Deck 12: Origins of Food Production and Settled Life

Question 1

The subsistence strategy of the Mesolithic has been characterized as

A) exhibiting greater reliance on big-game hunting than in the Upper Paleolithic.
B) broad-spectrum food collection.
C) featuring a continued reliance on hunting coupled with growing plant crops.
D) combining the raising of domesticated herd animals with the gathering of wild food plants.
E) a final period of intensive big-game hunting, until all the large mammal species of the last Ice Age were extinct.

Answer 1

broad-spectrum food collection.

Question 2

In Africa, pre-agricultural developments during the Mesolithic probably arose due to changes in the climate and environment, including

A) warmer temperatures and less rainfall.
B) warmer temperatures and more rainfall.
C) cooler temperatures and more rainfall.
D) a change in ocean currents that resulted in less rainfall.
E) a change in the path of the jet-stream that brought cooler temperatures.

Answer 2

warmer temperatures and more rainfall.

Question 3

Mark Cohen has argued that by about 10,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers had essentially "filled up" the world, which may have set the stage for the transition to agriculture.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The shift from hunting and gathering to cultivation and domestication of plants and animals is referred to as

A) the Mesolithic revolution.
B) the Agricultural revolution.
C) the Neolithic revolution.
D) the Paleo revolution.
E) the Horticultural revolution.

Question 5

In South America, domesticated animals were not only used for food, they were also used for transportation; species used for transportation were

A) llamas and alpacas.
B) horses and cattle.
C) horses and donkeys.
D) llamas and camels.
E) alpacas and donkeys.

Question 6

The switch to extensive harvesting of wild grain, fishing and hunting of smaller game during the Mesolithic appears to have been accompanied by a marked decline in human stature; this would seem to indicate that

A) the decline in stature was due to a poorer diet in the mesolithic compared to the Upper Paleolithic.
B) we have not discovered enough Mesolithic skeletons to properly assess what the average stature of humans was.
C) natural selection no longer favoured greater height because only smaller game were being hunted.
D) even though peoples' health improved in the Mesolithic, stature declined.
E) people were dying before they had attained their full adult stature.

Question 7

Unlike the Natufians of the Near East, there is ________ among the Highland Archaic peoples of Mesoamerica.

A) marked differences in community size
B) no difference in population density
C) no differences in social status
D) increased trade
E) marked differences in social status

Question 8

According to Lewis Binford and Kent Flannery, human population growth and the movement of people into ________ with ________ resources may have spurred them to practice food production.

A) highland areas; bountiful
B) marginal areas; few
C) river valleys; aquatic
D) coastal regions; seasonal
E) grasslands; wild grain

Question 9

The Natufians of the Near East are the earliest Mesolithic people known to have

A) combined the gathering of wild grains with the hunting of wild game.
B) relied entirely on wild grains for their food.
C) constructed storage pits for the wild grain they harvested.
D) organized their harvesting activities into work parties directed by managers.
E) practiced the planting of some of the grain they harvested.

Question 10

Foragers are considered __________ whereas pastoralists are known as ________

A) intensive agriculturalists; horticulturalists.
B) food producers; food collectors.
C) horticulturalists; intensive agriculturalists.
D) food collectors; food producers.
E) active; sedentary.

Question 11

________ were the first animals domesticated in the Near East around ________ years ago.

A) Goats; 10,000
B) Dogs; 12,000
C) Cattle; 6000
D) Goats; 12,000
E) Sheep; 8000

Question 12

Horticultural societies

A) began to build large temples and other monumental architecture.
B) established long-distance trade routes to export their surplus produce.
C) are typically led by elected political officials.
D) show the beginnings of social differentiation.
E) tend to be egalitarian, like food-collecting societies.

Question 13

In addition to intensively gathering wild grains, the Natufians also intensively herded gazelles.

Question 14

Shifting cultivation as practiced using the slash-and-burn technique, does not involve

A) the use of hand tools, such as digging sticks.
B) the use of fire to clear land.
C) a reliance on natural rainfall rather than irrigation.
D) a reliance on the natural fertility of the soil rather than using manure or other fertilizers.
E) the permanent, intensive cultivation of field crops.

Question 15

At the site of Ali Kosh in the Near East a considerable amount of dietary protein was derived from

A) fish.
B) cattle.
C) goats.
D) camels.
E) dogs.

Question 16

What were microliths?

A) Small blades.
B) Small arrows.
C) Small hammers.
D) People of short stature.
E) Small Mesolithic communities.

Question 17

According to Kent Flannery, the extensive harvesting of wild wheat and barley by Mesolithic peoples in the Near East must have prompted

A) the baking of the grain to make bread.
B) the development of sophisticated devices to transport the grain.
C) the domestication of large animals to use as beasts of burden in transporting the grain.
D) some degree of sedentism because the grain could not be moved once it was harvested.
E) the setting up of warehouses where they left the grain while they hunted wild herd animals.

Question 18

Maize (corn) was apparently first domesticated in

A) the Near East.
B) Peru.
C) West Africa.
D) the eastern United States.
E) Mexico.

Question 19

In general, ________ were less important economically in the New World than in many parts of the Old World.

A) domesticated animals
B) cultivated crops
C) corn, beans and squash
D) dogs
E) none of the above

Question 20

Natufian food collection differed from earlier food collectors in the area by

A) being more intensive.
B) being less intensive.
C) tending to be smaller in scale.
D) being only seasonally occupied.
E) all of the above

Question 21

The highest rate of population increase in the past 10 000 years occurred just after the emergence of farming and herding.

Question 22

The ancient town of Catal Huyuk thrived because it was located in a region that was rich with natural resources.

Question 23

Most early cultivation in mainland southeast Asia seems to have occurred in the plains and low terraces around rivers.

Question 24

Research has shown that foraging groups that share common ancestry show considerable variation in economic structure and social organization.

Question 25

Spirit Cave in Thailand has some of the oldest evidence of probable domesticates.

Question 26

Many of the plants grown in North America, such as corns, beans and squash, were probably introduced from Mesoamerica.

Question 27

What are some possible reasons why broad-spectrum collecting developed?

Question 28

Birth spacing tends to be shortened when populations are sedentary.

Question 29

How did people in Mesoamerica maintain their hunting-and-gathering lifestyle after plants were domesticated?

Question 30

Life expectancy derived from skeletal samples depends on the assumption of mean age at death being approximately equivalent to life expectancy at birth.

Question 31

Tools recovered in the archaeological record suggest that Natufians harvested wild grain intensively.

Question 32

Too many people raising too many animals can have a serious effect on the environment.