Deck 8: Networks of Communication and Exchange

Question 1

General Zhang Jian in 128 B.C.E. is credited with introducing which of the following to China?

A) Buddhism
B) Iron
C) African medicines
D) Alfalfa and wine grapes
E) Maize and squash

Answer 1

Alfalfa and wine grapes

Question 2

Which of the following is not an example of a characteristic shared by many Sub-Saharan African cultures?

A) Cultivation by hoe and digging stick.
B) Distinctive musical characteristics.
C) Concepts of kingship.
D) Fixed social categories.
E) A common language.

Answer 2

A common language.

Question 3

The agricultural area bordering the Sahara Desert is called the Sahel, which in Arabic literally means

A) "dry pastureland."
B) "the coast."
C) "almost-desert."
D) "prairie and plains."
E) "a lush paradise."

Answer 3

"the coast."

Question 4

The mariners involved in the Indian Ocean trade were

A) almost exclusively of Indian background.
B) a multilingual and multiethnic group.
C) from many lands, but all were Christian.
D) from Central Asia and spoke Indo-European languages.
E) all Africans from the sub-Saharan region.

Question 5

Most sub-Saharan languages come from one giant linguistic family, called

A) Sudanese-Zulu.
B) Swahili.
C) Semitic.
D) Niger-Kongo.
E) Bantu.

Question 6

One of the greatest promoters of Buddhism was

A) in the Tang dynasty of China.
B) King Ashoka of India.
C) Alexander the Great.
D) Emperor Darius of Persia.
E) Zuanzang of China.

Question 7

The most convincing evidence indicates that camels were introduced to the Sahara from

A) Arabia.
B) southern Europe.
C) India, via the Indian Ocean trade.
D) West Africa.
E) the Sahara itself; people used camels indigenous to the area.

Question 8

Pan-African cultural patterns may have been shaped by

A) environmental changes that inspired southern migration.
B) environmental changes that inspired northern migration.
C) political changes that inspired the destruction of kinship networks.
D) a period wherein the storm track moved south to Africa.
E) political unity imposed by Islam.

Question 9

Sailors in the Indian Ocean Maritime System engaged in more long- distance travel than the Greeks because

A) they could take advantage of monsoon winds to drive their ships.
B) the Greeks feared the water and rarely ventured far from home.
C) the Greeks had to have oarsmen to speed them along.
D) the Asian ships weren't nailed together and sank less often.
E) Greek ships used square sails, which weighed more.

Question 10

The Silk Road and Indian Ocean trade fostered the spread of which religion?

A) Judaism
B) Jainism
C) Hinduism
D) Christianity
E) Buddhism

Question 11

Which animal was most important to Saharan transportation beginning in the first millennium B.C.E.?

A) The camel
B) The donkey
C) The horse
D) The cow
E) The llama

Question 12

The Parthian Empir e was centered in the area that is

A) Ancient Phoenicia or modern Lebanon.
B) Egypt.
C) the Indus River area or modern Afghanistan.
D) the Ganges River area of India.
E) Ancient Persia or modern Iran.

Question 13

The need for which natural resource provided the incentive for sub-Saharan Africans to undertake trade?

A) Caffeine
B) Palm oil
C) Cotton
D) Salt
E) Figs

Question 14

The most important African network of cultural e xchange was

A) mainly internal folk migrations within sub-Saharan Africa.
B) the Indian Ocean network.
C) the trade across the Sahara.
D) the link with Islamic Arabia.
E) taking place only in North Africa.

Question 15

The primary eviden ce for ea rly Saharan history consists of

A) accounts by European travelers.
B) the diary of a wandering Islamic scholar.
C) rock paintings and engravings.
D) the oral histories of Saharan nomads.
E) histories written on papyrus.

Question 16

The homes of this nomadic people consisted of felt spread over a lightweight framework, which were transported on wagons drawn by oxen.

A) Huns
B) Parthians
C) Mongols
D) Scythians
E) Turks

Question 17

The Indian Ocean Maritime System forged economic and social ties among

A) Morocco, Arabia, and the Mediterranean Sea.
B) Russia, India, and China.
C) East Africa, Arabia, India, China, and Southeast Asia.
D) China, Japan, and the Philippines.
E) Greece, Anatolia, Arabia, and Persia.

Question 18

Which of the following does not constitute a shared cultural heritage, or "great tradition"?

A) Local customs and beliefs held by ordinary people.
B) A written language
C) Ethical codes
D) Cultural values held by educated elites.
E) Common legal systems.

Question 19

The early inhabitants of the East African island of Madagascar came from

A) the dense forests of Central Africa.
B) the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia.
C) the Indian subcontinent.
D) the islands of Southeast Asia.
E) Ethiopia and Arabia.

Question 20

Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam all spread

A) only within their own countries until the nineteenth century.
B) only to their neighboring countries.
C) without dependency on a single ethnic or kinship group.
D) predominantly by warfare as they battled other religions into submission.
E) most often by the use of missionaries, generally sponsored by the government.

Question 21

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
Parthians

Question 22

The cultural contacts that brought Christianity to Ethiopia emerged from

A) tensions at the frontier where the Silk Road and Mediterranean trade intersected.
B) the Bantu migration
C) Egyptian influence
D) the Indian Ocean Maritime System
E) trans-Saharan trade.

Question 23

The head of the Ethiopian Christian church is the

A) pope.
B) patriarch of Alexandria.
C) Ethiopian prime minister.
D) Episcopal Council.
E) College of Cardinals.

Question 24

What facilitated the spread of Christianity to Armenia?

A) The invention of an Armenian alphabet, which was important to reading the scripture
B) The creation of new Christian myths that included Armenian folklore
C) The excellent management of the Christian church
D) The prejudices against Buddhist monks in the cities
E) The high taxation of non-Christians in Armenia

Question 25

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
Indian Ocean Maritime System

Question 26

To learn about the location, society and migration patterns of the first Bantu speakers, historians have used

A) the spread of iron-smelting in Sub-Saharan Africa.
B) linguistic analysis.
C) archaeological evidence.
D) A and C.
E) A, B, and C.

Question 27

The silk that gave the "Silk Road" its name was made

A) in Mesopotamia.
B) in Samarkand.
C) in Scythian encampments.
D) in China.
E) in Greece.

Question 28

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
trans-Saharan caravan routes

Question 29

Which of the following accounts for the frequent association of pigs and their meat with religious taboos all over the world?

A) Ancient pork did not taste as good as pork does today.
B) Spoiled pork was prone to developing harmful bacteria.
C) Egyptian religion forbade the eating of pork.
D) Wild pigs tended to live in swamps, and therefore represented the uncontrolled force of nature.
E) It is impossible to know for sure on the basis of material evidence alone.

Question 30

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
Silk Road

Question 31

The Silk Road emerged from an interaction between

A) the Chinese demand for western products and the Parthian state's ability to meet it.
B) horses and the Chinese love of long distance travel.
C) Christianity and Buddhism.
D) Chinese expansionism and Parthian naval power.
E) nomadic populations and a changing climate.

Question 32

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
Sahel

Question 33

The first people to identify an "Africanicity" that all Sub-Saharan cultures shared were

A) Meroitic scholars.
B) Sailors in the Indian Ocean Maritime System.
C) Egyptian scholars.
D) Herodotus and Thucydides.
E) Nineteenth and twentieth-century European observers.

Question 34

The cultural unity of Sub-Saharan Africa can be detected in

A) the widespread influence of the Kingdom of Kush.
B) a set of similar characteristics shared to varying degrees by many otherwise quite different societies.
C) a tendency to form large-scale empires.
D) the fact that Sub-Saharan Africans have traditionally seen themselves as part of a pan-African culture.
E) a common body of myths, legends, and proverbs.

Question 35

Pastoral nomads played a key role in the functioning of the Silk Road by providing

A) bread and lodging to merchants.
B) metal implements.
C) animals, animal handlers and protection for merchants.
D) elaborate gold ornaments.
E) gifted twirling dancers.

Question 36

The climate of the Sahara

A) has always been as dry as it is now.
B) suddenly changed in about 300 B.C.E.
C) is conducive to agriculture.
D) began getting drier in about 2500 B.C.E.
E) None of these.

Question 37

The volume of trade was less in the Indian Ocean than in the Mediterranean because

A) There was less demand for Indian Ocean goods.
B) Indian Ocean ships were smaller.
C) Indian Ocean sailors more frequently practiced the siesta .
D) Indian Ocean trade involved very long distances with few islands to serve as resupply points.
E) Greek sailors could cover longer distances.

Question 38

Nomads along the Silk Road generally lived on

A) grain purchased from settled farmers.
B) vegetables they gathered as they traveled.
C) meat and milk.
D) Chinese food.
E) fruits such as peaches and plums.

Question 39

Which of the following was not an aspect of Indian Ocean seafaring?

A) Running before the wind without oarsmen.
B) The establishment of colonies tightly linked with the homelands of their founders.
C) Use of the lateen sail.
D) Use of bitumen and palm fiber in boat construction.
E) Long-distance voyages.

Question 40

Indian Ocean seafarers had a significant social impact because

A) they were politically active in the places where they settled.
B) their wealth allowed them to buy the allegiance of important politicians.
C) the families they established were bilingual and bicultural.
D) they tended to impose their own cultural values by force.
E) their wide experience of travel gave them so many interesting stories to tell.

Question 41

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
sub-Saharan Africa

Question 42

The chapter uses the spread of Christianity to Armenia and Ethiopia as an illustration of the connections among religion, trade, and imperial politics. Describe how the spread of Christianity to Armenia and Ethiopia represented the struggle for control of the region where Silk Road traders met the Mediterranean traders.

Question 43

Compa re and contrast the Indian Ocean trade with the Mediterranean Sea trade.

Question 44

Why can the Silk Road be described as a social system rather than simply as a transportation route?

Question 45

What role do the "great traditions" play in creating cultural unity among diverse groups?  Is this type of broad cultural unity possible without these traditions?  If so, how can we identify it and what forms does it take?

Question 46

Historians often depend on travelers' accounts to learn about ancient places. Choose one traveler's account and describe the land from his or her point of view. If you had accompanied the traveler, what kinds of details would you have been likely to look for or notice?

Question 47

Describe North Africa before it became the Sahara Desert. What evidence is there that is hasn't always been desert?

Question 48

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
tropical rain forest

Question 49

Archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians do diff erent kinds of analysis. Explain why it is difficult to track the movement and history of an idea. You may use the example of banning pork from one's diet or other ideas.

Question 50

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
savanna

Question 51

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
"small traditions"

Question 52

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
Bantu

Question 53

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
Armenia

Question 54

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
Ethiopia

Question 55

Instructions: Explain/Define the following terms.
"great traditions"