Anthropolgy Exam 2 Questions and
Answers 100% Pass
Aceramic - ✔✔a time or place in which pottery was not created, traded or used
Acropolis - ✔✔the "upper part" of a city; usually a group of fortified buildings atop a
hill
Band - ✔✔small group of twenty-five to sixty individuals related through marriage or
family ties; typically mobile hunter-gatherer groups
Broad-spectrum economy - ✔✔the ability to invest in multiple food strategies
Chiefdom - ✔✔a society of several thousand individuals organized on institutionalized
lines of hierarchical lineages ruled over by a chief
City state - ✔✔an autonomous political unit comprising a city and its supporting
hinterland
Cuneiform - ✔✔a form of script used in Southwest Asia during the Bronze Age and
Early Iron Age; literally, "wedge-shaped"
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,Demography - ✔✔the study of human populations, in particular their size,
composition, and distribution
Diffusion - ✔✔the spread of materials, ideas, and innovations from one society to
another
Dolmen - ✔✔a megalithic tomb type, usually consisting of upright stone slabs, on
which rests a large capstone or capstones; see also megalith
Domestication - ✔✔the human propagation of selected species
Genotype - ✔✔a complete set of genes possessed by an individual
Iconography - ✔✔artistic representations that usually have overt religious or
ceremonial significance; the study of such images
Interglacial - ✔✔period of warmer, wetter climate between two Ice Ages or glacials
Isostatic rebound - ✔✔is the rise of land masses after the lifting of the huge weight of ice
sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression.
Lacustrine - ✔✔relating to lakes
Language family - ✔✔a group of languages deriving from a single source
LiDAR - ✔✔Light Detection and Ranging, airborne remote-sensing technique sending
pulses of light, using a laser, to the ground and measuring the time it takes them to
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,return to the instrument and thus calculating the distance with extreme accuracy and
producing an image of the ground surface; forests and clouds can be filtered out
Loess - ✔✔fine, wind-blown silt
Lost-wax method - ✔✔method of casting metal, in which a wax original is replaced by
molten metal in a clay mold
Megalith - ✔✔literally "big stone"; usually used in connection with monuments and
structures built with very large stones
Microliths - ✔✔small, standardized stone flakes, originally set into composite tools or
weapons
Midden - ✔✔a concentration of cultural debris; in places where fishing is a primary
subsistence strategy, they are often made up predominantly of shell
Monolith - ✔✔an object made from a single block of stone
Natufian - ✔✔The Natufian culture is the name given to the sedentary Late Epi-
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers living in the Levant region of the near east between about
12,500 and 10,200 years ago.
Necropolis - ✔✔cemetery; literally "city of the dead"
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, Oracle bones - ✔✔animal scapulae and turtle carapaces deliberately pitted to the
underside, to which heat was applied in order to form cracks for divination purposes;
script detailing these oracles forms the earliest evidence for Chinese writing
Papyrus - ✔✔an aquatic plant native to Egypt, from the stems of which a type of paper
was made
Pastoralist - ✔✔a farmer who gazes animals
Seal - ✔✔stone object carved with a design that was impressed into a lump of clay to
form a sealing: the design might be carved into the flattened surface of the stone (a
stamp seal) or around the surface of a cylindrical stone (a cylinder seal)
Sedentism - ✔✔a residence pattern of permanent, year-round settlement
State - ✔✔a society of high population and complexity, in which centralized and
institutionalized control overrides kinship ties, and in which wealth and rank
hierarchies are protected and fostered
Stela - ✔✔free standing carved stone monument
Step Pyramid at Saqqara - ✔✔It was built ca. 27th century BC during the Third dynasty
for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser by his vizier, Imhotep, The Stepped Pyramid of Djoser
(ruler of Saqqara) was the first great pyramid
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Answers 100% Pass
Aceramic - ✔✔a time or place in which pottery was not created, traded or used
Acropolis - ✔✔the "upper part" of a city; usually a group of fortified buildings atop a
hill
Band - ✔✔small group of twenty-five to sixty individuals related through marriage or
family ties; typically mobile hunter-gatherer groups
Broad-spectrum economy - ✔✔the ability to invest in multiple food strategies
Chiefdom - ✔✔a society of several thousand individuals organized on institutionalized
lines of hierarchical lineages ruled over by a chief
City state - ✔✔an autonomous political unit comprising a city and its supporting
hinterland
Cuneiform - ✔✔a form of script used in Southwest Asia during the Bronze Age and
Early Iron Age; literally, "wedge-shaped"
Emily Charlene © All Rights Reserved 2025. 1
,Demography - ✔✔the study of human populations, in particular their size,
composition, and distribution
Diffusion - ✔✔the spread of materials, ideas, and innovations from one society to
another
Dolmen - ✔✔a megalithic tomb type, usually consisting of upright stone slabs, on
which rests a large capstone or capstones; see also megalith
Domestication - ✔✔the human propagation of selected species
Genotype - ✔✔a complete set of genes possessed by an individual
Iconography - ✔✔artistic representations that usually have overt religious or
ceremonial significance; the study of such images
Interglacial - ✔✔period of warmer, wetter climate between two Ice Ages or glacials
Isostatic rebound - ✔✔is the rise of land masses after the lifting of the huge weight of ice
sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression.
Lacustrine - ✔✔relating to lakes
Language family - ✔✔a group of languages deriving from a single source
LiDAR - ✔✔Light Detection and Ranging, airborne remote-sensing technique sending
pulses of light, using a laser, to the ground and measuring the time it takes them to
Emily Charlene © All Rights Reserved 2025. 2
,return to the instrument and thus calculating the distance with extreme accuracy and
producing an image of the ground surface; forests and clouds can be filtered out
Loess - ✔✔fine, wind-blown silt
Lost-wax method - ✔✔method of casting metal, in which a wax original is replaced by
molten metal in a clay mold
Megalith - ✔✔literally "big stone"; usually used in connection with monuments and
structures built with very large stones
Microliths - ✔✔small, standardized stone flakes, originally set into composite tools or
weapons
Midden - ✔✔a concentration of cultural debris; in places where fishing is a primary
subsistence strategy, they are often made up predominantly of shell
Monolith - ✔✔an object made from a single block of stone
Natufian - ✔✔The Natufian culture is the name given to the sedentary Late Epi-
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers living in the Levant region of the near east between about
12,500 and 10,200 years ago.
Necropolis - ✔✔cemetery; literally "city of the dead"
Emily Charlene © All Rights Reserved 2025. 3
, Oracle bones - ✔✔animal scapulae and turtle carapaces deliberately pitted to the
underside, to which heat was applied in order to form cracks for divination purposes;
script detailing these oracles forms the earliest evidence for Chinese writing
Papyrus - ✔✔an aquatic plant native to Egypt, from the stems of which a type of paper
was made
Pastoralist - ✔✔a farmer who gazes animals
Seal - ✔✔stone object carved with a design that was impressed into a lump of clay to
form a sealing: the design might be carved into the flattened surface of the stone (a
stamp seal) or around the surface of a cylindrical stone (a cylinder seal)
Sedentism - ✔✔a residence pattern of permanent, year-round settlement
State - ✔✔a society of high population and complexity, in which centralized and
institutionalized control overrides kinship ties, and in which wealth and rank
hierarchies are protected and fostered
Stela - ✔✔free standing carved stone monument
Step Pyramid at Saqqara - ✔✔It was built ca. 27th century BC during the Third dynasty
for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser by his vizier, Imhotep, The Stepped Pyramid of Djoser
(ruler of Saqqara) was the first great pyramid
Emily Charlene © All Rights Reserved 2025. 4
