Deck 9: The Spread of Civilizations and the Movement

Question 1

Which of the following statements concerning the geography of Africa is most correct?

A) It lies in the tropics and contains mostly rain forests with the exception of the Sahara desert.
B) It lies mostly in the tropics, but its surface is covered mainly by savannas, arid plains, and deserts.
C) It lies primarily within temperate climatic zones, and consists mainly of grassy plains broken by occasional mountain ranges.
D) Despite its location in a temperate zone, most of Africa is desert.

Answer 1

It lies mostly in the tropics, but its surface is covered mainly by savannas, arid plains, and deserts.

Question 2

Africa was called the ?Dark Continent?

A) but was often in contact with other civilizations and cultures.
B) because it remained largely isolated from outside contacts until the nineteenth century.
C) because its soil was considered more fertile than that of other continents.
D) because it remained without civilization until the European explorations of the 19th century.

Answer 2

but was often in contact with other civilizations and cultures.

Question 3

What was the climatic change that affected the distribution of peoples in Africa?

A) The entire continent became progressively wetter due to annual increases in rainfall beginning in the 3rd millennium B.C.E.
B) Increased rainfall produced widespread rain forests that stretched across Africa from the Atlantic coastline to Ethiopia.
C) A decrease in annual rainfall turned the northern areas of the continent into the Sahara desert by 3000 B.C.E.
D) A decrease in annual rainfall destroyed all of the Paleolithic rain forests of Africa and created widespread savannas, particularly in west Africa.

Answer 3

A decrease in annual rainfall turned the northern areas of the continent into the Sahara desert by 3000 B.C.E.

Question 4

How did sedentary agriculture develop in sub-Saharan Africa?

A) Sedentary agriculture was developed independently in sub-Saharan Africa by the domestication of roots and tubers native to the continent.
B) The nature of the first domesticated crops indicates that agriculture reached Africa from Europe and the Mediterranean.
C) The nature of the first domesticated crops indicates that agriculture reached Africa from west Asia and the Near East.
D) Sedentary agriculture was not developed in Africa until the arrival of the Europeans during the 19th century.

Question 5

By what date had sedentary agriculture been introduced into Africa?

A) 7000 B.C.E.
B) 3000 B.C.E.
C) 300 C.E..
D) 1800 C.E..

Question 6

What was the source of domesticated animals in Africa?

A) Africans domesticated cattle, horses, goats, and sheep native to the continent.
B) Most large mammals of Africa were unsuitable for domestication and African agriculture was largely without a pastoral element.
C) Cattle, sheep, goats, and the camel were introduced to Africa from the western Mediterranean.
D) Cattle, sheep, goats, and the camel were introduced from western Asia.

Question 7

What biological factor made it difficult to sustain pastoralism in some regions of Africa?

A) Tsetse fly
B) Rabies
C) Anthrax
D) Lack of genetic diversity

Question 8

What was peculiar about the African adaptation of metallurgy?

A) Most African cultures failed to adopt metallurgy and remained dependent on stone tools and technology.
B) African cultures developed bronze toolmaking independently, but received iron working from the western Mediterranean.
C) African cultures never passed beyond bronze metallurgy.
D) African cultures received iron metallurgy from western Asia, but never developed copper metallurgy.

Question 9

At approximately what date was iron metallurgy introduced into Africa?

A) 3000 B.C.E.
B) The last millennium B.C.E.
C) 100 C.E.
D) 1250 C.E.

Question 10

The people responsible for the great population movement that originated in eastern Nigeria in West Africa and spread throughout the continent were the

A) Almoravids.
B) Bantu.
C) Masai.
D) Maori.

Question 11

What is the most likely cause for the success of the Bantu migration?

A) Their iron technology gave them a military advantage of stone-using technologies they conquered.
B) Their organization in phalanxes allowed them to overwhelm less well-organized societies.
C) Their use of mounted cavalry and war chariots gave them a military advantage over the peoples they conquered.
D) Their control of the gold trade with the Mediterranean gave them great wealth.

Question 12

Which of the following statements concerning the original social and economic organization of the early Bantu is NOT correct?

A) They depended on agriculture and fishing
B) They domesticated goats and perhaps cattle
C) They lived in large temple complexes featuring monumental architecture with ceremonial purposes
D) They organized their society around kinship groups

Question 13

By what date did the Bantu migration reach the southern end of the African continent?

A) 3000 B.C.E.
B) 900 B.C.E.
C) 900 C.E.
D) the thirteenth century C.E.

Question 14

Which of the following was NOT a parallel development in sub-Saharan and Egyptian cultures?

A) The idea of the king as a divine being with special powers over natural phenomena
B) Brother-sister marriage among rulers
C) Rituals of taking authority
D) Monotheism

Question 15

What kingdom succeeded Meroe as the dominant power in the Ethiopian highlands?

A) Kush
B) Ghana
C) Mali
D) Axum

Question 16

Which of the following is true about the kingdom of Axum?

A) It converted to Islam in the 7th century C.E.
B) It traded with Egypt and eventually with Rome, Byzantium and India.
C) It had no contact with the outside world.
D) It incorporated Mesopotamia into its empire.

Question 17

What was the dominant religion of Axum after 350 C.E..?

A) Christianity
B) Islam
C) Mithraism
D) Shinto

Question 18

What goods did the people of the savanna trade between the forest zone of the south and the Mediterranean?

A) Iron to the forest zone in return for ivory
B) Horses to the forest zone in return for iron tools
C) Camels, sheep, and goats to the forest zone in return for food products
D) Salt to the forest zone in return for gold

Question 19

What early sub-Saharan empire was based on the control of trans-Sahara commerce?

A) Axum
B) Mali
C) Kush
D) Ghana

Question 20

After 985 C.E. what religion was embraced by the elites in the west African states?

A) Christianity
B) Islam
C) Mithraism
D) Shinto

Question 21

What group of people were responsible for the conquest of Ghana in 1076?

A) Almohades
B) Carthaginians
C) Idrisids
D) Almoravids

Question 22

The people who inhabited most of the British Isles were

A) Germans.
B) Slavs.
C) Celts.
D) Scythians.

Question 23

Which of the following was NOT a feature of Celtic social and economic organization?

A) Mixed agricultural and hunting economies
B) Lack of cities
C) Writing system based on early Indo-European languages
D) Organization into small regional kingdoms

Question 24

What Roman historian wrote concerning the society of the Germans?

A) Livy
B) Ammianus Marcellinus
C) Scipio Cunctor
D) Tacitus

Question 25

Which of the following statements concerning the status of women in Germanic society is most accurate?

A) In a society that valued matrilineal ties, women were regarded as having an element of holiness and the gift of prophecy.
B) In the strictly patrilineal and patriarchal society typical of most nomadic pastoralists, women were often treated as property.
C) Women in Germanic society were scarcely more than slaves.
D) In the strongly matriarchal society of the Germans, women were the heads of households.

Question 26

Which of the following statements concerning the nature of Germanic political organization after 200 C.E. is most accurate?

A) After the 2nd century C.E., Germanic tribes fragmented into kinship units.
B) After 200 C.E., some German tribes coalesced into larger tribal confederations as they learned to copy Roman military structure.
C) After 200 C.E., several German tribes successfully created empires on the borders of the Roman empire.
D) After 200 C.E., all of northwestern Europe was subordinated to a single Germanic empire with its capital at Jutland.

Question 27

Which of the following was NOT a feature of Germanic religion outside the Roman empire?

A) it was animistic
B) Germans worshipped the spirits of nature
C) horses were commonly sacrificed to the gods
D) Germans practiced monotheistic worship of the god Wodin

Question 28

Which of the following was NOT a reason for the German migration into the Roman empire?

A) Population growth in Germanic lands
B) Rome?s growing weakness
C) A Celtic invasion on the western flank of the Germanic region
D) The nomadic tradition of the Germans

Question 29

By what time was agriculture established in southeastern Europe (in what is now modern Russia)?

A) 5000 B.C.E.
B) 3000 B.C.E.
C) 900 B.C.E.
D) 900 C.E.

Question 30

From what linguistic group did the Slavs come?

A) Celtic
B) Germanic
C) Indo-European
D) Bantu

Question 31

Which of the following was NOT typical of the transmission of Chinese culture to Japan?

A) Transmission by merchants
B) Transmission by students
C) Transmission by Buddhist monks
D) Transmission by military conquest

Question 32

The transmission of Chinese culture to Japan was mediated by what people?

A) Koreans
B) Ainu
C) Vietnamese
D) Hsiung-nu

Question 33

At what date had the ancestors of the Japanese people begun to migrate to the Japanese islands?

A) 5000 B.C.E.
B) 3000 B.C.E.
C) 1000 B.C.E.
D) 300 C.E.

Question 34

What was the early culture of Japan after the 3rd millennium B.C.E. typified by hunting and gathering and distinctive pottery?

A) Kemal
B) Shinto
C) Jomon
D) Haiku

Question 35

Which of the following was NOT introduced into Japan during the Yayoi epoch?

A) Wet-rice agriculture
B) Buddhism
C) Ironworking
D) Wheel-turned pottery

Question 36

What was the social and political organization of Japan prior to the 5th century C.E.?

A) Japan was divided into regional kingdoms with autocratic rulers who dominated the social organization.
B) Japan was organized into a single empire under an autocratic ruler supported by a powerful priesthood.
C) Japan was divided into hundreds of clans dominated by a small warrior aristocracy.
D) Japanese society was unable to move beyond hunting and gathering bands prior to the fifth century C.E.

Question 37

What was the position of women in early Japanese society prior to the 5th century C.E.?

A) Women were treated as property within strongly patriarchal households.
B) Although lines of descent were matrilineal, Japanese women were clearly subject to their husbands.
C) Japanese women enjoyed limited freedom to seek occupations outside the household, but were otherwise subject to patriarchal authority.
D) Japanese households were matriarchal and dominated by childbearing women who also played key roles as religious shamans.

Question 38

What was the chief religion of early Japan prior to the 5th century C.E.?

A) Shinto
B) Christianity
C) Islam
D) Buddhism

Question 39

Which of the Japanese clans succeeded in establishing the first empire on the islands?

A) Ainu
B) Honshu
C) Fuji
D) Yamato

Question 40

What was the significance of the Japanese adoption of Chinese script?

A) The Japanese were able for the first time to develop iron metallurgy.
B) The Japanese were able to conquer the Chinese.
C) The Yamato were able to build a true bureaucracy and establish their control over vassal clan heads.
D) The adoption of Chinese script made it easier for the Chinese to conquer Japan.

Question 41

In what century did Buddhism reach Japan from China?

A) 2nd century B.C.E.
B) 2nd century C.E.
C) 4th century C.E.
D) 6th century C.E.

Question 42

Which of the following activities was NOT practiced by Buddhist monks following the conversion of the Japanese?

A) Monks served as advisors to the emperor and regional lords.
B) Monks stressed scriptural passages that supported rule by a strong monarch through a centralized state.
C) Monks introduced the Chinese chronicles as a model for the first histories of Japan.
D) Monks destroyed the Shinto shrines that had existed throughout Japan.

Question 43

Which of the following developments was NOT a result of the increasing Chinese influence on Japan after the introduction of Buddhism?

A) The Japanese merchant class ceased to exist as a separate social entity
B) A class of monks and scholars developed
C) Trade with China and Korea led to the importation of new tools and techniques
D) Medicines and methods of treating disease were introduced from China

Question 44

What impact did the introduction of Chinese household patterns have on Japan?

A) There was no impact, because the Japanese already practiced patriarchal authority and patrilineal descent.
B) The importation of Chinese household patterns strengthened the role of women in the Japanese household.
C) Japanese women, who had enjoyed great authority within the household in early Japan, lost ground with the imposition of patriarchy and patrilineal descent.
D) Matriarchal authority remained unaffected in Japanese households, but descent changed from matrilineal to patrilineal patterns typical of China.

Question 45

What group within Japan was most opposed to the introduction of Chinese customs?

A) The emperors
B) The warrior elite
C) The bureaucracy
D) The Buddhist monks

Question 46

The family of languages to which the migrants from Asia to Polynesia belong is called

A) Indo-European.
B) Chinese.
C) Bantu.
D) Austronesian.

Question 47

At what date were the Hawaiian islands settled?

A) 3000 B.C.E.
B) 900 B.C.E.
C) 300 C.E.
D) 1000 C.E.

Question 48

Which of the following statements concerning Hawaiian social and political organization is most correct?

A) The Hawaiians were able to form a centralized monarchy under an autocratic ruler by 700 C.E.
B) Hawaiian society was divided into chiefly families dominated by ali?i who based their authority on lineage.
C) Hawaiian society was essentially a society of equals with ritual authority being granted to a single shaman.
D) Hawaiian society failed to progress beyond the level of hunting and gathering band.

Question 49

Which of the following statements concerning the nature of Maori social and political organization is most accurate?

A) The Maoris developed a centralized empire under a single autocratic ruler supported by a literate priesthood.
B) The Maoris were unable to progress beyond the level of hunting and gathering band.
C) Maori society was divided into chiefly families dominated by ali?i who legitimized their authority through genealogical descent.
D) Maori society was tribal with subdivisions called hapu led by warrior chiefs.

Question 50

Which of the emerging areas was NOT in contact with more established civilization centers and thus developed a less advanced material culture?

A) Polynesia
B) Northern Europe
C) Japan
D) Sub-Saharan Africa

Question 51

To what extent does the development of civilization in sub-Saharan Africa demonstrate the significance of influence from core civilizations?

Question 52

Describe the cultures of northern Europe.

Question 53

In what ways did the importation of Chinese culture affect early Japan?

Question 54

What was the social organization of the Polynesian peoples? How did it compare with that of civilizations?

Question 55

How were all of the fringe societies similar? To what extent were they different?