The New Old Trivia Quiz

Answer: Peru and Bolivia

Lake Titicaca is the largest lake in South America, at least by volume. Lake Maracaibo has more surface area, but can be considered a bay due to its connection to the sea (the Caribbean Sea, specifically the Gulf of Venezuela).

Mark Aldenderfer (b.1950) has done significant work in the field of high-altitude adaptation, with research in the Andes and Himalayas.

Answer: Greek and Roman

While Deborah Carlson has participated in land-based archaeology digs at sites in Greece and Italy early in her career, she shifted focus to under-water excavations and has even served as the president of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA).

Dr. Carlson earned her Ph.D. for her research on the amphora cargo from a Greek shipwreck excavation at Tektaş Burnu, Turkey. Amphora are generally small containers (for shipping, at least), usually holding less than 100 pounds of goods.

Answer: RMS Titanic

The RMS Titanic was travelling from Southampton, UK, to New York City, US, when it sank. The Titanic was carrying 2,224 passengers and crew at the time, and only 710 survived.

Ballard discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985. He was on the R/V Knorr, on a mission funded by the US Navy as part of a negotiation to use Ballard's equipment and expertise to discover the wrecks of two nuclear submarines, the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher. Once Ballard had located and investigated the submarines, the remaining time and resources of his Knorr expedition were used to located the Titanic.

Answer: Greek

Linear B, which uses symbols that would become the Greek alphabet several hundred years later, was used as a "temporary" writing system for accountants - intended to only last a fiscal year. As such, the clay used was not baked, but sun dried. This fragment, however, was found in a trash pile. The theory is that someone burned the trash, inadvertently firing the clay tablet and making it durable enough to survive from about 1450 BC.

Linear B, along with a similar variant named Linear A, were discovered at the turn of the 20th century, and was deciphered in 1952 by Michael Ventris.

Answer: pterosaurs

The fossils of the pterosaur Alanqa saharicafrom were located in southeast Morocco.

Nizar Ibrahim was also instrumental in piecing together and recreating the fossil record of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. He was able to determine that the creature was semi-aquatic, which meant (along with other supporting evidence) that the deserts of North Africa were filled with large rivers during the Cretaceous period. The rivers contained large prey for the S. aegyptiacus to hunt.

Answer: Genghis Khan

Lin's "Valley of the Khans Project" uses technology such as satellite images and ground-penetrating radar instead of digging and other traditional methods of archaeology. This lets his team respect the belief held my many Mongolians have that disturbing the tomb of Genghis Khan will bring about a curse that will end the world.

Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227) ruled most of China and central Asia during his reign as the 1st Khagan of the Mongol Empire, 1206-1227.

Answer: Samson

The mosaics include scenes of Samson attaching torches to the tails of 300 foxes and setting them loose to burn the fields of the Philistines and Samson carrying the gate of Gaza.

In the best known tale of Samson, he his betrayed by his lover, Delilah who cuts his hair, which violate's Samson's oath and results in the loss of his supernatural strength.

The delicate mosaics and large stones used in the synagogue suggest that the village was prosperous during the Roman empire. In addition to the synagogue, the lack of pork bones at the site provide evidence that Huqoq was a Jewish village.

Answer: Ulaanbaatar

Ulaanbaatar (also written as Ulan Bator, literally: Red Hero) is the largest city of Mongolia, and is a federal municipality, technically not part of any province.

In 2005-2006, Bolortsetseg Minjin and Jack Horner lead a team that discovered over 100 skeletons of Psittacosaurus ("parrot lizard") in Mongolia. A native of Mongolia, she founded the ISMD to build a museum for dinosaurs in Mongolia and to train future generations of Mongolian paleontologists.

Answer: Andes

"Juanita" was killed as a sacrificial offering in 1450-1480 by blunt force trauma to the head. She was 11-15 years old at the time. The frozen corpse was naturally mummified by the cold.

Reinhard has discovered other such preserved bodies of Incan sacrifices, including the Children of Llullaillaco, two girls and a boy found on Argentina's Mount Llullaillaco in 1999, the world's highest archaeological site (22,100 feet).

Answer: corn

The San Bartolo murals date from 100 BC, and include the maize god, the hero twins, and other aspects of the Mayan creation myths.

The San Bartolo site includes a pyramid, a royal tomb, and the earliest examples of Mayan hieroglyphics, which date from around 300 BC and have yet to be deciphered.