Deck 2: Background of Archaeology

Question 1

The earliest-known archaeological excavation was conducted by the ________.

A) ancient Greeks
B) ancient Romans
C) ancient Egyptians
D) Neanderthals

Answer 1

C

Question 2

The first archaeology museum was created by the ________.

A) king of Babylon about 2,500 years ago
B) Egyptians about 4,000 years ago
C) ancient Greeks during the Trojan War period
D) British in London

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Those who originally took up archaeology as a hobby are more commonly referred to as ________.

A) treasure hunters
B) aristocratic collectors
C) preservationists
D) antiquarians

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Before the 1800s, the general belief was that the Earth was about ________ old.

A) 10,000 years
B) 4.5 billion years
C) 10 million years
D) 6,000 years

Question 5

Who argued that geological evidence pointed to the Earth's real age?

A) Charles Darwin
B) Charles Lyell
C) Jacques Boucher de Perthes
D) Heinrich Schliemann

Question 6

The Stone Age was divided into three periods except for ________.

A) the Paleolithic
B) the Mesolithic
C) the Neolithic
D) the Pseudolithic

Question 7

The Paleolithic era was further divided into three periods except for ________.

A) the Central
B) the Upper
C) the Lower
D) the Middle

Question 8

What discovery helped in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics?

A) Elgin Marbles
B) Rosetta Stone
C) buried city of Pompeii
D) tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen

Question 9

The excavations at Knossos on the island of Crete revealed what ancient civilization?

A) Greek
B) Philistine
C) Minoan
D) Egyptian

Question 10

Which archaeological discovery provided the most complete view of Roman life?

A) buried city of Pompeii
B) Rosetta Stone
C) Elgin Marbles
D) excavations along the Somme River

Question 11

The historical approach to archaeology focuses on what?

A) whether biblical and mythical stories were true
B) the relationships between groups of ancient people
C) the discovery, classification, and description of ancient materials
D) the recreation and restoration of ancient architecture

Question 12

What early archaeological theory claimed that all cultures moved through a progression of stages?

A) biological theory of evolution
B) uniformiltarianism
C) diffusion
D) unilinear cultural evolution

Question 13

Which of the following is an example of diffusion?

A) agriculture was developed in the Middle East and later spread throughout Europe
B) pyramids were invented independently in Egypt and Mexico
C) societies passed through stages from savages to barbarians and finally to civilizations
D) early humans lived alongside Neanderthals in Europe

Question 14

Improvements in field methods in the 1800s included the following except for ________.

A) the grid system
B) typology
C) cross-dating
D) taphonomy

Question 15

Early American explorers did not believe that the edifices found in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys could have been built by which group of native peoples?

A) the Anasari
B) the Mayans
C) the Moundbuilders
D) the Cherokee and Choctaw

Question 16

What was eventually discovered about the origins of Native Americans?

A) they were incapable of fashioning stone tools
B) they migrated from northeastern Asia to Alaska via an ancient land bridge
C) they had been in North America since at least the Bronze Age
D) they were genetically related to populations from the Fertile Crescent

Question 17

Which native group in the Americas had a complex calendar?

A) the Moundbuilders
B) the Maya
C) the Chumash
D) the Anasazi

Question 18

What civilization was discovered in Peru?

A) Inca
B) Mayan
C) Minoan
D) Anasazi

Question 19

By about 1925, what area of the world became the focus for where humans originated?

A) Europe
B) Sub-Saharan Africa
C) Fertile Crescent
D) Egypt

Question 20

What type of archaeology is focused on finding evidence to support nationalistic claims?

A) racism
B) colonialism
C) ethnocentrism
D) nationalism

Question 21

Man the Hunter and Woman the Gatherer are examples of ________.

A) biases in archaeological research
B) current treatises on hunter-gatherer societies
C) studies that support nationalism
D) primitive societies that predated civilization

Question 22

German geologist Karl Mauch discovered a massive stone fortress in what part of Africa?

A) Egypt
B) Great Zimbabwe
C) Ethiopia
D) central Africa

Question 23

What are the events and ideas that contributed to the abandonment of the biblical interpretation of the past and the development of the idea of prehistory?

Question 24

Did antiquarians help develop the field of archaeology or were they just another type of looter or treasure hunter?

Question 25

Why were the discoveries of the buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum so important in understanding ancient Roman culture?

Question 26

Explain why the theories of unilateral cultural evolution and diffusion fell out of favor.

Question 27

Describe the biases present in archaeological approaches that are based in colonialism, nationalism, and sexism.