Anthropology: Chapter 11: The Rise and Decline of Cities and States

A society having many different parts organized into a single social system is said to have

social complexity

A key requirement for the formation of a complex society is

An increased intensity of food production. All of the above

Trade models of state formation focus on the people doing the trading work - traders - as well as the people

providing military protection

When archaeologists study the use-wear of an artifact, what are they studying?

the patterns of wear and tear on an artifact that is presumed to be due to use

A hydraulic despot is someone who

builds their empire around the control of water

One of the ways that archaeologists know there was social complexity in the Tarascan empire is through

spatial segregation of elite and commoner neighborhoods

Archaeologists know that in the Tarascan empire there was a consolidation of state power because

objects found with the dead were being produced in areas controlled by the empire

Jared Diamond argues that cities and states don't last because

the fundamental cause of collapse is environmental

Archaeologists today generally agree that most social systems

do not collapse but instead transform into other systems, retaining vestiges of their past

Much of our knowledge of the ancient Mayan empire comes from the careful study of

stelae

Of the many reasons suggested for the abandonment of the Mayan city of Copán, one reason we can safely say was not part of the process was

drought

One of the reasons that the understanding of many early city-states is challenging is due to

the lack of written records

A complex society is in part defined by a high degree of socioeconomic _________

differentiation

The growth of ancient towns into residential centers is called _______

urbanization

Archaeologists can evaluate the complexity of a system through the analysis of material things because the material goods are part of an ________

assemblage

Similar to individual material objects, the determination of __________ happens when individual elements of analysis are no longer taken in isolation

social complexity

The microscopic analysis of the residues of plant and animal foods on pottery or tools is known as_________

residue analysis

Often, the specific characteristics of __________ become blurred because the definitions used fail to fully capture cultural dynamics

cities and states

true or false: Social complexity is always associated with social inequality and hierarchy

false

true or false: Ruralization is the process that leads to a contested space in the country located between different city-states

true

true or false: Rich documentation describing the minute details of daily life exist for all of the city-states in the Middle East region, including Mesopotamia and Egypt

false

true or false: Total collapse of city-states is a commonplace event

false

true or false: Socially complex societies can range in population size from hundreds to hundreds of thousands

true

The dynamics of a complex society ensure that

Lifestyles of the elites benefit from the labor of non-elites

One of the side effects of increased food production is the generation of a surplus, something that helped give rise to

new social roles for food producers, typically specialist roles

True control of food production appeared with the development of

irrigation canals and systems that developed in early states

Why do archaeologists disagree with Indiana Jones' approach to archaeology?

ethocentric

The 200 communities in the north coast of Papua New Guinea have an egalitarian social complexity based on

exchange relationships between pairs of friends

One of the limitations of the archaeological analysis of complexity is that

objects found in isolation cannot tell us about wealth, power, or status

The discovery that layers of sediment deposited in a lake were due to erosion from higher altitudes, indicated to archaeologists that in the Tarascan empire

population growth led to severe degradation of the soil

Despite the evidence of escalating warfare, excessive population growth, drought, and the failings of the ruling elite, the overwhelming evidence about the Mayan empire suggests that

Mayans were fully assimilated into the Spanish empire at the time of the conquest

Some archaeologists have interpreted the collapse of the Mayan empire as having been the result of over population when they had reached a level of more than 150 persons per square kilometer. One possible problem with this explanation is that there are many other societies with much larger population densities, such as Los Angeles, which currently has about 2,700 persons per square mile, which shows that

the concept of population density is highly relative

Several hundred years after the Maya abandoned their ancient cities, Spanish observers reported asocial hierarchy and inherited nobility that seemed related to what existed in the large, ancient, urban centers. This fact suggests that

the Maya simply transformed

Early European archaeologists were interested in studying the ancient societies in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the rest of the Fertile Crescent because

they saw European legal codes and philosophies as originating in these ancient Middle Eastern states

The primary contrast that shaped thinking about complex societies was between the

material and the organizational aspects of society

The "trade model" of state formation holds that trade and exchange create __________ between neighboring societies.

alliances

The importance of Çatal Höyük stems from the absence of evidence about __________ inequality

heredity

V. Gordon Childe's view of __________ was that social interactions lead to social stratification

urbanization

According to Robert Carneiro, increases in a society's population's size and social complexity lead toan increase in __________

size of political units

true or false: social complexity in ancient city-states did not always emerge on the basis of social inequality

true

true or false: The complex social system on the north coast of Papua New Guinea precludes monopolistic behaviorsbecause the network is so diffuse.

true

true or false: the ancient Pueblo peoples disappeared due to environmental collapse

false

true or false: Cahokia's vast complex of mounds and ceremonial sites initially suggested that it was the center of avast empire. What is surprising is that this socially complex state did not last very long before it was abandoned

true

The recent reinterpretation of ancient empires has led archaeologists to conclude that many suchempires were actually little more than

well-organized estates that served the needs of a temple

Scott Van Keuren analyzed brushwork sequences in decorative styles of the pottery of theSouthwestern United States. His research found that changes in style could be explained as evidencethat

people weren't allowed/didn't know how to paint icons and esoteric knowledge

Studies of the inherited exchange relationships along the north coast of Papua New Guinea revealedthat, despite a high degree of specialization within each community, all communities have essentially thesame material culture and a very similar diet. This pattern is very different from the ancient state societiesin the Middle East for which of the following reason?

they believe that food possesses mystical dynamism, vitality and danger

One of the most popular theories about the relationship between early states and warfare waspromoted by Robert Carneiro. Which of the following was part of his model to explain the rise of earlystates?

growing populations put pressure on land needed to support the community, which led to conflict