Deck 5: The Origins of Food Production

Question 1

Gordon Childe called the development of village farming the Agricultural Revolution or the …

A) Neolithic Revolution.
B) Oasis Theory.
C) Farming Innovation.
D) Prehistoric Transformation.

Answer 1

Neolithic Revolution.

Question 2

During the Holocene Age, Native Americans in the Americas cultivated teosinte, the wild grass that probably was the ancestor of …

A) beans.
B) wheat.
C) maize.
D) barley.

Answer 2

maize.

Question 3

At the beginning of the Holocene Age, 15,000 years ago, about how many humans inhabited the earth?

A) 100000
B) 1 million
C) 5 million
D) 10 million

Answer 3

10 million

Question 4

The Palo-Indians at the Koster site experimented with food production by …

A) planting wild grasses.
B) harvesting and storing hickory nuts.
C) catching more fish than they needed during the spring and summer.
D) All of these.

Question 5

The Koster site is important for studying food production because …

A) of its location.
B) its time span covers the Clovis era to European contact.
C) … it shows the evolution of a wide range of food resource use through time.
D) it was densely populated.

Question 6

Indications of social hierarchy among the Chumash include …

A) hereditary chiefs.
B) shamans.
C) expert canoe builders.
D) All of these.

Question 7

Long believed to be the cradle of agriculture and civilization, the "Fertile Crescent" is the term given to what region of the current world?

A) Central Africa.
B) The Middle East and the Nile Valley.
C) China and Japan.
D) Southern Europe.

Question 8

Archaeological data recovery is now routinely combined with …

A) data from other sciences.
B) data from the humanities.
C) medical data.
D) None of these.

Question 9

What method revolutionized the way archaeologists recover ancient seeds to better understand ancient farming?

A) Accelerator mass spectrometry.
B) Flotation.
C) Marsh pollen cores.
D) Zooarchaeology.

Question 10

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS radiocarbon dating) is used to …

A) date an object within ten years.
B) date an object in a uranium series.
C) date large quantities of materials.
D) date objects that are almost microscopic (a single seed).

Question 11

Which Native American group domesticated their landscape by planting wild grass seed over the burnt ground, edible nuts at high elevations, and agave and other desert plants in suitable terrain?

A) Kumeyaay Indians.
B) Chumash Indians.
C) Koster people.
D) None of these.

Question 12

Some groups adopted agriculture later than others because they had …

A) much game and many edible plant species.
B) greater mobility.
C) constant environmental change.
D) All of these.

Question 13

If an early hunter-gatherer society faced the prospect of the lack of food in their current region, what usually was the easiest solution?

A) Compete and take over the land of neighboring groups.
B) Move on to a new location.
C) Settle down and learn how to farm.
D) Build canoes and depend on fishing.

Question 14

What concept arose along with the onset of farming?

A) Specialized labor.
B) Leisure time.
C) Land ownership.
D) Family life cycles.

Question 15

When early Holocene villages began to be established, out of what material did the people build their homes?

A) Rock and stone.
B) Any suitable local material.
C) Mud-brick.
D) Only wood.

Question 16

Food production led to new technologies and methods for transportation and …

A) food preparation.
B) food storage.
C) toolmaking.
D) harvesting.

Question 17

What volcanic rock was prized in toolmaking for its easy working properties, sharp edges, and ornamental appearance?

A) Obsidian.
B) Quartz.
C) Diamond.
D) Granite.

Question 18

What was an adverse environmental consequence of early farming?

A) Slash-and-burn land use and abandonment.
B) Hillsides stripped of grass by domesticated animals.
C) Felling trees and clearing forests.
D) All of these.

Question 19

What was a more common risk for people living in dense farming villages rather than hunter-gatherer societies?

A) Less chance of social advancement.
B) Vulnerability to gastrointestinal infections and epidemics.
C) Greater likelihood of war.
D) All of these.

Question 20

The nutritional differences between farmers and foragers reveal that …

A) farmers ate a better balanced diet.
B) farmers had more secure sources of food.
C) foragers ate a better balanced diet.
D) foragers were accustomed to famines; farmers were not.

Question 21

Discuss how sites such as Koster in Illinois provide a good understanding of the processes underlying agricultural development. Include activities such as exploitation, processing, and storage.

Question 22

Describe the three general conditions needed to create more complex forager societies. Give specific examples from the cultures discussed in your text.

Question 23

Describe the process of how a hunter-gather society slowly evolves into an agriculture-dependent one.

Question 24

How did the establishing of permanent, farming societies change how people lived? Include in your discussion the kind of dwellings in which they lived and the development of the tools they used.

Question 25

What were the possible adverse effects of the changeover from a hunter-gatherer society to farming villages?