The research of British scholar William Robertson Smith, published in Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1889), also influenced Frazer. Through Smith's work, Frazer came to believe that many myths had their origin in the ritual practices of ancient agricultural peoples, for whom the annual cycles of vegetation were of central importance. (44) .
This approach reached its most extreme form in the so-called functionalism of British anthropologist A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, who heldthat every myth implies a ritual, and every ritual implies a myth.
Most analyses of myths in the 18th and 19th centuries showed a tendency to reduce myths to some essential core--whether the seasonal cycles of nature, historical circumstances, or ritual. That core supposedly remained once the fanciful elements of the narratives had been stripped away. In the 20th century, investigators began to pay closer attention to the content of the narratives themselves. (45)
[A] German-born British scholar Max Mtiller concluded that the Rig-Veda of ancient India--the oldest preserved body of literature written in an Indo-European language—reflected the earliest stages of an Indo-European mythology. Mtiller attributed all later myths to misunderstandings that arose from the picturesque terms in which early peoples described natural phenomena.
[B] The myth and ritual theory, as this approach came to be called, was. developed most fully by British scholar Jane Ellen Harrison. Using insight gained from the work of French sociologist Emile Durkheim, Harrison argued that all myths have their origin in collective rituals of a society.
[C] Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud held that myths--like dreams--condense the material of experience and represent it in symbols.
[D] This approach can be seen in the work of British anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor. In Primitive Culture (1871), Tylor organized the religious and philosophical development of humanity into separate and distinct evolutionary stages.
[E] The studies made in this period were consolidated in the work of German scholar Christian Gottlob Heyne, who was the first scholar to use the Latin term myths (instead of fabula, meaning fable) to refer to the tales of heroes and gods.
[F] German scholar Karl Otfried Muiller followed this line of inquiry in his Prolegomena toa Scientific Mythology, 1825.
Unit 17
Directions
In the following article, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41--45, choose the most suitable one from the list A--G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices that do not fit in any of the gaps Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)
Inca society was strictly organized, from the emperor and royal family down to the peasants. The emperor was thought to be descended from the sun god, Inti, and he therefore ruled with divine authority. All power rested in his hands. Only the influence of custom and the fear of revolt checked the emperor's power. (41) . The emperor chose his most important administrators from among his sons.
Just below the emperor came the aristocracy, which included descendants and relations of all the emperors.
(42) The nobles of conquered peoples also became part of the governing aristocracy and were considered inca by adoption.
For administrative purposes the empire was divided into regions known as the four suyus (quarters) of the world, with Cuzco at its center. The Incas called their empire Land of the Four
Quarters. One suyu, the Antisuyu, stretched to the east of Cuzco and contained deep, forest-covered valleys that gradually descended into the jungles of the Amazon basin. Indian groups in this region, many of whom were only partially pacified, continued to launch attacks against the Incas. Cuntisuyu included all the land west of Cuzco, including the coastal regions of Peru from Chan Chan to Arequipa. Collasuyu was the largest of the quarters. Located south of Cuzco, it took in Lake Titicaca and regions of Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. Chincasuyu contained the remaining land to the north of Cuzco.
A blood relative of the emperor served as governor of each quarter. The Incas further divided each quarter into progressively smaller units, with officials of descending rank overseeing the activities of these units. (43) Another official, ideally a leader of a large village, ruled over a smaller area containing about 1,000 peasants. At the level below, ten foremen each supervised a total of 100 peasants. At the lowest organizational level, an official oversaw a group of ten peasants. For every 10,000 people, there were 1,331 officials.
Inca state affairs were complex and tightly controlled. Whole native populations were at times uprooted and resettled in other communities. Often groups were relocated to areas where they were needed for agricultural or mining activities. Sometimes relocations were politically motivated (44)
Furthermore, these relocations facilitated the spread of Inca ideas and culture and promoted unity in the empire.
In order to deal efficiently with such matters, government officers kept strict accounts of all the people, gold, land, crops, and projects of the empire. Since the Incas had no system of writing, they kept records by means of a quipu--a series of short, knotted strings hung at intervals from a long top string, By varying the colors and kinds of string used and the spacing of the strings and knots, the Incas could record populations, troops, and tribute, as well as information about their legends and achievements. The quipu was a complex memory aid rather than a literal record, and only a trained quipucamayo, or memory expert, could create or interpret it. An oral comment accompanied each quipu and allowed the quipucamayo to make sense of its meaning. (45) . Modem scholars still have not deciphered the codes used in the creation of quipus.
[A] Serving under each governor were ten district govem0rs, each of whom ruled over a district containing about 10,000 peasants.
[B] Following the Spanish conquest and the introduction of records written in Spanish, the Incas lost the ability to read quipus.
[C] Noticeable economic thriving was frequently found, in the records of the local governments, after relocations.
[D] The emperor had one official wife, but he had many royal concubines and his children by these wives often numbered in the hundreds.
[E] Placing Quechua-speaking populations in newly conquered areas impaired the ability of local groups to unite against the Incas.
[F] Relations between relatives of the emperor, governors and officials often posed headaches for the supreme ruler himself, who was interwoven tightly and deeply among them.
[G] These pure-blooded Incas held the most important government, religious, and military posts.
Unit 18
Directions
In the following article, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41--45, choose the most suitable one from the list A--G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices that do not fit in any of the gaps Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)
Until about two million years ago Africa's vegetation had always been controlled by the interactions of climate; geology, soil, and groundwater conditions; and the activities of animals. The addition of humans to the latter group, however, has increasingly rendered unreal the concept of a fully developed natural vegetation--i.e., one approximating the ideal of a vegetational climax. (41) . Early attempts at mapping and classifying Africa's vegetation stressed this relationship sometimes the names of plant zones were derived directly from climates. In this discussion the idea of zones is retained only in a broad descriptive sense.
(42) . In addition, over time more floral regions of varying shape and size have been recognized. Many schemes have arisen successively, all of which have had to take views on two important aspects the general scale of treatment to be adopted, and the degree to which human modification is to be comprehended or discounted.
(43) Quite the opposite assumption is now frequently advanced. An intimate combination of many species--in complex associations and related to localized soils, slopes, and drainage--has been detailed in many studies of the African tropics. In a few square miles there may be a visible succession from swamp with papyrus, the grass of which the ancient Egyptians made paper and from which the word paper originated, through swampy grassland and broad-leaved woodland and grass to a patch of forest on richer hillside soil, and finally to juicy fleshy plants on a nearly naked rock summit.
(44) . Correspondingly, classifications have differed greatly in their principles for naming, grouping, and describing formations some have chosen terms such as forest, woodland, thorn-bush, thicket, and shrub for much of the same broad tracts that others have grouped as wooded savanna (treeless grassy plain) and steppe (grassy plain with few trees). This is best seen in the nomenclature, naming of plants, adopted by two of the most comprehensive and authoritative maps of Africa's vegetation that have been published R. W. J. Keay's Vegetation Map of Africa South of the Tropic of Cancer and its more widely based successor, The Vegetation Map of Africa, compiled by Frank White. In the Keay map the terms savanna and steppe were adopted as precise definition of formations, based on the herb layer and the coverage of woody vegetation; the White map, however, discarded these two categories as specific classifications. Yet any rapid absence of savanna as in its popular and more general sense is doubtful.
(45) . However, some 100 specific types of vegetation identified on the source map have been compressed into 14 broader classifications.
[A] As more has become known of the many thousands of African plant species and their complex ecology, naming, classification, and mapping have also become more particular, stressing what was actually present rather than postulating about climatic potential.
[B] In regions of higher rainfall, such as eastern Africa, savanna vegetation is maintained by periodic fires. Consuming dry grass at the end of the rainy season, the fires bum back the forest vegetation, check the invasion of trees and shrubs, and stimulate new grass growth.
[C] Once, as with the scientific treatment of African soils, a much greater uniformity was attributed to the vegetation than would have been generally accepted in the same period for treatments of the lands of western Europe or the United States.
[D] The vegetational map of Africa and general vegetation groupings used here follow the White map and its extensive annotations.
[E] African vegetation zones are closely linked to climatic zones, with the same zones occurring both north and south of the equator in broadly similar patterns. As with climatic zones, differences in the amount and seasonal distribution of precipitation constitute the most important influence on the development of vegetation.
[F] Nevertheless, in broad terms, climate remains the dominant control over vegetation. Zonal belts of precipitation, reflection latitude and contrasting exposure to the Atlantic and Indian oceans and their currents, give some reality to related belts of vegetation.
[G]The span of human occupation in Africa is believed to exceed that of any other continent. All the resultant activities have tended, on balance, to reduce tree cover and increase grassland; but there has been considerable dispute among scholars concerning the natural versus human-caused development of most African grasslands at the regional level.
Unit 19
Directions
In the following article, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41--45, choose the most suitable one from the list A--G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices that do not fit in any of the gaps Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1. (10 points)
Archaeological study covers an extremely long span of time and a great variety of subjects. The earliest subjects of archaeological study date from the origins of humanity. These include fossil remains believed to be of human ancestors who lived 3.5 million to 4.5 million years ago. The earliest archaeological sites include those in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya; and elsewhere in
East Africa. These sites contain evidence of the first appearance of bipedal (upright-walking), apelike early humans. (41) .
The first physically modem humans, Homo sapiens, appeared in tropical Africa between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago--dates determined by molecular biologists and archaeologists working together. Dozens of archaeological sites throughout Asia and Europe show how people migrated from Africa and settled these two continents during the last Ice Age (100,000 to 15,000 years ago). (42) .
Archaeologists have documented that the development of agriculture took place about 10,000 years ago. Early domestication--the planting and harvesting of plants and t-he breeding and herding of animals--is evident in such places as the ancient settlement in Jordan and in Mexico. Archaeology plays a major role in the study of early civilizations, such as those of the
Sumerians of Mesopotamia, who built the city of Ur, and the ancient Egyptians, who are famous for the pyramids near the city of Giza and the royal sepulchres (tombs) of the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. (43) .
Archaeological research spans the entire development of phenomena that are unique to humans.For instance, archaeology tells the story of when people learned to bury their dead and developed beliefs in an afterlife. Sites containing signs of the first simple but purposeful burials in graves date to as early as 40,000 years ago in Europe and Southwest Asia. By the time people lived in civilizations, burials and funeral ceremonies had become extremely important and elaborate rituals. (44) .
Archaeology also examines more recent historical periods. Some archaeologists work with historians to study American colonial life, for example. They have learned such diverse information as how the earliest colonial settlers in Jamestown, Virginia, traded glass beads for food with native Algonquian peoples- how the lives of slaves on plantations reflected their roots in Africa; and how the first major cities in the United States developed. (45) .
