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5.3: Chapter Five Review

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    107881

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    Test Your Knowledge

    1. What three elements are needed for decomposition to occur? What happens when one of those elements is missing?
    2. Select one of the preservation conditions—cold, dry, or wet—and describe what happens to archaeological materials in that condition.
    3. Characterize an environment that would generally fail to preserve organic artifacts. Describe at least three characteristics of that environment that thwart preservation.
    4. Describe an environment in which preservation conditions would be ideal or would likely preserve organic artifacts well. Are there any types of organic artifacts that wouldn’t survive well in that environment?

    Terms You Should Know

    anaerobic Absence of oxygen.

    flora Plants of a geographic region or geological time period.

    fossils The preserved remains or traces of remains of ancient humans, animals, and plants.

    ice patch Accumulations of snow and ice at high elevations that do not completely melt during summer.

    ice patch archaeology Archaeological research that identifies and documents artifacts and organic materials left behind as the ice patches melt.

    megafauna Large mammals of geographic region or geological time period.

    sterile environment An environment free from microorganisms.

    This page titled 5.3: Chapter Five Review is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Amanda Wolcott Paskey and AnnMarie Beasley Cisneros (ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)) .