Deck 1: Native Peoples of America

Question 1

Which of the following is a feature of Ancestral Pueblo culture?

A) Extensive complexes of attached apartments and storage rooms and partly underground structures.
B) They built temporary villages.
C) They became the most powerful Indian people in the Northeast.
D) They traveled along poorly defined trails.
E) All of these choices

Answer 1

A

Question 2

What was Poverty Point?

A) It was the area in present day New Mexico and Arizona where various Indian tribes attempted to settle but always failed because of the lack of rain.
B) It was an area in Central America that the Aztecs exploited for slaves and food.
C) It was an Indian community on the lower Mississippi River that was the center of political and economic activity.
D) It was a holy place in Maya culture where people could go to show their complete devotion to God.
E) None of these choices

Answer 2

C

Question 3

By the time Columbus arrived in the Western Hemisphere, where were the greatest concentrations of Native Americans?

A) In Mesoamerica and South America
B) In Peru and the Pacific Northwest
C) In Canada and New England
D) In the Great Basin of North America
E) In the Caribbean islands

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Who were the Pochteca?

A) They were merchants in the Olmec empire who facilitated the trade of gold and silver.
B) They were warriors in the Maya empire who were responsible for the defense of the kingdom.
C) They were farmers in the Hohokam empire who specialized in raising corn.
D) They were traders in the Aztec empire who traveled from village to village in armed caravans.
E) They were religious leaders in the Inca empire who provided spiritual guidance to the people.

Question 5

Why did Ancestral Pueblo culture decline and fall?

A) An earthquake used widespread devastation.
B) Europeans destroyed their settlements.
C) Intertribal warfare tore the tribe apart.
D) Smallpox ravaged its population.
E) A terrible drought severely reduced its agricultural production.

Question 6

Why did the Paleo-Indians flourish in the Americas?

A) Because of their ability to defeat rival Indian tribes.
B) Because of a high birth rate and the lack of effective birth control.
C) Because of the onset of a new Ice Age.
D) Because of the bountiful and accommodating environment.
E) Because of assistance from the League of the Iroquois.

Question 7

Which of the following is not one of the theories about how America was originally settled?

A) Europeans sailed across the Atlantic in leather boats during the pre-Christian era.
B) Siberian hunters crossed from Asia to North American during the last ice age.
C) Humans arrived by boat and followed the coast southward from Alaska.
D) Humans arrived in multiple migrations
E) Hunters from Asia dispersed themselves over much of North America.

Question 8

Which statement concerning warfare in most Native American societies is least accurate?

A) Groups warred for control over scarce resources.
B) Wars enabled Native American groups to seek captives.
C) Native Americans often battled for control of land.
D) Warfare was extensive and constant.
E) Warfare was conducted more as a pastime than as a way of conquering and subduing enemies.

Question 9

Which of the following characteristics of Olmec cities and Chavín de Huántar is true?

A) They developed hierarchical governing systems where hereditary rulers dominated thousands of residents.
B) They developed a society organized around kinship ties and communal support.
C) They developed diverse societies that included fishing, industry, and agricultural production.
D) They developed primitive democratic governing systems.
E) They developed as matriarchal societies with a focus on agriculture production.

Question 10

According to archaeologists, when did the first humans likely arrive in America?

A) 41,000 B.C.
B) 13,000 B.C.
C) 2,500 B.C.
D) 6,000 B.C.
E) 75,000 B.C.

Question 11

Which of the following would not have been a responsibility of women in northeastern Native American tribes like the Iroquois?

A) Distributing food
B) Cultivating the land
C) Fishing
D) Selecting chiefs
E) Gathering wild vegetation

Question 12

Evidence about early Native American cultures comes mainly from:

A) All of these choices
B) observations of European explorers.
C) archeology.
D) Indian oral traditions.
E) inscriptions and graphic images.

Question 13

Which of these is NOT a true statement about the Hopewell?

A) Their culture spread from the Ohio Valley to the Illinois River valley.
B) Their religious influence extended to places as far away as New York and Florida.
C) They traded only with local societies and groups.
D) Their centers contained two or three dozen mounds.
E) Elites were buried with sacred substances such as pearls, mica or quartz.

Question 14

The Iroquois account of their people's origins in North America focuses on:

A) None of these choices
B) Corn Mother, who breathed life into the spirits of two sisters, who would then people the Earth.
C) tales of ancestors battling hairy mammals for control of the Earth.
D) Sky Woman, a pregnant woman who fell from sky world to Earth.
E) their ancestors' difficult journeys through other worlds before reaching their homelands.

Question 15

Which of the following generalizations about Native American cultures is true?

A) Almost all the societies were the same in terms of political and social structure, religious beliefs, and basic contributions.
B) No society had much in common with any other society.
C) Because of their relationship to the environment, native Americans had evolved into careful conservationists.
D) Only native cultures in the Eastern Woodlands developed the bow and arrow and used ceramic pottery.
E) Most Native American cultures were characterized by a kinship reciprocity and communal ownership of resources.

Question 16

Which of the following is not true about Native American religious beliefs at the point of the initial European contacts?

A) They prayed to the spirits of the animals that they were about to kill for food.
B) They tried to conciliate the spiritual forces in the world.
C) They depended on medicine men and women to understand the unseen.
D) The believed that all nature was alive, pulsating with a spiritual power.
E) They believed that God had given humanity domination over nature.

Question 17

Which of the following was not a feature of the Archaic era?

A) the development of villages
B) expanded roles for men and women
C) the creation of vast empires
D) availability of a wide variety of flora and fauna
E) larger populations

Question 18

Which of the following was a feature of Paleo-Indian society?

A) They moved constantly, within informally defined boundaries.
B) They developed a cultural life that transcended their small bands.
C) They dwelled in bands of about fifteen to fifty people.
D) Men hunted, while women prepared food and took care of the children.
E) All of these choices

Question 19

What key development had to occur before southwestern populations could grow and expand?

A) The League of the Iroquois had to be defeated.
B) A more drought-resistant strain of maize had to be introduced.
C) The Ice Age had to end.
D) The Wooly Mammoth had to be eliminated.
E) Elaborate canals had to be built.

Question 20

What advances did the Maya make?

A) All of these choices
B) They used a numerical system that included a zero.
C) None of these choices
D) They utilized a system of writing.
E) They developed a calendar.

Question 21

What was the capital of the largest early state in Mesoamerica?

A) Cancun
B) Adena
C) Chavín de Huántar
D) Monte Albán
E) Teotihuacán

Question 22

Why was Cahokia significant?

A) Cahokia was the largest city in the Maya empire and contains pyramids similar to those found in Egypt.
B) Cahokia was the center of Mayan culture.
C) Cahokia was a large city located in present-day Mexico that served as the main trading center for the entire area.
D) Cahokia was a mythical city where many Indians believed life in North America began.
E) Cahokia was the largest metropolis on the Mississippi River that built its economy on river-borne trade.

Question 23

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Archaic peoples

Question 24

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Aztec Empire

Question 25

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Ice Age

Question 26

Which of the following was not one of the ways that Plains Indians used buffalos?

A) They used their hides for clothing, bedding, and housing.
B) They used their bones for tools.
C) They made arrowheads from buffalo horns.
D) They used them to haul wagons.
E) They butchered them for meat.

Question 27

Why are Hiawatha and Deganawidah significant to Iroquois culture?

A) They are men from Iroquois oral history who united five separate tribes in the Iroquois Confederation.
B) They were brothers who united the Iroquois around 1500.
C) They were faith healers who, through prayer, saved the Iroquois from the ravages of small pox.
D) They were Iroquois holy men who argued that the Iroquois nation could only be great if it eliminated all non-Iroquois.
E) As the gods of the sun and the forest, they were the most important of the Iroquois gods.

Question 28

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Iroquois Confederation

Question 29

What type of punishment did most Native Americans favor in child rearing?

A) Temporary banishment to another village
B) Branding
C) Psychotropic medication
D) Psychological punishment
E) Physical punishment

Question 30

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Olmecs and Chavín de Huántar

Question 31

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Paleo-Indians

Question 32

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Monte Verde

Question 33

Which of the following is a way Native Americans engaged in "genetic engineering"?

A) They experimented with teosinte and produced maize.
B) They selectively bred cattle and produced the longhorn steer.
C) They crossed barley with rye and began harvesting wheat.
D) They killed only the oldest and weakest wild animals and allowed the strongest to procreate.
E) They built specialized fish ponds where they bred the most nutritious fish.

Question 34

According to Cherokee myth

A) animals were vengeful while plants were friendly
B) animals and plants were part of a conspiracy against humans
C) humans and animals lived in a peaceable kingdom
D) animals ruled over plants, and humans ruled over animals
E) if humans could get the snakes and fish on their side they would no longer need plants

Question 35

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Mesoamerica

Question 36

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Hunter-gatherers

Question 37

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Hiawatha and Deganawidah

Question 38

Which family pattern was most common across North American Indian tribes?

A) Patriarchal family
B) None of these choices
C) Extended family
D) Nuclear family
E) Matriarchal family

Question 39

Which of the following statements accurately reflects one aspect of the principle of reciprocity?

A) Based on give-and-take, it helped maintain equilibrium and interdependence between individuals of unequal power and prestige.
B) None of these choices
C) All of these choices
D) To retain control, human beings had to change nature to suit their purposes.
E) All people of an area had to vote before decisions could be made or treaties signed.

Question 40

Native Americans gained access to spiritual power in all of these ways EXCEPT

A) By embarking on a vision quest
B) By making sacrifices to one of their many gods and goddesses
C) Through ceremonies initiating menstruating girls into the spiritual world
D) Through dreams containing guidance and instructions
E) By ritual dances

Question 41

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Reciprocity

Question 42

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Maya

Question 43

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Buffalo

Question 44

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Inca Empire

Question 45

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Kivas

Question 46

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Eastern Woodlands

Question 47

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Hohokam culture

Question 48

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Hopewell culture

Question 49

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Chiefdoms

Question 50

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Maize

Question 51

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Teotihuacán

Question 52

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Ancestral Pueblo culture

Question 53

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Nuclear and extended families

Question 54

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Pochteca

Question 55

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Mississippian culture

Question 56

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Cahokia

Question 57

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Kinship

Question 58

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Adena culture

Question 59

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Poverty Point

Question 60

Instructions: Identify the following. Be as specific as possible, and include names, dates, and relevant facts as appropriate. Be sure to explain the significance of the person or term.
Norse expansionists

Question 61

Choose three North American cultures flourishing before the arrival of Europeans, and discuss the major contributions and innovations of each.

Question 62

What evidence does the historian use to write the history of North America before the arrival of Europeans? Evaluate the possible pitfalls or shortcomings of such evidence.

Question 63

"By A.D. 1500 the North American continent presented a remarkable variety of human cultures, societies, and historical experiences." Discuss that statement. Choose one early culture from each of the major regions of North America (the northern and western perimeters, the southwest, and the Eastern Woodlands). In what ways did those cultures differ? In what ways were they alike? Account for the differences and similarities.

Question 64

Prior to European contacts, Native Americans were not exclusively nomadic, nor did they live exclusively in small villages. Many lived in major cities. Describe such cities, using Cahokia as an example.

Question 65

Explore how agricultural production developed and changed within Indian societies. Where did it flourish and why? What advances were Indians able to make?

Question 66

What were the principal differences among the Native American cultures that emerged after 2500 b.c.?

Question 67

How did environmental change shape the transition from Paleo-Indian to Archaic ways of life?

Question 68

Describe the social structure that might have been found in a Native American tribe at the time of the first European contacts. What were the patterns of family structure, roles for men and women, property ownership, work, and religion?

Question 69

What significant values and practices did North American Indians share, despite their diversity?

Question 70

Analyze the rise and existence of the Aztec empire. How did this empire begin? What governing system did it use? What type of economy did it develop? How successful was it? Explain.

Question 71

Compare and contrast the scientific theories for the peopling of the Americas with Indian traditions. What different theories explain the movement of peoples to the Americas? What do most Indian cultures believe? Why are there differences?

Question 72

Compare and contrast the development and later decline of each of these major Native American cultures: Hohokam and Ancestral Pueblo; Adena, Hopewell, and Mississippian.