Anth 202 Exam #2 with 100% correct Answers

The nests of wood rats are useful for paleoenvironmental reconstruction because they can preserve a rcord of environmental change for: a. decades. b. hundreds of years. c. thousands of years. d. hundreds of thousands of years. c Using palynological data, Haynes and Mehringer concluded that the climate at the Lehner Clovis site in southeastern Arizona 11,000 years ago was: a. only slightly wetter and cooler than today, followed by a rapid shift toward drier conditions. b. only slightly drier and warmer than today, followed by a rapid shift toward wetter conditions. c. much drier and warmer than today; only a large shift in temperature and precipitation would have caused such a different environment at the site. d. much wetter and cooler than today; only a large shift in temperature and precipitation would have caused such a different environment at the site. a What is a relative date? a. A date expressed as a specific unit of scientific measurement, such as days, years, centuries, or millennia. b. A date expressed relative to another (e.g., earlier, later, more recent, etc.) rather than in absolute terms. c. A date based on the occurrence of distinctive fossil assemblages in distinct strata. d. No longer useful for archaeology; absolute dates are necessary in order to provide a meaningful interpretation of an assemblage. b What is the index fossil concept? a. It allows widely separated strata to be correlated and assigned to the same time period if they contain the same fossils. b. It is the idea that strata containing similar fossil assemblages are of similar ages. c. It enables archaeologists to characterize and date strata within sites using distinctive artifact forms that research shows to be diagnostic of a particular period of time. d. All of the answers are correct