In Mesoamerica, goats, sheep, and pigs were domesticated, but in Mesopotamia only dogs were domesticated.
E) Maize was the staple grain in Mesopotamia, whereas the primary grain in Mesoamerica was wheat.

Question 35

Compared to those of wild plants, the seeds of domesticated plants are larger and less likely to shatter and disperse.

Question 36

What is the name of the wild ancestor of maize?

A) cavia
B) teosinte
C) guajalote
D) elote
E) corn

Question 37

Early cultivation began as an attempt to copy, in a less favorable environment, the dense stands of wheat and barley that grew wild in the hilly flanks.

Question 38

In the Middle East, sedentism developed before plants and animals were domesticated.

Question 39

Rice was domesticated in southern China.

Question 40

Where were beans domesticated?

A) Mexico
B) New England
C) Patagonia
D) the U.S. Southwest
E) Beringia

Question 41

In the New World, sedentism occurred before domestication.

Question 42

With a more reliable food source, the early food producers were considerably healthier than the hunter-gatherers.

Question 43

There were at least three independent centers of domestication in the New World.

Question 44

Agricultural intensification enabled people to farm for only part of the year, then leave the cities to live away from the problems endemic to urban populations for the rest of the year.

Question 45

The domesticated millet that appeared in China around 7500 B.P. was first domesticated in sub-Saharan Africa by about 8000 B.P., then diffused to China through long-distance trade networks.

Question 46

Unlike the centers of domestication in the Old World, very few animals were ever domesticated in the New World.

Question 47

The geography of the Old World facilitated the diffusion of plants, animals, technology, and information.

Question 48

Food production is more labor intensive than foraging.

Question 49

Corn, beans, and squash were the major crops to be domesticated in Mexico.

Question 50

Wheels fueled the growth of transport, trade, and travel in the Old World thousands of years after the origin of food production.

Question 51

Recent research using microscopic evidence suggests that farming in the tropical lowlands of Central and South America began at around the same time that food production arose in the Middle East.

Question 52

China was host to three different centers of domestication: one in the north, one in the south, and one on the eastern coast.

Question 53

The domestication of plants and animals for food independently occurred in both the Old World and the Americas approximately 11,000 years ago.