Deck 1: Out of the Ice: Peopling the Earth

Question 1

From what part of the world does the oldest evidence for Homo sapiens come?

A) Ethiopia
B) China
C) South Africa
D) Australia

Answer 1

Ethiopia

Question 2

In foraging societies,it is common for

A) members of both sexes to share equally in hunting and gathering.
B) men to be the primary foragers.
C) women to be the hunters and men to be the gatherers.
D) men to be the hunters and women to be the gatherers.

Answer 2

men to be the hunters and women to be the gatherers.

Question 3

What types of physical advantages enabled early humans to adapt to their environment?

A) excellent senses of sight and smell
B) physical strength superior to their predators
C) an ability to sweat profusely to stay cool
D) a natural ability to climb trees

Answer 3

an ability to sweat profusely to stay cool

Question 4

The diets of Ice Age peoples were

A) poorer than the typical modern diet.
B) more varied than the typical modern diet.
C) better than the typical modern diet but lacking in vitamin C.
D) poorer than the typical diet of later developed societies.

Question 5

Homo sapiens have been around since

A) 1.5 million years ago.
B) 1 million years ago.
C) 400,000 years ago.
D) 150,000 years ago.

Question 6

The significance of Zhoukhoudian Cave is

A) that it provides early evidence for the use of fire.
B) that it provides evidence that Neanderthals and humans interbred.
C) that it is the earliest site in the New World inhabited by humans.
D) that it provides the earliest evidence for human burial ritual.

Question 7

Homo erectus lived approximately

A) 4.5 million years ago.
B) 2.5 million years ago.
C) 1.5 million years ago.
D) 30,000 years ago.

Question 8

Which of the following is not an argument for rapid population growth following the migration of Homo sapiens out of Africa?

A) cooking with fire
B) economic specialization
C) domestication of dogs
D) improved hunting technology

Question 9

The first colonizers of Australia arrived by

A) 20,000 years ago.
B) 50,000 years ago.
C) 100,000 years ago.
D) 150,000 years ago.

Question 10

What did Fernand Braudel mean by the "heavy baggage of culture"?

A) People tend to forget their past.
B) Civilization weighs heavily on a culture.
C) When people arrive in a new place, they want to be rid of the past.
D) When people move, they tend to bring familiar practices with them.

Question 11

Discovery of Homo floresiensis has changed earlier understanding of human evolution because

A) they had brains the same size as ours and made tools.
B) they were taller than modern humans and made tools.
C) they had relatively small brains and still made tools.
D) they are almost indistinguishable from modern humans.

Question 12

Observations of macaques or "snow monkeys" by Japanese scientists in the 1950s added to evidence that:

A) macaques preferred to eat vegetables that had been mixed with wheat.
B) nonhuman species practice and transmit cultural routines and rites as learned behavior, much as humans do.
C) macaque culture, like that of other monkeys, relies fundamentally on instinct.
D) the cultural behavior of nonhuman species had less in common with humans than had been previously believed.

Question 13

People migrated from Africa to which TWO areas first?

A) Australia and the Americas
B) Europe and the Middle East
C) The Middle East and China
D) Australia and China

Question 14

Which of these is NOT a current interpretation of the Venus of Willendorf?

A) The carving represents a goddess.
B) The carving represents a pregnant woman.
C) The carving is a fertility fetish.
D) The carving was used in burial rites.

Question 15

Neanderthals lived alongside Homo sapiens for thousands of years

A) and had larger brains than humans.
B) and evidence indicates they interbred with humans.
C) but could not communicate because Neanderthals had smaller brains than Homo sapiens.
D) and are known to have regularly fought one another.

Question 16

During the Ice Age,cave art was used

A) in very different ways in different places.
B) only for ritual purposes.
C) in very similar ways in different places.
D) only for hunting rituals and purposes.

Question 17

The size of Ice Age communities was largely determined by

A) the resources of the area.
B) the number of predators within an area.
C) the types of tools that were available.
D) the number of men compared with women in a community.

Question 18

The world began to emerge from the last Ice Age approximately

A) 5,000 years ago.
B) 15,000 years ago.
C) 25,000 years ago.
D) 35,000 years ago.

Question 19

Australopithecines were like modern humans in that they

A) buried their dead.
B) made tools.
C) were bipeds.
D) had similar sized brains.

Question 20

Which of the following traits does the species Homo sapiens not share with chimpanzees?

A) ability to speak
B) burial of the dead
C) enjoyment of play
D) self-awareness

Question 21

How was ochre used in burial rituals?

A) only in male burials
B) for magical purposes
C) as a means of preserving the body
D) only in female burials

Question 22

How did most people acquire food during the Ice Age? How did their nutrition compare with modern diets?

Question 23

Outside of Europe,cave paintings have also been found in

A) China.
B) East Africa.
C) South America.
D) Australia.

Question 24

Paintings that depict people wearing animal masks or skins likely represent

A) hunting rituals.
B) practices that are only for entertainment.
C) early mating rituals.
D) none of the above

Question 25

Why have excavations at Monte Verde caused some scholars to believe that people may have entered the Americas much earlier than is generally thought?

A) because the archaeological find dates to around 20,000 years ago, and it is close to where humans are thought to have first entered the Americas
B) because it is the most carefully excavated and studied archaeological site in North America
C) because of the date of the archaeological find and its location
D) because those scholars have failed to understand the real significance of the excavations

Question 26

Foraging produces cultures that are

A) almost indistinguishable from one another.
B) as different from one another as those of agrarian societies.
C) very different from one another, but less so than those of agrarian societies.
D) successful only in places with ecosystems that humans could easily dominate.

Question 27

What role may conflict between groups have played in this early movement of peoples and in the development of the earliest human societies?

Question 28

What were the social consequences of human migrations? How did the challenge of new environments influence human groups in different places?

Question 29

The North American peoples who have retained their hunting traditions most closely are the

A) Inuit.
B) Nenets.
C) Sami.
D) San.

Question 30

The role of feasts in the Ice Age is believed to have functioned primarily

A) to celebrate weddings.
B) to occur only after serious conflicts were ended.
C) to strengthen group ties.
D) to occur only when food was abundant.

Question 31

One innovation that all foraging cultures appear to have lacked is

A) art.
B) medicine.
C) religious belief.
D) writing.

Question 32

Which of the following was NOT used for applying pigments in cave paintings?

A) bone
B) wood
C) animal hair
D) stones

Question 33

What is the greatest threat today to the cave art from the Ice Age?

A) time
B) weather
C) humans
D) erosion

Question 34

The commonly recurring mark that looks like a P is thought to stand for

A) a favored animal.
B) a powerful male.
C) a woman.
D) a symbol for a calendar.

Question 35

Within the culture of the Chukchi hunters,shamanism

A) does not play a significant role.
B) acts as a check on authority.
C) plays only a ceremonial role.
D) is restricted to women who are healers.

Question 36

The San Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert survive mainly on a diet of

A) game.
B) root plants.
C) a type of cactus.
D) wheat and millet.

Question 37

Which of the following enabled Inuit hunters to hunt effectively in the hostile environment of the Arctic winter?

A) improved boats
B) improved hunting gear
C) improved clothing
D) improved lamps

Question 38

How do paleoanthropologists believe that humans have evolved over the past 2.5 million years?

Question 39

How do paleoanthropologists attempt to define what a human being is? How are human beings similar to and different from other species?

Question 40

What is the evidence for the migration of humans out of Africa? Why is it thought that this movement of peoples took place?

Question 41

Describe at least two different survival strategies that were developed by hunting and foraging societies that enabled them to survive in difficult environments.

Question 42

Discuss how historians,archeologists and anthropologists use cave art and material culture to understand the lives and routines of early humans.

Question 43

How does our understanding of what it is to be human shape our understanding of the later course of history?

Question 44

What is the dominant theory regarding the peopling of the Americas? Explain at least one alternative theory.

Question 45

In what ways were foraging cultures successful in enabling people to provide not only the necessities of life,but also medicine and art?

Question 46

Although about 100,000 years ago Homo sapiens began spreading across the globe,it appears that significant changes in how Homo sapiens lived and organized themselves only date to the end of the last major Ice Age,between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago.Write an essay that explains these changes.

Question 47

Through what mechanisms have foraging cultures managed to survive into the modern age? Include two specific examples.

Question 48

How did some societies perpetuate the foraging life after the Ice Age? How has the foraging life persisted today?

Question 49

What does the existence of prehistoric art tell us about the mental and emotional sophistication of prehistoric humans?
In Perspective

Question 50

What was the purpose of art during the Ice Age and what did these works thought to symbolize? How were paintings made during the Ice Age,and what sorts of things appeared in them?

Question 51

What changes came for human communities with the end of the Ice Age? How did these changes lay the groundwork for further change?