Deck 16: Getting Food

Question 1

As understood by anthropologists, horticulture includes all of the following except

A) shifting cultivation.
B) planted tree crops.
C) dependence on hunting or fishing for part of the food supply.
D) greenhouses for growing plants.

Answer 1

greenhouses for growing plants.

Question 2

Of the following, which is not a consequence of horticulture?

A) denser populations
B) more sedentary way of life
C) strict egalitarianism
D) the beginning of social differentiation

Answer 2

strict egalitarianism

Question 3

The spread of agriculture may be linked to the need for __________.

A) more food
B) territorial expansion
C) permanent housing
D) saving animals

Answer 3

territorial expansion

Question 4

Most pastoralists get their animal protein

A) from the meat of the animals they raise.
B) from trading for the produce of farmers.
C) from the milk and blood of the animals they raise.
D) by trading woolen products with others.

Question 5

Before Europeans came to Australia, all the aboriginal people there depended on __________.

A) horticulture
B) food collection
C) intensive agriculture
D) pastoralism

Question 6

Which of the following is not characteristic of food-collecting societies?

A) absence of specialized full-time political offices
B) a nomadic lifestyle
C) recognition of individual rights to land
D) sparsely populated territories

Question 7

The Inuit subsist mostly on __________ because __________ do not exist in large numbers at their northerly latitude.

A) meat / plants
B) animals / roots
C) plants / land animals
D) plants / caribou

Question 8

The subsistence strategy that characterized most of human history was

A) horticulture.
B) irrigation agriculture.
C) food collection.
D) pastoralism.

Question 9

The major source of meat for Samoans is

A) fish.
B) chicken.
C) pork.
D) beef.

Question 10

The changeover to food production occurred about __________ years ago.

A) 2000
B) 4000
C) 6000
D) 10,000

Question 11

Most of the Ngatatjara's food supply is gathered by __________ and is __________.

A) men / meat
B) men / fruit
C) women / meat
D) women / fruit or other plant food

Question 12

The worldwide trend for intensive agriculturalists to produce for a market is called_________.

A) production
B) sales
C) commercialization
D) foraging

Question 13

Which of the following characterizes horticulture?

A) land worked for short periods and then left idle for some years
B) permanently cultivated fields
C) the plow
D) irrigation

Question 14

By "food collection," anthropologists mean the obtaining of food from

A) wild plants and animals.
B) wild plants.
C) domesticated plants and animals.
D) plants, wild and domesticated.

Question 15

Which animals are least likely to be a source of food in a horticultural society?

A) pigs
B) sheep
C) chicken
D) big game

Question 16

When people grow foods using simple tools in the absence of permanently cultivated fields, we call this __________.

A) agriculture
B) horticulture
C) slash and burn agriculture
D) xeroculture

Question 17

Of the following, which is not a consequence of intensive agriculture?

A) high degree of craft specialization
B) complex political organization
C) large difference in wealth and power
D) smaller population groups

Question 18

What do archaeologists suggest may have contributed to the decline of the earliest city-states in Mesopotamia, present-day southern Iraq, and southwestern Iran?

A) overpopulation
B) drought
C) salinization
D) flooding

Question 19

For food, most recent food-collectors depend primarily on

A) collected plants.
B) fish.
C) cultivated plants.
D) small game.

Question 20

In which region are hunter-gatherers least likely to be found today?

A) deserts
B) dense tropical forests
C) temperate climates
D) the Arctic

Question 21

Food collection is the way humans have gotten food for most of human history. It includes

A) gathering.
B) hunting.
C) fishing.
D) all of the above.

Question 22

Compared to food-collectors, horticulturalists generally

A) are more sparsely populated.
B) are more nomadic.
C) get more food from a given area.
D) have fewer differences in prestige between people.

Question 23

Anthropologists have concluded that the physical environment by itself has a __________, rather than a __________, effect on the major types of subsistence.

A) restraining / determining
B) definitive / determining
C) definitive / restraining
D) positive / negative

Question 24

Australian aborigines have many wild plants available for food but the Inuit do not. This is because

A) the plant life was eaten away hundreds of years ago.
B) the plant life is very scarce in the North American Artic.
C) while they are there, they are covered with snow.
D) they can be found under rocks.

Question 25

Horticulture is distinguished from intensive agriculture mainly because

A) in horticulture mechanical means are used.
B) in intensive agriculture most of the plowing is done by hand.
C) in horticulture simple tools and methods are used.
D) in intensive agriculture smaller plots of land are used.

Question 26

"Market foraging" exists in the U.S. and other industrial societies. This includes

A) food specialists who sell animals and plant products.
B) marketers who encourage people to buy.
C) distributors who get the food to huge territories.
D) all of the above.

Question 27

Most anthropologists think that about 10,000 years ago people began a changeover to food production. This is known as

A) losing control over natural processes such as plant seeding.
B) a willingness to rely on hunting for food.
C) domestication of plants and animals.
D) establishing farm factories to help feed the growing population.

Question 28

Individual families in pastoral societies are most likely to own

A) animals.
B) grazing lands.
C) permanent dwelling places.
D) land for cultivating crops.

Question 29

Most pastoralists do not breed animals for meat but rather trade with agricultural groups for food. An example of this is

A) the large scale trade routes that only delt with food trade.
B) the practice in the Middle East where rugs made from wool from their sheep are sold so they can buy their food.
C) the trucking industry moving meat into agricultural areas for trade.
D) the practice in the U.S. of bartering for material goods.

Question 30

People in North America get most of their food from stores. These people do not know where their food comes from originally. This is because

A) no one is very interested in knowing.
B) relatively few people are directly involved in food-getting.
C) the media try to hide this fact.
D) the stores are too large to keep track.

Question 31

In which of the following regions would you NOT expect to find pastoralists?

A) savanna
B) steppe
C) prairie
D) tundra

Question 32

The Yanamamo do all of the following except

A) plant manioc.
B) shrink the heads of their enemies killed in battle.
C) use slash and burn horticulture.
D) hunt monkeys with bow and arrow.

Question 33

The Samoans do all of the following except

A) plant banana trees.
B) plant breadfruit trees.
C) fish in the open sea.
D) plow the land.

Question 34

Most archaeologists are convinced that major changes in food-getting have been independently invented in different parts of the world because

A) archaeological evidence from old sites throughout the world.
B) eyewitness accounts written about these inventions.
C) they were based on pure luck.
D) while there is no evidence, it just seems logical to have happened this way.

Question 35

The Basseri pastoralists of Iran are characterized by all of the following except

A) tents made of goat's hair.
B) annual migrations.
C) individual ownership of land.
D) sales of wood, hides, butter, and livestock.

Question 36

Before the 1950s, the Yanomamo did not have steel axes or machetes. Where did they get these tools?

A) The government supplied them.
B) The Yanomamo discovered metal-working around the 1950s.
C) Missionaries gave them the steel axes and machetes.
D) Trade with neighboring communities.

Question 37

Recently some archaeologists have returned to the idea that ____________ played a role in the emergence of agriculture.

A) lack of large game
B) taming of animals
C) climate change
D) technology

Question 38

Foragers have a nomadic lifestyle because

A) they have to go where the food is in season.
B) they often have a hard time living in the city.
C) they like to see new areas.
D) food is much less plentiful under these circumstances.

Question 39

What are the general consequences of intensive agriculture (e.g. population density, community size, trade, individual differences in wealth, etc.)?

Question 40

Intensive agriculture is said to be more technologically complex than horticulture because

A) plows are used instead of digging sticks.
B) everywhere agriculture exists, computers are used.
C) it relies on a lot of human labor.
D) actually, this turns out to be a false concept.

Question 41

Describe slash and burn agriculture. Why does this system of shifting cultivation work so well in the rainforest environment?

Question 42

The Basseri, a herding (pastoral) group, lives in a desert environment and participates in seasonal migration. Why is the environment (dry) an essential feature of this practice?

Question 43

What is the reasoning of the Lapps for eating the bull reindeer and not the cow (female)?

Question 44

What are the general consequences of horticulture (e.g. population density, community size, trade, individual differences in wealth, etc.)?

Question 45

What are the general consequences of foraging (e.g. population density, community size, trade, individual differences in wealth, etc.)?

Question 46

Respond to the following statement: "Humans have always altered their environment. Environmental damage is not limited to modern industrial practices."