question

How do historians study the past?

answer

They study artifacts but focus more of their attention on written documents.

question

The distinction between the study of humans by archaeologist and the study of humans by historians is often denoted by the

answer

invention of writing.

question

Though ancient Americans lacked writing skills, they

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shared a common spoken language.

question

How do modern archaeologists study ancient peoples?

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Modern archaeologists combine a variety of approaches.

question

What was the reason for the early, prolonged absence of humans in the Western Hemisphere?

answer

North and South America had become detached from the continent of Pangea.

question

How did the Wisconsin glaciation allow hunters to reach the Western Hemisphere?

answer

The Wisconsin glaciation created the wide land bridge of Beringia.

question

Although experts debate the exact time people began migrating to North America, the first migrants probably arrived

answer

around 15,000 BP.

question

When did Paleo-Indians reach the southern tip of America and complete their expansion into the Western Hemisphere?

answer

One thousand years after they first migrated to the Western Hemisphere.

question

What do the artifacts that have survived from the Paleo-Indian era suggest about the first Americans?

answer

They specialized in hunting big mammals.

question

About 11,000 years ago, the Paleo-Indians faced a major crisis because

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the large animals they hunted had difficulty adapting to a warming climate.

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How did Native American cultures adapt to the extinction of big game?

answer

Paleo-Indians began foraging wild plant foods.

question

When Europeans arrived in 1492, Native American cultures were

answer

so varied that they defy easy and simple description.

question

What does the term Archaic describe?

answer

Hunting and gathering cultures that descended from Paleo-Indians.

question

Which of the following is an accurate description of Archaic Indians?

answer

Archaic Indians hunted smaller game with traps, nets, and hooks.

question

How did archaeologists determine that Folsom hunters and giant bison were contemporaries?

answer

They discovered a Folsom point lodged between the ribs of a giant bison.

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Archaic Indians who hunted the bison herds of the Great Plains were

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nomads who moved constantly with their prey.

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The Archaic Indians in the Great Basin inhabited a region with

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great environmental diversity.

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What was the main source of food for Archaic peoples inhabiting the Great Basin?

answer

Plants

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Why did native peoples in California remain hunters and gatherers for hundreds of years after Europeans arrived in the Western Hemisphere?

answer

Both land and ocean provided an abundant food supply.

question

Archaeological evidence indicates that the California Chumash culture was characterized by

answer

a notable amount of conflict among villages.

question

What caused much of the warfare among Archaic Northwest peoples?

answer

Conflicts over access to good fishing sites.

question

What environmental factor shaped the cultures of the Archaic peoples of the Eastern Woodland?

answer

Forests

question

Early Woodland Indians obtained food by

answer

hunting deer.

question

How did the diet and culture of Woodland peoples change around 4000 BP?

answer

Woodland cultures adopted limited forms of plant growing.

question

Why did nomadic peoples shun the use of pottery?

answer

Pots were too heavy to carry around.

question

How did agriculture change Archaic cultures?

answer

It encouraged the gradual establishment of permanent settlements.

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Why did Archaic cultures in the Southwest adopt agriculture?

answer

The supply of wild plant food was highly unreliable.

question

When did corn become a food crop for Southwestern cultures?

answer

3500 BP

question

Ancient Southwestern Indians became experts in the conservation of

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water

question

What feature characterized the settlements of the Mogollon culture?

answer

Pit houses

question

Why did Hohokam settlements utilize irrigation canals?

answer

Canals allowed planting and harvesting crops twice a year.

question

Multistory cliff dwellings and pueblos are residential structures associated with the

answer

Anasazi culture.

question

The Anasazi culture disappeared due to

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a drought that lasted more than fifty years.

question

Burial mounds and chiefdoms are associated with which ancient Americans?

answer

Woodland peoples

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Why do archaeologists believe that the first ancient Woodland mound builders were organized into cheifdoms?

answer

The complexity of the mounds suggests that one chief commanded labor from the others.

question

What does the analysis of artifacts in burial mounds reveal about the Hopewell chiefdom?

answer

Burial was reserved for the most important members of society.

question

Scholars speculate that Hopewell culture declined because

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farming and new weapons made central authority unnecessary.

question

Experts believe that the Cahokians used woodhenges for

answer

celestial observations.

question

What is a prudent estimate of the population of Native Americans in North America at the time of Columbus's arrival in the New World?

answer

4 million

question

Although the two regions had roughly the same population in 1492, the population density of North America was

answer

much less than that of England.

question

Eastern Woodland peoples around the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 clustered into which three major groups?

answer

Algonquian, Iroquoian, and Muskogean peoples

question

The League of Five Nations, which remained powerful well into the eighteenth century, was formed as

answer

a confederation of the Iroquoian tribes for the purposes of war and diplomacy.

question

The Athapascan tribes - mainly Apache and Navajo - were

answer

skillful warriors who preyed on the sedentary pueblo Indians.

question

What was a similarity among the many tribes that inhabited North America at the dawn of the European colonization?

answer

Their cultures had developed in relation to their local natural environments.

question

Evidence indicates that before 1492, Native Americans

answer

practiced human sacrifice.

question

How did Native Americans relate to the natural environment?

answer

They changed the environment in a variety of ways that served their own interests.

question

In AD 1492, the empire of the Mexica

answer

encompassed up to 25 million people.

question

Which group held the most exalted position in Mexican society?

answer

Warriors

question

The Mexica used an extensive tribute system to redistribute wealth from

answer

the poor to the rich

question

Spanish conquerors exploited which weakness of the Mexican empire?

answer

The empire's subjects did not see the Mexica as legitimate or fair rulers.

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