Exam 9: Roots of Complexity: The Origins of Civilization

What are the Olmec heads? Describe them. About how many have been found and at what sites? What is their significance? What does the ability to produce these sculptures imply about Olmec society?

Population estimates for Olmec ceremonial centers are generally:

Was economic, social, and political complexity an inevitable result of the food producing revolution?

Describe the monumental projects of the Olmec. What do these projects imply about Olmec economic and political structure?

The monumentally scaled mounds at Watson Brake are about how many years old:

At the heart of the development of complex societies is a group's ability to:

Within the geographic confines of the New World, a significant innovation of the Olmec was:

The Hassunan, Samarran, and Halafian were:

Why and how would complex societies devote so much of their energies to the production of great monuments with no practical purpose?

San Lorenzo is located, as archaeologist Richard Diehl phrases it, on:

The burials excavated at Çatalhöyük:

The attempt to construct a Stonehenge trilithon by the producers of the science series Nova applied what archaeological technique:

Using the Messages from the Past section of this chapter as a jumping off point, can you answer the question: "Was complexity inevitable in the ancient world?" Also, what happened to societies that did not develop social, economic, and political complexity in the face of surrounding cultures that did?

Olmec sites like San Lorenzo and La Venta are aptly characterized as:

Subsistence at Çatalhöyük was based on:

Chavin was:

The human burials at Çatalhöyük are commonly found:

The largest of the components of Stonehenge are the:

Archaeologist Richard Burger calls Chavin an empire, but a religious, not political one. Explain what he means by that.

The T-shaped buildings found at Samarran sites were used: