Prehistory

Question 1

Austronesian migrations

Answer 1

The last phase of the great human migration, establishing the presence of humans in every habitable region of the earth. These migrations began about 3,500 years ago and were located at the Pacific islands and Madagascar through seaborne migrations.

Question 2

Brotherhood of the Tomol

Answer 2

A reputable craft guild (group of workers that provide services for mutual benefit) that controlled the building and ownership of large ocean-going canoes, or tomols, among the Chumash people.

Question 3

Chumash Culture

Answer 3

A culture in southern California of the paleolithic era that lasted up to the modern era.

Question 4

Clovis Culture

Answer 4

The first known distinct culture in North America— named after the Clovis point, a type of projectile point.

Question 5

Dreamtime

Answer 5

The complex understanding/belief of Australia’s first people that the current humans live in an echo or mirroring of past/ancestral happenings.

Question 6

Flores Man

Answer 6

A recently discovered hominid species of Indonesia.

Question 7

“Gathering and hunting peoples”

Answer 7

People who gather food or hunt food (more gather than hunt, hence the name change) from natural sources, rather than artificially producing food for survival.

Question 8

Great Goddess

Answer 8

A theoretically dominant deity of the Paleolithic era.

Question 9

Hadza

Answer 9

People belonging to almost the last surviving Paleolithic society of northern Tanzania.

Question 10

“human revolution”

Answer 10

The term used to describe the transition of humans from acting out of biological imperative to dependence on learned or invented ways of living (culture).

Question 11

Ice Age

Answer 11

Periods of cold (global warming/cooling) in the history of the earth— the last at its peak at about 18,000 BC.

Question 12

“insulting the meat”

Answer 12

A San cultural practice where negative comments were used against a hunter’s meat with the expectation that a successful hunter would be more modest about their kill.

Question 13

Jomon culture

Answer 13

A settled Paleolithic culture of prehistoric Japan, characterized by seaside villages and the creation of some of the world’s earliest pottery.

Question 14

Megafaunal extinction

Answer 14

The extinction (death) of many large animal species, including the mammoth, horses, and camels at the end of the Ice Age (11,000-10,000 years ago) possibly caused by either climate change of the era or excessive hunting.

Question 15

Neanderthals (Homo sapien neanderthalis)

Answer 15

A European version of Homo Sapiens that went extinct at around 23,000 BC.

Question 16

n/um

Answer 16

Among the San, a spiritual force/power that becomes activated during “curing dances” and protects humans from the evil forces of gods or ancestral spirits.

Question 17

“the original affluent society”

Answer 17

A term coined by Marshall Sahlins in 1972— describing Paleolithic societies as affluent not because they had so much but because they were in need or want of so little.

Question 18

Paleolithic

Answer 18

Etymologized as “old stone age”— describing Homo Sapien societies before agriculture was developed. (250,000-10,000 BC)

Question 19

Paleolithic rock art

Answer 19

Art that is derived from any paleolithic gathering and hunting society, specifically the many paintings discovered in Spain-France, dating to all the way to 18,000 BC. The art depicted many animals, and occasionally human figures and other abstract designs.

Question 20

Paleolithic “settling down”

Answer 20

A process that occurred at the beginning of the last Ice Age in which Paleolithic peoples moved toward permanent settlements that were marked by increasing storage of food and accumulation of goods. Inequalities in society also grew.

Question 21

San or Ju’/hoansi

Answer 21

A Paleolithic people still currently living on the northern edge of the Kalahari desert in southern Africa.

Question 22

Shaman

Answer 22

People who provide contact from the human world with the spiritual realm through trances and psychoactive drugs.

Question 23

trance dance

Answer 23

In San culture, a nightlong ritual held to activate a human being’s inner spiritual potency (n/um) to counteract the evil influences of gods and ancestors. The practice was apparently common to the Khoisan people, of whom the Ju/’hoansi are a surviving remnant.

Question 24

Venus figurines

Answer 24

Carvings of women in the paleolithic era usually with accented breasts, buttocks, hips, and stomachs, possibly with religious significance.